Okay and I know this is really only the Ting Tings - biting Gwen Stefani - biting black cheerleaders. But yeah. I just think it's Good Clean Fun.
It comes on most mornings as I'm getting ready for work and makes me feel like the fucking pep squad. I get fired up, pulling on my jeans or braiding my hair or glossing my lips or whatever.
This song makes me feel like doing it the best.
I missed their show a couple weeks ago and that sorta bums me out.
I passed this guy yesterday on the bridge, I found his whole setup pretty fantastic. There's a shaggy little dog in that sidecar. Adorbs! I wasn't able to check whether or not he was wearing puppy goggles, but I like to imagine that he was.
Also:
Today I spent the last 4 hours of work in the same tiny room having back to back meetings. That is almost enough to drain the pep squad vibe right out of me.
I want that picture behind him. Pretty much in that exact size. For my livingroom, opposite the sunset.
Last night this Japanese girl laughed in my face when I told her the cover. Five dollars. She said that was like, sixty cents in her money. I love international guests a lot. I've been tipped in pretty colored bills by Bolivians, square Aruban fifty cent coins and once with a 5 yen coin that I guess I should have held on to, huh?
Anyways. The little Japanese girl was adorable and talked my ear off for like 5 minutes straight before I even got to stamp her hand.
Dude. Cool. I never got to be a girl scout and now I'm kinda bummed about it. Right this moment I would be sewing my old patches on to a denim miniskirt supersuit that zipped all the way up the front and featured a stealth hood lined in satin.
But I guess it's never too late to earn merit badges. Right?
I took down last night's post because I think it was insensitive. And really, I want to keep this space pure. I'm done bleeding all over pages for strangers for free, at least. I should be saving the grittiest things for an awesome novel, I suppose.
I need more time, I guess.
Or maybe just enough distance to take the whole thing in. At once.
Another reason to love the Grand Lake Theater.
The sky was major today.
Also, I accidentally imported my whole ipod into my car stereo and then was like, fuckit and pushed play. It started playing every song in my library in alphabetical order. I drove for about 3 hours today, and I got from 2Wicky by Hooverphonic through half of Darling Nikki by Prince.
There is a party in my neighborhood right now and all of these tipsy youngsters are walking around and yelling a lot. Some of the girls' outfits are not to be missed, and everybody's looking really shiny down there.
I'm tempted to go revel with them, I used to do that all of the time when I lived off Haight. I figured any relatively rowdy party happening on my block was fair game.
But I did it very big last night and so tonight I feel.
Small.
So there won't be any going out for me, I'm barely awake enough to type this.
I love all of the lightweight symphony and retro energy backing such a bitter little sentiment. When you give anything the full treatment like that, you elevate it. Even if it's your own trifling story or a moment you are not proud of. If you sing it like it's an opera: it's a fucking opera.
So you see, success is ALWAYS an option. Even after you've fucked it all up.
I also love how ripe she looks, like a juicy plum.
Mmmm plums. Why can't it be plum season all year round?
Oh my gosh I've been hiding out. Unplugged. Hiding from everything really, which is why I'm just now getting around to visiting the fam for Thanksgiving. I have to come up with some great outfit to wear, and all I really want to do is enjoy my Sunday daze and water my plants.
There's awesome trashy television on today and I have these pants I'm making and they are almost done. I could order Japanese food and do my toenails. Sigh.
But no.
The key to doing what you don't feel like doing is never asking yourself if you feel like doing it. Cause you know the answer, duh. But then also cause that's just one more second you spend not getting your shit done.
I don't have even one single ounce of creative energy to spare. Not lately. And can you imagine that? From this little powerhouse?
But it's true, all I seem to ever do lately is work. And that's why this Saturday night finds me all curled up in bed typing with one eye open and getting ready to go to sleep instead of making this fabulous pair of lady adventurer pants I have in my head. These ones I'm dying to make into real life.
But real life has to wait.
And it is not brain surgery, my day job. I talk about it so often and with so much importance you would think that it is, but it isn't. It's really this perfect balance between mattering in the extreme and not mattering at all.
Does the world need to buy more shit? Do they need to be inspired to purchase another rugby jersey?
No.
But does it matter, knowing how to break a huge thing down into its tiniest executable parts and then being able to get those things done, one by one until you've accomplished the whole big thing?
Yes. Very much so.
I think that's all life ever really is. So my day job is like training for real life.
Real life: a series of steps making us all more and more golden until we don't need steps anymore cause we are floating up, up, up.
I can say for a fact that I've gotten where I am (for better and worse, mind you) by just consistently saying
I'm gonna do this thing
Now I'm gonna do this thing
Now I'm gonna do this thing
And not really allowing much room for any other thoughts to creep in. About whether or not what I'm gonna do is wise, or likely, or even possible.
I just do it. And then it's done.
If it was done for the worse: I can cross it off of my list of mistakes to make in the future.
If it was done for the better: I can add it to my list of things I'm glad I've done.
Both are a step in the right direction.
win-win.
I love win-win. Especially when it keeps me major busy and means that maybe one day, yes, I'll be soaking in a golden bathtub at the Burj Al Arab.
*********
Busta Rhymes is a damn fool:
That shit knocks, though.
*********
Hihi. I miss you! I'll be back to normal in less than a week, scout's honor.
A coworker of mine from a long time ago makes these gourmet meals at his house, serves them with excellent wines and calls them his Bailout Plans.
I'm inspired. Everyone should have their own version of that.
I've decided my Bailout Plan is cupcakes, situps and enough time spent in the ocean that we forget we are land creatures
Plus Colette.
*********
Reading Colette changed my life. There was this sense of finding a kindred spirit. Also, she illustrated a path of joy for me, and the dark circles under my eyes all of the time became romantic instead of making me feel like an outsider.
She was not intimidated by the things about her that made her different from other people. She embellished them. With words and jewelry and everything else.
Life is our most important art.
*********
I've been thinking this for a while and not bothering to share. But this morning on the way to work it struck me how dirty and sexy and danceable this song is, and I got a fresh new tingle about it. So here:
This kid I work with that I respect immensely told me one time not to lower my standards, but to adjust my expectations. Over the last year or so I think I've learned the art of that. It takes a lot of balancing not to lose faith.
But then there are a few ways to go about getting what you want.
You can be all.
I want a bike I want a bike I want a bike I want a bike
Infinity. You can be like that all day, every day and it is surprisingly effective at getting you a bike.
You can also be all.
I want a bike. A fast bike. With turquoise candy paint. White patent leather seat. Purple streamers coming off the handlebars.
Infinity. You can keep refining what you're asking for and getting a clearer picture of it every time.
Both ways though. They are just meditation.
I worked all weekend, both days. I set up camp in the kitchen with my laptop, watching cable and making my silly ass documents and answering a few questions once in a while. On Sunday I literally wore my pajamas with a pair of boots. It really wasn't a bad way to spend the weekend.
Just tiresome. I could nap for three days straight, I think.
How I know that I am in a state is that I got a sack earlier. Drove all the way across town to meet some boy in a parking lot in Hunter's Point. He was in my car for 5 minutes and we hugged before saying goodbye.
Then the whole drive home I was distracted by the smell of his cologne.
The last time I made out with a boy I wore my little dress to bed because it was scented like him. I dreamed him all night and woke up sprung.
Doesn't matter either way. I'm impressionable. So impress me, you know?
I guess that I am boy crazy. Now and always. I'm either crazy about a bunch of boys or crazy for one boy. Beyond reason. But not beyond self-preservation. Which is how I can stand here before you and speak on it.
Are you following? Or am I getting too flowery and rambling? I am trying to be poetic about a thing that is very base.
Fact is that I probably just need to get laid, then I will quit all of this fantasizing and acting like I'm deep. Then I will be back to business, as fresh as ever.
But the whole process of that. Finding someone to fuck, or even to play Scrabble with me on my couch. So treach! So trifling! So tiresome! I'd rather do my budgets and schedules.
And oh. I have so many of those. Advertising has seasons, and this is the busiest season of the year. I could work 12 hour days every day and still not get everything done. I do. And I don't. And that kind of turns me on, too.
So doing work makes sense. Even when I'm getting hung up on the smell of the herbsman's cologne. I'm thinking. Could be worse. Instead of doing spreadsheets and longing for a snuggle, I could be trying to make spiritual sense of some dude I met at a fucking nightclub. Ha.
As if.
None of that. I'll know when I'm ready. And it's not now. I can hold out a little while longer.
Just getting home from work, can you believe that?
You should. I'm deadly serious about all of this shit. I work until I couldn't possibly work any longer. And then I work some more, just to be sure I beat out the competition.
Blah. Like it matters! Like anyone is keeping score on shit like that. Ha.
And oh. I had to say goodbye indefinitely to two of my favorite people today. It made me sad and wishful. Maudlin.
I should leave this city. I should start off somewhere far away and brand new.
Of course I adore this. Sassy ass female sample surrounded by hella dudes bigging themselves up. I like bragging rap, boys who talk a big game and then deliver have my undying devotion.
I haven't stopped working yet. Today we had a casting session for this video we're doing and the finest boy came through. I had hearts in my eyes, like a cartoon character. Meanwhile I'm asking him: can he dance? what kind of music does he like? where's he from?
These things were totally relevant to the casting, but also ummmm. For my personal file of fine boys I've met in my life and their various interests and talents. Ha. Just writing that makes me really want to start one.
But now that I'm finally home, I have to do all of the work I couldn't do while I was in casting. And then tomorrow, pretty much the same thing.
And I want so much to go see Too Short, y'all. But I can't cause guess what? I'm working tomorrow night, as well.
And miles to go before I sleep. The Burj Al Arab only accepts Amex Black.
I did not have time to buy sneakers. I sat in an hour long meeting about a budget or a deadline or creativity or some combination of those three things. I did that and by the time I walked out of the office I had like 30 minutes to get ready for the show.
Luckily I had a semi-fresh pair that kinda matched my t-shirt and when I met up with Stef she was looking cute as ever and her little sneakers were inspired, too.
The rest is history, I guess. What a fucking show. I had a lot of fun, I realized that I need to go see live music more often. It takes me past the point where time spent standing in one place doesn't even matter, you know? I'd have stood for 3 hours if he would have just kept on with the classics and the new shit all mixed together. WC was there, and they did some westside Connection stuff and also some very corny song set-ups but I was really just very happy that I went.
I'm pretty sure I will always love Ice Cube. He's like. My 20 year crush. And counting.
So hungover though, off the Goose and cranberry cocktails I was sipping all night. I left leaning and grabbed a cab home like 20 seconds after I got onto the sidewalk. I wrote the dumbest wish list ever here and fell asleep marveling at the uber-softness of these new sheets I got. I slept like a drunken baby. That's deep sleep.
This morning I woke up paying for it and had to rush out of the house to make it to work on time for this departmental powwow thing, except that it was canceled at the last minute. So those extra 30 minutes of sleep were all, "how ya like me now?"
I would have liked them very much. Another argument for a time machine. I'm keeping track of them.
I got normal again at around 1. I don't think I've stopped working since.
Last night I dreamed that I got into a fight with this girl over a David Banner t-shirt. Seriously. I don't even really like David Banner, so that's funny. I mean. I don't hate him. But I don't think about him enough to dream about him.
So what do you think that means? I just googled pictures of him and I think it might mean he's the love of my life, now that I think about it.
I'm supposed to be getting ready for the DJ Quik show, which is tonight at DNA Lounge. Except for 2 things:
1. This boy I work with hired me to make him this crazy fur/vinyl contraption for Burning Man, and I have a hard time turning down work. It needs to be done on Monday so I have to make the pattern tonight.
2. I'm saving my little concert budget for Ice Cube, who's playing next week.
And really there is a third thing, which is that I have to fucking work all weekend long if I don't want to work 12 hour days every day until the end of the month. Which means no going out and really no fun at all this weekend. I have to be the consummate grownup.
Consider it done. That's my new mantra.
I'm pretty sure I want to be a paleontologist. If I start going to school now in the evenings while I'm working full time. Well. I should be digging up dinosaur bones in ohhhhhh. 2015?
That's not disheartening at all.
Time machine. Maybe I'll put my energy into building a time machine, instead.
Happy Friday.
This video gives me a tingle for a bunch of different reasons. It is not a time machine, but it is close.
Good morning, boo. Last night was extreme. I go out like, once every six months anymore. I kinda hate the club, it's my most awkward setting. If I'm not feeling tribal there doesn't seem to be much there, there.
Ghost ships. People in a night club are like ghost ships. And I have to be on a certain frequency to navigate.
But Rachel was there, and I haven't seen her in ages. My whole night was redeemed. Cab drama, this really nice guy at the door who waited with me for my ride, bottled water, leftover robotayaki when I finally made it home. I wrote you a love note that I thought better of in the light of day. I passed out.
I woke up hours later with a massive headache and got up to greet the morning. Hello, San Francisco.
I went back to sleep. I woke up again. And now I have a gang of stuff to do to prepare for tomorrow so. Good day. From what I've seen so far, at least.
I like my boyfriend's new song. It feels like slamming a door over and over again.
Per Liz's instructions, I only want to have pure thoughts about our future president. But it's so hard! Steph has turned me on to the fact that he is indeed quite dreamy. Lookit him. I could cry.
That whole cover kind of gives me a tingle. Black Cool, indeed. I wonder if Amurkah counts that as one of its largest export economies?
I want to greet you all in a kimono with my hair undid. I want a quiet spot in the hot sunshine. I want a yacht painted turquoise blue from end to end with a mural of my face on the side of it.
See what I mean by angles? How I look is as dependent on where you're at as it is on who I actually am.
This kid tonight in the Farmer Brown parking lot accused me of being 10 years my junior. When he found out I was not, he didn't talk to me any differently.
Yesterday me and Liz looked up lady pirates. Specifically Cheng I Sao, scourge of the South China Sea. We sang her praises for about five minutes, a little giddy about her power even in retrospect. 10 years of piracy. 6,000 cannons. 50,000 pirate soldiers under her command.
Then Liz turned to me all sassy and said. "And you have a hard time starting a clothing label. It's so hard being a modern woman." And smirked, before going back to work.
Goodness. I adore her.
That is why I dressed and acted like a pirate today, all day. Give me all your gold dubloons.
So tonight after like 4 shots of Patron with my comrades. I'm thinking. Well. ANYONE is lovely if you catch them from the right angle. That's actually pretty common.
Shocking to find that I'm more interested in the true tests of romantic love these days. The idea of seeing someone beyond all of the veils. Beyond their Representative. Sick, or untrusting, or angry. Vicious. Seeing someone through a moment like that and right back into the bright circles that we maintain for the people we are really down for. Seeing someone through those unattractive moments and back into the golden glow again.
I think that is what love is.
Not that I would know. Not that I've ever seen anything like that.
But it's so easy to point out, from over here.
In other news:
Yeah I should not love Wayne. He's childish and self-destructive and prone to busting out vocoder stylings, which you know I hate.
But there is something very honest and articulate about him. So I am enamored.
Meanwhile, Kurupt is soothing my soul and exposing me to a different kind of I'm OK You're OK. Pete Rock is all over this one, it's a throwback but not really. That lilting piano is the Bob Ross of hip hop tracks.
And there are the lyrics.
The sky's the limit It's in my arm's reach So I'mma reach as far as my arms reach
Now that's gangsta...
I learned this new definition as well, hanging out with my father for the first time. How it's not always like it is in the movies, it's not all guns and fights and gunfights and stacks of dough. Sometimes it's small daily acts of rebellion and survival. Like even getting the fuck out of bed. Like letting yourself wake up from a dream. Like feeding your family. Like doing time silently. Like existing.
How we live, strive, breathe, talk and fuck only within the parameters allowed by our various dispositions. We'll never love or work or achieve anything different from the quality of our character. And so on.
Maybe I'm just feeling expansive cause it's a 3-day weekend. Within my humble existence, something like this is major. Even if I spend it thrift shopping with my sister. Even if I go no more than an hour away.
But I visited the future yesterday. I can't even tell you details, except to say that people are making really mind-blowing fucking technology right now y'all. Shit straight out of movies. I want to be involved in that.
Cube gives us words to live by. This morning I woke up, noticed this hole in the pocket of my jeans where I keep the stupid card I use to get into work. My life is wearing on me.
Also, as long as we're thinking about NWA:
I'm okay with this yelling kind of delivery. Aggro rap with a background that seems like it wants you to go crazy. Whatever. I like.
One man grabbed me and kissed my forehead after I stamped his hand. It soothed me, rather than making me want to deck him. I glowed. Maybe he was my spirit guide.
The only thing about being collectible is every wishful transaction. There's a lot of energy exchanged, I have to drink a bunch to let that much vibe slide off of me.
I drank champagne cocktails end to end last night and taxied home and ate food I don't remember eating and played DS and wrote you a love note and passed out. And this morning. Oh my head.
There were about a hundred little adventures. Quantity over quality. I wore these Dorothy slippers. Ruby Red Mary Janes. I pranced rather than walked, like a pony. And when the world wore on me I just clicked my heels and came home.
Today I'm either going into the office or working at home on some stuff for tomorrow. About the only thing I can make sense of anymore is numbers, so that's fine with me. Ha.
Happy Sunday.
Some people thought she slaughtered this song when her cover came out. I think it's cool that she even performed it. Fuck em.
