miko

in place of a real update, i'm just going to post this here survey.

Sun, 15 Jan 2006 03:26:08 GMT

Two Names You Go By
1. Fumiko
2. Caaaathhhhhy

Two Parts of Your Heritage
1. White Trash
2. Japanese

Two Things That Scare You
1. Car Accidents
2. Blush... like... as a concept

Two of Your Everyday Essentials
1. Snooooooooooze button
2. SlickDeals.net

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now
1. Crumbs from the left-over sammich that I just ate
2. 6 dolla yoga pants

Two of Your Favorite Bands or Musical Artists (at the moment)
1. Stereo Total
2. Fleetwood Mac

Two Things You Want in a Relationship (other than real Love)
1. Mutiple Orgasms (duh)
2. Breakfast in Bed... with Multiple Orgasms

Two Truths about you
1. I rarely admit that I'm wrong. I usually just try to change the subject.
2. I have actually thought, "Hmm.... What would an octopus' garden actually look like?"

Two Physical Things that Appeal to You About the Opposite Sex.
1. Stupid Looking Hair
2. Height

Two of Your Favorite Hobbies
1. Yogamuthafucker
2. Walking around aimlessly in my apartment

Two Things You Want Really Badly
1. Professional Teeth Whitening (will never happen)
2. More Tord Boontje!!!!!

Two Places You Want to go on Vacation
1. Toronto
2. Baked Alaska

Two Things You Want to Do Before You Die
1. Finish "Infinite Jest"
2. Babies... I guess.

Two Things You Are Thinking About Now
1. Who actually uses Vaseline for ANYTHING??????
2. Why is my head still inching? I scratched it, like, 2 minutes ago.

Two Stores You Shop At
1. ebay
2. Sloan/Hall

Two people you haven't talked to in awhile
1. Sarah Jones
2. My Aunt Caroline

Two favorite web sites
1. uh... can I say SlickDeals.net again?
2. uh... can I say eBay.com again?

Two cars you owned
1. 87 bronze-coloured Isuzu Impulse affectionately named the "Junebug"
2. 94 Green Ford Ranger with a dropped bumper

Two pets you had/have
1. The 2 parakeets that died while I was at church camp. Their names have been erased by the sands of time.
2. I don't really do pets.

Two Favorite Sports
1. Ballroom Dancing
2. Swimming

Two People who will fill this out
1. Oh, it's that kind of survey huh?
2.

Two things you did last nite
1. Diverseworks gallery opening with animations of little girls in underwear hitting each other and, like, trapped in boxes n' shit. But it wasn't pervy, swear.
2. Got glarred at by the Van Loc waitress when she realized that we were planning on SHARRING the $6.50 veggie soup. She was somewhat mollified later when I placed a to-go order. SOMEWHAT.

Two shows you like to watch currently
1. The Simpsons
2. Princess Tutu

boring, boring, boring!!!

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 20:39:05 GMT

i've been having really boring dreams recently.

like last night i dreamed i got a hair cut.
it was fine. nothing to it.

sheesh, maybe i need more drama in my life.

Defend, don't amend, the Texas Constitution

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 19:54:24 GMT

okay, i don't usually do political action postings... but COME ON PEOPLE.

Proposition 2 is just STUPID.

Go out and vote it down tomorrow, please.

It should be noted that voting "no" to Prop 2 DOES NOT LEGALIZE GAY MARRIAGE. Marriage between people of the same sex is already illegal and the Legislature isn't about to change that for a long, long time. This is a shame in my mind (of course), but shit, we are in TEXAS after all.

Anyway, ammending the constitution of Texas to include a provision specifically banning gay marriage is clearly idiocy.

Okay, glad we're clear on that. [exits soapbox]

cute asian kids dressed up like hicks...

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 18:48:18 GMT

the corn-cob pipe really makes this look. i'm not quite sure why the white kids look trashy but the asian kid looks super cute. it's not really fair now is it?

maybe it's just because he's chubby.

my dad just ran a marathon!

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 19:38:07 GMT

amazing!!! 26.2 miles in 5 hours and 56 minutes!
for a man that was over 150 lbs overweight just 2 years ago, this is an incredible feat!

for those who don't know, my dad was massively overweight and extremely unhealthy for most of my life.
in 2003 he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes (adult onset). this was a major wake up call.

since then he has lost over 125 lbs (he still thinks he should lose another 15-20 lbs.) and completely controlls his diabetes from excersize and diet (no insulin injections!).

pretty damn cool, go dad!

is anyone else disturbed...

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 19:12:51 GMT

by the fact that Ziyi Zhang is playing the title character in Memoirs of a Geisha??

um... hello??? she's not japanese!!!

sheesh, as if we don't get enough of the "they all look the same" anyway...

oh well, it was a crappy book anyway so it's not suprising.

so long and thanks for all the fish...

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 03:51:27 GMT

right, so it's been a while since i've updated. we had a hurric-ain't. i started it up again with the ebay addition (shit!). i designed NINE DIFFERENT VERSIONS of princess tutu volume 4 all to the dissatisfaction of my boss (back to the drawing board/mind reading alchemy). i met my fiance's sister. i watched THE HITCHHIKERS'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.

but i didn't call this here meeting of the west virgina knitter's anonymous club to discuss those things. no, sir-ee. i came here today to talk about the weirdest shit i have every seen while swimming a mile at the downtown YMCA.

first it just seemed that the people on the pool side were having a conventional battle with paddles. you might call it a paddle battle. this is what it appeared to be when i was face down in lane 3 on lap 22. by lap 30 i was in a quandary, "what the fuck kinda conflict can only be settled by paddle duel????"

as it turns out they were discussing canoeing technique and rhythm. as i exited the pool i actually saw a pair of them sit down on the side of the pool and "paddle" in sync. on the side of the pool!!! there was NO CANOE! after a minute on one side, they switched to the other (aka, stood up and turned around to face the other direction). needless to say, they weren't moving.

after showering, i ran into them again leaving the building. they were carrying their paddles. they had actually brought the paddles to the Y themselves. they actually OWNED paddles!

whew. okay, that's it. you may go back to the decorative sash making.

quirky

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 23:57:12 GMT

this is either a profound critique of american pop culture or perhaps just a profound expression thereof... but today i noticed that one of my co-workers had one of those ribbon magnets of the "support our troops" ilk -- but his/her's proudly proclaimed "i adopted my ferret!"

i'm glad that we're at the point in our national cycle of decay that even ferret adoption gets it's own magnet/ribbon.

the leap home

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 19:26:48 GMT

i visited home (indiana) over labor day weekend. i just barely missed my 10 year high school reunion (wedding in h-town the same day) which i'm not sure is dodging the bullet or something to be mourned. let's see... the people that i still want to keep contact with are: ursula, mike dixon.... and ... uh... well, i guess that's it! people that i am still in contact with: ursula, mike dixon. well, i guess that solves it.

other than random schadenfreude and an reflex curiousity to know who turned gay, i think i'm over the whole glorification of your high school days. in the end, your friends were petty and whiney about their pitifully unimportant greivances (real or imagined) and so were you.

i talked to mike over the phone while home (he didn't go either) and he gave me the update on the ephemera of west side high.

other than that i just played games with my mom (rummikub, dominoes, 20 questions), met my brother's fiance and drove around the ol' hood a little.

pretty relaxing. pretty dull. that's indiana for you.

astroworld R.I.P.

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 23:08:56 GMT

damn!

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3350688

donation

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 19:57:06 GMT

i just made a donation to the red cross. as much as i don't believe in "faith based" organizations, i applaud the red cross for having the highest donation/admin cost ratio of all of the national relief organizations at 91 cents per dollar.

please feel free to donate too.

www.redcross.org

wow!

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 20:12:30 GMT

i was totally just called a "amazon mongoloid" in someone's myspace blog! AAAAAWESOME!!!

my apartment is my apartment is my apartment!

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 03:43:16 GMT

two weeks ago i volunteered to have a board meeting at my house in order to give me and andrew a reason to actually move into the apartment that we technically "moved into" about four months ago. it was getting pretty pathetic: boxes stacked in the living room... trip-tastic wires from the surround sound system everywhere... all of the art leaned in a precarious stack next to a monsterous tower of empty cardboard boxes.

like everything in my life, i didn't do it until i had a deadline. i'm not sure if this is a vestigial organ of my past life as an over-achiever or just good sense in my multi-tasking world. either way, we had unpacked to the point at which the apt was livable and from then on all foward progress ceased.

the possible (and probable) askance looks from the barnevelder board was all i needed to whip our collective hiney into shape. artwork? hung! wires? hidden!! junk? sorted!!!

hallelujah!!!!

[seven 40 gallon containers of ebay-able clothing and sundry whatnot?... uh... not touched. it's okay, they're out of sight in the second bedroom!]

i walked into my apartment this evening and felt the need to put on a fake french accent and say, "mon dieu! theeees place is niiiiiice!"

the end.

anal sex

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 18:28:53 GMT

okay, so i've been reading "The Surrender : An Erotic Memoir" recently... it was a christmas present that i'm finally getting around to. for the uninitiated, "The Surrrender" got alot of news when it came out for being the author's "rhapsodic experience with sodomy" and "account of her addiction to anal sex and her burning jones for an inamorato she identifies only as A-Man"... uh. yeah.

so, basically, we're talking about a trashed out Balanchine ballet burnout and her waxing on all about butt. the butt, the whole butt, nothing but the butt. oh yeah, and Kirkegaard.

this novel is written in a prose that stinks of desperation. well, desperatation and santorum. convoluted sentence structure and egregious name dropping from intelligentsia's hot list, this book is like an anorexic's 10 dollar steak that has been regurgitated and eaten too many times.

the funny thing is that i'm eating it up... it is so obviously psuedo-intellectual mumbo-jumbo ("the doorway to the soul is not the eyes, it's the ass"? who can write this shit and not crack themselves up?) that i can't help but think it's some sort of practical joke. replace all of the "ass" in the book with "chocolate" and you have an entire Woman's Day magazine.

has this world become so saturated with the unreal that you have to write a tell-all memoir about your anal adventures to get your Andy Warhol 10 minutes of fame?

weekend of luv...

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 19:51:16 GMT

well, not really. in lieu of doing anything truly romantic for our engagement, my and andrew got pizza... and watched princess tutu and the tripped out "return to oz". huzzah. i have to say that for a man who claimed "i don't think that i can watch this" after hearing the title "princess tutu" and seeing the cover, andrew turned pretty quickly to the dark side. we blew through the first 5 eps and he was like "how long until volume 2???"... sucka.

i have to say that laying in bed, cuddling and doing our magic "we're going to get married" chant STILL hasn't gotten tired! ha!

in other news, i have hearby informed andrew to take jaques out dancing so that me and julai finally have some time alone together. it's been hard to maintain our lesbian affair while we live in tandum apartments with our respective boyfriends. sheesh.

a new era of LJ

Sun, 21 Aug 2005 05:18:55 GMT

okay, so at the prodding of one soon to be departed ex-coworker (and friend!), i've decided to make an honest attempt at keeping this whole journal thing up to date.

i've picked today as good day to start because it ushers in a new era of life for me.

tada! i am engaged.

me and andrew have decided to get married in september (NEXT sept!) and well... just saying that wasn't good enough for him. he needed to go out a buy a ring n' shit and ask me formally. very sweet.

my exact words when he asked me (jesus we were just taking a walk and freakin' A we had only talked about this like on Monday!) were "you have got to be kidding me". damn, that boy works fast!!!

anywhooo... um... yeah... that's the news!

anticlimactic last post

Sat, 12 Jun 2004 05:03:18 GMT

so after a grueling 36 hour trip from bangkok to toyko to seattle to denver to houston, i arrived home at 2am and slept the sleep of the dead all day wednesday.

as much as i may bemoan houston, i must admit that i'm glad to be home.

now... i wonder where i will go next?

tearful goodbyes...

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 15:33:16 GMT

sunday night i put zuki on a train back to laos. yes, there were many tears shed. yes, i ran after the train (well, sorta). yes, zuki stood on the traincar steps waving as she disappeared into the distance. it was just like in the movies. only, this one hurt more than a sappy moment onscreen. huh.

we were acting like we were never going to see each other again. that's just plain silly, of course. right?

we had spent the weekend in bangkok shopping (duh) and getting massages and playing rummy. 2 days at the weekend market and we still hadn't canvased the joint! saturday night we went out to the utlimate trendy danceclub, the bed supper club. the oblong white building is all white inside with padded curved walls. the waitresses wear sexy white stewartess uniforms. sweet.

dancing with zuki is the bestest. high energy all the way, baby.

the last lazy days in laos

Sat, 05 Jun 2004 15:21:45 GMT

huh. i'm going home in less than a week. does this mean i have to face the "real" world again?

why don't i stay in southeast asia forever? hmm. good question.

3 days at angkor wat

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 14:05:58 GMT

F.Y.I. cambodian roads really ARE as bad as they say they are.

after arriving in siem reap, me and some recent Warton Business School Graduates (don't ask me why, but that really needed to be capitalized) went in together to rent a car/driver for the rest of the day. [angkor wat is a complex of temples spread over 100sqkm (only one of which is actually called "angkor wat"), so some form of transportation is a neccesity.] starting that the bayon (famous for it's 216 mysterious stone faces and for a brief appearance in tomb raider) at 1pm, we made our way through the temples of angkor thom before heading to a hilltop temple for sunset.

i have to admit that the first couple of hours were really overwhelming. this sounds so stupid, i know, but i really had to stop myself from tearing up. it was so magnificently beautiful. each temple has rooms within rooms, hallways connecting to courtyards, towers which reach up to the sky. they are like ancient palaces for the gods. incredible.

i didn't really believe everyone that gushes about angkor wat. i almost even skipped going to cambodia altogether (i tried to change my ticket in vietnam, but couldn't... thankfully). 3 days exploring the temples of angkor wat was one of the best experiences of my trip. i'm glad i didn't miss out on it.

no goddamn pagoda!

Mon, 31 May 2004 12:56:29 GMT

let's take it back a bit.

i spent a couple of days in the charming city of hanoi before heading off to cambodia and angkor wat. i mostly explored the "old quarter" in the city center, an area with small chaotic streets where ancient merchant shops where organized by street name (they are literally called "Gold Street," "Pottery Street" ...etc). in the middle of the city is a big lake with an island temple and a legend about a big turtle reclaiming the sword of the heavens. gotta love those big turtle stories, right?

hanoi is supposedly 1,000 years old and it definately has an "old world" stately beauty and appeal. plenty of gorgeous ancient temples and buildings. there are also a bunch of lakes throughout the city and every morning people gather around them to exercize and play badmiton. some of them are even still in their pajamas. huh.

on monday i decided to take a tour to the "perfume pagoda" in the mountains outside of hanoi. after a 2 hour bus ride, there was a 1 hour rowboat ride, and then a 1 hour hike up the mountain to the cave with the pagoda. the rowboat was a tiny affair (maximum of 4 passengers) with a female rower. i don't know exactly why all of the rowers were female, but appearantly that's standand (it's even noted in the guidebook). huh. go figure.

the rowboat trip was incredible, gender ethics regardless. the shallow river wove between the brilliant green of rice paddies (is there any other agricultural product in vietnam?), the tree covered slopes of karst mountains and the occasional stone shrine. farmers rowed their boats loaded with grass or vegetables around us, mountains upon mountains lined the horizon... it was all very "national geographic."

after landing at the base of the mountain, we started our gradual ascent up the mountain. it was steep... no, really... STEEP. the trail was laid with huge pieces of uneven rock (which was it's own adventure) and lined with beverage and trinket venders. the "perfume pagoda" is actually a complex of temples on the same mountain, but we were (lucky us) going to the most famous/holy of them all... the one at the top of the mountain. the pagoda is apperantly a regular pilgrimage for many of the vietnamese (all of which were smarter than us and were not attempting the climb in the middle of the days' heat like we were!). stupid foreigners!

you know that moment when you think your lungs are about the expload and you can't climb anymore? well, hold that thought for about an hour. i collapsed at the entrance to the pagoda like the pathetic out-of-shape american that i am. the 200 stairs after the gate led down into an enormous cave. up and then down? are you trying to kill me? i joked that it would be really funny if there wasn't really a pagoda in the cave and it was just a cave with a couple of shrines in it.

guess what? no pagoda.

the "pagoda" is actually a huge grey stalagtite that kinda "looks" like a pagoda... has 3 tiers... blah blah blah... our guide assured us that it was "very holy." the cave, although impressive in size from the outside, wasn't very deep. it hosted 2 little shrines and the haze of insence in the air was heavy. we actually stayed at the "pagoda" for only about 15 minutes and then climbed the 200 stairs (ugh) did everything again in reverse.

on the way down i actually noticed everything that i had missed on my single-minded plow up the mountain. the scenery was amazing, with incredible views of the mountain sides, flower strewn pathways and lush vegetation. the smell in the air (once out of the cloying insence in the cave) was, indeed, of an incredible perfume. it was being given off by the flowers that were everywhere, these delicate yellow blossoms.

brief update before i'm off to laos again

Sat, 29 May 2004 12:13:05 GMT

angkor wat is incredible, certainly worthy of any of the numerous superlatives that i could adorn it with.

i don't know if i'll even try.

hoi an is to hanoi as santa is to _____

Tue, 25 May 2004 10:25:39 GMT

anagrams are fun!

the 15 hour bus from hoi an to hanoi featured many unpleasantries including the virtually perpetual use of the blaring horn, the man behind me TAPPING my head whenever he wanted my attention (sheesh! every guide book tells you that you shouldn't touch anyone on their heads in asian countries. couldn't they afford me the same respect? freakin' annoying.) and the horrific BO of the bus attendant (sitting next to me). [mental note to never sit at the front of the bus again... you think you'll have extra leg room, but it's not worth the proximity to the horn and the fact that the smelly attendant (for some reason they are always smelly) is going sit next to you.]

thankfully, the bus trip also featured this incredible moment when i woke up at 5am (damn bus horn) to the fiery red sun dawning over the green green rice paddies. these amazing tree covered mountains were in the background. there was a slight mist over the lush earth. it was amazing.

vietnam is by far the most beautiful country i have ever visited.

internet MIAs

Sun, 23 May 2004 09:35:31 GMT

waiting for an email from me? i've probably already sent one and it has been swallowed up by the black belly of poor internet service. i recently found out that some of my emails never arrived.

god, i hate internet cafes.

4 pairs of shoes later...

Sun, 23 May 2004 09:30:20 GMT

i've spent the past couple of days in hoi an, a charming little town in central vietnam with narrow lanes, french colonial architecture, tiled roofs, 2nd floor veranda flower gardens and cute street kids that are determined to sell you crappy postcards. hoi an was recently named a UNESCO "world heritage site" (god, this designation is starting to loose impact on me since i've already been to like 7 "world heritage sites" so far) due to it's "small town charm," carefully preserved buildings and the fact that it seems to be the only city in vietnam that we didn't bomb the hell out of during the war. go figure.

hoi an is known for it's personal tailoring and shoe making... so you know that i went apeshit. i didn't even USE my complete "budget" ($100) for shopping. that, my friends, is amazing. so what can $92 get you in terms of hand made clothing and shoes, you ask? 3 pairs of high heel shoes, 1 pair of sandals, 2 pants of pants (lined), 2 skirts (lined) and a top. all made to my measurements and design. fucking rad.

sartorial bliss aside, hoi an is just an enchanting city. picturesque old merchant shops with massive carved wooden doors line the riverfront. everything is within walking distance and the people are very laidback and pleasant (well, except for when they're trying to romance you into their tailor shop). anything you have made is done within 24 hours (including alterations). the only decisions you have to make are where to shop, where to eat and where to swim (in the GH pool? or at the beach only 4 km away? the choice is yours).

i heard someone say that they were "taking a vacation from their vacation" in hoi an. it's one of those cities that you just can't spend too much time in. sigh.