sweet dream

last night
i dreamt of you
and we
were on a hill
and we
were just talking
(as if)
we were best friends

all i wanted was a churro

When I was maybe 16 yrs old or so, I worked at SeaWorld in San Diego for one summer. I drove my little red Honda Civic to work. From where I grew up, (Bonita, CA) it was about a 35 minute drive. It was actually my brother's Honda, but he got the Jeep Cherokee when he went to college. So I was left with the little Honda which was trusty and looked like a cinnamon tic tac.

I didn't work feeding the dolphins or cleaning fish tanks, so in a way, I was a SeaWorld impostor. I worked at a kiosk as a poster roller. Let me clarify…you know those Asian men who sit on the sidewalk of Times Square and paint a word (usually your name) using colorful flowers/dolphins/trees instead of letters? E.g., the "I" in IRENE would be a palm tree. The "R" would be a curved porpoise. The "E" would be a hula dancer with a really bad goiter... you get the picture. And no, silly! I didn't paint the names! I was the authentic Asian girl who rolled up the scrolls and put them in the tube. Day after day. Hour after hour. I nearly drowned myself in Shamu's piss pool out of sheer boredom.

So when I completed my last day of work ever at SeaWorld, you can imagine my joy! I skipped out of there like a little girl, my long ponytail swinging behind me. On the way to the employees’ parking lot, I thought to myself, "You know what, Irene? Why not treat yourself to a delicious Mexican donut dusted with cinnamon sugar, also known as a 'churro'?” (roll the ‘r’, please, in churrrrrrro). It was a fine idea, indeed.

I paid for the goods and was poised to take a bite when someone knocked me over the head with her purse. BAM! I staggered to my right. I was furious and embarrassed. Do I pretend it never happened? Do I stagger to the left, finish off with a twirl and start a little dance? Before I even had a chance to figure it all out, the same crazy Coo-Coo-Head hit me again over the head again, this time pitching me forward several steps. By this time, a small crowed had gathered around me. Did you see that? Do we help her? That was so funny! I was the circus freak! I was the car wreck! And I was still clueless as to what was going on!

I decided the best way to handle this was to pretend nothing had happened. The person who was shoving me ran away too quickly for me to tackle her anyway. I re-poised myself to take a bite out of my churro when, as if I had suddenly acquired Tourette Syndrome*, my arm shot straight up in the air. I looked up. And it was a strange moment for me. Initial confusion was chased away by a shock of total clarity.

I was under attack by two monstrous seagulls. MONSTROUS. One of them had my SeaWorld windbreaker cuff in its mouth. And the other one was repeatedly flapping me on the head with its wing. My "fight or flight" response was called into action and I fought them valiently for my hard earned churro. To tell you the truth, I really wanted to JUST GIVE UP! But a latent "Rocky Balboa" surged in me and it would not let go of the damn donut.

Eventually, a massive shit squirt dangerously close to the eye left me defeated. And all I was left with was a small 3 inch length of churro. Smushed, greasy, inedible. I was sad. Only then did people try to help me! But it was too late. I brushed them off brusquely and ran to my little red tic tac Honda.

As I drove home, I came out of my shock and I started to cry. I was crying because my knees were skinned and I had poop in my hair. I was crying because I had repeatedly looked into the butt hole of a seagull. I was crying because my churro had gone to wrongful owners. I walked in through the garage door that led into my house. My mom was cooking dinner. When she saw me, she dropped the pan she was holding and said, "UH MUH NAH!" (translation - oh my goodness!).

Poor Mommy. She must have thought I had gotten jumped or even worse. I cried and cried as she held me and smushed the bird poop all over her shirt. Something only a mother will do.

I can actually laugh about this incident today. It's really funny, in all honesty. But churros make me quiver with fear. And seagulls? Forgetaboutit.

*I know it’s really un-PC to talk about Tourette Syndrome so glibly. I apologize to anyone I have offended. Did you know: One of the less common possible symptoms of Tourettes (yet the most recognizable) is Coprolalia (outburst of obscenities and curse words). Coprolalia is actually very uncommon in Tourette Syndrome and only effects as low as 5% to 15% of Touretter’s. Learn something new every day.

i'm pro female and all, but...

irenejkim77: oooh. THAT makes total sense. ok.
irenejkim77: go tit.
irenejkim77: hahahahah!
irenejkim77: gooooooooooo tit!
irenejkim77: hilarious.
irenejkim77: GOT it. (is obviously what I meant)
irenejkim77: I used to be a cheerleader, but even that is a little excessive for me.

you! don't bring me flowers anymore...

i don't like flowers. i don't like receiving flowers as gifts. i don't like giving flowers as gifts. similar to my dislike of soup spoons (blog: "slow day at work" 5.31.07), i can logically defend this prejudice. (let me take this moment to tell my readers the only actual phobia is the one i have of fr*gs. i don’t even like to see that word in print. they creep me out. as do pickles since they resemble fr*gs).

cut flowers are beings en route to death. i hate to be so macabre, but it’s true. their misleading vibrancy is masking the fact that their roots have literally been cut and their days are quite numbered. when i see a bouquet of flowers, i cannot help but think that in a few days, those pretty, quasi living di/monocotyledons (dude, remember that from 5th grade science?) will be face down, feet up in my trash can.

so, AS IF i needed another reason to deeply, deeply resent flowers, something terrible happened to me yesterday. i even took a picture of it but i think i forgot to save it because i now i can't find it on my phone.

the flowers which were pushed on me by the clean up crew at a wedding i attended last week, spawned a caterpillar. when i saw this larvae with it’s undulating and segmented body just hanging out in my living room, i felt like i was being punk’d. i was praying that ashton kutcher was hiding in my bedroom along with my brother, best friend, and mom. please, ashton, tell me this is not real. i’m waiting for you to holler “surprise! it’s not a real caterpillar! it’s a GUMMY caterpillar! hahahahahaha!”

i am not kidding when i say that my gag reflex kicked in. and after my mini gag session, i did a really peculiar thing: i started jumping up and down, shook my head, shot my hands straight up into the air, all the while started screaming "ahhhhhhh!". i think the clinical term for this sudden and violent outburst would be “to engage in a freak out.”

i did what any convulsing woman would do…i steadied my twitching hand long enough to knock on my neighbors door and when he answered, i managed to squeak out, “caterpillar, help me…please, i *insert freak out dance here* can’t do it. caterpillar. flowers. *insert gag reflex*”

i honestly cannot believe that he followed me into my apartment. for all he knew, i was a crazy psychopath with a sadist tendencies. but he did and i’ll never forget the image of the tightly coiled caterpillar being flushed down the toilet. i know it’s not rational, but now when i go to the bathroom, i feel like the caterpillar will exact it’s revenge on my bum one day.

the great french cover up

11:53AM ikim3: i have a fashion question.
11:53AM jparks1: yes
11:54AM ikim3: if i am wearing a black dress with red lipstick, is red (short) nails overkill?
11:54AM ikim3: or should i get a french manicure?
11:54AM jparks1: i hate french manicures
11:54AM ikim3: really? why?
11:55AM jparks1: short red nails is fine
11:55AM ikim3: ok. thank you.
11:55AM ikim3: why do you hate french mans?
11:56AM jparks1: french mans are tacky
11:56AM jparks1: and I especially hate it on toes
11:59AM ikim3: ew.
12:00PM ikim3: the problem i have with french manicures is that it's covering up dirt.
12:00PM ikim3: which is never a good idea.
12:01PM ikim3: ppl with french manicures look like they have nice white nails when in fact, lots of dirt could be stuck under there.
12:01PM ikim3: it's misleading. the french. they do that with perfume, too.
12:01PM ikim3: covering up B.O.
12:01PM jparks1: yep
12:01PM jparks1: its like a cover up
12:01PM ikim3: the great french cover up.

introducing trouble

let’s go back to 381 wagon wheel way. the most salient memories i have of those years are of the glorious san diego summers and of playing with my beautiful best friend erin cory who lived across the street. when erin was about 6 (and I was about 9) she procured two lop eared rabbits named heartcakes and cocoa. heartcakes and cocoa made my lips and eyes and ears itch. tho it was painfully obvious, i didn’t want to admit that i was allergic to rabbits. (side note, i am also allergic to potatoes, tomatoes, corn, soy, and peanuts. and anything else that produces dander). so what i would do was put my brother’s striped tube socks over my arms like long gloves and touch the rabbits lovingly through the hole in their wire cage. it didn’t do jack shit, but I think allergies are 50% psychosomatic anyway.

i was a little prankster. i was that kid who jumped out from behind doors, fell and cried only to yell “just kidding! when help arrived”. i even faked running away from home when i was really just hiding in the back of my mom’s car while she frantically drove around looking for me. can you believe it? i thought it was funny at the time…if only my 7 year old brain could have understood the depth of panic my mother felt, i would take it back and never do it again. all in all, i was just a really *happy* little girl.

erin and i played tricks together. one of our favorites was the peanut butter trick which we did but once. the set up was this: get some chunky peanut butter and shape it into a long piece of turd. then put the fake turd on erin’s doorstep. borrow a dog if you don’t have one yourself ( we used the lucas’ little dachshund…let’s call him “ziggy” because i can’t recall his name right now). ring the doorbell and wait. what unfolds was seriously hysterical. for us, at least.

we could see sharon (erin’s mom) come up the stairs to answer the front door through the white shutters. sharon was the world’s most perfect mother. gorgeous, loving, huggy, perfumy. it’s not surprising that erin is exactly the same way. sharon was my “i’m going to run away and live with sharon” sharon. sharon was the epitome of what i thought an american family should be like (and what i myopically thought the kim family was not.) sharon was not just another lovely person, she was an aspiration. i loved her penchant for hunter green. i loved her perfectly golden pancakes topped with squeezable butter. i loved the way she cut my food into tiny pieces of mush and I just loved sharon.

as sharon opened the door, my transformation into an oscar worthy actress began. “look sharon! ziggy did an accident!” i would glare accusingly at dear little ziggy who was probably vigorously licking his anus. sharon’s eyes would catch the peanut butter turd innocently lying on the grey concrete and before she could do or say anything, i would say, “but don’t worry, i’ll take care of everything. “ i picked up the peanut butter turd and jammed the whole thing into my mouth.

what happens after that is unclear. i can only imagine peals of laugher mixed in with screams of horror mixed in with an attempted heimlich maneuver mixed in with one wriggly irene running home.

it’s really ironic that i developed an allergy to peanuts as an adult. that means I can never play that trick on you.

"not sure what to say" (real item from www.vineyardvines.com, the WASP-iest, mass label out there)

From: Ali, Wajahat
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 3:58 PM
To: Mascarenhas, Mark A; Kim, Irene (EQ - New York)
Subject: Not sure what to say...

http://www.vineyardvines.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/products.detail/categoryID/4a6fd419-651c-4c88-a341-31f39f1f6129/productID/49493234-b52c-4db3-8ba6-be5400134249/


Wajahat


-----Original Message-----
From: Sinha, Sylvana [mailto:Sylvana.Sinha@xxxx.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 4:23 PM
To: Kim, Irene (EQ - New York); tanyaxxx@xxx.com
Subject: RE: Not sure what to say...


I can't believe they are $98!

Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico

This weekend I had to go to Saks Fifth Avenue to return a dress I bought during one of my frenzied retail therapy sessions. Honestly, even I am shocked and awed at the unrestrained and voracious nature of my spending. Just to put it into perspective, I spent more than 3,000 USD in 1 hour. WTF? Who do I think I am? Princess Haewon of Korea? (she's real - and I am obsessed with her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haewon,_Princess_of_Korea). So, to make wrong things right, I sheepishly went from store to store returning all that I didn't REALLY need. Which was pretty much everything, including the ivory alpaca cape from Barney's.
I forgot that the Puerto Rican Parade was running right up 5th Avenue on Saturday. But for once, I had time on my hands so I didn't mind waiting in line as the police managed the flow of non Puerto Rican Parade revelers across 5th Ave. The Po-Po let us trickle through bit by bit by moving the metal barricades a few inches and then closing it off abruptly, without warning, and with great mirth. We were like a human titration across 5th Ave - a very delicate balance had to be maintained.


Some observations:
1) Ricky Martin has a foundation. That's Ricky's bom bom in the picture.


2) Long nails hurt when they poke you in the chest. See, I wanted to take a snapshot of the pretty Puerto Rican girls. This picture was taken right after I yelled "LOOK UP THERE!" so that I could take the picture without arousing much suspicion. The one in the middle turned to me and said, "what are YOU (poke) looking at?"


3) The way out of a situation like the one I detail above, you only have to do one thing: raise your hands and yell "BORIIIIIQUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=boriqua) and...

4) ...you are INSTANTLY inducted into the Puerto Rican circle of love, regardless of race, gender, or the fact that the entire time you are listening to Pete Yorn wailing about something on your iPod. Whatever it was, it was quite possibly the most un Puerto Rican song possible.

(And by "un" I mean "anti/opposite of/contrary to", not "un" the Spanish word for "one/a"...i know this seems nit-picky, but i have a co-worker named "se" and everytime someone would say "yo, se!" i thought they were saying "i know" in Spanish. Being multi-lingual can cause much confusion.

a story by st kim

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=151806215

*this* bothers me

I get up really early to go to work. I am usually on the train platform by 6:10 am bc I refuse to let myself get stuck in the golden handcuffs and take a taxi to work. Which is what everyone else on my trading desk does. In any case, it only saves me 20 minutes of sleep. Which begs the question, would you pay 10 dollars for an extra 20 minutes of sleep? Which over the course of the year is 2400 dollars which is really 4800 pre tax. So the REAL question is, would you pay almost 5000 to sleep an extra 20 minutes a work day? It's a personal decision, but for me, the answer is, NO.

Anyway, I digress. Sometimes I walk out my door and step over drunk hobos or locked out boyfriends curled up like guinea pigs in my lobby vestibule (and I'm being generous by calling it a lobby). Sometimes, as a resident of Christopher Street, I will run into a gaggle of barefooted trannies coming back from a big night out. As I wiggle myself between them, I think "this is what salmon feels like when they have to swim upstream to do whatever they do upstream". The trannies know me at this point and they all pretend to touch my hair and coo, "oooooh…pretty business lady!".

None of that bothers me.

What DOES bother me is particular short man in a super tacky leather/pleather/naugahyde jacket who is also at the platform every morning. He will walk *this close* to me and say, "hey baby" in a very salacious way that makes my skin crawl. He makes a point to sit across from me every morning. The one time I ran out of a subway car to avoid being in the same one as him, I missed the train. I was so mad! Once I am on the train, however, I am usually on my blackberry or listening to my ipod or reading my book or paper. So over time, he has become a non entity. Kind of like a hooker's plantar's warts. In the grand scheme of things, it's the least of her worries.

This morning, I hit a wall. I saw him coming out of the corner of my eye and I just DID NOT WANT TO DEAL WITH THE SHORT MAN. I turned to him and said, "It would be awesome if you could PLEASE F*CK OFF." but I said it really sweetly bc who needs that kind of agression at 6:10 in the morning?

We sat in different cars this morning.

this is the way we think

10:11AM jparks1: I just threw up at Au Bon Pain
10:11AM ikim3: OMG.
10:11AM jparks1: so hungover
10:11AM ikim3: oh.
10:11AM ikim3: i was just about to call you bc
10:11AM ikim3: i thought you were preggers
10:11AM ikim3: WHEW!

i wish

i could type without making mistakes. i love the sound of "tippity tappity tip tip tap".
the sound of typing uninterrupted by "BONK BONK BONK" which is the sound the backspace button makes on my computer.

(look. it's my initals. ijk!)

The Anatomy of a Nose

I don't like carrots. I find that carrots, more than any other food, have a way of sneaking into your nasal cavity. The result is an awful, tight, "I've got a booger in my nose yet not REALLY in my nose" kind of feeling. Carrots are especially dangerous bc they don't mush up as you chew them. Instead, the pieces just get smaller and smaller. But still stay separate. As the itty bitty carrot pieces multiply, so do your chances of swallowing the wrong way and getting one tiny piece lodged into your nasal cavity. Tho the size of a pencil tip, that carrot piece will feel like you've got the Rock of Gibraltar up your nose.

When I was a kid, my Aunt Betty cooked up spaghetti with meat sauce. It was a real treat bc I basically ate Korean food every night. I slurped it up with gusto with noodles flapping everywhere. I probably had red spaghetti sauce marks all over my face as the soft noodles slapped against my forehead and cheeks. Then I probably left the table to make a fort with my brother and ran around the house until I hit my head against the wall and cried.

Later that night, as my mom was tucking me in, I told her that my throat felt funny. And that I also wanted to pick my nose "but not really." My mom didn't properly diagnose me at all. Instead (bless her) she gave my little nose a squeeze and kissed me goodnight.

I woke up the next day with the same weird feeling. And because I was only 5 yrs old, I just couldn't articulate what I was feeling. Except with "Oma, I want you to pick my nose." (Hahahah, I'm totally cracking myself up, this story is so ridiculous).

So my mom took me to the bathroom…and held down one baby nostril and then the other and told me to blow. AND THEN A LONG NOODLE FLEW OUT OF MY NOSE AND STUCK ON THE BATHROOM MIRROR. Imagine our surprise!!!

So that's how I learned that everything in the head is kind of connnected to each other.

advice from a wise woman...a little self helpy but i still like it

How do I be content with what I have and stop wishing for things I don't have?

"Contentment is relative. Practice gratitude. No kidding. Just make a mental list any time of every little bitty thing you have to be grateful for. It could be a nice man at the deli counter. It could be that the subway came quickly. It could be a little flower bed in bloom, a funny-faced dog, a laughing baby, that you have a job that challenges you and pays you well, that you have a man who loves you more than life itself and has dedicated himself to make you happy. Once you start looking, you can find a million things. Gratitude fills the void you feel. And supposedly, from a place of gratitude, you attract more of what you're grateful for.

Try it. Every single nite as I try to go to sleep, I make my list for the day and fall asleep without anxiety."






...ah f*ck it. who am i kidding...

39 Magazine Street

everything will be alright. everything
will be alright.

i wake up and remember how everything happened and then i wake up...it was supposed to be this way

it skimmed the surface. then it sank one inch down. today it's almost two inches and then it's gone. i'm close
to remembering why it was supposed to be this way

it took me by surprise (did it for you, too?) but I think everything should be ok.

(but don't forget me...at least not right now.)

i mean, i'm no grammar genius, but i'm clearly more grammar geniousy than those ppl at the MTA

even tho i was an english major, i still say things like, "more easier" as in "hey, why don't you just buy slip on shoes? they make things more easier". or "more funner" as in "i have found that bubbles make things more funner."

i blame this on my immigrant parents. don't get me wrong. i love them more than anything on this earth and they have given me everything from my first side zip bongo jeans to my, well, genes.

but. you can understand how one can get confused when a mother routinely says things like, "for ONCE in a BLUE LIFETIME can you PLEASE clean your room?" i also have memories of my mother singing me to sleep. a sweet image, no? uh, no. i would have nightmares to the lyrics: "you are my sunshine, my only sunshine. you make me haPPY! when skies are graaaaay. you'll never know DEAR how much i LOVE YOU, oh pls don't TAKE my sunshine awaaaaaaaaaaayyyy....the other night DEAR when i was sleePING...i thought i held YOU in my aaaaaaaarms. but when i woke DEAR i was mistaken, and so i HUNG myself and i DIED." note - the correct lyrics are "but when i woke DEAR i was mistaken, and so i HUNG my HEAD and i CRIED." big diff. biiiiiiig diff.

but when i was on the subway this morning...i saw a sign that just didn't look right. i may not be a grammar genious, but i would think that ppl at the mta can spot a run on sentance as well as the next guy.

"Litter gets on the tracks and catches fire and that causes train delays that make you late aside from making trains and stations untidy because a little litter goes a long way." ?!?! WTF?

slow day at work

TanyaQS: know what I hate?
irenejkim77: soup spoons.
irenejkim77: i HATE soup spoons.
irenejkim77: so big.
TanyaQS: hahah really?!?
irenejkim77: oh yeah.
irenejkim77: soup spooons are unecessary.
irenejkim77: do you REALLY need a bigger spoon to eat soup with? your lips don't stretch around it as nicely.
TanyaQS: that is true
irenejkim77: i mean, ok, so we get 5 more drops of soup in the spoon.
irenejkim77: but so what?
irenejkim77: no one eats soup with a ladel.
irenejkim77: that's basically what a soup sppoon is.
irenejkim77: a mini ladel.
TanyaQS: that's exactly what it is
TanyaQS: I thikn the point is to be able to get the soup on the spoon easier
TanyaQS: but it doesn't necessarily have to be bigger to do that...
TanyaQS: weird
irenejkim77: right.
irenejkim77: it shoudl be MORE shallow but wider.
irenejkim77: like a shovel.
irenejkim77: NOT a ladel.

a short story

there once lived a story who was only 2 inches tall. she was really cute.

the end.

A Nose Like Elizabeth Taylor

381 Wagonwheel Way, Bonita, CA 92002. it doesn’t exist anymore. They took away the zip code when I was in 8th grade and made it into 91902. It took me a long time to remember the new zipcode. 92002 was ingrained in my head probably because of my parents who put the fear of God in me about getting lost and being raised by a new, strange, caucasian family. If I ever got lost, I needed to tell whoever found me where I lived…right down to the zip code. I also had an ID necklace that I used to wear at all times. It was oval, silver, and one side had my information on it. the other side had Jesus etched into it. his arms are outstretched and there are little baby lambs at his feet. I bet you my parents picked it out for me. I remember thinking that his hair was so odd. Flat on top and thick at the bottom. Middle parted and wavy. Jesus, I thought, had two New Hampshires on either side of his head.

I lived at 381 Wagonwheel Way from the age of 5 to 14. I loved this house. Every room in the house had a different color carpet. Mine was light pink. My parents was peach. My brother was blue. Downstairs was magenta. The bonus room was teal. The living room was two toned because the carpet installer mismeasured the room’s width and ran out of magenta. So we took the carpet that was left over from my parents room and made a peach border. It was okay to do that back then because it was the 80’s. We had a pool in the back, a hammock in the garden, and lots of snails that made me cry because they were so gross.

Erin Cory lived across the street from me. My phone number was 619 475 1379 (easy to remember because the last four numbers were the corner digits of the keypad). Her number was 619 267 5845. It’s amazing to me that I still remember her phone number. I couldn’t even tell you the area code of my brother’s phone number now. Cell phones took over the part of my brain that remembers phone numbers.

Erin is beautiful. As a child, my mother used to always say “Erin looks like Elizabeth Taylor from National Velvet.” And she was right. Dark lovely eyes, smooth white skin, chestnuty thick hair, and red red lips that were always a little parted. She even had beautiful teeth. They reminded me of the tile in the bathroom my brother and I shared. White. Exact. She cried all the time and could cry on cue. “Erin, Erin! Can you cry? Then maybe we can spend a night at each others house again.” Erin, sensitive, beautiful, soft, sympathetic, empathetic Erin. She cried. And she didn’t cry because I asked her to…she cried because she wanted to spend the night…she cried because she was sad at the terrible thought of spending the night away from her best friend, Irene. Erin, I thought, is amazing.

My mom tucked me into bed every night when I was little. She would ask me “Irene darling. Do you have anything you want to ask God?” “Yes Oma. Can you ask God to give me a nose like Elizabeth Taylor?” I asked this every night for years. My mom would then take her forefinger and thumb and squeeze my nose presumably into the shape that she thought Elizabeth Taylor’s nose was like. I would close my eyes and be comforted that one day I would have a nose like Elizabeth Taylor. A nose like Erin Cory my beautiful, sensitive, precious best friend.

“Dear God. Thank you for allowing us to live another day in your glorious world. Thank you for watching over Irene and Steven. Thank you that they are healthy and thank you that they are happy. Please Lord, give Irene a nose like E.T.”

My eyes flew open. I felt annoyed…my mother had the tendency to turn everything into an acronym. I tugged at her arm. “Oma. Do you think God knows what you mean? Do you think He knows that you mean Elizabeth Taylor and not E.T?”

“Of course, darling” my mother would say. “Why would anyone ask for a nose like E.T?” I guess that's a fair point.

the bike lane is for bikers

one thing that really bothers me is when ppl walk in the bike lane. as if we don't have other things to worry about such as car doors, road raging cab drivers, and billowing truck fumes. oh, and bug in eye is also a good one. i could go on forever.

ppl are in such a hurry to get places in nyc. so much so that they need to shave .005% of travel time to their daily commute and leak over to areas that are not designated as their own. stay on the sidewalk! there are only, like 3 bike lanes in all of nyc. can't the bikers keep them? sheesh.

never realized my ears were deformed

you must watch this video...netti pots unite!

i mean....it's the strangest thing i have ever seen. have you ever heard of a nettipot before? it's good if you have a nose full of snot. (it says no image, but if you click on it, it will work).

i found it!

i feel like i discovered the cure for cancer. i can't believe i found the book. i read it 20 yrs ago. everyone buy it. it's really good. and should be made into a movie starring anne hathaway. i feel so happy right now. like how i felt when my friends and i successfully broke the time-space continuum and fit a 6.5 foot couch through a 5.5 foot doorway.

http://www.amazon.com/Royal-Pain-Point-Ellen-Conford/dp/0590438212/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-6439206-8750416?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179417969&sr=1-1

the lingonberry mystery

i'm a little tipsy after having a few glasses of wine. and so i don't know why i'm blogging when i really should be asleep. but someone during dinner said the word "lingonberry" which triggered in my mind a book that i read as a teenager. i forget what it's called, but it remains to be the funniest book that i read according to my life level. meaning, i have since read funnier books (burroughs , sedaris, barry etc etc) but relative to my life experience, that book is the funniest. does that make sense. anyway, i'm tipsy so not that articulate. THING IS, i cannot remember the name of the book. the only thing i remember is that the female protagonist was the "lingonberry princess" and she said to the prince "i'd rather make out with a mongoose." so i typed this in google and you'd be surprised how many results come up. i mean, REALLY?

anyway. if you can tell me the name of that book, i will love you forever and ever. (the front cover has a princess who is lifting up her dress to reveal blue jeans. i know - i real hoot! but AT THE TIME, it was age appropriately hysterical).

all of you?

part of my job as a equity salesperson is to take around corporates (in this case, it was a chinese water utility company) to investors so that they can learn about the company's story and figure out if they want to invest in it. because the representatives of these companies are either the CEO or CFO of the company, we have to take them around with drivers.

last week, i was in chicago with said chinese water company. i was in the front seat and giving our driver instructions on what the day was looking like..."so after this meeting, we need to go straight to o'hare by 11 am because we have flights back to new york." then he said, "i love you?"

i was really confused by this non sequitor and obviously really freaked out. "excuse me?!" he said it again: "i love you? i love you?"

i did what any person would do in an awkward situation like this...i just gave him a "ooooookay, weirdo" look and ignored him.

it was not until well into the meeting that i realized what he really said:

"all of you?"

um. yeah. all of us. we're all going to o'hare after the meeting.

tastes like it smells

i took a bite out of a low fat brownie bar and wrinkled my nose (by the way, according to some body language experts, only women wrinkle their noses as a sign of disgust) and declared, "this tastes like SHIT."

i probably shouldn't have said that bc the little girl next to me on the subway said, "how do YOU know what shit tastes like?" kids these days.

i felt like recounting a story to her, but it wouldn't have been appropriate. so i'll write it in my blog. it goes like this:

i was around 7 yrs old & at a church potluck. it was one of those korean extravaganzas at ski beach, san diego. in addition to the actual bbq and the rice, all the families make and bring different "ban chan" or side dishes. i.e. family x and y and z all bring the spinach. and that group over there brings the kim chee. etc etc. then it's all compiled and it's fun and we eat.

i took a bite out of the spinach and chewed and chewed and chewed and the damn thing just wasn't dissolving. i DISTINCTLY remember thinking...i taste something familiar...i just don't know what. i spit out the spinach and there in my little grubby hand was a band aid. really gross i know. BUT. that was the first time i realized that things really DO taste like they smell.

tip: if you want someone to stop talking to you..

you sneeze on them. i didn't do it on purpose (my allergies are out of control) but it works.

people who wear glasses just know

so i do this thing where i put my credit cards in large bags of water and freeze them. i do this because it prevents me from making impulse purchases i.e. $1000 wallets and $300 worth of gum (both of which i have done. but the gum was from asia and who knew when i'd be back in hong kong?). the thinking behind it is that i would go home, take the bag out and while it was thawing, i would be thinking really hard about making xxx purchase.

it's worked out really well. i rarely have a credit card balance.

the other day i saw some eye glasses. they were so cool. they are blue, cat eye like, with wings on the side that have glittery jewels in them. hello kitty would wear them if she had -1.75 in each eye.

and i couldn't wait the 4 hours it takes for the ice to thaw. so i popped the whole thing in the microwave for a few minutes. and the card completely fritzed on me. the magnetic stripe crackled right off. a noxious smell overtook my apartment. it warped and writhed against the still intact ice block.

so i did the most logical thing which was to take the card and bag and ice to the store. and the girl behind the counter (unlike jim from amex who helped me get a replacement card) totally understood. because people who wear glasses just know.

porn - oh well

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to hug your own child

(i'm writing this on my parent's home computer and it translates everything into korean and i accidentally flagged myself as a bad blogger as i was randomly clicking on buttons to start a new post).
*****
i had dinner with clients on thursday night in san diego (JRDN.com - it's a really cool restaurant, right on the water, in PB). i had to take a cab home since my high school honda civic is long gone and i didn't want to rent a car.

i should have known the second i approached the car that the cabbie was a little off his rocker. he didn't unlock the door despite my incessent knocking on the window. when his brain synapses finally equated that "knocking on the window signals door is locked ergo unlock the door, moron" he started talking and did not stop until 25 minutes later.

i don't even know what he was talking about. he was speaking in clicks and clacks and the occasional hiccup. bc i didn't want to encourage him, the only words i ever said in response to his chatter was, "ARE YOU ON DRUGS?" and i was being 100% serious. i was fully prepared to do what i have rehearsed in my mind many many times before in various other situations with weird cabbies: the roll out of a speeding car onto a freeway curled up into a small ball in hopes of bouncing along to safety.

but instead, i just closed my eyes and tried to wait it out.

my parents live in the north part of san diego in a part that is currently being developed off the 56. tho i love my house, it's one of those houses that is made to look old even tho it's brand spanking new. the area itself is quiet, relaxed, has horses and no street lights. NO STREET LIGHTS.

this was a big problem for the driver. as we were driving up a winding hill, he kept on screaming "THIS IS SCARY THIS IS SCARY". He was craning his head to look at me while simultaneously looking at the road so all i could see were the whites of his eye. i think actually his eyes were pointed in opposite directions. i don't know. but i was really freaked out.

i didn't want him to know where i lived, just in case he was truly nuts so i asked him to drop me off in front of the gate where my parents live. i pressed the secret code and the big gates opened and i was just walking down our driveway with my samsonite darth vadar rollie bag. i was a little scared bc it was dark and my heels were echoing but it was so dewy and eucalyptus-y smelling and warm, so my panic was muted.

as i was nearing my house, my mom must have heard me and she came out to greet me. "Ireeeeeeeeeeeen?" she sounded little. she came out in her nightgown and cardigan, so tiny and sleepy looking. the olive trees are lit by little lamps and they cast a little baby halo around her head.

and i felt like crying or laughing. i ended up hugging her and laughing and thought to myself "this is what it must feel like to hug your own child."

observations from a plane

i'm on a plane to california right now. i have a question for the 3 ppl who read this blog:

what do seats 1a, 1b, 3d, 4c, 4d, the guy next to me and 6d all have in common? THEY ALL ORDERED TOMATO JUICE. what is it about planes that makes tomato juice, ice, and a plastic cup so palatable? i really don't think i have ever been in another situation where over FIFTY percent of the ppl around me vocalize a hankering for TOMATO JUICE. in fact, i can't remember the last time anyone ordered tomato juice sans a little absolut and a celery stalk.

this really puzzles me. isn't a plane basically the same thing as sitting on a bus? the last thing...the LAST thing, other than a sharp stick in the eye, is a cup of canned V8.

i don't get it. it's so weird.

i was smarter when i was 9 years old

when i was a kid, i had a black, spiral bound notebook, that i carried with me everywhere. i found it recently and in it were lots of ideas and drawings. mostly of dresses (1950's style, of course) and ideas (like the great idea of having a contraption that you put on the end of a tube of toothpaste so that it would flatten the tube as you pushed it up). yeah, i know it exists. but i was the first one to think of it. i just didn't have the ability to execute.

on the front of it, i wrote in sparkly gold marker "make your life extraordinary" and then put stars all over it. i remember looking at it and thinking "wait. i don't want my life to be EXTRA ordinary." (as in, really REALLY ordinary). so then i underlined the "extra" part of the word twice. i remember feeling horrified that in my attempt to negate the "Extra" part of "extraordinary", i had only called further attention to it perhaps making it somehow prophetic.

i look at my life now and wonder if i did myself in when i was only 9 years old. that somehow i had chisled in stone the fact that my life will be not only ordinary but super duper ordinary.

how depressing. i wish i were 9 again. i knew everything about everything i needed to know. tiger fish, sea anemones, how to spell "auxiliary", the capital of norway. i knew enough to know that when i was an"adult" that i would be extraordinary. now, 2 decades later, i am too dumb to execute.

2:30 am

so it's 2:30 am and i am wide awake. i don't remember the last time this happened to me, especially since starting my severely sleep deprived life on wall street 2 yrs ago.

i was actually dreaming of work when i suddenly awoke. wide awake. then i closed my eyes. then saw big gigantic snails in my minds eye. so then this time i voluntarily awoke because who wants to see that?

and now i'm unable to go back asleep and slightly bitter but more than slightly intrigued at how energized i feel after only 2 hours of sleep. hmm. weird.

i guess i'll go back to bed now and continue to be unable to sleep until right about when i need to wake up. at that point, i will probably be in the middle of the most crucial REM cycle. in the middle of the most amazing dream. in the middle of the height of cell reconstruction.

so if you see me tomorrow and i'm showing signs of lethargy, drowsiness, insaneability (made up word), and inability to operate heavy machinery, this is why.

i think i broke through my Rachel Ray addiction

it's bad for me.
it kills brain cells.
i do it in secret.
i continue to do it even tho i can feel myself growing dumber.
when ppl find out that i do it, they looked at me like i am a bad person.

by definition, c/o wikipedia (another addiction of mine) my rachel ray addiction was indeed an "engagement of behaviors despite clear evidence to the user of consequent morbidity and/or other harmful effects."

god.

i'm not even sure what it is about her show "30 minute meals" that drew me in. it started at the gym...for some reason, it was always on when i got to the gym after work. 30 minute meals fit perfectly into my 30 minute workout. there was something really weird about watching someone cook up a pot of macaroni and cheese while you were purging calories and sweat.

then, rachel creeped into my non-workout hours. maybe it's her raspy voice (female raspy voices have always been a facination of mine), my deep desire to make her over (why does she only wear primary colored shirts? they are way too tight. and her jeans are too tight. this leads to an unfortunate bulge that is reminiscent of that wrinkle in the back of a bald man's head.) or maybe it was trying to figure out what the HELL she meant by "EVOO" ("Extra Virgin Olive Oil). maybe it was her oft used thumbs up sign with her man hands that subconsiously validated deep seeded insecurities...as if rachel thinks that i'm alright. or maybe it's the way she describes mushrooms as "beefy".

i just don't know. but today i was channel surfing. and i felt the all too familiar excitement when i stumbled across rachel ray on the food network. endorphins filled my brain, reinforcing that what i was doing was a good thing.

but immediately, i got a counter feeling. my throat felt like it was closing in. my chest felt tight. i felt like i needed to sigh. i guess i finally did it. i OD'ed on rachel ray.

the last time i OD'ed on something it was Cheezits. i mindlessly ate the entire box then threw up neon orange goo 10 minutes later. i never ate another Cheezit again.

let's see if this works with ... ooh...a DVR-ed episode of The Hills...

be right back.