My only requirement for my next home will be that it has a life-size wind chime swing in the front yard like this one Christine is swinging on at Outside Lands.

The first person to find me this home gets a crisp $5 bill.

Quotes of the weekend:

• “You really came alive after your pants came off.”
• “I feel like I’m hiking and shit through Yosemite and fuck.”
• “You ate all of Christine’s chips!!!”
• “San Francisco is all about recycling old lovers.”

Children wake up
Hold your mistake up
Before they turn the summer into dust

Last day / last band / last song at Outside Lands!

I left my heart at Bi-Rite Creamery.

Baggage claimed. Pants off. More to come.

I’m going to Vegas this weekend, and one of the outfits I packed was my gym clothes. What has my life come to? I’m crazy competitive, and I won’t let one weekend in Vegas ruin my #1 status in this @MindzAlike #BLC.

I will eat your babies, bitch! And I’ll lose weight doing it, too 😉

I haven’t had a vacation in… what year is it now?

My Hawaii trip with the girls was before Chel got married, before Pammie bought a condo in the OC, before Shi was the maid of honor in three different weddings, and before I sold my soul to the company I work for. I only have ten months left till my dirty thirty, and I’d like to live a little before I start extreme couponing for Olay Regenerist. Just kidding. I’m Asian—I fully intend to look like I’m twenty-something well into my forties.

With two new graphic design interns starting this month, I think I might be able to take an actual vacation this summer. And maybe I’ll even be bikini-ready by then! Okay, maybe just tankini-ready… let’s not write checks my body can’t cash.

The girls and I went to Hawaii a few years ago, and Chris, the parasailing instructor from Seabreeze Water Sports, was the highlight of my trip! Christine vacationed in Hawaii this past weekend and Chris was still there. And still hot. And still half naked. He literally charmed her panties off. Just kidding. (It was a bathing suit bottom!)

When are we going back?!

You heard of Lago de Luz? At night, the algae lights up… looks like millions of fireflies trapped just underneath the water… flapping their wings, trying to break free. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. Beautiful.

I want to go to there.

Things I’ve learned during my weekend getaway with the girls:

• One of us can make it work with only seven toes.
• One of us cried tears of joy this week.
• One of us can die happy now after kissing a Jabbawockee.
• One of us is willing to be the sacrificial lamb.
• One of us is moved to tears by gay show choirs.

  Dalton Academy Warblers – Teenage Dream (Katy Perry cover)
  [audio:http://www.mayanrocks.com/blog/Glee Cast – Teenage Dream.mp3]

BEST. TRIP. EVER.

I went up to the OC to help my sister paint her condo this weekend. It was my first time taking the train, and I loved everything about it. In the 90-minute ride, I was able to avoid traffic, finish designing wedding invitations for a new client, and watch the ass clowns sitting in front of me get escorted off the train by the deputy, all while taking in the view of the Pacific Ocean.

Pammie picked me up in Irvine and we ate at Shik Do Rak, a Korean BBQ joint with my favorite kind of meat—all you can eat! We went to Lowe’s afterward to buy everything she needed to paint the living room. The previous owner painted it an offensive powder blue. Who does that??? Almost any color would’ve been a definite upgrade, and she picked one within minutes. We are such opposites. I once went to Ikea and stared at two coffee tables for half an hour and then went home empty handed because I couldn’t decide which one I liked best. This is why people hate shopping with me. And eating with me. I’m always the last one to order at restaurants, too. Luckily, we were painting Pammie’s condo and not my own.

Painting was harder than I expected. By the time we unscrewed all the outlet covers, took down the curtains, moved all the furniture, taped off the baseboards and set down the drop cloths, two hours had passed and we hadn’t even started painting yet. When we finally went to bed at four in the morning, her living room was painted a beautiful London Coach.

Despite my early morning tomorrow, I decided to take a later train out and stay a bit longer. After eating that spicy lobster roll with Shi at RB Sushi, I’ve been craving it ever since. I found it near my sister’s at a place called Kokoro, so we ate there for dinner. We had cupcakes from Frostings afterward for dessert, and now I’m on the train back home to SD, still partially covered in paint in places I didn’t think you could get paint. I’m exhausted!

Shotgun trip to Vegas this past weekend. We ate at Studio B inside the M Resort. Twice. We watched the JBWKZ do chest pops. We floated down a lazy river. We managed to escape running into all the people from SD who were also in town for the weekend. It was more like a relaxing vacation than the usual trip to Vegas. No high heels. No clubs. No hangover. What has my life come to?

While vacationing in NYC years ago, I managed to get myself and Pammie lost in the city. We got off the train when I realized we were going the wrong way and found ourselves alone with Milo Ventimiglia at an otherwise empty subway stop. Seeing him in person was like hearing the Beatles for the first time, and I was rendered speechless. I got on the subway without asking him to father my children, and it has been my #3 regret in life ever since (don’t ask me what the first two are—I’m taking them to my grave!).

I loved taking the subway everywhere, and I die a little each minute I’m sitting in traffic at home in California. In memory of my trip, I’ve made some NYC-inspired magnets, complete with my old maps that got us lost in the city. Hopefully they will be of more use to you on your fridge than they were for me in New York! You can buy them here.

At the risk of ruining what glimmer of street cred I might have, I’m going to let you in on my secret shame… I used to be in show choir. I have the sequin dress and nude character shoes to prove it. Fortunately, there’s no audio or video proof, but I think that admitting it is proof enough. Naturally, I fell in love with the TV show, Glee. And yes, I’m a total Gleek… What of it??? Last night, the girls and I headed up to LA to watch them in concert.

I took the day off from work, but was awakened at an ungodly hour by Shi, who loves her job and decided to take a half day instead. I mean, I don’t even know why she went to work at all. I’m sure her day consisted of taking two lunches, removing her nail polish with the cotton balls and nail polish remover she keeps readily available in her office, and calling me six times before 10am. Seriously, can I enjoy?

We picked up Pammie in the OC and stopped at In-N-Out for lunch. With our ridiculous order of extras (extra fries, extra-large drinks, extra-toasted buns, burgers cut in half… who are these people?), I’m surprised we ever made it to LA at all.

The LXD opened for Glee and I was blown away (especially by Madd Chadd Smith and his panty droppin’ chest pops). Def check out their inspiring performance at TED earlier this year. I’ll spare you the rest of the concert details, but the show was amazing. And I’m pretty sure Puck singled me out in the crowd and gave me a thumbs up in this picture. Try not to be too jealous:

We stayed the night at Pammie’s and planned to eat brunch at Break of Dawn in Laguna Hills before heading home:

Little did we know we’d be waking up at the break of dawn, too. Shi needed to be back in SD by noon, so brunch turned into breakfast. 8:30 isn’t too early for a cocktail, is it?

Shi ordered the craziest mac and cheese I’ve ever seen. It had Sicil­ian sausage, short ribs, smoked gouda, tomato carbonara sauce, and was topped with bacon fried eggs:

Pammie and Chel both ordered the green eggs and ham benedict. Would they eat them in a box? Would they like them with a fox? And an even bigger question—how has Shi never heard of Green Eggs and Ham???

I ordered the most sinful thing on the menu… creme brulee french toast. It def beat the strawberries and cream french toast I had from Cafe 21 (and that’s saying something):

Pammie also got promoted to manager of her auditing department yesterday, so I just wanted to say congrats again! I know she won’t be moving back home to San Diego anytime soon, so I guess I’ll just have to keep going up to the OC to visit her. And if I’m forced to eat at Break of Dawn while I’m there, then so be it.

I love us. Thanks for making this, Chel ♥

I miss Hawaii. The food. The beaches. The weather. The lomi lomi massages. The BOYS. Sure, I can eat kalua pig and spam musubi at any one of the L&L joints in San Diego. And sure, I can pick up entire loaves of taro bread at any of the Asian supermarkets in San Diego. And sure, I can go to any beach I want in San Diego. And fine, the weather is pretty much the same in San Diego most of the year. But do we have Hawaiian boys over here? Maybe. But it’s not the same. The more I travel out of San Diego, the more I’m convinced I’ve exhausted my stay here. They closed my favorite dive bar earlier this month, and if that’s not a sign that I should get out of here, I don’t know what is. Hawaii is so laid back. I consider San Diego pretty laid back. At least more laid back than LA or NYC. But Hawaii is ridiculously laid back. Like telling us to meet in front of the hotel at nine in the morning to be driven to the moped rental store and us showing up ten minutes early and waiting twenty five minutes for someone to arrive kind of laid back. And I like to consider myself a laid back, no worries kind of girl. Even when we were transferring boats to go from jet skiing to parasailing, we were hurrying to take our life jackets off and cross over and the HOT! parasailing instructor said, “There’s no rush, darlin’… This is Hawaii.” That was probably the exact moment I decided I wanted to marry that man stay there forever. Yet here I am… blogging from the Valley. Hawaii was just so amazing. I plan to revisit again and again in this lifetime. My vacation couldn’t have been any more perfect. I miss the girls already. I miss trying to sleep through their symphony of snoring (okay, maybe they miss trying to sleep through my snoring). I miss waking up to Shi singing “Morning’s here.” I miss Chel sticking her fish eye camera in my face. I can’t wait till our next trip together. Until then, it’s back to the real world! Boo whore.

The real world ain’t so bad, though… Since I’ve been back, I’ve received an unexpected promotion at my second job where I’ve been a graphic design intern for the past couple of months. All of a sudden, I found myself putting my two weeks in at AAA. I’m sad to be leaving, but I just can’t pass this promotion up! Starting next month, I’ll have nights and weekends off. I won’t know what to do with myself. I suppose I could go to the gym and lose all that weight I planned to lose BEFORE going to Hawaii. And all that weight I gained while I was IN Hawaii. Or I could just have more time to blog about how much I want to lose weight while snacking on these chocolate covered macadamia nuts I brought home from Hawaii…

No time to blog lately. School is kicking my ass. Maroon 5 show last weekend. Met the band. In love with Jesse… And mostly because he resembles Milo Ventimiglia since he cut his hair (which is kind of unfair, really). I used to be into their original drummer, Ryan, and even though I’m all about Jesse now, I’ll always have a soft spot for Adam. It’s like deciding which New Kid on the Block is your favorite all over again, Jordan or Joey (or Donnie, if you’re that kind of girl). Anyway, the show was amazing. We were sitting close enough for Pammie to catch a guitar pick from The Hives and a drumstick from Alex Greenwald, the lead singer of Phantom Planet. It was the end of their tour, so they played a lot of fun pranks on each other. Luckily, I was able to get it all on video…

Here’s Maroon 5 performing “Won’t Go Home Without You” (more from the show here)…

Still amp’d from the show, I stayed up till four or so in the morning watching “The Office” with Jay—not the greatest idea since I had an early morning flight to catch. Jay stayed the night since he was taking me and Pammie to the airport. Pammie woke me up in a rush 45 minutes before our plane was supposed to take off. It all happened so fast. I just remember running around the house trying to get our shit together and making sure everything was locked/turned off and screaming Jay’s name every couple of seconds to make sure his ass was up. We were the last two people on the plane, but we made it…

Before I knew it, we were in Vegas. I ate at multiple buffets, watched the Beatles LOVE show again, watched the Ice show at the Riviera, gambled away $250 of my own money (plus $60 of Pammie’s money)… and then it was time go home. Pammie didn’t have Monday off, so she flew home to the OC early in the morning. My parents and I were supposed to catch a flight to SD around eleven. It was like a repeat of Saturday, with us running towards the terminal. Dropping off the rental car was an unbelievably lengthy process. You have to return it miles away from the airport and then catch a shuttle back to the airport with a bunch of other people who are all carrying an even bigger bunch of luggage with them. By the time we got back to the airport, through security and to our gate, the plane hadn’t boarded yet, so we thought we were okay. The flight ended up being oversold, so all the boarding passes had already been taken and we were told we’d be on standby for the next flight… which turned into the next flight… and the next flight… and the next… and even more flights. We were on standby for SEVEN FUCKING HOURS. I read half a book that I bought from the gift shop. Learned how to do Sudoku. Tried to enjoy a venti iced soy chai tea latte. Finally, around 6 o’clock (and about an hour past when I was supposed to be at work), I go up the the gate where the millionth oversold flight to SD is about to leave and tell the Southwest lady that my family and I have been on standby for seven fucking hours and ask her why we’ve had to wait so long for a flight. She tells me that we’re the first people on the waiting list and she isn’t sure why people have been let on the previous flights before us. I’m standing there going… WTF! Mate! And it turned out that a few people who had already picked up their boarding passes for the oversold flight about to leave didn’t show up to board, so we were able to get on that flight. Before I boarded the plane, I snatched the wait list from her hands, ripped it in half and said, “You fucking remember me forever!”

…except I did not say fucking. Actually, that entire last sentence is completely untrue.

I started this blog over the weekend bitching about the third parking ticket I received this year alone in the OC last week (the second in SD and the first in LA—it’s like I’m trying to be ticketed in every city). Now that San Diego’s going down in flames, it all seems so trivial. I can see one of the five fires burning around SD from my own backyard in the Valley. Besides having class canceled during the Cedar Fire of 2003, I’ve never really been affected by a fire until last night. I thought I’d be able to sit it out in the comfort of my own home like the last time, but the police pounded on our door around six o’clock and urged us to evacuate immediately. I didn’t realize how serious it was until I saw the flames rising above Mt. San Miguel towards my house on TV at my grandma’s apartment. A lot of my friends live in the same neighborhood, so I contacted them all to make sure they were okay, along with my relatives who had evacuated the fires in North County. Luckily, everyone was fine, but my relatives up north won’t find out if their houses were spared until they’re allowed to go back home later this week (along with nearly a million other displaced Californians). I was supposed to have two midterms, a project and a term paper due this week, but class has been canceled through the weekend… That doesn’t really make me feel much better about what’s happening here at home, though.

On a happier note, I finally booked our trip to Hawaii. Pammie, Shi, Chel and I are going to have an amazing time… The only thing I’m not looking forward to is all that exercise I have to do in order to be beach-ready by January. And all that yummy food I have to avoid over the holidays. And all those nights I’ll spend crying myself to sleep out of hunger. I mean… What.

Rocky would be so much happier if you bought him this dog bowl designed by Milo Ventimiglia. It’s for a good cause… Wouldn’t you love to help provide for the well-being of animals in Southern California? Or maybe just Rocky’s well-being? I mean, look at him. Could he be any more dramatic in this picture? Anyway, I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to blog, let alone have a decent night out with my friends. I’ve been looking forward to this Vegas trip for months now. I’ve been excited about partying at Tao. I’ve been excited about singing along with the Beatles at LOVE (a Cirque du Soleil show). I’ve been excited about getting out of SD for a few days… but now that it’s just weeks away, I’m dreading the forecasted 110° weather… I’m dreading sharing a room with twenty people… and I’m especially bummed that I’ll be going to Vegas the weekend of Comic Con since Milo Ventimiglia is going to be there this year with the cast of Heroes (again), and I’m going to miss it (again).

BUT… I’ve still got my hopes up for an awesome weekend. Everything just seems to be falling into place for me. Don’t you love when that happens? I’ve been so worried lately. I had all this anxiety about my new job. I didn’t get my grant for school. I got a $400 traffic ticket. I’ve been barely getting by since I left my job at the bank to do a meagerly paid graphic design internship at SDSU last semester… and now everything is just working itself out. My new job at AAA pays well, offers benefits and works around my internship and school schedule… and they gave me the weekend off for Vegas. My traffic ticket was dismissed after I contested it in court. I’m no longer swimming in a sea of debt now that I’ve had extra money to pay off my credit cards. Sure, I work two jobs that hardly allow any time for me to do much else… and sure, I have to take calls sometimes from pervs who need a tow home from Spearmint Rhino. Whatever. I’m happier than I’ve been in a while. With all this good fortune, I half expect a Pinkberry to pop up in the valley.

So you’re shopping on Melrose and you only have, oh, let’s say, $5.96. (I’m just throwing a number out there.) You can either try and find something affordably vintage at Wasteland or buy a cup of deliciousness at Pinkberry instead! It’s only the greatest frozen treat you’ll ever taste in your life. Every reason I could think of why I’d never want to live in LA was forgotten once Pinkberry hit my lips.

I could go on and on about my love for Pinkberry, but instead I’ll tell you about my awesome weekend in LA. I had work till eleven o’clock at night all last week, and looking forward to this weekend was the only thing keeping me sane. I drove up after work on Friday and crashed at Pammie’s in the OC. Shi and Chel were fading in and out of sleep by the time I got there at one! The four of us went shopping at Southcoast before having lunch at Auntie Em’s Kitchen in Eagle Rock afterwards. Their cupcakes were featured on Bobby Flay’s Throwdown and Pammie’s been raving about them ever since. We didn’t get to try their famous red velvet cupcakes, because the biatch in front of us snagged the last two. Oh, well. She was really skinny and needed the cupcakes more than we did. They had really good food there otherwise, and we got to try the chocolate and carrot cake cupcakes (our favorite!).

Afterwards, we hit up Gallery 1998 on Melrose to check out Kurt Halsey’s exhibit. It was beautifully intimate! It closes tomorrow, so stop by if you’re near the area. We were browsing through the shops on Melrose when we saw this crazy line at the Pinkberry across the street. We decided to try it, and I’ve been a changed woman ever since. After my first bite, I was like Hmm. This is pretty good. Then I bit into some Cap’n Crunch and was like Oh my, this is ridiculous! When it was over (and it was over fast), I was like Did I really just eat this entire thing? I almost ate the cup. It was that good. After froyo, Shi graciously treated us out to dinner at Roscoe’s House of Chicken & Waffles. We somehow rolled ourselves back to Pammie’s apartment close to midnight and Chel and Shi drove back home to SD.

On Sunday, Pammie and I slept in and ate a late lunch at Sonic Burger—Yet another food chain I wish they had in SD. I don’t know why they tease us with Sonic commercials on TV when they only have one location in the OC for everyone in southern California to eat at. There’s upwards of ten Sonic Burgers up north in Bakersfield. There is nothing to do in Bakersfield. I’m sure that all anyone does there is eat at one of the many Sonic Burgers they have to choose from. And that would be perfectly fine by me. We hit up the Beverly Center where we weathered the most annoying elevators I have ever been on and returned my only purchase from Southcoast the day before. We ate a vegetarian dinner at M Café de Chaya with my cousin and her friend who both live in LA. It was the only healthy thing I ate all weekend. The best part though was that M Café was right next door to Pinkberry on Melrose. I had me some more Pinkberry goodness (with MOCHI topping this time… FYI you have to ask for it because it’s not on the menu). By the time we had gotten back to our cars, both my cousin and I had received parking tickets for having our cars parked on the street after six! I looked around and found a very confusing parking sign, and clearly, it wasn’t confusing to just me because every car parked on that street had a parking ticket. Apparently, these confusing parking signs are rampant in LA. Bah.

After dinner, we headed out to the Hollywood Bowl nearby to see John Mayer. It was our first time at that venue, so we weren’t sure where it was exactly. We just parked at the first paid parking lot we saw on Hollywood and Highland and ended up trekking almost a mile up to the show. I’m sure I burned the calories from at least that second Pinkberry I had that day. The Hollywood bowl was GIGANTIC and crowded and pretty awesome. We don’t even have a venue in SD that compares to this in size. Ben Folds was the opener and he was alright, but he didn’t sing The Luckiest which is pretty much the only song I know and like from him. John Mayer was really, really good. I’ve seen him one time before in SD and this show was so much better! This was an add-on show, and he had played the Bowl the night before, so he didn’t sing some of the songs we hoped he would (Comfortable, Stop This Train, In Repair), but he did sing some of my old favorites. He’s a very charming guy who knows how to entertain. There are few things I dislike more than going to a show and being bored. Jack Johnson hardly uttered a word in between songs when we saw him last, but that didn’t stop Edgar from being the happiest person on earth! Ha. By far, the highlight of my night was when he opened one of my favorite songs, 3×5, with Springsteen’s I’m On Fire:

I’m unbelievably starstruck, so it’s probably a good thing I don’t live in LA. Although San Diego does have its share of homegrown celebrities (Um, hi? AC Slater?). We ran into Schuyler Fisk and Joshua Radin on our way to our seats, and I just about died. Pammie was like, “Wait, who are they?” You’re probably thinking the same thing. I saw Joshua Radin a couple years back on the Hotel Cafe tour and Schuyler Fisk is his ladyfriend (also a singer/actress). It’s a good thing Paris Hilton’s in jail. My stomach would’ve fallen out of my butt if I ran into her at Pinkberry.

Before I dropped off Pammie in the OC after the show, we stopped by Diddy Riese in Westwood for cookies (as if I didn’t eat enough unhealthy food that weekend). As I drove home from LA, I sighed at each and every Pinkberry-less mile.