about me
name: n/aaliases: kit, kits, kit kat, the smart girl, foxay, an chin
age: 20
location: oakland, ca
hobbies: anime, manga, comic books, reading, writing, doodling, video games
likes: all of the above, being lazy, mushrooms, animals, food, laughing loudly in public, SUSHI
dislikes: nuts, stinging/biting insects, religious fanatics, violence, olives
contact: coloredink(at)gmail.com
wishlist
playstation 2car
a good night's sleep
money
stress-free life
trigun long colt keychain
ipod
hardon-kardon speakers
19" flatscreen monitor
world peace
realistic wishlist
dvd-romlucifer vol 7
transmetropolitan vol 3-10
sandman vol 4
long-term obsessions
anime/mangayaoi/shounenai/slash
writing
music
animals
life and living
current obsession(s)
smallvillecurrently reading
the dark is rising by susan coopercurrently watching
hana yori dango (20)utena (23)
witch hunter robin (18)
naruto (58)
get backers (27)
rose of versailles (19)
matantei loki ragnarok (15)
scrapped princess (14)
peacemaker kurogane (15)
fullmetal alchemist (28)
sailormoon live action (25)
smallville (2.19)
11:16 p.m.
listening to: big honkin' playlist
Tuesday, June 28, 2005 [link]
02:45 p.m.
listening to: "Battleflag" - Lo Fidelity Allstars
Well, here I am. In Los Angeles. The trip took roughly twelve hours. We rolled out of Berkeley around 12:30 PM, and then Gigi (my cousin's wife) decided she absolutely had to go to a 99 Ranch Market in Milpitas because for some reason 99 Ranch in the Bay Area is superior to the 2543850957346 99 Ranch in the Los Angeles area. Then she absolutely had to go outlet shopping. Then I decided I really wanted some dates. Then we had to go to Anderson's Pea Soup for dinner. So it took us about 6 hours to go 600 miles. But we made it eventually.
My room is a mess. But I made Malibu/pineapple/grenadine cocktails last night, so it's not all bad.
Saturday, June 25, 2005 [link]
11:07 p.m.
listening to: "Bone in My Ear" - Bruce Cockburn
So I return to Southern California tomorrow.
As always, I don't want to go. I hate Southern California. I hate the area I live in. It makes me feel fat and ugly and freakish. I don't fit in there. I never have, and I fit in even less after two years at a women's college in the SF Bay Area.
My first summer home, I met up with some old acquaintances from high school. We went to a bookstore, and then to a coffee shop or something, I don't remember what. And afterwards, someone asked, "Who do you think's changed the most?" Everyone agreed that I had.
"Why?" I asked, determined not to take this too seriously, "because I bleached my hair?"
"No," she said, haltingly, as if afraid to offend me. "It's just--you are. You have."
I am. I have. I will. I've changed, I know I have. I don't know if it's for the better; I'm certain it's not for the worse. Change isn't inherently bad. It happens, and the farther you get away from home the more obvious it becomes. I feel like all my old acquaintances--the ones who stayed close to home, some of whom even still live at home and commute--haven't changed at all. They're also closer to each other; I've fallen far, far out of touch with all of them. I used to read their blogs, but I stopped. It was too alien, their worlds too removed from mine, and there was no reason for me to keep up with them. Hanging on to my static past was unhealthy, besides.
So when I go home--home being a relative word--I feel like I'm squeezing into something that doesn't fit anymore, stepping back into a role that I can no longer play: the smart girl, the straightlaced girl, who never drank or smoked or talked about sex. The last time I visited my old high school I hardly recognized anyone there, and all the kids looked at me like I didn't belong. And I didn't; I was a stranger, trying to go back to a place she no longer knew.
Every time I go back, I feel more and more like I don't belong. My family always welcomes me with open arms, and I feel shamed and ungrateful that I hate it there so much. But I confuse them, and they confuse me, and every day I only turn my face north and wish I were somewhere (someone) else.
Friday, June 24, 2005 [link]
11:27 p.m.
listening to: nothing
I suck at shopping. I hate shopping. Generally, I try to get it over with as soon as possible. I shop in the men's section because men's clothing is easy; pants are measured by waist and inseam, shirts are measured by size or collar, etc. The only time I take more than half an hour in a clothing store is if I'm trying on pants, because generally if I'm buying pants it's because the old ones no longer fit and I need to figure out my new size.
Or swimsuits. Since I've started losing weight, my torso has completely changed size and OH GOD I HATE SWIMSUIT SHOPPING. Anyway.
So, last year, I decided to lose weight. It's kind of a long story that ends with my cutting beef, pork, and dairy out of my diet and changing my eating habits. It's been good, I'm eating healthier, and I am losing weight, albeit slowly. What this means, though, is that every few months I have to buy new pants.
Losing weight is great. Clothes shopping is not so great. As I mentioned before, I hate shopping. Also, clothes are expensive, especially jeans.
Fortunately, my family is supportive of my losing weight. Which they should be, considering they've been pestering me about it for years. I've just been lazy. And one of my cousins took it upon himself to say that he would buy me new clothes for the rest of my life so long as they were smaller than the ones he bought me before.
Booyah. Well, break out the credit cards, cousin, because I've lost yet another two inches.
**dances**
Wednesday, June 22, 2005 [link]
12:29 p.m.
listening to: nothing
I totally locked myself out just now.
Sure, sure, laugh it up. But c'mon, you all have a story like this. You lock yourself out, you circle the house, eventually you find a window to climb in or something. Or you call a family member with a key. Or you wait for mom/dad/sibling to come back home. Whatever.
So I nuked some lasagna for lunch, then nuked some frozen gyoza, and then decided to go outside and find the newspaper, because I like to have something to read during a meal and I'm wary of staining my comic books with lasagna sauce. Now, Eleanor's house has the kind of front door that locks itself when you pull it shut all the way. Or it sticks in the way that requires a key to open. Whatever. So I stepped outside in my socks and pajamas and shut the door behind me, completely forgetting the fact that I wouldn't be able to get back inside.
It didn't take me long to realize this.
"Shit," I said, and proceeded to follow the time-honored tradition of circling the house, looking for a window or something with which to get inside. Circling to the right revealed nothing but a disused garage and a sundeck too high to climb to. Besides, the sundeck required a key to open, too.
Circling to the left yielded much more satisfying results. There was the back patio that I was somewhat familiar with, and the tenant's door. I knocked, but the tenant wasn't home. I tried the studio door. To my surprise, it opened.
"Well," I thought. "That's rather unsafe."
The door that connected the studio with the rest of the house was, unfortunately, locked. That explained that, then.
I tried several times, unsuccessfully, to pick the lock. There were no paperclips, so first I tried a small pair of scissors, then an exactoknife. I gave up. I circled the house again. I knocked on the tenant's door again. Nothing. I went back inside the studio, resigned to waiting for Eleanor to come home from lunch. Then I realized that there was a ladder in one corner.
So I climbed it and found myself in a completely unfamiliar room; another studio, it looked like. I looked around, wondering if it was a dead end, and saw that there was a door in one corner with a key in it. I turned the key, unlocked the door, and found myself back in the house. The room was a spare bedroom.
My lunch, of course, is quite cold. But I am ravenous, so I shall eat it.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005 [link]
10:14 a.m.
listening to: Rufus Wainwright Want Two
So now that I'm bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I can make a huge long post about my trip to Europe!
In summary:
Italy: has the hottest guys
Germany: has the hottest girls
Paris: is a place for the rich and fabulous
Spain: is really fucking hot
Laundry: is really fucking expensive
Beer: really is cheaper than water in Germany
Pharmacies: are really useful. also, everywhere.
Tourists: are everywhere
Americans: are stupid
Phrasebooks: will get you far
Public transit: is really cheap and really good
Fresh sardines: are really good in Barcelona
Museums: are really cheap, even without the student discount
Europe: great place to visit, but you may not want to live there
And now for the requisite Urban Backpacking How-To instructional for the completely uninitiated, otherwise known as Things I Wish I'd Known
Do not buy a large backpack. Huge backpacks that hold eighty pounds worth of crap is fine if you're going to be backpacking in the wilderness for forty days and need your own food, cookware, toilet paper, etc. If you're backpacking in an urban environment--like, say, Europe--you're going to be able to buy food and do laundry. Having a gigantic backpack only encourages you to fill it, and you'll hate yourself when you're climbing up and down flights of stairs with a fifty-pound backpack strapped to your backpack.
However, since your backpack is going to be your best friend and maybe only companion on this trip, be sure to spare no expense and get a good one. The backpack itself with nothing in it should be light. Waterproof is a plus, but not a necessity. Frontloader, not toploader, if you're not doing the wilderness thing (toploaders are gret for wilderness treks where you'll be crossing rivers and things). Ideally, the zippers should not be easily accessible to other people when the backpack is on your back. Consider getting a backpack with a smaller, detachable pouch that can double as a purse, or which you can use to keep valuables close to you when the rest of the backpack is elsewhere.
Bring two towels. Trust me on this. And if you're staying at a hostel that claims to have free towels, take a free towel, even if you already have your own.
Bring plenty of clean socks. You'll think that all that's really necessary is plenty of clean underwear. You're wrong. Bring as many pairs of clean socks as underwear.
Have a moneybelt. You probably won't use it most of the time. But it's really, really crucial in those in-between points, when you're going from point A to point B with all your crap, still half-asleep and not noticing the pickpocket next to you.
Bring duct tape. Trust me. A very small roll will do.
Bring medical tape. Trust me. A very small roll will do.
Bring your own cutlery, or buy it when you get there. You have no idea how crucial having your own fork, spoon, and/or knife will be.
Include hydrocortisone in your first-aid kit, especially if you're going somewhere in the summer. There is nothing more unpleasant than waking up in the middle of the night scratching, without any way of making it stop. That said, other things in your first-aid kit should include bandages, gauze, disinfectant, painkillers, and diarrhea medicine. You may laugh at that last one, but having it basically ensures that you won't need it, you know? And you can actually get away with not bringing disinfectant, because that's something you can get at basically any pharmacy. The bandages, gauze, and painkillers are a must, though.
For the ladies, don't bother bringing a week's worth of tampons/pads if you're going to Europe. Bring a few, and then buy the rest. Sanitary napkins are ridiculously cheap there.
Oh yes, and bring plenty of plastic bags. If you go grocery shopping or whatever, keep the plastic bags. Besides plastic grocery and garbage bags and the like, also bring several ziploc bags. You'll thank me later.
Bring your own pen/cil and paper. Besides travel journalling purposes, a tiny memopad and pencil is great for asking people to write down directions or prices, if you don't understand the language.
Five nights is enough in any country. You may think, "but gosh, I gotta have a week in Paris!" No. It doesn't take as long as you think it will to see all the tourist attractions, and the longer you stay in one city the more of a drain it can be on your finances.
And last, but not least,
Have fun. Shitty things are probably gonna happen, but great things are gonna happen, too. Not everyone has the privilege to travel, so make the best of it.
Tune in next time when I actually talk about things that happened on the trip!
Monday, June 20, 2005 [link]
10:49 p.m.
listening to: nothing
Home from Europe! Got home yesterday, actually, but was too tired to do much blogging. Still too tired, really. I want to make a big long informative post summarizing the trip and whatnot, but. . . gaaahh, so much effort required. I just want to finish my laundry and go to bed.
Bah. Stupid laundry.
Tuesday, June 7, 2005 [link]
08:31 p.m.
listening to: nothing
In Europe, etc. etc. Figured I ought to mention that the travelblogging (what little there is) is going on at my livejournal.
Thursday, May 12, 2005 [link]
11:43 a.m.
listening to: nothing
Welp, the computer's going into a box now. My online presence will probably be spotty until mid to late June, when I return to Los Angeles for the rest of the summer. Then we'll see.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005 [link]
01:07 a.m.
listening to: "Good Enough" - Sarah McLachlan
One day, during AP Government class my senior year, I realized that my father and I might qualify for food stamps.
"Huh," my father said, when I told him. "Food stamps."
It wasn't a pride thing. It's never been a pride thing. It had simply never occurred to us that there might be help.
I live my entire life that way. It's not a pride thing. It's not that I don't know how to ask. It's not that I don't have friends, or at least people who are willing to help. It simply never occurs to me that I'm not alone.
Today, I admitted for the first time that I miss my father.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005 [link]
10:59 p.m.
listening to: big honkin' playlist
So, I'm packing to
I don't really have anything to say beyond that.
Monday, May 9, 2005 [link]
12:44 p.m.
listening to: "Sex Never Goes Out of Fashion" - Garbage
I woke up this morning feeling glorious.
Sunday, May 8, 2005 [link]
03:55 p.m.
listening to: big honkin' playlist
Whew. Big day yesterday. First Eleanor and I went to Stanford to cram in some last-minute extra credit by participating in the archaeology lab there, and then I ran out to Berkeley to participate in Free Comic Book Day. Then I raced home for a brief twenty minute nap before Hugo called me asking me to work some days next week. I agreed, mindful of the money I needed for Europe.
Then it was time for dinner and the archaeology final. The final went okay, I think. I didn't address a lot of points I thought of later, but I addressed some points that other people hadn't thought of, so maybe it all evened out. I finished the final early and got to watch cartoons, including a very exciting JLU episode! Afterwards, Eleanor and I went to her boyfriend Dan's house, where I ate three pot brownies and got extremely stoned and learned how to play chess. In that order.
We got back to the dorms around one o' clock today. We'd both gone to sleep pretty late and got woken up pretty early. We were also still slightly stoned. I don't know about her, but I crawled back into bed almost immediately after getting back and slept another two hours. I feel a little better now, just very thirsty. Whew.
And now it's time to study for a big Chinese test tomorrow! Whee! And then I have to quickly write my final paper/story for the Faust class and pack. Shit. I hate packing. I should have started earlier. Shit shit shit.
Friday, May 6, 2005 [link]
09:32 p.m.
listening to: "You Look So Fine" - Garbage
Very tired. Saw the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy today! I haven't read the book in like seven years, but I want to reread it now--and the rest of the series/trilogy, while I'm at it! o/` so long, and thanks for all the fish~ o/`
So tired. My first final is tomorrow, but I can't bring myself to care. I'll probably try to cram a little bit tomorrow afternoon when we get back from Stanford, but it's open book/open note/open everything. Usually this means that the test itself will be harder, but the professor's so easygoing and lenient I find it difficult to believe that anyone will get anything lower than a B in this class.
I mean, I'd like an A in this class, of course. Of course. GPA boost and all. But hey, I'm not going to grad school, so who cares?
Wednesday, May 4, 2005 [link]
01:30 p.m.
listening to: nothing
When I got up from my chair earlier, I thought I felt something skitter over my shoulder. What was that? I wondered, raising my arm and turning my head to look at it. I didn't see anything, so I put my arm down against my body again, figuring it was just my hair. Suddenly, though, there was a studden stinging where my arm met my torso; I jerked my arm away and something--most likely a spider--fell to the floor and ran away.
If I see that little fucker again, I'm gonna squish it dead. That hurt.
Monday, May 2, 2005 [link]
08:32 p.m.
listening to: "Ships" - Redbird
Last night I went to see Redbird at the Freight & Salvage. The crowd was mostly older people (and by "older" and I mean "out of college"), and the concert itself was very, very good. The Freight & Salvage is a smallish venue, so even if you were sitting in the very back you had a good view of the artists.
Kris Delmhorst is adorable. Let me just say that right now. She is funny and sweet and had a gigantic smile and a flower in her hair the entire time she played. When she sings it's like she goes somewhere else and becomes an entirely different person, her singing voice is so different from her speaking voice.
Getting home was an adventure, but I'm too lazy to write about that. I think I'll watch some Queer as Folk instead. Or do something productive. Yeah.
Saturday, April 30, 2005 [link]
04:07 p.m.
listening to: big honkin' playlist
I've done absolutely nothing productive these last few days. None. What exactly have I been frittering away my time with? I have no idea. But I have one paper and three finals remaining, and I just can't bring myself to do anything this weekend.
are these times contagious? i've never been this bored before. is this the prize i've waited for?
Drinking has strange, but predictable effects on me. Mainly it just makes me very talkative. Occasionally I get ranty. It destroys my reserve.
Very, very rarely, it makes me depressed. Last night, as soon as I was back in my room, I found myself consumed with despair. I was lonely. I was alone. I was always going to be alone. I wanted to find someone, so that I could be not-alone, but I was always going to be alone, so why should I bother? Besides, everyone was asleep. I didn't want to be a bother.
You see how irrational drinking makes you?
I woke up this morning with an emotional hangover, still numb and depressed from the night before. Then I went to brunch and felt better.
(i do declare there were times i was so lonesome i took some comfort there)
This complete inability to emote frustrates me. Why can't I ever say what I mean? Why do I always have to speak in signs and symbols? I feel like my life has become T.S. Eliot's A Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: a thing of repetition, insecure and fearful.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair
Thursday, April 28, 2005 [link]
09:46 p.m.
listening to: big honkin' playlist
Time to start planning for ye olde trip to Europe!
Things I need to buy:
- camping soap (this stuff looks way awesome)
- space-saving towel
- another sarong
- swimsuit
- toothbrush
- small notebook
- woolite
Items needed for first-aid kit:
- band-aids
- bactine-type thing
-
-
-
I think that's it. Any suggestions?
Thursday, April 28, 2005 [link]
01:06 a.m.
listening to: nothing
God, I'm tired, but I'm DONE. Done with my research paper, done with my Chinese script, done with all my reading. Well, almost done. I have one chapter left in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 (which is an immensely fucked-up book), but I can do that tomorrow.
Now all I have to do is survive finals.
I really want a smoke.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005 [link]
01:26 p.m.
listening to: "Blue Eyes" - Cary Brothers
Why do I continue reading Megatokyo?! WHY, GOD, WHY? It got insufferably preachy about FANBOYS of all things these last few strips, and in today's strip the only semi-decent character left has suddenly become, I don't know, AN ANGSTY GIRL. GAH.
In other news, today's Penny Arcade was particularly amusing to me, since I watch the WB. Ah, WB, you and your craptacular teen shows.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005 [link]
10:48 p.m.
listening to: "Bad Day" - R.E.M.
I took up smoking very briefly, last summer/fall. I didn't allow myself to smoke more than once a month. It lasted as long as it took to get into Smallville; then I started drinking fairly frequently (at least twice a week), and any need to smoke suddenly vanished.
Now that the Smallville parties have stopped, though, I find that I miss smoking. Or drinking. I feel like I was more productive when I knew that there were two nights a week when I wouldn't really get anything done.
The main advantage to smoking than drinking, really, is that you can still function afterwards. I have little alcohol tolerance these days, and one drink is enough to make sure that I won't be productive for the rest of the night. After a good smoke, though, I feel calmer and more relaxed, if somewhat filthy and stinky, and I can still go back inside and work on my paper some more.
Besides, smoke is beautiful. You hold it in your mouth and then breathe it out and watch it curl and disappear. The end of your cigar/cigarette/cigarillo burns bright orange in the dark. Sure, you're giving yourself cancer, but doesn't it feel great?
Tuesday, April 26, 2005 [link]
12:27 a.m.
listening to: "Bone In My Ear" - Bruce Cockburn
Naturally it's times of the greatest stress, when I have the most work to do, that I suddenly feel a tremendous urge to write. It's as one of the prophets in the Bible describe it, a burning in the bones, like the words are in my blood and I need to cut myself open and let them out, or they'll eat me alive.
I wish I wrote poetry.
Shit, I'm tired. I think it's time for me to table this paper and go to bed. I have two more chapters of The Crying of Lot 49 that I need to read. Have I mentioned how weird Thomas Pynchon is?
Monday, April 25, 2005 [link]
10:41 p.m.
listening to: "The Boxer" - Simon and Garfunkel
Today is paper-eating-the-brain day. Everyone is shut up inside their rooms, nibbling feverishly at chocolate and pastries and sipping caffeinated beverages. I am leaving the realm of Egyptology, which though frustrating is safe. The Egyptians are very good about leaving records. But the Exodus (which I am writing my paper about) is about leaving Egypt and going somewhere else. I think my brain may explode.
Someone was in here earlier with Moroccan mint tea. I can still smell it occasionally, like the whiff of a ghost.
When I was very young, I used to ask my aunt to "make honey." What this involved, actually, was dropping a generous tablespoonful of honey into a cup and adding hot water. The resulting mixture, when stirred, was basically very watery honey. I rediscovered it recently, and it makes me happy.
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