ok so i've decided to set some goals for myself for the rest of this year.

1. take an illustration class
i need to do it. i can't draw very well and i am a designer. i would be a better designer if i could draw better. so i think i'm going to take a class. and if it works out well for me, i'll take another class in the spring. now i just have to figure out where to take this class. which city college. or which art institution. or if it's a regular full length class or a shorter extended learning class. etc etc.

2. learn more web stuff with online tutorials
i want to learn more flash primarily but i think learning all sorts of web stuff would be good. refreshing myself on HTML, CSS and learning new things (for myself) like XML, PHP, etc. there is a website out there called lynda.com where you can pay $25/month for online tutorials. they have videos for all sorts of stuff. i think it would be a good way to learn the basic foundations of a lot of programs/scripting languages. then in the spring i'll delve into a proper flash class. btwn on the job learning and these tutorials, i think i'll have a good base for a flash actionscripting class.

3. scale back on the freelance
i'm very bad at saying no to people but i have to. i have to stop doing so much freelance if i want to focus on learning things. so i am going to finish the projects i have in motion and then not really seek anything out for awhile. random small things will come and i'll pick up some quick cash but nothing huge. unless it's a cd package worth something. then i'll do it.

i just threw away my retainer. yes, my retainer. like when i had braces. back in SEVENTH GRADE!!! i've toted that thing around for 13 years now i guess it's been. DAMN. i wore it for a year or two if i recall correctly and then just kept in "just in case." well it's about time to chuck it. i bet it doesn't even fit properly anymore. i will never wear it again so why keep it around? it's all old and gross anyway. i mean it's not gross gross like moldy or something. it's just old and dried out. so it's gone. good riddance. c'est la fucking vie.

i just packed my bag for seattle. i am so angry about this liquids law they instituted. as a result my carry-on size bag is not even full yet i will be checking it because i have too many liquids. but hell, what can i do? shampoo, conditioner, lotion, toothpaste, face wash, body wash, deoderant, etc etc. i mean i know i'm on the excessive end of things with that shit, but really, is there anyway to actually get the bare essentials into a quart size bag? i dunno. i doubt it somehow. maybe others have made it work but they don't use as many products as i do. and it's not like i have a boatload of stuff. it all fits into a proper toiletries bag. but that's too much. so i must check my carry-on size bag. it's really such a shame. all that waiting around baggage claim for no real good reason. piss.

on another note, i am very excited about this trip. 1) i haven't been to seattle in the summer where i hear it's gorgeous. the weather sounds delightful though there is a forecast for slight showers on sunday. damn the man. i am bringing my umbrella just in case! haha 2) we are going to visit GRANGER. aka, the center of the universe. just ask rick. he'll tell ya so. 3) motherfucking DAFT PUNK.

on the DP (not dance party) note. a guy at my work shares my love for DP. actually, many people in the office do it seems, as a few of them went to the show last saturday. anyway, so i was chatting with said dude about DP and how i love them and can't wait for the show and how i was pissed i didn't get to see electroma because of all the fucking hipsters. so he downloaded it for me. i hope it will play on my computer. actually, we might watch it tomorrow during the art dept meeting. we'll see. he said he talked the girl into showing it. let's hope so! it's no that long. 74 min apparently. totally doable. anyway, i am stoked cuz i really want to see it. i know that it won't be the same as in the theater but hell, there is no hope for that idea anymore. so this is the best we can do. unless i want to wait for it to properly release in september. but fuck that. if i dig it, i'll buy it then.

so the new job is going fairly well. it's kicking my ass in gear to brush up on flash. i'm totally going to take a class for it too. i just have to find one that fits my schedule. i get a $500 stipend to take classes so i'm going to do that. i think i also want to take a drawing class. i can't draw for shit and i want to be able to draw. i even considered the idea of a letterpress class with the thoughts of owning a small press and doing that on the side with my other design work. like running a small letterpress business for invitations and such. but then i realized it's just far too costly to do that so i'll leave it to the pros. it's such a beautiful process but goddamn it's costly. oh well....

i can't figure out if i'll make many friends at work. at the old spot i had laurel and byron as my staples and then a lot of others who i was close enough to. and we'd all go out drinking and such. it was SUCH a rare find, that work environment. i doubt it will ever be replicated. it was definitely one of the special things about that place. and i miss that aspect of it very dearly. at my new spot everyone is very quiet. but the receptionist is super chipper and friendly. and she's one of the few women as well. she's british and i love her accent. we also just figured out that we share similar tastes in music and she likes going to shows. so maybe we can go to some shows together. i think we're gonna try and hit up justice together in october. she's really into them and so am i. she writes for a small magazine so she might be able to swing free tickets. i know james will probably also be able to do this so likely there will be a few people i know going to this show. so it should be a good one. i can't wait!!! receptionist gal (i will divulge her name later if need be) and i also chatted about festivals. i told her i went to reading and we had a good chat about that. that and coachella and glasto which i have never been to. all that mudd.....she said you just get over it. man. i don't know if i can hang. haha anyway, she will be one to try and pursue a friendship with since she is so nice and we seem to have things in common.

holy hell. in my blind love for my red stapler (which came today and hell is it lovely!), i totally forgot to mention that in addition to all i mentioned about this past weekend, we got a maid! shaun's maid in fact. and she did an absolutely bang up job with our house. she was there for 9 hours (bless her soul) and she got our kitchen, living room, and bathrooms to look brand spanking new. i am not sure how she did it. i think she waved a magic broom and some ajax or something. haha actually i know what she did. i went out and bought all the supplies with michael. all $120 of them. haha anyway, the house is fucking awesome looking. well, as awesome as an old ass house can be. but yea. awesome enough. and i am forever grateful to this woman.

now if only she could cure the cold i seem to be developing....

sorry for the lapse in posting at the most interesting intersection of my recent life. i just lost track of the time and forgot to make it happen. to recap:

wednesday i started the new job at tuesday. yes, i know that sounds confusing but it's not if you know where i'm working. i met my new coworkers. all 20 something of them. i think by now i know most of their names. save the few who i rarely see or speak to. but hell, that's how it always is. my new boss is awesome. really nice guy. not as hip and chill as doug but still relatively hip and chill as a mid-30s man who's married with a kid can be. ironically, my past never escapes me as the design supervisor gal knows doug! i mean how fucking small and round is this world? TOO, is the answer. my company had a deadline to finish the new launch of the website the day i got there so shit was hectic and i barely did anything except try and learn some of the ropes and just stay out of the fray.

thursday was more calm as the website was finished. i filled out the bulk of my boring ass paperwork and i learned a few more things about how shit works. i had a long chat with my new boss about what i'd be doing, how the office ran, etc etc. then he took off for his 2 wk vacation. i was left with no much to do other than try to figure out how to get my music off my ipod. a task not completed til friday.

friday was even more chill. again, still meeting people and learning the ropes. i got one of the guys to help me calibrate my monitors (yes, plural bitches) and as it turned out one was just fucked up. so i had to manually match it to my other. i hope they are calibrated well enough. maybe they are both off now. who the fuck knows. the receptionist/office manager gal asked me what office supplies i needed and i told her the things i wanted including a stapler. and i requested a RED one ala office space and she said she would try and find one. and then a few minutes later she said she found one (i guess online) so soon i should be the proud owner of a RED stapler (hopefully a swingline). i can't tell you HOW excited i am about this. i mean i have been telling everyone. i am THAT excited. i know i know. it's the little things....

and on that note i would just like to say that it really is the little things that make a difference in morale. i mean i love the fact that if i need shit, i can get it. i mean at my old job i couldn't get anything really. i barely had pens that worked. no way was i getting my own wacom tablet (we had one to share), and hell if the AC ever worked. meanwhile at my new spot, i have all the pens, paper, and notepads i can get. they are getting me my very own RED stapler. i have a huge wacom tablet and i actually requested a smaller one because i like the small one and they are going to swap it out for me. i have not one, but TWO monitors which is pretty standard in the design world. i have a sweet ass chair that i swapped my first one with no armrests out for because i didn't like my first one. my health benefits are going to cost me half the price. take that dov with your fucking "subsidized healthcare" bullshit. if we have to stay late and do overtime the company buys us dinner. i park my car in a covered, paved parking lot. no more potential blowouts from the brick-filled holes. AC during business hours. i get my own phone! and i wish i could explain how fucking kick ass my business cards are going to be once i get them. i can't wait to give them to every human being alive. i mean the list goes on and on.

the one thing that my new job is lacking though. the comraderie. and yes, that is a big thing. my new coworkers seem very nice and whatnot but they don't seem lively and crazy like my old peeps. i mean i don't think there's going to be any laurel's or byron's coming out of these people anytime soon. i swear i might be the loudest person. though i'm not loud at work. but i feel if given the chance i would be. ah well....but we do have a brit in our group and it's nice to chat with her about UK nuances and hear her lovely accent.

oh! and for all the naysayers. my old job was 7.5 miles east and my new job is 8.5 miles north. so it's not THAT far like everyone seemed to make it out to be. in fact it takes about the same time to get to work in the morning as it used to and i can actually get home faster at night from my new job than my old due to no traffic like downtown traffic. also the gym is on the way home so that's awesome.

anyway, that's about it for the new job front. elsewhere, the weekend consisted of loteria and drinking at byron's, the beach, the movies, and eating too much food. tino and neil were in town this weekend and i hung with them and rick a lot as well. good times but now it's 12:40am and i don't feel relaxed at all. damnit!

if my life was a tv show, this would be the part where a dramatic montage of scenes flash on the screen and the following music plays quietly over them as my voice narrates the passage below.

how could be sad over something i hated so much? i loved the people i worked with. well, most of them. i most certainly didn't love the man. i loathed him. and he was the main reason i had to leave this place. everything about him trickled down to me and why i hated the place i worked for. i really could care less if the ship sinks. but i care about the people. most of which have left already. the older ones that is. i was fine all day and then it got on to be about 5:45pm and i got this really big knot in my chest. it really hit me that i was leaving. i cleaned up my files on the computer, sent my goodbye email, and said my goodbyes. since my office consists of two rooms separate by a gaping hole in a wall, i went over to "web room 1" to say my goodbyes. most people were gone at that point. so that was easy. not to mention most of the people in that room i dont know as well. but then i returned to my room, "web room 2" and i almost started crying. except i held it all back because i said i wouldn't cry. of course this meant half-hearted goodbyes to my really good friends and coworkers. not looking them in the eye as i hugged them and such. oh man it was sad....and i felt like at the very least, doug looked sad too. :( it's very strange feeling two completely opposite feelings for something. but i am ready to move on. sadness or not, i am moving on to something new and different and therefore exciting. i will miss all my old coworkers but i hope to see them at future outings.

and for the record. in the past month, i have spent $937.72 on clothes from my company. and most of that was NOT for me. i think i bought maybe $150 for myself. but everyone wanted that last purchase so yea. that's an insane amount of money and that's at a discount. retail price that would be around like $3000 i would say. WOW....

man o man. the last day of work here and they have be finishing up this promo and it's like fucking pulling teeth. jesus. it's almost over though. 1.5 hrs. holy hell....

yesterday doug came back and we had a chat about it all and it was good. he wasn't angry. he understood. i felt at peace with it all after that because up til then i felt bad for him as my boss. but now i can go with a clean slate.

more later. for now, WORK!

oh man. the internets just suck you right in. so earlier today i was on a remix kick. i found a few good pieces. a justice remix. a remix by midnight juggernauts of a dragonette song. this led me to check out the new dragonette album. and so and so forth. i found out that justice will be playing the fonda in october and i am SO there. holy hell. their album is like my fave album of the year thusfar. and another album i am EAGERLY awaiting is the midnight juggernauts debut LP which comes out in australia (where they are from) next month. it's a 2-disc limited edition and i might have to just pre-order it blindly as i can't find a place to listen to the other tracks i don't know. but i have been searching around for a bit which led me down the internets spiral.

somehow i have managed to get onto a silverchair kick. not listening to their songs but realizing that 1) they still exist and 2) the lead singer doesn't look like a girl anymore. i had to do some snooping around to find all this out. both silverchair and midnight juggernauts are from aussie land and this is how it all started. i saw some bit about the juggernauts on a site and then next to that was a bit about how silverchair had to cancel some shows because the lead singer had laryngitis. there was a photo of the band and i was like, wtf? that's what they look like now? and furthermore, they are still around? i remember their songs being popular when i was in high school. and they looked like children. and the lead singer had anorexia and looked like a girl. so i looked at some fan sites and sure enough, the boys have all grown up. they are 2 yrs older than me which explains why they always looked young. cuz they were! and the guy did used to look very girly. it was in his eyes and he wore makeup a bit. he also had long hair for a period. but now he looks "manly" and it's very very weird. i would post photos but i don't think anyone cares really and once i go to bed, i won't care anymore myself. i just thought it was so strange. they have been around for over 10 yrs making (i assume) poppy rock music. i don't even know. after that one popular album (neon ballroom or something with neon lights on the cover) i thought they sort of fell off the map. but i guess not. they even have a relatively new album out. so weird. i wonder if they still make a decent amount of money. and i wonder if their shit sounds any more mature. i would listen but alex is trying to sleep and i don't want to wake him with music playing. maybe i'll have a listen tomorrow at work if i can remember. anyway, very strange find indeed. damn you internets. i've successfully wasted like an hour now!!

on another note. i didn't make it to the pedicure today. i was too lazy. i went home and shot the shit with rick downstairs for like 2 hrs. then i did a quick load of laundry and then used th exercise bike at alex's cuz i didn't feel like going to the gym. i caught guillermo's movie as well which was interesting. not my type of movie but looked nice. shot very well. and joe was in it and goddamn it's always awkward watching him doing gay love scenes. i mean shit, this is a guy i used to like a lot and have made out with. it's just weird seeing that shit on screen. if it was some other dude it wouldn't be weird at all. i mean i can handle gay love scenes. just not ones with people i know!!!

ah. lazy sundays....

so the finally outing was sort of a bust. i got really drunk and puked on the way home. sigh....the roost's drinks are just so strong! and i felt fine up until i left. but i just sat in the car as alex drove me home. but then i suddenly had to puke and had no proper bag to do so in. so we stopped at a rite aid and i puked in the corner of the parking lot. eep! then i felt better though. just went home and went to sleep. ah well. i still had fun anyway. it's weird because i have a sneaky suspiscion that i will be invited back to one of these outings very soon. and maybe even again after that. the mass exodus is happening. i'm the 8th person in 4 months to leave from my office of about 22 or so people. that's pretty bad huh? this is what happens with your company shits on you. i'm just sayin....

anyway, today i am going to relax all day. going to get a pedicure in a bit and then just chill til it's time to go see guillermo's movie at night. it's premiering at outfest tonight and i got a ticket. i have no idea what to expect though i am aware of the twist in the plot. i wish that more of our friends were going because i want to see their reaction to it all. yet i think i am the only one going. oh well.

only 2 more days at my current job and then off to the big bad new world. it's sort of scary and very exciting. my boss comes back tomorrow. i fully expect a lot of half-sarcastic half-true scathing remarks and jokes. it's expected. that's how he deals with things. and i totally know that this situation is less than optimal. so what can ya do?

friday the 13th. dun dun dun.

tonight is my final outing with my office as an employee here. i hope to go to future outings provided the people from my office are still around. or maybe it will end up being all former employees getting together and bitching about the good ole days. hahaha regardless, it's a bit sad to leave this place irregardless of my thoughts for the company as a whole. the people are work with are awesome and it's so chill here. i got the first whiff of sadness when i was driving to work today thinking about how this is my last friday here. i mean of course it's good to move on and i want to move on for sure. but it's always sad to leave behind something you are so used to. it's like a bad relationship. you know the guy isn't right for you and that ultimately you won't get married and it won't work out. he just can't give you what you need. but you've been with him for so long it's hard to just sever ties completely. that's exactly how i feel right now.

time to drink! :)

philly post part 2.

so the next day (friday) we set out early yet again. alex, me, mwazhuwa, and alex's mom. this time the weather was nice. it wasn't raining at all. just sunny and muggy. overall, a decent day for more walking around the city. silly me didn't take a crapload of photos like i should have. first we went to the reading terminal market where i got some shoo fly pie which is a traditional amish (lots of amish in PA!) dessert dish which my dad told me to try. i also got a soft pretzel because apparently they are really good in philly. i had mine with spicey mustard and i was told you are supposed to do. after that we went to rittenhouse square which is a nice park in center city surrounded by nice buildings and stores. urban outfitters is based out of philly so there is a bit anthropologie in the square which is located in this converted mansion. it's so nice! urban is down the street in a more modern building. i had to take a peep at the motherland even if i wasn't going to buy anything. we walked all around the residential areas near the square and once again saw amazing old buildings. i was in love with those buildings. then we went to pick up alex's sister, julia, from the train station and we went to alex's dad's work. his firm has two floors in this tall building that has great views of the city. so snapped some shots. then we went back down to the square area and bummed around.

alex, mwazhuwa, and i went to another stephen starr restaurant, barclay prime, for the KOBE BEEF SLIDERS. yes, caps are needed for these DELICIOUS burgers. oh holy hell. the best fucking thing i ate during my entire philly stay. i mean i had a lot of good MEALS but this was the best single dish i had. hands down. alex and i each had a slider a piece. medium rare kobe + carmelized onions + gruyere on a toasted bun. SOOOOO GOOD. pricey ($7 each) but well well well worth it. and don't even get me started with the decor. at first i thought it was sort of stuffy. very rich looking. dark wood and all. but then i came to realize that it was totally swank meets hip. all the furniture in the main room was shades of green and there were cool chandeliers above many of the tables. the walls were like bookcases like in an old library. and the bathrooms had all these varying sized mirrors over round free standing sinks. very cool.

after we indulged in the sliders we met back up with the rest of the fam and went to another starr restaurant for drinks. this place was called the continental mid-town (there is another one in another area). this place is a tapas place i think but we didn't eat anything. we went to the roof for a drink. this place looked like a diner sort of. it was very hip. the clientele were a bit too douchey for my liking but we were only there to kill time. then we headed over to my final starr restaurant, morimoto. this place is a japanese/sushi restaurant. the inside has crazy lights and weird things on the wall. yet the bathrooms are totally zen and subdued with wood paneling. very strange. the food was excellent and the service was top notch. our table wasn't going to be ready on time so the head guy came out and apologized for the wait and brought us bowls of edamame to snack on as well as rock shrimp tempura. all free of course. this took care of appetizers! we had a chef's selection of sushi as well as a few entrees. the black cod was HEAVENLY. melted in your mouth. so damn good. MAN. there is some tasty fucking food in philly. i think i gained a few pounds during my stay. i just ate and ate and ate. kyla, i know you are reading this, and i know you would be proud. haha

after dinner we indulged, yet again, in some gelato. this place did not have my favorite flavor (tiramisu) but what they did have was quite good. i probably shouldn't have eaten that much but i did anyway. and i paid for it the next day feeling entirely like a beached whale for like half a day. ah well....after gelato the kiddies went out to this bar nearby called mcclinchey's. this place is definitely the local dive spot. you can't smoke in bars and restaurants in philly (like most places in the country i assume) but the patrons petitioned to have the city allow the bar to let people smoke. so sure enough it was smokey as hell in there. we met up with rob and we were able to score a booth. the drinks are dirt ass cheap and i had my first yuengling ever. the infamous PA beer i have been hearing about since i met ollie. this bar is nuts cuz the staff are unfriendly and if you do things like sit on a ledge or hang your coat on a banister they yell at you and might even throw you out. really, it's the most divey thing ever. but we had a good time. mwazhuwa is a regular there so he kept me in line with the do's and dont's. after nearly closing out the bar, we headed back home.

the following day (saturday), alex and i got up really early to catch the train to NYC. the train takes about 1.5 hrs. it's much faster than the chinatown bus which literally goes from philly's small ass chinatown to NYC's chinatown. it's dirt cheap but can take 2 or 3 hrs depending on traffic and how many stops it makes or some such. regardless, we were only going to NYC for the day so we had to maximize our time. and alex's parents paid for our ticket, so no complaints there! :) when we got to NYC alex and i walked from penn station to the moma since we had time to kill. he was going to have lunch with his ex while i looked around the museum. they had a few exciting new exhibits but the one i was most pumped about was the helvetica one. helvetica is 50 yrs old this year. so they are doing an exhibit on the font for one year. yes, an exhibit on a FONT. i was ALL about this because i love helvetica and i haven't even seen the doc on it because it's touring around the world and the one day it was in LA was the night before coachella while i was setting up camp in indio. anyway....so i was pumped to see the exhibit. but when i got there i found out that there were a few other good exhibits going on. richard cera had a 40 years of work retrospective complete with all the huge metal constructions that stacey and i saw at the gugg in bilbao. i took a quick look at the exhibit but realized that the curation was bad due to the spatial relations at the moma so i decided not to waste my time looking at it. that and it will be at LACMA later this year so i can always see them again if i want. it's really awesome actually. after making my way around some exhibits and some of the perm collection i found the helvetica exhibit. it was distinctly smaller than i had imagined. it was just a corner of the room. so so so sad. i remember going to the SFMOMA for the typography exhibit and that was at least a few rooms. this was a tiny corner. they had a 5 min clip of the doc on the screen and then helvetica pieces in the glass display and akzidenz grotesk pieces on the wall for contrast. i read every bit on the walls and soaked it all in. there were two AA pieces which is both awesome and disgusting all at once. i was pleased with what i saw but i was hoping for more. hoping to see some josef muller brockman and the like. oh well. it was still worth it.

after the moma i left and went to bergdorf goodman while alex made his way back from lunch. ok, BG is way way way out of my league. i felt soooo out of place there. i left within 5 min. it's just so fancy and pricey. but not the way harrods is in london. at least that place i feel like i can go into. but BG, nope. too weird for me. so i was outtie. i went to the "cube" mac store to wait for alex and played with the iphone. then from there we went over to soho on the metro. oh the good ole nyc metro. so hot and old. but vaguely reliable. in soho i wanted to check out two stores. the UNIQLO flagship store and the united nude shoe store. UNIQLO was pretty much what i expected. big and bright but nothing i wanted to buy. i did get my boss a pantone shirt but that was it. then we went to dean and deluca so i could get a bite to eat. that was my first meal of the day since i was soooo stuffed from the day before. then we went to united nude where i was met with a slew of asian women who were on a shopping spree. it was quite cute. then we just walked around looking at random things. it was at this point that i remembered that there was a converted kwik-e-mart/7-11 in NYC but i didn't know where. (for those who don't know, kwik-e-mart is the 7-11 of springfield in simpson's land and they converted a few 7-11's in the country as an elaborate promotion for the movie.) so we found out from mwazhuwa that it was near times square. so we went over to check it out. yes yes, i know i was in NYC and i could see a kwik-e-mart anywhere. but when we only had like 2 hrs before our train left back to philly, we couldn't really venture super far. and i didn't want to spend a lot of money (i bought a dress at h&m before we went to the moma) so i didn't feel like doing anymore shopping.

when we saw the kwik-e-mart it was pretty much what i expected. a small spectacle. people with their cameras snapping away. everyone getting a squishee and movie donut. and a few of us looking for duff's beer after we saw krusty-o's and buzz cola. sadly they didn't make duff's beer for the promo. that would have been awesome. honestly, if i worked at one of these converted stores i would be SICK of people taking my photo. but i didn't consider my own thoughts and snapped away. those poor poor men.

after that we walked back over to penn station and waited for our train. my feet were tried from all the walking so it was good to sit down. when we got back to philly we headed to amada for our final dinner in philly with alex's parents and his friend andrew (who also worked for AA at a store in philly). amada is NOT a starr restaurant and doesn't look like one. it's very traditional looking. it's a spanish tapas place and holy hell we ordered a lot of food. the waitress was super friendly and nice and remembered all 17 or 18 dishes we ordered without writing anything down. we ordered too much but man was it all so good. after that alex, andrew, and i went to liberty heights area to this bar called the standard tap. it was very chill there. we met up with rob and mwazhuwa and had some beers til it was about closing time and then we headed home.

the next day we left back for LA. alex's mom made us omelettes for breakfast and we chilled til it was time to go to the airport. all in all the stay was quite lovely. philly is a very nice city with a lot to offer. would i want to live there? not really. i mean i love the west coast a lot and i love SF a lot in particular. if i lived in philly i'd probably just think a lot about how i wasn't in NYC for the hustle and bustle and not in SF for the nice chill, settling down vibe. but philly is very nice and it was good to see where alex grew up (even if technically he lived in a affluent suburb about 20 min from the city center).

i will end this post with some photos of alex's house. it's a modest home considering. i thought it would be a lot larger. not that it's not large already. i just thought it would be even larger. their home sits on about an acre of land and they recently built up the back porch area that leads out to the pond. yes they have a POND on their property!!! there are frogs in it too. there's a little bench out there to sit by it. they also installed a small brass looking fountain on the porch area. it's very cute. and at night they have all these little lights in the grass so it's all lit up. the bench by the pond would be a prime make out spot if you were like 17. i bet alex kissed a lot of girls back there. haha anyway, very nice home and a very lovely trip back east. i just wish we had more time. there's never enough time....

i finally got a moment to gather up my philly images and i will now write my behemoth post. here we go!

so alex and i took the red eye july 3rd out of LAX. the flight left at 10pm and was to land in philly at like 6am local time. the purpose of the red eye is to sleep. the red eye tries to simulate a proper night's rest by leaving at a decently late hour and arriving at a decently early hour. even though you only end up getting 5 hrs of sleep at most, it's still better than nothing. so when i realized that these PUNK ASS BOYS sitting one row behind me were going to talk loudly the ENTIRE flight, i wasn't having any of it. no fucking way. so first i started by just casually looking back and glaring at them. they sort of got the hint but basically kept on talking. so then i actually said something to them. a very simple "can you please keep your voices down?" and they did for a few minutes. then right back at it. so then i told the flight attendant and he told them to be quiet. again, it only lasted a few minutes. so then the lights went out on the plane to reinforce the idea of sleeping and i sort of fell asleep. for a few minutes. but then i woke up to their loud voices. now mind you, if this was a day flight i wouldn't have cared. for one thing other people would have been talking to it wouldn't have been so obviously that they were making noise and secondly i wouldn't be trying to sleep. so finally since alex had to pee as well as the other woman in my row, i took this cue to stand the entire time my row was empty and just glare at them. finally after about a minute one guy says "i'm sorry. you want us to be quiet don't you? let's make a deal. how quiet do we have to be for you to be happy?" and so then we had a mini conversation of me telling them that talking loudly and singing (yes they were singing at some points) is not acceptable when EVERYONE around them is trying to sleep and that whispers were fine. so they finally shut the fuck up and i got a bit of sleep. good lord.

we arrived safe and sound the next day and alex's hair was a total wreck from leaning on the window. i had to take a pic! we went home and took a long long nap. got up and showered and then headed out to the parkway where the 4th of july celebrations were taking place. the weather was crappy and it was sprinkling on and off. we met up with one of alex's good friends, kehinde. we hung around the area for a bit before we realized it was far too early for the show to start. so we went to a local bar to get some food and drinks. on the way we saw people riding horses in the streets! like not cops but regular people....riding horses!! the horses pooped as they crossed the intersection. how funny.

the bar seemed fine but our waiter was the BIGGEST ASSHOLE ever. omg. we sat down and he comes up to us and says "so what would you like to drink?" and alex was like "oh umm. well actually i'd like some wings. and i'd like to know..." cut off by the asshole saying "i said DRINK. NOT EAT. we'll get to the food later." and alex, clearly taken aback like myself, said, "umm. well nothing. i'm not drinking." and the asshole says "what? you don't even want some water?" and alex at this point probably would have liked some but just said no as a reflex. and then the guy asked the kehinde and i and we said water. and then the asshole asked alex if he wanted some and alex said "ok sure fine." so the guy leaves and comes back with waters and a menu. so we look it over and when he returns to take our order he takes the menu away from us and then says "so what do you want to eat?" now i mean, first of all, tone is important. and second of all, don't snatch the menu before we order. that's just RUDE. so we ordered and it took ages for our food to come. and then when we finally wanted to leave, i asked for the check and he FORGOT to give to us. now i mean, i know it's the 4th of july and all but it wasn't THAT busy in there. he was just being an asshole. so guess what, NO TIP for him. yes i will do that. i will literally give NO TIP if i feel so inclined. it's rare. but when i feel you are a fucking asshole to me, why, WHY should i give you extra money for that? tipping is extra. sure, in this country, it's somewhat of a mandatory extra. but really, it's not. and if you are going to be rude to me, then fuck off. no extras for you. on the flipside if you are super awesome and nice, i will totally fork over 20% or more. anyway....

we left and went outside only to find it raining. fairly hard. so now for plan B. no more fireworks and outdoor hall & oates concert for us. soaking wet from walking to our car in the rain, we went over to alex's friend josh's place and met up with a few other good friends of his, andrew and mwazhuwa. after a bit we split from there and went over to another rob (another childhood friend)'s place. he had some people over. we all ended up shooting the shit for a few hours. i was quite tired so i barely spoke but just listened. at one point we decided to do a blind taste test of coke vs pepsi to prove that even though people say they can tell, they can't. only 2 people got it right. i was not one of them. so yea. that was interesting. we ended the night with a trip to wawa which sort of like 7-11. they have 7-11's too but wawa is where it's at. open 24hrs and you can get hoagies there all night. so we did that and then headed home.

the next day it was still a bit overcast and slightly rainy. hot and muggy out but overcast. BOO. we got up and picked up mwazhuwa who would accompany us on all the "tours" of the city. he and alex are like best friends. they both have black, thick rimmed glasses and diastemas (gap in teeth). bosom buddies!

we first went through fairmount park which is the largest park in the country. they sort of cheat because it's not one continuous park. it's made up of a couple large ones and then a lot of small ones scattered through the city. nevertheless it's quite large and contributes to a lot of the greenery in philly, something i didn't expect. the city is quite lush and green. helps to make it much nicer than i thought it would be.

on our way through a tour of the park we had to stop for some geese. they literally all crossed in front of us. so cute. i got out to take photos. we then made our way to the art museum which is where the concert was taking place for the 4th of july. it's right on the river and also the spot where rock ran up the steps. therefore there are rocky footprints in the top step in front of the museum as well as a rocky statue at the base of the museum. this makes for a lot of people taking photos with their arms in the air. i opted to not do that. i asked alex if he would and flat our refused. oh well. at least i got a cute shot of him and mwazhuwa. we then hopped back in the car to pick up alex's mom since she wanted to join us. mwazhuwa asked me if we had brought the owls and i said yes, so we brought them in the car that day and mwazhuwa had to carry them once alex's mom got in the car. so cute!

once we got alex's mom it was time for some lunch. or for most of us, the first meal of the day! had to save room for the cheesesteak!! on the way to the south philly region where the infamous cheesesteak places reside, i saw a lot of murals on the walls of buildings. philly does some cool stuff. they have this whole mural program to get kids into doing productive things it seems. instead of graffitti, make murals! they also have philly car-share or whatever it's called. and hell, car-share is fucking brilliant if you live in a place where you don't really need a car that much!

anyway, the two famous spots for cheesesteaks are pat's and geno's which are across the street from each other. pat's is apparently better than geno's and geno's is flat our racist with a sign saying "THIS IS AMERICA. ORDER IN ENGLISH" or something like that. i will not eat at a place like that. there is another place further away called chink's because the owner apparently has "chinky eyes" as they said in self-defense of their name when claiming to NOT be racist. haha i wanted to go there and pull my eyelids up and order. but we didn't. we went to tony luke's where they not only have cheesesteaks but also roast pork sandwiches. now i sort of fucked this up and did NOT get the cheese whiz. it just sounds so gross. but i realize that provalone does not have the flavor one would hope it would, and therefore my steak was good but not GREAT. on the other hand, the roast pork sandwich with broccli rabe was superb and definitely a hidden secret of the philly sandwich life outside of philly. after we ate we went down to the italian market area to walk around and so i could see pat's and the ostentatious monstrosity called geno's. trust me, the photos don't do it justice. after that we went to this house/studio where this guy did this crazy ass collage of artwork all over the house. like tiled all sorts of things from bicycle wheels to bottles to whatever. it's crazy as shit and way cool.

after that we went up to the more historic area which is sort of in the center city area. alex's mom told me alot about the homes over there. there are a lot of row houses in philly. meaning they all share walls and sort of run together. most of them are from the 1700 and 1800s which is damn cool. a lot of them are huge and very pricey. and you can't alter the outside. it's against the law. i would LOVE to live in one of those homes....some of them looked more like fortresses. very ugly IMO. but apparently it's to protect their privacy. so on the outside when people walk by they can't really see much but if you were to see the backside courtyard area of these homes, it's very open and lots of windows. just not on the outside. regardless i thought it was strange. we walked around a lot. partly in the rain. stopped in some stores and coffee shops here and there to get out of the rain. we went to the oldest working, livable street in the country. it's very narrow as you can see below. i don't think cars are allowed down there. it's very cute and quaint. i love it! i also love that they have handicap parking meters in philly which are the customary blue color but are also significantly shorter than a regular meter. i took a photo to compare. essentially these meters are geared towards midgets and people in wheelchairs. but what about everyone else that has a handicap sign? they have to bend down a lot! i found that very amusing.

for dinner we met up with alex's dad and we headed over to west philly where penn's campus is. we went to the first of many amazing restaurants, pod. now to preface. there is a restaurateur in philly named stephen starr. he owns 12 restaurants in philly and i went to 5 of them....and might i say, i am in love with stephen starr. the man knows what he's doing with his restaurants. that's all i have to say. anyway, so pod was the first on the list. we went there for drinks and appetizers. alex said the food was just so so but that the place looked really cool. so i had to go. and i figured drinks and appetizers would be good enough. the place was much smaller than i expected but definitely as cool looking as i hoped for. with the varied lighting and the "pods" (aka booths) that people can sit in, this place was modern swank. the staircase has railings that looked like escalators (you might be able to see in the photos) and the bathrooms looked like airplane bathrooms. seriously, everything inside that small little room. awesome...after we left there we headed over to the 2nd starr restaurant of the trip, buddakhan. that place has a giant buddha as it's main design element. it was a lot larger than pod and definitely more classy. the food was tasty asian fusion style. i was definitely STUFFED by the end of the night. we were going to go out for drinks but alex wasn't feeling well and we were still tired from lack of sleep. so we headed home for an early night's rest.

and i will stop there for now because this post is WAY too long. i will finish the rest tomorrow. it's easier to digest in chunks.

a couple of things...

so i just picked up my car from the mechanic. $700 worth of parts and labor. UGH. i hate car repairs. i bet it would have been more like a grand if i went to the dealer. so then i got to thinking. when does it get to the point where you don't want to make repairs anymore. where it's not worth it and you just get a new car? i mean my car is now 7 yrs old. and i'm thinking i want to keep it for 4 more yrs and then get a new car at age 30. that's my plan at least. so far i've done the usual oil change and inspections. and aside from car repairs due to accidents which weren't my fault and therefore i didn't pay for them, i think i'd dumped about $1500 of repairs into the car in total over the past 7 years. not too bad. but when is it too much? when do the repairs overtake the value of the car? i'm thinking maybe around $3000-4000. i feel after that it's just silly since presumably the car will be old and not worth much in resale value. anyway, i just had these thoughts today and wanted to share.

unrelated, i am 99% sure i saw daniel last night. daniel as in the boy i dated in high school. he lives in LA and goes to my gym and i always thought "what if i ran into daniel at the gym? wouldn't that be really really weird." well as i was leaving the gym and rearranging crap in my trunk i heard a guy on the phone come down the stairs into the parking lot. he was on his phone and said "hey it's daniel. blah blah...." and it sounded JUST like him. and i looked over and it looked like him from afar. so i'm pretty sure it was him. i had to decide in that minute or so if i wanted to say hi to him. i talk to him occasionally online but i haven't actually seen him in person in at least a few years i think. and seriously, we are worlds different now. so we don't have that much to talk about. so i had to decide what to do. i opted to not say hi on account that 1) i had nothing of merit to say and 2) i was sweaty and gross. part of me wishes i had said hello but most of me is ok with my decision. anyway, just more ramblings.

philly photos are coming i swear. i have to download them to my computer and then sort and make some sort of cohesive bit about what i did and back it up with photos. i hope to do that tomorrow.

i am back from philly and i wish i could be on vacation forever. i will make a long post about it later but i wanted to post some photos from doug's (my boss) wedding from the other weekend. i finally got around to rounding up a few good shots. we took a lot of fun videos but i can't be bothered to compress them and figure out a good way to get them up here. so here's a few shots from the classy debauchery (is that an oxymoron?).

left to right, top to bottom:

1. laurel and byron. laurel loves to ham it up for the camera which i think is great. byron likes to sort of make funny faces as if he's pissed off, but he's not. he secretly loves it. haha

2. the gang: charles, heather, heather's hubby casey, lawrence, doug, jeff, laurel, byron, me.

3. doug and his wife jenny being lifted on the chairs in true jewish wedding tradition.

4. "this is married life." -- heather

5. byron had me steal this water they are holding. note the funny face he is making. classic.

6. laurel dancing and me looking like a doll as i rest my feet while holding my heels.

7. byron loves to dance when he gets drunk!

8. jeff (aka, jesus christ incarnate) kills byron in crazy drunken wedding rage.

listen to this while you read the following post.

I QUIT!!! i fucking quit my job. put in my 2 wks notice today. holy smokes. 7th person in 4 months. it's pretty fucking nuts actually. i went to the interview yesterday morning and it seemed to go well. met with the CD and VP. i couldn't get a good handle on if they liked me though i was there for like an hour. the office is really cool and modern. the people seem nice. the work seems awesome. i'll finally be creatively stimulated with varying projects. i think i will learn a lot. man o man. i've always wanted to work for a design firm. and now it's coming true!! :)

the only shitty thing is that my boss is out of the office on his honeymoon. i went to his wedding this weekend (photos to follow) and it was hell of a lot of fun. but now i feel so shitty doing this to him. but at the end of the day it's not him. it's me needing change. this place has been good and bad times. i mean the owner is a fucking ridiculously insanely greedy bastard who might as well just say "fuck you" whenever words come out of his mouth. cuz that's really what he's saying with every goddamn word he says. that or "give me more money." seriously, i could go on and on about how fucking messed up shit is here. from "hierarchy" to the man. it's so terrible. maybe once the acquisition goes through things will change. corporate people will come in and clean house. i won't be here to see it but i hope someone i know is so they can tell me about it.

anyway, i wanted to post stuff from the wedding but i'm soo bogged down. they are throwing me a shitload of work since i'll be out the rest of the week. so more later.

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