i just want my pants back. david j. rosen. (88)

"i just want my pants back" has been on my to re-read list ever since MTV turned it into a series. granted the the series first aired in 2011, it took me a while to re-read it. i first read it when my friend saba lent me her copy cos she thought i would enjoy it. i then stole her copy because i really enjoyed it. the delay in the re-read was that i was hoping to find the copy i stole. i didn't so i checked it out.

and yes the MTV series was kind of a my so called hipster life. so before we go any further i want to clarify something. just like i told that 6th grader that judged me based on my frames and blazer i wore to sub: i am not a hipster. i just recently had a whole talk with my friend tiffany on my non-hipsterness. and though i will admit i do have hipster tendencies (my friend jerry and my theory on our partial hipster-ness will appear later), i may be hip but i'm not a hipster.

and let the records show that my friends and i were wearing fake moustaches back in 2007. i bought a pair of fake ones at party city as a joke cos my friend cody could not grow one and then we wore them out to beauty bar. also that same year we started carrying around a toy pony before all this unicorn and bronies shit got started. and yes i trek out to hipster mecca aka coachella every year but i've been doing that since 2003. when it was only one weekend and you could buy one day tickets and rich parents from la didn't use it as teenage daycare. and i know it's so hipster cliche to claim to have done something before it was cool but i really did!

and i'll admit, i shop at urban outfitters (but only their sales racks), drink pbr, (but i'm cheap and my alcohol palate is nothing close to sophisticated), listen to indie rock, and do some things ironically; it's not because i want to be part of the hipster subculture. it just how i am. and yes i get there is this large subculture that i am apart of but hipster imples effort and my hipness is effortless.

but back to the show and the book. i did not see the whole season but the episode that inspired me to re-read was seriously a page out of my life. i forgot all that happens in it but it ends up with the lead dude (do they have same name as the book?) ends up marching with a marching band! this actually happened to me one night in hipsterville, ca aka echo park. in 2008, tiffany, cody and i were out celebrating obama's win and while drinking next to a liquor store ran into a marching band member. i harassed him for his hat and took some pictures but this was only a taste of what was to come! cos when we got to short stop there was a full on band on the dance floor. sadly not performing or with instruments but still exciting. oddly i never found out who the band was or ever saw them again. it was magical and that episode reminded me of it. in that episode there was also a penis piñata but my guy friends (straight ones) one-uped that with their penis bong (they paper-mâchéd a penis, complete with balls, around a beer bong, they also made a big ass piñata like literally an ass after watching that "family guy" episode.)

so to start off, the lead character who lost his pants, started off as the man of my dreams. total book crush! jason was a english major from cornell (that abused cliffnotes) who used to deejay in college and loved country, folk and indie rock. he was from the mid-west, which i always find endearing. he wore thick frame, was sarcastic, funny, and referenced karen o. and jeff koons. but here's the kicker a pork eating jew! (he ordered a bacon cheeseburger.) i do dream of marrying a jew but for cultural not religious reasons and as jason said judaism for his family was "more woody allen, less abraham and esther". and let me clarify, i'm not prejudice, any religion would do, it's just that judaism has the best holidays and they celebrate all of them!

but then jason went on a downward spiral and lost his dreaminess. i was okay with his whatever job or what douglas coupland referred to as "mcjob". but when he lost his job and then proceed to do nothing, it was quite sad. and before you get all judgy on me because yes i did spend two years on unemployment and yes the lectures jason's friends gave him did remind me of the lectures my friends gave me! there was a difference. i like all the other welfare moms and anyone else getting government handouts found life more comfortable on unemployment than with a 9 to 5. even you with the worker bee gene would become depended on a life of leisure thanks to uncle sam versus slaving away for a check. plus jason spent all his time getting high and drunk. i was out getting cultured and stimulating the economy with my government issued checks. also unemployment is not bad it's just when you become a mess due to it, i mean jason wasn't showering. when i was funemployed a handful of my friends were too and we'd go to museums and have other random and free adventures around down. but back to jason, yes i was once a slob like him, i mean no one truly has life figured out but it's like do something other than get drunk and high all the time. to quote cher from "clueless": "it is one thing to spark up a doobie and get laced at parties, but it is quite another to be fried all day." and drop e in the proper settings, raves, music festivals, light installations exhibits, not just a friday night at the bar. what a waste! and again i am not contradicting myself. i may do drugs occassionally but when it's appropriate.

oh and another issue i had with jason or the book but lack of condom use. there was no mention of him using condoms in this book. i mean we are the safe sex generation, we have been told countless times to use protection. and yet this book lacked it. i am disgusted if it was because the character didn't use them. i'm even more disgusted if the author didn't include it because it would have ruined the flow of the story. sorry but i'd rather have the heat of the moment interrupted with condom talk or putting one on versus waking up with some nasty std.

also he nicknamed his penis. gross.

but i do have to give him props for taking care of his neighbor patty. that was sweet. that gave me faith that he would get his shit together that maybe in a couple of years he'll be the man he needs to be.

so the book is a look at jason's life and honestly depicts how it is to be a twentysomething, the going out, the hooking up, the lack of real employment, and the friends at different stages of life. and how at times it sucks but it can also be a lot of fun. and i have to admit i saw a lot of myself in him, even the crying at commercials when life gets alittle overwhelming. this book did speak a lot of truths not only for twentysomethings but also new yorkers (i never lived in new york but from what tv tells me).

for example, the take-out place knowing your order because you call so often. this happens to jason and his favorite place, hunan. this never happened to me bit it reminded me of the "sex and the city" episode when miranda feels like the chinese take out girl is judging her.

i was reminded of another show, "how i met your mother" (also set in new york), the episode when robin, ted, and barney go out a club while lily and marshall try to do more grown up things and have a wine tasting and play board games with their married friends. there is the exact same critique in "i just want my pants back", jason commented on how his engaged friends stacey and eric have grown up parties with wine sipping not swigging and pictionary and talk of investing and buying apartments which all turns to charlie brown grown up talk to him. it was so like the HIMYM bit that i checked to see if the author wrote for him. he didn't, it's just a part of growing up. and it's so true my college friends that coupled, have started doing their own thing together and excluded the single ones, which is really just me. though i will add the gays are so much better about including everyone. my gay friends that couple never go into nesting mode like the straights.

and last but not least, patty had a little talk with jason about age, which describes my current state to a t. patty is jason's older neighbor but forgets her age when she hangs out with jason, she feels younger going out and hanging out. one night, she reflected back on her life and thought of all the silly things she has done and realized that she still does do silly things. and granted i am only turning 30, i got what she said. she told him:  

i'm still silly about so many things. maybe it's because i never settled down or had kids, but i think my brain is in arrested development or something like that.

i worry about the same thing, i do have 

peter pan syndrome, i have never been forced to grow up. and it's not bad, i have fun in life but i need something to start me on adulthood. and it needs to happen soon cos i'm 6 months away from 30! but i am so caught up in the now, i can't plan for the future.

i know such deep thoughts for a "hipster" book.

ironically, as much as the series was called a hipster series and therefore the book was probably labelled hipster. the characters did not identify themselves as hipsters. jason and tina are out at some dive bar and jason observed,

"it was full of twentysomething downtowners in assorted stylish smocks. it was a little like looking into a mirror, but someone we believed we were far more genuine than the others. you couldn't trust the others. they looked like us and they talked us, but at night, they went home and slept in pods. we slept in beds."

this the same theory my friend jerry and i have. we realized that we look like hipsters when we go out. plus we are asian so we have that asian hipster look. but though we look like them we are not a part of them. we are more genuine! as jerry phrases it, "we are partners in our hip-non-hipster-ness". i know it all seems like a farce like the ones we are judging us back. but we really are hip and it's genuine and we are not hipsters! i swear. (going to end here before i start sounding crazy.)

midnight's children. salman rushdie. (87)

i waited almost a year for salman rushdie's "midnight children". a year. i think the library has a policy where if a person requests a book from the library it is originally from they get priority over others already on the request list. i can only assume this is why i waited forever.

it had been so long that when i finally got "midnight's children" i forgot why i checked it out, i know it was flavorpill inspired. i tried googling it but came up with nothing. (though i did discover that a movie version is coming out so that became a reason to read it.). since i couldn't find a post, i realized that i had requested the book by mistake. i had wanted his new book and ended up with "midnight's children" instead. (i just realized how this mix-up was a perfect set up for this book.)

but even with the mix-up the book looked interesting. the cover declared it as a winner of the booker prize. and when i googled it, "midnight's children" was compared to "one hundred years of solitude" (which we all know i absolutely love). however, i did not fall in love "midnight children" like i expected. "one hundred years" it was not. with garcia marquez's classic, i couldn't put it down and became invested in the family. this didn't exactly happen with "midnight'd children".

to be completely honest, i found "midnight's children" a challenge to read. i never give up on books, but the thought to stop often crossed my mind. and it's not that the premise for the book is bad. saleem sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on the day of india's independence and ends up with special powers. he and all the children born in that hour have special powers and they make up the midnight's children conference. intriguing , right?

i think that part of my issue with the book was that based on synopses i read online, i was expecting a book about the midnight children's conference but instead it is solely saleem's biography. so in my head i kept waiting for them to appear and they rarely did. i have to add i blame googling for this, if i just read the backcover i would have known better. lesson: read don't take short cuts.

another thing that i struggled with were the historical references. saleem's life truly mirrored the course of india's history. i am not familiar with indian and pakistani history so a lot of the references went over my head. though thanks to google i did learn that indira ghandi did have white and black hair (and just like saleem wrote, i was misled by her surname). and that morarji desai was actually a urine drinker, though the book made it sound more sinister like some sexual perversion instead of being for health reasons. however, i often got lost in the political and war talk so those parts were quite tedious for me. i also felt like i was missing out on some foreshadowing because i wasn't familiar with india's history. for example, was the midnight child who could time travel correctly predict the future? if anyone can help me i would greatly appreciate it!

but what i found the most tedious was how long it took rushdie, as saleem, to get to the point or the meat of his stories. i mean the climax of the story comes at page 491 . . . there are 533 pages total. and i mean his stories are great, brilliant! but he's kinda liked my sister, jill, she gets so lost in random details that i often stop listening to her stories or ask her to pick it up.

but let me reiterate his stories are brilliant! and i have to admit that there was mythical element to his tales that was very one hundred years-esque (but garcia marquez is the superior storyteller.) i loved the tale of how his grandparents met and the perforated sheet. i like saleem, fell in love with his sister, brass monkey and enjoyed how as a child she would set fire to shoes. the story of saleem's birth and the secret of mary pereira took me by surprise. i was on the edge of my seat with the tale of commander sabarmati's baton. i was scare of the jungle which reminded me of the forest of "the hobbit". and i loved hearing about all of the secret powers of the midnight children but wished he would would have wrote more about them.

there were also some very sad and tragic moments in the story. like how saleem lost his family. or what happen to his favorite uncle. i was also heartbroken with the end of the midnight's children. what made their end was worse was that it was pointless. because the widow didn't even come into power. and i believe in the end of shiva, i believe saleem's lie.

the heart of the story was great it was just cluttered which made it difficult to love. if rushdie was more straight forward with his writing and focused on the stories, it would have been great.

also this was the first book that i used my first bookmarks for my friends shawn and dan. they are super cute and allow me to take notes which is helpful with the blog. this is the one i wrote for this book:

so here are my notes:

i wrote down "mercurochrome" because it reminded me of my grandfather. saleem's grandfather was a doctor and he helped care for protesters for india's independence and appliesd it to them which results in him looking bloody which frightened his wife. this reminded me of my grandfather, he used to use mercurochrome which always confused me as a child. he would put on his cuts which made him look more bloody.

i wrote down swastika because when saleem told the story of lifafa das. saleem described the scene of his attack with a swastika on the wall but not the "nazi swastika which was the wrong way round, but the ancient hindu symbol of power. svasti in sanskrit for good." i am not sure how the nazi ended up using it but it was interesting to see how a symbol can take on one negative connotation and be ruined for all of history.

last but not least, padma from "top chef". so the first thing i noticed was the character padma and wonder if she was named for padma lakshmi. padma was rushdie's second wife but they were not married, let alone knew each other at the time that he wrote "midnight's children" so that was not the case. but how odd that he ended up marrying the name of a lover of one of his characters?!? also padma is nothing like the other padma in terms of looks/size but both cook. i read that a character in his new book is based on her and their troubled marriage, so will have to check that out.

so yes even though this book was tedious, i have not given up on salman rushdie and look forward to reading his works. hopefully they don't take another year to get to me when i request them.

ira & abbey.

after watching chris messina in "ruby sparks" i was inspired to look into what other movies he has been in and came across "ira & abby".  i knew nothing about it but since he's cute and i love romantic comedies, i assumed it couldn't be that bad.

plus when i picked up the movie, i saw that the cover touted as "the best manhattan love story since 'when harry met sally'". so figured i was in for a treat. however, i wasn't. it wasn't that the movie was bad it's just wasn't good. the story premise was kinda lame. ira and abbey meet when ira goes to sign up at the gym that abbey works at. they hit it off and sort out the type of person the other is and about a hour of knowing each other abbey proposes to ira. and they get married!

it goes well at first. then things fall apart. they go to therapy (btw his parents are analysts not therapists.) all of the therapist were random actors/comedians ie jason alexander which was cool. then ira's mom has an affair with abbey's dad. so even more therapy. (ps ira's mom is played by the mom from "who's the boss"; never a fan of the show so forgot her name.)

oh and random appearance of jon hamm as abbey's second husband who is a heroin addict in recovery but still hot if you like longish hair.

but they figure life out thanks to a large therapy session with everyone.

it was okay. nothing that struck a cord with me. i didn't want to cry which is always a sign of the romcom. the only thing i loved was how abbey's family did their christmas card in costumes. so going to steal that.

but regardless of the movie, chris messina was adorable and totally drool worthy. but watch him in old episodes of "the mindy project" versus adding this to your netflix queue.

quinceañera: a latina's journey to womanhood. mary d. lankford. (86)

while looking for books about hannukah, i came across this gem. it's been sitting on my shelf for about a month now (i renewed it, so it's not overdue) but finally got around to reading it and actually learned a lot about quinceañeras.

sadly and regrettably i did not have a quince. however, i was in my friend sofia samano's court, so i have experienced a quince first hand. i went to mass and of course danced the waltz, but i never got to be the belle of the ball. or should i say la reina de la fiesta. oh well. maybe in another life or my thirty birthday. cos seriously i need a cake like this in my life:

so thanks to the book i learned some new things about quinceañeras and was also reminded of some great traditions. first, i learned that i would have never survived life as an aztec.  this is assuming that i still have my atheist/agnostic tendencies and independent spirit in precolonial mexico.  but as the book explained, "in mexico's native american aztec civilizations, girls of twelve or thirteen attended two types of school, the Calmacac or the Telpucucali.  those who entered the calmacac school prepare for a lifetime of religious service.  girls who enrolled in the telpucucali school prepared for marriage."  seriously god or marriage, the only options in life, isn't great to be a woman?  if this was all i was offered in life, i would have had a serious disney princess moment about keeping with traditions.

anyway, to continue our history lesson, after the spanish conquered the aztecs in 1521, this tradition of aztec rites become catholic-ified because the spanish are catholic.   fifteen became the age for young women to choose between marriage or god.  looks like spanish colonial me would have hated life as well.  and as the book explains "these rites received the name quinceañera from the spanish word for fifteen, quince, and birthday, anos." does this whole choose between god and marriage still exist?  should i be a nun or a wife?  though i guess in both ways you are a wife, of god or some machismo senor with a tendency to get drunk and cry to sad songs.

and maybe it's just the feminist in me or the old maid in me but this whole marriage talk at 15 kinda scares me.  i mean you haven't even lived life yet and your folks are sending you to mass to learn about marriage?  (btw i don't know if this is true so please clarify if i am wrong).  i mean even the book referred to the fact that the girl having the quince looked like a young bride in her dress!  ekkkk!

but there really is nothing to worry about because today's quinces are just an excuse to party. and who doesn't love a party?  one of the traditions that the book mentioned and which i absolutely love was the presenting of heels.  (that is not it's offical name but what i'm going to call it).  so the dad of the girl presents her with her first pair of grown up shoes aka heels and she has her first dance as a "woman".  awwwwww.  how cute, right?

the book was actually a good book for kids to read about quinceañeras.  also for adults that didn't have any latin american friends growing up.  though they should make an updated version cos there were some crazy 80's dresses in in that i loved but might not be everyone's cup of tea.

happythankyoumoreplease

what is with me and tv character obsessions? but yes i did check this out because "ted mosby" wrote and directed it. i wanted to see it in theaters (especially because the landmark did a q&a with josh radnor) but it got bad reviews so was okay when i didn't see it in a theater. what re-sparked my interest in it was my new girl crush zoe kazan starred in it too. well not major but minor.

so the thing that i have to remember when i watch my favorite tv actors in movies is that they are not their tv characters. i realized that when sam (radnor) started cussing, ted mosby doesn't say fuck well more like i never heard him say it. i was expecting to watch a ted mosby movie and that was not the case.

this movie was okay, nothing really to write home about. it follows the life of sam, a writer and his friends. sam helped this foster kid who was left on the subway and instead of sending him back into the system, kept him for a few days (yes which is essentially kidnapping) and discovered the kid is good at art and tried to develop that talent in him. he also met a girl named mississippi and they decide to have a "three night stand" which is kind of a cute concept. act like a couple for three days to see how it works versus just one night of sex. i would have signed his contract. and she is this singer and she asked him to her show but he doesn't want to go cos what if she is bad? then his attending her show becomes this symbol of his commitment to her. and in the end he goes. she is supposed to be amazing but i thought she sucked. she sang this bad show tune kinda song. it ended the movie on a bad note in my opinion.

another storyline is his friend annie who has alopecia which they treat as this horrible ailment. she even hosted an awareness dinner. and i get everyone has their own self-image battles but i think the head wraps made her look more ridiculous than her hair loss. she looked like a wannabe black girl, kinda like a wigga but that is not the right phrase. she didn't read bohemian but more like a wanna-be erykah badu, so i couldn't take her seriously. her whole thing was that she doesn't realize her beauty until she started dating this guy she was initially annoyed by from her office. btw this guy was buster from arrested development!!! anyway the title comes from story she shared at dinner where this taxi driver teaches her this mantra so she could have more happiness in her life.

then there is mary catherine (played by kazan) who was sam's cousin. her boyfriend wanted to move to la and she is anti-it because she hates la. but he gives this amazing description of la which is very true.

--

she gets preggers and then crazy. her bf proposed to her (without knowing that she was knocked up). but she freaked out because she is not the marriage type. but they end up happily ever after.

see the story lines were ho-hum. i didn't become invested in any of them.

but you know what i did love! the soundtrack!!! it was amazing and sadly not available anywhere. but wikipedia listed out the track list and surprise surprise the music supervisor is andy gowan from "how i met your mother". the man is really amazing!!!

tiny furniture.

if you know anything about me or have been around me, you know that i've been on a "girls" kick.  and so in desire to be up-to-date on all things lena dunham, i decided to check out "tiny furniture". also will be attending a "girls" party and don't want to be embarrassed by the fact that i haven't seen it.

"tiny furniture" is a look at the life of aura, who just graduated from college, broke up with her bf and moved back home. btw aura's mom and sister are played by lena's actual mom and sister! her sister has some crazy long legs(i wonder if she has the same complex as me about a skinner younger sister?). also found out that her mom is an artist just like her "character".

due to this art imitating real life element, and of course the similarities of this film to "girls", i wonder how much of lena's productions are really just her life.

things that are for sure her life:
-bathing with company. she is always having deep talks about life with someone while she is bathing
-a fear of aids though not necessarily but probably due to "forrest gump"
-she really does have a tattoo on her bum that jemima kirke gave her
-she's a big fan of woody allen
-she's a masochist when it comes to sex and relationships.

i also came to realize that not only is lena just hannah but jemima kirke is really just jessa because her character charlotte was just jessa. i saw in an interview that lena has to beg jemima to be in the tv series and after watching this i have to assume that she didn't want to turn her actual personality into a tv persona. i also now kinda hate her because who could be that fabulous in life. yes jessa is a bit of a mess but she is the bohemian i could never be. if i get a second chance at life i want to come back with her spirit.

[ps just found this article online at vanityfair.com with jemima kirke. looks like i was wrong:

Did you have a hand in shaping your characters in Girls and Tiny Furniture?

Yes, I think there’s a reason why she gave me these roles. Not necessarily because our behaviors are the same, but because perhaps there was a similarity historically between the characters and me. I definitely don’t act like those characters, but there is a lot that I can understand. I think there is also a reason why she gave me such a similar character in the show to the movie. And that reason is that I don’t know that my range in acting is that big. I think that I can do just a few different things. I’m not trained.]

also alex karpovsky also finally grew on me. not that i didn't appreciate his doucheness in "girls", his mickey d's rant, genius! but finally found him attractive. or maybe it was just the fact that he dressed up like a cowboy on a toy horse with these really cool cactus balloons in the background. (i am going to look for said cactus balloons for a future photo session and maybe coachella).

so "tiny furniture" is a very honest look at how it is to be back from home after college. it sucks cos you don't really fit into your home life anymore because though it is your home, it really isn't. i thought aura's freakout was great because that is how you feel sometimes that your family doesn't get you anymore.

the film also shows how much it sucks having to get some random job because let's face college does not give you any real work experience. ability to write last minute paper or takes detailed notes can never be listed on a resume. and the pay is never what you need to survive aura works as a daytime hostess at a restaurant and meets the man of my dreams though he turns out to be a dick! which sadly still makes him the man of dreams but a sous chef that reads! why can't i find that on okcupid. but he turns out to be a male slut and they end up hooking up in a pipe which sounds gross but is also kind of amazing.

also realized just like i have on the series that as much as i love lena's characters they are also so damn selfish. aura screwed over her college friend who moved out to new york. aura was supposed to her roommate but bailed on her the day before she heads out to nyc. which is really messed up. but i get the selfishness, as a gemini it's in my zodiac coding.

there is a lot of praise for it and it won a lot of rewards. but i wasn't mad for it like i am mad for "girls" but still worth a watch.

i has the criterion copy but sadly didn't watch special features because our DVD remote is broken. but may watch them on the criterion's youtube channel.

last but not least do not like lena with long hair. and actually love it super super short. so cute!

how i met your mother. season seven.

i came late to the "how i met your mother" game. my friend larry was a huge fan but didn't think much of it (though i should start to trust him, he surprisingly has good taste in tv). then my friend saba started watching old episodes via netflix and i got hooked. and thank goodness for lifetime and fx airing it because i have gotten somewhat caught up. however new episodes are a bit of challenge. my lack of a dvr causes me to miss new episodes because monday is "dancing with the stars" night for grandma bea. plus i don't get home til 9pm. but thankfully the library has it on dvd. though i will have to wait for season 8 to come out so i can be completely caught up.

the first thing that shocked me was the number of episodes in one season. there were 24!!! i thought it would take me forever to watch but only two days. episodes were like pringles, once i popped i couldn't stop!

so here is my breakdown of the episodes (well some of them, i mean there are 24):

episode 1: so first of all, i knew barney was going to marry robin. for a while, i thought it was nora but they way lily tells ted the bride wants to see him, it had to be robin! (and i was right!)

so love love loved the "groove is in the heart" dance sequence! really neil Patrick harris is so darn cute!!! why must he be gay?!?! also love love loved robin's new hairstyle! and marshall and lily should have waited three months before they announced they were preggers (i'm superstitious about stuff like that!)

episode 2: edward forty-hands reminded me of my guy friends, they were doing that back in like 2004. this episode also made me grateful that all of our crazy partying was done pre-iphones cos we would def have some "beercules" videos on youtube.

episode 3: seriously victoria is back?!?! I hated her. she was so lame and boring. i mean she made ted wait for sex and that whole the lead up to the kiss thing, was a sad attempt to be sexy. i also hated her for her planting that seed of doubt in ted about robin, barney and his friendship! so it is kinda weird but they are such good friends who would want to ruin that? lame victoria! i hate that they brought her back!

but i do love them for their cleverness! when barney sneezed early in the episode i bought it was so random but figured they kept it in cos it happened during taping but didn't disrupt it. but it turns out that barney trained marahall like a pavlov dog to want shinjitsu every time he sneezed. so funny and clever!!

episode 4: i don't like kumar being on the show. i knew from seeing the nye episode when it aired that he and robin date this season. but do not like them as a couple.

episode 8: i always wanted ted to find the slutty pumpkin. but really katie holmes?!?! normally there are great surprise actors on the show but they really drop the ball on this one. i was mixed emotional, was so excited ted finally found the slutty pumpkin but was annoyed it was katie holmes. also the slutty pumpkin needed some sexier lingerie. it's actually a good costume, maybe i'll do it for halloween next year. was it a thing this year? i didn't go out so can't say.

it also got me thinking, he looked for her for 9 years, that is kinda crazy. but i think of missed connections i had that long ago like this crazy haired guy jeff i went to school with or this other random guy who picked me up (though didn't get my number, he was kinda drunk) by asking me to hug him like there was no else in the world (he was really cute so that line worked cos if not it would be freaky). and i wonder what happen to them, i mean if i knew they would randomly show up at some party every year, would i go? honestly probably not, well maybe for jeff. but i do have a missed connection from about 6 years ago i would try to rekindle. it wasn't a missed connection exactly because he did find me on myspace and we exchanged numbers. but he had a gf so it was more of a severed connection once she found out about his new friend, me. i did see him about two years ago at a food and wine event with a new girl. i should have said hello but didn't. he was cute and going to law school and liked to karaoke and interpol! i am quite the stalker and have found him on fb (i do know his full name) but that seems way too stalkery to message him. maybe i'll post a missed connection on craigslist and see if that works. so though it seems crazy, i commend ted for putting himself out there and at least trying.

also i need to make that tootsie roll drink!

episode 9: i really need a sign up in a place because something i have done. challenge accepted!

episode 10: i know in the post about junot diaz's book i said boo to cheating, but in a fictional world it is a okay! so yes i was in support of robin and barney cheating, i really liked them as a couple.

the concert: hilarious! it reminded me of our lady gaga cousin adventure (quick digression: the last time i hung out with my cousin danielle, she told me that my stories were himym-ish, i was quite flattered). we lost joann and roamed around the entire arena and even had security help is look for her. and then we found her in the very first bathroom we went into and had a huge party in.

anyway, i have to admit that i am pretty amazing at concerts in this regard. last coachella during florence at the machine i had to pee badly, like piss on myself bad. so i went by myself in the middle of their set. as i was walking back i thought to myself, how am i going to find my friends? but guess what! i did!!! those light up tambourines sure did help. my friend mona was amazed, she was sure they had lost me. we were all really drunk and/or "full of sandwiches" so i could have been a goner but i'm quite resourceful when i'm trashed!

ps love that the guitar man was a cardboard cut-out! lol

episode 11: bro-parents! when i saw this episode i texted larry to see if he and peter could become bro-parents. though i realized later that they did try it once before with stella, their dog. in the end, peter kept the dog, which is how it would probably play out if they ever had a kid.

i was also excited about the robin and barney kid news!

ps loved jai from queer eye for the straight guy was on this episode!

episode 12: i had read about this episode online. and thought it was kinda weird and very serious. i thought this season had some very serious moments but that is life as we get older, our lives are no longer just fun and games. i felt bad for robin, not being able to have kids. it's one thing to decide not to have kids and quite another to physically not be able to. i am always scared this is going to happen I me, that i will end up like charlotte from "sex and the city". i think it was great that himym did an episode about this because this is an issue for thirtysomething women. however i did not like how forlorn it was, that she had no children at all, i mean adoption is always an option for women. i also can't imagine barney not being a dad. but maybe there will be a twist? she had no real kids in that episode so there is still an opportunity for adopted kids.

episode 13: i skipped this on the dvd because i saw it when it aired. this episode made me cry, i was pms-ing. it was just so sweet to see marshall still bonding with his dad.

episode 14: this is a great example of why this show is so great! how they redid the opening credits to do "how i met your barney" then the russian opening! when the gang changed. it's things like this that have caused me to fall in love with the show. like how some of te made up websites for the show are actual websites online. it's kinda amazing tha they do things like that!

episode 15: i didn't like this episode. found it uninteresting. though i did what to know what happen to the gouda.

episode 16: i was not at all excited about kevin and robin. and though it was sad was happy that he un-proposed because she couldn't have kids. sad but kevin wouldn't make her happy he was too easily weirded out by the gang for it to work.

episode 17: seriously ted! he just can't get over robin. it was kids sad that he is still hung up on her but then again i spent about 4 years of my life hung up on someone that only saw me as a friend. so i get it.

and though it was sad when marshall asked robin to move out but i understand it too. as much as i hate the bakery bitch (victoria), their friendship was hindering ted from finding the one. i think the reason why i have been single for the past 5 years or so are due to the friendship that i had. i didn't need a boyfriend because i spent all of my time with cody. even now i am never lonely for companion because i have a guy friend that can fill any void. dinner? larry. art date? jerry. concert? danny. happy hour? shawn. i am never in need. and let's be honest my body's current state has ruined any desire for sex. i am so fat that i wouldn't want to have sex with myself. so it's tough because as much as i love my guy friends i am never sadly lonely so am never motivated to date. but now my age is staring to kick me in the butt on the dating front. (wow himym really captures all of these awkward stages in life.)

ps i saw on wikipedia that conan was in the background in this. i totally missed it and returned the dvd to the library so will youtube it.

episode 18: hated the introduction of karma. barney couldn't get over robin that quickly! it was as if he was a completely different person that the first half of the season was a different character. made no sense!

episode 19: i want to start having intervention for my group of friends.

episode 20: i have never seen the star wars trilogy and i need too. this made me sad because so much can change in 3 years. this made me hopeful that maybe in 3 years i'll have a kid like ted. my only complaint was why did they still have the apt after three years, marshall and ted are both dads. moving out should have happened.

episode 21: barney and i would be the best of friends. i would be game for any of "the night that . . ." adventures he came up with. especially the mariachi one. seriously through if we were friends, it would be lengen---wait for it---dary!!! i mean i am good at laser tag, and by good, i mean i get super melodramatic and act like i'm in some vietnam reenactment. but seriously he's awesome, and i am awesome so we would be super awesome together. though not as awesome as he and robin together.

episode 22-24: WTF ted?!?! the bakery chick?!?! seriously??? she shows up in her wedding dress! red flag! she is obviously not marriage material! robin is right you do go for wrong the people. you are goddamn idiot. did you forget she held out on you? that again is not marriage material! good luck but your life is end up going to shit if you stay with her!

on a happier note that was a great birth story! and that kid does have the coolest middle name though i would never give it to my kid. and i knew barney was going to propose but thank god he ends up with robin!!!!! so happy for them!

so that was lone but the season was. thanks for reading this much.

bottle rocket.

i adore wes anderson but i have never seen his early movies and by early i mean "bottle rocket" and "rushmore" (yeah i know it's horrible that i haven't seen the later, especially if i claim i love anderson but i haven't and i do.)

and to be honest, good thing this is the first time i saw it because if "bottle rocket" was the first anderson film i ever saw i would have never watched the others. i mean the only thing that reminded me of the rest of the anderson movies was the music. the music was quirky but perfect for every scene like all of his movies. and also pagoda is in it! i googled and his name is kumar pallana but he'll alway be pagoda to me.

this movie was missing whimsy. there is this feeling of warm fuzzies one gets watching anderson films and i didn't get them watching this. normally i get lost in his films, i become a member of that dysfunctional family and love them quirks and all. and there are also cute moments sprinkled through out his films, like the plays of margot tenebaum, the random sea creatures of "the life aquatic", the letter writing between sam and susie but none of that in "bottle rocket." there were no memorable scenes either.

visually it was nothing close to an anderson film. there were no cute sets. nor did he do his single shot scan through multiple rooms thing. wes probably hadn't seen "the graduate" yet so "bottle rocket" didn't have any mike nichols-esque shots. it lacked heart, it was as if wes was trying to be late 90's cool when he just needed to be his oddball self.

james caan couldn't even save it. i was so excited to see him in it. sonny back and alive but his character fell short for me.

i mean not everyone can be amazing from the beginning. a lot of people have strong debuts and than suck so i'm glad he made this. but let's be honest, i feel no need to buy the criterion version of this film.

this is how you lose her. junot diaz (86)

i wanted "this is how you lose her" to be my last book of 2012 but it ended up being my first book of 2013.

this has been on my radar since september, i loved "the brief and wondrous life of oscar wao" and so debated buying this book or checking it out. i went with the later.

"this is how you lose her" is a collection of stores in that demonstrate how you can lose a girlfriend, wife, fiancée, lover, by simply following the example of narrator, yunior. the last story is actually titled "the cheater's guide to love" in which he gives instructions on how to royally fuck up your life after cheating on your fiancee. there is also some random story from the perspective of a woman, yasmin, who worked in a hospital laundry room and the lover of a married man. i'm not sure why it was included other than the fact that she and yunior are both dominican. (maybe its to show the perspective of the "other" woman.)

the stories are tales of yunior's lovers and how their romances left him with a brokenheart. and before you pity him please note that his love life always went to shit because he couldn't keep his dick in his pants! the pendejo was always cheating! (if my language was too vulgar for your right now you might want to skip to book.) his lovers blamed his infidelity on his heritage. dominicanos are cheaters, his cheating was genetic; his father, his brother and he were all sucios (i googled and according to various sites it means a man who treats women poorly, a dirty man, sinful). though genetic may be the wrong word, it's more cultural, i mean stereotypes have some starting point. i don't know any dominicanos, so can not deny or verify this but all of the women avoid yunior like the plague, simply based on his race. but let's be honest, they reason they cheated most likely had to do with the fact that they are men.

we all know the whole men need to spread their seed.  but i have to add that women are not the better sex by default.  and the women of these stories do their fair share of cheating too.  i mean it does take two to tango when it comes to having an affair.  but in addition to that, they also use men for their money.  yunior's older brother gets screwed over by a woman who married him than took off with his money and his car after he died from cancer.  (now that is one fucked up bitch.)  yunior's best friend was swindled into believing he fathered a son in the dominican republic.  even yunior gets suckered into paying bills when he thinks he's a baby daddy.  it's horrible but kinda understandable considered they did it to provide for their children.

but back to the cheating.  i do not understand infidelity but at the same time i don't understand commitment. though i have to admit that i have tried to homewreck twice in my life though neither attempts were successful. plus one was in high school so it doesn't really count. i remember reading in this novel, "love monkey" that it was easier to get someone already in a relationship to fall in love with you because you only had to be better than that one person, their partner versus single people where you have to be better than all the infinite possibilities of partners in the world. which i found to be some good logic. but cheating is still wrong. and before you think i am throwing stones from a glass house, i never did anything with the people i was trying to homewreck, and wouldn't have until they broke up with their girlfriends.

the problem i have with cheating is the lying. i understand that love is finite, forever is a long time to love someone.  i mean even god has his off day with mankind. and yes it is hurtful to discover that someone has fallen out of "love" with you and in with someone else. but it's better to know about it versus having someone cheat and lie to you before it is exposed. it's bad enough knowing that you are unloveable why add extra lies on top of it. and yes, my reactions to cheating is all theoretical, i have never had to deal with a cheating partner. i have had to deal with a cheating stepparent, and was okay when i found out my stepdad was cheating on my mom. i wasn't hurt but then again never really loved him as a father in the first place. (this may sound harsh but when your first dad screws you over, you have low expectations for any other man that tries to follow suit). nor was i willing to forgive him, and found my mother stupid (this might sound harsh but really is the best adjective) for attempting to mend things. my view on the cheating is that once you cheat you are unworthy of my love, and i will no longer give it to you.  and for those who think, but s/he was my soulmate, that that is bs too because a soulmate would never cheat on you.  don't cheat people, have respect for your former lover and let them know what is going on. and if you are looking for a fling than your ass shouldn't have committed in the first place because you obviously are not ready for it.

so this is going to sound really harsh but after looking at junot diaz's photo on the inside cover, i can't imagine anyone wanting to cheat with him.  in my world, only hot people cheat, because how could one person, let alone two people want to sleep with an ugly?  btw, he's not ugly, just not my time.  i mean i guess i would sleep with him because i enjoy his writing.  i love his style of writing.  it's like elevated street talk, filled with pop cultural references, spanish slang, geek speak and clever imagery.  one of my favorite lines was "has a mouth like unswept glass when you least expect it she cuts you." it's a perfect description of those bitches that know how to cut your down just with their words.

with all of this great imagery, of course his stories are great (well sad because it's all about how he fucked up his love lives)  but as i read his stories, they felt way too autobiographical.  i mean i get that most of the time writers write about what they know best, themselves, but in this case, it's seems as if this works are really just his life and he changed names.  i felt the same way when i read "the brief wondrous life of oscar wao", oscar wao just him growing up.  it felt like i was reading a diary versus a novel.  however that could just be a testament to his writing, that it's so raw and real that you can't imagine it being made up.  so i guess kudos to him for making his stories so realistic.  (random digression:  but the premise of this book reminded me of a book, i wanted to write about my college years called "the asshole magnet" about how i attracted nothing about assholes in college.)

and in this new light, i highly recommend it, (i would have recommended it regardless, it's just that as i read i was like really dude this is just your life!).  it was a great start to my new year of reading, i just hope it does not foreshadow the kind of year my love life will have.