this is my room

i moved! this is where i will sleep for a year. wait, what?

holy crap... a year?! a WHOLE year?

post secret and exploding dog

significantly insignificant

also; this:

and lastly:

there is this tv show called weeds. i hate it. and tonight there was a sufjan stevens song on it. and it made me sad.

"I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself

To hold on to these moments as they pass."
-the counting crows


i'm sitting at a coffee shop near my house and on the other side of the window there are three tables, each with a pair of guys playing chess. they are having a little mini tournament or something. funny.

i'm feeling really lonely tonight. i want a friend here.




"if you think you might come to california, i think you should."

look at all these sweet things i found

Lets just forget,
Everything we said
Everything we did.

I just think its best
Because you cant miss what you forget
-owen


numberone. the orange county community foundation. you can establish a foundation and they do all the rest of the work for you based on your personal preferences! and they happen to be right upstairs from my office, so I can walk up there and say hello if I want to.

numbertwo. one of the official charities of the LA marathon is sound art which helps establish during and after-school music programs for underprivileged youth in LA.

numberthree. I just think its really funny that the Anaheim angels have changed their name to the los angeles angels of Anaheim.

numberfour. exploding dog skins. I have decided I am buying one of these, but I don’t know which one to get. it’s obviously between the ipod and the laptop. thus far I’ve pretty much been advised to get the ipod cover because it’s a lot more normal to have an ipod cover, the skin on the compy might look unprofessional, macs are so pretty on their own, etc. however, I really want the laptop cover. on the other hand, I have this desire to buy the least irresponsible/more practical item. I don’t know if this is making any sense, but here is where I ask for your input. which should I get? the ipod or the laptop? before you decide, allow me to explain my reasons for wanting the laptop cover:

1) style points. no one sees my ipod because I only use it when I’m working out or have it sitting on my desk at work. everyone would see it on my computer because I take that out in public a lot more, oddly enough.

2) practically speaking, a gel cover for my ipod is not enough protection from the elements. my old ipod had a gel cover, and the protection it offered was NOTHING. the only purpose it served was to make it more difficult to slide in and out of my pocket, and collect lint and other weird dirt particles that gathered in my purse. I really need a hard plastic cover for it. I already have a case for my laptop, so it wouldn’t serve the purpose of being protection, it would serve the purpose of being fricken sweet.

3) it has been brought to my attention that an exploding dog cover for Delilah will look less professional. here’s the thing: I don’t care. my laptop isn’t used for my professional life. I couldn’t use it at work if I wanted because our software only runs on PCs. my laptop is purely for the sake of being AWESOME. also, it’s a gel cover, so its not like I couldn’t remove it if I needed to.

I think that’s all for today.

everything is awesome. fundamentally.

a few things that have recently been brought (or re-brought) to my attention, that everyone absolutely MUST be aware of.

1) The King of Kong:Fistful of Quarters. This is a documentary about two guys fighting for the world record in donkey kong. it. is. amazing. amazing.

2) bickford shmeckler's cool ideas. this movie has patrick fugit in it, who i happen to have a big crush on. but that aside, it's just a really funny movie.

3) the darjeeling limited. new wes anderson movie comes out next weekend. nothing else needs to be said.

4) this has nothing to do with movies; i just remembered this story the other day and wanted to share it:
so, in highschool my brother kristian was kind of known for being dirty and hairy. in fact, these habits acquired him the nickname "dirtbakka" (like chewbakka, but dirtier!). so, naturally, when my brother went on a mission trip to mexico (where you don't shower anyway) he was pretty rank by the end of the trip. well, this little mexican kid came up to him and said the following:

"you stink. you smell so bad. you smell like a horse, and a cow, and a skunk. you're a blue eyed, stinky rat."

yeah. best kid ever.

a funny story about recycling

this story is ridiculous.

so, a couple weeks ago i told my boss at work that i wanted to get the entire office to recycle. i already told the story about my ridiculous attempt to find a place to buy my cans. so, for a week and a half those nasty feet-smelling cans were sitting on the back porch. i looked around for various places to recycle them, but no one would pay me for them! it was important for me to be paid because the money we get from the recycling is going to be put towards the MindFire Foundation (that i will be starting within the next couple weeks), which will be donating mindfire's time and money towards non-profit community organizations.

anyway, i finally figured out that some of the grocery stores in the area have recycling centers. i found an albertsons by UC irvine that will buy cans, so i got directions and took off from work to finally get these things out of my life. i got there and walked around a little, not finding a recycling center. i finally asked someone and he informed me that its on the side of the store, but they are only there from thursday-monday. guess what day it was? tuesday.

so, i went back to my car, feeling a little defeated. i once again had to take the cans/bag of paper to the back porch.

thursday rolled around, and i was very excited to take the recycling. after lunch, i got in my car (that reeked of these cans) and i drove out to UCI. i went to the side of the store, and what did i discover? a recycling MACHINE that is open 7 days a week. what? why did this guy tell me that i couldn't recycle on tuesday? aparently the recycling center inside where you claim oversized bottles is only open thursday-monday. ahhh!

so anyway, let's talk about this machine. you have to put cans/bottles in INDIVIDUALLY. it takes about 5 seconds per can. i had two very large, very full trash bags of cans. i stood there for about 25 minutes recycling these cans. i got the nasty feet smelling rotting soda all over my hands and arms. it was quite the ordeal.

finally, i push the green button to get my receipt that tells me how much money i can claim; the moment we've all been waiting for.

my total:...wait for it..... wait for it......! $6.15.

didn't i tell you this story was ridiculous?? the money that the company paid me to figure all this out coupled with the amount of gasoline i used looking for these places pretty much voided any good that recycling those cans could have ever done. oh well. at least i know where it is now.

we left our love in our summer skin

Summer arrives with a length of lights
Summer blows away
And quietly gets swallowed by a wave
It gets swallowed by a wave
-summersong, the decemberists


I got Margot (my car) back on Wednesday. My parents ended their month long roadtrip around the country, and she arrived safely back with only a few minor set backs along the way—two punctured tires and a new scratch here and there. But don’t worry, her tires are as good as new now. Also, her travel buddy Fiona (my cactus) grew some! Good for you, Fiona. I love that cactus so much. But I digress.

I got in Margot and realized that I was a little out of practice driving her. I’ve been so used to driving the SUV that I reached for the wrong place to put her in drive.

It seems like a lifetime ago that I was driving the streets of Chicago. I turned on the cd player and my Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin cd was still in the place I had left it when driving to the airport to park my car. I was suddenly overwhelmed with memories. The Belmont Arts & Music Festival when we saw them play. Where we stood and waited through the terrible band that played after them because Laura and I were too nervous to talk to the lead singer. And then I changed it to the mix tape I had made myself in the middle of the summer. That mix tape had been in there for a good 2 months and I had listened to it over and over and over again. Hey There, Delilah came on. California came on. I laughed to myself because that’s what you have to do sometimes. I had gotten so used to being in a new context, with a new car, and new music. It wasn’t terrible, being so overwhelmed with the memories; it just took me off guard. And being on guard has been the norm as of late. Don’t think about your life. Don’t dwell on the past. Push on towards the future, because you are in a beautiful place and you have no ties to anything and the world is at your fingertips. Enjoy it, would you?

There is this one thing I let myself remember: the Decemberists concert in Millenium Park. At work the other day, I turned on The Crane Wife and I remembered our huge group of people; all of my favorite midwest people were there. The rain clouds blew in and threatened to unleash their rage on us. And they didn’t start sprinkling until the very last song that was so epic; when everything broke into pure chaos everyone danced and laughed and the guy with the cast was jumping around on one leg. And then we ditched the crowd and ran through the pouring rain of one of the worst thunderstorms I’ve ever seen. We hid out by a store front with the melting ice cream and tried to wait for that rain to stop but it didn’t. That’s where I make myself stop remembering. It’s probably one of my favorite memories of the summer.

wait, what just happened?

so, on monday night i took a little trip to costa mesa, a town about 15-20 minutes south of here, to meet with a woman to find out about a possible volunteering opportunity. as i traveled west, away from the downtown area, i noticed my surroundings slowly changing. liquor stores. pawn shops. jay-walkers. i know i shouldn't be happy about these things, but i couldn't stop the smile that crept upon my lips. i parked the car down the street, and when i opened my door i heard this terrible buzzing sound. i looked at the sky where it was coming from and realized it was the power lines over my head.

maybe this is why i am here.

i walked slowly down the street as i was about 20 minutes early for my meeting. i found the apartment where the neighborhood community center was and there were children running in and out, yelling in a mixture of english and spanish, picking books off the walls and razzing the tutors about being too advanced for the middle-school classes.

"6th graders go upstairs and to the room on the left. highschoolers go to the right."
"what if you're too advanced for highschool? what if you're in 15th grade?"

i introduced myself to one of the volunteers and then i awkwardly leaned against a wall waiting for my meeting to begin. people walked back and forth, pushing past me, asking if i knew where so and so was or where this grade went. i drank it all in; it just felt so good to not be in irvine for a moment. the people looked normal and the kids were so excited and in love with all the tutors.

when the woman i was supposed to meet with arrived, we went out to the back porch to talk about the mika project and their involvement with the community center. i won't go into too much detail, but basically they rent an apartment in the middle of the street and run most of their activities out of it. they went into the neighborhood, found the core 3 or 4 women that are very invested in it, and listened to their needs. the women wanted their kids to have help with their homework, so they tutor 4 days a week. the parents wanted nutrition information, so they have classes. the women want a support group, so they formed one. its really a remarkable center, and mika is so committed to NOT being one of those organzations that comes in and tells the people what they need; rather, they sit down with the community once every other monday and listen to what the people have to say.

as jennifer was talking to me, she stopped for a moment and said, "is this something you'd like to be involved in?"
she may as well have asked me if i'd like to eat ice cream every day for the rest of my life and never gain weight.

"yes. definitely yes."
"well, we have a need for an ESL teacher in the evenings for the parents who work during the day. do you think you could do this?"
"well.... i dont speak spanish."
"even better. it will force them to speak to you in english. we have a curriculum, i can get it to you sometime soon. what night works best for you."
"umm, well, i guess wednesdays."
"great, wednesdays it is. 7:30-8:30 or 9"
"uhh, well, okay."

wait, what just happened?

so, there it is. starting october 3 i will be teaching ESL classes to latino adults in the neighborhood community center. crazy. and awesome. but crazy.

i'm running out of rope

"the hardest part is yet to come,

when you will cross the country alone." - blacking out the friction, death cab for cutie

well, i think that statement was true. but i think now it is getting better. i really do. here are some fun things that have occurred in my life recently:

disneyland with rachel! i have a season pass now, so if you are in southern california and you are anywhere near disneyland, you better call me.


camping at the beach! (with a group from kevin and rechelle's church)
i'm seriously in love with the ocean. i love it so, so much. none of this lake nonsense. ocean. salty nasty wavey ocean. it has been way too long since i've spent substantial time around it.

some things i learned the hard way this weekend:
1) no matter how stable you think your swimsuit is, if you're wearing a two piece, the ocean will rip off one or both pieces, leaving you very exposed
2) do not underestimate the power of water. if you think you can stand up to waves, you are wrong. they will wipe you out.
3) throwing something (say, goggles) to someone (say, your sister-in-law) who is standing in the water is not a good idea unless you are a very good throw and/or they are a very good catch. if it lands in the water it will probably be lost forever.

here is the result of me wiping out from a wave. you can't really tell in the picture, but my hand was swollen. it still is, actually.


i'm sad that i'm bleeding


okay i'm done. for now...

or even better, for people who just want to win without playing...

The Only Mario Level That Plays Itself

for people who just wanna "go" and "jump"

natalie dee!

village green housing development project

so there's this development company called suncal that is going into santa ana to tear down a bunch of apartments and replace them with new expensive buildings, displacing a lot of poor families. this is upsetting; i am fully in agreement with this. but the thing that i am focusing on right now is how people are responding to the issue. i read this article posted by orange juice a few days ago, and when i looked over some of the comments below i got all worked up (poor rechelle was the only one here to listen to me rant). seriously though; i forget that there are people like this out there. people that are just so ignorant and have no idea why society is the way it is. ugh.

wtf?

this guy. seriously? seriously.

it seems a lot of people in my life are flying to chicago today...

and by that i mean most of my co-workers... naturally.

so, i have started our office recycling program. what this means is that i try to make everyone recycle now, and during work hours i get to drive it to the recycling place. this makes me very happy for several reasons:

1) as you can see in the previous post, recycling makes me happy.
2) i get paid to recycle
3) the money that comes from recycling goes towards the other thing that makes me happy: community development organizations
4) i get to drive around during work hours!!! there's seriously nothing more fun than running errands for work. well, okay. i mean, there's obviously more fun things. but for WORK related things... its fun. really.

anyway, so i went to the recycling place today. i work in an area called corporate park, and across the street is construction circle (it kind of sounds like a cartoon or something) and this is where i needed to be. going to the recycling place, for those who are not familiar, is just like going to a big dump, except all materials will be saved. its gross. and the only people around are the people driving big dump trucks of some sort. so, little mikkele dressed in her corporate office attire, driving her parents SUV (until i get margot back next week!) comes trucking along wanting to drop off a couple bags of recyclables. i dont think anyone knew what to do with me, first of all. second of all, they apparently don't pay for the things i was dumping. the guy informed me that i should "go to ljsdfljskdfjsa, a company that pays for everything and to get to it is right and right and drive not far to dskalfjlshdfjshdf big concrete building ksdjflsjfkljsdf and its very hard to miss." uh-huh. i get it. they'll pay me for these? great.

guess what i tried to do? FIND THE PLACE. did you read the directions? i think the directions i just gave you were clearer than what he told me. needless to say, i ended up driving like 20 minutes in the direction that i think he told me and didn't find the place. i finally gave up and returned to the office. the recyclables would still be in the back of my car, but i moved them to the back porch of my bro's apartment because they smelled like rotting fish stuffed in dirty shoes. i'm not sure how a bunch of empty sdoda cans=rotting fish stuffed in dirty shoes.... but it does. i promise.

anyway, i am going to try to find another place this weekend. i just thought it was kind of a funny story. but not that funny. just kind of funny.

okay i'm done

here is a list of things that make me happy!

ice cream:


john francis daley from freaks and geeks:


recycling:


baking in my newest apron:

(this is not my apron. i don't have a picture of mine.)

friends:




okay so this list kind of sucked. regardless. these things make me happy.

would you if you could?

sam brown, exploding dog

this too

Hey there [my name]
What's it like in [insert my place of residence here]?
I'm a thousand miles away
But girl, tonight you look so pretty
Yes, you do
[insert some gaudy bright place in my city of residence here] can't shine as bright as you
I swear it's true

Hey there [my name]
Don't you worry about the distance
I'm right there if you get lonely
Give this song another listen
Close your eyes
Listen to my voice
It's my disguise
I'm by your side

A thousand miles seems pretty far
But they've got planes and trains and cars
I'd walk to you if I had no other way.

-hey there delilah, plain white t's

i wish it was from you to me

I miss the way you sing low
So I can't hear your voice over
The radio in my car.
But you knew every word they sang;
You know just the right thing to say when the
Distance rips us farther and farther and farther away

I'll see you soon

If you're coming back this way again
Come back from California
All of us here in [insert your place of residence here]
Are starved for your attention.

Maybe I fell too fast
Maybe I pushed you away
Now you're gone and I'm afriad
That you're never coming back this away again.

-copeland, "california"

toothpaste for dinner 2006 t-shirt contest winners

this is really, really funny. toothpaste for dinner has these t-shirt contests where you send in pictures of yourself wearing the comic's shirts, and i laughed out loud on numerous occasions while looking at the winning pictures. its not just the pictures though... its the descriptions.



this picture is great, but my favorite was the "stressed out or not stressed out" section on page 3. priceless.

happy labor day!

i got it here.

"You look like an alcoholic on the go. You strike me as the type of person who needs hard liquor with him at all times."

-Jim Gaffigan

tonight in the car, my brother (kevin), sister-in-law (rechelle), and i (mikkele) were discussing appropriate uses of the hip flask. the general consensus that was reached was that the hip flask is a novel idea, but in reality is relatively useless (due to its presence generally being considered low class and/or tacky). this sparked a conversation whose sole purpose was the find good uses for a hip flask. here's what we came up with:

-a wedding with a cash-only bar. if there is NO alcohol, a hip flask is bad news. however, if there is a cash bar, then a hip flask is an alternative. if there's an open bar... then hit that up.

-a restaurant that is BYOB. (my bro and sis had never heard of restaurants being BYOB. apparently its just bigger in chicago because liquor licenses are pretty expensive.) even so, a hip flask may not be the best choice. note: this does not apply to gatherings. if its a gathering that is BYOB, then you should bring a six-pack or a bottle. don't be cheap.

i don't remember if we came up with any other uses. either way, what do you think? any more ideas?

zipskinny

at zipskinny you can type in your zip code to find out basic demographic info and how you compare to your neighbors. unfortunately, the data is taken from the 2000 census, so its a little dated now. regardless, its still interesting.

And the words that we drive into the ground, their repetition starts to thin their meaning

-debate exposes doubt, death cab for cutie

i've been reading a lot of death cab lyrics recently and it is only confirming more and more in my mind that ben gibbard is an incredibly talented lyricist.

apparently there was an earthquake this morning. i was sitting on the couch looking at my brother's pictures of thailand when it happened, but i didn't feel anything.

i'm becoming more familiar with things around here, although i still wouldn't say i'm settled. i'm starting a job on tuesday at mindfireinc, the same company that my brother works for. it will be good to have some kind of purpose in my life during the day instead of sitting around by the pool reading depressing feminist novels. mindfire will be at the graph expo in chicago next week (sept 9-12) if you want to go meet my boss. :)

being here has definitely been an emotional rollercoaster. i take it moment by moment, knowing that it won't always be like this. i've been thinking a lot recently about how frustrating it is to be so unfamiliar with the area, when i left chicago that i knew and loved so dearly. however, being here and hanging out with people that don't know anything about the stuff i want to know about (such as the demographics of neighborhoods and community development programs) has forced me to research things on my own instead of having it all handed to me on a platter. its kind of nice to feel like i'm already learning about these things, not because someone told me and got me worked up about it, but because i am owning it myself... if that makes any sense. it's forcing me to take action on things rather than passively letting my life pass by. my purpose in life is no longer school, so i am forced to look elsewhere. i guess what i am trying to say is that i can already see the good that is coming out of this mess of real life that i've found myself in. also, i hope to one day meet champ.

when i was in tennessee for my friends' wedding a couple months ago, i sat down and had a long talk with my friend laura who just started teach for america in charlotte, NC. i was toying with the idea of moving to newport beach but i was very hesitant about the wealthy, shallow southern california culture. laura told me that if God was calling me to socal it would be a good stretching experience for me because i wouldn't get comfortable here. she said in the same way God was calling her to teach for america because its out of her comfort zone. maybe laura was right. maybe i am being called to be uncomfortable here, for myself and for other people. maybe i am being an idealist, but maybe something can change. or maybe it will just be me that changes. or maybe i will fall in love with orange county and spend the rest of my life trying to make ends meet to buy my million dollar one-bedroom condo. or not.

on an entirely different note, i am sick. and it sucks. and i hope i get better by tuesday, because nothing is worse than being sick on the first day of a new chapter in your life.

also, tomorrow is the disneyland half-marathon, the "happiest race on earth." yesterday, i may have finally convinced my brother to do the LA marathon with me. i'm not entirely sure if he was serious though, so updates on that as they become available. i need to figure out soon though, because training needs to commence immediately.

anyway, i know that was a lot. a lot of links and a lot of thoughts. i don't expect you to follow everything, but i feel better.