Won't you have some Waffles Of Mine?
Ahhh... anybody that gets the reference.... well, you win. :)
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Do you/did you call your significant other Baby/Sweetie/Honey?
No. Never.
Do you/did you call your significant other by a special pet name?
When
I am feeling particularly girly (this is generally only in written
format) I call him "mi mono". Back in the day he went by "bishop" and
also "Erick". Those two names are pretty much tucked on that mental
shelf that hardly ever sees any light. On rare serious/loving occasions
we will call each other by our full first names. Full first/middle/last
names are reserved for joking only. He has a number of pet names for
me, but it's pretty much along the lines of 'wench'. :)
Do you/did you do this in public (at the store, etc)?
Not really - when we're out in public we rarely call each other by any sort of name, the conversation is unspoken or continuous.
Do you/did you do this around your friends?
Yes.
West Coast peeps know him as "J" or "j'luxe" or even "Monkey", but East
Coast friends/family know him as Jason. And yes, it's "J" as in the
letter.
How frequently? (It's replaced their first name for me, very often, often, rarely, only during cuddling/special time.)
Since
we've got multiple names for each other, frequency depends on the
situation. I switch between "J" and "J'luxe"... in varying forms of
l33t. Calling him "Monkey" is reserved for casual moments, mostly
between close mutual friends of ours. The majority of the time I refer
to him as "J" (when speaking to people), and he usually refers to me as
"Larissa" when he's talking to other people.
If you do not/did not do this, what are your feelings on it?
That whole honey-sweetie-baby thing just feels like a mental splinter. This is probably because most people I know that do say it go overboard, and it's always sounded very fake to me. Like cilantro*, it should be used sparingly.
*haha sure, why not.
I was out biking the other night, and thought (as I so often do on my boardwalk travels), that the scenery (minus people) really can't be beat. The expanses of sand, palms, waves and various beauty still take me by surprise sometimes... it's such a far cry from the familiar urban sights of my hometown.
Sharing is caring. Here are some a few shots of my evening adventures, there is a "SoCal Scenery" album over on my Myspace photos if you care to see all of them. I have about 30 in there since I'm doing a new painting and want some references.
Oh yeah, I thought I'd take some shots to display The Shiny as well. The textures came out pretty nicely, although I'm sad that one of the shots blurred a bit. My favorite was originally the first one, now I think it might be the third.
If I ever finished everything that I needed to finish... what would I post about?
Cali to the A, we speedin' on the freeway... Look at me, look at me, hands in the air like it's good to be... alive.
Progress draws progress and patience sits patient, you flow with the inside of the inner circles, you don't know what to do or where to go, you keep on knowing what you know, oh I don't know... oh I don't know.
v1 versionzer0.
Friday - worked until 7. Blank spot after that.
Saturday - worked from 8 to 4. Spent most of the day giving tours and trying to figure out what direction to go in. Weather: HOT. After: Sushi at Mizu with Maria & Trent. Mizu is still the numero uno sushi joint in all of SD (in my opinion). VIP seating and people watching made the food taste even better. We also noticed that THE MOTHS ARE BACK. I hate the moths. They get into my apartment and flap like bats. They scare me. Screw you, moths.
Sabbat, accompanied by Jason. The place was empty at 11 (upon our arrival) and somewhat awkward. The beat was off and neither of us really wanted to be there. Met up with Daisy & Eric. Discovery: it is difficult to dance in flats. Secondary discovery: I still love dancing, but not to Goth Musik. Whatever playlist they were running should have been wiped clean of Du Hast and Closer. Oh wait, it wasn't Closer, it was just some song that flat stole the infamous beat and put some crap yelling over it. Winner! Anyway, I was painfully sober and realized Air Conditioned would have been a better choice. Either that or maybe another Saturday, one with more patrons and whatever music they played at the 10-year anniversary. It just seemed like there was an abundance of newly-turned-21s and weirdness.
Sunday - Slept until 1500. AWESOME. Daisy showed up around 1800 and succumbed to my craving for Dairy Queen Goodness. I'm freaking lactose intolerant, I knew what I was in for. That peanut buster parfait (with chocolate ice cream) was so worth it. Then we went to Ichiban (on the rocks), Trader Joe's (my first trip in there ever), and finished up at Whole Foods. Got to listen to some chit-chat about an upcoming event in the leather scene, and saw a girl from my past. Of course I didn't say hello because I didn't know for certain if it *was* her, but a quick convo via MySpace confirmed it. Yay for Kitty.
Today - bills to pay, errands to run, cleaning to do. Relaxation to attend to as well, I do enjoy Mondays for that.
In other news, we are looking for a new spot to move to. The beach scene has pretty much killed my love for the actual beach. Since house-buying probably won't happen in under a year, my sanity needs to be saved and we need to GTFO. This is frustrating but A) the neighbors won't give me peace, B) the landlord won't put in double-paned windows, so C) I need to do something about this. Five years is enough already. Of course Hillcrest/Mission Hills is my spot of choice, but it's tough. A large one-bedroom under $1100/monthly, that comes with parking, no drama and a decent neighborhood within 10 minutes of my job. HOW HARD CAN THIS BE.
Oh yeah, the Nigerian/West African/South African scammers have moved on to not just spam, but putting up houses for rent. Awesome.
Today after breakfast, Jason and I stopped at Comics-N-Stuff for the first time in ever. We were looking for miniatures for me to start painting. Yeah, as in Warhammer or whatever. I have the itch again.
Anyway, fail on finding those, but I did score a very sweet plastic set of Brak's Mom & Dad!! WOOOOO!

Also. You know what they had at the counter? NKOTB TRADING CARDS. No stick of crappy gum inside though, just a sticker. I don't know if I'll be opening it though. But man!
OH OH OH OH-OH
OH OH OH OH
OH OH OH OH-OH
THE RIGHT STUFFZ
In other news, still sick.
Some folks have asked, and I wanted to clarify. For anybody that was keeping score: May 28, 2008 will be our seven-year anniversary. We’ve been sort of off and on for a decade now, so anybody that says we haven’t put in our time is crazy. Official engagement date: March 18th, 2008. Aw snap! So yeah, we leveled IRL. It was a pretty casual mutual decision of sorts, but I am proud to say that I’ve learned to laugh and cry at the same time. :))
I’m happy, Jason’s happy, Brak’s happy. No date set yet or anything like that, our main goal right now is to purchase a home, which will take anywhere from 12 to 36 months. [Sweet Hebus let's hope for sooner rather than later.] Then after that we can start planning for some sort of celebratory function. Beach life is fun for a little bit, but five years will definitely wear on your patience - especially when you live in Spring Break Central. Ugh, give me a gated community on the hills of LJ anyday. It’s just right there, COME ON.
In the meantime: let the mimosa-drinkin’ begin! :)
I'm in a weird place at the moment. Jason has headed off to visit the family until Saturday night. The outlook seems favorable, as always. Speaking of favorable, it's not too shabby over here either.
It would be so nice if my neighbors just let me enjoy this view, and kept it nice and quiet. But they don't. They are obviously not the types who just sit still and enjoy life.
You know why we pay $1250 a month for six hundred square feet of cat-fluff-covered space (plus one cramped parking spot)?
Because when I step outside my front door and turn right, this is my front yard.
I want to love it. There are times when (like now!) the waves just compliment the ambient-electro soundtrack playing from CafeCody or Live365 or SomaFm. Or even falling asleep, it's a very nice hypnosis.
What sucks is the cookout that occurs right outside my window (no, they're not double-paned), or the drunken after-bar conversations (almost every night), or the construction that's been going on for WELL over a year. Do you understand where I'm coming from? Why can't people just enjoy what we've got? Are you really that numb to where you can't enjoy this without alcohol?
::breathe::
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I never want my blogs to be those that just give you the laundry list of chores and activities, but that's what happens, isn't it? My year so far has been going pretty well, so why not chronicle it? I suppose it's all the fault of Leo Babuta. The day when zen through minimalism truly turned my head seemed to be late September 2007. ZenHabits had been one of those sites that my monthly need-for-inspiration websurf took me to. It had been quite awhile since my last visit, but shortly after posting about The Entertainment Beast, I wandered over that way, and this article cropped up.
There may have been a random link somewhere, but it led me over to Unclutter's Workspace of the Week... and the lightbulb came on. It was more of a buzzing, bare, swinging, slightly bug-filled lightbulb, but hey! It was on! That article prompted me to go on a mass cleaning spree, and actually start taking care of myself again. I was so excited about all this, that I tried to joint the October Zen Habits challenge. However it didn't work. Technical difficulty foils me again! However the habits and inspiration stuck with me, so I feel that my 2008 has started off on a nice solid foundation. Down the road will be a self-interview of sorts, that allows me to go on a bit in more detail on all this, and hopefully inspire someone as I was.
What's really tough about trying to keep things clean is this: I Own A Cat. Not just any cat, but a mediumish-kinda-long-haired White Fluffy Cat.
I love my cat.
I hate his shedding.
I hate his litter.
I love my cat.
It's like a mantra. Something to keep me sane in the impossibility that is Dark Wardrobe Versus White Cat.
Also: you may have noticed I'm a fan of links. There's really nothing to fuel the fire of my OCD-ADD like de.licio.us. That site caught my attention a long time ago, but my sign-up was pretty recent. In saying that, I'd like to present:
http://del.icio.us/larissayoung
That should give you something to do while I'm out payin' the bills. [No seriously, I have to go to the bank and then to AAA.] Next time on Vox, we'll cover why you should never sign up for anything EVER, and why I had to get a new bank account. Woohoo!
Hearing:The Waves,
SomaFM - Secret Agent
Uh, we updated our status. Statii. Because it's not fo' realz until you update your MySpace/Facebook/Friendster/Twitter/Flickr/Amazon, right?
http://www.myspace.com/pantherqu33n
http://www.myspace.com/theoriginalstupidpunk
http://www.cracked.com/forums/topic/29725/a-forum-game-if-you-laugh-you-lose-not-56k-friendly
Several are NSFW. Most are rather entertaining.
I don't invite people over.
The prospect of a relaxing Sunday afternoon stippled with sunny reflections over breezy chatter isn't something on my agenda. Yet.
You know why?
It's because I hate my couch. Not just in that way where you kind of don't like your couch, and it seems a little outdated... but with the burning hot fury of a thousand suns.
The Beast, a nickname it has been christened with over time, sits - nay, lurks! - in our living room. We have a 600 square foot apartment, 90% of which is taken up by the goddamn couch. It was there when we move in, and it will probably be there when we leave. A green, cracked leather behemoth of furniture, it knows that it could never be replaced because it is just too much of a hassle to move.
I've considered getting the day laborers outside of Home Depot to just take it away. ¿Dónde a?, they'll ask me, and I will shrug and point out the door. Just take it. The couch sits, smug in its' permanence, and you can almost hear it laughing at us. Mocking.
It’s just not fair. Have you even seen what’s out there? Ever since buying The Entertainment Beast, all I’ve really wanted to do is get a new couch. With the goods that you can find at ApartmentTherapy, InhabitLiving or MocoLoco, it almost makes me want to have a tantrum.
What happens is that I see sites like Workspace of the Week over on Unclutterer and want my apartment to be cleaner. This either makes me surf obsessively (weeping!) through the home décor sites, or launches an epic cleaning spree that results in the apartment looking like we just moved in. That latter bit happens perhaps once a month, and can probably be blamed on the moon… or the cat.
Then my wishlist factor kicks in. The first symptom is astonishment: WHY does a single chair cost more than I make in almost six weeks worth of work? The second symptom is answered by its’ own questioning: WHY can’t we have that? Well, because a single chair costs more than I make in almost six weeks worth of work. Don’t get me wrong: it’s an awesome chair. It is, however, a CHAIR.
Other things that are interesting (and make me realize that I really am a packrat) are things like this, where someone lives in a space half the size of my dwelling. They probably don’t share that with a significant other and a cat, but you never know. They also probably know how to pick up their laundry and put it away, however this is one of my major downfalls. The lines in those rooms are nice and clean, and all of those homes look like display models. My home is not particularly clean, nor does it look like a display model. It looks like a renovated San Diego beach cottage from the 70’s, which makes it stay true to form.
However, that last link brings me full circle… did you see
the couch? Square, comfy, one
piece? Yeah, I need to borrow that. You don't need it. I need it.
While you’re at it, feel free to pick up some new sheet sets for me. Maybe it’ll offset the couch.