journal
02.01.03 do you see what i see?
last night i went to dinner with em and her coworkers from the hotel. we ate at osteria del circo, the relatively new venture by the maccioni duo, famous owners of le cirque. they were there last night, the senor and senora maccioni- v.friendly and hospitable. the concierge also worked it so the whole meal was complimentary. unfortunately, the food was disappointing save the desserts, and we were glad we didn't have to pay for an expensive-bad tasting dinner.
after dinner we went to a bar near emi's hotel and drank for three hours. i met a guy, a friend of em's friend, and we hit it off. v.nice, funny, cute eyes, but... spoonface. he had a hint of spoonface lingering around his mouth area, then when he smiled, it was just spoonface through and through. but cute eyes. but spoonface. but cute eyes! but SPOONFACE! let me explain. there are two types of faces that i can never be attracted to. they are the spoonface and the catfish.
*spoonface: person with a rounded and convex face, as if it were reflected on the back of a spoon. i.e. jerry seinfeld
*catfish: person whose face looks like a catfish. usu. has small beady eyes, a thin line of hair growth above full, fishy lips. i.e. charles bronson
so after drinks we headed over to iguanas, a nearby bar/club. i danced with spoon for a bit and kept wondering if i could ever be attracted to him. i thought mebbe. after iguanas, em, spoon, and i walked back toward the hotel where em had booked us a room. but then he invited us to his apt (across the street from the hotel) and said he'd make us tea. so we went to his apt that looked like a museum because he apparently makes tons and tons of money and enjoys spending on antiques, designer furniture, and an architect. the tea was good, the apt was impressive, he was v.nice and sociable, and... spoonfacey. it had won over the cute eyes. and the good tea. and wondering what it would be like to date someone with ridiculous amounts of money. spoonface. no can do.
02.02.03
alias was so good tonight. unfortunately i missed the episode when all this important stuff happened. : /
michael vartan. why do i find him so extremely attractive?
02.07.03
you know what's really good? a buttery croissant.
i watched the hours tonight. it was good. they did a pretty good job in recreating virginia woolfe's nose out of nicole kidman's dainty pointed one. the movie is faithful to the book. though they've omitted the part when clarissa's character (played by meryl streep) sights actress meryl streep in the street. because then you'd get meryl streep sighting meryl streep and that might be confusing.
02.09.03
i must stop the habit of writing long journal entries, then deleting them.
02.10.03 monday monday
every night around 9 o'clock there is a window of 'sleepy time' when i am in a mute, half lay/half sit position on the couch. it is such a sleepy time that i can barely keep my eyes open. but i fight it because don't you think 9 is just a tad too early for a grown up to go to bed? so i stay awake and read or watch korean dramas while my mom feeds me fruit. around ten i start washing up. this process always takes longer than one would think because, ya know, things come up. some nights i'll feel extra grimy which means my face is in need of a pore purifying mud mask. other times i get caught up with plucking stray eyebrow hairs, clipping nails, and once in a blue moon- i shave. if you think that not shaving regularly is gross then you are a guy. real girls don't shave much this time of year. i am a real girl. also, it is winter. it could be thermal.
so after self grooming i'll check email, chat with dr.e and poeks, and before i know it, *11:30*. by this time the window to peaceful slumber has shut me out. yes, i am complaining about my sleepless again. but it bothers me! it is agony all by myself in the dark late at night when *everyone* else is sleeping! seriously, sometimes it makes me want to cry.
speaking of crying, while walking to the train station after work today, i almost cried. the snow was falling. the city looks so amazing when snow is falling. and there were people passing and brushing by me, these people who each have their own extraordinary lives. i don't know- i just felt so part of this peoplehood of... people. all the people-ness and people's pains and mistakes and loves and weariness and even the selfishness of people. at the time it moved me to almost-tears because i felt very happy to be alive and part of the peoplehood. why does it all sound so corny in writing? can i ever write emotional things without suffering from the corny backlash?
02.12.03
i pretend that i can make fabulous things with fabric and needle and thread. one way is through revamping old t-shirts. by adding capped sleeves, cutting the neck line, adding sequins when needed (they very often are), and taking in the sides to make it more fitted i can make it... fabulous. kinda little bit. ask poeks about my sparkly 'linisnice' tee. but now i want to move onto bigger things. i want to make fabric handbags and makeup pouches with *zippers* on them. i want to make camisoles and boy shorts. i want to make clothes and sell them for one miiiiiillion dollars.
i'd love to go on a trip to the south of france. it would actually start in morrocco, then up through portugal, spain, provence, italy, turkey, and end in greece. i would eat figs, olives, and gelato everyday and buy all sorts of interesting junk from outdoor markets like old porcelain figures, seemingly ancient maps of the world, woven baskets, etc.
maybe later when i'm back in the states, the antiques roadshow will make a stop in westfield, and i'll bring something i bought from the trip. at a table covered with dark green felt, an appraiser named bartlett pear or similar will gently examine the possible treasure in his hand. i will sit eagerly by his side, hoping it is worth *something*.
after taking a deep breath he'll straighten his polka-dot bow tie and say that this little scrap of iron is in fact a shoe buckle that was once worn on the shoe, of the foot, of victor hugo. just imagine, the buckle of the shoe that touched the foot of victor hugo! perhaps he wore this buckled shoe whilst writing les miserables or the hunchback of notre dame! bartlett pear will seeth with envy as he gives me an estimate. one miiiiiillion dollars! at an auction rich people will be at wits end to own victor hugo's shoe buckle. yet one outbids all. it is puff daddy. he will pay me one miiiiillion dollars. yay!
02.16.03
i loooooove snow. i want to go sledding and then come home and eat a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. but there are no friends to play with. i should have some 6-yr old friends to hang with on snowy days. am i allowed to lumber up indian hill in a snow suit, dragging my 2-seater plastic sled with a group of 6yr olds?
on valentine's day i somehow ended up at a phd grad student shindig on the upper west side with my bitter cousin sarah. by the door of the apt, there were two bowls, each containing halves of v-day cards- the kind you used to hand out in elementary school. the halves were numbered and the object was to find your "other half" inside.
they were almost all phd students, most of them foreign, mainly russian actually, and in their early thirties. dorky dork dork dorks. well, there were a couple of good looking guys but one of them was bald. ugh, i was not feelin it. then, just as i was finishing off my glass of wine and ready to head out, my "other half" found me. he had been going around the party looking for her. he held his card up and asked, "hi, have you found your other half? this is my number." he was it. number 11. this tall, skinny, jerry seinfeld look alike was my other half. i laughed and nodded. a girl sitting next to me said, "oh! you've found your soul mate!"
so we, once apart but now whole, shook hands and introduced ourselves. "my name is oleg" he said.
then, THEN, oleg asked me if i had my half of the card to show him. this was insanely absurd because i mean, what, did he want proof? could he possibly have thought that i'd *lie* to be matched up with him? oleg? that i had picked him out earlier that night and said to myself, "he's mine, that tall, gangly one with the unibrow."
he gave me a lollipop and asked me where i was from. i said new jersey but he was probably thinking somewhere far east... somewhere exotic... china perhaps.
we left shortly after that and grabbed pizza in midtown. pizza is so good late at night. so good all the time, but so so so good late at night. and you know, that was the highlight of my valentine's day. a good slice of pizza. maybe next year it will be more romantic.
02.17.03
to the people:
i do not have a favourite journal month. infact, i should be addressing that question to you. what is your favourite month? leave votes on my guestbook.
sometimes diana ross just hits the spot, you know? i shamelessly love those cheesy beats of the late 70's. they make me feel happy inside. at first i'll mix in diana ross with other stuff but eventually the mp3 playlist turns into a long row of stevie wonder, stephen bishop, bread, carly simon, carpenters... awesome stuff. highly recommended for the masses.
the snow will not stop. i'm thinking maybe, *maybe* it would be quite impossible for me to go to work tomorrow? i brought some work home on friday so perhaps i can fax it in tomorrow and call it a day? muhaha. (will have to ask mr.whiskas).
do you know, where you're going to
do you like the things that life is showing you
where are you going to
do you know
do you get, what you're hoping for
when you look behind you there's no open door
what are you hoping for
do you know?
-diana ross-
02.18.03
i spend about two hundred bucks a month for transportation and all i'm askin is for the train to *show up*.
you know when someone does something annoying but it's too petty to bring it up so you hold it in and pretend you are *that* graceful, but then the friend keeps bringing on the annoying thing in different forms so that bit by bit it builds up to an explosive confrontation involving inappropriate anger? i've never really had that confrontation. hmm.
02.20.03
the life of david gayle is not worth eight dollars. maybe five. kevin spacey is good as usual, but parts of the movie were so hokey. between scenes they had these "collage" footages where you just see single words written, typed, mounted, or painted in different colors, handwriting, etc. so it's kevin spacey talking and then flashes of the word "lust" then "hate" then "anger" then "guilt" and so on. overall, it was entertaining. and creepy. i'm actually freaked out right now, having been scarred for life from one of the scenes.
i'm scared. going to sleep with the bedside lamp on.
02.21.03
wendy and i met up for dinner in chinatown tonight. it is the best place to eat and eat MORE. i love chinatown. such a distinct corner of the city. nitty gritty and lively and fishmarkety-smelling and extremely crowded. being there makes me want to be chinese. or at least speak chinese and then pretend to be one when ordering food or barganing down cheapie sunglasses.
after dinner i bought fruit from the street vendors. there was this one vendor, a very old man selling jubilant fuji apples, 5 for $2. after carefully placing five gleaming apples in a plastic bag, i went to pay. when i realized that i had only a twenty dollar bill, i felt all embarassed and sorry. he was so old and small. he would have to sell 50 apples to make twenty dollars. wasn't i annoying for not having two dollar bills? he started counting out my change, handing me five at a time, then the last three. i had more than half of his wad of change. i wondered should i buy five more, but didn't want to carry two heavy, apple laden bags to new jersey. so i just smiled and said thanks and took all his change.
later in the subway i wandered onto the 6 instead of the n/r because i was listening to norah jones and daydreaming, and not paying attention to numbers on trains. this resulted in my transportation to 33rd and park ave, four avenue blocks away from penn station. had i purchased ten apples, i would probably have had to take a crosstown bus. and i don't like the idea of me struggling onto a bus with all those apples.
the brand fruit of the loom always reminds me of that phrase "the fruit of your loins".
02.23.03precious saturday
slept almost 11hrs. ate chocolate covered wafers for breakfast and watched segments of a v.interesting pbs special on jazz. did you know that "jazz" was first spelled "jass"? and according to wynton marsalis, "jass" without the "j" is simply "ass"?
i can't tell you what he meant by that because i was flipping channels at the time and happened to turn back to 13 right before he said it.
later went to target in search of green eyeshadow. browsed around for an hour looking at tissue paper, makeup, candle votives, and things from cynthia rowley's "swell" line. cute stuff. did find green eyeshadow but they were such ugly greens. no need for a cirque de face. only bought a bag of pepperidge farm milk chocolate milano cookies and devoured several in my car in manner of miriam baxter bernie from that after school special movie about bulimia. now despairing over consumed bag of cookies because fat is not part of what i have in mind for this summer.
dr.e and i have discussed that we want to be thin and pretty and glowing on pei. not frumpy with our big, winter-seasoned behinds perched on bike seats. i mean, it's one thing to be thin and cute with a picnic basket attatched to the back of one's bike... and vastly another to pedal one's body weight with serious effort, sweating furiously, and stopping despite 3/4 of the bike route ahead, to eat the savory contents of the picnic basket. really, that must not happen!
went to the library afterwards and borrowed a couple of books and a dvd of amelie. came home, ate more food, watched amelie and thought it one of the most wonderful movies i've ever seen. then i watched it again.
tomorrow is monday. but let's not think about that.
why must all award shows be so drawn out? i'm happy that 'best new artist' went to norah jones. but of course it went to norah. she is an exceedingly better artist than, let's say, avril lavigne or michelle branch. not to say avril or michelle are bad sounding to all people's ears. they are just so bad sounding to mine.
02.24.03
every morning i dutifully join the dark coat-ed huddle of middle aged westfielders on the platform of our town's train station. we shift our weight from one foot to the other and hope for the east bound train. that it will be good to us on this blustery february day and pick us up dammit.
finally it comes. we begin to inch nearer to the edge of the platform, a little nervous about crossing the bright yellow area while the train is still in motion, but inching nonetheless. no one, and i mean no one wants to be the last one on the train. when the machine comes to a halt and the doors slide open, we clump. it seems that people only form lines when they're told to do so by other people, signs, or line-forming arrangements like the roped fence. in the clump there is sometimes pushing, cutting, getting whacked by handbags, and the spectacle of multiple people attempting to squeeze on simultaneously.
once on the train, we newly aboards look for a good seat. prime location is the aisle seat near the front or the back of the car. this ensures a speedy exit and almost always another seat on the connecting train. also, among those who are already seated there are three types.
-sleeping person (or closed eyes person) who does not want to be bothered about moving his/her crap off the empty seat next to him.
-no eye contact person who will not encourage or discourage you from sitting next to him.
-freaky, full-on eye contact person who attempts to thwart your decision to take the seat next to him by staring at you until you pass by and are out of range. this actually works because not that many people will want to go plop down next to someone who is giving them freaky, full-on eye contact.
once we've found our seats, the worst is pretty much over. well, until we get to newark atleast. we sit back and glide over new jersey, either looking forward to a super day at work or counting the days till the weekend.
02.25.03
paul was right. the short pea coat that i thought so jaunty and cute at the time of purchase *does* make me look like a bell hop.
i feel so dowdy lately. always in a dark coat, sweaters, slacks, black or beige boots. when it gets a little warmer i think i'll purge my closet and get rid of things that i don't really wear. if you know me, you know that i have a hard time throwing things away. it must be done but it will be tricky. very tricky.
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