my moral standing is lying down

Part of the reason I haven't updated much is that I'm doing mostly nothing so I have nothing to talk about. I have another job interview on Monday which I'm hoping will be the last because jesus FUCK I need a job right now.

I went into downtown LA today to take a walk around the fashion district. 'Cause I can't afford to buy anything anyway, and it's something to do that's free (aside, of course, from parking and the cost of gas). It was sort of a cross between NYC's Chinatown, garment district, wholesale district, and London's Camden Town. Thankfully, I was able to successfully resist buying anything. Mostly because there wasn't anything as interesting as what's in Camden Town, ahaha.

I parked at a lot a bit farther away than I thought I was, for a $3 flat rate (after 4pm), which was great! What wasn't so great is that I started walking in the wrong direction and ended up walking through a bad neighborhood. LOL, go me! There were a lot of homeless people lining the streets in this area; I think I walked past a shelter on one block. But wow, waaaaay more homeless people than I'd ever seen before all in one area. Plus shady-looking characters who weren't homeless.

I'm absolutely sure I walked past a car-side drug deal going down.

As I was approaching the corner of the block were I'd be mostly getting out of the area (finally), I saw two policemen patting a guy down. Hoo boy.

I told Rich and he said "almost like being back home, then", but honestly I was more worried, and much more aware of sticking out like a sore thumb than I ever have been in NYC-- including the bad areas of NYC. Part of that is familiarity maybe, but most of it is that in the area I walked through there were very very very FEW other non-homeless/non-creepy/non-shady people walking on the street. Extremely disconcerting.

And just to clarify, it really has nothing to do with race. I'm way more comfortable in non-white neighborhoods than I am in white neighborhoods.

Anyway, all's well that ends well, but it was a good long five minutes of mental tension.

On a completely different note, I've discovered a couple of iTunes (metal & hard rock) radio stations that I really like and have figured out how to play them on my iPhone! \o/ So I've been listening to those at home and in my car sort of non-stop lately. It's an about-face from what I'd been doing before-- though even if I'd discovered them in NYC I wouldn't have been able to listen to the stations during my (subway) commute, so I suppose it's moot.

And because of the new radio stations I've been listening to I've sort of rediscovered Chevelle. Downloaded their new album and am enjoying it though only one song has stood out for me so far. I'm considering going to their show (with Dead Sara, to whom I'm pretty indifferent, but whose name I adore for obvious reasons) here on April 25th, but we'll see.

I'm EXTREMELY bummed I wasn't able to get a ticket to the Primus show in June. General admission tickets were gone within the first few minutes. A lot of them are up on stubhub, but I'm too broke to justify the hiked up prices. I'll check back again when it gets closer to the show date, or if I get a job soon and can afford it. But still, WILL I EVER GET TO SEE THEM LIVE BEFORE I DIE? T_T

My parents' house was robbed last night. No one was home at the time, though we think my father coming home and talking to the neighbor on the front porch scared them into running out the back patio. They got my parents' passports, two laptops, and my mom's external hard drive. Which my mom is completely broken-hearted about since it was the only copy of her 26+ years of work at UNDP before retiring at the beginning of this year.

Beat cops and the evidence team were surprisingly quick -- they were finished within three hours of my father's call to 911 and two hours of arriving at the house.

Still, now I get to go to my parents in an hour or so and start calling banks, credit bureaus, and repairmen. Not fun.

In other news, I'm trying to sell some of my stuff in preparation for moving to LA in February. If you have any interest in comics or manga, check these out-- I've got them up on craigslist right now, but you guys have first dibs if you get back to me within the next day or two. And the last one is definitely negotiable; make me an offer!

DEMO comics by Brian Wood & Becky Cloonan - $8
Vampire Comics - Bite Club (complete) and Anita Blake (1-4) - $10
Lot of 32 English Manga (Kenshin, Hikaru no Go, Utena, Nana, more) - $50

Last thing-- I'm hosting the upcoming SEX IS NOT THE ENEMY FICATHON and need a banner or two for promotion! Anyone willing to come up with something? I was supposed to work on it last night but then this crap happened. =(((

I've really got to get back into the habit of posting again, I really hate going a whole week without checking my flist and then having to play catch-up and missing awesome things like music friending memes and M&G/concert reports, and then also having like a million things to update about, too. So here goes.

Drove down to Philly on Tuesday so Juliet and I could get inked. This was also THE DAY OF THE DC EARTHQUAKE WTF. Juliet had to take the bus back that night so Nicole did her first; I stayed over and she did me and I drove back to NYC on Wednesday afternoon. So actually, these weren't as painful as the chest tats I had done a couple years ago (and didn't take as long, either -- 5 hours altogether instead of 8), but the aftermath has been way worse. My upper arms are very swollen, which is sometimes uncomfortable and sometimes very painful; I've got heat rash from the humidity like you wouldn't believe. Don't even ask me to describe it because it's horrible and icky and you don't want to know. The redness probably won't go away for another two weeks, but I'm hoping the swelling will lessen soon because it SUCKS. And also I've got a fucking P!ATD concert to go to on Thursday and I'm going to be on the fucking rail if it kills me. Which, let's face it, it won't, because it's a P!ATD concert and I'll have to restrain myself from popping 15-year olds in the face, but maybe I can find a bunch of guys and convince them to start a mosh pit with me. LOLZ.

Anyway, I'm not posting pics of the back-of-the-arm tats til they look better. But here's a pic of the third one, on my right forearm. A prize for you if it rings a bell:



The other big news of the day is that I'M GOING TO INDONESIA FOR SIX WEEKS!!! Um, yeah. So, I'm currently unemployed and I've got relatives there that I can stay with for free and a dollar goes a LOT farther there than here, so... yeah. I'm sort of SUPER EXCITED and also like, SIX FUCKING WEEKS, WTF. But I mean, I've meant to go to Indonesia for a couple of years now and what better time to go than when I don't actually have to take vacation days to do it? Liz is going to come with for 10 days at the beginning and then leave to go back to work. I'm ecstatic over that because while I still would've gone, it just wouldn't be the same without her. And meeting a hundred relatives for the first time, most of whom don't speak English, will be a lot less intimidating and a lot easier to handle when we've got each other. =D

You know what's going to be the weirdest? I'm going to a place where I will BLEND IN WITH THE NATIVES. Think about that for a second. And I don't mean that I will, really, because I'm sure I'll be dressed differently and relatively easily-identified as a foreigner (or a freak), but-- I could theoretically just disappear into the crowd. I've never, NEVER, looked like anyone else. In NYC there are so many ethnicities -- and I've only ever lived in areas that have extremely diverse populations (Queens is really good at that) -- but the Indonesian population here is relatively small and I've never really been part of it and I've NEVER looked like everyone else. This whole idea is sort of freaking me out!

So, two things of note:

1. Indonesia is 11 HOURS AHEAD. Which means, tweeps, that I will try to stalk your twitters anyway and DON'T LEAVE ME OUT OF ANY IMPORTANT CONVOS OR UPDATES, OR I WILL BE VERY DISSAPOINT. #wolfpack
   
   
2. Do you or someone you trust happen to be looking for a room in NYC to sublet for 4-6 weeks? If so, please point them my way!

To reiterate: INDONESIA. SIX WEEKS.
Spencer Smith is now going to demonstrate how I feel:






ETA:...oh yeah, that whole itinerary thing I meant to post:

Friday 09/09/11:
CX 841 JFK 10:05 → HKG 14:05
CX 719 HKG 16:00 → CGK 19:40 (arrive Saturday evening)
[22.5 hours travel time]

Monday 10/24/11:
CX 798 CGK 00:05 → HKG 05:50
CX 830 HKG 09:20 → JFK 13:10
[24 hours travel time]

I've never seen such a shitty show. WHY DOES EVERYONE LOVE IT? I'm so sorry, firefox1490, you may want to turn your head away from this rant (you heard it all over text anyway); I don't mean to bash something you like, but season 1 of this show has got some serious issues, and I really just need to get this all of my chest. I hope that it's actually better in the following seasons, but I truly don't think I can make it that far myself.

( Oops, my rant was a little rantier than I originally anticipated... )

There are clearly a lot of things I find either offensive or annoying about this show (as of season 1, of course), and to be fair I think some of these things wouldn't bother me so much if they weren't ALL present at the same time.

JSYK, I've seen up to episode 19 out of 22, and because I'm anal and masochistic, I'm going to watch the rest of s1 and a few eps of s2 just so I can read this damn Inception/Criminal Minds crossover fic that I'm interested in.

...we all know how much I love stars, yes? I want these earrings so much. THEY ARE CHEETAH PRINT WOODEN STARS. But they don't have them in 5mm (4ga), dammit. WHYYYYY?! Realistically, they look like they'd fall out of my earlobe if someone breathed on them. Still, they are SO PRETTY.



Aaaaaand. This lady is absolutely crazy. $700/mo for an 90-square foot "apartment" in Manhattan's CPW. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, LADY? JUST COMMUTE. I promise, you're not really missing that much by living a 40-minute train ride away. FOR THE SAME PRICE. What you gain is the ability to relax and also masturbate without bumping your knees/head/whatever into the ceiling. (Okay, so if she's Ace -- or anti-masturbation, I guess -- then maybe that's not an issue, but still-- breathing space! No panic attacks!)

I just signed up for ds_c6d_bigbang. I'm feeling a bit faint over the 20k-word minimum.

akamine_chan says they are low-pressure on dropping out. AND I QUOTE, "No blame, no recriminations, no punishment." THIS MAY BE THE ONLY THING THAT KEEPS ME GOING? Wait, that makes no sense. But it is the only thing that is making me feel comfortable enough to try.

THIS? IS WHY I LOVE C6D FANDOM.


(Also, I must admit that I was FOR SRS ridiculously swayed by endcredits' sexy banner, WTH!)

Aahahah, now if you could just come up with some interesting ideas, self.

I meant to write it up earlier, but have been busy. It's kind of choppy, but at this point, I'm just remembering the things I wrote some notes about; the memory's not so fluid anymore.

• Met Leetch & Graves at the skybox. This is because, IRL, a friend of mine met Graves in the skybox at the 1/25 game vs Pittsburgh. (Bitch.) Anyway, in my dream I met Graves first, and I was so nervous and/or starstruck that I couldn't say a thing. I just held something out for his autograph. I couldn't even remember to ask for a photo. Jeez, what an idiot. But he went away and came back with Leetch! But by this time I'd gotten a hold of myself (a bit), and asked for a photo with the two of them. <3 The hockey portion of the test dream was now over.
  
  
• The setting of this portion of the dream was kind of odd. I was "at home" but there were no walls -- mostly "home" was a kitchen area. And was surrounded on all sides by a track. You know, like, for running? I had 4 brothers, all pretty young -- the oldest was around 12, then 8, 4, and a baby at around 1. At first, the boys were black. (Well, just the oldest 3 boys - I'll get to the description of the youngest one in a minute.) Later in the dream they all were hispanic (and the oldest one looked exactly like koyappi's brother). And then by the end of the dream they looked like the kids from that TV show, Home Improvement; the one with Tim Allen? I could see the oldest one most clearly, with shaggy, dark blonde hair.
  
  
• So at some point before the kitchen scene, the youngest boy was taken away by someone because he's evil. The baby, that is. And did I mention that he had two heads? And that one of them was an elephant and the other one was an octopus? Watching the "kidnapping" was kind of like I was in a movie theater, watching this play out on the flat screen. And I'm not sure if the "kidnappers" were stealing the baby because they were its minions or because they wanted to kill it because it was evil. And did I mention that the baby had 6 arms?
  
  
• So, in the theater, I said to whoever I was with, "OMG! The stunt baby is a Cabbage Patch doll! I need to get that one -- it's SO CUTE!" It (the Cabbage Patch doll) also came with replaceable heads -- not only the elephant and octopus heads, but two other "regular" baby heads. They were, actually, really cute. One of them had a red-and-white striped beanie hat on.
  
  
• Back to the kitchen/track area. My mom was sitting at the circular kitchen table -- stoned -- because of the kidnapping of the evil baby. She wanted him back, but also didn't. In the background, I could vaguely see people running and jogging, but it was all in slow motion. My 3 brothers, who'd been running on the track, dressed in swooshy shorts and tank tops, came into the kitchen. I went over to the fridge to get something to eat for them. First, I looked in the freezer -- where I found the two "regular" Cabbage Patch baby heads (since the baby was using the elephant and octopus heads, of course). I put them back in and closed the freezer. Opened the fridge and took out an apple that I'd sliced earlier. I offered it to the boys, but they refused. The oldest one got angry, and sad, because I'd put the apple in the fridge. He'd left it outside earlier because there was something wrong with the fridge and everything that went into it immediately became rotten or poisoned somehow.
  
  
• There was more, having to do with secret agents crawling through vents -- I think they were trying to either get to the evil elephant-octopus baby, or get to US to get to the evil elephant-octopus baby. But I can't remember that part so clearly, and I think I woke up not long after.

If there was an Elephant-Octopus Cabbage Patch Kid doll (it would probably be a Garbage Pail kid, I suppose) that came with additional interchangeable heads and 6 arms... I would definitely buy it!

So this morning's dream was weirder than even my usual weird dreams -- which is really saying something. Its particular strangeness is more in that there were so many things going on, and all so completely unrelated to one another (rather than the weird stuff going on, since I dream about weird stuff more often than not).

It included, in no particular order other than listing as I remember them:

• alien pr0n -- I think because the last thing I saw last night before going to bed was something on the Discovery Channel about the mating rituals of camels. This included both video of aliens having sex, as well as a whole bunch of aliens running around doing their mating rituals, trying to attract mates. I can't remember what these aliens looked like; I know they were humanoid, but features were kind of blurry and vague.
  
  
• a guy who looked exactly like Christian Bale, who had a tank on his head (like a space suit helmet, but more cylindrical than round) that was filled about a quarter of the way up with dirty water. He was wearing a tight, black leather outfit and insisted that it was his "David Bowie outfit".
  
  
• several trips to the bathroom, but I couldn't go in peace because people kept coming in and interrupting.
  
  
• a girl who came into the bathroom to explain to me how she drove her car onto the roof right above where we were and stopped at exactly this spot. She made a mark on the ceiling where there was a ruler, to show where that spot was. So, she continued, I should have enough room to park my car up there as well. She looked a lot like Katsu.
  
  
• a fashion show of French Renaissance-style, whore-style dresses, complete with wigs and powdered faces and rouged lips. The models were lined up on a ledge, about 3 stories up on a building, where people on the street could look up and see them. There were microphones everywhere, and part of the show was that they each had to say a (rehearsed) line or two into a mic before going to the next person. When it got to the 15th or so model, she completely flubbed the line, and tried to correct herself; flubbed that; the model next to her tried to help her, but she flubbed it too. The person holding the mic glared really hard at both of them and then skipped to the next girl.
  
  
• somewhere on the grounds there was a swimming pool, where nearby, two alien women were kind of attacking some guy. (I say "kind of attacking" because I'm not 100% sure it wasn't part of their mating ritual, and I'm also not 100% sure the guy was all that unwilling...) The other aliens didn't look like these two -- these two were like animated (as in cartoon-drawn) devil-girls. You know: horns, pointed tails, sharp teeth, lavender-purple skin, dressed in black mid-drift shirts and short, black, pleated skirts.
  
  
• just before the end of the dream, someone was fiddling with the Bale-Bowie guy's helmet-tank. Bale-Bowie couldn't get the other person away from him, and this other person ended up draining Bale-Bowie's tank. As soon as the last drop of dirty water drained out of the tank, Bale-Bowie started to gasp. As if he were choking on lack of air (but the water never covered his mouth and nose, so it's not like he was breathing the water when it was in the tank). And then (as if this dream could get any weirder), his face started to melt off as if it had been doused in acid. Then all the rest of his body and skin disintegrated, also as if he'd been dunked in acid. HOWEVER, his leather outfit was still perfectly intact, and his yellowed bones peeked out from underneath. The tank-helmet somehow disappeared. Whether he took it off or it actually just disappeared, I don't know. But then he kind of just shrugged and walked away: a skeleton in a leather Bowie outfit.

Yeah, so. What the hell is up with all that?