4.27.2006

Toilet humor.

"She hasn't been peeing."
"What?"
"There aren't any pee spots in her tub. She hasn't been peeing."


Peeing is cleansing. Peeing carries away all the poisons and toxins that your kidneys have filtered out of your blood. Peeing carries away all the waste your cells make while doing their day to day job of keeping you alive. Peeing is a good thing!

Yes, when you are a pet owner, you worry about things like pee spots. Well, I guess if you have kids you kinda worry about pee spots too. If your hamster/small child has not peed in days, this is a bad thing. You may think it's a good thing, because there's less to clean up, but in the long run this is a bad thing.


When a loved one stops peeing, make note. When a love one starts peeing again, rejoice. And then change said loved one's bedding. Because as wonderful and healthy as peeing is, it's still very gross and smelly.

4.24.2006

Kimmie: Updated.

UKS: culture show
I've been helping UKS (United Khmer Sudents, for the uninitiated) whenever I've been able to make it. I gave some writing notes for the script and helped with the blocking for a couple of rehearsals. Carol asked me if I wanted to be noted as a Co-Director and Co-Writer in the program. For some reason, that made me very uncomfortable. It took me a while to figure out why. I realized that I just wanted to help out in my free time. The director/writer of the script is very dedicated to this event. Everyone involved is busting their butt to make this show happen. I wouldn't be able to match their commitment level in any way, even if I wanted to. I couldn't in good conscience accept that. I asked Carol if they could just put me under the "Special Thanks" section of the program (you know, where they put ORL, any funding organizations, yadda yadda yadda). I think that's where I belong.

LCC: writing
I have not written a scene for the group in a very long time. I think I wrote when I was afraid that we wouldn't have enough material to put on a show. That fear gave me the gumption to turn in stuff, flaws and all. Right now the group is in good hands; they're working with some pretty brilliant material, so I don't really feel the need to turn in the stuff I write. I don't feel fear needed to make my writing better. I don't feel the need to make my scenes stage quality. Sometimes I wish that fear was still there.

LCC: directing
I love the scene I'm working on right now. The script really inspired me, and I find myself using it with a minimum of revision from the writer. The cast is pretty amazing. There is a lot of intricate blocking and dance, so I'm asking a lot of them. For a cast with varying degrees of movement experience, they're really holding their own. I think a big part of it is their willingness to try anything. They don't know that they shouldn't be able to do Graham-inspired post modern dance without rigorous training. I'm always amazed by how much people can accomplish when they don't know that they're not supposed to accomplish it.

4.20.2006

Sixteen again.


I got to see my brother march for the first time a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately he was a center (the person in a rank the entire line of marchers try to stay in line with), they were marching really fast, and my camera does this weird thing where it takes an entire ten seconds to take a picture, so I couldn't catch a picture of him. However, I got this awesome picture of the Titans' letter line.




My brother and his girlfriend of six months. They look like they've been married for ten years.... My brother's hairline looks as if it's aged ten years too.


Probably one of the coolest parts of the visit was seeing Mr. Coleman again. He was my band director at Hamilton Middle School and is the new band director at my brother's high school. He's pretty awesome. However, seeing him is a little bit disturbing for me because his hair is now salt and pepper and he forgets things sometimes. And then, I think "Well, of course he's not going to look like he did when you were in seventh grade, Kimmie, that was almost ten years ago." To which my mind replies "Oh my God, that was almost ten years ago." And I then feel old and stiff.

4.18.2006

Reconciliation.

My lappy's back. I thought a lot during our time apart. I didn't treat my lappy very well. I was rough with it, I took it for granted. When it started showing signs of wear, I got angry instead of remorseful. Lappy did very well during the break too. No more rubbed out letters, no more stuck keys, no more furious tabbing between applications. It's like taking her out the box for the first time again.

"Hi Lappy."
(Whiiirrrrr....)
"I missed you too."

Oh, me.


Taken in CS50. My heart goes out to whichever pre-med undergraduate gave out this silent cry for help.

...phonetically, it sounds like "Oh, Kim."

4.10.2006

On a break.

In the past couple of weeks (usually as I'm working on my script or an expedited safety report for work...or updating this blog) the the F2, Tab, and 2swx` keys on my lappy would stick and cause it to wildly switch from window to window, typing gibberish into random text boxes and preventing me from getting any work done. I said "Well, to hell with this!" and threw said iBook against the wall. No, I didn't do that. I'm not an abusive person. I passive aggressively let my laptop know I was upset: I used it less every day, I spent more time on my desktop at work, I even tried out some of the PCs at Powell Library. Still, the problems persisted; if anything, they got worse! I decided to seek professional help, but alas, even the geniuses at the UCLA computer store told me that there was nothing they could do. We had to resort to drastic measures: a temporary separation. Hopefully when we're reunited in 7-10 business days, it will be back to its normal functioning self. And maybe, I'll learn to better appreciate its efforts to perform well for me.

4.07.2006

Things that make me feel good.

-Seeing my brother play timpani with his high school winter percussion in championship competition. The Caeser Chavez Marching Band will be performing at Disneyland this April 11. How exciting! I'll be ditching school to catch their performance. I mean, really, how often do I get to go to Disneyland? Not often enough.

-Reconnecting with people I haven't seen or heard from in ages, a la MySpace. A fair number of them are now married and/or pregnant. At twenty two! Wow. To be fair, we did grow up in Stockton. Many a young blood in Stockton spend their Saturday nights making a difficult decision: eat at Denny's, shop at Walmart, or go neck...you know, now that I think about it, not too difficult a decision.

-Knowing that even though I have a cell phone again, I can always turn it off. That took a while for me to figure out. I think I have it now.

-Getting to a point at work where I am actually knowledgeable enough to know about what I'm not knowledgeable enough.

-Mocha Lattes.

4.02.2006

You can't get this in LA.

Interstate 5 is the main artery between Northern California and its southern counterpart. It is the most direct route to Stockton from Los Angeles. It is also one of the most boring six hour drives in America. For three hundred miles, there is nothing but brown grass and the occasional cow sitting forlorn on the landscape. Usually I find myself looking forward to the next “__ miles until Rest Area” signs; they were the only things to break up the monotony of the view.

However, there’s a tiny window of time, between the drowning rains of March and the scorching heat of May, when I-5 gleams. Mustard grows wild in stretches miles long, and the yellow looks like a thick blanket. Bushes grow thick and tall; in two months they'll be tumbleweeds, but for now they stand pretty. Roaming gangs of sheep and steer loiter at leisure in the fields and cherry tree orchards, nipping at a grass blade here, a bloom there.

There was a moment while I was driving, when everyone else in the car had fallen asleep. The sun made natural spotlights in between the clouds, and the mist made the hills look lush. I crested a hill and out of nowhere a herd of shorn sheep glowing white against the green came into view. I stared for a good two seconds, then the car whizzed by and the entire scene dropped out of view. I turned and "Hey, did you see tha-?" and realized that our car was the only car on the road, and I was the only conscious person in the car. It may have been the most perfect thing I have ever seen, and I was alone. It made me feel like that section of I-5 was put there just for me.


Even through a dusty windshield on a cell phone camera, you can see the clouds forever. You can't get this in LA.