So yesterday I was doing self-portraits for the first time in a while and I decided to take off all my clothes. And by all my clothes I mean two articles of clothing. And I guess two articles of clothing doesn't really constitute a striptease, especially if one of the articles of clothing is really an accessory. Anyway, fruits of that labor to come at a later date. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe I'll save it for the scheduled posts to come while I'm in Japan (!)

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Today VV, the Counselor and I went to get Korean food. And when I say Korean food I mean fried chicken made by Koreans. Anyway, we got there before the lunch rush which was good. We ordered fries, chicken and dukbokki (which was primarily for the Counselor since he's the one who likes it) which was all good (their fries are strangely addictive) and they played "Play that Funky Music" on loop the entire time we were there. I told the Counselor they were probably playing it for him since he was the only white boy in the restaurant.

But dude, the last time I remember being in a place where the same song was played over and over and over again was at the Galleria in Little Tokyo (they were playing "Too Little Too Late" by JoJo) which is another Korean-owned establishment. Is this a Korean-establishment thing or just a coincidence? Hmm...

Anyway, halfway through our meal two big LOUD guys who looked like they were in their 30s or maybe even early 40s came into the restaurant and got seated by one of the staff. They loudly told her that the most awesome video game ever is coming out today and that this video game just happens to be made by a Korean company (NCsoft? I dunno, are they coming out with anything today?) so that's why they wanted to go someplace Korean for lunch! Wth? Keep in mind that these dudes were clear across the room yet we could still hear them quite clearly, and anyway who says stuff like that?? Meh. Whatever.

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Is "someplace" really not a real word? Firefox tells me it isn't. But then again it also thinks "meh" isn't a real word and we all know it totally is.

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ps. I'm totally behind on my personal email. If you've emailed me and I haven't responded it's because I've been inundated by emails from my family (primarily my mom) trying to prepare for the upcoming trip and yeah everything is totally getting lost in the shuffle. Will catch up this weekend (I hope). I really need to make my packing list.

Leaving for Japan in a week! Photo above is random from a couple weeks ago or so. Just posted it because my blog has been light on photos lately.

FINALLY finished Flickring cruise photos. Best way to view would be via this page since everything is in (more or less) chronological order and it starts at the beginning.

Need to start making a packing list. It made things so much easier when I was packing for Europe. I think I actually finished packing before midnight that day! For a 13 day trip! So impressed with myself.

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MeMe Roth is kind of nuts but her "Wedding Dress Challenge" is compelling sorta. The challenge is to be able to fit into your wedding dress year after year (well, unless you're pregnant or something obviously). Except I don't have a wedding dress. So maybe mine should be a prom dress challenge instead.

Actually, maybe I should see if I could fit into that tiny cheerleading skirt from a couple of years ago. Thanks to the unhealthy amount of online shopping I do, I know that a lot of sizing charts on websites mean jack shit and clothes seem to run a bit big. Not so for that freaking skirt. When I got it I was barely able to get it on. Holy crap. I ended up dropping a few pounds between then and the time I was supposed to wear it so it was all good, but damn. However, if I can get into that stupid skirt now then I know for sure that I didn't gain fat (despite what the stupid scale tells me damn you scale).

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Also, I will drink coffee in Japan. I've decided coffee will be a treat I'll allow myself whilst on travel. Totally arbitrary. IT'S ALL GOOD.

Need to figure out where the most convenient Curry House is in Japan. I've been to Oahu a few times but have never gone to the Curry House there!

For the past couple of weeks I've gone to the gym for 5 days out of the week and have started using the weight machines again (contemplating buying free weights to keep at home, though) and since then I've been having trouble keeping my weight down. I'm just going to tell myself that it's muscle weight (just to keep my sanity in check) and hope for the best.

I suppose I've made it known that I can get some pretty bad social anxiety at times. The kind that makes me burrow into the bed and whimper to VV that I don't want to go anywhere because I'm highly introverted and socializing with people I don't know very well usually sends my stress levels off the charts. What I might not have really made known is that half of my anxiety that results from the very thought of meeting new people is that I'm highly insecure about the way I look.

Sometimes I feel okay, but a good deal of the time when I look in the mirror or if I look at a photo I see a total freakshow looking back at me. The worst days are when I'm done doing my makeup and I still look horrible at which point it's like "Well...now what."

They say that first impressions are key, and often the first impression you get of someone is their outward appearance. This knowledge alone is enough to send me into a panic. Meeting friends/family of a boyfriend is particularly harrowing because I have this fear of them wondering "Why does he want to be with someone who looks like that." (which has actually sort of happened before so I can't say this fear is completely unfounded). This fear alone is enough to lock up my brain and keep me from making normal conversation and unfortunately may make me seem a little aloof to those who don't know me very well.

This issue has some serious roots that go back to being a kid. I've been obsessed with my weight since I was maybe eight years old (I hated my thighs and my belly) and when I was a little older (maybe 10 or 11) I would sometimes sneak into my mom's makeup drawer and literally cake on tons of eyeliner and lipstick to see if there was anything I could do to make me look pretty.

I guess it's a little odd that I take so many self-portraits in light of these fears/anxieties, but in addition to getting in some practice w/ the camera (something I enjoy) it's also a sort of exercise in trying to get used to looking at myself...and getting used to having others look at me too and trying to get myself to truly believe that I'm not as grotesquely malformed as the mirror might suggest. I do realize that a lot of what I see is mostly in my head, but not knowing exactly how much is purely psychological is what makes me a little crazy sometimes.

This is essentially the post that I had meant to post way back when but never got around to. I'm going to click "Publish Post" now before I lose my nerve.

• lots of water
• lots of exercise
• balance of greasy food/healthy food (more greasy food than i should be eating, though)
• making dinner
• lots of raw vegetables/fruits
• sleep aids and insomnia
• not enough picture-taking
• lots of dresses
• half coke/half cherry slurpees (occasional guilty pleasure)
• forehead cancer (aka giant tumor-like zit)
• going jacketless

I've been slacking off in the internet department. Haven't been updating much, horribly behind on Flickr, pretty behind on other people's blogs, etc.

Last weekend = lunch/brunch with the Alicante girls at a super cute place that we'll probably never go to again because driving there/parking is a bitch and a half (sorry I had to leave early :(), Kings Hawaiian and Coldplay concert with VV, his cousin and his cousin's friend and Leanne and April (sort of), and OCBC obon (lots of food!). Didn't fall asleep until well after 4:30am last night which means I'm a little cloudy in the head this morning.

I can hear Daft Punk's One More Time from VV and the Counselor's office right now. Please tell me I'm not the only one who thought it was Cher the first time they heard it. Also, it reminds me of being in the Gap.

• Been trying to work out more regularly. Have done well this week. My sore muscles agree.
• When my weekends are empty I start getting antsy and just a little bit anxious. When they're full (like last weekend and this coming weekend and maybe the weekend after that) I kind of want to die.
• Japan in coming up in less than three weeks. Don't feel quite ready.
• Haven't been taking very many photos lately. But...it's okay. For now.
• I always forget the HTML for making bullet lists, but I remembered this time!

edit: why the hell didn't this publish yesterday?!

Leanne: Yeah! I went when we went!

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Contemplating another post that I put off doing before. Need to unlazify myself first.

Busy Obon weekend. Difficulty sleeping. Haven't been taking too many photos of daily whatevers. Another busy weekend coming up involving a Canadian, a concert, and another Obon. None of those things are at all connected.

BBL.

(original video can be seen here)

Have been feeling kind of slothly (firefox says slothly isn't a word) for a while now. Have been slacking off on taking pictures of anything. Hm.

This past weekend (long weekend yyyyyay) has been pretty awesome and has consisted of eating about 4 times more than I usually do and drinking moderate amounts throughout the day. Also, I made brown butter ice cream which was pretty much my first time making ice cream EVER and it was actually kind of successful aside from the pretty scary butter explosions that occurred while making the brown butter. Actually, I had once made frozen yogurt with that ice cream maker back in college. My boyfriend at the time found it on Amazon for about $10 and couldn't resist. Of course, he had no use for it so he gave it to me. April and I excitedly picked out a recipe for peach frozen yogurt and we made it and it came out kind of...hard. Anyway, it's been unused up until yesterday when I made frozen peach bellinis for brunch. Semi-successful.

Anyway, now I'm Flickring and drinking leftover sparkling wine straight from the bottle whilst watching Sideways and dreaming of a wine tasting weekend in Santa Barbara. So, here you go. Another crappy update because I'm already a little buzzed :) Hope your weekends went awesome!

So nothing about these photos is really new or interesting, but it's been a while so why not?

I bought this blouse at Anthropologie in New York last October. I seriously went in to get a hat (it was cold and VV insisted that I get one) and somehow walked out with about $300 worth of merchandise. Ridiculous. That store is a money sucker.

Anyway, VV and I were watching The Fashion Show, which is Bravo's sad replacement for Project Runway (Kelly Rowland needs to get auf'd fo serious) and they had this fashion trivia mini-challenge for the designers at the beginning of the show. So one of the questions that was asked was who Christian Dior's successor was after his death and before they'd even read off the options VV was like "YSL" and I was like "I dunno" AND THE CORRECT ANSWER WAS YVES SAINT LAURENT and I was like "HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT???" and he told me that when we were at Anthropologie in New York and I was trying on about half the store in the fitting room, he ended up reading most of one of the books in the fitting room waiting area and that book happened to be on the history of fashion. And now he knows more about high fashion than I do apparently. Awesome.