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| Today is music day! I'm soaking up the sounds of my iTunes library, and I'm currently revisiting Feist's The Reminder. I could listen to the first three tracks for hours, but it's the repetitiveness of my CD collection that had me away from Ms. Feist for so long to begin with.
See, my mother bequeathed me her Corolla, so for the first time in my short life I have a CD player (and A/C!!!!) in my car. Consequently, I've been listening to CDs almost continuously, because radio in Houston is terribly boring.
This is good in some ways, because I have gotten well acquainted with some excellent albums (Pink's Funhouse and Corinne Bailey Rae's self titled debut come to mind) and the sound quality in the car is top notch.
But I am lazy about burning CDs, and capricious when it comes to mixed CDs, so I've been listening to the same 5 albums over and over. Well, 4, now that I've lent Stephanie my Adele 19. Wooo Grammy!
I was going through Nina Simone's Anthology when I recognized a song: "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", first recorded by Simone and then made into a great disco song by Santa Esmeralda, that was featured on the Kill Bill soundtrack.
This video makes me laugh, cuz it's so disco, but the song is so awesome I feel like I just got some retro cool points from the 70's.
I was reminded of another gem from that soundtrack, the dramatic "Battle Without Honor or Humanity", aka "Song of BADASS". And Tomoyasu Hotei is a frikkin badass, as evident by this video that you need to watch in high quality, full screen. It was like adrenaline juice for my poor Guitar Hero heart. Just wait til 3 minutes in when he starts juicing it.
Backtracking, there was another Nina Simone song, "See Line Woman", a song whose origins aren't clear (at least, according to wikipedia). That one got me recalling Feist's "Sea Lion Woman", which is a remake of Simone's version of that song. Then I just had to listen to it, bringing us back to the beginning!
This clip is actually "Secret Heart" from Let It Die, but this song is so good live that I had to share this buried treasure I found in the depths of YouTube.
And now back to the woman that started it all, Nina Simone. Here's a vid from the 60's, with her performing my favorite song, "Mississippi Goddamn".
Nothin like cursing and stuff in songs that's both kinda allowed and kinda not nowadays. It's like watching the original Bad News Bears and thinking once every five minutes, "Oh, they couldn't do that in a kid's movie today." Even if Walter Matthau pulling out the beers in his bucket of ice to put the girl's elbow in it isn't one of the funniest things of all time. | | |
| Today is my "I'm Grateful For" List. I think it's important for me to remember that I'm not the center of the universe--despite all clues pointing towards this conclusion--and that there's a world beyond my keyboard and the grammar all around me.
Though grammar is very important, mind you.
From hearing it a gazillion times, now all of America knows that the grammatically correct article is "an historic event." Thank you and good night.
And thank you to Beyonce for letting everyone know that it is "If I Were a Boy", because goodness knows that it's not a necessity for pop music to be so correct.
I'm thankful to be alive after my horrendous bout with vomit pyrotechnics. I hope my stomach decides to settle with less... intense hobbies beyond the occasional gymnastics, such as knitting. Crocheting is an acceptable substitute.
I'm grateful that I have such wierdo and eclectic tastes in books that my most recent book-buying binge included a manga, a sci-fi new arrival, "ethnic" fiction, and a book on sale. Those reduced priced books need lurvin', too.
I'm grateful that I can somehow paint my face just a little bit. I had to cover up the bruising from the retching, and managed to competently apply foundation and mascara. I even ponied up to some cherry earrings. Along with my painted toes and nails, I'm practically a girl! At the least, I'm girly enough to bemoan how manning the dishwasher tonight ruined my nail polish. Such a lovely shade of blue, wasted!
I'm grateful for working on the Boardwalk, for two reasons. One being, my awesome discount. Secondly, randomly running into people from my past. And while it is horribly embarrassing to be caught wearing a silly uniform and working as a slave, I'm glad that I was able to catch Stacey eating with her family (I thought you were in Mongolia!) and Kirsten hanging out with old friends (I thought you were in New York!). The Boardwalk is a hub of people, at least.
Finally, thank you Jesus for having that 1 am call from Korea not be a scary, tragic one, but simply Aunt Myung-ok being too impatient to wait to call Mom to wish her happy birthday.
Okay, gratitude done for the day. Maybe more tomorrow. Definitely need to get working on those New Year's Resolutions. | | |
| I wear the A$$hole, it does not wear me
I had lunch with Stephanie and her mom at Buffalo Wild Wings today, and was pleasantly surrounded by riotous Steelers' fans, my two companions being the most passionate of the bunch. While munching on wings, my friend Woody walked in and I partially hid myself util he walked right by me. I then punched him in the belly. Man, have I got people skills.
Then this waitress kept walking by, and I thought she looked like an anorexic verson of someone I once knew. After a few minutes of staring, I finally got a close enough look at her nametag and realized that, indeed, she was Ginger, from high school. She graduated the same year as me, and was at one point dating my stepbrother, a guy who is a life-ruin-er and likely did much the same to her.
Anywho, she was not doing the same "I think I know you" stare, though maybe she was just too busy to do so. I finally wrangled her to a stop. "I know you, right?"
She nodded. "Yeah, from high school, right?"
I nodded dumbly back, realizing that I remember her more clearly than she recalls me. "Yeah, and you were dating my stepbrother, Wayne."
She reverted to what I recognized as "Trying to Get Away Cuz I'm Busy and You're Wierd" waitress look. "Not that you'd want to remember such an awful time in your life!" I backtracked.
"How have you been?" she asked, politely. We did our rounds of "Goods" and "Fines" and she was off, but not before I poked her in the side and said, "You should eat more cheeseburgers."
As she walked away, I turned to Stephanie and said, with horror, "That was a really rude thing to say."
I was paranoid that for the next ten minutes that Ginger was telling all her coworkers about that really rude and fat Asian chick. I finally stopped her again. "Ok, what I should have said is something like, "How do you like working here?"
She smiled and said, "I like it all right."
"Cool," I replied. "I work at the Boardwalk," I added, for no apparent reason other than to prolong our suffering.
"Really?" she said, in that affecting interest kind of way.
I then cut her loose. "You just dug your hole deeper," Stephanie commented between plays, eyes still glued to the widescreen.
"No, I feel better," I said. "At least I don't think she hates me."
Well, whatever the outcome, I'm still a bunghole.
Later on Stephanie asked this one server Bette if she was sisters with our mutual friend Lynette, getting an affirmative. There was another guy across the room that I once worked at the Crabhouse with but didn't really know well enough to hello to. Along with Woody, that is at least four people I know in one place on a random day. I need to get out of the Bay Area!
Though being an asshole means I fit right in.
ZING! | | |
| Worked at RED tonight, and had a hibachi table come in at 9:50. Blarrrgh! Everyone else was gone, even the sushi chefs, by the time Leo and I cleared the table out. I also spilled soy sauce on me boob. If there's one thing I will definitely not miss about working at RED, it's the omnipresent scent of low sodium soy sauce.
I've been pretty mellow for the last week. Today, I was also distracted. In the space of 30 minutes I nearly got into a car accident by changing lanes without properly looking at my blind spot, I took the wrong way to work, and I left my cell phone in my car. My only explanation is that I plucked my eyebrows today: I either pulled out some brains along with the follicles or I accidentally performed a lobotomy. I'm leaning towards the latter, as my accidental genius shocks even myself.
Or maybe I've simply been submerged in surreal land, as I've been rewatching my Utena fansubs--what crappy, crappy VHS!--and I'm beginning to think all things as symbols, with rose petals everywhere. Also, I've been playing much too much Mirror's Edge and consequently am constantly searching for ways to run up walls and looking for red objects to jump off of or climb.
On the plus side I slept like a baby last night and will do so again. If you call me before noon, leave me a damn message. | | |
| I've been doing a spot of driving lately, and with that comes much contemplation time. It's as if my mouth can't stop spitting out words to the dashboard. I suppose it may be a bit crazy to talk to yourself in the car, but I just classify it as an excited utterance, much like the chorus of P!nk's "So What". BTW, I like her new album, even if practically every song is a break up song.
While cruising through historic League City, I thought about drugs. The schools post red ribbons all along the fences, talking about "Saying No to Drugs" and such. And in the innocence my youth, all the thought I ever put into that was reminding myself not to take anything from strangers and to resist peer pressure.
But there are times when you aren't the one taking drugs; instead it is someone you love. I have a strict non-drug use policy when it comes to potential suitors, and I'm even leery of people who enjoy bars a bit much.
I just typed out a long explanation, but I realized that airing out the family's dirty laundry doesn't make me feel better, or provide catharsis. It just makes a muscle under my left shoulder blade ache, and I seethe with pent up bitchiness. God, to be ignorant again, to not look back at my old, blissfully ignorant self with pity and envy.
I decided to look up soothing images to quell the nasty bitterness that's rising up with my acid reflux.
Jeju Grandfather by ~carvenaked on deviantART
This is an "Old Grandfather" statue from Jeju Island in Korea. I see this and it reminds me of my grandfather's stooped posture and stricken face that still managed to convey warmth. To him I was "Miwha". I wonder if, even though he saw me plenty as a grown woman, to him I was still that precocious 4-year-old, chattering in Korean. After that time, and we moved to the States permanently, we never had a conversation again. His only English words were "Thank you!" and "Bye-bye!" I know nothing about him, other than he loved me, and that my mother was obviously his favorite. He gardened. He drank til the day he died, and liked having fun. He and Grandma had an arranged marriage. They did not attend the same church. He was tall.
Other than genes, we had nothing in common. But somehow, love remained.
(I apologize for the smorgasborg of emoting this entry is.) | | |
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