substitute...

sorry i've been MIA lately. spent a weekend in capitola with the russian (photoblog to follow shortly!) and this past week i have been dealing with a kidney infection. зануда = no fun!

since i haven't posted, read this instead. very fun blog about food - russian and otherwise.
i <3 yulinka!

see you soon. until then, enjoy these koshka matryoshka :)

swimming pools, uneven bars...

re: the olympics

1. micheal phelps is not human. i think he is an alien. seriously.

2. i heart nastia liukin. i have loved gymnastics from the moment i watched Nadia on tele when i was 5. nastia is certainly no Ms. Comaneci, but she is damn good. graceful, elegant, powerful, and was born in moscow even! so the russian and i can agree on her, at least :)
[kind of. personally, i think he secretly finds her a traitor...]

отлично!

3. is shawn johnson a midget? i'm not trying to be mean or make a joke here. i think she really might technically be a little person. Wiki says she's 4'9'' - i think that's the legal height for a little person. then again, she is only 16. she's got time to grow, i guess.

4. bela karolyi makes me giggle. is he drunk? (possibly.) senile? (not likely.) i'm not so sure about that, but two things are certain: he is perhaps, the best gymnastics coach EVER, and he is indeed a total spaz. and i love him.

pS - check the links! i went a little crazy adding some extras :)

if only...

a gorgeous wall full of books...

a caption is worth a thousand words...

my dad in dc...

"they were watermelons, i tell ya!"

no, ura hogg!

her name is no joke!

(although there is no ura...)

a bold statement.

en generale, i tend to avoid bold statements, but i am going to make one here:

Side One of Fleetwood Mac's Self-Titled 1975 album is, by far, the single best side of a record, ever.

Track List:

1. Monday Morning
2. Warm Ways
3. Blue Letter
4. Rhiannon
5. Over My Head
6. Crystal

All six songs are fabulous.

A few years ago I was staying with Nick-Tony-Spencer in Woodland Hills. Nick & Tony were roommates/friends from college, and Spencer was Tony's BFF from high school. Long story short, Spencer and I were dating and I was out of an apartment, and I ended up freeloading with them for a few months. Anyways, when it was my week to clean, I would kick the boys out of the apartment, put on FM's *Rumours*, and clean my ass off. I never thought I could love another record more than I loved Rumours.

Until I discovered this one.

Unsuspectingly, I picked it up at the Goodwill one day, for 99 cents. I didn't even have a record player at the time, but was building my collection for when I finally acquired one. I loved Rumours so much that I figured anything else by them must be pretty good too. Holy moly, wasn't I surprized when Gary finally gave me a record player. I was blown away. And now I listen to it every chance I get. It never gets old. Ab-Fab.

I highly suggest picking this up the next time you see it at a yard sale or in the bargain bin. Worth the dollar, and then some!

pS - totally not my type, but how HOT was lindsey buckingham?! yowzah!

embarrassing photos 101

sometimes i drink too much.

despite all appearances, tonight is NOT one of those nights.

here is a picture of one of those nights.




is that a WHOLE bottle of vodka??

and here is another, (giving my best billy idol. holla!)





here's one of me drunk, standing on a bar:



and finally:




she was fun. i seriously miss her. we had 6 or so strawberry-lemonades that evening. *sigh*

anyhoo, i'm done embarrassing myself (for the evening.) i'm gonna go watch my beloved gilmore girls now.
(speaking of the *gilmores*, she looks like lorelai... *double sigh*)

and finish my beer.

night!

vicelog for le 7 aout:

7ish? beers (happy hour din, music in the park, gilmore girls... you know how it goes.
some days are long.)

6625 Abrego Road

sometimes i long for such simple things from the past. just now i was thinking about one of the places i lived in santa barbara. the house itself wasn't that great, but it was the first time i had had my own room in, well, years. close to 5 years, actually. it was small (the queen size mattress i had stacked on my futon took up the majority of the space, with barely room for a desk and my tele,) narrow, and had dark green carpet; all of which made me feel like i was living on a pool table. thankfully there was a built-in bookcase, because there certainly wasn't room for a free-standing one. it was tiny, but it was all mine, and i loved it. it was safe and cozy. in that room i started my first blog, took an obscene amount of self-portraits, drank my first homemade cosmo (alone), and watched way too much elimidate (while eating an entire can of pringles.) it was my sanctuary.

this morning while i was walking to the bathroom at work, i for some unknown reason flashed on that room; the closet, in particular. for how small the room was, the closet was disproportionately large. it was a walk-in closet, with no door. since i didn't have any cats yet (pets are virtually forbidden in any Isla Vista apartment), i had the luxury of hanging a sheer white curtain in the doorway. (said sheer white curtain is currently sitting folded in my linen closet at home, unused since the arrival of my two koshki. if you are a cat owner, you well know that the words *sheer* and *cats* do not go together...)

anyways, i loved this closet, for no particular reason. it was just big and private and had a pretty curtain, and i could cry in it if i felt the need. and this morning i missed it. now that i live with 2 cats and a Russian, i don't have a lot of *alone-time*. our closet is giant, but it's not all that great for crying in.

and unfortunately, there's no pretty curtain either.

on a lighter note...

i am by no means a wine aficionado. i am, in fact, a self-proclaimed non-wine-drinker/beer-lover. i can't help it - i love beer. i grew up in a beer-lovin' family. plus, it's delicious. but more about the joys of beer later. tonight i am here to discuss... wine.

since i do love drinking en generale, not drinking wine cuts out a pretty large portion of the alcohol market for me. plus, i kind of like the idea of a sophisticated evening, sipping on a nice glass of wine while reading voltaire and snacking on some havarti dill and water crackers. it sounds so refined, ya know?

anyways, a few years ago i had this roommate jessie, who was, BY FAR, the greatest roommate on the face of the earth. i swear - if you ever have the opportunity to live with JC, do it. you will have a blast, make a friend for life, and never regret it.

but i digress.

jess wines and, well, wines with the best of them. girl likes her beer, but christ on a cracker, can she drink some m-f-ing WINE. at one point during our cohabitation, jess and her boyfriend broke up. she was going through a rough time, and consequently i would come home from work and find her 3 bottles deep - purple teeth and all, begging me to sing karaoke or make a jack-in-the-box run. we usually ended up eating philly cheesesteak hotpockets from the fridge, while i had a few beers and she tried to sober up for work in the morning.

but again - i digress.

so while i was living with jessie, i decided it was high time i became a wine drinker. i no longer wanted to discriminate against an entire category of booze. being a beginner, i decided i needed to start at the beginning. a nice, slow ease into the world of wine - with some blush Franzia. thus, my first foray into wine drinking began with some refrigerated white zin - straight outta the box. needless to say, it couldn't end well.

and it didn't.

i (barely) recall barfing pink wine and ham-n-cheese hotpockets into the bathtub late one night, while i sat on the toilet. i had been drinking the franzia out of the biggest wine glass you've ever seen (it was like a goblet!), while Dr. Scott (bachelor # 2 for the month) and i watched the OC on dvd. it was a long time before i tried anything made from fermented grapes again.

but lately i have been trying to be a big girl, and introduce myself to some new wines. i have come to realize that i pretty much only like white wines. perhaps this is just beginners luck, or maybe my tastebuds aren't suited for reds, but either way i am okay with whites for now.

the wine i tried tonight is called Middle Sister, selected solely for the name (i'm quite discriminating, obviously. the majority of my picks are based on the name or the label. what can i say? i'm a sucker for advertising.) it is white, which is as advanced as my limited knowledge of wine can describe it. and while being a tad sweet, it was pretty good, and met my biggest requirement - it didn't make me shudder, homer-simpson-when-he-sees-patty-and- selma-stylie. hopefully, the more wines i taste, the more descriptive i can be. at this point, all you get are simple adjectives and cartoon comparisons...

i have attached a picture for further reference.

enjoy!

vice log for monday, le 4 aout...

partial bottle of wine
1 soma/1 vicodine (cramps...)
multiple cups o' coffee
half a piece of carrot cake
(this was just to spite the Russian, so he couldn't have the whole piece. aren't i terrible...?)

what do you get when you put two mules together?

on our walk home, the Russian and i passed a make-up-less girl in an unbuttoned plaid flannel shirt, baggy silvertab jeans, bookish glasses, and a faux-hawk. and my first thought was "i'd rather be a lesbian than have just argued about f-ing GROCERIES with my boyfriend at Zanottos."

as the Russian and i walked home from the store, we each only spoke one word - to a lady walking her dog. she extended a warm evening greeting, and despite our nasty mood, the Russian and i both obliged her with a semi-friendly (albeit slightly forced sounding) hello. the walk home with the groceries was otherwise silent - with the exception of some interesting words from one quite prolific bum, who seemed to hit the nail on the head; "Everytime you settle for less, less is what you get."

i certainly do not think that i am settling for less with the russian. he is an amazing person, in many ways - and when we are not bickering over money, we have intelligent, interesting, silly, loving, fun, smart conversations. on the other hand, we do argue about a lot of useless shit. say, for instance, groceries. piddly, petty things. thankfully, this is pretty much the only thing we argue about - but still.

how can two extremely stubborn people learn to look beyond the petty arguments that accompany daily life, and remember to just continue to enjoy each other? we both hate being so stubborn. we both want to just have fun together. why do stupid things like cheese and v8 have to ruin the whole shebang?

dream din?

my boyfriend is Russian, and a software engineer. you can imagine the level of social awkwardness i'm dealing with here. while he's been in the US for a few years now, he's only been in the bay area about a year (as long as we have been together). he is studying software engineering at san jose state, and is currently jobless. put this all together, and you can see that we don't have a lot of friends. none, actually.

even though i myself am technologically challenged, i somehow often seem to find myself dating computer dorks (programmers, and the like.) 3 out of 4 of my last boyfriends have been either working on their latest code, or adding graphics to their short film (or something like that. i told you i'm computer-retarded.)

anyways, i have this good friend from college who also fits into this tech-dork category, and lately i have been wishing that he lived here in silicon valley rather than in cincinatti. the Russian and i could have gerard and his lovely wife sarah over for dinner and beers. sarah and i could chat about, oh i don't know, knitting or cats or something *house-wifey*, while the Russian and gerard hashed it out over the latest java update or the new iApp. the Russian would finally have a nerdy-partner-in-crime, and i could fulfill my oh-so-pathetic dream of living the 30-something-young-professionals-wine-and-cheese-and- intelligent-discussion evening that i must have seen on the tele somewhere when i was a youth. part of me detests that scenario, just based on principal, while another part of me longs for it. it seems safe and fun. sad, but true.

pS - sarah, i was totally joking about the knitting and cats. i'm sure we could find much cooler/less trite things to talk about ;-)

and gerard - don't worry; the evening will definitely involve beer, not wine (unless sarah wants some.) as you very well know, i myself am a beer gal - not a wino.

vice log for sunday, le 3 aout

working on my 4th cup o' coffee.
so far my strained neck isn't causing me to writhe in pain like yesterday, so i should be able to avoid the painkillers today.
then again, it is only 4 o'cock...

A Tribute to Vice, pt. 1 - The Joys of Chew (or, Oh, That Wacky Tobaccy!)

i love vice. really, i can't help it. (that's probably actually physically true at this point. i've been *vice-ing* too long for my emotions to be the only part of my body that's addicted.)

and of course, like anyone else, i have my vices of choice. never cigarettes, although my fascination with the 1920's, flappers, and speakeasies makes that a tough one. i am a fanatical anti-smoker, annoying and harassing those poor unfortunates who deign to perform their disgusting vice in my presence. i do however, love a good fake-smoke. give me my LA dodgers lighter and a Capri 120 (those are the long, "glamorous" ones) anyday, and i will fake-smoke my ass off. cigarettes are just such a great prop, ya know? i've always said that you can never feel alone with a cigarette. a pretty bold statement for a non-smoker, wouldn't you say? ;-)

true to my contradictory nature though, i love a good chew. filthy, i know, but holy moly! for someone who is totally sickened by cigarette smoke and consequently has never experienced the joys of nicotine, a mouthful o' tobaccy, for even just a minute or two, is a truly all-consuming-and-totally-addicting experience. of course, i'm a total sissy about it, and purchase the pouches (heaven forbid i actually swallowed any of the stuff!), and always of the Mint variety. no chew is complete without a beer (PBR in a bottle is my personal favorite - they complement each other so well) and a plastic cup to spit in. tip for beginners - use the cup only until you are done with your first beer. after that, you (of course) use the bottle to spit in. woe betide the person that gets drunk-and-dizzy-and-altogether-so-mixed-up that they interchange the bottles though! i think a sip or even a whiff of the spit from your own chew might be enough to reform you.

you'd think that a series of pictures of me, shot while undertaking a chew in public, with my family, at my cousin lindsey's wedding, (with a Michelob, of all beers!) might be a bit of a deterrent also.

then again, maybe they just show how addicting vice is, no matter how truly disgusting you honestly think it is, once you've gotten the hang of it.

vice log for saturday, le 2 aout

over the course of the entire day, i have had...
2 cups of coffee
7 beers
1 ativan
2 vicodine

and there might be a soma to come, before i lay my head down to sleep...

still totally lucid and coherent though. not surprizing, considering the vice has been spread throughout the day.

No Title.

do people ever, EVER, write in *wingdings*? how? and who the fuck is able to read it?

testing.

(i think that's a ritual or something. everyone, everywhere, has the word *testing* in their first entry. me, i'm just waaaay too superstitious to leave it out.)