But for now...need to wash dishes and then finish enjoying my vacation from my brain.

Posting this photo (stolen from Leanne's facebook!) because it makes me laugh. It's from our 2010 birthday dinner. I think my horrified look came about when I discovered that the bottle contained 160 proof liquor. Holy poop!

What I don't think they know is that I've been literally seething for days now...

9/22/2001

I was a few months out of a silly, nothing little two-month relationship (Sar once very accurately described it as a "whatever") with someone I had been friends with for years. He was technically my first boyfriend and consequently this was my first experience with a breakup.

He had claimed that he wanted to remain "good friends" even though we weren't together. I hadn't really spoken to him during the summer, but we were going to the same college so I thought we'd be able to hang out on occasion. He was, however, rather avoidant.

I wish I remember what was going on at exactly this point in time, but I don't. I do remember being quite upset, though. Curse my inexperience! If I were as wise (ha!) as I am today I'm pretty sure I'd be able to write off the whole episode with a good eyeroll and a hearty "Well FUCK HIM then" and have a single drink just take the edge off.

Too bad I was 17 and stupid.

Labels: story

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Was looking through some more old blog entries and realized that I'm guilty of some pretty serious navel-gazing, something that has somewhat but not entirely improved over the past few years. I feel like I felt a lot more free to self-obsess vey back in da dey because...well it was just different back then.

Speaking of way back when!

I started college almost exactly 10 years ago! So weird reading my blog entries from then. Some of them were kind of cryptic but I remember the stories behind them pretty clearly. Maybe I can start elaborating on those mysterious entries now that so much time has passed.

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Anyway, gotta pee. Goo goo goo and ta ta.

Japanese crackers go with my Japanese tea. Yum.

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Ate karamiso ramen today. SO GOOD.

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Also, went to the gym today. As I left, the desk guy called out "Have a nice day!" to which I almost replied "Good night!" which is my standard reply when I leave the gym when I go after work (which is most of the time) but realized, just before the words left my mouth, that it was not exactly appropriate. However I didn't catch myself quite in time and couldn't revise my words into something intelligible quickly enough so what ended up coming out was something like "Nnnghh". Which is just great.

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Lots of food tomorrow. Fatty fat fat.

Zefrank.com is an incredibly entertaining site. I have a link to it on my links page...but I never really looked at it. Just the dancing part. Look at what I made.

Neat huh?

My last blog post before the twin towers went down, about 4.5 hours before it all happened.

As horrified as I was by the imagery and news reports of what had happened on that day, I'm almost definitely sure I didn't understand the magnitude of the attack. I was 17 years old and about to start my first year of college; it was a little less than a week before I was supposed to move into my dorm. The morning of the attack had been like any other summer morning of that break. It was past 8:30am PST (around 3 hours after the initial plane crash I think). I was in bed, asleep when my dad burst into my room. My first thought was that he was going to chew me out for sleeping "late", since my parents had (much to my dismay) woken me up at around 8 or 8:30 in the morning every day of summer vacation to keep my sleeping habits on schedule. Instead, he was in a state of excitement (not the good kind) as he frantically informed me that the twin towers had both been destroyed and a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. I was half asleep and slowly tried to piece together what he had just said. I woke up and immediately logged onto the Internet which flooded me with headlines and photographs of the attack. I could hear the news on the television from my dad's office upstairs where he was working.

The next handful of days I spent at home were quiet and uneventful with this odd, dark cloud hanging over everyone's heads. I teared when I listened to the voicemails left by victims, I tried to figure out a way to donate blood (which, if you know me, is kind of a BIG freaking deal), I worried about possible future attacks, especially since Los Angeles was seen as a likely target. Other than these small changes to my routine (among other things) I went about business as usual; there were still a lot of things I had to do in preparation for my move to Irvine. The evening of September 11th I went over to a friend's house to drop off a birthday gift. I wished this friend a slightly ironic "happy" birthday on my blog, Rediff (probably combing Blogger for any posts that made any mention of the attacks) picked up that quote and put it in an article as supposed proof that everyone was "moving on" already. No, I hadn't moved on. I don't think anyone had in that short 24 hours. I did, however, try keep on functioning as I did before.

Ten years later now, I really have to think to remember what things were like before 9/11. Ten years later, I can't believe it's been so long. My entire adult life has been post 9/11. What would I be doing if it had never happened? Would I be a different person?

So, here's my little memorial to commemorate this date. I went back to Zefrank and letter project, retracing the steps of one of the last things I did before America was changed forever.

• Old town Orange is pretty awesome
• Carlsberg really is a much better version of Heineken!
• Louks are delicious.
• Rosettes are also delicious!
• I haven't been to Porto's yet but after trying a piece of their cake I'm pretty sure I need to go.

Boom boom pow. Pictures will be uploaded somewhere, eventually.

We went to the gastropub we were going to for dinner a bit early and tucked into some beers before Sar and Ho got there.

Excited about October, I think. Even if I am turning fucking old.