gran to-the-hell-no

what’s the male version of a camel toe? i bought two pairs of khakis from GAP using WY’s employee discount and they looked amazing in the store. when i actually wore them in broad daylight to my temp gig a couple of months ago, i started noticing a frontwards wedgie which has now become more pronounced since i washed them two days ago. BOOO!!! OH UNIQLO! you are the ONLY store that does right by me!

as i type this, NI and AL are probably circling the blue skies above san francisco prepping to land. did you see how to train a dragon? i want to ride a dragon through clouds and emerge all dewey and viking-ey and shit.

at the risk of turning my blog into a movie review site, i just needed to comment on gran torino, which was my netflix-of-the-night. is it a thinly-veiled excuse for clint eastwood to spew out a bunch of deragotory terms towards asians or actually just a shitty commentary on racial prejudice and our ability to transcend preconceptions? i’m not exactly sure, but all i know is the acting sucked. i can’t believe he got nominated to grumble and clench his teeth for 2 hours.

and while i fully support casting unknown/non-actors for movies, i don’t support casting unknown/non-actors who can’t act. actually, i’m kind of sick of watching crappy films with or about asians. get it together! while i will always have a soft-spot for joy luck club, i can barely remember a film about asian americans that i actually loved. why can’t we have more films like yi yi? is it really that hard to write a 3-dimensional, asian american character where his/her race isn’t at the forefront, but just one trait of the character?

i guess that’s my job.

can’t always remember

gorgeous morning. woke up 20 minutes later than i usually do and still ended up at the office early. decided to walk down to the pier and by chance, saw the sea lions! totally didn’t realize this was the pier where they congregate. this is an awful photo, but you can kinda make out a sea lion in sun salutation pose.

i saw the movie version of proof last night. gwyneth paltrow plays a daughter coping with the recent loss of her schizophrenic/alzheimer-plagued father, a renowned mathematician played by anthony hopkins. paltrow dropped out of college to care for him, but now isolates herself for fear that she’s inherited his illness. her type-a sister, played by hope davis, arrives from new york to help out with the funeral and further fuels paltrow’s paranoia that she’s a little cray-cray. a young, studly, nerdy, phd-teacher played by jake gyllenhall enters her life to research hopkin’s old notebooks hoping to find potential mathematical proofs that the ill-genius may have written during the peak of his insanity. she slowly opens up to him and we find out that while paltrow may have inherited some of her dad’s mental instability, she may have also inherited his genius.

i read the script for the broadway play awhile ago and had high expectations, but this movie stunk. still, david auburn made an admirable attempt to detail the struggles for family members that accompany mental illness. it’s tough choosing between your life and having to care for the afflicted. my grandma suffered from alzheimer’s and her health deteriorated really quickly and unexpectedly. my cousin, who lived with my grandma at the time and was one of her caretakers, told me about how impossible it was to have to watch after her 24-7. there were times when grandma’d see and talk to a little boy who didn’t exist. other times, she chased after him outdoors in the middle of the night and fell, hurting her head. we found out later that she was probably seeing visions of her son who passed away when he was only an infant. we like to think that he was coming back to make sure grandma had company on her journey to the afterlife.

after she passed, we all had varying levels of guilt. my cousin and her parents also had to deal with a fair amount of blame from those who had the least involvement in grandma’s life during the latter years. oh chinese families.

alzheimer’s runs in my fam. our eldest uncle had it and i’m pretty sure a few relatives are exhibiting early signs. i’m just bracing for the day when i finally succumb to it, too (dun dun dun). i already have trouble remembering what people told me five minutes ago so the future’s not looking too bright, although recent research seems to be pretty promising. fingers-crossed that they’ll have a cure in a couple of decades.

the animal kingdom

for the last hour (which is way longer than i’m proud to admit), i’ve been staring at two little birds attempting to break in through the kitchen, living room, and office windows. they’ve been hopping back and forth between each. when they’re unsuccessful at one, they move on to the next, and the cycle repeats. i have no idea what in their puny brains or biological programming is making them do this – – we’ve no food to feed them and it’s not like they’re flying back to their nest inside our apartment — but it makes for an entertaining sunday morning… err, afternoon.

we had a sold out show last night! considering it was our first time doing most of the skits, i’d say it was pretty successful. we do need to get more comfortable with the dialogue and timing. hopefully we’ll have it cleaned up for the next show — when that is, who knows!

after the show, i bar-hopped with three of the cast members and some of our friends. after the second bar, MJ and i headed to q bar for some dancing. we both noticed there were a lot of women there and wondered if we were in the right place! definitely a fun crowd and the music is always pretty good. i was a sweaty, drunk mess by the time they announced last call. totally didn’t plan on going out so my sweater was drenched through. at least i don’t have to go jogging today (or so i tell myself) though it is another gorgeous day in the bay.

today is saturday: cover that

MGS and i are still on season 4 of the wire, but i hear the next season is all about the newspaper industry. i’m really excited to start watching it because i’ve been thinking about the power of the media a lot lately especially because of that idiot pastor in florida who keeps getting attention for his hateful actions. all the press is imbuing him with power he wouldn’t have otherwise. i don’t support censorship, but i do support anti-sensationalism. we see it ALL the time now. simple events and worse, simple people are being way over-hyped because the reporters want to capture the angle that’s going to attract the largest number of readers/viewers.

for instance, during the oakland bart protests, very few media outlets focused on the peaceful protests, but instead focused on the random ass anarchists (white, out-of-town anarchists i might add) who were the ones causing the majority of the chaos. activists don’t riot — we organize. get it straight! but that’s probably too boring and lacks the hype. people asking for peace and a fair resolution? why would we want to cover that? give us the bandana-covered guys carrying sticks and smashing in car windows because that makes for a nicer picture!

and what about all those tweens that have become overnight sensations thanks to youtube and all the news coverage? i wouldn’t consider myself a veteran performer, but there’s a part of me that is a little bitter that Rebecca Black is hitting it so big with such an awful song. she’s become a cultural phenomenon. granted most coverage is equal parts news equal parts mockery, but the fact that she’s getting attention in the first place is what bothers me. if i were Robyn or Janelle Monae or willbur or all those other overlooked artists as of late, i’d be a little P.I.S.S.E.D.

i was just reading a play by rajiv joseph called gruesome playground injuries about a guy and girl who use pain – physical and emotional – to keep the other close. i couldn’t really connect to the characters, but THEN this morning, i get an email from someone i know with whom i’ve had a rocky relationship with throughout the years. there’s totally a correlation between how s/he manipulates people to get attention and the way the press markets itself to sell papers. sex sells. negativity sells. shock sells. same thing goes for relationships and the insane tactics that we’ll employ to get attention. i’m getting too old for that shit. it’s a game i don’t want to play, but i’m afraid it’s a game we ALL play. i’m not innocent: how often have i used pain to get love?

this is no april fool’s joke

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

i’ve been gardening today because it is so freaking hot out. i decided to go and purchase some random herbs and flowers. they’re in the form of both seedlings to transplant into bigger pots ands seeds that i need to sow (supposedly indoors but i don’t care — i’m doing it outside). i give the plants, oh, about two days to live! i’m like an accidental gardener. i’ll throw a crap of stuff into pots and just pray for the best. i’m pretty sure the purple flower is going to die really soon especially because i have no idea how to take care of it … or even what it’s called to look up directions on how to take care of it. oy. the other plants are basil, lavender, and peppermint. the seeds are dahlias, daisies, and something else (i forget). i’ll have to bring the herbs indoors tonight. last time i left them outside, the aphids had a ball with them. bastards. the florist was much nicer to me today now that it was my second time back and i actually bought something.

IT IS SO HOT. i can barely concentrate. it’s friday night and i’ll have to pop into rehearsal for our show tomorrow. i really hope it doesn’t suck. i wrote one of the skits so i’m super nervous to see how it’ll be received. i don’t think my style of writing necessarily fits into sketch writing … maybe more sitcom? good to know.

this morning i bought tickets to see hugh jackman perform. it’ll be MGS’ daytime bday gift. i also checked my credit score after hearing JL’s scary story about how inept the DMV/collections agency is. thankfully, my score has increased over the years. too bad i have no money to buy a house or car though. sigh.

happy day after cesar chavez/april fools! counting down the days before NI and AL get here..!