Well I did it. I watched Jersey Boys for the FOURTH time yesterday. I saw it with Freesia and Crystal and they too were delighted by the show although Freesia said she was a little scared that I was so obsessed with a particular character, that being Bob Gaudio. The SF cast was great too. The actor who played Tommy De Vito was an excellent Italian brute. We had a stand in for Frankie Valli but he actually turned out to be my favorite Frankie, excellent voice , nice height, cute curly hair, and not as grimacy as the Tony award winning John Lloyd Young. I was a bit nervous about how I would take to the actor playing Bob Gaudio, which in my mind will always be Daniel Reichard, but hell, I liked him too! He had a really strong singing voice and his talking voice was very reminiscent of Daniel's. My least favorite was the actor who played Nick Massi. Most audience members would write off the character of Nick Massi as unimportant but he does have some key parts in the show. The SF Nick Massi said a lot of the lines in a funny way. Overall though, it was a fine, fine show.

I also met a very nice grandpa gentleman named Tony from Jersey and his lovely wife Brenda who used to be a Playboy bunny in the 70s. I was standing alone outside the theatre for 15 minutes before they showed up to keep me company. He's a painter and they've been living in Culver City for the past 12 years. (Neighbors!) He was telling me stories about South Jersey, where he grew up, and I was impressing him with my Jersey knowledge from the show. We ended up sitting together in the front row and he just loved it! He said he was going to see it 10 times and afterwards gave me a hug and wished me a Merry Christmas.

Later, the three of us headed for Home, a restaurant I've never been to in the Castro, where we met up with Chizu and Lisa. As Bob Crewe would say in Jersey Boys: the stars were in alignment; I don't think the five of us have all been together in one place in years. The food was nice and the atmosphere was very homey (pun intended). I felt like I was in a train caboose or dining car, all very well and good with picturesque SF buildings staring back at me from outside.

The second half of the evening, however, after we were finished eating, sort of went downhill for me. I felt like I was spending the whole time defending/justifying/explaining myself which I never have to do because most of the time people just ignore whatever it is I'm saying or they know I'm kidding and move on but not Lisa. I forget how it started but I said something like "I don't like guys who are darker than me." This is something I've said numerous other times to different people and the usual reaction is a laugh. But Lisa responded with "Hella racist." What? Stupid maybe. Not PC, probably. But racist? Never. By no means was I ousting or commenting on black guys, Indian guys, Samoan guys, Muslim Thais from the south of Thailand, etc. I was merely saying I don't usually find myself attracted to Asian guys who are darker than me, or maybe I should have said, "guys who have a tanner complexion than myself". This whole color thing sprang from an episode of Will & Grace I was watching where Grace was dating a guy played by the late Gregory Hines and she was making a cup of coffee and adding cream and saying to Will "Look what a pretty color our kids will be" or some such thing and I thought, HAHA, that's really funny. Needless to say, I guess I should keep my color preferences to myself.

Oh, and then Freesia mentioned that her old college roommate, Pat, was in med school in Brooklyn. As Tommy De Vito would say in Jersey Boys, "My hand to god" my heart started to aflutter. One. I never, ever meet anyone Thai. Two. Med school? Three. Brooklyn? That sounds too good to be true. I've never been one to seek out my own kind, as in Thai boys, probably because of the way I was raised but that's a whole other blog entirely. (All you have to know is that my parents were wronged by many of the Thai people they knew when their restaurant when bankrupt and fearing that my parents might ask them for money or hoping to flee the bad luck, all of our Thai family friends disappeared and I grew up knowing how to be Thai only by looking at my parents and being suspicious of any Thai person I ran into which was not very often at all.) But anyway, Crystal made a comment about how I probably wouldn't like Pat because he was Thai and then Lisa said I was a "self-hating Thai" and I think I must've agreed but at that point I was pretty tired of defending/explaining/justifying myself that I would've agreed to anything. But the truth of the matter is, I've always been very proud of being Thai. I loved that first day of school when the teachers are doing roll call and they would get to me and always stumble through my last name and I would always have to correct them or say something cheesy like "Yeah, that was pretty close" and I love explaining how the food at Thai restaurants isn't usually the stuff my parents cook and I love going to the Thai temple in North Hollywood for Songkran so no, I am not a self-hating Thai. If anything, I would much rather maintain my monopoly on my Thai-ness and would rather not have another Thai person around who would be able to interject with a Thai-ism. Plus, I'm quite sure this Pat guy is a much more well-rounded Thai person than I am and grew up going to the temple every Sunday and actually has a group of Thai friends. Going out with a Thai person would be really bizarre actually. I don't know if I would be willing to share.

I was quite ready to leave Home and head home.

Am back in SF now and have only ventured outside once to have lunch yesterday with my dad. We tried this new place called Cable Car Pizza on Geary and 11th. It was dreadful. I guess I could give the food a B, at the very least, but the service was ridiculous. I ordered a Greek salad with chicken and they brought the chicken out after my salad and they gave it to me on a plate and it looked liked they had just cooked it on a Foreman grill. And the plates they had on the table were straight up dusty. It was all very bizarre, like eating at a pretend restaurant.

Since I'm home and school's out and the weather is chilly, I've been preoccupying myself with watching movies borrowed from Club Manning. Yesterday I watched Goodfellas. And you know who's in it? The actress who played the super tan girl on Seinfeld. She was very, very, orange/brown and she liked George. This is way later in the series, maybe season 7 or 8.

And today I watched Annie Hall and you know who's in it? The actress who got hit in the head by Elaine's beeping organizer on Seinfeld. This is the episode where Jerry tells Elaine that Tolstoy wanted to call his book War, What Is It Good For and not War and Peace.

Am going to watch King Kong later tonight. I wonder who I'll see then.

It must have been last week when I watched another episode of Felicity. As can be expected, I picked up another choice line uttered by Felicty herself.

She says, "Liking someone is supposed to make your life better, not worse."

To which I would respond, "Define worse."

Chrsitmas at Club Manning!

So we did gift exchange tonight because I'm going home tomorrow and we set the mood with candles, my pink tree, freshly baked cookies, the poinsettia on the shelf, and merry holiday music.


Me being giddy with a cookie.


Crystal hella into her new knitting project which I helped her start. Thank you, thank you.


Wesley, always ready for a photo shoot.


Crystal was first and this is her being hella excited with my first gift to her. It's Dave Chappelle's For What It's Worth. If you haven't seen this, then you're missing out on such classic lines as "It's doo doo, baby" and "What. The. Fuck. Is. Juice?"


Us doing the doo doo.


Yes it's blurry but I like it because if you look hard enough, you can see that my eyes are closed.


Me not so blurry with my new most awesome red patent, quilted leather, Swatch watch from Crystal.

Wes struggling with my wrapping.


Wes now has a photo of the CBGB bathroom which he can hang over his bed in all its glory.

HAHA. I got Crystal red satin pajamas from Frederick's so that we can re-create the TLC Creep video which we luv. Left Eye wore red, Chilli wore pink, and Tboz wore turquoise. That translates into Crystal=red, Nina=pink, Wes=turquoise. HAHA.


Heeyyyyyyy. Sexy time.


Wes delighted with his Greogry Crewdson photo book courtesy of Crystal.

How cute are these gingham boxes? I can't tell you what Wes gave us because he still has more up his sleeve but let's just say me and Crystal are the only two people in the entire world who own what's inside them. We are very, very, VERY lucky indeed.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Blog Number 100!!!

In commemoration of this momentous milestone, I have something very special to share except I must begin with a warning. The following photos are not for the squeamish. They are pictures of my gnarly toe. I had my pre-op on Monday and the doctor is going to operate on January 12th. I will need an orthopedic shoe, which I like to call the booty. I cannot get my foot wet for 3-4 weeks because of the stitches. I will not have a full grown toe nail for 7-9 months. Instead, I will have a scab and a wrapping around my toe. Can you say, Jeez? But if you can stomach looking at my toe, you will be in for a real treat. I started knitting again and I have a baby picture of my beautiful scarf. So here goes. Remember I did warn you these would be icky.

Okay. If you're grossed out, then I'm offended because this is my left foot and my good toe.

Eww!!!! I tried filing down that bit of nail but it doesn't work. Check out the discoloration too.

Side view. Do you see the bumpage under the toe nail?

Ugh. Disgusting right?

Okay, last one. And now the reward for putting up with my grossness.

I just started and am basically 0.004% away from finishing but isn't it gorgeous? I think it looks J.Crew worthy or Banana-ish. If you would like one for say, next Christmas, let me know, and I think I can get it done by then...

Pink Sunday

I can die happy because I bought this at Target today:

There isn't a more perfect gift out there for me. It's PINK, it makes coffee, and it's Hello Kitty. Merry Christmas to me! (I also own a Hello Kitty alarm clock, Hello Kitty radio, Hello Kitty towel, and Hello Kitty utensils and plastic plates, all courtesy of Target)

Afterwards, Crystal and I went to PINK'S Hot Dogs. I've never been and it's one of the places on my Must-visit-before-I-leave-L.A-list. I had the Chili Dog with Kraut which was really a hot dog with two slices of cheese, chili, onions, and sauerkraut. Crystal had the bacon chili cheese dog with 3 strips of bacon, tomatoes, and cheese.

Then we walked about five steps to PINKberry, which if you're an avid reader of my blog, know that I love and think is the greatest thing since sliced bread, although, recently, we discovered that the California Roll & Sushi place near us installed a Red Mango frozen yogurt stand inside and they were giving away free samples if you ate there and it turns out that Red Mango is comparable, if not superior to Pinkberry and cheaper! So today's Pinkberry visit was the first in a long while and, well, I can't believe I'm about to utter these words, but Pinkberry is not that good anymore. Red Mango is much creamier and tastier and like I said, cheaper, although Red Mango does use defrosted frozen fruit for toppings. And one more thing. We're pretty sure that Red Mango is the original frozen yogurt craze that started in Korea which the Pinkberry owner ripped off. So the Korean owner of the sushi place (yes, a Korean owner owns a Japanese sushi place) must have brought it over. So I guess what I'm saying is: I'm done with Pinkberry.

And that concludes Pink Sunday.

Birthday dinner for Cit tonight at Cha Cha Cha:

1 Tico drink + 2 or 3 Sangrias + 1 Bistec Argentino entree = sleepy time.

My pre-op for toe surgery is scheduled for next Monday except I somehow forgot that I have jury duty that day. Worse comes to worse, I'll just show them my gnarly toe. That should shut them up.

One Final down. One to go.

Does anyone know what an information architect is? This is the wikipedia entry on it. Next quarter I'm taking a class called Information Systems. This might be my new forte.

I said a few entries ago that I was starting to forget why I ever went out with the EX in the first place. WHAT I MEANT TO SAY was, I'm starting to forget how we ever got together in the first place. It seems like a million things have to go right for two people to get together, like the moon and the stars have to be in alignment, the sun has to rise at exactly 6:42am, ten cars have to pass through the intersection, the cat next door has to be sitting on the roof when you leave your house. I just don't see how it's ever going to happen again for me. At least not the way I've been envisioning it.

And then I think about the people I know who are a lot older and not married and it's like, what happened? How did that ship pass you by? That totally sucks.

And then I have this friend who's getting married in June and I was talking to her about how I'm going to move to New York after I graduate, and she was like, "Nina, you're really brave" and I was like, "Dude, you're getting married. That is brave."

Quote courtesy of Wes (who found it somewhere):

Talented people with no ambition move to San Francisco.
Talented people with ambition move to NYC.
People with ambition and no talent move to LA.

Absolutely brilliant I say...

Dave Eggers is doing a free reading at the Hammer Musuem this Sunday!

Tonight was the last night of my Metadata class and we had a special treat in the form of Champagne, couresty of teacher, AND an original song written and performed by a boy in my class! The song was called "I Don't Need Your Authority Control". This is only funny if you're cool enough to be a library grad student or if you happen to know about controlled vocabularies and cataloguing rules. Needless to say, it was great and apparently he has a bunch of other songs and he is going to sell this stellar CD in June of 07.

Crystal quote of the day:
"I got a cataract. I needs a drink!"

It's been a little crazy since my last post. Some thoughts and insights that have made me stop and think:
"Couldn't you just be cute all the time?"
"It's loneliness."
"Maybe I am annoying."
"Everyone's moving on Nina; you better get with it."
"I got into NYU."

Went to a few gallery openings tonight with the roommates. Never been to a gallery opening, especially not in L.A. The crowd is super L.A, super trendy, super good looking. Tell me why I ran into my painting teach from Riverside. !!!!! Edgar Acreneaux. He is the one responsible for the masterpiece that is THIS. I saw him out of the corner of my eye and I was like, dude, that has got to be him, so I went looking for him and we ran into each other and he was like, I know you but from where, and I was like, I was in your painting class in Riverside and we chatted and he asked what I was up to and I said I was in grad school at UCLA and he was like, well, tell me when you have a show and I'll come out, and I had to be like "Oh! I'm not an art student, I'm in library school" and that really confused him but anyway, it was hella cool seeing him and wait a minute, he thought I was an art student?! HAHA. I know my painting of the ex is hella good but come on...

Absolutely obsessed with the song "River" by Joni Mitchell, then by Barry Manilow and most currently by Sarach McLachlan.

Learned recently that I've been singing the wrong words to "Don't Stop Believin". Was in the car with the roommates and I was belting out: "Just a city boy, raised in in SELF-CONTROL" and I heard Crystal sing "Raised in South Detroit" and I was like, did you just say Detroit? and she was like, no shit, what did you just say? And we three proceeded to laugh and laugh at my stupidity. But in my defense, I still think "born in self-control" makes sense because the girl is born in a lonely world and who knows where she came from and I will continue to sing it that way LOUD AND PROUD.

Watched "Stranger Than Fiction" over Thanksgiving and enjoyed it. Watched "Da Vinci Code" last night and wanted it to end because it was so godforsaken long and not as good as the book. Just watched "Wordplay" and wished I could be a puzzle constructor because I obviously could never solve the Monday puzzle in less than two mintues. Bought Seinfeld Season 7 and will continue to laugh at Kramer's antics because goddammit Kramer and Michael Richards are NOT THE SAME.

Anne got into NYU but isn't sure if she's going to go. I can understand that. If this was three years ago, there would be no hesitation but things change.

Went to Vanilynne's housewarming tonight and saw Justin. Haven't seen him in three years. Seriously. He has a lot of funny memories of me at Riverside. Interesting to learn how people like to remember you.

And now for the meat of this blog entry. Horray to you if you made it this far. Went to a happy hour Thursday with the Ex and his buddies. Had more beer than I should have and turned into chatty, tipsy Nina. Afraid I might have looked a bit foolish or enterained a lot of people or both. Definitely think I pissed him off though. He has his sights on a new girl who was there and I guess I threw off the whole dynamic of the group. Had a revelation that perhaps I might really be annoying after all. I tend to say a lot of random things, non sequiturs if you will, tangents really, but I only say them to amuse myself with absolutely no thought or consideration to the people listening and it turns out these tangents of mine may really be irksome and unwelcome. Thanks a lot to Asshole who pointed this out, who actually, I think, encourages this type of behavior in me and then proceeds to chastise me for it. But anyway, there was definitely a moment during this unhappy hour when I realized, as drunk as I was, that the conversation was being dominated by myself and aforementioned Asshole and everyone else was only observing and this of course, is never really fun, and usually I try really hard to include everyone in the conversation but somehow, this time, I overlooked it. Asshole was also trying his damndest to let me know, with absolute conviction, that he is surrounded by plenty of hot girls and I am not one of them. Asshole.