Drunk Girls

This title (track 2 on LCD Soundsystem’s new totallyfreakingawesome album) is perhaps a little too descriptive for my now-exhausted body’s feeling on how Coachella 2010 went, but it was an absolutely amazing weekend:

1. My email didn’t work! THANK YOU, 70,000 hipsters a day tweeting, texting and updating your Facebook statuses (statii?)! I couldn’t try to work if I tried!!

2. I didn’t even want to try because I was having such a wonderful time. You know, I loved seeing the bands (LCD SOUNDSYSTEM IS SOOOOO AWESOME!!!!), but I had just as much fun in the RV, oh yes, THE RV, I drove down there, consuming an in ordinate amount of string cheese, samosas and wine/Trader Joe’s beer varietals. Oh, and having the kind of girl talk that is really magical in its banality and silliness because it changes you despite of, or maybe because of, its banality and silliness. I doubt there was a thought that Suganya, Penny and I shared that hasn’t been shared before, but there is such a comfort in sharing close quarters with two ladies who you know just want the best for you.

3. I laughed a lot. My sister and I took horrible photos together.

4. I taught Penny and Suganya how to play Wizard, the greatest card game ever. I sweated a lot. Sometimes we took naps.

5. I got some blisters. We broke a circuit in the RV but I could fix it because I watched an interminable video on how to operate it before we left. IT WAS AWESOME.

Needless to say, it’s hard to be back in the real world. Laurie and I were talking the other day about this New York Times article we’d read on vacation and its relationship to happiness, and how the biggest boost you get is in anticipation. Which means you need to take more frequent, shorter trips, rather than shooting your whole wad (meaning, your accrued vacation time) at once. I also think what was striking about the article was how it mentioned that those who felt “very relaxed” during their vacations felt the post-vacation happiness the most. This is my new philosophy on vacations. To build absolutely no expectations around them, to not even care what I see really. I had some bands highlighted on the Coachella stages list, but I didn’t see all of them, and I DIDN’T CARE! I really didn’t. I just went to go, to hang out with Penny and Suganya and drive an RV for the first time and see what the kids were up to these days.

And I had the best time.

Resurrection

Refrigerator door, dissected, totally unrelated to post and I think you have to click on the photo to get the dissection, meh, TECHNOLOGY.

Today Suganya I went for a hike in Runyan Canyon, a hike I thought would be only an easy 40 minutes but turned out to be an hour and 40 and some tough downhill, and now I am sunburned, sore, and tired from processing so much vitamin D but happy I did something in the sun on this beautiful weekend.

On the way to the park, Suganya and I were complaining about Easter and the fact that everything is closed and trying to remember what on Earth it was commemorating, trying to remember the word, you know, like, rebirth, renaissance, we knew Christ did SOMETHING on this day umpteen years ago (obviously, neither of us raised Christian), WHAT WAS IT?

And after our hike we went to Ammo, and had a glass of wine to celebrate our conquest of the hills, and apparently I am too old to drink during the day because I required a nap after.

So when Suganya texted me a few hours later: “resurrection,” I assumed she too had recently awakened from a siesta. I replied, “I know! Finally! TWO-HOUR nap! Now all wonky.”

About a minute later it dawned on me to what she was referring and I had to text again: “Holy crap, just realized you were referring to CHRIST.”

Totally going to hell (in case there was any doubt).

(Don’t actually think so. At all. May not remember Christ was “resurrected,” but I practice principles of love and forgiveness every day (almost)(I try)(only human, you know)(MUST END PARENS NOW).

Also, probably should have ended this post at “totally going to hell” but you know, sometimes pithyness has to succumb to precision.

Sunday Morning Creeping In

Fred & Ethel’s bottomless bellies have made it impossible to stay in bed past 6:30, even on the weekends. They wake me up at 5:45 every morning, my wake-up time for my earliest pilates class, no matter what class I’m taking or whether I’m even taking one and no matter what time I went to bed. Which is why this morning I was downstairs making coffee at 6:45 on a Sunday and wondering what the hell I was going to do for the next few hours until, you know, THE GROCERY STORE OPENS.

Some days I don’t mind — yesterday I’d done three loads of laundry, gone to Target and ran before 10:30 a.m. Which let me enjoy the rest of my day without stress for the chores waiting for me at home. But today, when I don’t have any definite plans and my apartment is already clean, I was at a loss.

And then I remembered! Holy crap, I’m BLOGGING AGAIN! So here goes.

This has been one of those magical L.A. weekends where even though it’s (cannot believe it’s here already!) March I managed to get a sunburn, wear open-toed shoes all weekend long and watch some lovely children (the man I’m seeing has an eight-year-old and I experienced my first play date with her little friends this weekend) work the SLIP-N-SLIDE! I’m so happy they still make those.

It made me forget, albeit temporarily, the stress I think we’re all feeling about the economy, the will my job still be there tomorrow I guess I’ll forego buying those new spring flats just in case it isn’t stress, the nagging doubt that eats away at you slowly at makes your heart skip a beat any time the managing partner walks by your office.

Other things helping me forget:

1. Some of my coworkers and I signed on for another Mud Run. And, inspired by someone else’s Facebook Note, I coerced my teammates into going to Wikipedia’s Random Article generator to find our team name, may the best Random Article name win. So far we’ve got Chad Dukes (BORING. Also, mine. Bummer.), Rasovice (badass in its obscurity), and the Order of the Resplendent Banner (badass in its resplendentness; has my vote (so far)). One more teammate has to do it tomorrow and for some reason I just have This Feeling she is going to get Martin Landau. Really, I’m not joking and will probably even be a little sad tomorrow when it turns out she got Georgina Willis or the Lincoln-Sunset Historical District. Probably I am crazy.

2. The Beatles, the inspiration for the title of this post, actually (the song: Lady Madonna). I hadn’t listened to them much since high school, but after a recent encounter with Birdhouse in Your Soul by They Might Be Giants and the realization I still know every single line 15 years since the last time I sang it out loud, I wondered how my knowledge of other old favorites might be and now they have been my morning drive music for the last week.

3. And that’s all I got. Sunday sun is calling.

Apparently, I am a “Runner” Now.

Camp Pendelton 2008 10K Mud Run, me (in blue) after the last mud pit. THAT I HAD TO CRAWL THROUGH UNDERNEATH LOW-HANGING FLAGS. (p.s. Marines, I saw you slapping many a lady’s heinie as we hauled ourselves out of the trenches, why not mine? I would have feigned offense but now I am actually offended. Is my bottom so unslappable?).

Me, crossing the finish line with my coworkers (why does it look like I am 3 mos. preggers?)!

I think until I did this run (I know, not that long, only 6.2 miles), I had never thought of myself as a runner. I mean, I JOG, a lot, usually three times a week or so, but mainly as a booty-size control mechanism and I (thought) I was never any good at it. I figured I was the same as in high school track, where I was usually just grateful not to be last.

Which is why, 30 minutes before the Mud Run started, I was seriously considering faking food poisoning.

But I did it! I ran up 2 miles of hill, I slogged through INCREDIBLY STINKY mud pits, I scaled a 5′ wall (at only 5’2″ myself), and our team hit 9th in our division. We weren’t last, not even close.

I AM SO HAPPY!

My biggest fear in this all was letting my teammates down, being the one who held them up at the finish line, but I didn’t.

Apparently, I don’t suck. I can run! I can really run!

Shake a Leg, G.I. Jen

I have acquiesced to many, many stupid requests under the influence of alcohol, including requests to:

1. Make out with a boy I didn’t particularly like.
2. Give my 200-lb friend a piggyback (his loss, really; my knees were skinned, his ankle was sprained for 3 weeks).
3. “Pull my finger.”

I believe I have now topped them all, however. At my work retreat, slightly tipsy, maybe caught up in the high of having designed and orchestrated a meal for 25 people, my largest seating yet (they work the first year associates hard, yo), I agreed to participate in this thing called a “mud run.”

I had never heard of one before, but it sounded like you might “run” and you might get “muddy,” neither of which I am averse to unless I am wearing heels in the case of the former or white in the case of the latter.

Oh. No.

This is a REAL LIFE obstacle course at a nearby army base. With like, tires to run through, and scarier, WALLS TO CLIMB.

I am a just a little (aaaaagh!) nervous.

I’ve never been muscly.

Frequently in pilates my legs will be so tired they’ll shake. A LOT.

And every time they do, it takes me back to ninth grade P.E., when I had to do a (&$%*@) pull-up. Just one! Just one! That’s all I had to do to pass.

So I did one. ONE.

Only! My heinous P.E. teacher with a severe spittle problem WASN’T WATCHING. And wouldn’t believe me that I had done one, even with my BFF Melissa testifying in my defense.

So my little 30% body fat arms had to try again.

And try I did, my friends. I was only taking the darn class P/F but, dude, I still had to pass.

Near tears, I hoisted myself up, every ounce of me struggling to reach my chin to the bar, some ounces of me struggling more than others — my right leg. It was shaking SO HARD, and this wasn’t like some freestanding pull-up bar either. It was attached to a wall. So as my leg shook, it knocked into the wall, and EVERYONE, especially Craig Adams, my crush in that class, and a girl whose name I will not mention because it’s less common and also still know her and we get along, my arch nemesis in that class, could see — and hear (thumpity thump thump) — my flailing, epileptic leg as I tried to make it up there.

And if you think I didn’t hear my leg-shaking retold to me in bio the next morning? You have sorely overestimated the generosity of spirit of 14-year-olds, my friends.

And now I may relive it all.

Nonetheless, instead of freaking out, I am just going to comfort myself with a picture of Viggo Mortensen (VM himself, NOT VM as Master Chief, obviously, NOOO) reciting D.H. Lawrence to me, and leaving me notes in my locker.

Hoo-yah.

Going to Bed at 10:30 on a Saturday Night? Caliente.

So Tired, Yet I Continue

Originally uploaded by j:sto

Variety? The spice of life, right?

So I decided to try to try something unprecedented for this Summer of 2008 and STAY IN. All weekend long. I do not want this summer to become known to me as the one where a wine glass was permanently glued to my hand (see above).

I know summer is nuts for everyone, but this one has been, well, insane. Not since I was 22 have I found myself out until 2 a.m. on a Tuesday night, jazz at the Green Door. Truly, lost amid a sea of perky T&A and kitson purchases (I love LA! really!), part of me was busy eating four desserts among three girls in defiance of the apparent unspoken weight limit of the crowd (also to meet the ridonk, unadvertised table minimum) and part of me was gawking openly, thinking, “WHAT THE HECK DO THESE PEOPLE DO? WHERE ARE THEIR MOTHERS?” Because my mother would sure as hell not let me out of the house with my gazongas on display like that, and also, WHY ARE THEIR FACES NOT ETCHED IN PAIN THINKING OF HOW HARD TOMORROW WILL BE? Don’t they really want to go to bed, too? Whimper, whimper. I am old.

So.

This weekend I stayed in. I embroidered, read Breaking Dawn (oh yes, Penny, I did, but only because the seventh Harry Potter was out at my local B&N, keep reading), read the first 300 pages of the last Harry Potter kindly loaned to me by a coworker (see, Penny), and went to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market at 8:00 a.m. this morning, where I bought these gorgeous glass earring for 5 clams.

Earrings from Rose Bowl

Originally uploaded by j:sto

Also went to work for a few hours today (blech), and generally just cleaned the crap out of my apartment so that finally I feel like a real, human adult again.

I am so happy!!!

I am such a nerd.

So much a nerd in fact, that Neeta was briefly scared of me Friday night when she tried to ask me a question when I was 18 pages away from the end of Breaking Dawn and I was like, “I CANNOT ANSWER YOU NOW! VAMPIRES’ FUTURES HANG IN THE BALANCE! THE MEASURING CUPS ARE IN THE THIRD DRAWER!”

Still, so happy. I forget how much pleasure I have on my own, amusing myself with whatnot and thingamajigs and eviscerating any trace that cats any humans live in my apartment.

I’m not done going out. A) It is still summer, and B) I am still single.

But I’m ready to transition myself into fall. A little cooler, temperature wise, but for me? Mas caliente.

**************

p.s. In an attempt to save money, I’ve tried to make me and my veggie girlfriends some cheap meals before going out, one of which is spiced carrot and goat cheese sandwiches, recipes and pictures of which can be found here, AND I wanted to recommend the awesomest red pepper and almond dip ever, to go with salt and pepper Kettle Chips/the Trader Joe’s equivalent. THE BEST:

Both the sandwiches and the dip recipe are adapted from a Hip Cooks East class, which called for salt to taste, but I really think it doesn’t need any if you’re dipping salt and pepper chips, and also, I like it a little more almondy; don’t pour in the whole olive oil amount all at once because I thought it got too runny when I put in the full amount and had to put in more almonds — see what you like):

3 oz whole almonds, toasted
1 jar roasted red peppers (have ’em at Trader Joe’s)
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1 large clove garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil

Very finely chop toasted almonds in a food processor. Add garlic and pulse a few times. Add roasted red peppers and pulse to a coarse puree. With machine running, drizzle in olive oil and process until thickened slightly.

Going to Bed at 10:30 on a Saturday Night? Caliente.

So Tired, Yet I Continue

Originally uploaded by j:sto

Variety? The spice of life, right?

So I decided to try to try something unprecedented for this Summer of 2008 and STAY IN. All weekend long. I do not want this summer to become known to me as the one where a wine glass was permanently glued to my hand (see above).

I know summer is nuts for everyone, but this one has been, well, insane. Not since I was 22 have I found myself out until 2 a.m. on a Tuesday night, jazz at the Green Door. Truly, lost amid a sea of perky T&A and kitson purchases (I love LA! really!), part of me was busy eating four desserts among three girls in defiance of the apparent unspoken weight limit of the crowd (also to meet the ridonk, unadvertised table minimum) and part of me was gawking openly, thinking, “WHAT THE HECK DO THESE PEOPLE DO? WHERE ARE THEIR MOTHERS?” Because my mother would sure as hell not let me out of the house with my gazongas on display like that, and also, WHY ARE THEIR FACES NOT ETCHED IN PAIN THINKING OF HOW HARD TOMORROW WILL BE? Don’t they really want to go to bed, too? Whimper, whimper. I am old.

So.

This weekend I stayed in. I embroidered, read Breaking Dawn (oh yes, Penny, I did, but only because the seventh Harry Potter was out at my local B&N, keep reading), read the first 300 pages of the last Harry Potter kindly loaned to me by a coworker (see, Penny), and went to the Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market at 8:00 a.m. this morning, where I bought these gorgeous glass earring for 5 clams.

Earrings from Rose Bowl

Originally uploaded by j:sto

Also went to work for a few hours today (blech), and generally just cleaned the crap out of my apartment so that finally I feel like a real, human adult again.

I am so happy!!!

I am such a nerd.

So much a nerd in fact, that Neeta was briefly scared of me Friday night when she tried to ask me a question when I was 18 pages away from the end of Breaking Dawn and I was like, “I CANNOT ANSWER YOU NOW! VAMPIRES’ FUTURES HANG IN THE BALANCE! THE MEASURING CUPS ARE IN THE THIRD DRAWER!”

Still, so happy. I forget how much pleasure I have on my own, amusing myself with whatnot and thingamajigs and eviscerating any trace that cats any humans live in my apartment.

I’m not done going out. A) It is still summer, and B) I am still single.

But I’m ready to transition myself into fall. A little cooler, temperature wise, but for me? Mas caliente.

**************

p.s. In an attempt to save money, I’ve tried to make me and my veggie girlfriends some cheap meals before going out, one of which is spiced carrot and goat cheese sandwiches, recipes and pictures of which can be found here, AND I wanted to recommend the awesomest red pepper and almond dip ever, to go with salt and pepper Kettle Chips/the Trader Joe’s equivalent. THE BEST:

Both the sandwiches and the dip recipe are adapted from a Hip Cooks East class, which called for salt to taste, but I really think it doesn’t need any if you’re dipping salt and pepper chips, and also, I like it a little more almondy; don’t pour in the whole olive oil amount all at once because I thought it got too runny when I put in the full amount and had to put in more almonds — see what you like):

3 oz whole almonds, toasted
1 jar roasted red peppers (have ’em at Trader Joe’s)
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1 large clove garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil

Very finely chop toasted almonds in a food processor. Add garlic and pulse a few times. Add roasted red peppers and pulse to a coarse puree. With machine running, drizzle in olive oil and process until thickened slightly.

Then We’ll All Sing Cumbaya and Drive Off in Our Priuses

I love my Pilates Plus class. It is my new favorite thing, even though it requires me getting up, oh, 5 and a half hours from now.

I’ve been taking it for over a month now, several times a week, with the same ladies for the most part, and recently, Something Has Happened.

I’m not sure what switch went off, where suddenly people are no longer silent, where suddenly people feel comfortable grunting and groaning, expressing their body’s displeasure at using dormant muscles forced to come to life — obliques, the appendixes of our musculature.

But It Has Happened.

At first I felt a little weird, like, LADY, I CAN HEAR THAT?!? But then I realized that she KNOWS I can hear that and just doesn’t give a hooey. And then her neighbor joined in and suddenly there was this chorus of ughs and enghs and whooshs.

I haven’t quite yet joined the band, don’t feel quite earth-mother enough yet – mainly I utter curse words, well, one particular curse word, my personal f-f-f-favorite, under my breath after particularly masochistic exercises.

But maybe one day.

Maybe one day I just won’t be able to help myself and I’ll release my barbaric yawp on the unsuspecting denizens of Silver Lake.

Doesn’t seem like they’ll mind.

And a Cherry on Top.

OMFG (still can’t believe there were Gossip Girl ads with that), I. Love. My. New. Mac.

I love being able to, oh, BLOG, without my computer crashing mid-entry so that I have to go back and remember, what was the turn of phrase I used to describe my deep and abiding love of prosciutto/Gossip Girl/my new pilates class?

I also love being able to upload to my Flickr (hells, yeah, vacation photos!), and download songs without risking only half the album making it into iTunes.

While I am spreading the love, let me tell you what else has been rocking my world lately:

1. Peter Thomas Roth’s Instant Mineral Sunscreen

I am so lazy in the morning that I often don’t even want to deal with smearing sunscreen all over my face. This stuff is the best. A little poof, poof and I’m assured of not aging for another day (this is what I tell myself).

2. Hollywood Forever, brought to you by SUMMER!!

I recreated my last picnic there, only this time it was prosciutto-melon-camembert sandwiches, and lox with lime-cilantro butter sandwiches, AND I tried my first paninis, a basic tomato, mozzerella, and basil. I made the curried potato salad again, skipped regular salad for time, and made adult ho-hos, holy crap, awesome.

The movie was The Man Who Knew Too Much, one of the few Hitchcocks I hadn’t seen, and the picture above is of the glow-in-the-dark snap necklaces of old, drunken peeps sitting behind us set against the starless, palm-tree-lined sky of Los Angeles.

3. (Slowly but surely growing on me, rather) The thought of having a roommate.

I have not had a roommate aside from someone I thought would be my mate for life since 2001. But I would like to save for a home, pay off my loans more quickly than I am currently progressing, and I’m real scared, but I’m going to give it a shot. Luckily, I am giving it a shot with one of my best friends in the world, Neeta. Sure, she is deathly allergic to cats, but I have the Dyson and the keen desire not to be responsible for her demise.

I have had a lot of internal angst, A LOT, trying to figure out whether to do this. There are logistics to settle, I’ll no longer have a separate room for the cats and their box o’ stank, where will the stuff that I’ve currently been fitting into two walk-in closets fit, can we cram our joint supply of frozen food into my freezer, etc.? There are also the personal questions, what am I doing getting a roommate now, at 31? I question a lot whether I’m taking a step back. But I have to remind myself that I’m taking a step forward, to home ownership, and won’t the cats and I enjoy having someone to watch Gossip Girl with?

I think we will.

4. Maraschino cherries.

When I bought the marshmallow cream for the ho-hos yesterday, it was right next to some maraschino cherries. I’ve never had them at home, but I love them and will steal one from your drink if you’re not looking, watch out. I never even considered that I could have them at home, like, to EAT, on a regular basis.

But I do now!

5. Teenage love… now with with vampires!

OMgoodness. A coworker recommended Stephanie Meyer‘s books to me, and while they are no Graham Greene, they’ll do in a pinch — cool kids’ lunch table, vampires, curfews, girls’ choice dances, werewolves. I was a HUGE Christopher Pike fan when I was in junior high, and this is like that, only better even. It takes me back, WAY BACK, to the days when you could just feel. so. much! When your heart hurt just at how MUCH you felt. Now my heart just hurts if someone heartlessly dumps me the morning after I’ve spent $150 getting my hair done to attend his stupid work event. Back then, my heart could hurt just out of feeling so much.

If reverting back to my roommate days could also bring that back?

Oh, the maraschino cherry on top.

Would Be a Lot Easier to Blog…

If my computer didn’t overheat every five minutes.

Last weekend I was out of town, but this weekend…

MacBook here I come! Scared I won’t know how to turn it on or navigate my way around, but more scared of Vista!