Alright. It’s August 2. When did that happen? Is summer nearly over already? Is it 4:30 p.m. on a Sunday and am I still in my pajamas? Why is it we never see baby squirrels?

That last question isn’t mine. It belongs to David Sedaris and I got it out of his latest book “When You’re Engulfed in Flames” that I finished in about 8 hours.
This book has been out for a while but I waited to snag it on paperback and save ten bucks. I don’t know if the saving was worth it in the end because I had to wait 6 months for the paperback, but it’s a great read. Hilarious, as always. I want to be just like him, actually. I guess I should start smoking now.

Anyway, I’ve been held up from blogging lately mainly because I’m lazy, and don’t feel anything I’ve done recently warrants an interesting or pretend-interesting blog entry. I did move out of a big, beautiful house that I lived in for two years, and decided that that was as grand of an event as I’m finding myself a part of these days. And because blogging is just an excuse to hyperbolize the trivialities of a boring and meaningless life into something interesting, I thought I’d go ahead with this post.

Unfortunately, I did not have the presence of mind to photograph the lovely house I used to live in as much as I should have. I have a few sloppy videos of my roommate and I moving out of the place that I may post here later (yeah, right!), but no images to compare the old space to the new, except for this stellar shot of me posted up against my old car, Goldie, in front of Big Red, as I liked to call it.
Big Red was beautiful. Hardwood floors, a stone fireplace, high ceilings, a stained glass window depicting a red eagle with its wings spread. But the best thing of all was a huge palatial bedroom I called my own. It featured an east-facing sliding glass door leading out to a balcony from which one could gaze upon stunning Humboldt County sunsets. Even with two couches in it at times, I could easily do Pilates or yoga with more room around me than you could get at a gym…that is, if I wanted to, which I never did. But the option was there. This picture doesn’t really do the size justice, as there is about 15 square feet out of view, but it’s the only one I’ve got.

Although I left this amazing house behind, the new place is pretty swell. For starters, the rent is $160 cheaper than the old place. It is also more centrally located to downtown Arcata, and everything I need is within walking distance. I suppose I could have walked everywhere from my old place, but once again I’m lazy and I only walk places that take me 5 minutes or less. Luckily the new apartment fits this criteria.

But there are a few downsides to the move as well. For one, we’re attached to a larger house, and I can hear my neighbors as if they’re in the same room. I hope they don’t mind my current obsession with listening to the same Dean Martin song over and over again, because I know they can hear it.

Anyway, the size is the main downfall of what I like to call the Cracker Box. Here are some pictures that again don’t really do the size justice.

Me and my bestie and roommate Jaime from the living room window. Photo courtesy of Kim Smith Miller!

This is the outside of the place. The Volvo in the driveway is Sylvia, my replacement vehicle after Goldie died. Our portion of the house ends where the roof gets higher on the right

Our tacky porch.

Our lovely kitchen, which is actually much bigger than the one in our previous residence, believe it or not.

This is where we keep food, bowls and plates, etc., household items, and yes, all of my sweatshirts and jackets, because my room isn’t big enough to hold them.

View from the kitchen into the living area.

These are our cherished papa chairs, as we like to call them. They are lovely gifts from our friends Kim and Chris, and I rack up about 5 hours in mine a day (mine’s on the right) reading the newspaper, various books, and watching musicals.

View into our lovely bathroom that, because of it’s very close proximity to the living area, no one feels comfortable taking a dump in.

View into my sardine can.

Yeah, that’s about half a foot of walking space.

Bed. From the lack of good shots of my room you can tell that it’s small. Imagine the smallest bedroom you’ve ever seen, and then divide it in half. That’s where I live.

The view from my bedroom window, the perfectly located Big Pete’s Pizza.

So, that’s it. Please feel free to stop by anytime. If you’re not sure how to get into the place, just follow the sound of Gordon MacRae singing the overture to Oklahoma. I’ve got it on vinyl and listen to it constantly. You’ll know you’re in the right place if you find yourself on a small porch decorated with an elk spine and about 20 potted plants. Hope to see you soon!

Sorry for the long wait… I say sorry as if there’s actually a group of you out there waiting impatiently for me to update this blog, but I know that’s just not true.

Summer has finally hit! Hooray! I decided to take some time off and visit my twin sister Kellie in Providence, Rhode Island where she goes to school. I also spent a few very patriotic days in DC with my friend Nicole during Memorial Day weekend. But instead of writing about my trip, which I might do later, I’ve decided to write about my flying experience. Here it goes. And be wise, this is full of snobbery and condescendence.

I call this, “Things that fuel my general distaste for the average American in the average American airport.”

1. The over-enthusiastic TSA agent at the security checkpoint that is whole-heartedly convinced that I have never flown before.

It’s not like I have a button on my shirt that says “Frequent Flier,” but I thought my quickness getting my bag of liquids into the bin and the fact that I took my freakin’ belt off without being asked gave it away that I’ve been in an airport or two. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” says the agent when I hoist my overpacked suitcase onto the conveyor belt. I can lift a 50 pound suitcase all by myself, thank you very much.

2. The rabid not listening to the entire announcement about the final call for SECURITY CLEARANCE.

Everybody seems to jump up shouting, “Final BOARDING call? What the hell?!” and rush off to one of two, or both, of the vacant gates in a two-gate terminal (found only in the Arcata-Eureka Airport) thinking they’re about to miss their plane, even though they’ve got twenty minutes until boarding, which they would know if they looked at their clocks on their cell phones that they incessantly flip open and closed believing they’ve got people to call in a futile attempt to appear busy or important, even though it’s 5:30 in the fucking morning.

3. The throng of people waiting to board the plane, especially those in zones 2 or back.

It’s not like I’m in a huge hurry to sit on the overly drafty or overly heated airplane for longer than absolutely necessary– I’m going to be glued to the same fake leather seat with the lumbar support in the wrong place for five hours anyway– but it’s almost worth raking up another five or twenty minutes listening to Michael Buble over the airplane speakers in said chair because I absolutely cannot bear to witness the utter stupidity of the masses waiting for their zone to begin boarding.

“What zone is this? Are they calling our zone? Can zone 4 board with zone 2?” their invisible thought bubbles would say as they focus intently on their boarding passes, glance up at the pretty lady at the counter, and back down at their boarding passes. No sir, the information is the same as it was when you looked at your ticket thirty seconds ago, and yes, you’re still in zone 4, and it’s not your fucking turn.

4. And because I don’t think my rant would be complete without a hint of my socialist values, the final item is: The social stratification of travelers made obvious by the two sections of an airplane: coach vs. first class.

A lot of my problems with the airline industry and my baseless assumption that I’m better than everyone else stems from the entitlement I feel that is the natural result from never paying for a plane ticket in my whole life. I don’t really mean never– I’ve maybe purchased 8-10 in emergency situations– but for the most part, I’ve flown hundreds of times all for free thanks to my awesome flight attendant mother. And on top of the transcontinental flights free of charge, I’ve spent the vast majority of them in first class, a.k.a. Three Course Meals-Class, or Own Personal TV and Movie Theater-class, or Seat Reclines to Nearly Flat-Class, or All the Free Alcohol you Could Ever Dream of-Class, etc.

We have an unofficial saying in the Riggs Family, which was coined by my father who has by far lived up this privilege more than any of us (weekend in Nice? Sure! Next month make it Florence!), and it goes like this: “If I’m not in the front, I’m not going.”

Is this terrible? Absolutely. Do I feel bad about this? No. Am I disgusted that I don’t feel bad about this? Yes. Allow me to explain.

This statement is terrible for obvious reasons. How spoiled could one be? But let’s assume that you’re in the same position. You have a loose schedule and have some time off for a vacation. You’re going to fly for free, stay in a nice European city in a 4-star hotel for free (mom’s got the lodging hook-up as well!) and you’re sitting at the gate. Your name comes up on the cleared list, but GASP! Zone 6. Shit.

Do you really want to spend 9+ hours wedged between the overweight sweaty guy and the 8-year-old who won’t stop screaming with no chance to get to the teeny tiny toilet if you had to pee, God forbid? Hell no. You’ll just try again next month instead, and cross your fingers for Row 6, not Zone 6. Big difference there.

I never said this would make sense or it could justify my snobbery, but that’s just the Riggs Family train of thought. I don’t feel bad about this because it’s just the way I grew up; it’s not my fault all the open stand-by seats are in first class… I’m just told where to sit, and I sit! But I fucking love it. It’s really the only way fly. And I’m going to cling onto this extravagant privilege for as long as I possibly can, which turns out to be for just another 5 months… more on that later.

But here’s where my socialism tendencies come in. I think it’s sickening that I have come to expect these needlessly fancy accommodations. Why should one be rewarded just because they can afford the $6,000 first class ticket? I could never afford that in real life. So I say, why not make just one big cabin and average the price? You might be thinking, “Didn’t they try that with Business class?” Baloney.

Why should I get to eat duck and sip champagne while you pay 8 bucks for a stale pre-wrapped sandwich? I have to believe that there exists a resentment among the masses in coach towards the privileged few in first class- thoughts like, “Oh you think you’re better than me with your complimentary eye shades and your Wall Street Journal? Well, you probably are! I’m going to go suffocate in the middle seat of row 64 now. Somebody just kill me.”

One big class, one cabin, where no one is better than anybody else, where the accommodations and service are the same for all regardless of income level, or in my case, mother’s occupation. The airline industry would be a shining example for society, erasing class differences and narrowing the gap between rich or poor, of bringing equality to those of divergent social and cultural backgrounds.

Yes, this is a great idea. No longer would brats like me believe that they deserve preferential treatment, and thus they would no longer look down upon those less fortunate than they. Please airline industry, adopt this viewpoint…

…but don’t do it until after I turn 23 and lose my flying privileges because, well, first class is fucking awesome.

Spring break was good to me this year. Very good. You might think that I made it to some faraway exotic vacation paradigm like Cabo or Vegas with all the other young college girls and boys with trust funds. Oh wait, I don’t have a trust fund. And lucky for me those kinds of places make me nauseous, even though I’ve never been to them personally and just like to judge things arbitrarily, especially if they appeal to rich 20-somethings.

No, even though I stayed in Arcata for spring break, minus the 3 days I spent on Whidbey Island and Seattle celebrating my older sister’s graduation (congrats, Katie! Loved the thesis. I hope the Comparative History of Ideas degree brings you much success in the future… crossing my fingers on that one!) I had quite an eventful week. Here are some highlights.

The weekend with sister Katie was excellent. Not only did I get to get wasted in my own home drinking wine and beer and champagne, I got to gorge on good cheese and my dad’s marvelous pulled pork and white beans and my mother’s blackberry tart. The night before the big party at our house on Whidbey, Katie and a few friends and I had a night on the town where I inadvertently spent over 50 bucks on cab rides. Nightmare. But it was great to see my big sis and my parents, and three days at home is the perfect little getaway.

I wasted the rest of the week drinking (the alcohol was ubiquitous-like gain 5 pounds in a week-ubiquitous) and hanging out in Arcata, which surprisingly offered me a much better respite from school than I anticipated. Mid week I had a lovely afternoon with my friend Chris driving around the bottoms on a photo adventure. Take a look:



As for the rest of the week, the hooch was abundant and I’m foggy on all the details. Mostly I remember sitting around playing games and watching the tube with some friends down the road. I worked most nights, but got my Friday shift off to join Elissa, Jane, Meghan, Trel and Brendan for a Zepperella concert at the Red Fox Tavern in Eureka, an all-female Led Zeppelin tribute band. If that sounds like a weird experience, it was. But it was also amazing. Ask Jane and Elissa. They were as much turned on by the lead singer as I was. And the music wasn’t bad either.

Like everyone else on spring break, I didn’t want the week to come to an end, especially because this is my last spring break ever. I want to send my gratitude to all mentioned above for aiding in my ten days of gluttony, fervent alcohol consumption and overall leisure. I really love all of you.

To close, here is a list of the Top Ten Things I Learned (or were reminded of) This Spring Break. This is dedicated to Brendan, whose blog I read nearly straight through for an hour or so and is full of Top Ten lists that are way better than the one you’re about to read. 

10. Cab rides are fucking expensive in the city.

9. Vodka gimlets are fucking expensive in the city.

8. I thought I wanted to live in the city until I spent 12 bucks on a vodka gimlet.

7. No matter how long it’s been since high school, you can find a Gabelein everywhere you go, even in Seattle.

6. Beer is in fact as fattening as my mother warned me. And it causes severe clumsiness and the inability to stop oneself from saying stupid things.

5. I never want to edit another thesis ever, ever again. Sorry Katie, but it’s true.

4. I’m a fan of sleepovers.

3. It’s only funny to give your phone number to a lesbian if it’s a fake phone number.

2. All-female Led Zeppelin tribute concerts may inspire straight women to give lesbians their phone numbers.

1. Ten days is NOT enough time off school.

Cheers.

My friend Chris and I are attending this 8 hour Photoshop workflow seminar thing with this guy named Tim Grey. He’s an uber nerd but a nice enough guy. We are having a little problem staying focused. Here are some things we’ve done to entertain each other. Enjoy.


Examples of what we learned:

Magic Wand tool selection thingy.

Layer Mask trick.

Where’s Waldo?
Needless to say, we aren’t trying very hard to do a good job. Oh well.

So I’ve noticed it’s been over a month since my last post. I’m sorry. I have decided that I don’t have much to say, just like I imagined when I started this venture a few months ago. I think it’s less to do with my lack of imagination and more to do with my severe laziness, but that’s life.

I decided to take this opportunity to list some of the grievances I’ve accumulated making my way through the Journalism program at Humboldt State University. Know that I’m not trying to make any friends and I am quite aware that I can be a real asshole. I dedicate this post to my mother who just recently read my previous entries and still thinks I’m pretty funny. Thanks, Mom.

• I am writing this post during my once-a-week “advanced” photojournalism class. If you are interested in making crappy color photography and copying techniques mastered by digital photo geeks who think using sheets of mylar to warp macro pictures of flowers is super cool, then take this class. If you’re interested in emulating Fred Larson or taking long exposures of the full moon like every other dope with a tripod, take this class. If you’re interested in fitting into a burnt out aesthetic of pretty trees and lake scenes and making a dime convincing stupid people at trade shows that they need to buy your picture because it would probably match the living room set they just purchased from Ikea, take this class. If you’re interested in commercial photography masked as “fine art,” take this class. If you’re interested in learning anything about photojournalism or improving your experience in the field of covering an event or setting up photo shoots for a newspaper or magazine, you’re out of luck.

• Half my editing class failed a grammar quiz that is similar to a test one might take in 5th grade. This scares me. A student in this same class, when asked what worried her about her future as a journalist and if she thought the education offered at HSU was preparing her for a professional career, said that she didn’t think we were learning enough about computers and the new technology required for news output, like online newspapers and using Adobe InDesign, etc. My brain exploded. We need to learn how to write! But perhaps the university isn’t at fault. Maybe it’s the fault of lower education in the state of California. I mean shouldn’t we know how to form a sentence once we get to college? I’ve learned that most people don’t. 

• Speaking of bad writing, the staff for HSU’s student newspaper The Lumberjack is, for the most part, in the same category of lacking basic writing skills. My professor Sid Dominitz, one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met, said that he received an email from the Lumberjack copy chief once that was nearly unintelligible. Yikes. We are trying to put out a decent publication, and for a student-run organization we do a decent job. But the mistakes that riddle the copy are appalling, consisting of commas run amok, the words its and it’s replacing each other interchangeably, run on sentences galore, incomplete sentences galore, music reviews made up of flowery dribble even a bad poet would frown upon, etc. We have a once a week critique run by staff advisor Marcy Burstiner, who I think is a great teacher and a snarky son of a gun, which I really like. Her online critique of the paper can be found here. But the class technique isn’t harsh enough. It can be a bad experience for some of the writers, but it still lacks the nit-picky criticism that a publication needs to succeed. We spend all of half an hour going through 20 pages or so when we really should be going through each story sentence by sentence and taking notes on what to improve. Let the critique last three hours if it has to! Dominitz agrees with me here. The classes should be weening out the bad journalists, we both think, but instead the bad journalists as well as the decent ones are going to come away with a degree, and I suppose we have to let professionals in the industry reject them when they come knocking for jobs which, by the way, will be very limited by the time we graduate. If you’re interested, visit the Lumberjack online here. You might be saying, well if you think everything sucks so much, Allyson, do something about it. I’m getting to that by posting this rambling and being a hard ass at critiques. I have on several occasions offered to help copy edit, but no luck. I have thought about vying for a copy editor position next semester, but will probably go for photo editor in the end because I love telling people that their photography sucks, and bad writers are a lost cause for the most part. I’m a defeatist, after all.

That’s all for now. It was nice getting that off my chest.

I’m just not cut out for some things. One of them is staying awake in a three hour lecture. Another one is dieting.

In accordance with the first item on my List of things I should really consider doing to benefit myself and those around me in the New Year, which is eat healthier, my roommate Jaime and I decided to double-team a 14 day raw food cleanse to flush our systems of all the  terrible diet choices we’ve been making in the last month or two. I don’t know if any of you have ever done one of these, but they are terrible. I was warned about the severe physical adjustments one would encounter during the course of the cleanse, like lack of energy, visiting the toilet more than usual, and most importantly the feeling of a stomach never satisfied. All these things weren’t that bad for me, truthfully. The thing I had the hardest time with was the cravings for something other than cold fruit and vegetables! I mean I’ve heard of drug addiction and caffeine addiction etc. etc. and the withdrawals one could suffer from cutting those things out of your life, but I never realized that I could experience something very similar that I like to call Cholesterol Withdrawal. I never realized how addicted I was to fat, butter, fried foods, and generally speaking enormous hot meals filled with crap.

I should have known I wouldn’t last the whole fourteen days. Jaime and I started on Monday, and by Friday of the same week we just couldn’t take it any more. I was honestly about to rip my hair out at one point. I’ll run down the week as best as my memory can serve.

The first day of the diet didn’t start off that well. I  had a lunch date with friend at Big Blue Cafe and didn’t feel right about ordering something that wasn’t cooked, so I ate a nice warm veggie sandwich. And fries. Okay… I didn’t really try that hard for my first meal, but it was better than a cheese burger, wasn’t it?

Later that day Jaime and I visited our favorite marketplace Wildberries to pick up our 2 week supply of raw foods. Our shopping list is as follows: oranges, apples, green grapes, a mango, two grapefruits, a cantaloupe, lemons and limes, dried apricots, raisins, dried cranberries, cucumbers, a green mix, red leaf romaine, sugar snap peas, carrots, a red onion, green bell peppers, red kidney beans, corn kernels, walnuts, almonds, hummus, and  frozen berries for smoothies. 

For dinner we made a big leafy salad with cucumbers, carrots, green peppers and walnuts with a homemade dressing out of lemon juice, olive oil and balsamic vinegar (which I’m pretty sure we couldn’t actually eat) and some spices. It was the biggest damn salad of my life and I still felt hungry afterwards. 

Jaime woke me up Tuesday morning with a nice grapefruit for breakfast, which is very tart and not very tasty without sugar on it. We decided to pack up a nice healthy snack and get on our bicycles for a leisurely ride to Bayside. The weather was amazingly warm and sunny- over 70 degrees!- and we couldn’t just sit by and not take advantage of the beautiful day. We had a lovely snack of Pink Lady apples, grapes and almonds halfway through the ride. We couldn’t find any grassy knolls to sit upon for our picnic that didn’t involve us trespassing in someone’s pasture, so we picked a residence whose occupants were most likely not home.







We settled down on the balcony after our ride with some cold fruit juice. It was a great afternoon. That night Jaime managed to drag me to a Yoga class, which I enjoyed more than I thought. But ten bucks a pop for a drop-in class is pricey, so I’m not sure how much Yoga I’ll be doing in the future. We were very relaxed afterwards and as a reward for all of our healthy activities for the day Jaime and I treated ourselves to some humongous salads from The Wildflower Cafe on G Street. 

Wednesday Jaime and I munched on some hummus and veggies and some trail mix we whipped up with the nuts and dried fruit. Another big leafy salad for dinner, this time with beans and corn kept us full and happy, for the most part. I had a sort of a nervous break down this night. I started shaking and felt like screaming until someone would bring me a pile of french fries. Jaime appeased me by deciding to go to a movie that night which would hopefully take our minds off our stupid diet, and it worked. We snacked on sliced apples and dried cranberries during the movie, The Reader with Kate Winslet. It was superb and a tearjerker and I highly recommend it.

The rest of the week didn’t really go as planned. We decided to fast on Thursday, which proved to be too much for us because we caved and gobbled down some nuts and carrots by 9 PM. We almost made it through the day, but by that time I had had enough. When Jaime went to sleep I snuck out and played two games of beer pong down the street with some friends… Jaime’s too smart for me and knew instantly the next morning. So we decided to end our diet on Friday afternoon. 

So much for two weeks. Our resolve to avoid troublesome foods waned more rapidly than we ever expected. We broke our diet with some fatty burritos and beer at Rita’s in the warm sun.

And felt like absolute crap after scarfing those down. Meh.

…I thought I’d update my meaningless blog with the meaningless things I did this week.

The one interesting thing that happened to me occurred last Thursday: my car was stolen. After sharing a few laughs with my baffled parents, and then getting very excited that the day had come when I would finally get a new car, the police showed up and said that it was found abandoned in a nearby park a mile down the road, windows down and looted. What the fuck.

I’m not sure why someone picked on my car, but once they put it in drive they must have realized with haste what a piece of shit it was. “No wonder they didn’t keep it,” said the very sarcastic police officer that drove me to the park to pick it up. It took me five times behind the wheel to get the thing to turn over.

Not only did the bastards who took it for a very short joy ride steal all my CDs, they took my cassette tapes. My TAPES! And we’re not even talking about very popular music choices here. I’m referring to my Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel, Miles Davis’ Doo Bop, a very interesting album which Davis recorded with a rap group in the early 90s, and other hip tracks like a collection of Gil Scott Heron songs. Come on people! Those tapes were awesome. When you drive a car made in 1987, you learn to love your tape deck.

I guess I’ll have to wait a few more years for a new ride. And to those cretins who most likely have the spare key to my Volvo that was in the console hidden beneath my tape collection: if you decide to take it for another spin, keep it this time.

Anyway, the rest of my week was uneventful. Exceedingly so. It was also very sad. One of my very best friends Kim Miller and her wonderful husband Chris moved away this week. It was very emotional for me. I have been spending a lot of time with her over the last few months and have shared so many great times. I know I will see her again but the next few months will be very sad for me without her, especially involving everything photography. Kim made me appreciate my camera in so many new ways and I don’t know what I will do without her constant sharp eye guiding mine through the viewfinder. 

Chris imparted me with some very special gifts before they rolled out of town. One was this amazing 100% silk necktie made in Vietnam. I wore it to work today and received many compliments on it’s shininess and color scheme! I have a new appreciation for neckties ever since I started working at Moonstone Grill. I tied it myself, thank you very much. Another gift was this super rad t-shirt. I guess the image was a drawing done by Chris’s dad Larry, who I hear was a great man. I will cherish these two items with all my heart! 

Also: Kim, I really wish you hadn’t moved away for one more reason. I suck at photoshop. My color balances and exposures are so fucked up and I’m so lazy to do it right and I need you to help me. So come back. THANKS!

Today I didn’t do anything productive. I slept in until about noon, had a very late breakfast, and proceeded to sit on my ass and do nothing until I had to go to work at 5 PM. I guess I made some progress adding to my photography pages on my blog, but as far as doing anything ACTUALLY constructive I took a day off. To be honest I’ve taken quite a number days off from being constructive. Ever since first semester ended in mid-December I’ve enjoyed sitting around and being lazy. So far I’m not even attempting at tackling item #2 on my “resolutions” list. Yikes. Monday will be the day! I’ve got to make a point to at least get out of the house even if I don’t make it to the gym. Cross your fingers for me.

At work today I was dragging my feet. I really was tired for no reason because, like I said, I sat on my ass today. My coworker Katie said it’s probably because I don’t get enough vitamin D. She could be right. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go out and get some vitamin D… but boy is it cold outside. I’m pretty pathetic aren’t I. 

At least they fed me well at work tonight. The employee meal was basic but delicious, just some measly store-bought hamburger patties and an assembly line of all the fixin’s. I put some mustard, mayo, lettuce, grape tomatoes, red onions and some chunks of gorgonzola on mine. While I chowed down, the chef and also good friend of mine Colin tossed me a big fat pork rib. Boy was I excited! I gnawed on that thing for a good ten minutes, not wanting to waste even the tiniest morsel of grizzle. In the process I smeared sauce all over my face, but that’s the only way to eat ribs. Throughout the night the cooks shared bites of the stuffed quail, risotto, and even dabbed some warm bread into the filet mignon demi sauce. Yummmm. I love my job! For those of you who don’t know I work Moonstone Grill in Trinidad, CA. It’s a very classy place.

Well that’s all there was to today. I did have a very nice quiet breakfast this afternoon (okay, so I slept through the breakfast part of the day) and watched the only thing that was on TV, the All American Army football game. If there are any two things on the planet when combined that is sillier than soldiers playing football, let me know. I took some shots of my nice but modest breakfast because the light coming in through the window was gorgeous. Forgive my attire, I was wearing my lazy clothes. 

A resolution, as defined by the dictionary widget on my dashboard, is a firm decision to do or not to do something. The definition doesn’t include anything about the decision being permanent, so if I don’t commit fully to these or can only handle the following resolutions half-assedly, please forgive me. Just in case, I’m not going to use the term resolution at all. How about… “List of things I should really consider doing to benefit myself and those around me in the New Year.”

1. Eat healthier

• My older sister got me this book called Skinny Bitch in the Kitch for Christmas with the idea of giving me easy recipes that are healthy and essentially will help me from becoming a fat ass. Most of the ingredients in the recipes are, to my horror, vegan, but I think I’ll try and give some of their tips a shot. Right now I’m addicted to butter (it’s probably my favorite food) and I think my serving sizes are too big. Not to mention that I love eating at all times of the day, and now since soccer season is over and I haven’t worked out in over two months, I’m really going to need to alter my diet. The lack of working out brings me to item number two:

2. Get back in shape!

• Although I vowed to never exercise ever again after my last soccer season ended in early November, I’m starting to realize that I don’t have the metabolism that I had when I was 12. My body is definitely changing its shape and it’s not looking good. I really need to pull out my running shoes from the closet and hit the track, and maybe even get back into the gym and start weight lifting again. I absolutely abhor working out but perhaps with some effort I can get into an easy routine to lose some of the pounds I’ve put on over the holidays… okay over all days. Whatever.

3. Don’t be a Negative Nancy.

• I have a pretty bad habit of constantly updating those around me whenever my mood changes or I’m experiencing any slight discomfort. Generally people do not give a shit about these things and would rather not listen to me bitch. My very good friend and roommate Meghan has this wonderful talent of keeping things to herself, and I’m going to try and adopt a similar attitude. I guess the phrase, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” is completely valid. In a previous blog post I noted that I wanted to be an incessant pleasure which is an oxymoron now that I think about it. It’s sort of fitting though, because I am, to some people, incessantly obnoxious, and if I can be an incessant pleasure, I think that’s an upgrade. Perhaps I’ll have to change this terminology but we’ll stick with it for now.

4. Keep in touch with my extended family 

• I don’t call my grandmothers enough. They are wonderful human beings who I love and I have a strange problem with making phone calls to them. They are getting older every day and I am just a really bad granddaughter. Enough said.

5. Gain some confidence, for chrissake.

• I get a little shy in social situations and am very paranoid that people don’t like me. I also have low self-esteem when it comes to the opposite sex and would love to grow a pair and believe that I am an attractive, interesting woman. And if any of you have a good looking single man friend, let me know. I’m trying to kick a bad habit that I like to refer to as my ex boyfriend.

6. Do more photography!

• I don’t do enough, especially black and white like I used to. It’s sad. I want my own show. Perhaps I’ll strive to have my own show sometime this year. I hope to get some pages up on this blog of my photography to share with the world. Perhaps that’ll kick start my hobby again. 

OK! So that’s all I can think of right now. Those ones are the biggies, and I have dozens of littler ones that may or may not need mentioning.

These are some anecdotes about how I spent the day of New Years Eve. How I spent the night is ridiculous and let’s just say I’m recovering from the worst hangover induced by drinking an entire bottle of cheap Champagne by myself.

Yesterday my very good friend Kim and I went to have a very dainty breakfast at brio.
We discussed very important issues like the philosophy of love and gorilla jokes. I will share my favorite joke with you. My father taught it to me. He is a great man.

A gorilla walks into a pub and moseys over to the bar. He takes a seat across from the bartender and says, “I’ll have a martini.” The bartender, slightly surprised at the presence of a gorilla in his bar, doesn’t know what to make of the situation. He figures to himself, what could this gorilla know about going to a bar? So he says to the gorilla, “That’ll be twenty bucks, sir.” Without missing a beat the gorilla reaches into his pocket and fishes a crisp twenty dollar bill out of his wallet and tosses it casually on the table. The bartender, impressed with the gorilla, says to him, “You know, we don’t get many gorillas comin’ into this bar.” And the gorilla says, “For twenty dollars a martini, I can see why.”

When you repeat this great joke to your friends you can add some conjecture of your own, like what the bar tender was really thinking when the gorilla sat down, how smugly the gorilla pulled the 20 dollar bill out of his wallet, etc. When I was young my dad used to teach me all kinds of bar jokes and convince me to tell them to his adult friends at dinner parties. Everyone always laughed. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because the joke was funny, but that this 10 year old kid who doesn’t even know what the hell the joke means is butchering the punch line about a gorilla or a dog or and Irishman or whatever. I’ve caught on, dad! My dad is a clever man.

So back to our dainty breakfast. Kim and I both ordered the potato-rosemary tart and I ordered bacon and a medium poached egg on top of mine. I also had a delicious warm mocha to drink. Coffee is a luxury that I indulge in from time to time. I don’t like to drink it on a regular basis because I think when you get a good enough cup, it is a treat to savor. I am not into caffeine addiction. I suggest to anyone reading this that is addicted to coffee to tone it down a bit. Drink some green tea, for God’s sake. I mean you’ve gotten the whole world addicted to Starbucks and I think this is a terrible thing. If you insist upon being addicted to coffee, try walking into a local coffee shop run by some neighborhood folk, if you can find one. Get a fresh hot cup, and while you sip it, think about a world homogenized by Starbucks and Walmarts and Bed Bath and Beyonds. That is the world you are creating, you trendy bastard. So do something about it and support local business. Please.

Anyway, the food was delicious. The poached egg on my tart was cooked perfectly, just runny enough but thick and warm and gelly in consistency. Wonderful. The joys in life are those found in perfectly cooked poached eggs like this one. The coffee was also exceptional.

These small gems of life are why I’m excited for the new year. I was watching Oprah this morning and the topic of the day was creating happiness. For the most part these people are mostly full of it, but I thought the idea was intriguing. We all have things to complain about, but I can say that I am mostly happy, like 89%. That’s pretty good. I look forward to optimizing my happiness in the new year. I can easily get down on myself for silly little things and that isn’t any good for anyone, so I’m going to really try and be up. I used to have this goal when I was a kid about being the person you knew that was always happy and joyful and a pleasure to be around. I think I’m that way most of the time, but I know that I can be the opposite a lot too. So 2009 will mark the beginning of me trying to be an incessant pleasure. We’ll see what happens.

I suppose this is when I list my new years resolutions, but I’m not there yet. Soon!

As I conclude this blog entry I wanted to thank Kim for an excellent day yesterday and also for helping me with this blog. We’ll get the kinks out soon!  And thanks helping me know how you can tell which avocados are ripe when we were at Wildberries. You’re the best.