my tribute to indiana

Back in the day, before my tragic year-and-a-half long hiatus (when people other than myself actually read this blog), I posted an entry bemoaning the fact that the Colts won the 2007 Superbowl. Now, looking back, I have no idea why I was rooting for Chicago because I unabashedly admit that I don't care about any sport besides basketball, and I especially don't care about football. It was probably for the same reason that I am rooting for the Cardinals tomorrow--one of my friends is from Arizona, and I don't give two constipation-inducing multi-vitamins about Pittsburgh (seriously, read those labels, they cause constipation).

The reason I am writing this is because unlike in 2007, I now know many people from Indiana, and some of them are even very good friends of mine. Further, as one of my new Indianian friends pointed out, Indiana did the right thing and went blue this year. So I feel that it is only fair that I repudiate my previous characterization of Indiana as a state that doesn't matter. It is only fitting that I do so on the night before the 2009 Superbowl--poetic timing, if you will.

With that in mind, here are the top five reasons why Indiana matters:

5) A lot of popcorn is grown in Indiana.
4) Indianapolis is the new Rome--more interstate highways connect in Indianapolis than any other city in America.
3) James Dean, possibly the hottest dead man under 5'8" of all time, was born in Indiana.
2) David Letterman, a decently funny guy, was also born in Indiana.
1) Okay, I admit, as I was searching every nook and cranny of the internet for remotely interesting things about Indiana, I thought, man, I wanna do you justice, but it is really hard to make you seem interesting (Really? Your state is responsible for the first successful goldfish farm? You used to be the home of the world's tallest woman?). But then I remembered--Indiana helped put Barack Obama in office. And that's way cooler than New York voting for Obama, because even God prefers the sheep that comes home after straying to the sheep that never strayed at all. So for that fact alone, Indiana is officially vindicated in my book.

Pittsburgh, on the other hand, is still irrelevant to me, and therefore, I hope the Cardinals win tomorrow.

puppy names

Two months ago, when I was this close to getting a puppy...

Mom: Name him Bella.
Me: Mom, it's a boy dog.
Mom: What about Honey?
Me: It's a BOY. A BOY.
Mom: Cutie?
Me: It has a PENIS.
Mom: (silence) I got it! Ball! Name him Ball.
Me: ...

I miss those days.

unfocused

The greatest threat is not pain or failure, but boredom--a glassy, oppressive wrap that suffocates. If it had a sound, it would be that music-lacking note you hear ringing in your head just before your vision goes white. It is a black hole of thought and consciousness. Powerful in its nothingness.

favorite word of the moment

parasol

deep breath

inhale

exhale

i can do this.

on hiatus. see you in march.

old

Okay, when did Dakota Fanning go from this to this? Seriously. I feel really really old.

bugs

The thing that sucks about finding a bug in the house when you live alone is not the fact that it's scarier when you are by yourself but that no one is around to witness, commiserate with, and reaffirm your disgust and terror. So when you are finally done shrieking, you always feel a little ridiculous. Maybe it just makes you realize that you are terrified by a tiny, ugly creature that is a trillion times smaller than you.

'nuff said

http://www.isgeorgewbushstillpresident.com/

:-)

finally, it begins

"Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter. And with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."
- Barack Obama, President of the United States

Even from across the country, watching on a TV in the kitchen at work, it was awesome.

i just can't let it go

Every time I get miserable thinking about how I had tickets to the inauguration and the ball but couldn't go because I'm in the middle of something very important, I look at this, and it makes me feel a little better.

story of my life

My friend says this book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, reminds her of me. I wonder why.

bird strike

I have always wondered if there is ever a need for those life vests and rafts on planes. Looks like my question has been answered. A plane did a crash landing into the Hudson because each engine may have been put out by a bird. That shit is insane--who knew little birds could take down huge airplanes?

EDIT: I recognize that this is soulless, but I cannot stop cracking up about the birds possibly being Canada geese. This is probably the closest thing we'll ever see to a Canadian terrorist attack.

Too soon?

mood tanning

Back in the day (i.e. a few months ago), I used to run outside almost daily, thereby staying pretty tan. I run in rain, hail, sleet, or snow, whether it's 90 degrees out or -20 degrees out. That is how I managed to stay tan during Cambridge winters, and why everyone thought I went tanning at a salon (don't you know that only white people do that).

When I get really really busy, though, my running takes a backseat (and is sometimes ironically replaced by smoking, a disgusting habit that I kick for years at a time and then give in to for brief, godwilling, but stressful periods), so my tan fades. I haven't been running in almost two months. I'm naturally darker-skinned, so I'm never going to be freakishly pale, but you can always tell when someone has been out of the sun, no matter what their complexion is. It's a little sad, because when I'm this pale, I know I'm stressed. It's like I'm a mood ring--you can tell what's going on by what color I am.

Life is good, but I can't waiiiit for this to be over so I can change colors again.

oh. my. god.

My dream has finally come true. Finally, they will have a pill for those of us with bald eyes. This is way better than eyelash transplants, the only other option for having naturally longer lashes, which involves transplanting hair from your scalp onto your eyelid. The problem with that, of course, is that the hair on your scalp is not programmed to stop growing at a certain length, leaving you with hairy hairy eyes. Also, it's really gross. This pill is a great improvement. Too bad it's $120 a month. Really, on my list of priorities, if I had that much money to spend, I'd get cable first. After saving up for a TV.

elephants

After years of struggle, I have accepted the fact that elephants are my favorite animal. Why the struggle, you ask? Because they were also the favorite animal of my ex-boyfriend's first love, which obviously meant I hated them (I'm Korean, we're vindictive like that).

But the years have passed, and the old high school grudges have dissolved along with them, and it has finally became unavoidably apparent that elephants are the best animals in the universe. And it's not just because I actually got to see them in the wild in Namibia (although that contributed). They are independently awesome. Not only are they beautiful, but they are among the most intelligent animals in the world. They mourn their dead by honoring their bones, and they can recognize when they are looking into a mirror, which is supposed to be the quintessential sign for the ability to empathize.

They show affection for each other by twining their trunks together, which is adorable. They communicate through vibrations they feel in the ground with their feet. They've got to be the only vegetarians in the world who don't really have predators, since their sheer size protects them. But even though they're huge, they walk in complete silence. When we saw 50 elephants walk through the brush towards a waterhole in Etosha National Park (see picture), there was absolutely no warning because their steps were so quiet.

Oh, and almost half of them are gay. Clearly an advanced animal. Definitely would have voted for Obama.

side note

I would also like to mention that it was 80 degrees in LA today. In January. Suck it, Cambridge!

Also, I remembered to floss.

cynical sixteen

My sister always complains to me that she has to live in my shadow, which I admit is not the most pleasant of positions. It's not that I am so great (obviously)--it's that our parents have insane expectations, and thus far, I have somehow managed to stay just inside the lines of their vision of how their daughter should be (accomplished, of course, by extreme and frequent lying in my teens, and moving out in my twenties). By "just inside the lines," I mean by the skin of my teeth--I'm still too dark-skinned ("Stop tanning," says my mom. "That's for white people."), about ten pounds heavier than they would like, and although I went to Ivy League schools for undergrad and law school, I still ended up really liberal, much to my father's dismay. I also have not gotten to my duty of making Korean babies with a Korean doctor, most likely one who is 5'7" and wears glasses.

But beyond that, I try to explain to my sister that as much as I have managed to accomplish so many of the things I have wanted to, I have also failed at just as many. In fact, currently, I am fighting to overcome one of the most devastating failures of my life. The difference, I tell her, is between deciding to let the failure define you and giving it the finger. She doesn't believe me, based on her cynical sixteen years of experience. But she will. Because in ten years, when she's my age, and she's happy, in spite of the fact that she has to confront her failures everyday, she'll realize that it's a daily battle. And every morning is a new chance for you to decide that, today, you're not going to let failure win.

home

I love that I love coming home.

this blows

What do you do if you have two choices, and either choice you make will result in you possibly regretting something for the rest of your life. WHAT DO YOU DO.

sick humor

I recognize this is inhumane and cruel, but I find narcolepsy hilarious.

screwing up kids

Yesterday, as I was assembling my coffee table, I slipped while I was screwing in one of the legs. Consequently, I cut my finger on the edge of the table. So I did the obvious thing that a person living alone would do. I screamed, "FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK YOU SCREWDRIVER! FUUUUUUCKKKKK!" Then I was embarrassed at how loud I was, and I was briefly terrified that one of my neighbors would call the cops, and then I would have to sheepishly explain that the only domestic violence going on in my house was between me and my screwdriver.

That's when I realized I need to learn to control my anger, even though I live alone. Because one day, that screwdriver will be one of my kids giving me a cut on my finger. And while the screwdriver can take it, I would really rather not scar my kids in a moment of heated, albeit justified, anger.

things i don't give a shit about

Profiles rarely ask us what we are NOT interested in, which I think is unfortunate, since I am relatively certain the things we don't care about reveal as much if not more about us than the things we do care about. For example, I don't give a shit about:

- Sports (except on rare occasion basketball)
- Law firm salary raises and/or bonuses
- American Idol
- Zach Efron and anything High School Musical related
- Rick Warren speaking at Obama's inauguration
- Twilight
- Watchmen, both the movie and the graphic novel (worst thing I have ever read, so overrated)
- Blackberries, iPhones, iPods, and any other gizmos designed to fill voids in life
- Birds, especially pigeons
- Cars
- Designer handbags
- Angelina Jolie

Now you know everything there is to know about me.

nuts

Nuts fascinate me. First, it is amazing that so much deliciousness can be squeezed into such a small package. Second, everything about nuts is good. The buttery taste, the hard-soft crumbly texture, the crunchy mute they add to enhance just about any dish (spicy noodles, soups, stir-fried chicken, banana sundaes, brownies, salads). They are hard enough to throw at people but not so hard that any real harm would be caused. Unless you're allergic, in which case you would probably die (no matter--all good things come with a price).

But what I really wonder is who was the genius who thought to pop a nut into their mouth in the first place. After all, at first glance, there is no way to tell how delicious a nut is. They don't have an intense smell the way fruits and meat do. They're pretty hard to the touch, so the first person to chomp down was surely risking the loss of a molar. Sure, squirrels eat them, but they also eat bugs, so that shouldn't be a green light. Whoever s/he was, they were clearly far advanced beyond their years.

I am obviously studying for something.

monsters

It's a new year, and my second night sleeping in my new apartment. No matter how much you prepare before you move in somewhere, there are somethings you just won't find out about a new place until you've lived there. Case and point--I have discovered that the ceilings and walls are very thin. Consequently, I can hear a lot of what is going on upstairs. And judging from the sounds, either a terrifying monster lives above me and eats children and has loud monster sex at night, or a young couple lives up there with a baby who likes to be chased around by someone making monster noises. Either way, one thing is certain--they are all wearing shoes made of cement.

Luckily, I am not all that bothered by noise. I lived above a karaoke bar in Washington Heights once. If I can fall asleep to the sound of drunken Irish men slurring the words to Elvis Presley songs, I can fall asleep to anything.