Lauren Katherine Jim and Anshita Came to Visit

After hosting these kids for two weeks and touristing them all around Los Angeles, I think it's time to catch up on some sleep and go to Italy.

Quick bout of OCD

(Remember author-protagonist-narrator distance.)

Ralph’s grocery store on Sunset Blvd on a Monday at 11:14pm is a very difficult place to be, especially if I am wearing my glasses.

They’re great glasses, don’t get me wrong. I think they look good on me. But the black frames my vision, blurs the outsides, whets light sources into little daggers, creates for me my own little world of wretched ignorance.

I should never leave the house at night when I have my glasses on. This night, though, thirst urged me out the door. I had no bottled water, the tap was unattractive (it had only been two days since mud came out in a backwash of Los Angeleno sewer flushing), and I had a few dollars in my pocket with some meter change in my car.

At Ralph’s: Okay, get in, find the cheapest water, get out so you can get back to reading. Not so easy. Why are there so many big men in workers’ clothes here? Oh. Equipment. Equipment everywhere. The shelves are empty. They are installing new freezers. Panic!: my cart can’t maneuver these aisles with all the big women hoisting large cans of beans! U-turn. Finally, the water has been thrown into a heap in front of the sausages. Arrowhead is the cheapest at three ninety-nine for– one two three four one two three four five six four times six– twenty-four bottles. Make a big circle around the other side to avoid the big people. Wait, I need something sweet, I need a fruit juice. With the water so cheap I can just make it without getting out my card.

Ah, Odwalla. My savior. Not the usual carrot juice. Try something new. Pomegranate juice! The billboards advertising its health benefits surge and flash and my hand approaches the little bottle. Fifteen point four fluid ounces. I pick up the bottle. Two for six dollars?! Are they out of their minds, these crazy fruit juicers?! Oh. There’s a bigger jug down below. Every price tag on this row says six ninety-nine. Okay, sixty-four ounces. That’s roughly… fifteen times four makes sixty…three times four makes twelve... twelve minus seven... Wow. I am saving about five dollars by buying this large jug of Odwalla pomegranate juice. Now I can return home to my book. Cue triumphant march music.

Waiting in line. Counting breaths. Hilary Duff is on two magazine covers. The bikinis are different colors. I don’t know who she is. Singer? Actress? Fighting with Paris Hilton? Anne Hathaway is so pretty. What is it about her? Smile. Eyes. Eyebrows. Everything, really. Ugh J. Lo. So gross. Gum gum gum gum gum Neosporin Democrats religion. Anne Hathaway. Move up closer in the line. Lift beverages onto belt. I hate Rachel Ray. Why has the Food Network allowed her to take over? Oh. My turn. Too slow in finding Ralph’s card. Man behind me offers his to the cashier, maybe. Black frames keep me from knowing for sure. I hesitate to thank him. What if he didn’t actually do it? Then he would think I'm crazy for saying thank-you for no reason. Well, it’s too late anyway. Let him be disappointed. What? Why do I need to pay nineteen ninety-eight? But I thought the pomegranate juice… Excuse me sir, I thought the pomegranate juice... I… Oh. Sorry. Never mind. Debit card out. Hurry back to the car. Shit, I just spent thirteen dollars on juice. Stupid Odwalla. Shit.

Why are there so many pedestrians out at 11:32pm on a Monday? Don’t they know that people with glasses have a hard time driving at night? Flash of light! Car goes through a red light. Another flash of light. Another car goes through same red light. I’m glad the city caught them. I could have died. But now my eyes hurt even more.

I enter the driveway. Cats’ eyes repeat the theme by reflecting my headlights through my glasses into my eyes. That’s an odd noise. I think I just hit her car. Shit. Turn favorite Timbaland song down. Car back in drive. Her car moves down. Shit shit shit. This time I did it for sure. Why did I wear my glasses?! WHY WHY WHY?! Relax. Get out of the car and look at it. Rub rub rub. It’s coming off. She hasn’t washed it in so long that the street grease let my car slip right by. But I have to get this off, though. Turn back to the apartment building. No one is watching. Get in my car to breath and think of a plan. Don’t want to go into my house and come back because she SPIES all the time. Don’t want to risk it. She knows everything, that woman. Ah! I have Bulgari Eau Parfumée Oshibori au thé vert Serviette Rafraîchissante in my glove box. They’re moist enough. Maybe she won’t notice that this part is cleaner than the rest.

I keep smelling my fingers. Bulgari and street grease. Truly refreshing! And now I am back in the safety of my house.

The Month of May Was Kind of Busy

I am graduating in exactly two weeks.

I pulled into my spot behind my apartment and saw this guy. He practically jumped on the hood of my car.

And the next day I went to visit family in Virginia and got mesmerized by the reflective qualities of water.

I mean really mesmerized.

I watched my little step-brother dig for baby fiddler crabs.

We walked around while he used my camera to watch a hawk

get chased.

We went back to the beach. I don't know who these kids are.

We chilled

and chilled some more.

More birds. My mom took this one.

We had a good time. Scott's a ham.

And then I came back to Los Angeles, stayed sick in bed for ten days, lost my voice twice, acted in a Latin play as Dolia the clever slave, organized a concert of Musicàntica for the Italian Club, and got really behind in school work. Now, on the Sundance channel, Rome Open City is at the part when the Nazis have just arrived to arrest Francesco and Pina is going to run out after him only to be shot down in the street. I turned right to it. I love it when that happens.

Again, I am graduating in exactly two weeks.

Two Quick Thoughts

1. At three minutes and four seconds after 2 AM on the 6th of May this year, the time and date will be 02:03:04 05/06/07.


2. Yesterday, I slowed down to let a woman make a left turn in front of me, and she blew me a huge kiss.

Thursday of Spring Break 2007

This is a cropped jpg from a centerpiece at a Persian New Year party that we attended.

1. THIS WEEK

AND IT'S GREAT TO BE BACK:

I didn't leave Los Angeles to see Georgia O'Keeffe's works in Santa Fe, and I didn't get ahead for next quarter. But I did finally hear from UCLA about graduate school funding! In a very encouraging letter, they offered me full registration and a teaching assistantship for the first four years! I am so fortunate that I have the possibility of achieving magister artium and philosophiae doctor without needing to work. I was ready to kick ass anyway, but now I know that I'll really be able to dedicate myself to reading so much that my prescription changes again.

As for accomplishments during Spring Break, I did wake up one morning and realize that my hair had gotten longer, which is an indication that I rested enough to catch up with reality. (Don't think Howard Hughes, it happens to the best of us.) I was finally able to be home to let the plumbers in, and I stopped drinking espresso so that I could zero my caffeine level to start from scratch on Monday.

2. LAST QUARTER

AND HERE'S TO MAINTAINING A GOOD GPA:

Yes, the caffeine statement sounded pretty strange, but I really did kill myself with work last quarter. I was taking five classes and making up an Incomplete, so my transcripts show that I took 26 units for Winter; the full-time minimum at UCLA is 12. I neglected my friends, or just forgot that they existed if they weren't in my face calling me all the time, and I took no pictures!

I wasn't able to do my best in any of the classes, and three of them were important ones for Italian. I never went to Latin, except to take the tests, because I was falling asleep during lecture and discussion. I was even enrolled in two classes that were held at the same time! At least twice I had to excuse myself to go to the restroom so that I could run to the other class to turn papers in, all of which were worse than the papers I wrote in high school. I did have time to do all the work, but my mind burned out early every day, and I had a hard time keeping up with even the simplest tasks. Thankfully, this quarter I am only taking four courses. If I can't keep up with 18 units, I'll know that I am truly an idiot.

3. THE NEIGHBORS DOWNSTAIRS

AND THIS IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION:

They are finally getting on my nerves. There are three of them: a heterosexual couple and the other guy. The couple often get into violent fights because she cheats on him. The whole complex knows, and they always fight at 3am, never earlier, never later. He is a 30ish tall and lanky man with long, greasy black hair, a big moustache, and bony elbows. He is in a band. She, the sometimes blonde sometimes redhead 20something, was his groupie. She has a fat, cream pug and drives an old, cream Volvo sedan with expired tags.

The "other guy" is a very small sleazy guy who also seems to be unemployed. He is not in the band, and he's the one who likes to hang upside-down in his closet until he gets high off of the blood rushing to his head. (He told me this when I asked him if he was shirtless and abnormally red because of intense sunburn.) He asked me to be his Valentine. I said no.

They are finally getting on my nerves after ten months of living in this complex because of their music. Every night from 8pm to 3am, they play their records. The sound filters up through the floor boards and makes the dust rattle. Often it is country music, but I have ever heard a song repeated. Several times, when I've come home late myelf, I've looked in their windows to see the party. There is no party. They just sit, alone, on their couch with the television off and stare into space. Maybe tomorrow night I will find something heavy and sturdy to beat on the floor - no, wait - tomorrow is Friday. They, and everyone else, are entitled to listen to music in a non-festive way on Fridays.