ok. so i got some of the photos rounded up from this weekend and now i can make my post. so, laurel came up with this grand idea to throw a kid's birthday party for her friends mike, jessica and tyler. the party was filled with cookies, PB&J, juiceboxes, pudding, candy, etc. all kid items. nothing adult. there was a pinata and the one mandatory was that you had to dress like when you were a kid. this sounded like a lot of fun to me, so byron and i headed down to the LBC yesterday to join in the party. now, i had taken my inspiration from a photo i had back when i was 10. i used to flip my bangs up real high and use a lot of mouse and hairspray to keep them up. behold....
me on the left at age 10 and me on the right at age 27. now clearly i didn't get my hair to be as glorious as it was when i was 10 but i tried my hardest. after all, i don't have the same haircut and i also don't own any mousse. but after about a half a bottle of hairspray and 30 minutes tackling the beast, i think i did a decent job of paying homage to my yesteryear cut. so with that, i put on one of alex's shirts, since when i was a kid i always wore shirts too large for me and coupled that with a pair of bright blue leggings. as a kid i wore pink stirrups but i don't have those so this was the closest i could get. i headed out to byron's house to pick him up and we were on our way.
as you can see, byron wore suspenders and corduroys as a child and laurel wore oversized shirts and her hair in what she called a "nothing" ponytail because it was neither in the back nor a full side ponytail. hahaha we drank juiceboxes and blew bubbles and it was glorious kid-like fun. the birthday kids opened their gifts and we had a hell of a time. i also have to make note of mike's outfit. mike is in the bottom photo on the far right. his shirt was damn near priceless. it was so boxy and blousey it was hilarious. like seriously, when i saw him i was nearly floored. so damn good. definite fun times in the LBC yesterday.
as for the rest of the weekend. pretty chill. friday night i met up with the AA crew downtown to celebrate sumi finally getting her visa. alex and i hung out there for a couple hours before heading out to highland park to a bar named footsies. chy was having her birthday there. that was nice and chill as well. alex started falling asleep so we took off around 1am.
saturday i did a bunch of errands and then alex and i met up with his high school friend and her bf for an expensive ass sushi dinner in santa monica. it was NOT worth the price. ugh. i feel cheated. oh well. then neil came over and hung out with us for awhile. and basically that was the weekend.
on a totally unrelated note, i was parusing design company sites and came across THE perfect company for me in the US. (i can't say perfect overall cuz there are a crapload of companies in the UK i'd love to work at) the company is called graphic therapy and they are located in NY. they do mostly cd packaging and other awesome print work. i mean it's like the perfect place for me to work. even their website is just how i like design. clean and simple. ahhhh i am in love. i want to move to NY right now and work there. sigh....
i was going to wait til tonight or so to post about the weekend because i'm waiting on photos from laurel and byron but i MUST make a posting as the country is in a crisis.
the dow went down 777 points today. the largest single day point loss in history!!! the bailout plan was rejected and this was the result. the country is fucked right now. HOW can people stand by and vote for 4 more years of this bullshit? i mean honestly. HONESTLY? i'm worried. i'm genuinely worried for the country right now. shit just keeps going downhill. and we're on the verge of a possible way to turn it all around and yet the polls are not indicating that everyone is on board with this idea. ugh! i'm not a political person AT ALL, but these drastic times worry me and i feel compelled to say so. i can't wait for the debate on thursday. i think it's going to get a HUGE viewership. everyone wants to see palin go down, including myself.
in other sad, unrelated news. usc lost to OSU last thursday and dropped down to #9 in the polls. sad. SAD SAD SAD. fucking OSU. dominic and tyson went there. i think i need to hate them now. haha
no more airport. please....
shit man. i have a LOT more airport in my future. but no more for the next two weeks. i took alex to LAX this past thursday. then friday i went there myself to fly to SF. then i flew back yesterday night. then tonight i went back there to pick up alex. LAX is pretty fuckin far from my house now that i live in hollyWOOOOD! haha in my mind that came out like a hip hop artist was sayin it. hahahaha anyway, i'll be back at LAX in two weeks to head back to SF. then 2 or 3 weeks after that (i can't even keep track anymore) i'll be at the burbank airport to go to vegas. i'll be going to vegas before that as well, just not on a plane. fuckin crazy times. 2x to SF and 2x to vegas all in the span of like 5 or 6 wks. i'm not crazy. i swear!
this past weekend's SF trip was very spur of the moment. last minute decision indeed. i was contemplating not doing anything and just chillin at home while alex was gone but then i determined i might go fucking crazy and thought a trip to SF would be good. but a semi-secret one at that because i didn't want to have to deal with scheduling to see people. hell, i didn't even see my parents! they knew i was there but i didn't go home. i stayed with kyla at her new apt and the only other person i saw was eric just because he came out with us friday night. since i'll be back in 2 weeks i thought this trip could be way D/L and i could just clear my head for a couple days. it was great. except for the damned flight delay on my way out. made us late for the club. but it was fine in the end.
saturday kyla and i chilled at home til about 1pm and then went to serramonte where this japanese store with random ass shit was. daiso. spent some time out there and then came back to the city and began our adventure to treasure island. see, there was a music festival this weekend and at the last fuckin minute, i got on the guestlist. literally friday morning my hookup at filter mag put me on the list. i didn't even have to ask! i was super stoked cuz i had wanted to go to the fest but then resigned that i wouldn't cuz kyla didn't want to pay to go and i didn't want to go alone. but i got a +1 so we decided to go for the 2nd half of the fest. so we took a bus to the transbay terminal and then took another bus to treasure island. neither of us had been there before. we rode the bus all the way around the island by accident and then got off and walked to the fest. there was a snaffu with my guestlistingness but in the end it worked out. in the meantime kyla and i snacked on some it's its. oh man those are good. love that shit. once inside we caught 75% of goldfrapp's set. she sounded really good but the stage presence was so so. i was happy though cuz i have wanted to see them perform for ages. after that we walked around and checked out all the booths and before we knew it, we were knee deep in a line at the incase booth where they were handing out free iphone and laptop cases and doing on the spot screenprinting on AA scarves. we had waited so long already that we were committed. not to mention it was getting butt ass cold from the wind off the water and a scarf sounded REAL GOOD. so we waited forEVER for this fucking scarf and had to listen to tv on the radio from afar. i was ok with this because i'm going to see them in a proper venue soon enough in LA and this way i heard the music but didn't see it so that way i won't entirely spoil the experience. i rationalized it all that way. much like what i did for islands at coachella since i knew i was going to see them with laurel weeks later.
after we got our scarf we ate some pizza which tasted so fucking good. i think cuz we were super hungry. then we got walked by CSS and headed for the stage for justice. once justice got going we got warm. dancing + crowds = no more coldness. justice did what they always do. same ole same ole. i like it, but it's not amazing. they played for over an hour. i was content. they were the final act of the night as the fest ended at 10:30 because everyone had to get off the island and that took awhile. they had all these nice ass buses that shuttled back and forth from the island to AT&T park. so we waited for one of those buses (instead of taking public transit like we did to get there) and 30min later we were on the bus and off to the city. once we got to the park we took a cab back to kyla's. we were gonna go out to a bar but we were both a bit pooped and all the bars around her house were not looking appealing. drinking hot chocolate and eating PB on bread sounded way more fun. so we did that! haha
sunday we walked around hayes valley and did some shopping. got coffee at kyla's fave place. i accidentally forgot to ask for nonfat milk and got whole milk. UGH! my god. i haven't had whole milk in so long i forgot how fucking thick it is. kinda gross if you ask me. it was gorgeous all weekend in the city. not too cold and nice and sunny. downright perfect. so we walked around hayes valley for awhile. then walked around her area. and then around 6 we headed out to the airport to drop me off. so all in all a fairly chill weekend. festival was a nice surprise. and now i'm back in fuckin LA. eh.
view of the city from treasure island. ferris wheel lit up at night for the festival. justice cross. kyla showing off her screenprinted scarf the next day (i got the same color and design).
imeem.com had a photobooth setup going on that took digital photos and printed them out. since it was treasure island there were pirate props. and these are the photos that resulted from it all. yes, i know, ridiculous. haha
alex is gone and i'm home alone. it's kind of weird. i haven't really been home alone in ages. i haven't slept alone in god knows how long. it's going to be odd. oddly awesome. haha i get the entire bed to myself. that's pretty great. no extra body to take up space or hog the covers. i can stretch out. yes yes. think of the positives. it's funny to think that i haven't been single in years. ME! jen. the girl who used to bitch to high fucking hell about men. it's odd...
i often think about the concept of "forever" as it goes along with wholeheartedly committing to the one you love. forever...that's a really long time. forever is a word that scares me to death. what happens if you want to experience newness again? how do you deal with that? do you go to therapy and find ways to inject newness into your existing relationship or is this why so many people are divorced? i am cynical about marriage probably because i grew up in a "broken" home so to speak. without getting into details for the entire world to read, i will simply say that i didn't have a normal childhood and i am fairly certain that it has affected how i approach relationships. how i deal with relationships. the type of person i am emotionally. if i had the time and money i'd probably go see a therapist just so i could speak to someone entirely unbiased about all of this. but i don't so i can't and i won't. at least not right now. sigh.
on a totally unrelated yet related note, this movie looks so cute. aww....
i reading over some old ass journal entries. i gotta say. thank fucking god i'm not THAT person anymore. i would kick that person's ass if i could and tell her to stop whining so much. i'm so glad i've matured since over the years. i can't imagine what it must have been like to be around me. i'm sorry to all of you who had to endure my pessimistic self of yesteryear. thanks for bearing with me. i really appreciate it. it's funny how things change but some things remain the same. i mean i guess that's because at the core i AM the same person. i've just gotten past a lot of things which is good.
anyhoo, in other news, i am redesigning my website. i've decided it needs to not be flash and it needs to be streamlined. i'm going super minimalist. i've got most of the design down and soon i will begin building it. i'm excited. i'll still keep the framework of my old site just in case i want to revisit it in some fashion. but right now i'm all about the minimalism so i wanna go that route. not that my current site is so over the top. cuz it's not at all. but i want it even more minimal. once i am done i will make an announcement. it probably won't be for awhile because once i build out the shell i still have to make all the interior pages for each piece that i want to show. so that could take some time. gah.
oh sundays. i love relaxing on sundays. except i have a BBQ at 6:30pm looming over my head. i don't really want to go but i am obliged. ugh. anyway, this weekend has been super chill. friday night alex and i did a double date with will and sungmi and went to see burn after reading. not the coen brothers' best work but definitely enjoyable. they are so hit or miss. i mean they can really make amazing films like fargo, blood simple, the big lebowski, and no country for old men and then also make movies like intolerable cruelty and ladykillers. now i'm not saying that burn after reading is bad. cuz it's not. but i think the first thing i said when we got out of the theater was "i feel like they wrote that movie in 2 days." it just didn't have any crazy suspense or intricate storyline. it just sort of existed. it had enjoyable moments and funny moments and i am glad i saw it. but there's no need to own it on dvd. you know what i mean? i won't be re-watching this one years from now. i think everyone who likes the coen brothers should go see it, but don't go running. i don't want to give things away so i'll stop here.
yesterday i ran a bunch of errands and went to the gym during the day and then headed over to little bar to watch the SC vs. OSU game. and man, SC dominated. 35-3. fucking great. we're still ranked #1. woo! and what's even BETTER... UCLA lost to BYU 59-0. FIFTY-NINE TO ZERO. ZERO!!! apparently UCLA's worst loss in nearly 80 years. EIGHTY YEARS. haha oh man. that has GOT to hurt.
after the game people came to play trivia but jen, amanda, stacey and i were were wrapped up in our own conversation and kind of didn't partake in the trivia. we all left the bar around 10pm and alex and i went to yogurtland on stacey's enthusiastic rec. oh man. that place is awesome. it's self-serve. they have lots of flavors. and it's priced by the oz. so mine was like $3 which at pinkberry would probably cost like $5 or 6. and i got exactly what i wanted. a little sprinkles. a little cookies. a little this and that. oh i love it. then we went home and watched brokeback mountain which neither of us had seen. it was good. i didn't LOVE it or anything but it was good.
today i'm doing some work on redesigning my website. and then i'll probably hit the gym before heading out to the BBQ. nothing too exciting. man, summer is really over isn't it? sigh...
ok. this is the most amazing cd packaging i've ever seen. i am completely in love with it. alex has this obsession with mini LPs and their packaging and this falls right into that category, only *i* am the one who loves it. i mean he thinks it's awesome but i am completely enamored with it. it's a limited edition 5000 run "medicine pill pack" version of the album. each blister pack has 6 mini cds. 2 blister packs in the box plus a the dosage instructions which have the liner notes on them. oh it's fucking brilliant. i love it. i wish i owned it. alex found it for sale online from some random place for like $350. that sounds about right. i mean it's just fucking great. and look at that promo shot of the people stuffing the packaging. ahhhhh i think i might have found alex's equivalent to his parliament set. only i can't justify $350 for this thing. but holy hell i do love it very much. they even had a limited edition single cd version that came in a similar medicine packaging. not nearly as cool though...
ugh i'm in such a foul fucking mood right now. too many reasons to explain.
i think i'm in love. this typeface is absolutely fucking gorgeous!!! it's called "feel script" and it's sold by veer. oh my i'm drooling. it's so pretty. i have trouble finding really nice script typefaces because they usually have things about them that i find annoying. various letterforms are just not to my liking. but this. oh my. this has it all. all the flare and beauty that one could ever want from a script typeface. it's $99. i must get my hands on it.
oh man. this weekend has been fantastic. well specifically, last night. friday was a quiet night at little bar to celebrate james getting a new job. a good amount of the crew showed up and christine made a cake. it was a good time. nothing crazy. yesterday during the day i ran some errands and in the midst hung out with dave for a bit. then i got ready for the big sizzler night out.
yes, sizzler.
byron got this idea a couple weeks ago that he wanted to rally a big group to come out to the sizzler in atwater village and chow down for an hour or so and then bar hop btwn the griffen, roost and bigfoot lodge. i was SO on board with this plan. i haven't been to sizzler since i was a kid and i think that rings true for most people. as the day went on i started to think that we were going to have a HUGE turnout. and boy did the folks not disappoint. we had, i believe, 21 people at sizzler. others joined us at the bar later. the group was comprised of some people from dance party. some of byron's friends. and some AA folks. it was glorious and hilarious. people started showing up and there was a line to the door of all of us paying for our "all you can eat" meals. i wrangled up a bunch of tables and put them together in 2 clumps. we all proceeded to chow down for a little over an hour. a lot of us got 24oz beers to accompany our food. my favorite part of the meal was the sundae bar. but i did also enjoy seeing the men eat the steak and shrimp. i didn't partake in any of that.
after lingering around for far too long, we proceeded to head out to the first bar, the griffen. when we got there, most of us were so fucking full we could barely rally to get a drink. but a few minutes later we were all ready to go. jen and cynthia joined us at the bar. as did byron's friend morgan. we took up two tables in the corner as well as part of the bar. you could just see people get drunker and drunker. ahh good times. after zie german complained heavily of being tired because he's "so old" (he's 30) i thought perhaps we should roll out to the roost or we might lose people to lack of steam. so we headed out to the roost where we met up with christine, lindsey and dan. more alcohol flowed while we were there. and of course the obligatory popcorn was eaten. early on "sweet caroline" played and i looked around to assure that the entire bar was going to singalong. and sure enough, they did! that song is such a staple at the roost. i swear it plays every time i'm there. ah it's so good...christine was wearing exceptionally high shoes and looked like a giant next to amanda. i found it highly amusing.
and at some point during the night, zie german was passing around his hat to wear. or maybe we were stealing it from him. i'm not sure. i know it landed oh my head and a photo was snapped. haha
the night winded down around 1:30 as we were all getting tired from all the food and drinking. we headed outside for one final hurrah. since byron's friend voula didn't make it out that night, they decided that we'd send her a massive text message. one word at a time per cell phone. so morgan lined us up and we were all assigned a word. we typed it in and then one by one hit send. i hope it worked out for her. i'll have to find out. i was so drunk i don't remember what the sentence was. i just know i was the last one to go and my word was "naked!" after that we parted ways from what was a glorious night. stacey drove me, alex and cynthia home and once i got home i felt SOOOO drunk. like in the car i started to think i was going to just pass out because i was so fucking drunk. and then i had to walk to my apt and i remember thinking, godDAMN. i went to the bathroom and attempted to throw up but really nothing came out. so i just passed out in bed. and here we are. i feel pretty good now. not ready to start a full week or work. damnit, why can't i just be rich and travel the world?
so this folks, is one of the last images i have in my mind of dominic henning. fucking ridiculous if you ask me. but that's because i know the reason why he's holding that bread and water. last night was a completely ridiculous night that started with me getting lost going to HB and thusly squandering all the time i was attempting to save by leaving work early. during the course of the night we made a pit stop at walgreens to purchase a loaf of bread which we then carried with us up and down the beach making little wads of bread balls to throw into trash cans. when you think about how you're going to spend the final hours with a friend who is moving very far away, you don't typically think you'll be making bread balls on the beach. but yet, that's what we did. and i have no regrets. haha good luck out there dom. i'll surely miss ya.
oh yes. i forgot to mention that alex got his birthday gift a bit early and got a PS3. in honor of it's debut to our house, we watched american psycho in blu-ray. wow. crystal fucking clear. so beautiful. i hadn't seen that movie since it came out in 2000 and i forgot just how much i love it. man. christian bale is hot as shit and his performance is spot on as patrick bateman. and the cheesy music and the way he talks about it. classic. i think i might need to own that movie now. it's just so damned good. and the business card scene means even more to me now that i'm in that line of work. ahhhh so classic, that scene. i love it.
bah. i'm tired. i came to work an hour early because i'm leaving work at 4 to head down to huntington beach to hang out with dominic who is in town for work this week. WHY for the love of god do they send him to HB? why not LA proper?? why?! i'm sure there are perfectly good reasons but in my book, there is no good reason to go to HB except for the beach. and even that's a stretch at times. it's just so fucking far. well, from LA that is. but the OC itself sucks so why would i ever use it as a reference point? anyway, i drove to work today because i have no time to fuck around with public transport. i must be on the road promptly as to attempt to avoid most of the traffic. driving to work was so weird. i haven't done it in ages. it's definitely faster than taking the train but i don't care. i like taking the train and i don't have to pay for gas. i think driving takes about 15 min door to door. the train takes about 25 door to door. part of this is because i don't like to chance it and get to the train right as it's coming into the station. i leave early to ensure i'm not rushed. if i shaved it down to last possible minute, it'd be like 20min door to door. anyway, i found that there is free parking behind the building which was perfect for me because i no longer have a parking pass. woo! i thought i'd have to pay $8 to park in the lot. anyhoo, back to downing my coffee. haha
the long weekend is coming to a close. so sad. but it was quite good if even low key. friday night a few of us went out to dinner with jen who just returned from 2 months in asia. we ate italian food and jibberjabbered til our hearts content. jen got drunk off two glasses of wine. hilarious! after dinner alex and i re-watched the game since i said i wanted to re-watch. i hadn't seen it since it came out in theaters oh so many years ago. i have to say, it's not quite as good when you know the twist ending. ah well.
saturday i ran a bunch of errands and then caught dinner with alex's family friends, the greenspans, and some of their family and friends. more italian food. only this time as this really schmancy place in BH which was sooooo appetizing. man o man i had some good food. after dinner we met up with some of the crew for a low key night at the formosa cafe. much random and hilarious conversation was had i have to say.
sunday mel and matt came to town. they were in monterey on saturday and then came down to LA on sunday. we went out to brunch at this place that i had never been. square one dining. quite tasty. we ran into michael there as well. on the way out matt noticed that the electrical box on the sidewalk was covered all the way around with pictures to make it look like it was part of the scenery.
sorry i messed up the last one. got the angle wrong. i wish i had noticed that at the time. oh well. anyway i thought this was quite funny and brilliant. a little way to liven up the dull electrical boxes in the city. after our late late brunch we went to the americana in glendale and just walked around for a couple hours. very chill. it's so weird to see melly pregnant. like it's melly, but she's....pregnant! it's really strange. she's the same...but not! ahhhh it's too much for me sometimes. we used to be so similar and now we are so different. our lives. she's married with a kid on the way. i'm unmarried with no thoughts of children any time soon, if ever. anyway, for dinner melly wanted mexican food so we took her and matt to one of the best cheap mexican spots we know of. el gran burrito. YUM! $4 burrito. total goodness. open 24hrs. we met up with byron there as well. he was taking a break from moving to his new apt. look at everyone chowing down. i think alex was so happy with his burrito he became momentarily possessed.
after dinner mel and matt parted ways and went to their hotel. alex and i went home and watched the ice storm which is one of his faves that i had never seen. it's kind of too depressing for me. it was good though.
today i ran some errands in the morning and then we went to the bbq at the MBC (that's the new name for lawrence, neil and rick's place...stands for murder basement club because they have a basement you could murder someone in). we hung out there for a couple hours shooting the shit with the usual crew. then alex and i had to dash over to the hollywood hills where the greenspans (who were still in town visiting) were having a bbq at emily's temporary house. holy hell this house was nice. they had the bbq catered with DAMN GOOD FOOD. too bad i didn't really have an appetite to eat most of it. but alex did. we hung around there for a couple hours before dashing off to the IMAX to meet rick, lawrence, kristen and neil for the 6:45pm screen of the dark knight. our seats weren't the best and it was quite overwhelming at times to watch the movie. like the aerial scenes and the tunnel car chase. oh MAN. it was intense. but quite good. and i have to agree with lawrence that it felt much less DARK than the first time we saw it. which is a good thing i think considering after i saw it the first time i felt weird. just creepily dark you know?
anyway, here i am. it's time to sleep i think since i woke up early-ish everyday this weekend. the week ahead is shaping up already. wednesday i'm driving butt ass far to huntington beach to meet up with dominic who is in town for work. if that fucker wasn't moving to singapore in december i don't know if i could bring myself to drive that far. i mean i dig that boy and all, but HB is not only far, but totally fucking BORING and douchey. but i must head down there as i probably won't see him for many years at this rate. sad. friday the crew is going to little bar to celebrate the fact that james doesn't work at his shitty ass blog job anymore. woo! and then saturday byron has a sizzler/bar hopping extravaganza planned. i am quite excited about this. QUITE.
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