sometimes i write haiku.

I just got back from my annual family vacation in South Carolina and I can't believe how much energy I have. I unpacked all of my bags, a task I usually drag out for an entire month. Matt's coming over later on, but that's not for several hours and so I have plenty of time to kill.

So I thought I'd write a recap of the four weeks that I went MIA in the blog world.

In the form of several haiku.

So.

Week One - in which I entertain visiting relatives, and see the Phillies play for the first time ever.

Baseball games are fun
but there isn't much to eat
if you are vegan.

So many things to
do in Philly area.
Aunt just wants to shop.

Where are we going
today? Oh, what a shocker.
Shopping. Stab stab stab.

Hm, aunt just gave me
two hundred dollars to spend.
Shopping not so bad.

Week Two - in which I remedy a certain technological issue, and Jewel and I attempt a Buffy season 1 and 2 marathon.

WHOA A NEW LAPTOP.
WOW THE SCREEN IS SO SHINY.
OMG SO COOL.

Oh, Angel. You are
such a creeper. In some states,
this is harassment.

JAMES MARSTERS JAMES MAR
STERS JAMES MARSTERS JAMES MARSTERS
JAMES MARSTERS EEEE SQUEEEEE

[As you can see, that was a very exciting week for me.]

Week Three: in which I help my sister prep for college, and can't stop playing Sid Meier's Civilization 4.

Just one more turn. Then
I'll go to bed. Just one more
turn. SHIT IT'S SUNRISE.

(Why am I)
unexpectedly
nostalgic over shower
caddies and whiteboards?

[OK, had to cheat on that one a little bit.]

Week Four: in which I play D&D, help Linds house sit, and attempt to make my dad a cake for his birthday.

90 percent sure
we're playing this game wrong, but
damn, is this game fun.

Adorable house
makes me want to buy a house.
What magic is this?!

Well, dad, I made you
this nice cake, BUT NOW IT'S GOT
ANTS ALL OVER IT.

[True story. I left it on the counter and the next morning it was completely crawling with tiny, tiny ants. Nice.]

If you decide to leave a comment, feel totally free to haiku. That's right, haiku's a verb now. I just decided.

Catch Me If You Can - Part One: The Wedding.

In an effort to catch you all up with my life, I'm picking up where my last couple posts left off in a little series I'm calling Catch Me If You Can. We'll see how long I can keep this up until I just decide to go back to posting the boring details of my everyday life in the form of bulleted lists.

***

Things really started to fall apart for this blog around July 4th weekend, when my cousin's over-the-top New York City wedding weekend happened. There was just too much going on, and my computer was dying a slow death, and my relatives came to live with us for a week afterward, and there's just not enough time in the day for shit like that.

But. The wedding. At some points it was really, really fun, and at some points it was just kind of annoying, and there were things that I thought were going to be lame that turned out unbelievably cool and things that I thought were going to be cool that turned out awkward and weird, and there were things I finally saw done right and things I would have done differently were I planning a wedding (like not having it in New York City on July 4th weekend, for starters).

But mostly, it was just great to see all of my favorite family members in one place for three consecutive days.

Maid of honor extraordinaire.

My grandmother, who came all the way from the Philippines.

There was a portrait booth set up between the bar and the dance floor -- things got weird.

There were so many people at this wedding -- but you wouldn't know it from this picture. Those empty pews are sad.

I grew up with this motley crew. Don't let our fancy outfits fool you -- we're a bunch of freaks.

Ahem. Case in point.

Professional pictures are here, and I really hope you check them out if you are even remotely interested in wedding photography, because they're awesome.

it's aliiiiive! ("it" is me. i'm alive.)

Wow. Here are the main reasons I've been so bloggily absent recently:

1. My relatives from the Philippines stayed at my house from last Saturday to this Sunday, and we had to entertain them 24/7. Which meant lots of late nights, exhausting shopping excursions, day trips into Philly and New York, and extravagant restaurant meals that left me food-comatose and totally useless. Also, I had to sleep on the couch all week, and although our couches are very comfy, they're not really great in the way of lumbar support. I didn't get a lot of good, quality sleep. Is what I'm trying to say.
   
2. My computer is eight kinds of broken. First of all: VIRUSES. AUGH. What kind of an evil creature is lurking in his or her basement creating stupid, terrible viruses that do stupid, terrible things like hijack your web browser so that you can't Google anything and every so often a message pops up saying that I won a prize and it won't let me do anything unless I accept it and give the website my very personal information? To this person I say: Die. Die a horrifying and painful death. Second: I got the dreaded Blue Screen of Death the other day. And we all know what that means. I might as well just throw it in the garbage right now. Third: My computer is Very Elderly. It's on its last legs. Actually, I don't even know if it has legs right now! Maybe it's just dragging itself along on its front legs! 

This is way funnier than it should be. Please, someone else tell me this makes them laugh.

So the fate of my blog is up in the air until I can figure out what do with with my sad, old computer. I'm thinking I'm just going to throw in the towel and buy a new one. I need one for grad school, anyway. 

Anyways, I just wanted to pop in and say: Hey! I'm not dead! And I've been keeping up with everyone else's blogs even if I haven't been commenting, I swear! Is anyone out there? Hello? ::taps microphone:: Hello??

POST MANIA

The past week or so has been so so crazy and I've had so little time for anything that I actually like to do, so I'm resorting to blogging in between setting up for programs and checking out patrons and cutting out construction paper seahorses.

(RUN ON SENTENCE MANIA)

(Also, who has two thumbs and loves being a youth services librarian assistant? ::points to self:: This girl.)

(That joke is a lot funnier IRL. I swear.)

(PARENTHESES MANIA)

So, I wanted to talk about what's been keeping me away from my lovely little piece of internet real estate, and what the plan is for when everything dies down. You know what happens next, right?

BULLET LIST MANIA!

Where I've been:

- Cleaning and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. My room, my bathroom, the basement, the den. My relatives from the Philippines are coming to stay for a week and my mother wants the house to be immaculate, I guess so that we can impress them with how quickly our family cleans the house under duress. Because, come on. They'll totally know we only dust the piano when we're having houseguests.
- Picking up tons of extra shifts at work. She works haaaaard for the money!
- Gearing up for this weekend, which is my cousin K's wedding. She's the first cousin to get married on this side of the family, and everyone is going totally sheepshit. The whole process has just been harrowing and never-ending. It's going to be this huge ordeal that involves staying at a hotel in North Jersey with my parents for a whole weekend, and now have to hand out programs and bubbles and candy and my mom doesn't like the shoes I'm wearing and I still have to find a strapless bra to wear with my dress and I don't want to do karaoke at the rehearsal dinner but they're gonna make me and AUGH can't we just show up to the wedding and then leave afterward I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.

- Fostering my D&D obsession. Despite my initial concerns, D&D has proven to be so. Much fun. It doesn't hurt that we're playing with our really good friends, of course, but there's an aspect of fantasy role-playing that really satisfied something in me. I think it speaks to my inner child who never got tired of playing pretend.

Where I'm going:
- The wedding, obv. Despite all my ranting, I'm sure it'll be fun and/or memorable. And my cousin Maven (not her real name, but she'd approve), whom I haven't seen in years because she lives in the Philippines, is staying with us next week, and that's gonna be totally awesome.
- A Phillies game with Matt, my BFF and some of her friends from college. I haven't been to a baseball game since fourth grade, but how hard could it possibly be to understand baseball? Some guys take turns hitting a ball and running around in a circle. That's the gist... right?
- Down the shore, again, before the oil creeps up the East Coast and coats us all in a Film of Doom.

Also, in July I'm going to do the 30 Days of Me meme and Bloggerstock (which I was signed up for this month but epically failed at remembering to do), and I've got all of these plans for my blog that I've been brainstorming but haven't gotten the chance to implement because at the end of the day I just want to eat sorbet and read Fables and pass out. I just need to get through this weekend. Here goes nothing.

my blog's name: a mixed-media project

Who says I can’t get stoned? 
Turn off the lights and the telephone
Me and my house alone
Who says I can’t get stoned?

Who says I can’t be free
from all of the things that I used to be?
Re-write my history
Who says I can’t be free?

 ****

So now you know EXACTLY why I chose that name for my blog.

J/K. I'm not sure I even know exactly why I chose that name for my new blog. I know it has something to do with the lyrics and how it spoke to me on my birthday, because I realized then that I'm still a huge geek and a goody-goody and an all-around Nice Asian Girl but amongst those things there's this new other part of me who went to college and learned about other religions, about issues of gender and class, about terrible things that we allow to happen in other cultures, and who let the light of knowledge turn her hard and jaded. This part of me who doesn't believe in heaven or God but still has to go to church every Sunday. This new, patchwork girl who wishes for many things but oftentimes finds herself wishing she still had access to good weed. Or any weed, for that matter.

***

"And it starts with singing this to yourself: 'who says I can't?" Fill in the blank, everybody. Who says you can't? For most people, nobody is saying you can't be yourself. If you put something on and look in the mirror and you like it, go out in it. And when somebody looks at you and they say, 'why are you wearing that?', don't even look down. Be like this: 'I like this, why are you wearing that?' Watch them run away. They'll never bother you again. 'Cause the world is full of bullies. Stand up to bullies." - John Mayer

***

For years I censored my true self for the benefit of others. And I'm still doing it, in real life, biding my time until the day I can stand in front of my parents and more conservative relatives and friends say, I'm pro-choice. I support gay marriage. I don't believe in God right now, and though I think Jesus was really groovy, I sure think the things people do in the name of Jesus can be offensive and just plain stupid. I think recycling is important. I don't eat meat anymore, and when we have ribs and chicken and beef stew  for dinner, I feed it to our dog when you're not looking. 

But here I'll never censor myself. This is my place to be who I am. Because I said so. 

***

back in the saddle

Urghh... I've been away from the Internet for exactly a week, and there are currently 44, count'em 44 unread blog posts in my Google reader right now. I'm going to work on chipping away at that unreal number until 12:45, when I have to go to work. But for now, here's my week in a nutshell.

- My sister graduated high school. She gave a speech. And I was like, MY BABY'S ALL GROWN UP AND SAVING CHINA!

- I went to see Toy Story 3, which we all know is officially The Greatest Movie Ever Made (no seriously, I don't know if there have been any negative reviews of it except for these two douchebags). The experience was so uniquely Pixar. Half of the time I was laughing unabashedly and obnoxiously. The other half of the time I was a whimpering, moist-eyed mess (I don't let myself cry in movie theaters anymore because I cause a real scene). Those of you who have seen it can probably relate. I had to think about all sorts of inappropriately hilarious things and fan my face vigorously to keep myself from bursting into tears.

- Remember when I got all excited about finding people to play D&D with? Well, on Saturday we started creating our characters and we had maybe a little too much fun with it. Matt's character is an eladrin wizard who wears a prosthetic beard loaded with razor blades (because eladrin can't grow beards, what's up with that?), Jewel's character is an elf ranger with "ginormous knockers," and my character is a halfling rogue with a Napoleon complex. Also, that was officially the nerdiest sentence I have ever typed. Scotty gets off a little too much on being Dungeon Master, I think, as he kept on saying things like GOD DIDN'T SAY YOU COULD CHOOSE YOUR AT-WILL POWERS YET, DID HE? I think we may have created a monster.

- We celebrated Father's Day lounging around the house, doing nothing, as per my dad's request. He wanted Father's Day to be about conserving money and resources, and so we didn't go out to eat or go shopping or anything like that. We all just went about our normal Sunday, which for me meant attempting to clean my room but then just falling asleep for several hours instead.

- I have successfully made it through another week of being incidentally vegan, and I've learned one very important thing:

the one where i talk about myself for like forever

Remember that award I got, like, a week and a half ago? Welp, I'm finally finishing up the fill-out-the-survey-and-pass-it-on part of the the process. So, without further ado.

The Super Panda Comments Award!

The Rules:

1. Thank person who nominated you. [Check. Totally did that in the afore-linked post.]

2. Copy the award. Paste it in your blog. [Check. Did it twice, in fact.]

3. Link to the person who gave me this award. [Check, but I'll do it again for good measure: Heather's awesome. Go read her blog, stat.]

4. Answer the 10 questions that come with the award. [In progress. See below.]

5. Nominate of few of your favorite bloggers for the award. ['Bout to happen, fool!]

Attention:

Angel from Nerd Angel (who is my soul brother in nerdiness!)

Julie from Roads Are Made By Traveling (whose comments always make me smile!)

Angela from High On Life (who is my blog fairy godmother!)

YE BE TAGGED.

And now, THE MEME. AKA the best part. AKA this took me two days to fill out. AKA ok I'll get on with it.

1. Why do you blog?

Because it's part of me. I've been blogging in some capacity since I was fourteen, in a bunch of different locations. At this point, chronicling my life on the Internet is not so much something I choose to do, but instead more like a compulsion. I couldn't stop if I tried.

2. What are your 3 best memories?
In recent memory: Scotty and Jewel's wedding. So many amazing things happened that weekend, so many friendships were made and re-kindled and so many grievances were aired and forgiven, and there was an abundance of amazing food and there was so much booze and so much laughter.
From my childhood: The summer that my aunt, uncle, and three older cousins from the Philippines came to stay with us for two months. If memory serves me right, it was like a party every day. There was always someone to talk to, something to talk about. I cite this summer as the reason that I love to be surrounded by friends and family and have sort of a phobia of loneliness and solitude.
Ever: Biking with my friend Katie in the Aran Islands in Ireland. The beginning of the bike trail was uphill, and so the second leg of the trail was all downhill, and I decided to tackle the last hill by just letting gravity take me all the way to the end. I don't want to make too big of a deal out of it but suffice to say that I'd been through a very hard year, and I really needed to feel like life as I knew it had a point, and that one amazing ride down that very scary hill basically saved me from spiraling into depression.

3. If you had to change your real name what would you change it to?
In high school one of my friends used to call me "Keiko," after the actress who plays Lane on Gilmore Girls. It got so widespread that kids from younger grades actually thought my name was Keiko. I actually think it suits my personality pretty well!

4. What are five things you can't live without?
I assume that "food and water" don't count, nor do "a car," "sleep," or "oxygen." Even though that would be the truth. Hmm... let's see.
- Books. This is quite literal. Yeah, I read to enrich my mind and to be moved and stuff, but I also rely on books to put me to sleep at night. The few times I've been without a book at bedtime, I tossed and turned almost the whole night. Without books, I wouldn't sleep, and without sleep, I would probably die. I think that's how it works.
- My glasses. I'm insanely nearsighted. I can't see very far at all. If glasses suddenly stopped existing, I'd probably last about five minutes before I fell down the stairs and broke my neck.
- Music. I know this is a cliche, and so I almost didn't include it, but then I imagined what my world would be like without music. And that is a really scary thought.
- Social interaction. I get really weird and sad if I spend too much time by myself. I do like some time to myself to recharge and clear my head, but most of the time I just want to be with my friends.
- Sunscreen. ::jumps onto soapbox:: Every. One. Should Wear. Sunscreen. End of story. ::jumps off soapbox::

5. What are the 4 best books you've ever read?
Young Adult: Paper Towns by John Green
Juvenile: Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Graphic Novel: Watchmen by Alan Moore
All Time: Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.

6. Tell me something unique and interesting about yourself.
I have a pet hedgehog, and he's like an adorable cactus. His name is Huxley, but he came pretty close to being named Bruce Quillis. (He wasn't bold and daring enough to be named after my favorite action hero of all time, unfortunately. Maybe next time?)

7. What do you love best about yourself?
My signature thing has always been my laugh. I'm told it's infectious. My laugh is like a deadly virus! Moooohoooohaaahaaahaaaaa! (My evil laugh is coming along swimmingly, by the way.)

8. What is the best movie ever made?
Ummm. I don't know if I'm qualified to answer that question. If you asked AFI, they'd say it's Citizen Kane, which makes me think that AFI is on crack, 'cause I've seen Citizen Kane and while I understand how it revolutionized movie-making, I think it's straight-up boring.

What I am qualified to tell you is that my favorite movie of all time is The Wizard of Oz and that in my opinion (disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer!), The Dark Knight was the best movie of the past decade. But that's just me. 

9. If you had a "freaky friday" experience who would you trade places with and why?
I'd trade places with Scarlett Johansson solely for the opportunity to do unspeakable things to Ryan Reynolds. No question.

10. What's the best part about being a woman?
We... get prettier-smelling perfumes? (Seriously, I feel bad for guys for having to wear cologne and body spray that smells the way it smells. Also: Axe makes me want to vomit my lungs up. What is the appeal?)

And thus ends my longest blog post to date. Wasn't that fun?