Whoa

Check it out. It's quite awesome. I want the scooter.

Ridin' Dirty

This is the name of a song by the artist known as Chamillionaire. It is also the name of a painting that hangs above my friend Ben's fireplace. The painting depicts a swarthy cowboy astride a bucking bronco in bold brushstrokes of red, black, yellow, ochre, tan, and brown to represent the heat and dust and motion. It's very Impressionist.

Speaking of my friend Ben, Ben lives in the Dirty D. That's Durham, North Carolina, y'all! I went down to visit him for a week with my friends Jay and Agnes. It was a lot of fun. We went to three different beaches where we got to feed gulls and a nightclub where the DJ had a rotating playlist of music and a bar where we met two really rambunctious gay dudes who tried to quiz us all on the most embarassing sexual moment of our lives. We also saw a movie (Little Miss Sunshine) and watched a baseball game (Durham Bulls vs. Norfolk Tides) and went to a concert (Vienna Teng - she's okay). I didn't get to go to Carrburrito though, which makes me sad.

Speaking of Durham, Durham, North Carolina, is home to the Durham Bulls. You may have seen or just heard of Bull Durham, a 1988 movie about the minor-league baseball team that is the Durham Bulls, starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins. Hey, aren't Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins married? I wonder if they met on the set of this movie.

Speaking of movies, I saw four movies and a half this weekend. It was a rainy Sunday! I tried to go for a walk in the Palisades but it started pouring and I had to run back to the car and drive back home. It sucks when it rains on the weekend. If the weather is nice there is all sorts of things to do - play minigolf or go to the driving range or play wiffleball or have a picnic or go to the zoo or swim in a pool. If it's raining you're stuck inside. Anyway, the movies were: 1 - Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell, Nascar, and a bad French accent). 2 - The Squid and the Whale (horrible hipsters wreaking havoc on their childrens' psyches). 3 - Blood Simple (traps, adultery, murder). 4 - She's One of Us (existential French film). 4.5 - Barton Fink (I fell asleep about 30 minutes in so no comment).

Speaking of driving, when Agnes and I were driving back from North Carolina, she asked me if I noticed old men driving around in Escalades trying to pick up young things while I was in Wildwood. I said, Not really. Agnes said, Oh, because when I was down there I noticed a lot of that going on and it was pretty skeevy. At this I laughed at her and told her I knew she loved it. It's true. Every time some rednecked dude leaned out of his pickup to tell us how purdy we were I'd try to ignore him while Agnes would smile and toss back her hair and give a little wave. When I pointed this out to Agnes she giggled and confessed that she did appreciate the attention. I raised my nose snootily in the air and said that I try to discourage such boorish behavior. At this moment, I heard a Honk! Honk! to my left. I looked over out the window, wondering if someone was trying to point out that I had a flat tire or something. The "Maintenance Required" light had just turned on. Instead, what do I see? A curly-haired man, grinning broadly and winking at us, as he cruised past in an Audi. I couldn't help giggling. It was as if he had just overheard our conversation.

I May Be Dying

Of starvation. There is NO PLACE to get food at 12:45 a.m. in Raleigh, Chapel Hill, or Durham. Not even Dominos or Papa Johns is open. Pish. I knew North Carolina was for the birds.

* * *

Whew. Thankfully there was some vegetarian chicken nuggets in the house.

* * *

ANYWAY. I've been in North Carolina since last Friday. I should be back in form in a few days - I'm guessing Monday. So keep yourself posted.

Thinking About Lying

I've been thinking about my friend tonight. Let's call him Clive. (That's not, in fact, his name. So I'm not being ironic here, I'm actually trying to protect someone's privacy. I'm just using the name Clive because I like Clive Owen. Ahem. Anyway.) I met Clive about four years ago. Clive has a beautiful girlfriend who he has been dating for almost three years and living with for over two. I've never met her. She is the extremely jealous type and Clive is not really allowed to have female friends. Which is funny because Clive is a huge flirt and I'm pretty sure I can't possibly be his only female friend.

Anyway, I used to get really irritated at Clive for calling me and meeting up with me on the sly. His girlfriend would call him when he was with me innocently having a coffee and all of a sudden my name became "Ali" or "Stevie" or something. It was really not cool. But as time passed, I sort of accepted that those were the terms of our friendship and I didn't really want to rock his boat by insisting that I meet his girlfriend or something or calling him at times when I knew it was likely he was with her. In fact, I never call him at all - I just sort of wait for him to pop up every now and again.

So. Clive is lying to his girlfriend about me. The lie is completely innocuous - Clive is definitely not cheating on his girlfriend with me. But he is lying nonetheless. Clive feels completely justified in lying to his girlfriend about me: I am nothing more than a friend and there's just no reason to tick off his girlfriend. "Janet, all guys do it."

* * *

Oh, I don't think it's only men who lie. Women definitely do too. For instance, I've also observed a certain person who lies with what I consider to be alarming frequency and ease about almost everything. It's almost like there is no absolute truth in her world. Instead, the truth is whatever sounds best at the moment, and it would be pointless to call her out on the obvious wrongness of whatever she is saying, because she would insist that she is telling the truth. And I think whatever she insists actually does become the truth to her in her own head.

* * *

I think lying is bad. But I'm not some moral absolutist about it. I know that polite society demands insincerities. For instance, I can't show certain people exactly how I feel about them - instead I have to act amiable in order to maintain a civil relationship with them for whatever reason. Friendships are also maintained by small fables - often the job of a friend is to offer a sympathetic story, rather than to dump the cold hard facts on one's head. Usually the friend is quite aware of the cold hard facts anyway, but they need some support.

But what about relationships of the boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife kind? Does it become more important to lie about things that can hurt the other person in order to protect the other person's feeling? Or is that wrong, and if you are lying, are you really protecting yourself? Is it really imperative that you be completely honest, or in reality is it always necessary to cover ugly truths with pretty lies?

I belong to the completely honest school of thought on this one. Oh, of course I've lied to my boyfriends here and there about random stupid things - usually in the first week post get-back-together-after- a-breakup. And I'm a bad liar so I've always either gotten caught or confessed eventually because the burden of carrying the lie is too annoying and stupid. So I think I can say that I am completely honest. The problem seems to be that I expect and demand complete honesty in return. Often boyfriends seem to translate my demand into "You are invading my privacy!" and "Why do I have to explain my life to you?"

* * *

Let's go back to my friend Clive. Clive's girlfriend wants him to marry her. He has been talking marriage for almost a year. Last Christmas he told me he was looking for rings. Eight months later, he has bought a new house and a new car, but no ring. He told me his girlfriend is starting to get antsy. So. He really cares about his girlfriend. They get along. They live together well. But for some reason, he's just not feeling the marriage thing with her. He doesn't know why. He doesn't know what to do. I told him that he can't expect her to wait around forever. He half-grinned, half-grimaced, and told me that he knows that already. He said he thinks that maybe he's just waiting for her to bounce.

I wondered after that conversation - if his relationship was a relationship in which he would not hide a friendship with another woman - maybe his relationship would be one where he could do the marriage thing. I don't mean Clive doesn't want to marry his girlfriend because he lies to her. But maybe the woman that makes Clive feel like he couldn't, wouldn't lie to her, is the woman that Clive will feel like marrying.

Does that make sense? Maybe if you can lie to a woman about something concrete, maybe that means everything can be a lie. Like Clive. Day after day, driving his girlfriend to work, picking her up, staring at her across the dinner table, snuggling with her watching TV, waiting for her to get tired of not getting proposed to. Clive going to bed, night after night, with his girlfriend that he is not feeling marriage with but also not ready to let go. Is Clive's silly lie about his friendship with me a flag for deeper issues - a reflection of a dead-end relationship? A relationship that's just going through the motions?

* * *

I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. I do know that someone like Clive... well... it's my biggest and most horrific fear that I may be trapped in a relationship by someone like him. Not that he is bad, at all. He loves his girlfriend; I've never heard him say a single negative thing about her. He is always telling me how great she is. So. I don't know. Maybe I read too much into things - maybe I just take things too seriously.

Wild Times

I went down to Wildwood, a beach town at the bottom of the New Jersey shore, with Andrew this weekend. I will probably go back to Wildwood again because I like the beach there, but some things about the town failed to impress me. For starters, the town is lily-white. Over the entire weekend I saw only two other Asian people, a small group of Indian people, no Hispanic people, and at most two or three black families. Also, I'm not one to cry racist, but I got the distinct feeling that I was not welcome at many of the hotels where I inquired about accommodations. What went down was: I would enter the hotel "office" where a peroxide blonde senior citizen, encrusted with fifteen rings on her wrinkled and nicotine-stained fingers, garishly painted with makeup, and often stroking a large cat, would give me the once-over and then tell me in an extremely unfriendly manner that there was either no vacancies even though the neon sign clearly blinked VACANCY, or the only thing available was a large apartment meant to hold a family that would not be rented to a couple, or that the cost of one night's stay was $200 and there was a minimum of a three-night stay. The first time this happened I felt a little put-out, but by the fifth time it happened I was pretty sure we were being victimized. At one place where the sign read VACANCY but we were told there was none, Andrew volunteered to change the sign to read NO VACANCY but was curtly told to leave the sign alone. Definitely shady.

Of course, in the end it all worked out, because we refused to be deterred and eventually found the sweetest little place. We drove around the town until I spotted a painted sign that read "Mt. Vernon Hotel" about four blocks away from the beach. The Mt. Vernon Hotel is a really old colonial building that has been around since the 1800's and was originally a boarding house and is now being run as a hotel. Anyway, it was really cute and old-fashioned and most importantly, the people who ran it were super nice. They didn't have any regular rooms available, but they did have an empty "seasonal room" (a room usually rented out for the entire summer season to lifeguards or whoever) which they very nicely made available to us for the tidy sum of $60 a night. Of course there was no TV and no air-conditioning, but it was okay because we were there to enjoy the sun and sea and sand, not to watch TV, and the nights were so cool (55 degrees!) and so much breeze came in through the windows that we needed blankets, not air-conditioning.

* * *

We went parasailing while we were down in Wildwood. If you don't know what parasailing is, basically what happens is you strap yourself to a parachute, which is connected by a line to the back of a boat. The boat takes off and the parachute catches the wind and carries you up into the air. So there you are, 350 feet in the air, dangling from a giant yellow parachute with a happy face painted on it, connected to a boat which tows you up and down the coast for about ten, fifteen minutes. It's REALLY SCARY at first but once you relax it's really beautiful. Afterwards Andrew and I got into a debate over whether you would die if you fell from a height of 350 feet into the water. Andrew says you could survive if you dove feetfirst. I'm pretty sure you would die no matter what. Especially me. I would definitely die, if not from the impact, from a heart attack in mid-air.

* * *

It doesn't really matter who's right about the dying, because that's a hypothetical. What matters is reality. And the reality is, I beat Andrew in a wiffleball game by a score of 30 to 18. Okay, I may have had slight... advantages. For instance, I was allowed three outs while Andrew was allowed only one. Also, my home plate was closer by half to the home run wall. But STILL. According to the rules, I won, fair and square. RAOW!

Sentient Beings

Look. Go through the whole slide show.

Whoops

I got a little overexcited at the prospect of not having to worry so much about money while living at home and went on a little shopping spree. Well, several little shopping sprees. Some of my purchases were necessities and therefore completely justified and guilt-free - such as an air conditioner, painting supplies, lingerie. (YES, lingerie is a necessity. Do you know how galling it is to a woman's spirit to schlep through a bad day knowing that on top of all the mundanity of life she is also wearing a really boring bra without a shred of lace on it and cotton Hanes?) Alas, most of them were not - meals at too-expensive restaurants and several items of clothes that I probably could have done without. Others were simply acts of sheer stupidity - for instance, I paid $41 to park my car in a parking garage near the United Nations while I went to visit my friend Diana and her newborn baby Rafa (short for Rafael, and who is the most adorable little boy EVER). Granted, I was supremely frustrated after driving in midtown afternoon traffic for forty-five minutes trying to find parking only to be constantly thwarted by "Diplomat Parking Only" or "Consul Parking Only" signs. But still.

Yeah. I am dumb. Basically in about a week's time I've raced through as much money as I normally would have spent in a month. Sure I had a gaily carefree time, but now I feel like kicking myself. The point of living at home was to save money. Time to put myself back on a budget. I'm probably not going to see a paycheck for over a month... I'm not even sure when my first day is. Stupid stupid stupid!

Mommy Dearest

Only one and a half walls left to paint. I'm taking a little break.

So, living with my parents has its perks. For one thing, there is a laundry room a scant ten steps from my bedroom door. Second, the kitchen/pantry/bar is always really well stocked - at least in comparison to the pitifully meager kitchen I maintained while I was living in an apartment. Chocolate cigars, anyone? Cheese blintzes? Kimchee? Olives? Russian sausage? Ice cream? Ramen noodles - the good kind? Rum and coke? Gin and tonic? Then there's my grandmother, who immigrated to America from Korea while I was living away and moved into my room (so I've taken over my brother's old room). Occasionally, she likes to look around furtively and then quickly press a fifty dollar bill into my palm. I used to protest but then I stopped. It makes her happy and she never really leaves the house except to go on walks so I guess she doesn't really need it. I just wonder where she gets the money from!

Then there's my mom. She's always good for a laugh. Like the other day, she saw me closing the fridge door with my foot while I poured myself some juice. My mom is really proper and would never slam close a fridge door with her foot or her hip. She thinks all doors need to be quietly and gently closed. She told me if she caught me doing that again she would spank me. My mother is about six inches shorter than me and really tiny. I howled.

Yesterday when the cable guys came in to install my cable modem (woohooo! hi-speed internet! wireless!) she came home in the middle of it and nearly had a fit because I had let three brawny men into the house wearing their shoes. She shot me a really nasty glance and then gave the men a really stern look and commanded them to remove their shoes. You should have seen these guys. They all looked down at the floor, hunched their shoulders, and shuffled off their Timberlands, muttering apologies with reddened faces. HAW HAW!

No Nicotine is the Reason I've Been So Mean

I've been quitting smoking. I'm really quite good at it. I can do it about once every three days. What happens is - I don't smoke for three days. I feel really proud of myself that I've found quitting so easy. I have a cigarette or two to celebrate my achievement. Then I quit again.

* * *

I actually am not sure if my crankiness is a result of not smoking or because I'm trying to get my room together and I've commenced upon all this furniture rearranging and painting (a light taupe/rose mix). Yes, my room, not my place. I've decided to move back in with my parents for a while. I came to this decision because 1) I'm tired of living paycheck to paycheck (or student loan check to student loan check) and being constantly worried about money and feeling guilty over buying that cute sweater I didn't really need or paying $10 to go see a movie and I have to start paying those god-awful student loans back soon; 2) if I failed the bar I think my firm may put me on unpaid leave to study and then how would I afford to live in an apartment? 3) the outer boroughs of New York are out of the question since if I'm going to live in the outer boroughs I may as well live in NJ with my parents and the only Manhattan apartments I could afford are the tiny shoebox-sized studios in the Upper East Side (which are still at least $1300/month!) and well... my old apartment was cramped enough and it was a two-bedroom. I need space!

Yeah, I know. I'm trying to convince myself it's not horrible. I find myself reverting back to my teenage years. Every day that I come home past, say, nine o'clock (which is basically every day of my life) I find myself creeping warily up towards the house, hoping that my parents won't be upset with me.

* * *

My friend just IMed me.

hey
im on a conf call so i have to act normal

I'm not sure what that means. I'm not sure why she decided the best way to "act normal" was to IM me. And now she is ignoring me. Oops! She's back. She's going to send me the emails she's exchanged with her new love interest who is also her capoeira instructor so that I can parse the meaning of them and determine exactly how into her he is. (Capoeira is Brazilian martial arts. She always picks up really interesting hobbies.) Her email was flirtatious but not overly so. He called her "funny girl." That means he thinks she's adorable.

* * *

I have to go back to painting my room. Bye now.

Shew

Apparently, this is worthless.

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

I Forgot a First

I jumped off a 20-foot cliff into Lake George. It was really scary. It took me a long time to work up the nerve because I kept picturing myself smashing and tumbling against the rocks on my way down and drowning to death. Thank goodness that didn't really happen.

Firsts

I did a lot of things for the first time this weekend. I am listing them for posterity.

1. I used a Port-a-Potty. It was in Congress Park in Saratoga Springs, which incidentally is a very pretty place. The landscaping is beautiful and there are lots of columns and statues and ducks and fountains sprinkled about. The Port-a-Potty experience was one I could have done without. Although I suppose it could have been worse. One time I watched a clip from a Japanese candid camera show where men would get into a Port-a-Potty and five seconds after they locked the door behind them the roof would open and the floor would ascend, leaving the men on top of the Port-a-Potty with their pants down. It was pretty sick. That would never happen in America - the television network would be sued faster than someone could point and say "Hahahahaha!"

2. I watched The Tempest. That Shakespeare. What a nut.

3. I ate ribs. I know not a lot of people would believe that a 26-year-old American girl had never eaten BBQ ribs before, but I haven't. It was at a place called Giffy's. It was pretty delicious. That's all.

4. I tried waterskiing. It's really hard. My friend Agnes is an expert at and she would just pop right up and ski along even when the boat was going 35 miles per hour. At one point she let go of the rope because she got tired but she was still able to skim along the water for about 10 seconds on her own momentum. I thought I'd be able to do it too but I could hardly get myself up at all. Every time the boat started I would go flying forward, land facedown in the water, and the skis would turn under the water and pop up behind me and hit me in the head.

5. I drove an ATV. That's an all-terrain vehicle, in case you didn't know. It was SO much fun. I drove it through this big muddy field over branches and ditches and rocks and bushes and bramble. Then I tried to drive the ATV through the forest to get back out to the main road and the ATV overheated and turned off. Thankfully it turned off once I got into the forest and not while I was in the big muddy field because then I wouldn't have been able to get off without caking myself in mud. As it was, I just left the ATV where it was to cool off and walked through the forest back to the main road. But on my way I saw these big bones. It was creepy. It looked like a human arm bones to me but Agnes said it was probably just a deer.

6. I rode an old-fashioned carousel. It wasn't terribly exciting but it was fun. The carousel had been hand-carved by a Lithuanian master woodcarver and was very beautiful.

7. I ate pate. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Hm. That's all for now. I have something really important to go do now... shopping. Wheeeee! I love vacation!