did you know....

that if you make the left-turn from MacArthur Blvd. onto the Pacific Coast Highway around 7pm on a Tuesday night and your car's vents are open to get outside air, the unmistakable smell of hot dogs roasting on beach-pit fires will begin to waft into the vehicle?

Well I don't know if all of those conditions have to be there, but it was certainly true of last night's drive down to the ThinkinBig office! :D

a real post

It's already March! I don't know if I believe that! Another 2 months and I can celebrate the 1st anniversary of my college graduation (not that I'll celebrate that sort of thing) but wow! It's so strange to think about everything that's happened in the last year. I mean this time last year I had been working at Common Grounds for nearing 2 months, I was in a bunch of amazing classes from ASL to British Mystery to Israeli-Palestinian Conflict...wow. Of course I was doing more than just school and work, I was actively involved in running the events of the Guild of English Scholars and attempting to find people to continue that work in the following year. I was busy worrying about what life after graduation would be like and I was busy spending time with friends trying to make our time together last longer than it would. If someone told me then all the things that would transpire in the next year I would hardly have believed them. For example, how in the world would I have believed that I'd have had my first official relationship and then end it within 6mos. or that I would be working, full-time, within a year after graduation and living on my own! It's hard to believe even now that those two major things aren't even a fraction of everything that's happened in the last year. It really makes me wonder what I'll be doing in another year from now. Part of me hopes I'm still at Biola because I am enjoying what I do and because honestly it is such a blessing to be in this great position at a time when most of the country is facing major financial issues. But, there's a part of me that wants to be on my way to a bookstore by then. A year is a short amount of time for any business, so I know it probably won't happen like that, but I'm actively dreaming for this bookstore! I also wouldn't mind seeing Nichelle Murdery Mysteries,etc. get off the ground in another year or so, but that's up to God! Well, I'll just hit publish for now and I'll write more later.

I really want the chance to use.....

I have a laundry in the oven, cookies, I mean....shampoo? Ummm...going to wash the umm....dinner...and uhh....stove in the shower is on...and ummm...can't. Sorry. Leaving. Bye.


LOL! Only Rusty really knows what I'm talking about here and I think that's great! :D






ok, ok... I'll write a real post sometime soon.

breaking lent...oops

this morning, without thinking, I bought myself a tall coffee from Starbucks and now my brain is whirring noisily like a spinning top...I'm having a problem writing about anything because my mind can't sit still long enough for me to think about something to write! It's really weird...The hard part is that it's not anything coherent that my mind is jumping around doing, it's just going going going and I can't even discern what it's bouncing around between....I think spinning top analogy is appropriate because it feels like it's moving too quickly for me to see what design is on the top, if that makes sense...everything is just a blur or motion, sounds, and emotions...e-motions...what is that? e-motions, electronic motions...a dancing robot, or really machinery that runs on electricity and moves? that's strange if you think about "e" like that...like in e-mail or whatever...speaking of which it's funny that you can buy tickets online to shows and they are e-tickets, but they aren't E-ticket shows or rides, necessarily...strange...well I'm going to stop trying to follow this dizzying spin of thoughts, etc. I'll post again when the caffeine has worn off, a bit.

"lose your dreams...

and you will lose your mind..."

Ruby Tuesday
The Rolling Stones

dollhouse...

another episode and another fairytale reference...

Still the Happiest Place!

On Monday of this week one of my friends whom I had not seen in a while posted as her facebook status that she wanted to go to Disneyland. This friend, Sarah, I met at Hume the summer I worked there. It was her 2nd summer and we lived right across the hall from each other. We became fast friends and have stayed in contact over the almost two years since we met. Being the Disneyland lover that I am added to the fact that I really miss her as she's been working full time at Hume since just before this last summer, I jumped at the chance to convince her to come! It didn't take too much to convince her and we planned that on Tuesday night she'd crash at my place and we'd go to the Park on Wednesday. I told my manager that I was going to take a personal day on Wednesday to meet up with friend at Disneyland, and we were set! We both left it open for other to join us, but I wasn't quite as active in inviting others as she was, part of me wishes I had, but part of me really liked the small number we had. The day started with breakfast at La Brea Bakery and then we met up with 4 other Hume Staffers and started our day at the park by waiting in our longest lines of the day - ticket lines. Once we were all ticketed we went into Disneyland and started an anti-clockwise circuit in Tomorrowland and then around. We got a good number or rides in and when the first bit of rain came, got a big damp, but not bad. The whole while we were at the park everyone, but especially Sarah and I were just ecstatic. I don't think I've ever not gotten excited to be at Disneyland, to me it is my happy-place. We sat (and sang) through the Tiki Room, which is always a blast! Later on in the day we were joined by Dani and by one of the friends of one of the guys in the group. At this point we had ridden most of the rides we'd really wanted to ride so we decided to do some of them over again! After our 2nd time on Space Mountain the clouds started to look particularly ominous and when we got off of Astro Blasters (for the 2nd time) we headed towards Indiana Jones. Seeing as though the line had a 25min. wait we chose to get fast passes and do a few other things before we came back. As we walked over to Thunder Mountain the clouds started to drip ever so lightly, but by the time we sat down in our run-away mine train the clouds let loose! We were drenched before we even started moving. As soon as we started moving the rain felt like a poweful shower. It was the first time I closed my eyes on that ride and it was only because I couldn't see much with water pelting my face! IT WAS AWESOME!! Once we were off Thunder we decided that since we weren't going to get much wetter, we'd go ride Splash Mountain! When we got to the entrance of the barn part, we were the only people in line and we helped them figure out the line time. Splash Mountain was amazing and because no one else in the park wanted to do a ride that was so wet on such a wet evening, we got to go around twice! If we hadn't already been looking like drowned rats, we surely would have after both of those times through! Sloshing as we got out of the logs, we squished our way back to Indiana Jones and peeled our soaked fast-passes from our pockets and tried to dry ourselves using the darts (of air) ...it didn't work too well. Oh well, it was fun. We then sloshed our way through Downtown Disney and back to our cars in the structure. Not until I got home and had a chance to look in the mirror did I realize that along with the soaking I'd gotten yesterday, I also received a nice bit of sun on my cheeks from when the sun did show up! It was amazing! I'm glad I went and I'm glad I got to hang out with Sarah and meet some new people and I'm glad the rain only made it more fun!

movie reaction (as opposed to review)

Ok, so...I went to see He's Just Not That Into You tonight and I really enjoyed it. It was different from your average chick flick in that it was not ALL happy-ending. The tough part is that it was still primarily happy ending and I think that fact undermines a lot of what it's trying to say about real life relationships. If you're going to set out to, at least in part, blame things like movies for ruining expectations and affecting the way girls interact with guys, you can't go tell "exceptions to the rules" stories! That's what you're complaining about in the first place, all those exceptions to the rules that we hear about and hope for! Oi!  To those who haven't seen the film, I suppose this is going to be moderately confusing. Sorry. I suggest giving it a view, even if you wait to do so until it gets to the $-theater or is available on netflix of at blockbuster. If nothing else it will give a bit of insight into how people think. I will completely admit to being similar to Gigi's character, by over-analyzing every little thing said or done. It's not healthy, and I guess I can say it's a good thing that I'm not quite as bad as she is, but then again, she's fictional, right? So there's definitely hyperbole involved in her situations for the sake of telling the story...anyway...I'll leave it there. I liked the movie, but at the same time disliked how accurate it was at times. 

dollhouse?

So, I've only been able to watch a little bit of it so far, but Joss Whedon's new show: Dollhouse is intriguing! 20min in and he's already mentioned fairytales at least twice and done some good Shakespeare quoting! :D

...thoughts...

It is truly amazing how quickly the feeling of loss fills the place of accomplishment. I hosted the much anticipated (if only by me and my co-writer/co-host) murder mystery dinner party - 2049 this Saturday night. It went amazingly well, despite a few large issues like venue size, etc. I had such a great time with my friends and everyone who came. It was amazing watching these characters we spent so much time working on, come to life through the interpretations of people we know well. However, now that it's Monday, I feel, well, sad. It's done. It's been finished, they figured out the mystery and despite some of the smaller details that we always through in to create the world, all has been revealed. Now that it's over, I feel like there's something missing. Maybe this just proves the things I've heard for years: that I should write...maybe I should...I don't know whenever I try it doesn't come out the way I want it to. I get mixed up and lost in the ideas constantly growing in my head, so much so that I cannot untangle myself to get much further than the, occasionally intriguing, opening. I'm going to force myself to take a bit of a break after working for over a month on this last one and then maybe I'll start getting these ideas on paper...the funny thing is most of my ideas, even for what I know of how the murder mysteries work never reach paper...the intricacies of Metro 686 in the year 2049 are locked away in our heads, Rusty's and mine. I've lost all knowledge of where this post is going, so I'm going to stop here and work on something else. Until later!