1. Duane Reade saves lives.
That’s a little melodramatic. Or is it? Many trips to this drug store were made for items of all sorts. Beverages, hair products, saltines, toothpaste, Cheetos, and other items I dare not specify.

2. Anything can happen on public transit.
Authors might randomly show up while you’re talking about their books. Drivers of luxury buses might have sudden fits of rage. Homeless dudes might issue public apologies and ask God to bless the travelers. Free Wifi might result in abrupt farewells. ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN.

3. Flat shoes are A+.
You can’t run in high heels. This is especially important to remember when you’re in a locale that giant sea hybrid monsters have been known to attack. You never know what’s going to happen. Basically, CLOVERFIELD.

4. There is such a thing as “too many chicken fingers.”
It’s not like there wasn’t anything else to eat in that prison basement cafeteria, but somehow we always went for that meal. I DON’T EVEN REALLY LIKE FRIES, geez. I blame the sauce.

5. There is no such thing as “too much Taylor Swift.”
Why, you ask? That’s because Taylor Swift’s lyrics have the capacity to rip your heart out, as well as narrate every facet of your life. There is a Taylor song that is appropriate for EVERY situation. Even iPhone autocorrect mishaps.

5.5. Taylor Swift lyrics will never not remind me of the bevy. Some examples:
The Last Time – the last day, the last meal, the last bus ride, etc.
Hey Stephen – Hi, Stephanie. Also, “Stephen of Hey Stephen is getting married.”
White Horse – T_T
Back to December – I’m not sure why, but Steph kept ~Unwritten-style~ reciting these lyrics at one point. Like dramatically reciting them.
All Too Well/Last Kiss – EVERYTHING.
I Knew You Were Trouble – how many times did we lie on the cold hard ground?

“Is that a spirit?”

6. Squirrels are freaking insane.
ESPECIALLY SPIRIT SQUIRRELS. They will clutch onto your bag without reservation. They will scour through the brown paper bag that still contains edible food. They are relentless. They know no fear.

7. You don’t need to exit your living quarters to have a classy night.
All you need is a bag of Cheetos, candy, cheesecake-flavoured drinks, and dresses. And Snoopy.

8. DOPPELGANGERS EXIST AND THEY ARE EVERYWHERE.
They’re in your CW shows and they’re possibly in your YA novels.

9. VOODOO IS REAL.
What other explanation is there for random bouts of illness/muteness/PREGNANCY?

Shailene look-a-like is totally lurking in the background.

10. The rest is still unwritten… but it shouldn’t be recited in verse format.

11. “RUSSIA RULES!”
Seriously, that was the most awkward moment of the trip and I still don’t understand where that girl came from (Russia, I guess) and what compelled her to scream that. And more importantly, where did she go after that happened? Like, she was a phantom of awkwardness who appeared out of nowhere, then disappeared into a cloud of weird.

12. KT has Disney princess hair.
But we already knew this. And now a bunch (more) authors do, too.

Even when she’s not actually in the picture, she’s still posing for the picture.

13. JENNIFER IS THE REAL ROBOT.
Or she’s a super solider trained to automatically lock on to any camera lens within a meter and SMILE.

14. Just because you’re a tree doesn’t mean you can’t walk.
It’s just like Cinderella’s fairy godmother sings: “It’s possible!”

15. Laguna Beach isn’t the only town that harbours drama.
Drama can also happen in a library. KEEP DANCING~ (hey, stephen!)

16. The Hunger Games are real/Power Readers aren’t as cool as Power Rangers.
…but at least we had an awesome strategy plan and studied the map beforehand. Thank you, CAPTAIN BAGGIERO.

17. iPhone batteries will fail you.
Sure, you can turn it into a fun competition of who’s battery will run out first, but in the end… who will be left to tweet about it?

18. You should forgive your past, accept the present, and release your future.
This might be the new “YOLO” because Shailene Woodley knows what she’s talking about, yo. #SPIRITJUNKIE

deep words, tris.

19. It’s should be pronounced like “gift” because when someone sends you one, it’s like an actual gift.
Here, have one right now~

okay? OKAY?!

20. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in Caleb Prior.
The tension will never be unread. Trips to the grocery store between siblings will never be the same.

21. You might think you’re leaving, but you’re not.
Like I said, the dauntless deities were just not having it on Sunday afternoon. Flight cancellations galore. ACTUAL sleeping on the cold hard ground.

22. Canadians stick together. And so do the Starks.
KT and I attended a wedding on Sunday night and it was miserable and magical, except not really that magical at all. More like miserable and depressing. WHYYYY

23. Wolfpacks!!!
This isn’t really a lesson. I just wanted to exclaim about wolfpacks. Or bevys. Bevi?

bevy + wolfpack = …forest?

oh my gosh I’m in such awe so I’m just going to stand here and stare.

24. Unicorns!
Again, not a lesson. I just wanted to exclaim about unicorns. They were running rampant in NYC this year. On a personal note, I’m sooooo so glad I got to meet Richelle Mead and have some books signed by her. And as much as I joke and kid about Divergent and the series/film-in-progress, I really really appreciated Veronica Roth’s speech. It hit home so hard. I really wonder how/if next year’s trip can top this year’s in the unicorn department…

25. We will be back next year.
We still need to find out what happened to Cesar. And we still need to go to Harlem. Maybe these two goals will become one and the same. Only time (and drugs) will tell.

The Prior FAMILY, freaking out and apologizing on the subway, macarons, sending almost every poor delivery guy back because we’re bold like that, comparing college guys to agents, trying to figure out who is “Evil Harry,” analyzing what Theo James is trying to do, interrupting Jar of Hearts for bacon pancakes in New York, actual bacon and pancakes in New York, best friends going off to talk about awful people, brainstorming distractions to allow us to ditch conferences, Starbucks drink confusion, Adrian Ivashkov being employed at B&N, Warner, Dimka, ANSEL… There is too much. So instead to conclude this post, I end with this…

“It’s nothing.”
“It’s something.”
“It’s everything.”

the face of @ocdustino…look how pretty he is when he’s not talking.

People  almost never  always ask me about my preferred social media handle — which is @ocdustino for those of you who neglected to read the title of this post — where it came from, what it means, why I have it tattooed on my left ass cheek, etc. And with it being my twitterversary week (yes, that’s a thing; no, I’m not dating anyone. I fail to see the connection) it seemed like a good time to explore the legend of @ocdustino. Buckle in, cadets, you’re in for the sort of history lesson they don’t give you in school. Except maybe homeschool if I homeschool my future kids and I’m really hungover/scrambling for some filler topics that day.

The year was 1867, I was a freshman in college, and the lightbulb had just recently been invented, which meant that we could use our computers indoors, any time of the day or night! This quickly led to the invention of something called AOL Instant Messenger (or AIM for short, because you know if your acronym needs an acronym, you’re doing it right). AIM was primarily invented as a means for people to post their favorite Brand New/Something Corporate lyrics or disparaging passive-aggressive comments about their boy/girlfriend, but quickly evolved into a sort of instant messaging service that was kind of like a two-person internet chatroom, but somehow not as creepy as an actual internet chatroom. Meeting and then getting captured/raped/killed by strangers from the internet wasn’t a thing at the time (craigslist hadn’t been invented yet), but because superheroes/secret identities were still really popular (our Batman was Michael Keaton — ha! Can you believe that? Michael Keaton!) everyone used pseudonyms (known as “screen names”) to effectively hide their true identities from strangers, while also expressing their interests to those same strangers. Screen names like “CheerKick44”, “Platypussy02”, “ExtraExtraSloppy”, “GoldfishDanzer”, “Star19Catcher”, “DivaQueen02” were the norm (fun fact: I only made two of those up). Pretty rad nicknames right? Your screen name said a lot about who you were, and you wanted it to be cool, concise, and clever. With some numbers at the end like the year you graduated or your jersey number from high school athletics because someone probably already had the version of the screen name you wanted that didn’t have numbers.

Okay back to college freshman Dustin, whose screen name was the entirely too boring: OtterbeinDCH (Otterbein being the name of the small liberal arts college I went to, and DCH being my initials). Blah! Though the school name/your name combination was a pretty socially-accepted naming convention at the time, I knew I could do better! But what? I didn’t have a defining physical or personality trait (ObnoxiousDustin was already taken, I’m sure), I wasn’t good enough at sports to ever get a jersey number that was more consistent than my coach saying “why don’t you throw on that musty one in the corner so we can scrimmage”, and I was only the normal amount of sloppy. What to do??

Well as part of a school-mandated language credit (welcome to liberal arts college, boys and girls), I was enrolled in Spanish 101 (fun fact: in Español, 101 translates to: 101) and we were watching our way through a Spanish soap opera called Destinos. College freshman being the spectacularly creative bunch they are, it didn’t take long for people in my class to start calling me Dustino. As my first nickname that didn’t in some way reference a jockstrap or a vagina, I was thrilled, so I went with it. Or rather, everyone else went with it.

Now during this same time, I was doing a lot of those “beginning of a new set of classes” introductions, wherein you’re typically required to state your name, where you’re from, and two facts about yourself (sometimes in Spanish). When you’re at a small liberal arts college in Columbus, Ohio, saying you’re from the town of Columbus, Ohio isn’t a great conversation starter. So I started informing people that I was from Palm Springs, California (where I was born and lived for several years) and my family later moved to Columbus, Ohio. This made for much more interesting interactions with my new classmates…once you got past the “well why the hell did you move to Ohio?! hardy har har” joke that every single person inevitably makes, as if the teenage firstborn of a family has any say in where his family moves. Also, because it was the early 2000s, a show called The OC was VERY popular (we’re talking like, Game of Thrones popular…but with more sexy teens, fewer dragons), and because the average American student’s grasp on US geography is tenuous at best, everyone associated my birthplace of Palm Springs with Orange County (about as far apart as Columbus and Cincinnati, for you Ohio folks who were wondering). Thus, the infamous “OC” was added to the “Dustino” and voila, ocdustino was born (I was also attending Otterbein College, another iteration of OC in my life). It was completely unique to me, concise, easy to explain to people without having to write it down for them, and didn’t have any pesky numbers at the end cluttering it up. And as an added nugget, I’ve always considered myself the tiniest bit obsessive compulsive, so the fact that OCD made it in there has always amused me.

My ocdustino moniker would travel with me from AIM to MySpace to Flickr to Friendster (just kidding I never had a friendster) to Formspring to YouTube to Skype and eventually back to MySpace again (newly redesigned! #yawn), always guaranteeing that I’d have my unique user ID available to me as each new fad of a network came and went. As they say in the auto-repair world: if it ain’t broke, we’re still charging you labor to take a look.

Several years later a smart, probably-Jewish, boy would steal-ish an idea from a pair of less-smart-by-comparison, probably German twin boys (thereby fully making up for both World Wars and the atrocities therein), and The Facebook would become the social network that literally everyone in the world wanted to join, and it would lift the veil of made-up internet usernames in favor of something so drastic, so appalling, so extreme that it had literally never been thought of before: our actual names. And so, ocdustino became Dustin Heveron, and the age of internet anonymity came to an end (except for comment boards and internet chatrooms, which are just as creepy now as they were in the 90s).

But like all good stories, this one has a small twist at the end…for on March 12, 2009 — almost four years to the day since Dustin Heveron sent his first facebook friend request — a girl Dustin liked signed up for an account on a rapidly growing social network called twitter. So, wanting to impress her, Dustin also signed up for this new social network. All he needed to get started was…a username…

And the rest, as Natasha Bedingfield would say, is still unwritten.

Play on,
— @ocdustino

PS If you like social media so much, why don’t you marry it? Or if you live in one of those radical right-wing states that doesn’t allow inter-technology marriage, read some of my older posts about social media here (what the heck is Vine??), here (hey remember that Kony guy lol), and here (the 9 phrases you need to stop using in your bio). Also, despite changes over the years, comments sections are still a great place to leave anonymous hatred, so feel free to list all the things you don’t like about me down there. Cheers!

PPS My Xanga. Oh God, my Xanga. I totally forgot about that iteration of ocdustino till just now. I don’t have the self confidence to link to it, but…wow. Read at your own risk, and try not to hold it against me.

Workers spotted setting up for the concert the night before. (above)

Stay tuned,

Melanie

It is SOOOO weird how you can put your absolute ALL into something and it simply does not work out.  But then, there are things that are pure serendipity – just being in the right place at the right time sort of thing that requires minimum effort.

Qadr Allah, I guess

I wish I knew ahead of time which things would work for me and which things would simply not (no matter how hard I hit my head against the wall, no matter how many dua’s I made, no matter how much energy and effort and time I put into it.)

Still, all that wasted time… But then, if I hadn’t given it my all, I would have felt such regret!!

And what about that whole – if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again?  Am I banging my head against the Qadr wall trying to make something happen that simply will not?  Life can be so bittersweet sometimes.

Again, I guess it all goes back to the idea that you gotta trust that we’re in good Hands… and like Steve Jobs said – The dots will connect…

And then Surah Qadr is all about Laylatul Qadr every Ramadan.  So does that mean our Qadr is constantly changing?  I have heard that our dua’s can change our circumstances.  Do we each get a year to shape up, and then like Santa Claus, we get Qadr-presents on the night of Laylatul Qadr if Allah chooses to accept our dua’s and change our circumstances?

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

-Natasha Beddingfield

The copy I gave mi novio

Yay me!

It took me awhile, but I finally got to the end.

It started in Bogota in September last year. I was wandering the streets one Saturday morning and in a little plaza off Calle Septima, I found a tiny used book store. Unlike most bookstores we’re used to, there weren’t any aisles to browse, just shelves of books behind a glass counter.

I asked if they had The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, indisputably my favourite book, one I have read at least 7 times in English and gifted to others many more times. I figured that since I already knew the story so well, I would understand it even if I didn’t know all the words.

They showed me a few copies and I selected a lovely embossed paperback that felt slightly furry. It was beautiful. In between a couple of pages I discovered a homemade bookmark of tiny pressed flowers arranged and laminated. That was a lovely surprise.

I started reading and it was slow going because I noted every unfamiliar word in my book and at the end of each section, I consulted the dictionary, translated and reread the passage again.

My progress stalled when I went looking for a copy for mi novio in Santa Marta. It seemed that in a city of half a million people there was only one bookstore, and they didn’t have a copy of The Alchemist. I tried a stationery store that had a few books as well, and the large supermarket chain Exito, and even held out hope to find a copy from a street vendor but I couldn’t find it anywhere in Santa Marta. Out of options, I decided to give mi novio the beloved copy I’d bought in Bogota.

My copy of The Alchemist

I found my current copy of The Alchemist, a 20th anniversary commemorative hardback in the spiritual section of a fancy bookshop in Cartagena’s old city and I brought it back home with me to keep practising my Spanish.

During certain times, I get the urge to reread The Alchemist. Usually it’s a feeling of being out of control or when I’m feeling like the road ahead is long, boring and hard. Paulo Coelho’s words help me to see that everything is connected and it is all part of the journey.

Being away from mi novio for such a long time is so hard and one day I decided I needed to read The Alchemist to feel better. Since I’d already started it in Spanish, I said to myself “Righto, I should finish reading it in Spanish.”  But I didn’t want to trudge my way through it with a dictionary in hand so I made the decision to just jump right in, forget about the words I didn’t know and just keep reading.

This is probably one of the best things I could  have done. I came across about 3 or 4 words per page that I didn’t understand. Some I figured out just by reading, and others I guessed. Only a handful still baffled me, but the most important thing was I was reading and following the story! When learning another language one of the eureka moments is when you are able to read a book in that language. Starting with books you’ve already read in your native language makes it easier to follow the story in another.

I’m already looking forward to having another one of those “I need to read The Alchemist” moments, but the next one will most likely be

“Bueno, necesito leer El Alquimista.”

Do you speak more than one language? What was the first book you read in another language?

She was talking on the phone and noticed me first, and started waving. I waved back and stopped for a quick chat.

We talked about what we’ve each been up to and gave a quick run down on our plans, hers being moving to Uganda for a three month project. It was so lovely to see her and hear her news firsthand rather than via Facebook.

And then she said a really lovely thing “I was just reading your blog the other day about handwriting analysis and that quote at the end just sums you up perfectly.”

First up it was so lovely of her to say that, and secondly, knowing that at least one person out there is reading my blog after such a short time since starting up again provides the incentive to keep writing and posting. Offline encouragement gives you an extra spring in your typing and certainly brings out an inner smile. It’s where those site stats actually form into a person who has their own hopes and dreams and interests and style and who appreciates that you write about your own.

So here’s a big thank you to her and a thank you to all of you for reading!

A sample of my handwriting for the purposes of uncovering my personality!

Last night I made an impulse purchase in a bookstore on handwriting analysis.

It’s not a subject I had thought about much, but I had a slight interest – like that of wanting to have your palms read – and since it was only $5 I thought I’d give it a try and see what my handwriting says about me.

According to Eve Bingham in Simply Handwriting Analysis, graphology (the science? art? of handwriting analysis) is a very accurate personality indicator and that many organisations are now asking applicants to handwrite their cover letter so they can be analysed without those laborious psychometric tests. However I’ve never had to handwrite an application for any of my numerous jobs, so that seems like a bit of a wild claim.

Nowadays, with so much technology about us, we’re more accustomed to tapping out words with our fingertips than holding a pen between them. We hardly handwrite anything these days. However I do love writing by hand. I love to write cards with special messages, I like to write out my feelings in my journal and I can’t stop writing lists. I mean, heck, I’m even drafting this blog by hand.

Whilst the book isn’t an exhaustive compilation of handwriting types and styles, it does give an interesting run down on some of the more obvious characteristics. Drawing from the descriptions and examples in the book, it seems I’m stuck in adolescence.

Varying slant – “This type of writing is often found in teenagers when they are unsettled, with all kinds of conflicting thoughts and ideas, and a need for social and emotional acceptance, and more independence.”

Wavy or erratic baseline – “Teenagers often write with this kind of baseline when they are unsettled, with their minds and moods all over the place due to hormonal changes and a lack of definite direction in life.”

I know people often think I’m much younger than I am, but this is really trumps that. I do have to grudgingly acquiesce to the unsettled description, as until about six months ago, I was all over the shop in terms of what I wanted from life, what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. I wonder if my handwriting will now start to settle down now I’m starting to gather twigs to build a nest… In the meantime, I’m going to seek solace in the ‘garland connection’ of my writing.

“They are, however, kind, friendly, and affectionate individuals who do not have aggression in their nature; they prefer harmony to friction in their lives. These people like an active social life and they enjoy the company of friends and family. This person is an excellent host, who enjoys entertaining on a grand scale.”

There! That sounds more like me.

Apparently Santa Fe is the second or third art destination in the US, and Canyon Road certainly helps it earn this reputation. Around 300 art galleries stand shoulder to adobe shoulder along the narrow street. Sculptures abound in gardens and front courtyards. Shingles discreetly identify some of the galleries that open up to a maze of rooms filled with colourful and exciting artworks.

I felt my soul fill up as I browsed the art and pondered my favourites in this historic district that keeps such a local charm and flavour.

I imagined what it would be like to have the disposable income to make considered but personal purchases and certainly found a few that I would have bought if I had a $10,000 art budget.

I also marvelled over the creative talent and wished I could bring to tangible life the ideas that form in my imagination.

Time seemed to stand still as we walked along the street, soaking up the creative atmosphere. Or maybe that was the chocolate vortex we were in after consuming some meso american hot chocolate at Kakawa prior to setting out on Canyon Road.

It is fabulous and all wooden inside. Floors, beams, ceilings, bookshelves, furniture. It’s all wooden.

It has a coffee shop, is cosy and feels like a place of great knowledge. It’s kind of like a library, but better because the hush isn’t from fear of librarian wrath but from the peace of those inside. Sipping a coffee, hiding in a cosy nook and thumbing the pages of a good book are part of the charm of this place.

It is well-lit with soft, vintage ceiling lights – no harsh fluoro lights. The books are given plenty of space to hold their own the shelf, falling over slightly in a “pick me up” repose that makes you curious beyond the cover. Staff picks and displays abound, making ever corner you turn a new discovery.

I imagine this would be a great place to escape on a cold Denver day.

I’m excited because I now have 18 hours of Isabel Allende’s Island Beneath the Sea to listen to on my roadtrip and fill in the miles of highway to my next destination.

What are you reading?

Awhile back, whilst on a search for new friends in LA, I decided to volunteer at the Festival of Books.

Today dawned my first of two shifts at the LA Times Festival of Books and although I’m not so concerned with making friends now as I’m about to embark on a great American roadtrip, I came away from the day after having talked to a number of Americans and having a great time.

Wearing my wide-brimmed hat I’d bought in Venice Beach, I opted for an outdoor volunteering role (in spite of the suddenly 30ºC heat) and found myself being line monitor for a number of book signings with authors I’d never heard of before. My job description said I had to ensure that the lines were orderly, people were happy and that they only had three books for signing. I also had to hand out little post-it notes for the people who wanted their books inscribed with their names. Just so’s the authors could spell it correctly.

I was kind of surprised to note that the other volunteers in my area avoided people. They avoided speaking to them and they avoided being in places where they might be asked a question from a guest at the festival, like behind the signing booths, or sitting under a tree. I put myself out there. I made, or in some situations, tried to make, conversation with people in the lines. Not only was I helping their time in the line move along faster, but I was staving off the boredom I would feel if I didn’t have conversations with people. I also used this opportunity for my own good, and found tips and suggestions from people for my roadtrip.

Most of the people I spoke with were probably of the RV crowd, and they were excited to share their thoughts on various destinations across America. I used the Sharpies and post-its to take notes. I heard about national parks and cities and various routes. It was great research.

When the authors and book signings had thinned out a bit, I stood near the stack of programs and maps to help people out. Most were looking for the children’s area. I wasn’t just going to sit about. I had volunteered because I wanted to meet people. I want to note a few of the characters I met:

• The guy who asked me what my native language was then wore a surprised look when I said “English”. He thought I was Asian as he’d taught a number of Chinese, Malaysian and Korean students. This is the first time someone has told me I look Asian. I think this guy just looked stupid.
• The ebayers. This type of festival goer can be easily picked by their trolleys and canvas bags laden with books. They are professionals and linger all day to get all the signatures. They are typically older- say in their fifties – are plain looking, overweight and have ruddy faces.
• The young guy wearing a black CAA cap (Creative Artists Agency – a major Hollywood agency) perched on his black hair, a green t-shirt and jeans that gaped to show the elastic of his underwear when he sat down. He also hung around the signing area for a good portion of the day. He struck up conversations with others in the line about whether they’d read the book and then spoke at length to one of the more popular authors who said to call him after he’d read a couple of books.
• The volunteer from Christian College with short blonde hair and tattoos circling her forearms who looked like someone from home. Her and her friend hardly said boo.
• The volunteer author escort with shaking hands who barrelled up to me and said at rapid-fire, heightened-stress pace “I have the mystery panel here, where are they supposed to go?” I pointed him in the direction of my bookworm supervisor because I had no idea what he was talking about. I had equated mystery with potluck, and so I thought it was like some kind of mystery hotel deal, you don’t know who you’re seeing until you get there. In reality, it was a panel of mystery authors. I think the yellow t-shirt I was wearing reflected onto my hair making it look blonde.

After my shift finished I wandered through the festival, still being stopped and asked where the nearest restrooms were and the children’s area. I got to sit in on hearing a woman demonstrate how to bind books, pick up a free postcard, buy a stack of discounted Lonely Planet guidebooks and enter a competition to have a private screening of a Focus Features film. It was really fun. And I get to go back tomorrow.

In the lecture theatre

I’m volunteering at the LA Times Festival of Books this weekend and part of the deal included an orientation.

I have to admit to being reminded during the two hour session that I have an attention span shorter than a gnat. It was a little boring. On the upside, I got to sit in a real life American lecture theatre (same same but different to Australia) and pretend that I was a university student in the US.

Big building named after a person

We then went on a tour of the University of Southern California campus near Downtown LA to see where things were going to be located so we could point the 150,000 visitors in the right direction. As we wandered the campus I drank in all the details: the buildings all named after large donors to the university; that USC is a private university whereas UCLA is a public university; the beautiful brick buildings; the lawns and common areas; the statues; the plaques; the students congregating in plazas; the beach cruisers parked out front of buildings. It was all so fascinating and it made me want to be a student again.

Dusk on campus

And here's the obelisk

The most surprising thing though, was the obelisk. There is an obelisk on campus. That just seemed out of place and a little OTT.

We jumped in Esmeralda, rolled down the windows, opened the sunroof and cruised on down Hollywood Boulevard to the Goodwill store in Silver Lake. With a prime location in a beautiful modern building with big glass windows on Sunset Boulevard it is a lovely environment to go op shopping in. There are long aisles of clothes categorised by type and colour, and lots of staff on the floor.

Scouring the racks, I tried on a few dresses and ended up buying a couple of wrap dresses which will be handy come summer. Michele also got herself a new outfit with only shoes left to find.

Then, we well and truly got stuck into the book section. We were checking every single shelf and exclaiming when finding a book we loved. Bibliophile Michele would pull a beloved book off the shelf and then ask if I’d read it. Unfortunately for the most part, my answers were no. I haven’t read a lot of books recently, and in the past year, most of my reads have been Latin American fiction by either Isabel Allende, Paulo Coelho or Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I found books I wanted to share with Michele, like the Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean M Auel. We traded stories over the Confessions of a Shopaholic books and how they led to a strong urge to hit the shops. We discussed Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, even though neither of us had read it. The crowning glory would have to be Michele finding a 1966 hardback edition of her favourite book, with red tipped pages. That made her day.

Despite me deciding that I wouldn’t buy books to weigh me down in LA, that I would just borrow them from the beautiful, fresh Silver Lake Library, I was tempted by the low prices (with no tax added on top) and came away with seven books to read.

So I’d best get off the computer now and into a book.

Hindi ko magawa, hindi ko kaya. Kultura? Iba sa amin, iba sa kanila. Maaaring ayos lang, walang masama sa mata nila, pero sa aking pananaw, sa aking kinamulatan, kakahiya, kakailang, tipong desperada. Hindi TAMA!. Hay, first move, touch move! Pero, waaaaaaaa….. Sabi nila ayos lang, madami silang nagsasabi, pero hindi ko kaya, ayoko… hindi pa naman ako, desperada. Pero sa totoo lang, gusto ko mabasa. Ano ka ba talaga?

——-

Pangalawang ayaw ko, ATTACKS!

hihi… nakita ko sya, nahuli ko sya, nakita ko mata nya, wag syang tatanggi. hahahah…. sige lang, magpakiramdaman na lang.. hmmm.. may the best personality win.. pam param pam pam! haha.

——-

My song!   By Natasha Beddingfield!

Click! Click! read the lyrics!

Click Unwritten Click

——

Sa kabilang banda.. eto na naman ako, nagbibilang ng tupa..

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wanted to put this post together…. my mind tells me that I don’t need to post this….. but my heart tells me that I do. I don’t want to signify the shortcomings of others, but I want to help them improve (indirectly). I don’t want to step on someones toes, but I feel that sometimes I just do know things better than you.

I guess part one originated from my frustrations at work (to a certain extent) over the last 2-3 weeks. My post on hard work (or working hard more specifically) came into my mind at the end of a day where I had brought my “A game” to the show, and had really worked my socks off. My frustrations, on that day, were because of how certain people work or even worse – give an impression that they are working around me. As much as I would want to name and shame them, thinking back over it, I don’t think I would achieve anything by signifying their behaviour.

Something else which also influenced this decision of mine was a post written by Sindhu over at the rest is still unwritten. More specifically, this bit did it for me – “The human tendency to want more is not just constrained to material objects. You want a prettier girlfriend, a sexier one-night-stand, a slimmer wife. You want a sweeter boyfriend, a hotter hook-up, a richer husband. You want a nicer boss, a funnier co-worker, and a smarter friend. You want people to HAVE more, DO more, BE more.”

Yes, I want and expect more from people and I am sure it works the other way as well. It is frustrating when things don’t work perfectly when you are giving it all you can. I could be smug and say that others are just not up to my level, or be gracious enough to acknowledge that they could be having an off day. What I do know is that certain people around me, both in the past and now, have met me eye to eye when a challenge has been laid, so I guess being patient does work…. maybe if I waited long enough – I would see the results that I want expect to see.

In my current work environment, I will definitely say that there are slackers…. I definitely know of atleast one person who spends most of Friday surfing the net because their boss doesn’t do Fridays and they are unsupervised; I do know of another one who gives the impression of work, but fulfills her personal interest while she should be working. Maybe it is a game of patience, maybe someone needs to shake things up…. I don’t know… I guess given the opportunity I would know how to influence these situations better; I know that these people can be better, more effective….. but then another question goes needs to be asked…. with them being way older than me…. should I be the one telling them how to do things better?

Here’s the deal. We all know I am currently jobless; the move is not on the cards anymore after the ruptures within my family ties. I have paid my rent so I have my apartment until the 7th of November, but in my money bag I have only 25 euros left and due to the fact that I sold everything two years ago when I left the UK I haven’t got a freaking thing to sell to help me on my way.

Finding a job is proving difficult. Living in a tourist resort is great in the summer, money is plentiful, the place is alive with people. Come the winter months it’s the complete opposite, people are laying off staff this time off year not taking on new ones.

It seems I am well and truly up shit street without a paddle, or however the saying goes (am sure I have that mixed up, why do you need a paddle in a street?) I don’t even have the money to get a flight back to my homeland, nor do I want to return to the UK.

And to top it all off, people keep saying things like this to me;

Well yeah, thanks.

I am sure one day I will look back on the poor, unemployed, lost, bitter twentysomething woman I am right now and say wow that was a hard lesson but I gained so much – but right now being stranded in a foreign country without family, money and hope looking to the future and thinking of the lessons that are going to be learnt just ain’t something I am all that keen on doing.

So in response to a blog entry I read earlier today about six-word secrets at The Rest Is Still Unwritten here’s mine;

Life’s fucked up; pass the vodka