dissonance

Mostly Halloween

First of all, after 4 days in the shop, my car is now pimpin' with a moonroof.

On Friday, my coworkers and I dressed like telecommuters. Most people 1) forgot it was Halloween and 2) gave us strange looks all day.

Saturday I went up to LA to party it up with Spencer and Patty. I spent all day Saturday helping Spencer put his costume together and it was well worth it. He was easily the most recognizable (and most welcome) of the three of us. In case you don't remember, Patty was Punky Brewster and I went as Jem.

We spent most of the night at Matt's friend's house where amongst the most memorable moments of the evening was when Matt (as a robot) was rudely taken advantage of by an obviously confused (but very happy) Forrest Gump.

More Halloween goodness in the Memories album starting from here.

Rocktober playlist

Lately I've been playing the iPod on random and I've been jotting down the songs that have grabbed me. They aren't really rock, it's just fun to say "Rocktober". They're pretty old and kinda depressing now that I think about it.

Anna Begins - Counting Crows
Sometimes - Candlebox
Troubled by the way we came together - Natalie Umbruglia (from the Go soundtrack)
Walking Wounded - Everything but the Girl
Lovefool - Cardigans
Kissing a Fool - George Michael
Warning Sign - Coldplay
Tonight and the Rest of my Life - Nina Gordan

-----

Some of my team members and I wore our pajamas and sleeping robes to work today. We're supposed to be telecommuters but when I got to get some tea people just stare and think I'm uber lazy cause it's Friday. Whatever dude, I'm so comfortable.

God Has a Dream

Disclaimer: Even though this is mostly a book review, it's obviously about religion, so if reading about religion makes you squeamish, be forewarned. Not that it's gonna get all "Praise the Lord" on you, I'm pretty moderate about this kind of thing, but I'm just letting you know...

So this is the first "religious" book I've read (apart from the Bible, and I never finished that) and it was 1) easy to read and 2) very interesting. Even though the author is Catholic, the book isn't really about Catholicism, just God in a general sort of way, if that makes any sense. I don't even know if he's Catholic actually. The cover says he's an archbishop but he mentions having a wife and kids so I dunno... anyway...

I've never been devout about my own Catholicism. My faith has undergone a lot of changes and exploration in the past years. I can say I believe in God, but the details of my faith are hazy and I'm not quite sure what believing in God actually means. I don't think it's about going to the "right" church, or saying the "right" prayers. It's not about believing in some, intangible, mysterious, unknown... thing.

I want believe in something I can understand, feel, and be influenced to be a good person. This book made me feel like that's a start. The author says that best way to know God, is to recognize God in others and treat them that way. That makes sense to me. If we are made to be in God's image, we should act as He would and treat each other kindly and with respect. There's nothing to argue against that is there?

Anyway, I recommend the book. It's sometimes on the verge of being preachy and then Tutu says something kinda funny to make it less so. But in the end, it just gives you a warm good feeling and you just want to be nice to everyone from now on.

I'm going to read "How to Practice" by the Dalai Lama next cause I think it might be a good comparison.

In the Waiting Line

Today I was in the checkout line at Ralph's and there was this old man behind me. As the checkout lady was scanning my things I noticed that he was starting to giggle. It was a little weird. The giggling got more persistent and the checkout lady and I nervously smiled at each other. All of a sudden I hear:

"My pants are on backwards this whole time!"

The thing is, the old man had on sweatpants and I guess he had put them on backwards before leaving the house and he finally realized they were backwards when he went to look for his pockets and they were on the wrong side. He then says, while laughing,

"Oh, they should just lock us up at a certain point, huh? I can't believe my pants are on backwards."

I wasn't quite sure how to feel. A part of me felt very very sorry for him. On the other hand, it was kind of cool how he still had a sense of humor about the whole thing. Did I mention he had a lot of teeth missing too?

Anyway, just thought I'd share a weird moment in my life.

----

Did anyone see the eclipse tonight? Darn clouds are in the way in my 'hood.

Friend zone breakout

Some say that the ideal relationship would grow from two people who have been friends first. But some also say that hooking up with your friends is a Bad Idea. So which is it?

Actually I think I'm the only one who thinks it's a Bad Idea. Most other people respond, "Why not? If you're both attracted to each other it might work out all right."

The key phrase being, if you're both attracted to each other. How do you even get to knowing that? With someone you just met, you can kind of tell. They might call you a lot, go out and pursue common interests with you, ask personal questions... But friends do all these things on a regular basis!

Communicating feelings (aka "Making a Move") is a vastly different experience for the friend versus the non-friend. Again, the non-friend has some of the above-mentioned clues to help them calculate their odds. However, the friend is basically left jumping out of the plane, hoping the parachute works but for all they know, they're carrying a backpack full of bricks. And they're blindfolded.

And what if they get rejected? With the non-friend, no big deal. Besides, they can kind of tell before then that they might not be interested in "that way". Again based on clues that they put together like Watson. But with the friend... can we say AWK-WARD? (on a side note, awkward looks awkward when it's all in caps) I would be mortified and worst of all, I'd be scared the friendship may never be the same again.

So I guess I take my opinion back. It *might* work out all right to hook up with a friend, but the balls necessary are just way beyond my reach. So to those of you who have had successful relationships with friends, I salute you and I hope you're very happy. It was a brave thing to do.

---

On a slightly appropriate note, I'd like to make an apology to the white guy in the black pick up truck who waved and said hello to me at the Mira Mesa exit. I was a doofus and pretended to ignore you, which was quite rude of me. You were actually kind of cute.

Music recommendation

Recommended by a co-worker. Kinda commercial sounding in that it's very un-offensive and easy to listen to. Very catchy and I think it sounds like something they'd play on The OC or some show like that. Ok, nothing I have written makes it sound good but give them a chance anyway, you might like it.

I tried to link it at the side with all my other albums, but for some reason Typepad is linking to this which I'm sure is quite good, but that's not what I meant.

Pour Moi

When did life get so complicated?

I'll tell you right now that it got complicated for me when I went to buy deodorant.

I'm a creature of habit when it comes to personal hygiene products. I'm very brand loyal. I've been using the same brand of soap (Dove bar), face lotion (Clean & Clear Dual moisturizer), body lotion (Jergen's skin smoothing), toothpaste (Colgate Total) and deodorant (Degree) for years and years. I haven't had to really think about it and it's fine, I have enough things to stress me out as it is.

I went to Tar-jay over the weekend and when I got to the deodorant aisle I immediately noticed two things about the little Degree section.

1) They changed their label
2) Half of them now say "Pour Hommes, For Men"

The second one caught me off guard. Degree is unisex. It has been forever. They had like 3 scents and I'd buy whatever caught my fancy on the day I bought it. But now half of them say it's for men. Which makes me second guess the other half that don't say anything. And also raised a more disturbing question in my mind:

Have I been using men's deodorant since high school?

But what about the ones that don't say "Pour Hommes"? Are they still unisex?

To solidify my sexual identification through the choice of anti-prespirant, I slid over to the Secret section. At least I know Secret's for women.

Anyway, I go over to the Secret section and Oh.My.GAWD. Why are there so many different kinds? I actually stood there and counted out about 12 different kinds of deodorant and each having 3-4 different scents. That's ~40 different types of deodorant people.

For example, there was regular solid, invisible solid, soft solid, soft invisible solid, gel, and the two that got me were the gel and solid with glitter in them. What the heck. Can someone please explain to me the allure of having sparkly armpits?

So after about 10 minutes longer than it should have taken me, I was able to find deodorant (invisible solid "Mountain Rain" or something like that) and I came out of that aisle feeling like I had really accomplished something. Maybe things like deodorant are made to complicated on purpose. So the little things in life can make you feel like you made some huge executive decision like you were the president or something.

K1, P1

I think some people already know that I knit. For those of you that this is news, well the secret is out and I'm not ashamed. Anyway, I found a partner in crime and I attended a knitting party last night at Claire De Lune's in North Park.

Kris started knitting two months ago and the girl is possessed. But I'm glad she's so into it, I've learned so much about how lovely yarn can be and my credit card fears my impending visit to elann.com. She got me these cool interchangeable knitting needles so that my wrists don't suffer and she introduced my cheeks to the wonder that is alpaca. As 'sock virgins' we're going to delve into making those after the holidays. For now she's a bit busy with her Christmas list. I've seen her list. She's her own little sweatshop.

The party itself was pretty cool. It was nice to see so many knitters in one place. Claire De Lune's was so friggin cute, I felt like I was at Central Perk. There were several people who call themselves 'spinners'.

No, not like a DJ spinning on two turntables and a microphone (haha, shoutout to my homey DJSLY).

These spinners spin yarn. You know, like Rapunzel. Kris and I have decided to not 'even go there' and I'm glad because it seems to me that taking up that hobby is about one step away from dressing up for the 'RenFair'.

I'll definately keep the knitting discussion to a minimum on this blog. If it turns out I can't keep such a promise, you are perfectly welcome to suggest (demand) I create a separate one.

Drip Drop

I love it when it rains. It makes it hard to get out of bed, it makes the roads terrible, it makes the bottom of my pants wet (damn you short legs!), but I still love it when it rains.

I love the a-rhythmic sound it makes against the windows. It's an especially nice sound if I'm inside in my PJ's with a cup of hot tea and a good book.

I like running through the rain from my car to the house, it's a bit of an adrenaline rush in an otherwise sedate life.

I'm very much looking forward to my first kiss in the rain.

I love the rain because it means somewhere it's SNOWING!

Ramping up the Reading

Finished "Me Talk Pretty One Day" last night.

Random ramblings about life that's really fun to read.

Alliteration is fun too.

Highlights from the book that will stick in my mind:
- Incident with the unclaimed poo
- Being mistaken for a Parisian pickpocket
- Sister with the fat suit
- Soap opera as class teaching aid