Annual

oh hello, blog. how are you? i am fine, thanks for asking. i know it’s been a long time since i’ve given you proper attention. i have a lot of excuses for neglecting you for so long, but none of them are any good.

sure, i’ve been keeping busy with freelance work, some socializing, and a few lazy days of reading in bed and watching Jersey Shore online. it’s been a lovely reprieve, to be sure, but one i must snap out of because i have many things i want to write about. there’s that roadtrip from september i need to finish chronicling and some home improvements i need to detail. plus, there are Deep Thoughts i want to discuss.

let’s start now with some Deep Thoughts on the new year, shall we? 2009 was lousy for everyone and i’m as happy as anyone that time has moved us into a nice, even-numbered year that is a new beginning in so many ways.

not only do we have a whole new decade in front of us — yes, sticklers, i know the decade doesn’t officially begin until the start of 2011, but work with me anyway — but we finally have a name for that decade: The Tens! not since the nineties have we had a name we could all agree on for a decade. i’m not sure what the last ten years are to be called. the Aughts? the Naughts? the Big Zeros?

whatever they were, they are gone thankfully. sure, they had some bright stops for me personally, but 9/11, eight years of Bush, two wars, economic meltdowns — BYE BYE! i’m sure the next ten years will be nothing short of perfect and prosperous. if everything in life is cyclical, they better fucking be.

for me, this upcoming year will be rad because i am determined to make it rad. i have lots of BIG PLANS, all of which will effortlessly come to fruition because i want them to. (and yes, i am writing this after having two glasses of wine.) let’s start with some new year’s resolutions:

• take better care of my health: seriously, when did i turn 80? i wake up too frequently with weird aches and pains, amplified always by the rain. my energy is not what it used to be. i have ever-deepening crows feet and laugh lines. my hair has started to thin, with the rest of me starting to thicken. hello, thirties, you suck. i can do better and will.


• spend less time in front of the computer: actually, what i need to do is make the time i do spend in front of the computer more meaningful. this means not wasting 10 minutes reading everyone’s status update on what they’re having for dinner on facebook — and responding with my own lame comments — when i’m only going online to check email. i know i made the same exact resolution last year and then forgot to follow through, but this year i won’t forget.


• become prolific: along with spending my time with the computer more meaningfully, i need to write more than i currently do — and faster. the copywriting i do for freelance clients and the Dish column i write for fun are activities that take far too many painstaking hours to complete. plus, there’s you, little bloggy, who bears the brunt of my neglect. but no more! ooooh, look, Michelle is having taco soup for dinner.


• work as much as possible: in short, i need money for a bunch of home improvement projects i want to undertake, investments i want to make and vacations i want to take. work is the way.

but first, another glass of wine.

Annual

i must have been one of the only people i know who didn’t want 2008 to end. everyone around me was aching for that ball to drop so they could claim a fresh start — a year when things would surely be better! — while i stood grumpy, almost weepy, wondering how i could squeeze another month out of the last few days of december.

a fresh start sounded awful to me. a fresh start sounded like an opportunity to fail. surely, i could never top the banner year i just had, the year of the shiny new house in Highland Park and new job that i was handpicked for. like a dessert you dread taking the last bite of, i needed 2008 to continue in perpetuity, maybe forever. but the days piled up like they tend to and selfishly, 2009 came in to much applause from everyone but me.

when it did come in, Mo and i were at The Verdugo drinking. the dj announced the countdown and the year flashed before me — the house hunt and escrow, the remodel and subsequent move-in, the LA Landing and 4th of july, the new job and down economy, the hits and even the misses. a second later, they were tucked behind the bookend of a new year. i leaned toward Mo for a kiss.

a week and a half in, 2009 has proved itself unremarkable. work has been hell, sleep has been elusive and i’ve been reluctant to stick to my resolutions, one of which is to take a yoga class weekly, particularly when i’m pissy about being overworked sleep-deprived. but my grumpy ass never made it to class. next week, for sure.

i’ve also resolved to spend less time in front of my computer. this is another one i’ve failed at. i worry that the only way to pull myself away from this warm machine on my lap is to subscribe to cable TV, a luxury i have not enjoyed in many years. no point in paying for cable, i figured, when i can get streaming video on my computer for free. if only books could stream MTV.

another resolution is to pay down some of the astronomical house debt i’ve acquired in the past year. extra cash will have to be funneled first to my parents, who’ve been watching their retirement savings plummet since the summer. this has brought me all sorts of guilt, given their generous loan to help with my home improvement. i’ve vowed to be a dutiful daughter and begin repaying them this year.

continuing the home improvement would also be nice, but considering the lousy economy and the fact that freelance work has been slim, filling my yard with those fancy, rare hedges i fell in love with at the getty center garden is unlikely. also unlikely are monthly massages and lobster dinners.

what is likely for me in 2009 is time spent with the same good friends and family i’ve been in love with for years. there will also be cozy nights at home with Mo and the furry babies. if i’m lucky, i might get one lobster dinner in there somewhere, and perhaps a weekend getaway to some place relaxing. and i guess that’s enough for me.

Annual

yippee to 2008, which will be so great that i can’t wait to meet my lovely fate in this big golden state which i almost ate, um, for lunch, it was tuna — tunate? ok, wait. i’m getting ahead of myself but i am fully stoked that this year has arrived. i did indeed go into it wide eyed and smiling, joined by a handful of close friends who also lacked grandiose plans so they came over to drink at my place and clink glasses to the new year. and we drank and we clinked and it was warm, loving and positively invigorating.

i must confess that i was in a pretty heavy fog these past few months, walking around with head and spirits low. i started to think that i should go see a head shrinker or a psychic or someone, anyone who could pull me out of my funk. then the light shone and the thought dropped in that maybe i could be the one to pull myself out with some positive thinking and visit to the masseuse.

now is all better. i’m into the year and happy to have the holidays over. work is plentiful but that’s ok because so is my motivation. now is the time to get shit done. and i’m doing up a storm and reveling in the productive.

in addition to the predictable new year’s resolutions of being effortlessly fabulous, buying a house and banging johnny depp, i’ve made some others especially for this year. they include:

• keep your eye on the prize: remember that your family, friends and dogs are what’s most important in this crazy world and that everything you do should be tied to their betterment as well as your own. (apologies to the starving children in africa.)


• eat less meat: this one will be hard because you are a carnivorous (yet kind) soul who thinks that a meal is not really a meal unless there is a dead animal on your plate. but healthwise, you could probably benefit by cutting down on your filet consumption so go find some good tofu recipes.


• spend less time in front of the computer: this will probably be harder because although your computer doesn’t taste as good as a steak, it is less fattening and presumably less harmful to your health, despite its potential for time suckage and a sedentary lifestyle.


• calm the fuck down: having a puppy with an implacable will really made you realize what an impatient madwoman you have turned into. those first few months with Pinko were quite rough and compelled you to behave more like mommie dearest than mother teresa, you bitch. however, you’ve since learned that a few deep breaths will go a long way when puppy’s tail knocks glasses full of red wine off the coffee table or when you come home to find your underwear buried in the yard. so keep breathing.


• whine less: seriously. your life isn’t so bad. instead, consider adopting cousin Gitella’s mantra of “shut up and do it.”


• spoil yourself more: sadly, you’ve begun to realize that you’re just an overemotional crybaby prone to spells of depression who needs to step away from life periodically to recharge. this could be caused by unresolved teen angst or by chemicals in the brain or by simply being a jewish woman who worries too much. whatever the case, this year it will give you license to get more massages, facials and microderms. not a bad bright side. now go enjoy your year.

y'all enjoy yours too.

All Aboard

woosh, there went january — and i’m happy to see it go. what a miserable month it was. i’ve read that deaths during the winter months, particularly the holiday weeks, increase by 5% over the norm. and it makes sense how someone with maybe six months left in them would just throw in the towel early, when it’s cold outside and lonely inside.

but this year, it’s especially foul in its incessancy: week after week, various coworkers would need a day or two off to attend funerals. my officemate lost her grandmother, then other coworkers lost their aunts, friends, even a father. then came my own great-aunt just last week, with her funeral on a rainy L.A. day, which made for an exceedingly gloomy and muddy burial. i wasn’t close to her, but seeing my extended family grieving saddened me. yet what saddened me the most was hearing that my landlord’s boyfriend had brain cancer. plus, i’ve been reading depressing books lately, with themes on death and sadness, loss and transition. damn joan didion.

on the bright side, i’ve finally emerged from the personal funk that i blogged about below. i tried dismissing it as boredom or another episode of restlessness when in fact it was a mini-depression borne of indirection. the not-so-secret crux of the matter, i’ve realized, is that i need a goal to work toward — something long-term and bigger than the regular baby goals of exercising more and paying off my debts.

the last big goal of mine involved applying to, surviving and finally finishing graduate school. that occupied a good two-and-a-half years of my life when i never felt the gnawing restlessness of indirection. surely, that was a stressful time that didn’t allow much room for superfluous feelings, with its spin cycle of assignments and deadlines.

but i do recall that the time leading up to my decision to apply felt very much like these current times, when i would loiter endlessly in my head, kicking tin cans around, supervising the committee meetings of the mind, with everyone yelling at one another, the chorus of disagreements, all terrorizing me into deciding: what’s next?

and while it would seem that psychotropic medicine should be next, i have decided to embark on a Secret Project that i cannot yet publicly discuss lest all my good intentions fail to materialize into anything worthy (again), causing me severe personal and public embarrassment (again). i have realized that too much of my focus was wasted on thinking about the things i’d like to do and how i’m not doing them, when my real focus should have been on doing the things i’m thinking of doing, instead of the other way around. duh. clarity is so divine.

rest assured that Secret Project does not involve more schooling nor is it an attempt to write the Great American Novel that i’ll get around to one day. it’s more lifestyle related, long-term and exciting and new, we’re expecting you. just planting the new-idea seed in my head has done much to evaporate the funk fog i had been lost in these past few months — replacing defeatist thoughts with constructive aims. yet it’s still months away from sprouting so bear with me.

and all the death and sadness of january have served as great motivators, helping me realize that the now counts more than anything else, so i better get started on making my dream life happen.

The Shit List

rather than run through the usual list of things i’m thankful for, which i’ve done countless times in the past, i figure it’s more useful for me (and entertaining for you) to run through a list of all the less-than-blessed things i’ve done this past year or two.

certainly i’ve committed no murders, save the occasional spider or cricket, but i’m hardly an exemplary humanitarian and i’m still ages from becoming the person i’d like to be (a retired superhuman). just kidding! i would totally be a philanthropist.

i must also confess that something inside me is convinced that my toe drama resulted from my being a lackluster jew this year – every year in fact. i don’t remember the last time i observed my culture’s holy days in any meaningful way. then for a giggle, i ridiculed the devout in my last blogging. and to top it off, i’ve lapsed from my once regular yoga practice, causing another blow to my “spirituality.” blasphemy to the bone!

so now i atone for my wretchedness:

• perhaps, maybe, probably a few times i’ve called in sick to work this past year i could have mustered up the strength to come in. not every time, though. and if you’re my boss, i totally was sick.

• i’ve been an L.A. flake aplenty – missing parties, screening phone calls, deleting emails and ignoring instant messages, often times very deliberately. most of the time, it’s just that i’m too wrapped up in my own dealings to be bothered, though there have been occasions when the people themselves are the bother.

• also bothersome was the length of Mo’s list for me when i told him about this entry. i guess i need to get better about taking care of his CDs and DVDs, like i do my own, putting my dishes into the dishwasher and apologizing when i’m wrong.

• juice likely has complaints of her own. having a yard in the back has made long walks through the neighborhood far less frequent. and i’m sure my fish hates me for almost killing him this year and not changing his water enough.

• i still use my expired student ID from grad school to get discounts on movie tickets and museum admissions.

• many, many blog-related regrets, none of which i care to link to lest they perpetuate my own personal embarrassment. but trust that i cringe aplenty when rereading past entries that highlight my bad writing and overblown ego, and contain overly intimate disclosures and the occasional grammatical or spelling error.

• to be filed under Megabitch Moments: i fancy myself much like the gentle stingray that swims through life wholly peacefully, only attacking when provoked. yet when i do attack, i will stab you in the heart. in recent times, a handful of people have tapped into this ire with their comments and actions, to which i’ve replied with a mighty verbal beatdown when i probably should have taken the high road instead. in no particular order, these people include: my sometimes critical parents, rude waitstaff, Mo on a bad day, an ex-boyfriend’s immature girlfriend, an overbearing coworker, unsavory car mechanics and a girl who tried to feed chocolate to my dog.

what a cunt i am! and how thoroughly déclassé to even use that word. i am going straight to hell. oh, wait a second, jews don’t believe in hell so i’m all set. phew.

truth is that i don’t regret all the happenings on this list (except the part about being a deadbeat dog mom). i do believe employees should use sick days as needed – that is what they are for – and i believe that, on occasion, people need to be told to “fuck off” when they are being ridiculous, myself included.

still, this list is rather mild when i consider the types of “sins” i committed in my early twenties when i partied nonstop and shot my mouth off for sport. i like to believe that my bitchiness is more purposeful nowadays, even ethical, succeeding where the passive high road fails. there are definitely things worth shouting about and bitchiness has its benefits.

i certainly don’t shout as much as i did before and in another 10 years – when i’m trying to get into movies under a senior discount – i hope to be shouting even less. guess this means that i’ve always been and always will be a bitch, but hopefully i’ll keep getting better at it.

happy thanksgiving, turkeys.

To Dust You Shall Return

so it's practically march and i'm wondering where the hell my 2006 has gone and is going. i've made good on a few of my resolutions to travel more, as evidenced by the SF getaway, but this year has been largely lackluster. i don't know what i expected, but it's been disappointing. March is basically a bullshit month where nothing significant happens (at least for me). all it's good for is housing the "first day of spring" on march 20, but spring weather doesn't really surface until mid-april. i do have my first annual review at work, however, in a few weeks so that could be interesting. "beware the ides of march," i think to myself. perhaps that's a popular time for assasinations.

i was thinking that the best way to dull march down even more for me was to go at completely sober. it might be time for a little cleanse to coincide with Lent. i must confess that i feel a bit guilty for not fasting on yom kippur with my jewish brethren for the past few years, so i figure the best way to atone for my religious missteps is to give up alcohol during the 40 loooong days of Lent.

after all, judaism and catholicism are practically the same religion if you take all the messiah stuff out of the equation. we both know guilt and guilt trips, courtesy of our overbearing mothers. there's also the boisterous family gatherings where food is often the focal point. plus, we both know what it's like to be persecuted by christians.

my catholic girlfriends are giving up meat for Lent, so i -- never one to be outdone -- will give up alcohol and all other consciousness-altering substances (except for coffee). i mean, why the hell not? life is good lately, so i have no reason to drink, except that i'm bored, which might mean more reason to drink.

but really, it might be nice to teetotal for a bit. after several years of indulgence, extended sobriety will feel like a brand new drug. it's only 40 days. and if i hate it, i can slip in a shot of vodka on st. patrick's day. and if i love the masochism, i can try fasting on yom kippur this year -- or at least not smoking crack on that day.

So Far

my "To Do in 2006" list keeps growing. i wonder if constantly adding to the list will only set me up for failure. it now includes crazy things like "fix my FICO" and "buy car." hopefully, completing the former will help my ability to complete the latter. and if both are completed successfully this year, perhaps my "To Do in 2007" list will include "buy property."

i hope it does. i'm so ready to become an adult. the thirties truly are the new twenties for my generation. my twenties felt like an extended adolescence -- with only slightly more cash and slightly better judgment than i possessed in my teens. with thirty at my doorstep, however, i'm ready to begin procuring adult stuffs. i even opened a friggin retirement account.

but one thing at a time. my initial baby steps of 2006 did indeed lead me to the gym where every single sweat-inducing machine was occupied. guess i wasn't the only one who resolved to exercise more in the new year. haven't sat down to write yet, but that's on the agenda for this three-day weekend. i've reserved a spot in a culinary skills course, so i'm making good on my promise to learn more. and a stay in SF is (tentatively) planned for presidents day weekend, which means more travel in 2006.

these last few weeks have also seen me at a few live shows, including Sia with Zee, Nick and Chad; and the Dresden Dolls with Mo and Deo. i've been to the dog park with Juice, and even survived a crappy little flu which gripped me the first few days of january. work is busy again and, in general, the year has moved along swimmingly.

and i guess that's about it for now.

Annual

i had so looked forward to getting 2006 underway. i just knew that i would wake up on january 1 a brand new person, with all my bad habits gone. the better, newer, 2006er version of me would be far more responsible, disciplined and organized. i could just feel the metamorphosis occuring as 2005 made its exit, with each lost second offering the promise of a kept resolution. this year would be different, damnit, just like every year before it.

and then i woke up: hungover, with eyeliner running down my cheek, dragon breath from smoking the cigarettes i was supposed to have tossed, in a bed that wasn't even my own. it was the afternoon already and i had a family event to attend that day and a guilty conscience from a dog left alone overnight. i could barely move. i took a quick inventory and saw that my bad habits were still securely in place. this is the year i will turn 30.

yet, this is also the year i am destined to keep the majority of my new year's resolutions, which include:

• exercise more in 2006!! i know, this is the first time anyone on the planet had made such a resolution for herself, but i'm a trailblazer that way. i have been going to the gym regularly since i joined, though that's done little to help me slim down substantially. it's only allowed me to have second helpings and the occasional piece of cheesecake while maintaining what i currently look like, so i guess i should (re)incorporate the dieting back into diet-and-exercise resolution. yeah, yeah, whatever.


• write more in 2006!! aspiring writers write, don't they? they don't aspire to write, they write to aspire for greatness. i'm not sure how this simple fact escaped me all these years, but i should write more. yeah. sadly, i doubt this means that i'll blog more. once a week is enough, though i could end up reposting some of my offline ramblings here just for, you know, validation and stuff.


• learn more in 2006!! i'm actually already enrolled in a coding class through my work cus i'm a closeted dork who wants to learn more HTML, but beyond that, i hope to take an astrology class this year, the complement to the tarot class i took last year. and perhaps i can find some other classes through Extentsion to help lube my brain. i like to learn. it do me good.


• travel more in 2006!! this is another one of those evergreen resolutions that speaks for itself. i do have an overseas adventure roughly outlined for memorial day, and maybe another trip to the east coast, plus a few weekend jaunts to SF. and i'm sure i'll get to all of them.

those are the biggies and i can't wait to check this entry on january 1, 2007, to see how i fared. this new year will also have me trimming some fat, like phasing out a few tenuous relationships that no longer appeal to me and quitting the crappy theater reviewer job i've been doing for the past few years.

on the brightside, i'm pleased with the many things that have been going well lately. thanks to automatic paycheck deductions, i'm putting away money each month which makes me feel super responsible. my health is good (though i should drink more water). my place is always tidy and clean. i'm pleased with the amount i read and the company i keep.

in addition, i'm madly in love with the following: my little guesthouse is the best place i've ever lived, and if you've been here before, you know what i mean; my parents are understanding and supportive, even if they do rub me wrong from time to time; my boyfriend is spectacular and manages to keep me intruiged on every level (no easy feat); my friends are way cooler and more interesting than i am; and my good-natured dog is the bomb, y'all.

what more can a girl ask for? here are some ideas: a new car, a book deal, a personal chef and a bag of money. but i'll save those for next year.

Thoughts on the New Year

now that i've emerged from the hangover haze that kept me disoriented the first two days of 2004, i can now focus on the 363 days that are left -- or is 364, are we going into a leap year? anyway, the worst part about entering a new year is making that mental adjustment to date checks correctly. it'll get me for months.

beyond that, i guess i should make some resolutions that i'll likely break in the coming year. i think making one or two a year is feasible, any more is just setting yourself up for failure. i'll keep it simple this year and just focus on the liquids -- namely, a resolution to drink less alcohol and drink more tea and water.

i'm not sure what's happened over the past few years to make me such a lush. but now it's hard for me to even fall asleep at night without a glass of wine. maybe it's the wannabe european in me leftover from the summer who needs a glass with every meal, but it can't continue. for starters, it's impeding my weight loss. i'll be judicious about my diet all day and then have a bottle of merlot all on my own with dinner. that translates into sugar which marches straight to my ass. and an entire bottle doesn't get me drunk -- a whole bottle. i mean, that's bad, right?

so no more casual boozing. from now on, i will drink solely during social occasions and celebrations. so far i've been very good. haven't touched a drop of alcohol this whole year. do i miss it? hell yeah -- i'm cranky and can't sleep well at night. but i'll keep going with this. quitting smoking was way harder. and i can replace my nightcaps with tea and/or water, which i've been neglecting to nourish my body with over the years. i bought some moroccan mint green tea to start me with my journey. (but the coffee i'm keeping -- i'm down to two cups a day and that ain't bad, ok?)

beyond that, i can see already that this year will be full of changes, all hopefully for the best. whereas last year seemed like an awesome summer bookended by stress, this year should only start stressful and end blissful. graduation is in may, and it couldn't get here fast enough. then comes the job hunt, which will probably suck, but should get me to the next level, whatever that is. by the end of the year i should be a working professional again, which means regular paychecks -- no more student scrounging.

in addition, pablo is talking about getting an internship up north for the summer and doing a semester abroad in the fall, leaving me (delightfully) on my own. hopefully before then, in late may, there will be a trip to asia in store for both of us. i'm also thinking of moving out of my ghetto neighborhood and getting a new furry baby, maybe a rottweiler. and i'm also thinking of embarking on a serious writing project, like a book or screenplay. something i can start and finish just to know that i can really finish what i start, and that writing for me won't be just half-baked ideas and scribbled notes that lead nowhere.

hmm... what else? maybe new couches, if i have the money, and laser hair removal, so i never have to shave my armpits again. i'd also like to take another trip to hawaii with kiana. and while i'm at it, i think i'll lose 20 pounds and win the lottery. hey, sounds like a fun year ahead!

but tonight i'll start with updating the Milla Times website -- you know, that thing i said i'd do six months ago.