I was sitting in my car at the drive-thru ATM this morning still halfway asleep when I realized that there was this scary man standing outside my window. He was talking inaudibly (partly because my radio was on and my window was rolled up, but mostly because I’m deaf as f*ck), so I turned down my radio to try and figure out what he was saying. He kept asking me for a dollar and all I could think was HELLO I’m in line at the ATM… If I had any cash on me, do you think that I would be here right now? All the while he was standing outside my window I was formulating a plan in my head thinking what I would do if he tried to attack me. Pshhh. I could take him down. I really watch too much “Law and Order.” He still was hanging around (probably plotting to kill me) when it was finally my turn at the ATM ten years later, so instead of stopping and taking money out like I had originally intended, I drove off like a little b*tch. Has “Law and Order” taught me nothing? My sister would be so disappointed.

Anyway, my friends, IRIS AND BOBET, got MARRIED over the weekend. The wedding was all the way up in Esco, but definitely worth it. It’s not everyday your friends get married (although it seems like EVERYONE is getting married and/or reproducing these days)… I guess we’re just around that age when people start settling down. Edgar and I kept getting asked when WE were getting married… Ahh, the proverbial question. My standard response is, “THAT’LL be the day!” Sometimes I’ll change it up a bit and say, “THAT’LL be the f*cking day!” for emphasis… or I just tell them that we aren’t getting married. Not that I know of, anyway. Why… Do you know something? Meehchelle got CRUNK haha (thanks for the e-card, dude! What are friends for, if not designated drivers?). I haven’t seen her that drunk since Vegas. At least she waited until we got into her car to pass out this time 😉 I had SO much fun. The food was good, the company was great and the DJs rocked hardest core! I don’t think I’ve ever danced so much in my life. Edgar, Rov, Jose, Meehchelle and I were the last ones on the dance floor. Everytime we were like, “Okay, let’s go home,” DJ Retro would spin another dope ass hip hop song from back in the day luring us to shake what our mamas gave us just a little longer. What a great wedding! 🙂

Before I go, I have to give props to JAY for doing some uhhh “handy work” at my house. LOL. Thanks, HOMIE!

There’s a lot of life changes going on for the people around me… My sister moved back out and officially started her CAREER at Ernst & Young in Irvine… My cousin, Desiree, married her high school sweetheart, Dom… Meech got her MASTERS degree… Bobet and Iris are getting married this weekend (side note: EXCELLENT bachelorette party, Iris! HOLY F*CK. Male strippers are effin crazy. Meech and I are going to have a joint birthday party in January and those strippers are SO there! Haha. Bring your dollar bills, b*tches!). Congratulations to all you guys… Not all change is good, though. My condolences go out to my cousin’s girlfriend, Analyn. I’m truly sorry about your dad. Life is full of uncertainty and few of us realize how brief life is until loved ones pass away unexpectedly. As for me, my life hasn’t changed at all… and though I used to complain about the monotony of it all, I’m happy where I am. Happy that my loved ones are safe and healthy. The other night, my house phone rang around one o’clock in the morning. Nobody calls someone’s parents house at one o’clock in the morning unless there’s something wrong (either that or it’s a drunken phone call… SHEENA!). Someone had already picked up the phone, but I picked it up anyway. I heard my mom telling my dad that something was wrong… She didn’t feel good… She was dizzy and couldn’t drive home from work. I asked her if she needed to go to the hospital and she said that she just needed to be driven home so she could sleep. I don’t know what I would do if I lost my mom… I sat in the car with my dad for the forty minute drive up to my mom’s work in silence. That was the first car ride in a long time that I’ve had with my dad without him lecturing me about something or another. I guess we were both worried… Anyway, my mom is fine. My relationship with my father has become less deranged. My sister and I get along better now that we’re back to living in separate cities. LOL. Life is good.

I choose… INCUBUS.

01. Are you female or male: Southern Girl
02. Describe yourself: Stellar
03. How do some people feel about you: A Certain Shade Of Green
04. How do you feel about yourself: Just A Phase
05. Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend: Beware! Criminal
06. Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend: The Warmth
07. Describe where you want to be: Here In My Room
08. Describe where you live: Sick Sad Little World
09. Describe how you love: Deep Inside
10. Share a few words of wisdom: Make Yourself

I just came back home from a week vacation with my family in Canada. I had SUCH a good time! I was there for my great aunt’s wedding. I met a ton of relatives on my maternal grandmother’s side. My aunts on that side are just as CRAZY as my aunts on my mom’s side. People flew in from London, Denmark, all over the US and P.I. to see my great aunt get hitched. One of my aunts gave a speech at the wedding and closed it by saying that if the groom messes up, we’re going to send the mafia side of the family there haha. He should sleep with one eye open! It really sucks that my dad’s side of the family is all over the place. I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like to, but hopefully we’ll all keep in touch now that we’ve all become acquainted. There’s nothing like family, you know? Canada isn’t too far away from home (the US in general), but there are so many things that are different there. We passed by this huge carnival when we were driving on the freeway, and I asked my cousin if she had gone to it yet, and she was like, “Carnival?” Then I said, “Oh, the fair…?” and she was like, “Oh, you mean the ferry?” but she was talking about the ferry that takes you across Lake Ontario. So then I was like, “The umm… the thing with the rides and the ferris wheel?” and she was all, “OH! You mean the exhibition.” LOL. Plus my aunt had arranged for us to stay in what she called a “condo” so I was expecting a kitchen… bedrooms… you know, things you would find in a condo. We got there and were like, um hey, this is a HOTEL ROOM… with no kitchen and no bedrooms! I guess they call hotels condos over there or something. There are so many different words that mean different things there. The people here are also SUPER friendly (sans the bitchy mcbitch that managed the hotel we stayed at). The drivers are effin CRAZY over there, but no one ever honks and there aren’t any crosswalks in places so pedestrians just cross the street wherever and people stop their cars in the middle of the road to let them pass. In San Diego, you would get honking from multiple cars and a big F*CK YOU finger if you did that. It even poured rain while we were there, and I can’t even remember the last time it rained in San Diego. The scenery is so romantic in Canada. They have actual SEASONS. The trees are green in the summer, they change colors in the fall and it snows in the winter. In San Diego, you can take a random picture on any given day during the year, and you won’t be able to tell if it’s from winter, spring, summer or fall! I guess that can be both good and bad, but I would love to live in a place where the seasons change. San Diego will always be my home, but I want to venture out to a place that’s nothing like it. Just for a little while. I think it would be cool to live in Toronto for a while. Yesterday, this guy downtown was passing out loaded Starbucks giftcards for a free Tazo Passion Tea Lemonade (my FAVORITE drink there!) with a chance to win a free VESPA (which I’ve been eyeballing for a while!). Then I saw a billboard advertising the Art Institute of Toronto (where I could go to school!) and a Kinkos (where I could work since I’m a copymaking queen!). I would also become closer to my relatives who live in Toronto. Even though they had Avril Lavigne on rotation everywhere I went, I would still love to live there. I’m glad I got to experience something different, and I hope to come back there again.

If anyone tried to ruin your birthday, I would ruin their life 🙂 We’ll celebrate when you come home from Iraq!

I just came home from a SURPRISE show that Jason Mraz had in San Diego. It was effin AWESOME! Thanks, JAY, for taking me 🙂 Jason lives in San Diego now (Ocean Beach), and he was like, “Where’s the afterparty? We should have a bonfire at the beach!” HELL YEAH. Too bad that didn’t really happen. My sister, Jay, our new friends (Erin, Angela, Claire, Deanna and Alejandra) and I were right in FRONT of the stage. It was at the Belly Up in Solana Beach, so it was 21 and up and really intimate. Tristan Prettyman opened up for him and she was so awesome. She lives down the street from the Belly Up! Bushwalla also opened and that guy is F*CKING CRAZY. Haha. His band was cool, too. Jason Mraz’s music is so inspiring. He has like a million songs, but only one official CD. The songs on his CD don’t do him any justice. He’s SO talented. He’s also really charming. For “The Remedy,” he did this karaoke thing where three fans got to sing the song on stage and our new friend, CLAIRE, was chosen! This girl flew twenty seven hours from Australia to be here! That’s so hardcore. Our other friend, Deanna, drove here from Vegas! Jason is really worth seeing live, so make sure you see him when he comes to your town 🙂

Oh, man. Where to begin? Huge mess with my server (die, PINCHPENNY.ORG, die!). I don’t know when my sites will be up again, but I’ll continue to blog so there’s not TOO big of a gap between posts (like there isn’t one already). The end of August is fast approaching and I am STILL in San Diego. I finished my painting and design classes a couple of weeks ago, so the days are starting to blend together again. I only know that today is Thursday, because I have the ever dreaded DENTIST appointment tomorrow. BOO. Novocaine shots make me nervous… Anyway, fall semester starts back up next week, so my summer “vacation” lasted all of two weeks. It’s okay. My summer intercession teachers were effin AWESOME (Paul Berger and Brian Dick). Southwestern has the best art teachers I’ve ever taken. Some of you are probably thinking… YOU WENT TO SOUTHWESTERN? I know, right? I used to mock that school. INCESSANTLY. I didn’t want to go to that school for the same reason I avoid going to D&Bs on Thursdays… Olé Madrid on Fridays… or E Street on Saturdays. You see the same damn Filipinos at all of these places. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. If you like seeing the same people everywhere you go. SWC was definitely NOT what I expected. I had like TWO Filipinos in my classes. And I didn’t know them. And my art classes were the f*cking shit! I really wanted to take Paul’s other classes this fall, but I’ll have to wait until next semester to fit them into my schedule. My boyfriend and I are going through Paul withdrawal. Haha… So I’m STAYING in San Diego. My plans to move to the OC and the hell out of SD fell through… I just decided to stay last weekend. I simply can’t afford it. That’s the ONLY reason I’m staying in this godforsaken city… I always knew in the back of my head that I wouldn’t be able to afford it, but I thought that things would just fall into place after I moved up there. I get tuition assistance from the government because my dad served in the navy, so I can’t make that much income in order to qualify… and with the tuition rate almost doubling this year in California, it’s worth it to just take the assistance and make only about $500 a month after taxes. My rent would’ve been $500. My mom offered to give me $200 a month to just LIVE, but I couldn’t take it. That’s the whole point of moving out… to prove to my parents that I don’t need them for shit. Haha. Except that handy tuition assistance. So for now I have to suck it up and continue to live at home. BLEH. I also have to find another job, since I left Red Envelope because I thought I was moving. I’m available for rehire there, but I’m seriously DONE with customer service. Nobody calls customer service because they’re happy with their order. They call to blame you for ruining their Christmas and make you cry. Haha. I’m SO not going back to that. Two and a half years was enough for me. I take things too personally to ever get used to a job like that. I was getting paid pretty well over there, but I’ll take the paycut for a job that I enjoy. I kinda want to be a barista. I can’t be making tons of money, anyway. I hope to get web/graphic design jobs on the side that aren’t included in my taxable income 😉

My internet has been down these past few weeks… but looking at my recent blogging pattern, I probably wouldn’t have updated anyway 😉 Last weekend, I went up to the OC for my sister’s graduation (CONGRATS again, sisterfriend!). Chel, Shi, Alvin, Jed, Jay, Edgar, Shell, and Joey came up to Irvine to celebrate with us. After the ceremony, we ate at this Chinese buffet in Fullerton (cleverly titled the China Buffet) and it was YUM. We helped Pammie move out of her house aftewards, and my dad almost took her eye out when he accidentally hit her in the face with the corner of her desk. LOL LOL LOL. It wasn’t funny at the moment, but it’s funny now 😀 The drive home from Irvine was the longest. drive. EVER. I was sleeping while Edgar drove, Shell was sleeping while Joey drove, Jay was sleeping while Jed drove and my sister drove by herself so she couldn’t sleep haha. Edgar came over later that night and we just relaxed and watched movies. On Sunday, I went to the Salinas fiesta at Southwestern and ate dinner at Edgar’s with Shell and Joey. I can’t for the life of me remember what I did on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Oh wait, no, I remember what I did on Wednesday! We saw a guy riding a motorcycle get hit near Southwestern by a truck who ran a red light. I was about ready to puke. I get really nervous around accidents. We were at the stoplight and then Edgar started yelling, “OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!” and we were like, “What?!? Did you forget something?” And then he was like, “Pull over! Pull over!” So I look over to my left and see that motorcyclist trying to walk to the side of the street and he just collapses on the ground. Edgar saw him get hit and then flip in the air and land on a ground. Edgar and Jay and ten or so other people got out of their cars and helped the guy. It was CRAZY. Afterwards, we went to Yokozuna’s to eat some sushi (sorry, Skokie!). On Thursday, my sister and I went to Edgar’s house to clean our filthy cars and then went out to dinner… On Friday, I had work. BLEH. Skokie and I went to lunch at Toro motherf*cking Sushi. I took a nap at home, then had a blockbuster night at Gerald’s with Meech, Sheen and Edgar. Eurotrip is effin HILARIOUS. Saturday was my sister’s grad party at my house. It was pretty kick back. Edgar’s “ex” was there, because she dates my cousin now (what are the odds?). I remember my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend (that he had right before me) telling my friend five years ago that he was dating me because I looked like that girl (who’s now dating my cousin). It always bugged me that she said that even though I don’t look anything like that girl now (I don’t even think I looked too much like her five years ago sans the long hair). She’s just BEAUTIFUL. Bleh. Edgar said that she invited us to her son’s birthday party. I asked when it was and he said that she told him she would friendster him the details. Friendster. We are definitely two different girls.

I’m Angela f*cking Chase. So maybe I don’t necessarily have crimson glow hair. Or an abnormally large percentage of flannel in my wardrobe. Or a neighbor with freakishly big hair that rises like the unleavened bread of his ancestors. So maybe we just have one thing in common: Angela’s relationship with her mother eerily parallels my relationship with my father. I cannot bring myself to eat a well-balanced meal in front of my mother. It just means too much to her. I could’ve said that! Lately I can’t even look at my mother without wanting to stab her. Repeatedly. I could’ve said that, too! Except replace the mothers with fathers, and I would’ve never said the latter (out loud). Why do I have such a horrible relationship with my dad? When did it get like this? My dad doesn’t approve of my passion, my art. My sister is graduating from a university this weekend with a Bachelors in ACCOUNTING. She has already been hired as an auditor for Ernst & Young, one of the big four accounting firms in AMERICA. My father adores her. He is SO proud of her… and then there’s me. The struggling artist. The daughter who always manages to f*ck up. My dad EXPECTS me to fail. I know it by the way he talks to me… by the evil stink-eye he gives me whenever I’m home (and he wonders why I’m never home!). I don’t know why he is so f*cking bitter. I go to school. I work. I don’t party. I don’t smoke. I didn’t have any teenage pregnancies. I’m a f*cking saint compared to a lot of people in and around my family. Now I have to tell him that I need another class to get my transfer studies degree. To a normal dad, that wouldn’t be a huge deal. I take one class in the summer and I get my dinky junior college diploma… but to my dad this means that once again, I have FAILED HIM. I cannot graduate (and I use the term loosely here since technically, even though I have acquired enough credits to “graduate” from a junior college, I will still be taking classes at a junior college for the next year because I’m not transferring to a university yet since I’m denying San Diego State’s acceptance letter—because I want to move to the OC and away from SD—and Cal Poly Pomona never graced me with one). I can get my diploma at the end of summer, but I can’t walk till next Spring because they only hold one ceremony a year. A third of the people don’t even attend the ceremony for getting their transfer studies degree. I don’t consider it a milestone in my life, and I know my dad will blow this out of proportion when I tell him tomorrow. I won’t even be able to say anything in my defense. He takes whatever I say with a grain of salt. He will find a way to lecture me… to tie this in to something completely separate from school and some how bring up the fact that I don’t floss enough or I don’t make my bed every morning or I should sleep earlier. I try to spend as little time as possible alone with my dad in order to avoid these ridiculous lectures (not to mention his aforementioned stink-eye). In the end, he just ends up making me feel like shit. My sister says that she’s proud of me and that I deserve so much more credit than my dad gives me. She tells me to just brush his shit off my shoulders, but I can’t. I’m too sensitive. It makes me angry and sad at the same time… He is one of the main reasons I decided to leave San Diego… And with that, I leave you all with a quote from J. Pierpont Morgan: The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are. I’ve decided. Now if you call me repeatedly tomorrow and I don’t pick up my phone, please come to my house to make sure that my dad didn’t kill me for not being able to walk next week. I’m only half kidding.

The Ticketmaster whore bought HOOB tix for all you b*tches 🙂 Right now the people that are for sure going are me, Pammie, Sheenie, Edgar, Brad, and Meech… I have Chelface and Alvin as maybe’s, so that leaves two extra tickets… The show is Friday, June 11, at Soma and it’s gonna ROCK so let me know if you want to have a time with us (I’m channeling Rayanne Graff). This weekend was pretty cool. Friday, I went to work and spent my night alone at home watching My So-Called Life DVDs while Edgar and the boys got piss drunk at some bar. I totally forgot about Rhea’s party! Sheesh. I wrote it on a post-it note to remind me, but I lost the post-it note and ended up forgetting about it… My mom always tells me that I’d lose my vagina if it wasn’t attached to my body… Yesterday, I saw friends I haven’t seen in over a month (Sheenie, Jay and Meech). It felt good to be around them again… especially Sheenie! She lost twenty f*cking pounds! I felt like a goddamn HEFFER next to her. Haha… then I got over it and devoured some Mexican food from Taco Fiesta. I’m swearing off eating at taco shops after midnight… We ended up watching Shrek 2 (hilarious!) and chillin at Brad’s for a bit before going home. Edgar, Brad and Sheenie went up to Long Beach afterwards, because Edgar’s dad had to go to the hospital… Hopefully everything is okay… When I got home, my crazy aunts from LA were sleeping over. My mom is pretty crazy, too, and my dad’s sister was like… “You’re mom is crazy! I’m glad you and your sister got her personality. Or else I’d have to kick you.” Because my dad is very… serious. Not at all like me or my mom. My sister inherited some of his traits (and for that I call her Ben Junior… or BJ for short. LOL). My mom and I are very alike. I’m easily distracted and Jay always makes fun of me for it… Mayan’s probably late because she saw some butterflies and followed them. He went shopping with my sister and my mom, and my mom was talking to him and out of nowhere she said “BOBA!” and started walking towards the Boba Bliss kiosk. He was like OMG that’s where Mayan gets it from! Ha. I love my mom.

I’m at work right now. I’ve only been here for forty minutes and I’m ready to GO HOME! It’s slow… and boring. It’s BRANDON! I only had four hours of sleep last night. My insomniac ass seriously needs to take some sleeping pills or something. So what’s up with YOU? I’ve been doing the same old… I haven’t seen so many of you in a long time. Sheenie. Jay. Jed. Meech. GERALD. I’m the WORST person when it comes to returning phone calls. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to your ass. Haha. If I’m vegging at home and having an I’m-gonna-veg-at-home kinda day, I usually won’t pick up the phone because people are usually calling to go out and I’m planning on staying in. If I miss your call (which is very likely considering my faulty hearing and the fact that Verizon sucks butt hair) I usually won’t call you back unless I’m doing something that day, thus giving me a reason to call so I can include you in my plans. I don’t want to call you and be like uhhh… ehhhh… gaaaah… awkward silence… because I have nothing to say sometimes… and all that can be avoided if I just don’t call at all 🙂 Anyway, I haven’t done anything life-altering or post-worthy these past few weeks. I went to my cousin’s baby’s christening… I went to Brad’s… I went to Jose’s… I went to Joey’s… I watched Goonies for the first time… I dyed Shell’s hair… and I think that was my week. Yesterday, I ate at Soup Plantation with Edgar, the twins and Skokie. It was just gonna be me and Skokie because we were starvin marvin after work, but I called Edgar up and he was like, “Is it cool if me and the twins eat with you guys?” and I was like, “Of course… Why wouldn’t it be? This isn’t a DATE, you FREAK!” Haha. If it was a date, then he’d better be taking me to Beni f*cking Hana’s 😉 Soup Plantation does have the blueberries-from-the-coast-of-Maine thing going for them, though… I don’t know what I’m doing this weekend. Edgar might go riding at Gordon’s Well, my parents are going up to Chino, my sister is staying in the OC to study for her finals… and I have work. Maybe I’ll stay home and enjoy the silence… You can stop by if you want, but you’re gonna have to do the truffle shuffle to get in.

So today ended on a sour note. WTF? Who knows what happened? I sure don’t. Anyway, I went to a Padres game tonight. It was my first time at Petco Park. I haven’t been to a baseball game since the fifth grade or something. Padres beat Cincinnati. Someone cue the dinky fireworks. After the game, Edgar, Brad, Chris, Arlene, Zell, Skokie (thanks for hanging out with us!) and Edgar’s cousin’s husband’s relative and her friend went to Hooters downtown. Then we went home. Wow. Today seemed so much longer than a six-line paragraph. Oh, well, I could tell you that I went to the pet store at Grossmont and ooh’d and ahh’d over the St. Bernard puppies they had, but I won’t. Okay, I just did. OH, and I could tell you that I have all the recipes for every single Jamba Juice smoothie out there. DBJ! More tomorrow!

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SANDY!

I lost count of how many times I said that today. I went to the OC with Edgar to chill with Pammie. I ♥ the OC! Specifically Irvine. I’m so, so, so excited to be moving up there this summer. The vibe was faboo and the malls were cool and the traffic was hell, but I didn’t care because I ♥ this place! Being up there made me realize how much I won’t miss San Diego (haha!)… and how much I miss being around my big sister (even though she comes down practically every weekend!)… and that there IS a world outside SD. Edgar and I got there mid-afternoon and we all went to Southcoast so Edgar could buy his bougie-mcboug Lacoste shirt. He has like a million of those shirts in a million different colors… “but not in black, Mayan.” And now he has to get some all black Dunks to match. Even though he has a million pairs of black shoes. Ahh, he’s my boyfriend. I’m allowed to mock him. At least I convinced him to buy a medium shirt so he wouldn’t be swimming in his clothes 🙂 Southcoast is massive. I don’t even think we walked through the entire mall. I just remember seeing tons of random girls with huge flowers in their hair. Uhhh, sorry, JASMINE TRIAS. I didn’t know I was in Hawaii. That must be an OC thing, because I don’t ever see girls in SD putting foliage in their hair. Anyway, we went to Irvine Spectrum after that and I ♥ that place! The stores… the people… the restaurants… everything. I finally sat in the LOVE SAC that I remember Shi raving about many moons ago. It was heaven in an oversized bag. [Quick shout out to BYRON, the manager at Love Sac (like he’ll ever read this, but you should visit him! Haha)… when he found out we were Filipino, he delivered a complete monologue in TAGALOG. I was trippin. This TOTAL white guy was speaking it more fluently and with better enunciation than I could. He said that his girlfriend was Filipino and her mother wouldn’t let him eat in their house unless he could speak Tagalog so he learned it because her cooking was so good and he taught himself how to speak it by reading an English/Tagalog translation book and he has since broken up with his girlfriend because she moved to New York, but he still loves the language and would like to visit the Philippines soon… and he said this ALL in Tagalog. I’m STILL trippin! Isn’t that amazing that he learned his girlfriend’s native language to please her mother?] I’m seriously considering saving up for one for when I move up there. It’s almost $500! But well worth it! If I get one, I know I will go home from class and find Shi sleeping in it. Haha. She’s moving in with me and my sister! It’s gonna be effin awesome living with the girls. I wish Chelface and Roxy could move in with us, also. We would fill the house with laughter and watermelon pictures. Haha. We went to Urban Outfitters and Pammie bought me the CUTEST shoes (thanks, seester!). Edgar bought another shirt with a Buddha on it and it says, “For good luck, rub my tummy” Edgar doesn’t have a tummy. DBJ, homie. He has multiple tapeworms. I love that you don’t have to go downtown to shop at Urban in the OC like you have to in SD. It’s just so much more convenient there. Afterwards, we were hungry, so we ate at Shi’s old work, The Yardhouse. The atmosphere was so nice and I’ve never seen so much beer on tap in my life. We have a Yardhouse in SD, but I’ve never eaten there before. The waitress was hella cool. Sh*t, even the lady in the bathroom handing out the towels was cool. And you know what else was cool? My sister treating us out to dinner! MAN. I ♥ this place! Sorry we didn’t make it to your Friends finale extravaganza, Shi! Haha. Edgar and I needed to head back home to SD by the time we were done eating. This girl was all… “No one will want to answer the door if you come after eight o’clock, so come in through the back gate which we’ll leave open! Don’t ring the doorbell after eight… I’m telling you no one will answer it!” LOL. You crack me up, Shi. I have the Gilmore Girls DVD set… the My So-Called Life DVD set… You have the Sex & the City DVD sets and probably the entire Friends DVD set… We are television DVD set whores!

OMG. It was 100 motherf*ckin degrees out today! It feels like SUMMER already. I hate unbearably butt-hot weather. It just encompasses a crapload of things that I disfavor in life (like sunburns and wearing shorts). Don’t mind me. I’m just bitter because beach season is fast approaching and I’m not ready. Haha. Oh, I am FAR from ready. Perhaps I’ll be ready for summer 2005. Or 2010. Anyway, the construction workers are almost done tiling the first floor of our house. Thank goodness I didn’t have to help chisel tile or whatever it is you have to do to tile the floor. I shouldn’t be trusted with a power tool. Or just any tool in general. I wouldn’t even trust myself with a spork. Now I’m just rambling… I finally have high speed internet! My mom used to go crazy downloading all these songs on Kazaa when we had dial-up, but now she’s certifiably insane. I went on the computer the other day and she straight downloaded The Passion of The Christ! It was like… a MILLION kilobytes. She’s the bootleg quee-een! Who taught her how to use this thing? Haha.

Today, Edgar and I were talking about how I’m not very social. I have a small group of close friends and I’m fine with that. Edgar has like a ja-billion friends and he sees someone he knows every time we’re out (starts to get annoying, huh, Chel! Haha). It’s not the amount of friends (or friendsters) you have… It’s the quality of friends. When I move up to the OC, I’ll hopefully meet quality friends with similar interests. I have like ONE friend in SD who shares my passion for graphic design (sup, SKOKIE!). Other people just don’t get it. They don’t understand that sometimes I just want to embrace my inner nerd and stay home and work on my design projects instead of hanging out and doing nothing… My designs are self-fulfilling. Sometimes I feel like I’m just going clubbing because I feel like I’m supposed to do that kind of thing because I’m in the 18-24 age group. I have fun, but sometimes you just can’t fight your inner nerd. Resistance is futile.

Holy guacamole. I haven’t posted in FOREVER. I think this is the longest I’ve gone without updating my website… I’ve been so busy with other graphic design projects lately. It’s almost been a MONTH since I last updated. Hmmm… What’s happened since then? Gerald left for Baghdad… We’re all pretty sad about it, but he seems to be doing okay so far 🙂 Edgar and I celebrated our FIVE YEAR anniversary! He gave me a beautifully written, hand-made card, a bottle of COKE (I gave it up for Lent and was going crazy without it) and CHURROS because HELLO. It’s CHURROS… I ♥ CHURROS! Because of his financial situation, I wasn’t expecting anything at all, so this was a pleasant surprise… School and work have been very routine… I never know what day it is… The days just sort of blend together. Anyway, I’m at work and I’m almost off, so I will update this some more in a day or two or TEN 🙂 I’m gonna go eat pho with Edgar, Shell, Joey and the twins I think after work.

I’m officially on SPRING BREAK. Yippee. No one else is on spring break, though. Haha. Except Meehchelle. And she’s only on spring break because she teaches kindergarten and her kids are on break. Meehchelle’s gonna be such a good mom! She has eternal patience with those little buggers 🙂 Anyway, I’m in better spirits because the tension has died down in the house… My parents are renovating. We’re gonna have wood stairs and tiles on the bottom floor instead of our smooshed blue carpet (just in time for those hot summer days). We’re even gonna get HIGH SPEED INTERNET. Why did my parents decide to get all this supercool stuff now? Shooooot. What’s next? A jacuzzi? A Mercedes (yeah, right! THAT’LL be the day)? I’m happy for them. They never spend their money on great things like this. It’s about time they started enjoying the fruits of their labor… It’s too bad that I won’t be here in SD to enjoy it, too! Oh, well… I’ll just enjoy the fruits of my sister’s labor in the OC 😉 Well, this is Gerald’s last week in the US of A before he leaves for the dreaded BAGHDAD. I’m so worried because I keep hearing about soldiers being killed over there… *SIGH* This past week, we’ve been spending a lot of time with Gerald. On Friday, we had a get-together for him at Meehchelle’s house again. He wasn’t as drunk as he was the last time so there was no fridge-freakage! HOWEVER, Edgar stripped to his boxers and ran around outside around three in the morning! Vodka makes you do crazy things. Especially when you’re a one-hitter quitter like Edgar. I don’t know how much you all want to see my drunk boyfriend in boxers, but I will be posting pictures up shortly 😉 Last night, I actually stayed HOME. Shocker, huh. I had relatives over and didn’t feel like going out. I hope you all had fun at Kevin’s party (happy 21st, homie! Stay away from the photo machines at D&B’s!). After work, I think I’m gonna catch a movie with Edgar… or go home and work on my GG site… or Len’s cartoon illustration… I seriously need a break from the computer… I’m on it at work, at school, at home… My wrists have been hurting a lot lately. I need to buy new ones.

It’s about damn time I updated, huh?! I’ve been busy working on other projects… my Gilmore Girls website (I’m a total NERD) and Jay’s site… plus I’ve been going to school, working, and staying out late with the homies. Ha, ha. I hope you know that when I say “homies” I do it for MOCKING purposes only 😉 I always say, “I’m gonna stay home today…” and then something happens like Edgar asks me to go to the airport to see his relatives off, or Jay asks me to help him with his web assignment, or Sheenie is bored as f*ck in Carlsbad and she offers to give me gas money if I go up and see her HAHA. Things just never go as planned… Anyway, over the weekend I went to PB Bar&Grill with Ed, Gerald, Sheenie, Meehchelle, Jed, Jay, Beejaye and his homies. We were in line to get in for over an effin hour! I forgot that most colleges were on spring break… Speaking of college (like my nice transition there?), I got home the other night and found a big envelope sitting on my bed with the SDSU logo on it. I felt like Rory f*cking Gilmore except her acceptance letters were from ivy leagues and mine was from San Diego State. Haha. I felt an overwhelming sense of pride. I know it’s just SDSU, but I missed out on the whole college application process in high school… but I don’t plan on going to SDSU. I’m waiting for a big envelope from Cal Poly Pomona so I can move up to the OC with Pammie. If I get one of those little envelopes I’m going to pee in my panties. What I REALLY want is to go to an art school in San Francisco where I can hone my craft. I’m sure I could… if I wanted to be homeless and broke. I’m too high maintenance for that 😉 Anyway, my home life has been unsatisfying to say the least. I hate being put in the middle. I hate feeling awkward in my own home. I hope it’ll pass… It always does. It’s just harder because my sister doesn’t live there anymore so I just keep to myself when problems arise. It’ll pass. Maybe it’ll happen if I keep telling myself that.

Last night was CRAZY. I haven’t had that much fun in such a long time. After I had a suprisingly SUPER day at work, Gerald, Sheenie, Edgar and I ate at Hodads in Ocean Beach. Afterwards, we went to Meehchelle’s house and met up with her and Eden. EVERYONE (including Edgar the one-hitter-quitter) got drunk as F*CK. I was the only one who was sober. SOMEONE had to make sure that everyone stayed safe! I didn’t mind not drinking. I’m on medication since I’m sick anyway. I think I read somewhere that you aren’t supposed to mix medicine and alcohol 🙂 I haven’t seen Edgar that drunk since Vegas when he was praying at the altar of the porcelain god in our hotel room. Gerald was OUT OF CONTROL! Haha. I’ve NEVER seen him that drunk before… I’m really going to miss him when he leaves for the middle east next month! 🙁 Gerald said that since I’m the only sober person at the house, I’m gonna have to remember everything that happened last night and write an essay (complete with concrete details and commentary) on my website about it so they can know what happened, too. Haha. Ready for the recap? We got to Meehchelle’s house around eleven at night. She and Eden were on a mission to get f*cked up, so Meehchelle pulled out a shitload of alcohol from her freezer… Eden, Meehchelle and Gerald started taking shots of Gray Goose, and Edgar and I left to get cranberry juice and Rock Star so they could have some mixed drinks. When we came back, ALL of them were buzzin and N.E.R.D. was blasting in the background. Edgar started drinking with them, while I read all of Meehchelle’s Rolling Stone magazines. I was reading the greatest article ever written about The Strokes when Eden interrupts me in a drunken stupor. This girl is 4’7″ and she drinks like a fish! She also works at a juvenile holding facility, so I wouldn’t let her size fool me! Haha. She was the first to pass out. Edgar turned lobster-red and started giggling to himself and wearing a basket on his head… I walked around the house and Gerald was on the floor spinning around and around and Sheenie was dancing with herself in the corner. Meehchelle started passing out with her head over the kitchen sink. Throughout the night, Gerald was dancing with everything from himself to Sheen to the fridge. He was bustin moves I’ve never seen before! Haha. He kept putting his arm around me telling me what a good friend I was. Everyone kept falling on the ground and bumping into walls and spilling drinks. FUN TIMES for everyone including SOBER ME!

LOL LOL LOL.

Anyway, yesterday was my Auntie Leslie’s 40-day death anniversary. This year is flying by so quickly… Before the prayer, I went to L&Ls for some YUMMY Hawaiian BBQ with Edgar, Jay, Jose and Sandy. We stopped by The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf afterwards so Jay could prove to Edgar that the White Chocolate Dream Latte surpasses the White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks. Coffee isn’t really my thing. I’d rather have hot chocolate! We headed up to Chel’s house and got there when the rosary was ending. We stayed for a few hours and played Hold ‘Em with Ryan and Alvin. OMG I accidentally stepped on Jay’s poker chip holder thingy and kinda broke it. I think he would have killed me if we weren’t at a prayer with God watching. Haha… Chel is SICK! I hope you feel better…

I had a pretty good time last night. It must have been something in the fluffy chocolate chip cookies we ate. We were all acting a little loopy… Edgar offerred Jay milk from his suso, and I wouldn’t doubt it if Gerald threw back one or two or EIGHT brewskies before meeting up with us (maybe you should go outside! haha). What happened to the quiet, reserved Gerald I used to know? You must’ve left him in Riverside! We have to throw you a big, fat party before you leave for Bahrain… By the time you come back, I’ll probably be going to school in the OC… Michelle will be married and living in Seattle… and Edgar will be in the navy… somewhere… but I don’t know… A lot of things can happen in six months. Hopefully GOOD things. Anyway, I’m gonna head home soon and tackle my history and art homework. BOOOOO. Sorry I can’t come out and play, Sheenie! Hope you’re having fun at Inday’s baby shower…

During our random trip to Costco today, Jay asked me, “What does Freak Me ’98 mean?” OH HELL NO. Freak Me ’98. I haven’t heard that in six years. Apparently, I wrote that in Mike Le’s yearbook in high school, and Beejaye and Mike came across it recently. Has it really been six years? It took me a while to remember why the hell I would write that in Mike’s yearbook… then I flashbacked to a time when I wasn’t afraid to show some skin… when my hair was dyed light brown… when “the tighter, the shorter, the better” was my clothing standard… when I was known as GUMMYI3EAR. I went to the Sweethearts dance with Jay that year, and it was my first dance with a boy. Haha. I was wearing this short ass, cleavage-baring dress. When Mike saw me that night he was like, “Damn! I thought this was the Sweethearts dance, not Freak Me ’98!” LOL. I’m such a different person now. I can’t believe I used to dress like that… I guess we all have our phases. I’d post a picture of me from my hoochie days, but I think admitting it is embarassing enough. No need to throw in any crazy visuals! Haha… DBJ. I wouldn’t want certain old pictures of me circulating the internet.

I’m SO sick (thanks, Sheenie! BLEH). I’m supposed to go snowboarding tomorrow. I always get sick right before I’m about to do something fun… How was everyone’s Valentine’s weekend? On Friday, I went to Edgar’s house for his dad’s birthday party. Everyone played Hold ‘Em for actual money this time. My broke ass just sat there blowing my nose the whole night. Fun times… Yesterday, I slept all afternoon since my meds made me hella drowsy… When I finally got up, I went down to Rosarito to have dinner with Edgar, Gerald, Scott, Chris, Arlene and her relatives. Dinner was expensive as f*ck, but it was a night of firsts… It was my first time going to MEXICO (even though I’ve lived in SD all my life) and my first time riding in a limo (Arlene’s brother owns a limo service, so we took two limos down there instead of taking all our cars). Edgar baked me cookies that spelled out “I ♥ U,” which is a pretty BIG deal considering Edgar doesn’t even know how to cook cup o’noodles. It was a sweet surprise 🙂 He really did TRY to make it a nice day for me, but I was sooo miserable from being sick. I hate being sick. You just can’t have fun when you’re sick… Right now I’m at Edgar’s house waiting for my sister, Jay and Jed to come over and bring me a Jamba Juice Coldbuster to bust my cold. We’re all gonna go to Mark’s housewarming later on tonight… This past week has been so shitty for me. It started off with the whole transferring debacle and ended with me being sick. Edgar has been taking care of me, though… and I’m just not gonna stress about school anymore. I think I have my mind set on transferring to Cal Poly Pomona instead of SDSU now… It’ll do me some good to get out of San Diego. I know that if I go to SDSU, it’ll take me YEARS to finish college since every f*cking major is impacted there… plus I’ll be less distracted in the OC than I am here in SD… I’ll be able to focus more on school and less on everything else. I have like ONE friend who actually goes to school down here, so I’m easily inclined to skip class or studying time to hang out with my friends who don’t go to school… And everyone’s growing up… doing their own thing. Gerald’s going to be deployed for several months… Michelle might be getting MARRIED and moving to Washington… Edgar might be leaving for the navy. I just don’t think I can better myself if I stay here.

This morning I woke up at 5:45 a.m. and checked my cell phone… I started to panic when I saw that I had 20 missed calls from Edgar… then I panicked even more when I realized WHY I had 20 missed calls from Edgar! I was supposed to take him to the airport at 5:00 because his flight was at 6:30 ! I ran downstairs in my pajamas and was about to get into my car when I stopped to call him first to see what was going on… He was like… “Hi, babe” in an I-don’t-know-if-he’s-mad-or-sad kinda tone… He was already on his way to the airport. He had to wake up his MOM and ask her to drive him there because my ass was sleeping. If she didn’t hate me before, she probably hates me now haha… I felt SO horrible… I knew I shouldn’t have volunteered to drive his ass! I can’t even wake up in time for my 9 o’clock class… Sheenie and my sister were right when they told me there was no way I could get up that early. Ha, ha. I’m so sorry, Edgar (and Auntie)! I couldn’t sleep after that, so I just took a shower and I felt so terrible… but when I got out of the shower, he had left me a voice message saying that he wasn’t mad at me for not coming through… he just wanted to see me before he left… AWW. How sweet… The rest of my day was filled with school and homework… I think I have enough homework to last me until Edgar comes back at the end of next week… Sh*t, I think I have enough homework to last me until I’m fifty years old. I think I’m gonna be doing a lot of staying home these next few weeks… I have a shitload of homework to do… my only day off from work is tomorrow, but I have school and I’m going to my classmate’s house afterwards so we could work on our project… I hate hate hate group projects… plus it’s for HISTORY and I haaaaaate history. BOO. Alright, I better get crackin’ on the American Revolution… Fun times.

This morning I woke up at 5:45 a.m. and checked my cell phone… I started to panic when I saw that I had 20 missed calls from Edgar… then I panicked even more when I realized WHY I had 20 missed calls from Edgar! I was supposed to take him to the airport at 5:00 because his flight was at 6:30 ! I ran downstairs in my pajamas and was about to get into my car when I stopped to call him first to see what was going on… He was like… “Hi, babe” in an I-don’t-know-if-he’s-mad-or-sad kinda tone… He was already on his way to the airport. He had to wake up his MOM and ask her to drive him there because my ass was sleeping. If she didn’t hate me before, she probably hates me now haha… I felt SO horrible… I knew I shouldn’t have volunteered to drive his ass! I can’t even wake up in time for my 9 o’clock class… Sheenie and my sister were right when they told me there was no way I could get up that early. Ha, ha. I’m so sorry, Edgar (and Auntie)! I couldn’t sleep after that, so I just took a shower and I felt so terrible… but when I got out of the shower, he had left me a voice message saying that he wasn’t mad at me for not coming through… he just wanted to see me before he left… AWW. How sweet… The rest of my day was filled with school and homework… I think I have enough homework to last me until Edgar comes back at the end of next week… Sh*t, I think I have enough homework to last me until I’m fifty years old. I think I’m gonna be doing a lot of staying home these next few weeks… I have a shitload of homework to do… my only day off from work is tomorrow, but I have school and I’m going to my classmate’s house afterwards so we could work on our project… I hate hate hate group projects… plus it’s for HISTORY and I haaaaaate history. BOO. Alright, I better get crackin’ on the American Revolution… Fun times.

It feels weird to be home right now… I’ve been going to Chel’s house every night since her mom died. On the last day of prayer, I was sitting there looking at my aunt’s pictures on the fireplace mantle. I still haven’t fully grasped the fact that I won’t be seeing her again. She won’t be at the family parties tsismising with all my aunties… She won’t be there jokingly asking me if she could have some of my boobs (since she had to remove hers because of the cancer)… She won’t be there to ask me if Gerald is my new boyfriend again (since Edgar never used to go to my family parties before). My entire family has been spending so much time together going to nightly prayers at Chel’s house… even Edgar has gotten to know my aunties and cousins better (see, I wasn’t making him up! haha)… We’re all starting to go back to our regular lives (trying to, at least). I have a feeling we’ll be spending a lot more time together because of this tragedy. Our family gatherings won’t be limited to lola’s birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas any more… Chel said it best at my aunt’s funeral: “Tell your loved ones everything you want to tell them. Take them everywhere they want to go.” Tomorrow isn’t promised, so you should live every day as if it were your last. Chel also said something in her eulogy that I’m sure everyone else was thinking… “If I could’ve asked my mom anything before she died, I would’ve asked her how she made that pancit palabok.” We miss you and your palabok, Auntie…

I was the manager on duty for a while today at work. Skokie called me on the manager extension and was all, “Who the f*ck made you manager???” LOL. I was shocked myself… There’s this guy in the call center that always gives me the old stink eye. Last week, I got MODED by him for talking to Edgar on the phone while I was working… It’s been bothering me this whole week that this guy moded my ass, and today I saw an E-mail he wrote to another co-worker about it which made me even more mad… I know I’m not the only person who makes personal calls, and it bothers me that he gives me shit all the time. HATER NATION. Skokie says that I shouldn’t let him get to me, because we all have someone in the call center who decides they don’t like us and makes our work environment miserable, and I guess he’s just my personal misery-inducer. Skokie has his own misery-inducer, and she LOVES me. Haha. So I guess someone else had to hate me to balance it out. DBJ, homie… DBJ.

Yesterday, my mom came into my room at 6:30 in the morning and started to cry. My uncle had just called to let us know that my aunt had just passed away. She had lost her battle against breast cancer. The news came as a shock to my whole family… Other than being in a wheelchair, she seemed fine during Christmas (the last time I saw her alive). My parents were just with her last weekend… This all seems very surreal to me. It hasn’t really hit me yet that she’s gone… Our entire family went to their house yesterday to pay our respects before she was taken to the morgue. It seemed so unreal seeing her lying in bed… Everything happened so fast. It wasn’t even a year ago that she was hiking in Hawaii with my family… My mom went in first and was hysterical… My Auntie Leslie had been her cousin and best friend ever since they were kids (like me and my sister with Raechel, my Auntie Leslie’s daughter). I hate seeing my mom so sad. She stayed in bed all day today. It’s upsetting to think about all the things my aunt is going to miss… She’ll never get to see her children get married. She’ll never get to meet her grandkids. She’ll never get to see her youngest daughter graduate from high school. They say that everything happens for a reason, but why did this have to happen to her? My sister, Shi, Roxy, and I ended up sleeping at Raechel’s house last night. It’s been years since we’ve had a sleepover, and it’s sad that this was the reason for it… There were tons of people at Chel’s house yesterday. I hope my aunt was able to see how many people love and miss her. I’m glad that she’s in a place where she can’t hurt anymore.

R.I.P. Leslie Tejidor… July 25, 1959 – January 22, 2004.

Coldplay – The Scientist
[audio:http://www.mayanrocks.com/blog/thescientist.mp3]

Nobody said it was easy
It’s such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
I’m going back to the start

Could this day. Be. Any. Longer? Skokie got off early and Sharon’s in P.I. so I’m stuck at work with no one to talk to but you people. Haha. Last night was FUN TIMES with Chel, Alvin, Sheenie, Jay, Jed and Edgar. Alvin treated us to a night of bowling at Brunswick (thanks, homie!). Chel is an effin GOOD ass bowler (she swears she hasn’t bowled in over a year! hehe), Alvin bowls like a gazelle (he’s freakishly tall for a Filipino boy), and Team Edgar/Jed/Jay killed us… Last night, I had a brush with DEATH! I was driving too fast on a turn on my way to Brunswick, and I spun out and did a 360 on the road. I swear I felt like I was going in slow motion. One of my greatest fears is dying a terrible death in a car accident… Luckily there were no cars around when it happened. How the f*ck did I get my driver’s license?! I’m such a horrible driver. I get distracted really easily and sometimes I forget that I’m driving. If you value your life, stay away from my ass when I’m on the road… I’m the white Toyota Camry who keeps swerving.

I went to work this morning because I was going to cover some girl’s shift… and when I got there she was like… I don’t need you to cover my shift for another couple of hours… !!! What the… I woke up early for this shit, lady. That’s alright. I just stayed at work for a while and took advantage of their high speed internet. I ended up not having to cover the end of her shift since it was slow as molasses, so I wasted a perfectly good Friday morning at work. Edgar (the co-worker… I’ll just call him “Skokie” when I mention him, so I don’t have to keep saying “Edgar the boyfriend” and “Edgar the co-worker”) got off work when I was leaving, so we had lunch at Toro motherf*ckin Sushi! 🙂 I ♥ sushi. But not the real kind. The California kind. Ha. Now I’m just waiting for the candle man to get off of work so we can help Sheenie move her shit out of Jamul and into storage. We have to LIFT things. BOO. Haha. I’m so lazy. Sheenie just called wondering where I was, and she said that Jay said that I probably fell asleep after a hot shower (I have a tendency to do that… warm things make me sleepy). Jay said that if that’s not what happened, then I probably saw some butterflies and started following them. Heeeeey. 🙁 I get distracted REALLY easily. That’s no reason to make fun of me, FURBY JAY, JAY FURBY. Ha, ha. =X

It’s 1:30 in the morning and I’m officially 22-years-old!!! I’m up doing my english paper that I’ve been procrastinating on the entire weekend. I just got home from watching Something’s Gotta Give with Edgar, Jay and my sister. That movie was awesome. I loved it. Awkwardly enough, we ran into Joyce and Alex who were coincidentally watching the same movie. Joyce still has the freakishly contagious laugh that I remember from high school. Haha. Some things never change.

How GREAT was this weekend? On Friday, I went to go pick up my paycheck and my supervisor was like, “I know you aren’t working right now, but can I see you in my office?” and I was just sitting in his office shitting bricks thinking, “I am SO fired.” Then he comes in and closes the door and says, “We want to hire you as a permanent here.” I’ve been a “seasonal” for two effin years waiting to hear those words. I even got a nice RAISE. What a LOVELY birthday gift 🙂 Later that night, I had tons of fun celebrating my birthday at D&B’s and PB Bar & Grill with Edgar, my sister, Chel, Alvin, Jed, Jay, Sheena, Gerald, Meehchelle, and Joanne. I’m never drinking martinis again, though! Crazy dancing man was bustin his moves at PB as usual. Yesterday, I had a pretty good day at work and my co-worker, Edgar, took me out to lunch for my birthday (thanks again, homie!). After work, I went to the Strip Club Steakhouse to celebrate Meehchelle’s 24th birthday. Afterwards, we went to Ra for some drinks. They make a mean Chambourd Sour over there! Thanks for hooking us up, Marvin! When we were walking back to the car, we ran into Chel and Alvin outside some coffee shop! We decided not to leave yet and had a few more drinks at The Lime where some random guy told Alvin he was cute. Haha. Right now I’m at work and it’s slow as molasses, so I finally have time to update this. I am swamped with school work! Bleh. I’ll do that when I get home tonight. I’m switching to Verizon today, so I’ll let you all know my new cell phone number tomorrow, guys! No more sending you to my voicemail because I don’t have anymore anytime minutes to spare! Haha.

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had an EXCITING New Year’s Eve. Shi, I think yours was the MOST exciting. LOL. Edgar, Jay, Jed, Meehchelle, Rossanne, my sister and I spent our New Year’s Eve at Edgar’s house taking shots of Grey Goose and playing No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em (Jed was Master P… Rossanne was Faboloso?). On New Year’s I slept in and had dinner at Jed’s with Edgar, my sister and Jay. We hit up Sycuan around midnight and Edgar and I lost $50 on slots. That shit is addicting. On Friday, my sister and I were supposed to go out with Shi and Roxy, but it was RAINING and who wants to go to PB Bar & Grill when it’s open patio? I ended up eating dinner with my sister at BJ’s and having a blockbuster night. Yesterday, I had work and originally had plans to go out with Roxy, Chel and Shi again, but ended up spending more quality time with my sister. We need to go out, girls! My birthday’s next Monday, but I think I’m going to be too busy with intercession and work to really celebrate… Plus we’re already celebrating my friend’s birthday this weekend. Maybe we’ll do something on Friday? We’ll see… Anyway, my sister and I finally watched Love Actually. I’ve been waiting for two effin months to watch it, because no one else wanted to watch this epitomized chick flick. It was SO good. OMG. I laughed. I cried. and I cried. and I cried. I got this weird, aching feeling in my body… so watch it if you like weird, aching feelings in your body.

I had such a KICK ASS weekend. I haven’t had a weekend off from work since summer! After getting over the effin stomach flu, I went snowboarding with my sister, Ed, Jay, Jed, Chris, Sheena, Brad, Beejaye, Shell, Banana and Joey at Mountain High. We were supposed to go to Big Bear, but whatever… I ♥ SNOW! So what if it’s MAN-MADE snow? It was still very COOL. I lost count of how many times I fell on my ass, tumbled down the hill and smacked my head on the ice. I’m SO sore right now, but it was worth it. Photos will be up soon… For my birthday in January, I want to rent a cabin in Big Bear for the weekend with my friends and MASTER snowboarding! Haha. Maybe not master, but I at least want to know how to stop without falling on my butt… Later that night, we celebrated my sister’s birthday by having dinner at BJ’s and chilled at Jed’s house afterwards. Yesterday, my sister and I did 99% of our Christmas shopping downtown and met up with Jed and Jay to kick it. I cannot stop laughing when I’m around them. Those are the friends you know will always be around no matter what 🙂 Today, my sister and I went shopping again downtown and at Fashion Valley with Ed, Jed and Jay. Jed bought my sister a new Verizon picture phone for Christmas (damn, BALLER!). I need to switch to Verizon soon, because no one has Sh*tular anymore and my mobile-to-mobile minutes have become obsolete… My sister went back up to Irvine and I just finished wrapping up everyone’s gifts. The only people I haven’t bought gifts for are my sister and Ed… two of the most important ones! I know Ed’s Christmas gift for me won’t be coming until January since money’s always tight this time of year… I just hope he doesn’t combine it with my birthday gift… and my Valentine’s day gift… and our 5-year anniversary gift. OH HELL NO. I’ve heard of 2-for-1 gifts before, but 4-for-1? I will cut him.

Right now I’m at work and it is SO slow. I should be cherishing these slow days though, because once Thanksgiving is over, I’m gonna be BEGGING for them! Last Christmas, we had a full call center and still had 100+ calls holding for people trying to place holiday orders. I don’t need that kind of stress when I have finals coming up… Anyway, this morning Ed and I had breakfast with Shell and Joey at this place called The Potato Shack in Encinitas… about 45 minutes away from our houses! We were supposed to go downtown to pick something up for my dad before that, but my ass woke up late (again!). I ♥ sleeping. I wasn’t fulfilling my navigator duties, because we missed the exit by about 10 miles LOL. We were like… “Uh.. isn’t that the check point? I don’t remember Encinitas being this far…” Haha. We turned around and got off on the right exit but made a wrong turn because of my poor navigation skills again. Who made me navigator anyways??? You know I have no sense of direction. We eventually made it to the Potato Shack where we ate MANHOLE-sized pancakes and french toast. I don’t normally eat breakfast, so this was really magical. We went to Joey’s house afterwards so Ed could pick up some of Joey’s riding gear. Apparantly, he’s letting Ed use his motorcycle because he doesn’t ever ride it. GEEZ. Give me a heart attack!!! THANKS, JOEY. Anyway, we went downtown to pick up the hardware that they DIDN’T end up having, and then went back to Ed’s to take a nap together before going to work. Usually when I’m sleeping, I don’t like people crowding my space, hogging my blanket and using my pillows, but with him I don’t mind. That much. Haha. Then again, it’s much different sleeping next to him than say, sleeping next to my sister with our butts touching. LOL. I like to sleep in my undies, too, so NO spooning with anyone but Ed (and sometimes Sheen! Hahaha). After work, I think I’m gonna watch a movie with the usual crew… Maybe “Gothika” or “TX Chainsaw Massacre.” I’m in the mood for something scary.

I am so BORED. I’m at work and it’s slow as MOLASSES 🙁 Being the procrastinator that I am, I have to go to Ed’s tonight after working all day and do my graphic design project that is due TOMORROW at noon. I still have to buy some supplies before I head over there. GRR. My dad always says that I do things at the last minute. My dad is a wise man. I’ve spent a LOT of time just kicking it with friends… and when I’m not doing that I’m working, so I haven’t really been concentrating on school. I still need to fill out my SDSU app that’s due pretty damn SOON! I just really need to sit down and focus and do what I need to do instead of “gallivanting” around like I don’t have any responsibilities. Gallivanting. I hate that word. Filipino parents embrace it. I don’t think my parents have ever used it, though… but we’re hardly your typical Filipino-American family (my mom graduated from SuHi for goodness sake!). My dad prefers the term “fooling around” (i.e. “You should be sleeping instead of fooling around on the computer at three in the morning.”). Anyway, I don’t think I’m gonna go out this week till the weekend. I have TONS of catching up to do in my web publishing class. I have to work on The SpecialGuest site (sorry I’m LAGGING, boys!). I just need to stay home and stop being frivolous with my mediocre paychecks. I really have to save my money because I only have TWO paychecks left till Christmas! I can’t believe it’s that time of year again. I’m working my ass off and going to school and I’m exhausted and I feel like I have nothing to show for it. BLEH. Maybe I’m just in a sour mood because I’m PMS-ing. GROSS. Haha… Chris, Arlene and Zell are leaving soon! I wish they could stick around so we could be there when Arlene gives birth to their baby girl. We went to her baby shower last night and her sister, Selene, was cracking me up. She’s CRAZY! The last time Arlene had a baby shower, my sister won all the damn baby game prizes! I didn’t win anything again this time around. We stayed there till two in the morning belting out karaoke favorites like Boy George’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” and Bill Withers’ “Lean On Me.” Good times, good times. Brad is the karaoke KING! We should all go to a bar and have a drunken karaoke performance 😉 *SIGH* I’m missing my cousin’s baby shower today. I’m missing gossip with Chel and my seester. I’m missing the baby games. I’m missing SHRIMP LUMPIA (devil!). Someone out there must really hate me.

I’m officially SAD. I’m at work and all my friends sit far, far away… and to rub more salt into the wound, they all sit NEXT TO each other! It’s 6th grade camp all over again! There were two cabins, so I had a 50/50 chance of being in the same cabin as my buddies, but of course I was assigned to BUCKWHEAT, the OTHER den. Makes me want to work someone else. I’m growing tiresome of taking orders over the phone for things such as gourmet body paint and get-lucky dice. I’ve always wondered why people just don’t order these things online… especially when you can tell they’re embarrassed that they’re ordering such a risqué item! I always seem to get the pervs who want me to read off the sensual fantasies you can play out in our Nights with Eros game. Dirty freaks! I’m not getting paid to get you off. I put some guy on hold and when I came back on the line he asked if that was me singing in the music they play when you’re on hold… Umm, I didn’t know I sounded like five-time Grammy award winner, NORAH JONES. Anyway, these pass couple of days have been strange. On Sunday, I had work most of the day, then went to Ed’s house. He looked different. Taller. I hadn’t seen him in six days. We ate a YUMMY dinner at Jed’s house and I felt all nostalgic kicking it again with the boys I grew up with. Afterwards, we met up with Chris, Scott and Carmina to watch “Kill Bill.” That movie was effin AWESOME. I can’t wait till Volume II comes out. Yesterday, I had no work and no school, so I had lunch with Shell, Joey and the twins at a pho place in Clairemont. I went to Joey’s house afterwards and watched “Finding Nemo” while Munchkin (Shell’s dog) fell asleep on me. He *HEARTS* Auntie Mayan 🙂 He has peed on me twice. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is. I wanted to see Ed since it was the only day that I had off from both work and school till THANKSGIVING, but of course… the boys are back from the navy… and who am I to deny him playtime with his boyfriends? I’m tired of working and going to school at the same time. I hope I win the lotto.

So I cut my bangs. The reaction? From me: “OH GOD.” From my sister and Jay: “You look CUTE!” From my mom: (blank stare). Ed hasn’t seen it yet. I haven’t seen him in almost a week! This might be a record haha. Busy lives. I’m iffy about the whole bang thing… Maybe I’m not used to it yet. Maybe I’m not used to having hair in my eyes. In my glasses. On my face. What I’m used to is washing my hair and going. Now I have these bangs to tend to. I’ve had this part in my hair for like.. 20 years. So my bangs are naturally parting where my part is and I have to blow dry them sideways so they don’t do that. Hopefully it won’t take that long to train them to sweep over sideways like I want them to. Maybe I’ll take a picture and show you guys. Maybe. Anyway, this week has been crazy. Working and going to school full-time is harder than I remember it being. I don’t have free time to just hang out. I have to miss parties and dinners and baby showers (Why is everyone having babies around the same time? Did I miss some kind of consummation convention?). Not like I was a social butterfly before this, but the number of social events I’ve been invited to have steadily increased since I started working again. Maybe party-throwers like to invite people who are employed. People who can give nice gifts instead of I.O.U.’s. Haha. Hmm what have I been doing these past few days… It was my mom’s birthday on Friday so we took her and her sisters out to dinner… coincidentally saw BIGDEEZIE there… my sister’s ex… I think he has PAM RADAR (huh, Chris? LOL). ANYWAY. Yesterday, I had work the whole day while my family had dinner and watched the new Matrix movie without me… It’s okay though, because I haven’t even seen the second one. I cut my bangs and then kicked it at Jay’s house with my sister. Jed treated us to dinner at Bennigan’s (THANKS!!!). We haven’t seen him in like a year (welcome home!). He will always be the weirdest boy I know. It’s nice to know he hasn’t changed 🙂 I’ve missed you, FLANDERS. Now I’m on my lunch break at work… not eating lunch. Drinking tons of tea because I’m still sick (going on two weeks now!). Tomorrow I have no school and no work. HODADS, anyone???

I am not: a good driver.
I hurt: when I feel unappreciated.
I love: Bedhead Ed.
I hate: strawberry ice cream.
I fear: dying a terrible death.
I hope: I get accepted into the Graphic Design major at SDSU.
I crave: Coke.
I regret: momentary lapses of judgement.
I cry: when I’m frustrated.
I care: about other people’s feelings.
I always: kick my legs out when I’m walking.
I long: to be worry free.
I feel alone: when Ed is having a boys night out and I’m having a Mayan’s night in.
I listen: to my heart instead of my head.
I hide: when I’m in trouble.
I drive: like I’m blind and drunk with one hand tied behind my back.
I sing: Hoobastank songs at the top of my lungs with Sheena.
I dance: to punk rock in my underwear.
I write: letters to better express myself.
I breathe: through my left nostril only. I’m sick.
I play: with Shell and Joey’s puppies.
I miss: quality time with Shi, Chel, Roxy and my seester.
I search: for my keys on a daily basis.
I learn: something new everyday.
I feel: hungry because I’m working overtime today.
I know: the way to San Jose.
I say: weird things at inappropriate times.
I succeed: at pretending everything’s okay.
I fail: at keeping secrets.
I dream: about weird things… and in every dream I can fly.
I wonder: what planet Ed’s mom is from.
I want: a digicam of my own.
I worry: about my sister’s love life.
I wish: I was more health-conscious.
I have: the best big sister.
I give: and give and give. I’m finally starting to receive…
I fight: with my boyfriend over STUPID shit.
I need: to feel needed.

How was YOUR weekend? Thursday and Friday for me were LOVELY. Yesterday and today were EH. On Thursday, my day just kept getting better and better and BETTER. I was freakishly happy. I didn’t have any rude customers at work. Edgar came and had lunch with me. I found out that Milo Ventimiglia is coming back to Gilmore Girls (yeah, baby!). I half expected my bangs to grow back. My sister said, “That would make this the BEST day for you.” Wouldn’t it though? On Friday, I had another good day at work, I went Christmas shopping (AKA browsing) at Fashion with Ed, Jay and Jed, then we met up with Sheen and Gerald to watch Honey (NOT my choice). It was an ALRIGHT movie. I’m thinking it was decent because I had such LOW expectations for this movie. We only watched it for JESSICA ALBA. If it was anyone else’s movie, I doubt we would’ve seen it. It was an updated version of Breakin’ II: Electric Bugaloo mixed with a little bit of Save the Last Dance. Honey was HELLA predictable and they tried a little too hard to urbanize Jessica, but all you Jessica Alba fans will like this movie regardless. Yesterday, I kicked it with Sheenie and Brad in Mission Beach and today I’m working hard (or hardly working) at Red Envelope.

I’ve been thinking about cutting some bangs for quite some time now… I’m really tired of the way my hair looks, but I don’t want to cut it because I’ve been trying to grow it out since the layered hair debacle of 1999. Right now it’s long (a little below the middle of my back), one length and BORING. I haven’t had bangs since the fifth grade. There are SO many reasons why I *shouldn’t* get bangs (they make you break out on your forehead. They never behave. I’m still scarred from the great bang fiasco of 1989 when my dad tried to give me a haircut and ended up cutting my bangs half an inch from the root. When I’m eventually tired of them and want to grow them out, my hair will be in that ugly “transition” period that’ll be responsible for many nights spent at home)… but there’s one reason I *should* cut them (which overrules all the cons): I’ll look CUTER. Well that’s what Jay and my sister said. Unless they’re plotting to make me look like I got hit with an ugly stick. What to do…

Yesterday I spent some quality time with the boyfriend. We’re both broke after the Vegas trip! GEEZ. I’m living off my credit card for another two weeks. HORRIBLE. We went to Clairemont to eat some pho for lunch (hey ZEE, where’s the pho place in National City???), then headed over to Canes in Mission Beach to get our tickets for the Scratch Tour that night. We drove around killing some time and ended up at Grossmont where we saw more bulldog pups! Ahhhh. I want a puppy dog. We checked out some snowboard gear at Rider’s House. I’m pretty excited to go snowboarding but effin SKERD. I’m not the most athletic person out there. Or the most balanced. I get skerd just going downhill on rollerblades. I don’t know how to surf. Or skateboard… and who could forget the great skateboard crash of 1988 that left my sister with multiple wounds? The only sport I’m good at is BADMINTON. Haha. Don’t knock it till you try it. It’s TOO fun. Afterwards, we picked up Jay at his pizzad fo shizzad and stopped at L&L’s for dinner before heading back to Canes. We were HELLA early, so we just stood outside and watched the X-ecutioners practice their set. I wasn’t planning on going since I’m low on funds (or ends. or skrillahz. or whatever ghetto synonym Jigga Jay has for money!), but Bedhead Ed paid for me (thanks, buttface!). It was $50 for the both of us, so I felt bad since he’s broke also, so I insisted that he just go with Jay and I would go home and watch the WB. Haha… He said he would feel bad if I couldn’t go, and I told him it was really okay because this was HIS thing, not my thing. I didn’t HAVE to go. Then he tells me, “I want you to come, because if I go without you, I’ll just keep thinking about how you’re not there with me.” WTF? Where did that come from? LOL. Edgar NEVER says anything remotely mushy (am I right?). He must have had some kind of stroke or something. Anyway, it was SWEET 🙂 I’m SOOOO glad I went!!! The Scratch Tour was effin DOPE!!! It was Jazzy J, Mixmaster Mike, the X-ecutioners and Z-trip (what happened to Q-bert???). The highlight of the show was Z-trip! Who is this white boy?!? He was effin AWESOME! He mixed hip hop, 80s and rock music! He busted some SUPERSONIC in there along with IRON MAN and I LOVE ROCK AND ROLL. He got the crowd soooo hyped up. If the Scratch Tour comes to your town, you should DEFINITELY check it out.

I’ve never drank so much tea in my life. I’ve been drinking tea nonstop these past couple of days. I was sick the entire week before I went to Vegas, and as soon as I got there Friday night, my hacking cough became hackier, my stuffy nose became stuffier and my voice went from raspy (a la Tara Reid) to nonexistent (think Charlie Chaplin). Whoever’s pulling the strings in my life had to pick the weekend I go on VACATION for me to be sick and miserable. Besides being sick, I had a pretty good time. After losing my driver’s license (not something you’d like to happen the weekend you’re going to VEGAS) and forgetting my ATM card in the ATM machine (thanks for chasing me down, lady! Like Jay would say… “Mayan forgot something? HMM. That’s weird.”), we were on our way. Ed, Chris, Jay and I rolled up in Ed’s car. We hit San Diego traffic, Riverside traffic and Vegas traffic. It took us over seven effin hours to get there. We met up with Shell and Joey in Hesperia (near Barstow). It was FORTY effin degrees out and windy as HELL. I’ve never been so cold in my life. I’m one spoiled San Diegan. Once we got to Vegas, we had dinner at Ed’s cousin’s house. We left for the hotel after that and got settled in our tiny room at the Marriott Residence Inn. The original plan to stay at the penthouse from Ed’s parents’ timeshare was compromised when they informed us that they were too booked and were going to instead book a “very big” room for us at the Marriott. There was nothing “very big” about our room, but who can complain when it was free? No worries. The boys left for the liquor store while Shell and I stayed behind and tried on Jay and Ed’s costumes. Haha. Once the boys came back, Jay changed into his bloody tampon costume and Chris into his neon green pimp suit (pictures will soon be posted!). I just wore my Josie and the Pussycat leopard cat ears from a few years back since it was so last minute. Everyone but Ed started drinking (he gets BAD allergies). I’ve never seen Joey’s face become so red and so swollen. Har har. I guess he gets bad allergies, too. My sister, Gabe and Sheen arrived around three o’clock in the morning. Everyone but Ed, Shell and Joey (they were tired) hit up the Mirage casino around four o’clock. Chris and Gabe were drunk as hell, Jay and Sheen were buzzin, and my sister and I were pretty damn sober. We both felt sick so we didn’t have much to drink. When we say no to Chambord, you KNOW something’s wrong! Gabe let me gamble with his money and I won him $50! His drunk ass gave it to me, but of course I blew it all (plus another $40) on slots the following day. We headed back to the hotel around six in the morning, but not before seeing this couple f*cking in their car at the top level of the parking garage with their headlights on! We would have stayed for the show, but we were all so exhausted from the ride up. Gabe and Chris are loud ass motherf*ckers when they’re drunk! Haha. I think our hotel neighbors were damn pissed about the loudness. Oh, well. The next day we hit up the Bellagio (where we ate at the yummy buffet) and Caesar’s Palace (for some shopping… well, for ME, window shopping). We headed back to the hotel at night so people could take naps and relax for a bit before going out again. My sister and I were the only ones who didn’t fall asleep, so we watched a “Law & Order” marathon (we’re ADDICTED to that shit!). Everyone eventually woke up again and started getting ready to go clubbin at Club Ra at the Luxor. Shell, Joey and I went to New York, New York for some games and gambling since I was still really sick and wasn’t up for partying. I forgot my driver’s license at the hotel (dammit, again?!?) so we went back there, switched cars, and headed back out. Joey treated me and Shell out at this yummy restaurant in Chinatown (thanks, JOEY!). There’s nothing like spicy kung pao chicken to clear my stuffy nostrils. You know you’re in Vegas when a Chinese restaurant is open at 1:30 in the morning. We went to Luxor afterwards to gamble and meet up with everyone. They were all either drunk, exhausted, hungry or a combination of the three. Sheen left with Zeph (who was coincidentally in Vegas at the same time) and we went back to the hotel. Chris kept making me laugh because he is just too damn funny when he’s drunk. We all eventually fell asleep and some woke up the next morning with hangovers, some woke up with an inability to breathe through their left nostril. I was the latter. We had lunch at Ed’s cousin’s house and went back to New York, New York so the others could play games and we could gamble some more. Sheen and Gabe left afterwards, but the rest of us stayed behind to visit the M&M Factory and Coke store (I ♥ COKE!). We took some suggestive pictures with the M&Ms and Ed bought a coke can bank for me to put on my desk at work (thanks, poopoo). We went back to New York, New York afterwards where the boys (sans Joey) had a treatment at the oxygen bar. It was getting late by then, so we headed home around 7:00 p.m. I rode with Joey this time around and couldn’t make it through Willy Wonka without falling asleep. I didn’t even get to see any oompa loompas. We stopped in Barstow to eat at In-N-Out before making our way to Fullerton to drop off my sister and go home to San Diego. Nothing but GOOD TIMES 🙂 This is our third trip to Vegas… Any ideas for our next vacation???

By this time tomorrow, I’ll be in Sin City. Do I sound too much like a tourist? Is that like calling New York the Big Apple? Or Chicago the Windy City? Or the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant the Dolly Parton Monument? This is the worst time for me to be vacationing because a) I’m SICK and b) I’m in the middle of a menstrual nightmare. It was Sharon’s first day back at work today and I was slightly peeved that they moved her desk far, far away from me. Purposely? Perhaps. It just sucks that NO ONE sits around my cubicle, leaving me to talk to myself like a crazy person (One time, I was in Ed’s bed and he went downstairs and I was thinking to myself, but talking out loud, and this went on for like… five minutes… then I look over at the doorway and Ed’s sitting at the top of the stairs just staring at me and trying to contain his laughter… I felt so retarded!). Just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, I got my paycheck at the end of my shift and it was half the size it was supposed to be. Red Envelope somehow forgot to pay me for two of the four days I worked last week. I was really counting on this paycheck to fund my Vegas trip this weekend, too. I was on the phone with Ed and I was just so upset and he was just trying to make me feel better. I don’t like people paying for me. I don’t know. I’m just not used to it. It’s not a pride thing. It just makes me uncomfortable, even if it is my own boyfriend. While I’m on the phone with him, my sister drops a BOMB on me via text messaging: “I’m not going to Vegas.” I get off the phone with Ed and call her ass in Fullerton and she knows that I’m already upset from this f*cked up day that I’ve had, but she has two midterms on Monday and I know how much of a school nerd she is… so I let it go… She calls me half an hour later and tells me that she’s GOING to Vegas now, because she knows that I’ve had a shitty day and this would make me happy. Indeed. She’s the BEST! I unsuccessfully looked for a costume after work (since everyone going to Vegas seems to have a costume all of a sudden!), then went home and was surprised with a visit from Jay and Leah. They wanted me to go out with them for some drinks, but I was just pooped from work and being sick and driving around all day. I’ll take a raincheck, guys! We definitely need to hang out more, Leah… Shell called me afterwards and we talked for like an hour about the insanity that is her MOTHER. I wish I had better words to comfort you, but my mom is normal so I can’t really relate. Haha. This will probably be my last entry before I go to Vegas. I’ll be gone till November! HEHE. I hope all you kids have a safe Halloween 🙂

I’m at work. It’s freaking RAINING (about five days too late). Usually, I LOVE the rain. I love wearing warm clothes and snuggling up with Edgar (Just kidding. We don’t do that shit. LOL)… but I don’t love driving in the rain (I’m a bad enough driver on dry roads)… and I don’t love being sick while it’s raining. I took a phone order from some guy name Jose from Orange, CA and he said I had the “cutest voice ever!” Probably because I’m sick and I sound like a nasal 4-year-old today. I would’ve stayed home from work, but I need the money. I turned my cell phone off, because I don’t really feel like talking to anyone. I just have a case of the blahs. Shoot me an e-mail or send me a note on my chatterbox if you need to. I’ll be on the computer at work the whole day.

I just checked my work E-mail and found a nice little surprise in my mailbox:

From: Carlos Ramon
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 2:35 PM
To: Red-San Diego
Subject: Thank you, Marion!!!

Marion took a phone order yesterday from a customer that was so impressed with her that she asked to speak to a supervisor to let us know just how wonderful a job Marion was doing. She said, “She’s fabulous…she was really wonderful, really helpful, really smart, easy to talk to….” Wow!!! Great job, Marion! We all really appreciate it!

YAYE ME. It feels nice to be appreciated (especially after my horrid day at work last week). Anyway, school in SD is cancelled for the rest of the week (which doesn’t really apply to me since I only have classes Monday/Wednesday). Four days have passed and the fires are STILL burning. Unbelievable. You know how the fire started in the first place? Some idiot-hunter-guy was lost, so he made a smoke signal so he could be saved. Someone should’ve told this idiot-hunter-guy that there’s a high enough risk of brushfires during SANTA ANA weather without him starting a brushfire of his own (for those of you non-southern-Californians, Santa Ana weather consists of really strong, really warm, really dry winds). By saving himself, he killed over a dozen people, burned down over 1,500 homes, and closed down schools for an entire week. I remember a few years back when a fire broke out in Alpine because some moron threw their cigarette out of their car window and trapped the East County residents in their homes because the only freeway out of there was on fire. I didn’t think it could get any worse than that. Today, Arlene told us that her close friend’s body was found yesterday burned so badly that the only way they could identify the body was through his dental records. What kind of f*cked up shit is that? Who gets punished for these deaths? These lost homes? I can tell you who ISN’T getting punished! The idiot-hunter-guy! It’s just like that old grandpa who mowed down all those people at a farmer’s market in Santa Monica with his car. He killed 8 people (including a baby) and no charges were pressed against him because he was old. These past few days, all I kept thinking about was how much nature favored disorder, come to find out today that all of these horrible things happened because some guy got lost in the woods. I’ve always been a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, but recent events are diminishing any faith I have left in that belief. I may not be the most religious girl in America, but my prayers go out to all those affected… Today, I spent the entire day with Bedhead Ed. We picked up Arlene and Zell from the airport (welcome home!!!), spent some time at their house, (window) shopped for snowboarding gear, and had dinner at Pat & Oscar’s (thanks, poopoo). We got into a microscopic fight before I left his house, but it all seems so trivial now that I’m watching the news and people are crying in front of what used to be their homes.

San Diego’s still up in flames, so I have no class tomorrow AGAIN. Geez. I feel weird going about my business like everything’s fine. People lost their houses. They lost their cars. They lost everything they owned. They lost their loved ones. I haven’t lost anything but the luxury of breathing clean air. Luckily, nothing has happened to anyone I know yet… I’m glad I’m going out of town this weekend. The ash outside is killing me. In elementary school, I always envied the kids in other cities that had “snow days” and got to stay home from school. Snow days were unheard of in SD. Now we’re going on our third snow day this week, but it’s snowing ashes instead of pretty snowflakes. Gah! Right now I’m at work and I’m cursing myself for wearing a skirt today. I’m freezing! It was DAMN hot yesterday and I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. I’m all backwards. My critical thinking skills are deteriorating. Blame it on not having to attend school for a week. An hour and a half till I’m off work… I just want to snuggle up on the couch and watch my WB shows 🙂

I had a DAMN good weekend, but I feel bad talking about how much fun I had, because there’s brushfires raging all over San Diego. The air smells like campfire, the skies are brown and the streets of SD look like one big ashtray. I was supposed to go to Desiree’s baby shower today, but she lives in Scripps Ranch and they had to evacuate their homes there. Over 200 houses have burned down and the fires just keep spreading… They closed all but a few freeways. Barely anyone has work or school tomorrow, because either their work burned down or the freeways will still be closed or their houses burned down… The closest fire to me is maybe 20 minutes away, so Spring Valley hasn’t been forced to evacuate their homes. It’s a scary thought. What would I take with me? My 7-year-old cousin, Aimee, had to evacuate her home and the first thing she grabbed was her hamster. I would probably take my photos and letters… they can’t be replaced. Everything else is either replaceable or unimportant. I hope that everyone’s houses are okay… Yesterday, we celebrated Chris’ 22nd birthday. I had SOOO much fun. It’s always fun to kick it with people you knew from back in the day. We all went to Rock Bottom for some dinner and dancing. Chris and my sister were SO f*cked up. Chris is a funny drunk. My sister lets loose when she drinks the Grey Goose! Haha. I’m glad Sheenie came along, because no one gets down on the dance floor like she does! We all chilled at Yardhouse afterwards before heading home. I was DD because I would much rather have everyone have a good time drunk than me. I can have fun without the alcohol (but it’s so much FUNNER *with* the alcohol! Ha). At least I’ll remember what I did the next day (unlike Chris who was driving home from PB and ended up waking up in front of someone’s house in El Cajon!). A good time was had by all. We’re gonna have MORE good times when we go to Vegas this weekend for Halloween! It’s also PAYDAY on Friday. I can’t wait… Last Friday, I had a pretty HORRIBLE day at work… I don’t want to think about it, so I’ll just move on… My sister came down from Fullerton, so we watched “School of Rock” with Ed. It was funny. I like pretty much any movie with kids in it (except “Children of the Corn”). Throw Jack Black in there and you’ve got a winner. On Thursday, I watched Liza on “ER” (she’s the Filipina nurse who kept saying, “Yes, doctor” and “Diniguan” in the ugliest fobulous accent haha. She doesn’t even have an accent in real life which makes it even funnier!). I remember back in the day I was watching “My So-Called Life” and I saw her in one of the bathroom scenes! I was SO into Claire Danes at the time, and I couldn’t believe she got to work with her. Then I saw Liza on an episode of “Gilmore Girls” and I was SHOCKED. “Gilmore Girls” is my *favorite* TV show. If she gets to be on “Will & Grace,” I WILL DIE! Haha. I really look up to her for making it this far. Who knew she’d go from singing at family parties to acting on prime time TV?

Today was my first day back at work. I didn’t fall asleep last night until three in the morning, and I had to wake up at six to get ready. I felt like I was in high school again, because it’s been that long since I’ve had to wake up at 6:00 a.m. and shower. I hate the 8 o’clock shift, because I have to leave an hour early due to a.m. traffic. SUCKIES. Oh well. It’s only for refresher training anyways. My availability will be from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. so I don’t have to get up too early or get out too late. It feels like I never left Red Envelope. I still remember how to do everything. Some things have changed around a little (some supervisors quit… some people got promoted to supervisors… some desks were moved around)… but all in all it still feels the same. It even SMELLS the same. Isn’t it weird how places have their own unique smell? Like friends’ houses… or TARGET. Every target smells the same. I always wondered if they had some kind of Target air freshener so my house could smell like Target, too… After work, I had lunch with Ed at L&L’s (YUM), then I went home and had a hard time staying awake. I fell asleep around 3 o’clock, didn’t wake up till about an hour ago, and now I have a massive headache. Chel, Sheenie, Joey and Shell… Sorry I missed your calls. I was taking an extended nap! I don’t want to bother you guys so late, so give me a call tomorrow if you need to. I have classes all day and work in between, so you’re gonna have to catch me. HMM. Just leave a message and I’ll get back to you somehow… (Never mind, Chel, I just got off the phone with you! Hang in there… “Everything is okay in the end. If it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.”) I just heard that they did a study on bowls of breathmints that restaurants provide, and people who use the restroom and don’t wash their hands after urinating stick their filthy germ-infested fingers into the bowl and take breathmints. Traces of urine were found on the mints, so you’re basically sucking on URINE mints… and it’s not YOUR urine, either. Your pee, someone else’s pee… It’s gross no matter what. I’m like the GERMaphobic QUEEN so you won’t see me taking any after dinner mints at restaurants anymore. BLEH. Wash your hands, you filthy mcnasties!

Last night we celebrated Raechel’s 22nd birthday. She was stressing out because she was worried that no one was having a good time, but she stopped worrying after the girls bought her a round of drinks haha. We ate dinner at her house in PQ first (Pat & Oscar’s! No one touched the salad, though. We didn’t want to DIE). We played pin the tail on the donkey for a lovely CASH PRIZE. In the end, it was between me and Daniel, so we had to do rock, paper, scissors for it. Haha. I lost of course (I’m not athletic). Oh well, he deserved it since he came all the way down from the LBC. We had some pre-fade action at Chel’s house with Chambord Sours and Courvoisier shots. I half expected Busta Rhymes to show up. Courvoisier is NASTY. I’ll stick to b*tch drinks, THANKSSSS. We hit up PB Bar & Grill afterwards. I only had one drink there. For some reason, I wasn’t up for partying last night. I just wanted to chill. The girls had a LOT to drink and they hit up the dance floor, but I stayed with Ed on the patio. He was tired from work and his allergies were acting up because everyone around us was smoking. He’s always tired because he works too much, and he always has allergies because if it isn’t his pops smoking at home, it’s someone else smoking wherever else we’re at. Poor kid. When we left PB, it was almost closing time and Chel’s boyfriend, Antho, was passed out in the patio… “Beer before liquor makes you sick quicker.” You said it, Antho. Haha. My sister and I stayed up till 4:30 in the morning watching the season one DVD of Will & Grace. That shit is HILARIOUS. My sister woke me up butt-early in the morning. She talked to the girls and found out that Roxy hooked up with some guy (already? HEHE)… and there was some DRAMA after we left… Chel, don’t stress okay 🙂 Do what makes you happy. On Friday, we all went to TGI Fridays for Bobet’s 23rd birthday. Ed and I went to Meehchelle’s house afterwards and watched BOONDOCK SAINTS, my new favorite movie. I had a pretty chill weekend. Right now I’m at Ed’s house and he’s sleeping. This scenario seems all too familiar… SOMEONE’S a workaholic. I start working again on Tuesday, so I won’t be updating this site as often… Who am I kidding? I’m on the internet at work so you KNOW I’m gonna be on this shit everyday!

Last night I had a craving for chocolate parfait nips haha. Normally, I’d go to Albertson’s to pick some up, but I wanted to avoid the 50+ grocery strikers picketing in front of the supermarket near my house. Just driving through the crowd was hard. I was at a stop sign in the parking lot and one of the strikers (some teenager) stood in front of my car holding his sign and started FREAKING my car for a good minute. I was like.. UHH. HI. PLEASE STOP DANCING WITH MY CAR SO I CAN GET SOME GODDAMN NIPS! Haha. I went to Rite Aid instead. If he was doing this to my CAR, who knew what this kid would try to do to me if I got OUT of the car haha. I haven’t been to the grocery store since the strike started… Hey! I’m EMPLOYED again. I didn’t work all summer since I’m not allowed to gross that much money (so I can get tuition assistance). I haven’t worked since JUNE. Geez… I don’t think I remember how to work. Customers? What are those? Ha. Of course I’ll remember that shit. I’ve been there for like two years. I get to work with Sharon again! YAYE! I miss that crazy girl. Too bad Kit got another job working for Chinaberry (you know you wanna work at Red Envelope with me again!). I’m gonna be so busy working and going to school full-time. I like being busy, though. I hate having too much time on my hands. I became SUPER lazy over the summer… Today, I just did my laundry and vegged at home. Tomorrow Ed is going to install the new deck he bought me! No more wack ass deck and CD changer that only works when it feels like it. Haha. This is what Ed told me when he gave me that ghetto CD changer: “Hey, this was TOP OF THE LINE… ten years ago!” LOL. The new deck doesn’t have a CD changer, but at least I won’t have to worry about not putting a CD in the #1 slot because the #1 button on the deck doesn’t work… or not putting a CD in the #5 slot because if it plays, it’ll get stuck… and not being able to see what track number is playing since the backlight stopped working… and so on and so forth haha. Thanks, buttface. 😉

I got a B f*ckin MINUS on my graphic design project. WTF. Mine was voted one of the TOP 3 designs in the class and I got a B f*ckin minus. I worked so damn hard on that stupid logo, too. My teacher told me that I have a “fantastic designing style” but she didn’t like how I didn’t incorporate the beach “vibe” as she had suggested (since it’s a burger joint at the BEACH). She didn’t like how I barely changed the logo from the original design I drafted. It’s not my fault that it doesn’t take me 50 billion tries to make a damn good logo! When our logos got critiqued, my classmate Josette said that she wouldn’t change a thing on my logo. Nobody gave me any negative criticism, and I was happy with the way it looked. My teacher says that I can do better. WTF. I know she’s saying that I’m not working up to my full potential. Some people had some really crappy logos, and just because they submitted x amount of different layouts, they got A’s on their projects. That’s bullshit! They all got suggestions from other classmates on how they could improve their logo, but they didn’t tell me to change anything on mine. What else could I have incorporated into that logo? PLEASE INFORM ME, MRS. GRAPHIC DESIGN EXPERT! There was no set amount of layouts we were supposed to turn in, so I think I was unfairly docked a shitload of points! After I got my packet back and saw my grade, I was in a pretty crummy mood. I gave my teacher the old stink eye throughout the remainder of the class, but I doubt she noticed. She was too preoccupied plotting to fail me.

My sleeping pattern resembles that of a graveyard shift employee… except I don’t work the graveyard shift. I don’t work PERIOD. I can’t sleep at a decent hour, because I wake up so late in the afternoon. The only time I wake up before noon is when I’m FORCED to (i.e. on Mondays and Wednesdays because I have school). Otherwise, I sleep no earlier than three in the morning, and I wake up around one, two, or three in the afternoon. At first I thought it was insomnia… but insomnia is characterized as an inability to sleep. I don’t have trouble sleeping. Once I fall asleep, I stay asleep for like ten hours. It’s falling asleep that I have a problem with… and it’s because I wake up hella late… and I wake up hella late because I sleep hella late… it’s a vicious cycle. I wake up around 7:30 on school days. Sheena told me that I should set my alarm to wake up at 7:30 (JED time!) every morning (no matter what time I end up falling asleep), so I’ll get used to getting up early on a regular basis. I told her she’s smoking crack if she thinks I’m gonna wake up that early when I don’t have to… but I suppose it’ll help me go back to a semi-normal sleeping pattern so I’ll try it… but if you see up that early on a non-school day and I’m one cranky b*tch, then you know who to blame 🙂 Anyway, let me tell you about my weekend. As all of you Sh*tular (a.k.a Cingular) customers are aware of, Sh*tular’s service was down the entire second half of Saturday. WACK. We couldn’t receive/make outgoing calls or send/receive text messages. I needed to contact Michelle and Edgar, because we were supposed to go to the Tsunami Bomb show that night. Unfortunately, we ALL have Sh*tular so we couldn’t get a hold of each other. Ed was at work and I didn’t know Michelle’s new house number since she moved down south. It was less than half an hour till the show was supposed to start and Michelle had all of our tickets and Ed wasn’t home yet. Luckily, I was still at home when Michelle called and we finally arranged to meet up and take one car. You don’t realize how much you depend on your cell phone until your provider decides to screw you in the butt and take away your night and weekend minutes. EAT MY BUTT, CINGULAR. I want to switch services. I’ve had this service provider for too damn long… since my Allstate days! Damn… At least three years now. Please help me decide which company to switch to by participating in my random poll at the bottom of this page. Thanks! Anyway, the Tsunami Bomb show was the shizneeto BAM. I want to *be* Agent M. They didn’t perform two of my faves (“Lemonade” and “Mushy Love Song”), but they ROCKED nonetheless. During their FIRST song, some kid chucked his FULL bottled water onto the stage and hit Agent M in the head! She took it like a champ, though. Geez. Rude ass motherf*ckers. If I were Tsunami Bomb, I’d stop after the song and say, “I hope you kids enjoyed the show because it’s OVER, punks!” This dope band called Strike Anywhere opened for them. If you like Rage Against the Machine, you should definitely check them out. It was my first show at Soma and I’m not too fond of that venue. I’d much rather see a show at Canes. Soma is like a warehouse. There’s no ventilation. The sound quality ranges from alright to poor… especially with the loud punk bands. I lost the hearing in my right ear the whole night. It’s really, really, really LOUD, but you can barely make out what the people are singing or saying, especially if you don’t know the lyrics to their song. It was just a deafening experience. Back to the no ventilation, there were SMELLY kids there. I just tried to make it through the show without passing out from the pubescent fumes. This teenage couple in front of me proceeded to swap spit during most of the show. If it wasn’t the deodorant-free kids that were making me nauseous, it was that couple. I’ll admit, I had my fair share of public make out sessions when I was sixteen, but five years later, that shit only happens behind closed doors. At Soma, there was this HUGE mosh pit… HUGE. I’ve never seen one so big before at any venue I’ve been to. At one point this crowd next to us was shoving us to the side and Ed was getting PISSED. LOL. This guy in particular wouldn’t quit bumping into us, so Ed grabbed him by the neck and we remained untouched for the rest of the show haha. The next show I’m going to is the Saves the Day / Taking Back Sunday show at SOMA again… not happy about the venue, but VERY happy about the bands. It should be mellow yellow, so I doubt we’ll have mosh pit or sound problems. Damn, THREE shows in ONE month? Bedhead Ed is really aiming to please 🙂 Today, he bought me Panda Express and Jamba Juice, so I went to his house instead of vegging at home like I had originally planned. Vu, Tuan, Jay and Beejaye were kickin it there and Sheenie came by later so I could straighten her hair. We just chilled till around midnight, then I headed home. It’s now five in the morning… looks like I won’t be sleeping till after school.

Navy Exchange. Jamba Juice. Homework. Hot pockets. Nap. These are the things my Friday consisted of. This cashier at Grossmont’s Jamba Juice whose name tag read “AsHLeY G” looked EXACTLY like Lizzie McGuire’s best friend with the bangs and everything. I would have taken a picture of her so I could show you guys, but I didn’t want her to think I was a LOSER for knowing what Lizzie McGuire’s best friend looks like. Haha. I noticed her when I first walked in, but Ed pointed it out because he’s apparently an avid fan of Hilary Duff. Ed went to TJ with his Audio Excellence boyfriends (I live less than half an hour away from TJ, and I’ve never been there, nor have I ever had the desire to go there… no matter how appealing they made it look on The O.C.). Sheen went to a BAR (I knew it! Haha). Jay and Beejaye watched a movie. My sister didn’t come down to SD this weekend. It was a lazy day. I just went online and talked to Meehchelle about the Tsunami Bomb show we’re going to tomorrow (f*ck yeah!). She wants to be up front at the show, but I’m a little weary about that. I got THRASHED at the Hoobastank concert when I was up front. I don’t think the Tsunami Bomb fans are quite as rowdy, but we’ll see. I don’t want to get dry humped again. Meehchelle cracks me up! We were talking about how Cursor (or Happy Hour as they once were called) is a “tribute” band, if you will. I heard that they have a show coming up at Soma. I remember watching them perform back in the day at SAMAHAN! Hahaha. All I remembered was that they covered Third Eye Blind songs. Doot-doot-doot. Doot-doo-doot-doo. We were talking about how WE could be in a “tribute” band if we wanted to. I’m so down to go to a karaoke bar and sing in front of strangers. I need some liquid courage, though! Haha. Buy me some Chambord and I’ll be good to go! I’m excited about CHEL’S birthday bash next weekend. I miss those girls. It’s always nice to be around the people you grew up with… Hmm what did I do yesterday? Sheen and I drove around the coast for a while just “following the moon.” That’s what we do when we don’t know where to go, but we don’t want to go home. We ate at CONCHING’S because we were both craving some good old Filipino food. We went back to her house and baked some chocolate chip cookies. I’ve never baked anything from scratch before and now I know why. It’s so much easier to buy the pre-packaged pre-cut frozen Pillsbury cookies than measure ingredients and BLEND things together haha. I got batter all over me and Sheen kept making fun of my ass. We were missing eggs so we had to go to AM/PM and buy some. Sheen made me drive back to her house in her car (to my horror!). Even though I know how to drive a stick-shift (thanks to Gerald), I’m DEATHLY afraid of driving a stick-shift. I can’t relax. I panic. I have an anxiety attack. I’m afraid I’ll crash their car. Or kill someone because I forgot how to stop the car. I barely pause at stop signs, because I’m scared the car will stall on me and the people behind me will honk at me and point at me and laugh at me and I’ll cry and I won’t be able to see the road because my glasses will be fogged up. We got back to her house in one piece, though. I may have burned her clutch a little. Ha. We watched the special edition Lion King movie that Jigga Jay gave her for her birthday and searched for the overrated “SEX” scene where adult Simba plops down on a cliff and the leaves and dust particles float into the air and supposedly spell out “SEX.” “Supposedly” is right. We paused that shit and could barely make out the ALLEGED word. Sheen thought her DVD was broken, because the games were f*cking up on her when she tried to play them the other day, but I played them and they worked. I think Sheen’s head is broken. LOL. That always seems to happen… Something keeps f*cking up on you, and when you tell other people or try to get it fixed, it works all of a sudden. Maybe inanimate objects have a mind of their own.

Yesterday we celebrated Sheenie’s 21st birthday! Finally. I’ve been waiting almost a year for this girl to turn 21 haha. Sheena, Ed, Jay, Gerald, Shell, Jose, Sandy, Brad, Jeni, Sheen’s mom and I ate at T.G.I. Fridays, and then we headed over to P.B. Bar & Grill. I’ve only been there on Thursdays, so there was definitely a different crowd there (like 99.9% white people… ain’t no thang! Sheen’s half Irish. Haha). Shell, Jay, Ed and I got there earlier than the rest of them, so we decided to hit up the dance floor, and Jay busted some moves I’ve never seen before HAHA. There was this Greekish/Chaldean/Mexican-looking guy who was dancing all craaaazy by himself on the top level. At first, people were cheering him on… then people just started making fun of him. It was sad, really. I felt sorry for him. He was in his mid-to-late thirties, went to a club by himself, got ridiculed by youngsters and probably went home to his empty apartment and stray cats. I introduced Shell to the wonders of the CHAMBORD SOUR and I had a few myself. I would have had one or two or SIX more, but all I had left over from dinner was $10. BOO. Ed’s always telling me to slow down. I can’t help but chug those drinks when they taste like Kool Aid (and I ♥ Kool Aid!). Damn, you have to be a baller to get faded on b*tch drinks when they’re $6 each, and you need at least five to f*ck you up. That’s why we should have some pre-fade action BEFORE going clubbin! There’s nothing wrong with drinking at home. Haha. I finally found Sheen after half an hour and she had two Coronas in her hand. This girl drinks beer and belches louder than any guy I know. Like Ed said, “All hell will break loose now that she’s 21.” I won’t have to call her to see where she’s at, because I’ll already know that she’s getting wasted at some bar. I don’t have the money for that kind of lifestyle, but I’ll be your designated driver if you need me, girl! You’re probably a better driver drunk than I am sober, though. HEHE. Anyone will tell you that! Someone PLEASE take her cell phone away so she doesn’t make anymore drunken phone calls to me at two in the morning! Ha.

Anyway, we left PB around midnight and I was disturbed by something someone told me… pretty upset actually. I’ve given it time to digest, so I’m over it now. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything wrong. I don’t use this site as an agent for shit talking. I censor myself A LOT on here. There are many times that I’m hella bothered by certain issues, but I won’t talk about them on here, because I know that a lot of the people who I know personally read this. I know some things that I post will piss off my friends, so some things are better left unsaid. Sometimes I write things clearly out of anger and frustration, and I hope people don’t let these irrational, psychotic moments define me as a person… (especially when I’m talking about relationship issues. Geez. Everyone has drama with their significant other). This is the place where I vent. This is the place where I get it all out so I’m not crying from the frustration of it all. This is MY release. Sometimes the fine line between venting and airing my dirty laundry becomes indistinct. That may bother some people, so I’ll be a little bit more selective about what I post on here, because who knows who’s really reading this shit?

Another Monday. Another loooong day at school. I had a pretty kick back weekend after Roxy’s birthday shindig on Friday. On Saturday, I just stayed home with my family, did my sister’s laundry since she always helps me out and caught up on some homework. My sister and I went to Grossmont for some refreshments that night. I was about to cry, because Jamba Juice’s seasonal Pineappalooza was no longer in season! They replaced it with some Bluetopia shit. I asked the girl if she could still make it, and she did. Cool beans. I almost shed a tear. We went to Ed’s house afterwards to eat dinner since Shell and Joey brought the puppies down. Ed was only there for a little bit since he was helping his Audio Excellence boyfriends prepare the cars at Kenny’s house for the (wacktabulous) show on Sunday. My sister and I just vegged out on Sunday. I finally got the energy to take a shower around 5 o’clock. I decided to stop by the show for a little bit, then go home and go out to dinner with my family for my dad’s birthday. By the time I got to the show, they weren’t selling tickets anymore, and Ed couldn’t get me in because they didn’t have wristbands. I was furious. If there’s anything I hate, it’s wasting gas. I drove all the way down south just to turn around and drive home. Wack. Ed and I got into this HUGE argument on the phone, because I was mad that he didn’t call me to tell me that I couldn’t get in for free, because if I knew that, I *never* would have gone. I’m not gonna pay to see Ed’s car. Kenny’s car. The twins’ car. I see those cars everyday for free. Then he was getting mad because I was getting mad. He wasn’t sure if I was coming since it was getting late already, so he didn’t call. It was just STUPID. My sister called me on my way home and calmed me down a bit. Then I talked to Ed again after that and we were cool again. Ha. It was dumb. Sorry I’ve been so moody, POOPOO. I can never stay mad at Ed. He’s my weakness. I don’t know what it is about him. He’s my special Ed. I love him almost as much as I love sandwiches. ALMOST. This morning between classes, Ed and I went to drop off a baking pan at his grandma’s house and no one was there to receive it. Then we went Costco to pick up some film and it had already been picked up by his parents. What’s going on? We ate some COSTCO pizza (yeah, baby!) and then I went back to school and he went to work. Now I’m home waiting for my next class with absolutely nothing to do… except burn Jay’s CDs… work on The SpecialGuest site… and eat my chicken noodle soup that’s been sitting in the microwave since I got home from school… two hours ago.

I wish I had a camera last night! We went out for Roxy’s birthday and I had SO much fun! I went to The Strip Club downtown for dinner with Shi, Rox, Chel, Antho, Kristine, Edward, Glenn and their friends Eileen and Ginger. That place is f*ckin COOL. It’s a steakhouse where you cook your own steak on the grills that they have set up around the restaurant. Too yummy. Afterwards, we hit up Martini Ranch to get our fade on and shake our butts. I only had one drink, because I had to drive since my sister was getting f*cked up all night on Chambord Sours haha. That drink is DAMN GOOD (thanks, Shi!). Ed met us up at Martini since he went to Buca di Beppo for Q’s dinner (happy birthday, Gerald!). It was definitely a different crowd, since I’ve really only been clubbin in PB. They were playing hip hop when we got there, but soon they went to ooooold school rap and then TECHNO and I *hate* techno music (as you can see in my hate list). Antho showed us his moves and I couldn’t stop laughing. We chilled outside and just caught up with each other’s lives. Chel, Rox, Shi, and my sister are my GIRLS, dude. It’s been a while since we’ve all hung out and it felt like no time had passed since we had last seen each other. Shi and Chel are CRAZY! Ed was like, “Whooooaa, take it down a notch!” Haha. Now he sees where I get my loudness from… and you call *me* “mega?” You obviously haven’t met the Tejidor girls haha. They’re crazy without the alcohol. I’m skerd to see them drunk off their asses! Roxy decided to go to the Rox afterwards, but the rest of us were partied out. We all went our separate ways, and my sister, Ed and I decided to hit up D&B’s for Q’s after-dinner thing. It was almost closing time once we got there, so we just chilled at the bar for a little bit. I met DRUNK ASS GRACE for the first time haha. She’s cool beans. My sister, Beejaye and I went to Jay’s house afterwards and we just talked about STUPID GIRLS (don’t worry about *HER* Beejaye!) and watched the food channel HEHE. A good time was had by all. I love hanging out with old friends 🙂 Oh, I forgot to write about Thursday. We just went to Olive Garden near the Sports Arena for Joey’s birthday. Our waitress, Rose, was the shit. ROSE, YOU ROCK!!! (as if she’ll ever read this, but I’ll still give her props).

Last night I went to the ROONEY show at Canes with Bedhead Ed and had an awesome time! I’ve wanted to see them live for a while now. I missed them at both Lollapalooza and X-Fest. We went in through the 21+ entrance and there was barely anyone there since it was a 16+ show. I started to freak out because ROONEY was sitting in a booth eating dinner. Edgar and I hung out for a while to see if I could work up the nerve to go talk to them, but I was scared and I didn’t want to bother them while they were eating. We sat on the top level where the stairs are so we would have a better view and could take good pictures. We’ve seen shows at Canes before, so we learned that upstairs is the best place to be. Downstairs, your view might be obstructed by some freakishly tall person or some beezie sitting on the ledge in front of you with her chones peeking out of her Forever 21 jeans (remember HER, Rowell? Haha). Palo Alto performed first. The lead singer had an *amazing* voice. He kinda sounded like Bono. The Sounds were next and they had SO much energy. They’re a female-fronted European new wave punk band. ROONEY came on last and they were FUCKING AWESOME! Robert Carmine has tons of energy, too. Their sound is old school like the Beatles and that’s why I like them so much. I can’t wait to see Tsunami Bomb next at Soma 🙂

I feel SO much better. After venting, I went to my graphic design class and had a huge smile on my face because we critiqued our logos today. Everyone thought mine was fucking awesome! There were some REALLY horrible ones, though. We had to pick any local place that isn’t a nationwide chain and create a logo for them. I chose Hodads (a YUMMY burger joint in Ocean Beach). Arlene introduced me to the wonder that is Hodads last year, and Sheen and I go whenever we want some good eats and huge chocolate malts! After school, I was stuck behind this Forerunner the entire drive home and he left his blinker on THE ENTIRE DRIVE HOME. I was so irritated by that little blinking light. I didn’t even notice Jay and Rome driving behind me and we take the same route home! Ha, ha. He called me when he got home because he had read my previous entry. He was like, “Hey, Mayan, are you okay?” and I was like, “Yeah, I’m good,” and he was like, “NO YOU’RE NOT. I SAW YOUR WEBSITE!” Ha, ha. Even though I was really okay by then, his concern for me made me feel pretty good. A few hours later, Jake calls me out of no where to tell me that he saw my senior page in the yearbook for the first time the other day (from over three years ago!) and he thought it was really cool that I put his and Jessica’s pictures in there. Of course I did! Gotta include all the homies, YO. I get sad looking at all those pictures from high school. I always knew I would look back on the tears and laugh, but I never thought I’d look back on the laughs and cry. It’s very true. You don’t realize how good your life is until it’s all gone to shit. I miss my high school friends. We all lead such different lives now. It’s been forever since I’ve seen a lot of them, but I know once we hang out it’ll feel just like old times… and that feels pretty damn good. Change is the devil. I wish some things would stay the same forever… I have TONS of things to look forward to… ROONEY with Ed tomorrow, Joey’s birthday on Thursday, dinner and clubbin’ for Roxy’s birthday on Friday, Ed’s first show on Sunday, Sheen’s birthday next Tuesday, my dad’s birthday next Wednesday… I could go on and on and on. But I won’t. Because I’m sleepy. I’ll let you know how Rooney sounds live next time 🙂

Yesterday, Nikko and Jessica came down from Carson. Ed was gonna tint Nikko’s windows and install his audio shit. Even when my boyfriend has a day off from work (he’s an installer at Audio Excellence), he’s STILL working on cars. Cars, cars, cars. BLEH. It drives me crazy sometimes… makes me want to hammer a nail into my head. I don’t really share his interest in cars. Sure, I’ll go with him to the car shows (especially if he’s in it). I’ll go with him to Qualcomm or Carlsbad when his friends are racing. I’ll go with him all the way up near Santa Barbara to go to Bimmerfest. I’ll go with him to the drift shows in L.A… I just enjoy being with him. I don’t know what it is. I just feel better when he’s near me. Sheen, Jay and I ended up going to La Jolla to visit Sheryll and buy some goodies for our hair from Joey’s salon. I used them today and might I add that my hair looks fabulous right now. Ha, ha. It’s shiny like a pony. We went to Joey’s house afterwards and ate sloppy joes. Mmmmm. We saw Sheryll’s new doggie, Winnie. She’s a mini dachshund and is soooo cute and sooo small. She’s munchkin’s new lady friend and they plan on breeding them in a year or two. I think my sister’s gonna get one of their babies. I would much rather have a bulldog, but it would be cool to have a little wiener dog running around, too. Gerald and Ed met up with us later and I guess they were both exhausted because they fell asleep at Joey’s. So much for hanging out. Right now I’m waiting for Sheen to be done getting her pedicure. I gave myself a pedicure earlier today and it was about damn time. We were gonna hit up Bonita Fest, but Ed works on the street the festival/parade was on and he said it was wacktabulous. I don’t know what we’re gonna do yet, but hopefully it involves alcoholic beverages.

I’m on my funky three hour break between classes right now. I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve been to school. I missed the last two days because I’ve been sick. I’m STILL sick. But I only have classes two days a week, so missing two classes is missing a lot… so I went to class today and spread my germs all over Grossmont and Cuyamaca. I’m trying to download a song off of Kazaa so I can make a ringtone for my pal, Zee, but my MOM is downloading like TEN freakin songs (on our slowpoke 56k modem!). Who taught her how to use this thing? Ha. She downloads all these songs and burns CDs and even makes labels for them. I remember the good old days when my dad didn’t even know how to turn on the computer. I don’t think this whole lawsuit deal is freaking my mom out like it should be. She’s the downloading QUEEN. I hope the RIAA isn’t reading this shit. Ha, ha. Anyways, it’s Wednesday and I threw up in the shower again this morning… just like last Wednesday. What’s going on with me throwing up in the shower on Wednesdays? Wack. I *hate* throwing up. I mean, no one LIKES throwing up… but I really hate it. Kinda like I hate strawberry ice cream. BLEH. I don’t think anything’s wrong with me, though (physically I mean. Mentally? Perhaps.). I asked Edgar if he thought I had pneumonia. Usually when I’m sick, I have a stuffy nose and itchy throat. I hardly ever have coughing fits. This time I don’t have a stuffy nose or an itchy throat. I just have this constant headache and I’m coughing up mountains of phlegm (GROSS!). The common symptoms of pneumonia are a cough with phlegm, fever, chills, chest pain and breathlessness… so Ed doesn’t think I have pneumonia. Sheen thinks I have SARS. Pneumonia can be caused by the inhalation of substances into the lungs such as caustic chemicals, food or VOMIT. This all started when I threw up last Wednesday. HMM. I’ll give it another week before I see a doctor. Maybe I’m just scaring myself. When my cousin was getting her bachelors in public health, she always thought she had the diseases she was studying. This girl cracks me up! She was like… “I think I have AIDS! Look at my tongue… look at the bumps! It’s one of the symptoms!” and she was SERIOUS. She is so crazy. Okay it’s time to go back to school again, so I’ll talk to you freaks later.

Bedhead Ed is SICK. Pobresito… I went to Jamba Juice and got him a Coldbuster to bust his cold. I’ve been sick since last Wednesday and I can’t help but feel a little responsible for making him sick, too. I hope I didn’t make Sheen sick. She’s going to KILL me. Haha. So how was YOUR weekend? Mine was alright. On Friday, I hung out with Jigga Jay man. I was supposed to go to his house and eat cold pizza and make a pizookie, but my ass didn’t wake up till three in the afternoon! Being sick makes me SUPER lazy. I normally wake up by at least TWO when I don’t have class 🙂 We ended up going to Seaport to drop off Charlene’s digicam and some lunch. Lucky ass Jay gets unemployment now, so we decided to hit up Fashion and buy something frivolous… like a trucker hat with our names on it. Ha, ha. He just ended up buying something for his friend’s birthday that night. We eventually parted ways so he could get his groove on at PB Bar & Grill and I could have a movie night with Ed and Meehchelle. We watched “Once Upon a Time in Mexico.” It was alright. I think I would’ve liked “Anything Else” better. Maybe it’s because I never watched “Desperado.” Or maybe it’s because Salma Hayek doesn’t turn me on like she turns on Edgar. On Saturday, I went to a family party in Scripps Ranch. I saw pregnant cousins, alcoholic uncles, loud aunties, and gangster cousins. Ha, ha. I saw this girl, Analyn, that my boyfriend used to jock in high school. I was thinking… What the hell is she doing here? Turns out she goes out with my COUSIN. It amazes me how small this world really is. Especially San Diego. Ed normally doesn’t make appearances at my family parties since he’s always working. That would’ve been weird if he was there. Ed went to E Street that night to see A Tribe Called Quest perform. My sister, Raechel, her boyfriend Antho, and I ended up going downtown, also. We were gonna go to PB Bar & Grill since Antho’s never been, but it was getting hella late so we didn’t feel like partying anymore. We just basically walked around downtown and laughed at all the weird ass dancers you could see through the windows at all the clubs. At one point, Raechel turned to me and said, “I guess the FREAKS come out at night over here.” There were definitely some freakishly weird people downtown. We hit up a two-story Starbucks that we had never been to and relaxed for a little bit. Antho commented on their woven lamp motif while Chel and my sister marveled about how great a place it would be to study at. Leave it to them to think about school on a Saturday night! Ha, ha. Ed and Jay were supposed to hang out with us after watching Tribe, but I guess they stayed afterwards and shook what their mamas gave them ’cause they didn’t leave till four in the morning! Shooooot. I wanted him to meet Antho, too. On Sunday, I ate at Panda Palace with Sheen, Ed and Jay (whatchu know about upside down pan fried noodle?). Ed promised me earlier that week that he’d take me out for Chinese food and he actually came through this time. Ha, ha. We rented “Malibu’s Most Wanted” and “All I Want” and watched it at Ed’s house. “Malibu” was HILARIOUS. “All I Want” was WEIRD, but at least Jay got to see Mandy Moore in her bra and panties (score!). Tomorrow it’s back to school. I’m overjoyed. Really.

The Kabalarian Philosophers’ analysis of my name was eerily accurate! The personality traits they mentioned were so parallel to my own. Here’s what they had to say about me:

“The name of Marion gives you a clever, quick, analytical mind, but you suffer with a great deal of self-consciousness, lack of confidence, and much aloneness because of misunderstandings. Your idealistic and sensitive nature gives you a deep appreciation for the finer things of life and a strong desire to be of service to humanity. There are times when you experience inner turbulence at your inability to say what you mean. It is far easier for you to express your deeper thoughts and feelings through writing than verbally. You find pleasure in literature, in poetry, and in your ideals and will turn to them when you feel you have been misunderstood. You are deeply moved by the beauties of life, especially nature. Because your feelings run deep, you must guard against the ups and downs, being very inspired one minute, then moody, reserved, and depressed the next. Your reactions to people vary according to how you feel. You tend to be secretive and noncommittal about private matters, yet at times you will talk effusively in order to hide your self-consciousness or to lead others away from personal subjects. You are inspired by encouragement from others, yet suspicious of their intent. You crave affection but seldom find anyone who understands your nature.”

Get YOUR name analyzed at kabalarians.com.