Saturday, November 29, 2008

I'm back, baby.

Here I am in SoCal again. People keep asking how long I'm planning to stay and my fairly consistent response has been till they kick me out. "They" referring to the general population of LA, I suppose?

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!

My sister just called to say that my niece broke her arm on the trampoline at her in-laws house. My mom's response? "I guess they're not allowed to try and go somewhere else for Thanksgiving; they just have to come here." No, seriously, we're all concerned about the little one and hopefully she will be okay. Dad's gone to meet them at the hospital and until then I'm here with my mom and aunt and uncle and guests, feeling that familiar awkwardness that goes along with my inability to make small talk. We are also eating crab so that our stomachs are nicely stretched out for tonight.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Twilight on the Big Screen

Because everyone was talking about how amazing it is and because my classes rendered me incapable of reading anything for pleasure that would require more than 12% of my brain to stay focused and because I tend to take pleasure in the vampire romance as a book genre, I read Twilight. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I was enraptured while I was reading it and I had positive things to say about it. But after I finished it, I started teasing out little pet peeves that existed in the book and mentioning them in a kind of halfhearted, nitpicky way. I would mention little things without being able to name exactly what bugged me about the book. Fortunately, when she came to visit, Jenny was able to put into words exactly what I had felt "When you're reading the book" she said as we walked through the streets of San Francisco trying to find a bar that might serve the likes of us "you're totally into it. Because she's a captivating writer. But then you get to the end of it and you put the book down and you're like 'What the fuck??'"

Exactly. Yes. That was exactly how I felt. I was thoroughly entertained by the book while I was reading it because it made me feel like something really exciting and titillating was just around the corner, just on the next page, just keep reading and you will get to it! But that book is SUCH A TEASE. All suspense, hardly any release. All semi-soft making out, no gettin its freak on. I'm not saying it wasn't exciting, but, well, not a lot actually happens in that book. In the final 45 pages or so there is some real action but other than that the characters devote a freakishly large of their time to talking about their feelings.

So when we were walking out of the theater and my sis said "That was it?? Noting happened!" I came back with "I told you, it's a MAGIC BOOK." Nothing really happens in the book, so ta-da, nothing really happens in the movie. I thought that a lot of good decisions were made-- like tweaking the plot so there was an actual story arc. And removing whole sections of dialogue but keeping enough to make the hardcore fans happy. And making Jacob Black a-freakin-dorable (in a totally harmless way, I swear. I KNOW he's only 16. Sigh).

And even though it had many ridiculous moments (at one point my sis leaned over to me and asked, "are Edwards lips getting redder and redder between frames? Are his cheekbones getting more pronounced??") actually, I could possibly be talked in to going to see that movie again. Because I'm a sucker for the slow-motioney bits and the intense stares and the uniquely beautiful people and the music buildup. I'm totally the person who gets hoodwinked in to buying something because it comes in a pretty package or because the salesperson flatters me into it. I can be quite the airhead consumer. And I also know that the Hollywood gloss won't be quite as shiny on the small screen so I'll need to see it in the theater if I ever want to see it again. Which I guess I kinda do.... Damn it.

Vacation: Week 1

So I am officially into the first week of my glorious glorious winter break that is glorious. Here's a little update on how I've been spending my time:

Eating delicious foods prepared by my mother or paid for by my sister.

Going to movies-- Bond, Twilight, Bolt.

Child-wrangling.

Sitting on my ass.

Hm. I guess that's pretty much it.

I had been planning to decompress in my SF apartment for a few days and enjoy the beginning of my break without going anywheres, but my sis called me up and shamed me in to coming to my parents' house. This has worked out splendidly as it allows me a legitimate excuse to not really do anything-- "I'm spending some time with my family."

Monday, November 24, 2008

It feels a little like drinking chocolate syrup and benadryl

Freedom.

Finished my last Med-Surg clinical and thus my second quarter of nursing school on Friday. Have been suspended in a blissful cloud of glitter and rose petals ever since.

I love everything.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

My weekend: A series of conversations

At 7:30 pm on Friday following an exhausting day at clinical-
Jenny: So do you wanna go out tonight?
Jules: I dunno. I'm kind of exhausted. I don't think I'm up for it.
Jenny: You're no fun!
Jules: Well I've been on my feet all day... since 6:30...
Jenny: I didn't say it wasn't legitimate. I just said you're no fun.
Jules: Fine. Come over.

While leaving the house-
Jenny: [takes off glasses and goes to "clean" them on the nearest piece of cloth-- a pair of jeans I had hung up to dry]
Jules: What are you doing?! DON'T DO THAT!!
Jenny: Jesus. Of all the things you've yelled at me for.... Of all the things you could have yelled at me for....

At the first bar-
Jenny: Can I get a vanilla vodka and-
Bartender: No. Beer and wine only
Jenny: Oh, um... a... Stella?
Bartender: You got it.
Jules: Same here.
Bartender: Okay [goes to get drinks]
Jenny: I had to try so hard to think of a beer besides PBR.

Later-
Jenny: Check out the guy in the turquoise shirt.
Jules: What about these douchebags behind us?
Douchebag 1: Did you just call us douchebags?
Jules: Oh, um. No. Haha! I meant... those guys over there. Haha!
Jenny: No! Ha! [engages in witty banter with Douchebag 2; lets him try on her glasses].
Douchebag 1: So those glasses really make you guys look smarter. Seriously, it adds like 20 points to your IQ.
Jules: Okay...


Later-
Jules: Check out this creep behind me.
Jenny: You mean the guy staring at me?
Jules: What? [tries to look over shoulder]
Jenny: Don't look at him. No! Don't look at him! No! Stop trying to look at him! No! Stop it!

In line at the club-
Jenny: We need to take pictures.

Still in line-
Guy 1: Is that a Trojan tattoo with roses?
Jules: Yep.
Guy 1: That's awesome!
[Jules & Jen meet the medical students. Introductions.]
Guy 2: So what do you guys do?
Jenny: I work at UCSC, she goes to nursing school.
Guy 2: Oh that's cool. We totally rely on nurses.
Jules: Um...

In the club-
[Jen & Jules stare around in complete sensory overload. There are no words to describe it....]
Jenny: What's with all the creepy weirdos?
Jules: What's with all the guys singing the song lyrics?
Jenny: What's with all the guys dancing with each other?
Jules: What's with all the guys in V neck shirts?
Jenny: What's with the music?
Jules: What's with the crazy people on the stage?


Later-
Douchebag: How old are you?
Jenny: 26 [holds up fingers]
Douchebag: 26?
Jenny: yeah
Douchebag: [walks away]
Jenny: Oh my god. He thinks I'm an old bar hag.

Saturday-
Jenny: I'm too sick to go to my conference.
Jules: I don't know if I believe you actually had a conference. You've barely mentioned it, you didn't write anything about it and you can't seem to describe it to me.
Jenny: Wanna see my nametag?

At Denny's
Jenny: Did you go in the handicapped stall?
Jules: [confused look]
Jenny: In the bathroom? Did you see the little short toilet? Oh, wait. Did you not go to the bathroom?
Jules: I haven't left the table.

In a bar-
Jules: Two Kamakazi shots please.
Bartender: That's ten dollars.
Jules: [tries to hand him credit card]
Bartender: You don't have cash?
Jules: No.
Bartender: You don't have ten dollars cash?
Jules: No.
Bartender: [sighs in frustration]
Later-
Jenny: Can I get a Stella please?
Bartender: Do you have cash?
Jenny: No.
Bartender: Forget it; I don't have time for this.
[I feel the need to point out that this was at a touristy bar with no minimum charge policy, on a Saturday night, in Union Square in San Francisco...]

In the second bar-
Bouncer: [standing between Jules & Jen, staring off into the distance] I've been to LA in 1993..... people don't know how bad it is there.... it's pretty bad.... but yeah I went there a long time ago.... I've been to Philly too... it's pretty bad there....
Jenny: Oh one of my best friends lives in Philly, she-
Bouncer: And I've been to Pittsburgh.... I think Pittsburgh was the worst place I've been.... Boston's pretty bad too.... I've been to Boston.... [walks away suddenly to card some people]
Jenny: Um. What the fuck?!
Jules: I DON'T KNOW.
[Bouncer comes back and resumes his speech as though he's never been away]
Bouncer: And I've been to New York.... that's probably the worst place I've ever been.... Philly is pretty bad, though.... but I think maybe New York is the worst place I've been.... [walks away again]
Jenny: We're leaving.
Jules: So I don't remember-- did we say something like "Can you please list for us the cities you've been to? And were any of them bad?"

Sunday morning-
[alarm clock goes off]
Jenny: NO!
Jules: What time do you want me to set-
Jenny: NO!!!
Jules: Okay, nevermind.


You can read Jenny's version of the events here.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

almost halfway done (ish)

Tomorrow I will be halfway through with the second-to-last week of the second quarter of my prelicensure year of nursing school! Which means there are only two more quarters! And then a big, stressful test and then two years of advance practice training after that and then I'll be done with school, I promise!

I've just got to make it through a final, two term papers, and four more clinical days and then we get a big long break for December which makes me so happy I would do a little dance if the invisible evil gnomes attacking my neck/shoulder/back area would give it a rest with the jabbing and rock-pelting for a moment.

Friday, November 7, 2008

America the Beautiful

About a year ago I signed up to become a "monthly supporter" for Greenpeace which means that they take money out of my account every month. Sometimes I'll forget and not budget for it and get confused about how much money I have. And then I'll go online to look at my account and remember. If I'm really broke, I'll feel slightly irritated. But never irritated enough to un-sign up, mainly because it would feel a little like tossing a lit match onto a giant redwood.

I recently drove from SF to Santa Cruz on possibly the nicest day of the year-- sunny with a light, cool breeze. And I took these pictures.







I lived in the concrete jungle of LA for 8 years and now I've moved into another city. Sometimes I forget how beautiful the earth is and how lucky I am to live where I do. But when I stood on the cliff looking out at the endless stretch of ocean (and praying for an earthquake not to come and tumble me down to certain and very painful death), it took my breath away in that wonderfully cliche way it does in young adult literature.

I'm feeling rather optimistic after the election since we will now have a president who doesn't believe that global warming is just God's way of huggin' us closer. Something must be done. Click here to support Greenpeace.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Julia's Delicious Hot Cocoa

The weather has turned a bit chilly so I've been craving winter treats. Here is the recipe for my lovely, rather decadent, chocolatey cocoa.

Buy the cheapest mix you can find. Scoop 2 to 6 teaspoonfulls of mix into a mug.


Add water until full. Place mug in microwave and hit "easy minute." Watch cup spin slowly around on plate in microwave. Turn away for two seconds to put the mix away and turn back to find that cup has boiled over.


Mop up chocolatey water from plate and wipe away chocolate globules from outside of cup. Stir vigorously. Enjoy!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Feeling better.

So I went to the doctor who had me move my head and shoulders while I shrieked "ouch!" at various points. Then he wrote me a prescription and told me to go home and lay down. And now, thanks to a lovely combination of acetaminophen, hydrocodone, and a sandwich, I'm still in pain but I sure don't care!

Monday, November 3, 2008

I speak in code to confuse my content crawler.

I was doing some online perusing and I noticed on Miss Grace's blog that she has an es-yay on numero ocho advertisement. I was mildly horrified but I thought maybe her content crawler had gotten befuddled since she did write a post about how she feels about that particular proposition.

But then I clicked over to my own blog and there it was!! An ad urging the inhabitants of this fair state to say yay to establishment and keep wedlock betwixt one human with a wang and one human with a vajayjay.

Horror of horrors!

It's okay with me when ads crop up on my page that don't really encompass my beliefs-- such as the depression ones that appeared when I wrote about my quarterlife crisis and the "find tattoed singles" ads that came about after I posted about my tats. But this is something that clearly has nothing at all to do with anything I have written recently, if at all. My recent posts have all been about Halloween, being crazy, cooking-ish, and how much my life exhausts me. NOWHERE did I speak out about my aditional-tray eleifs-bay regarding the of legal union of two homo sapiens of different genital organs.

I don't feel personally wronged when two persons of the same reproductive makeup come together, profess their love for one another, share a household and a life, and have some rights and privledges that go along with it.

I feel wronged by hypocracy, judgementalness, and the wasting of millions of dollars to fight something that does not cause harm. Shame on you, google and blogspot for allowing those ads to be placed on pages, regardless of the content of the blog.

Get the eff out there and ote-vay!

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Halloweenage (part 2)

Well my one of my very favorite nights has come and gone once again. Halloween was fun, although I probably enjoyed last weekend's shenanigans even more. Friday night, I got home from the hospital, decompressed for a few hours, and started getting ready. Dan was throwing one of his Lodge parties which promised food, drinks, and interesting architecture. Since I like to wear as many costumes as possible as a general rule, I decided to go as a vampire. It is a repeat from last year, but I have the fancy hair streaks and I had bought some extra accessories. And my vampire costume involves considerably more comfortable shoes than my mad scientist costume did. Anyhow. I found my fangs in my jewelry box, put them in my mouth to see how they looked and they essentially shattered. Apparently the tooth mold isn't built to last. So I spent probably 45 minutes painstakingly re-melting the plastic, fitting it to the fang pieces and sticking them in my mouth. After a number of failed attempts in which the plastic gummed up on a spoon, a mug, my fingers, and my dress, I succeeded.

Kelly texted. They were calling a taxi. Awesome.

Thirty minutes later, I texted. Were they on their way? No. Still waiting.

At 11, Kelly called to say she was sorry but the people she was with didn't want to wait any longer so they were walking to a bar. Could I get a cab and come meet them?

At this point I was already exhausted from my long day at the hospital and I partly wanted to just heat up some cocoa and snuggle in bed watching Will & Grace. But I was already wearing a fucking Halloween costume and it would break my heart a little to take it off and let one of my very favorite holidays pass without giving it the respect it deserves. So I gathered my bearings and left the house, deciding that if I could get a cab I would go meet Kelly and if not I would make an appearance at Dan's.

There were no cabs so I took the train over to Dan's and hung out with some of my classmates. Twenty minutes after I stepped through the door my left fang shattered once again. I decided that, instead of half-snarling my way throug the party, I should remove the right one and spend the evening explaining that I was more of a "gnawing vampire." I failed at picture taking that night. But I pretty much looked like a vampire with no fangs.
Dammit.

I really shouldn't be irritated that my costume didn't work out the way I had planned because on the scale of things it's really not a big deal. But Halloween costumes are one of the things I'm usually really good at. In the past two years alone, I had some pretty awesome costumes.

I think I may have mentioned my Little Miss Sunshine costume from last year and how fantastic it was.

And then there was the mermaid, complete with dinglehopper.

And the zebra.


And this year is the first since Halloween 05 that I didn't reprise the Peacock.


I didn't wear it this year partly because Elena borrowed my feathers and hasn't returned them (well, I moved 300 miles away which made that decidedly more difficult for her).

And I have to throw this last photo in because I came across it while going through my old photobucket account and it's just amazing. Even though it showcases Miss Grace's jackass of an ex boyfriend I think it's fantastic. Plus, it's technically Gabey's first Halloween since he's curled up in her belly at 6 months gestation.


HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!