19 posts tagged “me”

A few months ago I started getting into my reader, adding a ton of subscriptions and making plans for less TV.  Not too surprisingly I've almost entirely been ignoring the tech feeds (not great for work) and have been engrossed in many design, fashion, photography and art blogs.  Apparently I've rediscovered my inner design goddess.  In my next life I want to make something with my hands as a career. Until then I'll just blog about it: On Maiden Lane. The site is still work in progress as I figure out the colors and stuff.  

The first year I celebrated my birthday without my mother, I turned seventeen and went out with my best friend and her family to dinner.  C's family had offered to take me to the Spagetti Factory which I totally loved at the time.  I figured I'd do something with my mom that weekend.  Not a big deal right?  Um, wrong.  A very big deal.  When I came home, she flipped out about how ungrateful I was and that she brought me into the world not to celebrate my day with another family.  That wasn't the worst of it as she continued to remind me of this incident for many birthdays to come.

Fast forward ten years and my mother unbelievable started forgetting my birthday. She was usually just off by a day or two but then one year she totally forgot to call for two weeks. When she finally did, I was beyond being bummed and kind of just in shock.

"HOOooooney, it your mommmy.  How is baby?"  she said brightly.

"I'm okay, busy with work.  And you?"

She laughed nervously, "Okay mommy...mommy know is so, SO bad.  But I remember before, just forgot on the day and mommy busy with temple. You know temple. Okay?? HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! You want some money?"

I stared at the phone in disbelief, "OMG mom, I do not want money!!!"

I called her last night because it's been a good month since I've seen my parents. And I wanted to remind her that today was the day, just in case.  She called this morning to sing me happy birthday.  Except she only knows the first line of the melody and proceeded to repeat that over and over.  Thanks mom. :)

Sometimes it takes a few plays before I really connect with bands and their music.  I have a tendency to fall in love with albums long after others have started playing them at housewarming parties and they're on request in jukeboxes around the city.  When it finally happens I'll listen to a particular album on repeat until I can't bear to hear another single note from it. 

There's been many albums where I've done this going back as far as Disintegration, a time where I was going through the years of "How the hell did I end up with this family?", to more recent memories of drinking wine and dancing to Hot Fuss with my girlfriends.  Each of these albums takes me back to a place and time, and reminds me of how far I've come and how much further the road is ahead.  This month I'm stuck on Crystal Castles:

I accidently overdid the day 1 of this week because I was starting off with the day 2 section.  It is getting easier but of course that's because I'm not consistently doing double digits yet.  Can't wait until I am!

Day 1: 6,5,3,3,5

Day 2: 6,5,3,3,10

Day 3: 5,5,4,4,11

I've been working on a new painting.  It's been awhile since I've been inspired to do something but I saw a Monet in the window of a bookstore and decided I wanted to do flowers.  Cherry blossoms rather than his lilies and in a brighter turquoise than the painting's pale blues.  The thing with oil painting though is that it's a process.  A process of layering on several shades of gray, then complimentary colors, and then redrawing the objects in charcoal.  With each layer, you add more and more paint until you're at 90/10 ratio of paint to mineral spirits. 
    Initially you'll have a lot of "runs" in the paint which is good because it allows the varying levels of color to mix.  You can see a lot of them to on the right side of my painting.  While I'm not close to being done (there's a lot of highlighting to do and well it's not turquoise :P), I kind of like where it's at.  Maybe I should start on another until I'm inspired to change this one?  That's the brilliance of oil.  Retouch it with paint in a few weeks and it'll come back to life.

My mom's boyfriend has been away on a trip to Vietnam.  She hates sleeping alone and I knew she'd want me to come home often.  In fact, she called right before he left and asked if I could work from home 2-3 days a week from San Jose.  An extra weekend this month sure okay, but several days a week?  Mind you some visits I can barely get through brunch without wanting to bolt for the door.  So um, no.  And my weekends this month were entirely booked so instead I asked her to come stay with me for a few days.  Yes, kind of crazy. 

Well mom came up today with the kitchen sink in tow.  Literally.  She doesn't understand how I could possibly feel aggravated when she does things like this.  It's as though she doesn't believe I can take care of myself, despite the fact that I've been living on my own since college.  She brought her own bedding and pillows, towels, toiletries, a bag of cooking supplies such as fish sauce, soy sauce and a colander, three bags of groceries including canned goods and a 25 pd bag of rice, AND extra cleaning supplies.  

In the first hour, she picked apart what I had in the refrigerator and proclaimed my floors were too disgusting to live with.  She then proceeded to wipe the floors down as I chased her around the kitchen saying, "It's fine mom. Leave it alone. No really, I'll take care of it later.." To put my mother in perspective, here are some counts from just this evening alone.  The number of times that she's asked me to drink milk: 3; number of times she's asked to me to eat something: 5; number of times she's complained about me being single: 4; number of times she's complained about my hair/skin/clothes: 3; number of times she's mentioned that drinking ice is bad for my teeth: 2. 

She's staying until Wednesday, you do the math on those numbers.  Though it's not all bad because my mom does have her funny moments.  And these are the things that get me through the days:  

Earlier when we parked her car in the garage, she seemed very put off by how dark and deserted it was.

"Well, it's a garage mom.  There's not going to be a lot of people down here."

She frowned, "Is safe though, honey?"

"As safe as can be with a gate. Let's grab the bags and I promise you don't have to come down here at night."

I went around the side of the car and saw that she had taken out the package of Arrowhead water. "Mom, we have too much stuff here, leave the bottles of water until tomorrow."

"You sure? So dark here. What if someone take? It good water."

"The water mom? Someone is not going to steal the freakin' water. They'll want your stereo over the water!"

She laughed nervously and put the water back into the car.  But I'm not sure she really believed me.

According to Design Sponge these chandeliers have made the internet-rounds but this is the first time I've seen them.  They are f-in fabulous.  I love, love, love furniture and decor that mixes feminine glam with industrial materials - to please my inner Goth girl of course.

Chandeliers especially have been something that I've been drawn to in recent years. In the past they may have been considered a decadent piece for particular tastes, but in modern design they are much more whimsical and add flair to sterile, urban spaces.  Though I don't have that tri-level industrial loft space with dark teal walls and brown leather chairs, I have imagined a chandelier such as this in that space.

These Brooklyn-made chandeliers from Michael Mchale marry together the unlikely components of new and old.  Distressed brass pipes and fittings, many of which were re-claimed from various building sites in Louisiana and New York, make up the bones of the chandelier.  They are then draped with Swarovski's crystal (though you can get a cheaper crystal for about $1000 less) and common light sources such as low-wattage refrigerator bulbs are used in the center and main axes which generates the warm glow that you see. 

Every piece is handmade and never mass produced.  Therefore no two are alike. I adore this 13-watt Mini Billiards Chandelier.  It's going for the low, low price of $4700. :D

Early in the fall of last year my body went into serious overdrive.  Work was hectic, stress was high, my therapy sessions had reached another plateau, and I was feeling short of breath on most days.  My body even began rejecting sleep.  I've always been a light sleeper and have never slept more than five or six hours a night.  Which for the most part was okay because I was able to at least sleep through the night. 

         Suddenly I found myself waking up every two hours, staring at the clock for ten sometimes twenty minutes before dozing off again.  This process would repeat itself just two hours later and again until it was time to get out of bed.  Why was I feeling so anxious?  What was I worried about?  I tried doing fulfilling and relaxing things to bring my stress levels down, but every night my eyes and mind would burst alive sometimes even straight out of a dream.  I don't remember much of what I thought about but there was always something waiting at the forefront of my mind.  Sometimes it was work, sometimes relationships or sometimes just my family.  The thoughts started out small and then spiraled out of control and twenty minutes turned into an hour of tossing and turning.  It took a couple of extra sessions of therapy and prescription meds before I found myself sleeping through the night again. 

And now, just half a year later the insomnia has come back.  Mid last week I began waking up every two hours again, my mind wandering back and forth through scenarios of the past and present.  This morning I stared at my ceiling between 3:13am and 5:02am until I finally fell asleep to a series of horrific dreams that left me sweaty and cold.  Then my eyes flew open at 7:00am on the dot.  I think the newly single girl in me is having some sort of anxiety attack.  I broke out in hives last week and still find myself itching at random points during the day.  I thought it must have been something that I ate but Annie said after her big breakup, she broke out in hives for an entire week.   I don't imagine boys have allergic reactions to being single.  I'm going out and keeping busy but I'm not really feeling happy and I guess neither is my body.

I hate my teeth.  Or well, I hate taking care of my teeth.  If I took better care of them as a child, eating less candy and remembering to floss, perhaps I would think differently now.  I had one of my incisors pulled last winter in preparation for a tooth implant.  Long story but basically a root canal wouldn't have saved the tooth from falling out in a couple of years.  Yes, gross.  Basically It would cost me less in the long run to just replace the tooth now.  Teeth implants are an expensive procedure that most insurance companies don't cover since it's considered cosmetic.  Not really sure why since people get it done because they have no other choice and not because they need their teeth to look pretty. The grand total would be $2300 and that doesn't include the actual tooth, only the titanium implant and bone grafting.  Apparently I'll be able to choose from cadaver bone, cow bone or my own bone (taken from the jawline).

Thankfully our new dental insurance, MetLife, has much better benefits than Guardian.  HR listened to all the complaints around the office last year and switched us fast as they could.  MetLife will cover 50% of the costs and I have the operation scheduled for July.  In the meantime, I need to replace this temporary tooth that they gave me.  The lab totally messed up and the shade of the tooth is about five times darker than my natural shade.  That will be another $200 out of pocket now. Bleh. I really thought life would be much simpler after getting my braces off. But the saga continues..

I'm headed to LA this Friday for my niece, Kathy's (see 1.) college graduation.  She's graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a business degree.  Damn, I'm getting old.  And yes, my sister (see 2.) did start really early especially if you consider that my nephew graduated two years ago.  It's a shame but I won't have extra time to see friends on this trip.  I arrive in LAX around noon on Friday where I plan to pick up a car, head to Robertson Blvd. for some shopping, and then hop on the 405 South before rush hour starts.  If I don't make it out of there by 3pm then I'll have to wait until after 7pm to drive to Irvine.  I suppose I can meet with friends then but her graduation is early on Saturday, and I wanted to spend some quality time with her on Friday night.

Kathy is the favorite out of my sis' kids.  She was the sweetest baby and always so cheerful.  She used to follow me around the house, holding her baby blanket and giggling.  Adorable.  Though in my teen years, I didn't think the following me everywhere part was so cute anymore.  But I guess that just meant she adored her auntie.  These days there isn't much following but she's really good about sending photos and updates on her life.  I'm so proud that's she's finishing college and able to start this next phase of her life.