Boys and Their Toys

Yesterday morning proved to be a frenzy of present wrapping (yes, I'm a procrastinator) and feverish unwrapping. My dad's dog went nuts, pummeling its full weight through the towers of discarded red and green metallic paper as me and the fam exchanged gifts. However, even with all the yuletide stimuli one thing stuck out amongst the layers of trash and piles of Christmas delights and that was a statement by my youngest nephew who I believe (and don't hold me to this as I have a black hole in my brain where ages and birthdays should be) is four years old. This is a direct quote from his mouth as he waited not so patiently for his turn at gift opening: "I don't like to wait. I just like to rip into them and get them open." My completely inappropriate response was something along the lines of boys both young and old pretty much having the same line of thinking. Delay gratification? Hell no. That's for suckers with too much time on their hands. What's refreshing was that a young boy was able to put it so eloquently out on the table without fear of judgment or female backlash. Finally, someone speaks the truth that us women have always known to exist. That no matter how pretty your packaging or how painstakingly you put it together with scotch tape, all the boys really want to do is rip it off and enjoy the gift inside.

Temporary Boredom

Today is my first day as a temp. As exciting as that sounds, trust me, it's about as fun as watching paint dry, even if that paint is cerulean blue or magenta. Here's what I've done today. Get ready for some thrills.

1.) Answered every email and myspace message I've put off for the past month, even those I never intended to respond to in the first place (you know who you are.)
2.) Drank lots of water because trips to the bathroom mean a change of scenery.
3.) Mapquested my bikini waxers office. See you in an hour and a half, Stella. http://www.starwaxing.com
4.) Watched the crew from the city delimb some poor tree outside. Lots of action going on there. Men in orange hooting and hollering at each other. I pretended I was in Italy.
5.) Stared at the clock a lot... Just did it again.
6.) Researched the cost of velvet material for the new website (see past entry.)
7.) Walked to Quiznos for a heartburn sandwich with a side of homeless guy singing Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You."
8.) Made a detailed to-do list with neat little boxes that scream to be checked.
9.) And activated my new debit card. The automated operator's voice was so friendly I stayed on the line to hear about how I can protect myself from credit card fraud. Thanks, lady, I didn't know that!

Tomorrow will be more of the same, so I'll spare the day by day details. Just know, I'm working hard at hardly working, and I could use a vacation.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

I know, I know, LA misses me. It's roasting chestnuts and hanging stockings, wistfully thinking of my sweet embrace, a nostalgic tear making a streak of white down its Mystic-tanned face. But here I am biding my time in Northern California, hoping we can be together again for the holidays. In fact, it's the only thing I asked Santa for for Christmas (sha right, I'm a greedy bastard). Actually, up North things are a bit more, shall we say, "christmasy" with the cold weather bestowing upon everyone a red nose to make Rudolph jealous (where as if you have a red nose in LA you probably just got done doing blow in the bathroom at Sky Bar.) All we have in LA as far as Season's tidings is that the girls in mini skirts exchange their flip-flops for Uggs, and Starbuck's starts selling their peppermint mochas by the thousands to anxiety ridden, prescription pill-popping, holiday shoppers. But now that's Christmas to me, and I can't wait to return home, some well-earned money in hand, to buy myself that peppermint mocha (with soy, of course) and enjoy it with a bag of roasted chestnuts from the West Hollywood Whole Foods. Does anyone make a soy egg nog?

Velvet Ties

My friend Emily and I have decided to start a business. True, we decide on a new one every time we have one to many glasses of wine or vodka sodas, but everyone needs that special someone to drink, I mean think, big with while under the influence. Our last idea? An Inn and tea shop based on our abnormal obsession with The Gilmore Girls and its small time, big drama appeal. She's in hospitality management making her the perfect candidate to run the B&B while I spend my mornings in the tea shop and nights feverishly penning the next blockbuster screenplay and chatting it up with our single male guests over homemade hot chocolate. The shop would be called A Spot, as in "a spot of tea," and we would serve a piece of dark chocolate with every cup and offer a different signature soup every Sunday, cumulating in our future cookbook/coffee table masterpiece entitled "52 Soup Sundays," which a friend of mine in LA's DP boyfriend would shoot uber creative and cinematic stills for. We'd also have plenty of Sherry, Brandy and miniature organic sandwiches to pass out to our minions. Sounds good, right? Well, after plenty of Pinot Grigio, we sure as hell thought so.

Our latest venture, planned out over Irish coffees at San Francisco's Gold Dust Lounge late last night, is to create a website where we sell skinny velvet ties of the darker hued variety, aimed mainly at the hipsters and fashion forward thinkers of the world. We'd also sell a variety of ingenious and artfully designed tie clips for men and women, brighter colered bow ties and modern indie meets francophile berrets. God, we're good. And if I suddenly see this site up and running, I'll know that obviously someone read this blog and stole our intellectual property, and I'll have no other choice but to file a grievance with The Court of That's Not Fair and get my money.

Stay tuned for more thrilling entrepreneurial delights and lighting strikes of pure genius in the future. And if you feel you can't wait, come to Sacramento this week, and by all means, buy me a drink. ;)

Volunteers of America

I've had a strange week. Yesterday I went to the Bodies Revealed exhibit, currently making its home in the least cultural district of Sacramento, Alta Arden. I was intrigued at the thought of going to see a bunch of dead bodies and body parts, especially after finishing a book like "American Psycho," not that the book is for lack of graphic visuals. However, I have to admit, when my step mother was raving about how great the exhibit was years back, I found myself leaning more to the, "that's disgusting" and "how creepy" side. But this time I swallowed my grade schooler reaction and decided to go with a scientific eye. I can't say that I flipped out over spleens and nervous system functions on display in the way I did when seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time, but the experience was quite eye opening and, yes, interesting to say the least. However, if you decided to go, my advice is to avoid the embryonic babies in jars area. I know it sounds like a barrel of fun, but it gave me nightmares.

Today I volunteered with my mom at a local Women's Center. We woke up at the butt crack and made our way over there to serve breakfast and spread some holiday cheer. I was a bit nervous at first because the last time I volunteered to serve meals my friend got a stale loaf of bread chucked at her head by an unsatisfied costumer. After my friend fell to the floor the homeless woman exclaimed for all to hear, "Whoops, my hand slipped." That memory has stuck with me, but I found the women and children today to be friendly and easy going. I even got hit on once which served to provide plenty of laughter for my mother who was so tired she even slipped a double chocolate chip muffin onto her own plate when no one was looking. Nothing like a dose of sugar to keep you alert. Just ask the addicts who I watched dump a pound of sugar on everything, from a hot cup of coffee to a bowl of salad. Apparently, it helps calm their addictions by trading one vice for another: drug addiction for diabetes.

The women were very ethnically diverse but I did notice that the various nationalities separated into different tables. The kids, however, played games together and no one was want for good company or second helpings. What I missed though was the type of closeness you get from smaller deeds, like the year I volunteered for Meals on Wheels. I knew every person inside the houses I delivered to. That Christmas I received a handmade, woven Kleenex box holder with snowmen on it from one of the elderly ladies who was also a Holocaust survivor. She was the funniest old lady I've ever had the pleasure to hang with, and no one could put together a 500 piece puzzle as fast as she could. She was like the Bobby Fischer of puzzle putter togetherers. Oh well, the experience was definitely something I needed and have been missing out on in my life of networking and schmoozing and worrying about whether or not I'll be able to get in a certain club or what the hell I'm going to wear on my date with the latest and not so greatest future ex-boyfriend and/or stalker. So if anyone is up for some more volunteering (as long as it doesn't involve reading L. Ron Hubbard books to underprivileged children in the ghetto - true story) then call me up, and let's do some good deeds together. Hell, what else you got to do until this writers' strike is over besides drinking wine and watching re-runs of "Gossip Girl"?