Thursday, May 30, 2002

Ok, so now I'm (finally) about to embark on my trip to Colorado. I'm for the most part packed, ready for two days on the train, and just kind of tired. I've got lots on my mind too, so I'm looking forward to the fresh Rocky Mountain air. John Denver is just so rad!!! He makes me feel happy. And that's all I have to say about that...I'll be around in a couple of days...

Tuesday, May 28, 2002

Would anybody believe me if I said that I'm giving up on love? You probably shouldn't, because I doubt it's true, and I know it sounds ridiculous at the age of 24, but jeez louise!!! I know that everytime one decides that they are going to open themselves up to love, they also open themselves up to the pain that comes when the nature of that love relationship changes. So, no room to bitch and moan, right? Right. Sometimes I wish that people would just be evil like they are in the movies, so we wouldn't feel so bad about breaking up with them. But I don't believe in evil people...or at least I've never met any, so life is not so easy, then, is it?

Does anybody have any comments on the idea that what somebody thinks of "The Pina Colada" song says a lot about their take on love? If you think that it's romantic when they guy discovers that it was actually his own woman that placed the personal ad he was responding to, does that make you a sucker? I mean, they WERE both gonna cheat on each other, right? Yes, but, but, it's just so sweet, you know, how he never knew that she like Pina Coladas and all that stuff. Maybe I AM a hopeless romantic despite the fact that I just threatened to swear off love 5 minutes ago.

Something weird happened to me yesterday. I was walking down San Salvadore on my way to South First Street Billiards, and I (think I) was propositioned...you know, as in, as if I were a prostitute? The weirdest thing is that it was the second time this has happened to me in as many months!!! I was walking down the street and this man walking behind me said "excuse me" or something close to that (he didn't seem to speak much English). I could not make out what he was saying, but I'm pretty sure I heard the words "price" and "pussy" (!!!!!). He had the most devilish grin on his face and seemed to really be enjoying my baffled reaction. Now, I was wearing blue men's jeans and an long-sleeved blouse and I most definitely wasn't hanging around on any street corners or making eyes at anybody. So I have no idea about all that. The other time this happened to me I was waiting for the bus after work. This car was pulling into the parking lot and on his way by the driver yelled, "How much?" Wha? That time I was wearing a dress and heels, so I guess I might be able to see how I would look like an unlikely bus-rider and how I might be suspected of harboring some sort of alternate motive, but c'mon. Can't a girl wear a dress and stand at a bus stop in peace these days? I'm really pretty troubled by these events. I mean, I wear your occasional low-cut blouse, but prostitute?! That's pretty insulting. I'm only sharing to help get over the pain. :)
Ok so, as promised, I spent five (count them, FIVE) hours in front of the T.V. today watching TLC. It was a Memorial Day "Trading Spaces" marathon, and I got sucked in! I justified this to myself by noting that I wasn't just watching T.V., but watching T.V. in between doing laundry and drinking beers, which were the real tasks at-hand.

For anybody that doesn't know (because I didn't before today), Trading Spaces is a show where two sets of neighbors get $1,000 and the help of a professional designer with which to set about completely re-making one room of their neighbor's house. This happens in the span of one weekend, and the hour-long show condenses everything so we see only the most interesting parts and don't have to actually watch them do too much of the work. Now, don't misunderstand me...I do not think that this show is so interesting that I just HAD to talk about it here. It's just that there was one episode that got me thinking about something that I think is really cool. The show travels all over the country to find these neighbors. They aren't necessarily married couples, but they often are unless they're mothers and daughters or something like that. So anyway, there was one show on the marathon today that took place in Oakland. The first set of neighbors was a married couple, an African-American woman and a white man. Their neighbors were a lesbian couple with two small children. Watching this (and knowing that people all over the country were watching it) made me feel strangely (and immensely) proud. I mean, there are parts of this country where either one of those couples would be absolutely unacceptable. And here, in California, they are neighbors and they are friends.

There is a line in the movie L.A. Story (one of my favorite movies of all time) where the English reporter makes a comment about how the people in L.A. seem to have their own set of rules, their own little world, really, and that nobody is looking to the outside for approval or reassurance that what they're doing is okay. I think that is true of California, in general, which is why it would be so hard to ever leave here. When you grow up here, you take things for granted...diversity, open-mindedness, liberal political climate, sunny weather.

I remember flying into Cleveland once to visit my parents when they were living there. I was walking through the airport and I started to get this really weird feeling. I was racking my brain, trying to figure out what it was that was making things seems out of place. At the end of a long walk to the end of terminal and toward the baggage claim, it dawned on me. There were so many WHITE people!!!! Everywhere I turned, white people in all directions. Now, this is not to criticize the white people, or to say that they shouldn't be there, all congregated together in Ohio like that. It's just to say that when a California native is suddenly thrust into the midst of a homogeneous scene, things feel a little off.

I get this feeling a bit when I go to visit my parents in Colorado, too, where they now live. When I mention it, they swear to me that the Hispanic population there is growing in leaps and bounds. I suppose I believe them, but I think I'd have to let it grow for a few more years before I'd really feel comfortable moving there (which is something I've considered). I would never want to do the disservice of raising my future children in a place where they don't get to experience the kind of diversity that I grew up with. And I don't have any illusions about this...it's not that I think that California doesn't have racism problems or that hate crimes are less frequent here. It's just that I would want to give my kids a fighting chance at being able to look around them and see people for who they are, with fewer overt separations. Ya'll dig?

Oh well, it's late, and though I'm not exactly tired, I'm not exactly functioning all that well either. I think I'll call it a night.

Sunday, May 26, 2002

The end of day of a melancholy Day One of single life has me feeling grateful for my sweet roommate Lisa. It's not just her spunky disposition that brings me a bit of comic relief...but she made me an absolutely awesome mixed tape when she thought I was about to embark on a five-day road trip - one of those rare instances where the tape-giver doesn't just give you a tape full of songs they like, but one full of songs they think that you'd like. So I'm sitting here listening to Diana Krall and the bongo wonders of Perez Prado, Dead Can Dance, etc., etc, stuff I dig.

Now would be a good time to mention the CD that my friend JD burned for me the other day as well. Man oh man...we had been talking early 80's country and the fact that the Oak Ridge Boys and Alabama and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band just kicked the shit out of anything Nashville has to offer these days (and both of our Mom's seem to harbor some morbid fascination with Anne Murray)...so my CD came complete with Kenny Roger's "The Gambler" (that is Kenny Rogers, right?), and John Anderson's "Swingin'," a song that, for some reason has been burned into my memory as a piece of sheer brilliance since the tender age of five. Go figure.

I'm sitting on my bed wondering what on earth to do with myself given the fact that I have no finals to study for (not that I would have been studying even if I did), no job to go to, an aching feeling in the back of my eyes that prevents reading, and can barely stifle a dry heave at the thought of watching T.V. on a Sunday night (Simpsons being over and all). This is all I wish for (free time) during the nine months of school, and now I can't figure out which way to go. Whatta dork.

I went to visit my friend Dean today, and I've finally found somebody who agrees with my claim that sci-fi paperbacks are men's answer to the romance novel. Since the fact that he works at a bookstore allowed for such a luxury, he went to the trouble of finding a sci-fi novel and a romance novel that had nearly identical cover art - each with a warrior-looking man holding a heaving-breasted damsel in distress in his arms...or something like that. Awesome.

I'm trying to prepare for my big train ride out to Colorado, but I can't seem to get motivated. It probably has something to do with the fact that some of the things I have to do are to go to my storage facility, the bank and the post office...none of which can be done on Sunday (or Memorial Day, for that matter). So I think tomorrow I'll abuse myself with TLC programming...A Makeover Story, A Dating Story, A Wedding Story, in that order. Or maybe I'll just take a long long, long long drive, and think about all the reasons why life is wonderful while listening to my groovy new musical gifts.

I'm hoping to wake up with motivation and joy...wish me luck.
Hmm, trying something new in the form of an online journal. I was inspired by my friends Murphy and Dean, whose rambling thoughts I have saved to my favorite places and whose sites I visit when I feel like getting out of my own head (for once, dangnabit!). I thought, at the very least, this could be some summer fun, and a chance for me to be expressive in a way that is more accountable than the likes of my (for-my-eyes-only) journal, and yet less accountable than the for-grade work I turned in to Maio's creative writing class. I hope you'll enjoy, as well as forgive any spelling and grammatical errors. I never said I was an English major because I was interested in that sort of thing. I'll try to form nice little bite-sized morsel-like paragraphs for any of those personality types who might be reading this (and you know who you are), but I'm not making any promises. The sun is shining, I think I'll go splendor in it for awhile.