The Height of Contentment

Talk about a successful weekend. In list form:

1. Enjoyed a hot stone massage
2. Cat napped, both days
3. Vamped on the red carpet
4. Ignored the ex-boyfriend's attempts to use his son as a reconcilation point
5. Told a queen to quit his bitchiness
6. Got him to take our picture
7. Chinese food, yum
8. Read an entire book
9. Ignored the Lakers
10. Ignored the Dodgers
11. Guacamole, yum
12. Carne asada, yum
13. Ignored the gym
14. Rum-soaked chocolate, yum
15. Was not mistaken for Persian again
16. Bought three new dresses
17. Red wine, yum
18. Posted 3 new galleries to my website

But mostly I laid around my house and did not a fucking thing. That was the best.

And now, to start the week...

March by the Numbers

I still hate baseball. But I love lists and numbers, so here you go. My quite busy 31 days:

13 hours playing the planner behind the scenes for one very long event
15 hours before the end of that and the start of a boat trip
3 nights on a cruise
12 hours docked in Ensenada
189 dollars for a passport
0 seconds spent exploring Mexico
0 need for said passport
2 gay boys instantly bonded with
40 dollars spent playing B-I-N-G-O
4000 dollars to be won
0 dollars won
150 dollars wasted at the spa
90 dollars of products they attempted to sell me
5 minutes to the top of the rock wall
20 minutes before my arms stopped vibrating
3 glorious days with my best friend, not worrying about a fucking thing
400 miles traveled by sea
260 miles traveled to and from San Diego
2 days with my baby brother's family
1 ticket for driving--unbeknownst to me--my brother's car without the lights on
10 full minutes of a child screaming while the fucking cop wrote out the ticket
1 UCLA game enjoyed with my brother and his son
13 college basketball games watched all month
4 games rooting loudly for Love & Co.
30 days dreading the start of baseball season, and my impending coronary
1 unexpected phone call from an ex
12 minutes of utterly shocked silence on my end
1 apology I still can't quite accept
2 family birthdays
49 years combined between them
4 new restaurants checked out with La Ria
1 very disappointing sushi dinner
3 movies enjoyed
4 days given to rescue a management project
17 days wasted on it by someone else
3 days taken to complete it
31 days spent kicking all sorts of ass

Eating Out and Dining In

In light of this news, I've been trying to determine just how bad off I am. Certain things affect me in varying degrees. I can have small amounts of sugar but absolutely NO wheat products unless I want to feel like I'm dying for a few hours. Same goes for eggs, they're death on sight.

Safe to eat:
- cheese
- wine, tequila, AND scotch
- rice cakes
- tortilla chips
- pork rinds
- Jack in the Box tacos and cheese sticks
- sushi with very small doses of soy sauce
- foccacia
- steak with truffle butter

Not safe:
- Philly cheesesteaks
- pizza
- quiche
- Panda Express eggplant and fried tofu
- soy lattes
- cherry pie
- ciabbata sandwiches
- French fries

The weirdest thing is how I react to diet Coke. Aspartame makes my arms feel like they're going to fall off. It's not fun.

On the upside, it turns out there are a lot of bad things that are still okay to ingest. Yay!

Testing will continue until I overcome these silly allergies and/or die. I wonder how I'll tolerate Reese's peanut butter cups...

Two Things #4

1. The worst part about packing is the unpacking. I can't find a fucking thing.

2. Cost-co will turn you into a stark raving madman. A murderer. It makes sane people tear their hair out. You may very well lose a limb or an eyeball attempting to just find parking. Stay far, far away. Especially during the holiday season.

Two Things #3

1. I don't like refrigerators that look like they're part of the cabinetry. That kind of decor strikes me as really odd.

2. Why does my hair look so damn great after 3 days of being unwashed? Usually after two days the curls just aren't what they used to be, and yet here I am with perfect fucking hair with nowhere to go but into the shower.

Weird.

Call Me Wonder Woman

In the middle of this massive packing project--who knew how much shit you can amass in six years?!--I've found time to do many other things:

1. List 22 items on ebay
2. Rent a lighting set up
3. Get yelled at by a fake judge for her fake problems
4. Break up with my boyfriend
5. Buy a new camera
6. Shoot a slew of family portraits
7. Celebrate Xmas with my coworkers
8. Flirt with an adorable gun-toting fed
9. Return new camera
10. Flirt with an architect
11. Enjoy a piña colada
12. Flirt with several newly-minted lawyers
13. Knit a purple scarf
14. Buy makeup and new clothes for myself
15. Flirt with some veteran lawyers...and a judge
16. Shop for shoes...and purses...and jewelry...and more clothes

And that was just in the last week. I'm so fucking productive. I should reward myself with sex and scotch. Oh wait, I did that too!

La dee da. I'm pretty satisfied with myself.

Taking it All for Granted

Ever since I made the decision to move, I've suddenly become very aware of what I'm leaving behind:

- The beach a mere four miles away
- A cooler climate than the rest of the city
- My favorite dive bar, where the owner knows my name, and the Sunday morning regulars greet me with a high five, especially if the Saints are winning

There are far more negative things, like traffic, ridiculously high rent, traffic, never-ending street construction, and did I mention the paralyzing traffic?

But the one thing that I noticed on the ride home tonight was the line of planes. Little points of light. Like a linear constellation. It reminded me of the week after 9/11. My roommate, who had just left NYC, and I headed down to the beach one night. It was eerily deserted, like most of the city. People were afraid to leave their homes in those first few days. But what struck us most was the absence of that line of lights hovering over LAX. It was strange.

For some reason, leaving that to move 30 miles inland is making me sad.

It's funny what gets you.

Growing Up is Hard to Do, Part 2

Over the weekend, I realized I'm living a life I don't quite recognize. Not totally happy with it, I've decided to do away with the hypotheticals and accept certain truths.

In list form:

- Quitting my job would not be the end of the world
- Maybe having a kid wouldn't be so bad
- I'm moving back to El Valle next month

Usually, when I want to make a big change in my life, I just cut off all my hair and take up a new endurance sport. But this time, it's going to take more than a sassy haircut and a renewed commitment to the gym. I have to shake it up completely: relocate and start fresh.

I'm lucky that I have the luxury of making these decisions on my terms and no one else's, even if coming to grips with them is breaking my brain. And no, I'm on pregnant...but apparently the biological clock started ticking on Saturday.

Probably due to the fact that Saturday marked the 6-month countdown to 30.

Crikey.

In the meantime, happy 6th birthday to my G-brat. She's 6 today. What a fun age.

Two More Things

1. Heliocopters hovering in my neighborhood are annoying. Damn juvenile delinquents.

2. Bluetooth ear pieces fuck with your peripheral vision. Especially when driving. Which is just as distracting as fiddling with an actual phone, so what's the benefit?

Two Things

1. The Raiders were robbed.

2. Ironing a shirt with a ruffle is really hard.

Summer Goals

I know the summer is already half over. So don't look at me like I'm late to the party. If you've ever been to a party with me, you know that there is always a huge rush to greet me with hugs and a general disruption of goings-on while everyone screams "hey, the GPG is here!"

Shit don't really start till I get there. It's true.

I've been wasting away at work since January and I'm completely tired of it. A new distraction in late May made it nearly-bearable until it too became inconvenient (read: hard). While I figure out whether or not he's worth the aggravation, I have to come up with new ways to avoid being at work 18 hours a day.

To wit:

- Clean out the closet. I have many clothes that don't fit. They will probably never fit again. Like those 17 pairs of jeans that date back to high school. They aren't even in style anymore. Did anyone know what a boot-cut was in 1994? No? Then to the Salvation Army they go!

- Organize the photo collection. There are 3 places where my "artwork" lives, none of them in any sort of discernable catalog. Then there are the brazillions of 4x6s that were taken at parties before god invented digital cameras. Remember 1994? My jeans do. So do the pics. Time to trash or box up in a single spot.

- Clear out the clutter. I've somehow developed ratpack-iritis, which in its most deplorable forms makes you keep a 3-foot tinfoil Xmas tree bedecked with pink glass ornaments in your bedroom ALL YEAR LONG. There are also 82 issues of magazines I never read. And a bag full of presents I brought home on December 25th that never really found a home. All of this will see the inside of our apartment building's trash receptacle by Labor Day.

- Lose this horrible 10 pounds I've managed to gain being completely sedentary for 18 hours a day over the last 6 months. A coworker and I made a pact to lose 15 pounds by end of August. I don't know that there are any consequences for failing, other than the utter shame of breaking the pact. Which is enough to keep me going, that's for damn sure. I figure if I hit at least 10, that's a success.

Them's the biggies. And probably all the responsibility I can handle for a while.

There's More Good than Bad

Piss-poor combinations:

• scotch + PMS + the stupidity of men
• pasta + diet coke + my hatred of pasta
• work + lack of sleep + apathy

Excellent combinations:

• roses + riding in cars with boys + kisses
• party invitations + new dress + fabulous date
• a big bed + clean sheets + an afternoon off of work
• red lipstick + anything else

Red lipstick trumps it all.