a perfect stand still

i wish i could just write again - just unclog my writer's block and write. something beautiful and painful. i want to document now and many steps back and all my steps forward. but i got nothing but stopping to smile at how utterly wonderful and bloody and raw and true this is. and not even truly true because there is still so much more we hold under sleeves. they don't get it and i don't always get it either. but i do and it just is. and it could be more but not now. this is fine for now. because we know without saying. and we dance around it but we still dance. hidden in our little world of combinations. hearts are plump and whole. enveloped in beams. in our hands. we're done and undone. if you're wondering

hold me

hold me



photo courtesy of emilie bjork
courtesy of a cup of jo

i'm going to be an aunt!

Ok, so not by blood but more like childhood BFF blood, naw' mean? Recently found out that a childhood friend has a bun in the oven and it has hit me that we are getting older and now have friends who are starting to bake their buns in their ovens...or something.

It was a shock, natch, but it is kind of exciting now. I will be honest, it was so weird touching Danielle's belly. She is 4 months along and I felt around her underbelly...oh lord...i felt it...like REALLY felt the baby! Kind of disgusting and awesome at the same time.

We met up with her yesterday and caught up after years of estrangement. Photo op galore! Baby Dorian James...your Aunt Liza and Aunt Z are kooks. We may be weirded out by you at first but we still love you.

First photos of Dorian. Supposedly that glowing speck in the bottom left photo is his peen...

Yeah, it has a spine. Pretty crazy! Aunt Liza wants that top one in wallet size

Reunited and it feels so good

Danielle says baby D is a kicker. I really wanted him to kick my ear.

We're having a baby!
When I was younger I would put my cat in my shirt and pretend I was 'carrying' a cat. It would squirm and I would think that is how it feels to be preggers...except I could lift up my shirt and make the squirming go away. Danielle has to deal with squirming for 9 months.

Just so that we are clear on the positioning of the child...

hehehehe

veronicaaaaa!

How AMAZING does Kristen Bell look in this Vanity Fair photo? Ahhh! She is just one of my favourite people (yes, I'm a Veronica Mars geek and I ain't ashamed of that). Cezie, if you're seeing this, drool with me! Oh to have those photoshopped legs...but you know, something comparable.

I ran into her at Bossa Nova on Sunset once and practically died but had to play it cool. And to top it off, she was with "Dick Casablancas" (fellow VMer). Now if I can only run into "Logan Echolls"...

random run-in: animal edition

Soooooo yeah. I'm walking next door to Vegan Express for lunch today and hear some random noises. My co-worker thinks it's a baby and I thought it was just a random weed whacker in the distance. But lo and behold the sounds came from a GOAT IN THE BACKSEAT OF A KIA PARKED IN THE LOT!!!! I noticed random movement so I was compelled to run over to check it out, obvs.

A goat

A goat in the backseat of a random sedan. It...it made my freakin' day! This is totally better than Madame Poulet, although she was "ours". (R.I.P)

Turns out Billy the Kid is the pet of a couple dining in Vegan Express' patio.

Seriously...MADE MY DAY!

random run-in

A friend of mine was in town last week to celebrate his birthday. He had left LA for a few years now so it was also a reunion/gathering of sorts. The event went down at the pirate bar Downtown (The Redwood) so that was an added bonus since I'd been meaning to check it out. I had heard so much about it and had envisioned it to be this setting where I walk in and there is some enclosed body of water and I have to walk up a plank to get to the actual pirate boat bar! Alas, it was nothing like what I had dreamed it would be but it was fun nonetheless. Still, I think my idea is pretty sweet.

The birthday boy is a manager and I had known he managed an acapella group but never knew much about it. Night goes on and I meet the different members of the group (George and Paul mainly) and I kept hearing about a Phil and a Sam. Heard they were on Scrubs but still didn't think much of it. They were going to sing Happy Birthday acapella so I was excited. "Phil is on his way but Sam is here". I look over and see Sam at the bar and the guys call him over so that I could meet him. Turns out Sam is "Ted" from Scrubs! I watch Scrubs but not enough to be super familiar with the ins and outs but I knew who Ted was and it all made sense. The Acapella group is that same one on the show! "Ted's Band" (or The Blanks in real life). So weird but so cool!

(The Blanks serenade Sloaty-pie)

(Paul, Sam, and I)

(Adam Sloat and I)

plaid party!

I've been having a shit-sandwich couple of weeks and was glad to get out and be around good people. Jose was in town so his presence, even for a little bit, lifted mein spirits.

I went to my former co-worker's housewarming @ her new loft this past weekend and I really want one of my own! One day....one day.

Mike K and Noah's plaid threw me off.

We all decided to get on board the plaid party train for solidarity


I take on a bejeweled accordion

Coveting My Neighbours

I like to peruse the blogs on my Blogger dashboard and I covet this blog: People Reading

The blogger writes about San Francisco's reading habits. I love the idea! I love her style! And works great for book recommendations for me, too! I drowned in it last night and absolutely adore it.


Another goodie lately? Paris Daily Photo

It gives me my daily Parisian fix (along with my Google homepage's real-time Eiffel Tower camera). The photos make me miss the city, how much I love its little nuances that I oh-so-loved getting lost in. Sigh, I wish I could afford to go back.

weekend recap

Anyone else in LA notice how absolutely gorgeous it was all weekend? The lovely weather prompted me to recover from my crazy Friday Night (more on that later...) and live like I was in San Francisco or Paris again. We drive enough in this city anyway. So I put on some comfy shoes, packed my reusable Starbucks thermos (in case I wanted some iced green tea), and my cameras (one digital and one manual) and set out for the LA street. I really had no idea where I was going but I was going somewhere with all the time in the world. If I got tired then I could always hop on a bus.
Great weather, great to peek into abandoned buildings, great to rest in thrift stores and find a comfy chair that I eventually bought (yes, it's my new favourite thing in my apartment. Thank you, Ann, for picking me and my new/old chair up!)
After dropping my chair off at home, we ended up driving to what was supposed to be my walking destination: Barnsdall Art Park in Los Feliz. My elementary school is across the street from it and I remember taking filed trips up there before they closed it off for renovations (and what I thought was construction of a metro station...).
It was gorgeous up there with the view of the city. Moments like that made me adore the city. My trip also ignited my "need a new hobby" flame and I may end up taking some sort of art class there. I'm thinking ceramics even though I really want to take a children's papier mache class. (They refuse to let me even after I begged).

I got restless again on Sunday and after lunching with mom we got on the freeway and I just drove south on the 101, not really knowing where I was going. It was so pretty out that I proposed a trip to the Griffith Observatory (since I hadn't been since they re-opened it). Since you can't park up at the top we had to park on the side of the road and hike up. FUN! No, really, it was. I did, however, get dizzy the higher up I got.

The Observatory seemed much smaller than I remembered. I loved how excited my mom got with the telescopes outside. She just kept shoving quarters in and looking out towards Downtown LA or the Hollywood sign.

The planetarium show was really fun (but it kind of made me sick, it was so dizzying). And I must say that I actually enjoyed the younger children there. It was cute to hear this kid next to me get super excited before the show because he actually thought we were heading off to the moon! No kidding! When he saw some guys go into the show's control room he thought it was the captains cockpit or something. The kid totally killed me. He was so into it! The teenagers on the other side of me, on the other hand, were really annoying and it made me really sad to think that I was probably that annoying and saying those really dumb things. It pained me to my very core to listen to them. It also scared the hell out of me to think that I will have to endure putting up with that if I ever decide to have children.


Yes, a very touristy weekend of sorts for me. Next weekend I may hop on one of those Hollywood tour buses and tell folks I'm from some random place like Canada or South Africa or some Asian country and pretend I don't speak Engrish.


My face looks quite chubby in that left photo. A chubby Asian tourist.

i want my mommy

For the past few months I've been having these dreams where my mom leaves me. Just up and leaves! Premise is always the same:
- she packs up and leaves without telling Z and I
- we scour the ends of the earth for her
- when we find her she denies having run away then sneaks away the next chance she gets
- she remarries some creepy guy
- she starts a new family
- she doesn't want to have anything to do with us anymore

Scenarios will be different but it's always the same plot some way or another. And I wake up horrified at the thought of losing her! Death becomes this major cloud looming over my head and I panic and cry. Losing my mom terrifies me. The idea of dying myself is also terrifying.

I missed my mom alot today because I had another one of those dreams last night, and thought about how I couldn't stand being away from her. When I was younger, I'd cling to her leg, curl up by her tummy in bed and listen to her pulse/heartbeat. Then I'd hear stories about how that was the only way I'd fall asleep as a baby - on her chest listening to her heartbeat. I'd always hold her hand in public. I'd hug her incessantly and tell her I loved her. We'd build forts in the living room every Friday night and camp out there, with snacks and rented movies. We were this trio and were all each other had - still are, really.

Then Z and I grew up and it was uncool to do all that with mom anymore. And it made it harder to be affectionate. Our family is not really big on openly hugging and telling each other we love them. It's like a cultural thing. So now that we were older it made it harder to just pick us up and shower us with kisses and make us giggle.

I wanna go back to that, to be young again, sans souci. To be in an innocent bubble. A time when I called my mom "mommy". Goodness, I wouldn't know what I'd do if I lost her - when I lose her. It's weird looking at her now and seeing the lines on her face and the wrinkles on her hands. God, I used to hold her hands so much as a child and admire them - how pretty, smooth, and lily white they were. We found old albums of hers from when she was in her 20s. Boy was she pretty. I was watching her as she flipped through the pages and you should've seen her face light up! She said, "When I was younger I would always wish for time to speed up because I couldn't wait to grow up. Now I wish it would slow down."
We looked through our baby albums and mom's smile glowed! You could see her just traveling back in time in her head. Time is crazy. I wonder if she ever gets scared the way I do. She believes in Heaven so she might not be as scared. And if she were she'd never show it. Every so often I wonder what it would be like. I told my best friend, Karen, about how I've been so scared of dying and asked what they thought it would be like. "It will be nice in the afterlife." She's spiritual as oppose to religious so she believes our spirits will turn into another energy and live on somehow. As for me, I broke away from my Catholic upbringing. And that's why I'm scared because I don't really know. It would be nice, though, if it were just like falling asleep and dreaming nice dreams, just very seamless and fluid.

Before I depress myself even more here's a little video I dug up of my mom from a year or 2 ago. We were discussing how I have a hard time winking and proceeded to go around the table and record ourselves winking. This was her attempt...




So badass!