things that have happened.

1) Kent graduated and is now a master of fine arts.

2) My work situation got infinitely better and I no longer have a permanent stress-induced stomach ache. Although I am going to be working all the time for a while now.

3) We found an apartment in Echo Park that is cute, affordable, and FIVE MINUTES FROM MY OFFICE.

In order, then:

Kent’s graduation weekend was really great because his family came to town and we all watched the nearly-finished cut of his film (which is turning out totally awesome and everyone thinks so). Kent had more mixed feelings about the whole graduating thing, however, because now he has to get a job. He’s actually doing a pretty good job of getting jobs, considering he can think of nothing worse than that. Of course, the jobs he’s getting are the unpaid, foot-in-the-door variety (like interning at Focus Features– ooOOoOOohh).

Number two I can’t talk about really because it would require too much back story, would be really boring, and definitely totally unprofessional.

Finally, we are moving the first weekend in July, I think, which will sort of be in the middle of Kate’s visit (Kate is visiting!!). Our new place is much smaller, so we (by which I mean Kent) need to majorly edit our (Kent’s) belongings. I think getting rid of (Kent’s) stuff is good for you (me) (i mean, him).

I think I am the fish.

For months I’ve been hanging out with all of Kent’s film friends, who occasionally ask me what I do (sometimes for the first time, sometimes for the like fourth or fifth time). I try to find a concise way to say I work for a labor union. So sometimes I say “I work for a labor union.” Sometimes I try to be slightly more specific: “I work for the service employees’ union,” or, even more specific: “I work for a health care workers’ union.” Each variation elicits the same response: nodding and a blank stare. It is worth noting that this response is not limited to Kent’s film friends. The point isn’t that ONLY Kent’s film friends have this response, but rather that Kent’s friends UNIVERSALLY have this response (you know, not all rectangles are squares but all squares are rectangles). Seriously, not one person has automatically known what the fuck I’m talking about.

(The best story about this is when this guy Trevor, who was the gaffer on Kent’s movie, asked me what I do and I told him I worked for a labor union and he looked at me semi-blankly, so I said that I work for a union for people who work in nursing homes and home care. And he asked me if my grandmother got me into that (totally serious I swear to god. although he was kind of drunk). So I finally I was like, “you know SAG? And all the unions for film crew guys, so you get paid more and they can’t treat everyone like shit?” And after a few more minutes like that he was like “Oooohhhhh….”)

Anyway, I was finally on the other side of that this weekend. We went to my work-friend Maythe’s birthday party and got into a conversation with this girl who was an organizer and is now a lawyer who sues big corporations for the little guy. And when she asked Kent what he does and he said that he’d just finished film school/is an aspiring filmmaker she kind of looked at him blankly. Then she told us about a film about garment workers that we should go see and asked if that was the kind of movie he wanted to make. He asked if it was a documentary or a narrative and she said documentary and he said he wants to make narratives. And she looked at him blankly. So I started talking about his film, which is about the border and she got interested and asked if it was a documentary. And he said it was a narrative. And she looked at him blankly. Then she said “well, we need our filmmakers.” For the rest of the conversation, whenever she would say something about big, bad corporations or organizing, she would look at me and say, “Well, you know what I’m talking about,” right in front of Kent. Which is hilarious if only because Kent probably knows more than I do about most political issues.

We are like a bird and a fish who fell in love.

It’s spring, people! It’s spring, and I’m a grown up, and I love Los Angeles.

Spring has begun, meaning this was my birthday week.  I turned 25.  I am now, as Kim informed me, part of the 25-34 year old demographic rather than the 18-24 demographic.  I think this is significant, in a good way.  Goodbye college-age self.

In all it was a quiet week.  On my actual birthday, I went to work and then Kent picked me up (beautiful flowers in hand) & we had dinner and a slice of cake.  Then we turned on a movie and I promptly fell asleep about 20 minutes in.  The celebration picked up again on Saturday when we (Pilar, Sean, Nick, Kim, Kent, & me) went to Palms Thai, a restaurant in Hollywood that features an Elvis impersonator & cheap, delicious food.  From there we went to a couple of bars and got really drunk really early.  It was kind of a strange night and we crashed at Kim’s before 2.   Kim & I had brunch this morning and walked around her neighborhood.

Walking around filled me with an I Love Los Angeles Feeling.  It is now a common occurance, this feeling.  So common that Kent & I are starting to talk about moving soonish (by end of May?),  although who knows whether we’ll get our shit together.   We did spend some time today getting organized.  Meaning we went through all the storage areas in our house where we had crammed lots of stuff and went through it, either organizing it or trashing it.  It is a good for the soul & good moving preparation.

It’s spring, people!  It’s spring, and I’m a grown up, and I love Los Angeles.

help!

your assistance is requested.  i am under a lot of stress at work (this is the slow build constant stomach ache kind, not the exploding head kind) and i have run out of things to do online to avoid reckoning with reality.  really, all the things i usually waste my time with?  secondary things i occasionally do to waste my time?  things that occur to me every six months as potential time suckage opportunities? done. done. done.

what do you do on the internet that i don’t do?  help me.

spring forward

springing forward is totally awesome. not only was it light out when I drove home today, but it was fucking sunshine city. it’s summer in LA!

the desert

okay, so where was I?

JK. So much has happened in the last few weeks that it doesn’t matter where I left off. Things that happened:

1) Kent shot his movie, which was hugely successful and hugely stressful for everyone. Now he’s in post production, to which I say thank god. I think it is going to be really beautiful, which is not something I say lightly.

2) I got assigned a huge amount of responsibility at work that I would (honestly) rather not have. I don’t feel ready. But I am doing what I have to do and have some support to get through it. If I do survive it I am going to be an even tougher cookie than before.

That is only two things but they are both huge things. But since I can’t really write about work in a public forum and there is a lot to say about the shoot, here goes.

I was on set for much of Kent’s shoot and I have to say I had no idea how much of an ordeal it is to shoot a movie. Especially on location 10 miles north of the border in Arizona. The location was an hour and 20 minutes from Tucson, where we were staying, and to get to it you had to travel the last 20 minutes on a very hilly, rocky, windy dirt road. Our hosts, Joe and Janet, say they don’t pave it because if they paved it more people would come around. Despite that, they were really hospitable and have even asked Kent when he’s going to make another movie there.

So everyone worked really hard for like 15 hours a day and I think for some people it was a real bonding experience and for other people it was just really draining. But there is no way that any other place could have doubled for the southern AZ desert– it was totally gorgeous and unlike anywhere I’ve been.

It wasn’t all beautiful experiences and art making, though. Early one morning, Kent, while driving us back from set, was physically assaulted by the border patrol who mistook him for some kind of law breaker. They didn’t punch him out but they certainly pointed a gun in his face and threw him on the ground and in their caged truck. It was maybe the scariest thing that ever happened to me, even though it happened to Kent. After a few days in the AZ desert I have decided that the BP are crazy power tripping fascists, which I don’t say lightly, whatever you may think.

Another singular experience from the shoot: one day a young migrant couple crossed through our shoot looking for help. They had been walking for 7 days and had been lost for the last 3. The woman was pregnant, about 5 or 6 months, and they were basically looking to get caught because they couldn’t go on. It is illegal to transport or hide people who are entering the country without papers. Humanitarian aid within these limits is okay. So we gave them food and water and pointed them toward the house of someone we knew was sympathetic. Through a series of events, where certain rules were broken (but not by us), the couple actually made it out of the desert. Last I heard they have broken up, due to the stress of the experience. The woman is with family in San Francisco and the man is in Washington state.

We’ve been back from the shoot for about two weeks. I’m almost fully recovered. Today is supposed to be 81 degrees & sunny so I think we’ll try to relax and spend at least some of it outside.

Anyway, hopefully this is the renewal of regular blogging.

p.s. thanks to amalle and jacob for recent comments that reminded me that this thing existed.

p.s. blonde v. blond

According to m-w.com, blond is the primary spelling and blonde is an alternative. I thought blonde was standard. It certainly looks better. And it sounds better in my head. It’s like catalog and catalogue. Wouldn’t you rather look at a catalogue? But m-w.com says catalog is standard. Is this an America v. Europe thing?

Edit: Aha! Further research: according to wikipedia, the blond/blonde thing is a french etymology issue and blond is masc and blonde is feminine. But now “many writers use only one of the spellings without regard to gender, and without a clear majority usage one way or another.” You can mark me down in favor of blonde.

you should see my kitchen

So I’m a lame motherfucker who never writes in this blog anymore. I am not, however, a particularly blonde lame motherfucker who never writes in this blog anymore. My hair is a shade of dark blonde that some people probably consider light brown. They’re wrong, but people are entitled to their opinions. I will say that I consider going blonde a long term project and I am working toward a goal here. Anyway, I will still post pictures, I just don’t have any yet.

Mostly everything has been neglected because work has taken over 80% of my life and kent’s film (which starts shooting THURSDAY) has taken over the other 20%. Our house is a total disaster. I haven’t done laundry in like three weeks and I haven’t done dishes in two. Every meal I eat comes from a vending machine, Chipotle, or the bagel place by my work. So now you know why no blogging.

But you haven’t been far from my thoughts, gentle readers. When I see something that makes me think of you, I pull out my work-issued blackberry and take a photo. See:

This is graffiti near my house.

Work has been kind of rough but there was one major plus which was finding some left over magnetic poetry in my desk that was still stuck together. (Sorry the photo is so blurry but I guess those work-issued blackberry cameras aren’t as awesome as you’d think.)

I think you can still read it. Probably everyone knows this, but “Sí, se puede” is a common rallying call in social justice work, and especially labor & immigrants rights movements, and it basically means “Yes, it can be done!” or “Yes, we can do it!” Based on the way the poetry was still stuck together, we can do it gay.

I spent most of today helping Kent with the film and reading a book called Understanding Financial Statements. It’s like homework, but for work. I still love this job. I still love this job. I still love this job. But, yeah.

Sundry.

This week I went to the ATM at a laundromat on Sunset and saw this sign posted on the door of the laundromat.

Note:

1) The door was open.

2) It was about 70 and sunny at the time.

Admittedly, someone probably put up the sign earlier in the week when it was windy and in the 50s, but still. “Extreme cold”?

This weekend Kent & I went to see Notes on a Scandal, which wasn’t very good, unfortunately. (It was especially unfortunate because Kent predicted it wouldn’t be good and went to see it as a favor to me.  And he got to be right.)

Yesterday we groomed ourselves (haircut for him, manicure for me) and then I went shopping while he did movie stuff.  I meant to buy pants appropriate for work (it has been kind of cold here– to cold for skirts every day) but instead I bought a dress.  I know have at least 4-5 dresses for work and still only two pairs of pants.  Oops.  I guess I should just buy tights at this point.

Then Kent & I had dinner with his aunt, uncle, and grandfather for his grandfather’s birthday. Apparently every year Kent’s aunt Mary goes to San Diego with her father/Kent’s grandfather to hang out at a fancy hotel. I thought that was a funny way to spend a day but Kent says that people used to do that– people like Kent’s grandfather. And it appears some still do.

Today is Sunday which usually means brunch but I think this weekend it means chores.

Question: has anyone read Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin or whatever it is called?  The book club I attended for two months assigned that book this month and I have like 2 weeks to read 900 pages and I’m not sure if it is worth it.  I think I might be quitting the club.  Which is fine– the whole point was to meet people I might be friends with and I didn’t.

Oh!  And Coming Soon: Blonde Mariah.  I’ll post pictures as soon as I do the deed.

ramble

i thought i was savvy-ly avoiding making a new year’s resolution by thinking about resolving to smoke and then making the obvious decision not to. but somehow i have found resolutions sneaking into my head. resolutions to start running again and stop eating vending machine food at the office and especially especially to stop eating so much goddamn candy and to cook wholesome meals for myself. there is something really pathetic feeling (for me) about making a new year’s resolution. i hate feeling like i have to have a project of self improvement. in part because i think that people are going to do what they want to do anyway, me included, and lately i want a take 5 bar from the vending machine. so making a resolution you are not going to keep is stupid and unnecessarily creates an opportunity for failure. whereas if there is no resolution there is no failure. however, i am wondering if my inability to stave off these resolutions means that they are possibly resolutions i might keep.  does reverse psychology work on oneself?  i am going to see if i can’t fail at fighting these inclinations toward self improvement

in other news i don’t really like having celebrity sightings. i had lunch with kim yesterday and it was really nice. we ate delicious food at restaurant in west hollywood called hugo’s and talked for a couple of hours. we also saw two actors there which was kind of distracting. (they were rebecca gayheart and eric dane, of jawbreaker and grey’s anatomy fame, respectively.) it seems like kim sees people of certain celebrity all the time in that neighborhood and the last time i was there i saw queen latifah. that time it wasn’t as distracting, i think because i was drunk. anyway, i find seeing famous people kind of awkward, although I probably should get over that now. or drink whenever i am in west hollywood.

i have a long weekend this weekend, thanks to MLK day, and on saturday kent and i celebrated my extended downtime with a double feature. we went to see pan’s labrynth which is really great and beautiful and i think you should see. then we snuck into alpha dog (yes, starring justin timberlake) which was pretty crappy and exactly what you expect and i don’t care if you see it but i enjoyed it for sure. justin timberlake does the best acting in it, for whatever that is worth.