cindy's world

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about real estate property and investment property between me and various people, and today I see this article about rent. Rent is rising again due to increasing demand (I’m speculating that the housing market has priced out of the average person’s ability to purchase). The most expensive 3 cities to rent according to the stats from the last quarter of 2005? I’m sure it’s predictable.

1. New York City, average rent $2400/mo
2. San Francisco, avg rent $1573/mo
3. Los Angeles, avg rent $1421/mo

Orange County (where I live) ranks #4 with rent at $1384 a month. Miami, where I just was on vacation, ranks #17 at $971/mo, Las Vegas ranks #24 at $795, and on the lowest end of the study is Oklahoma City at $543. I’m glad I bought my property before this crazy spike, and it’s comforting (and selfish of me) to see that as rental property, my place will do well. I think I need to seriously consider buying investment property in the still-affordable-for-me places and catch them before their own spikes, and then sell high or rent it out and let it pay for itself.

After jujitsu today, a large portion of the class went to a local steakhouse pub to celebrate one of the instructors’ 32nd birthday. Let’s see, class ended at 8:45p, so we changed, cleared out… I was sitting at the restaurant past 9pm looking at a menu. This conversation…

Me: I shouldn’t be looking at food.
Vanessa (Navy Chick): You’re in a restaurant! Of course you should be looking at food!
Me: But I’ve resolved to stop eating past 6pm.
Rebecca: WHAT?! You can’t not eat, you just worked out!
Laurel: Just think of it this way. You ordered a drink. It would be irresponsible of you not to have some food with your alcohol.
Me: I know, I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have ordered that Redheaded Slut.
Vanessa: No, you HAVE to drink! We’re celebrating Ramon’s birthday!

…with alcohol, later came THIS conversation…

Vanessa: (motioning at the four of us girls at the end of the table) We should start a band.
Rebecca and Laurel: YEAH!
Laurel: We can call ourselves Attention Whore.
Me: That is a good name for our band, cuz that’d be the reason we’re starting one.

…with more alcohol, the conversation evolved to THIS…

Vanessa: Okay, so our band’s gonna be called The RubSluts.
Me: Wow, can you imagine what great costumes we’d have with a bandname like that? Are we gonna be in all rubber?
Vanessa: Yeah, with tiny short skirts to dance onstage with.
Laurel: I’ve always wanted to be a go-go dancer. (doing some go-go dancer moves with her arms)
Me: And we can wear fuck-me boots with holes in them…
Vanessa: I HAVE a pair of those, patent leather boots from Frederick’s of Hollywood! They’re the most awesome boots, and they have holes on the side! I went to a goth club wearing those and this woman asked if she can photograph my boots for a flyer.
Laurel: We should go clubbing!
Me: Yeah, let’s all go goth and go to a goth club!
Vanessa: You want to! There’s an event this Saturday. It’s S&M night. You guys’ll fit right in!
Me: Can we connect a chain from someone’s penis piercing to a collar around my throat, and then I’ll just snap my head like this (quick sideway tilt of my head) to get him to c’mere!
Laurel: (just tuning in again and thinking that I’m swishing my head/hair to the live metal band that we’d been shouting over) Yeah! Whoo! (swishing her head to the music, too)
Me: No, no, that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about S&M!

Yup. When the chickas in jujitsu chat, the men stop and listen.

I’m still at work for an unknown reason, but I started looking back at my early entries on this thing. In June of 2005, I’d written this post when all my emotional crap came to a head and crashed. I wrote an ode to the future, meaning a letter to my future man, the “good” guy, and I’d posted a poem I wrote in October 24, 2003 when I’d first pleaded for him to come into my life. In October 2003, I was miserable and sad and during a week of nauseating depression, during which I was writing furiously in my journal several times a day (before discovering blogging, obviously) to just stay sane, I had written that poem. I’d always joked with my closest friends when they say that “the right guy’s just around the corner,” that when I finally meet him, I’m gonna kick him in the shin and yell, “WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?! Do you have any idea the kind of HELL I went thru while I was waiting for you to come into my life?!”

Looking back now, Mr. W had walked into my life days after I’d written that poem the first time in 2003. He’d expressed interest, asked me out (he doesn’t remember this, altho he remembers the event we’d seen each other at), and… I turned him down. At that point back then, I’d just finally, after 8 months of torture, officially gotten together with the Cheating Ex, and didn’t want to jeopardize that relationship (not knowing that just days after that, the Cheating Ex would begin to make his nickname-sake).

I’ve often thought back to the first time Mr. W asked me out, and how it felt so wrong back then to say yes. There were superficial issues back then — the age difference, the different points we are at in our lives — that made it hard for me to see him in that romantic way. It really took my being ground thru the wringer after that to make me able to see past what I used to think was important in a man. And when I was ready 3 months after that June entry, Mr. W reappeared, like some uncanny fated chess move, and we clicked in September of 2005. And haven’t stopped clicking.

I placed an order for checks thru the mail last month. You guys know what I’m talking about. You get those colorful ads with your coupons and advertisements thru the mail. The order form says that the check order will be mailed to the address on the checks unless I specify otherwise. So I stuck a post-it onto the order form saying please mail my order to my work address, and wrote out the work address. Last week, I got an email (information given on the order form) saying that the checks are on their way to my work address, thanks for the order, and here’s an opportunity to double my order at a discounted price. The email has the wrong name on it, it’s addressed to a Danielle Rudd. I disregard it, but then start wondering if the check people screwed up my order. A couple of days later, I get a letter in the mail from the check company saying “we were unable to process your order for the following reason(s): NO ORDER FORM WAS ENCLOSED WITH YOUR ORDER. PLEASE COMPLETE AND RETURN THE ENCLOSED ORDER FORM.” Huh? Then where’d they get my email address from, the dorks? They also returned my payment check, check reorder form that came with my original checks (for use as their sample) and check deposit form (for use as their sample). I’m annoyed, cuz I’m out of checks, and they HAD my order form, they just screwed up!

And then today, at work, I get a box of checks. It’s the design I ordered and specified on the order form. It begins with the sequence number I specified on the order form. But it’s Danielle Rudd’s personal address and phone number on the corner, and HER bank information and routing number. This instantly brings to mind: Who has mine?! These are legitimate checks! Anyone can forge a signature and get money out of my account!

I called Danielle Rudd and left her a voice mail. She called me back, told me to go ahead and discard the erroneous checks in my possession, and that she’d call the check company. She said she didn’t get any check order returned so she assumes her order is being processed correctly. I think some idiot typed her information into their computer off her order form, then did the other half of the specifications off my order form. It really worries me where my name/address/bank account info got printed up and sent to. I can’t expect good samaritans to call me like I called Danielle (who, by the way, was very appreciative). I’ve called the checks people and got transferred to their department that specially handles checks they printed with mixed-up information. THEY HAVE A DEPARTMENT FOR THIS. How often does this happen?! But the person I spoke to seemed very efficient and concerned and she said she’d mail me an SASE to return the erroneous checks to them so they can destroy them, and then they’d straighten out my order for me. She also said that Danielle had already called them.

And after lunch, I returned from the gym to find a second box of checks, also erroneous in the exact same way, on my chair.

Geesh!

One of my very favorite things about hanging with Mr. W is that I like who I am when I’m with him. I feel pretty and happy and giddy and silly. And I feel smart. Not because I’m smarter than the company, but because he makes me feel like my opinion and knowledge count for something. This morning upon waking I did impressions (and made him guess) of a dog laying in bed, a penguin laying in bed, a jellyfish laying in bed, a paperweight laying in bed. The only one he was able to guess correctly was my impression of him laying in bed. It’s wonderful to wake up and laugh.

Yesterday we went over to my parents’ house and my mom made dinner (which really impressed Mr. W’s palate — I’d been telling him my mom’s a brilliant cook), then we showed my parents a PG version of our cruise photos, and as my dad served tea in the traditional Chinese serving style (strong loose leaf tea served in tiny little cups on tiny little coasters from an authentic wooden tree-trunk looking serving station), Mr. W walked my mom thru how to burn a DVD on the laptop I bought her for xmas and my mom took notes. It was so cute. And Mr. W invited my parents to come with us when Huntington Library opens up its Chinese Garden in late summer this year. That guy knows how to stack up brownie points. And then afterwards, we went to my house where he fixed my garage door. More brownie points. Oh, and I finally got to yell at my stupid neighbors who ignore all the signs posted as well as the note I’d left on their car and parks smack in the middle of the community driveway and block my ingress and egress. They moved the car. 1 point for me! And then we came back to his house and sat in the jacuzzi. Or maybe that last part was the night before. But we did it again this morning.

Oh, last nite while Mr. W stepped away for a moment, my mom said to me in Chinese that I looked pretty in my cruise photos. She noted I looked better in those photos than I did in prior vacation photos. I said that Mr. W photographs me well. She asked if my mood had anything to do with it. I thought a bit and said maybe. She asked about a vacation I took over a year ago, asked whether I was happy then. I said I wasn’t. It’s nice that my parents can observe my general emotional well-being thru just an image. I remember one of x-gf‘s entries in which she wrote that she photographs well when she’s happy.

I’m not at liberty to tell you HOW, but I saw my first gay porn this morning. I was so excited! (Not in the sexual sense, in the 6-year-old-going-to-Disneyland sense.) I’d been wanting to watch a gay porno ever since I watched Grace (of “Will & Grace”) yell out while watching TV with Jack, “Gay porn is SO HOT!!!”

At first I was like, “This isn’t that different from straight porn.” And then the camera panned out beyond just the point of penetration. And now I know how gay porn is so hot. The men are FKING HOT!! We’re talking hard bodies, cut-up pectorals, biceps, triceps, deltoids, six-pack, gluteous maximus, hamstrings, quads. Caressing each other. These guys put WORK into their bodies. And their faces are better to look at than the men in straight porn. Definitely prettier eyebrows. The straight porn guys are pale, lanky, greasy, long-haired men that you wouldn’t touch in a bar with somebody else’s ten-foot pole.

All the good men ARE gay. Damn it.

Uh, with utter exception to Mr. W. He’s thus far denied being gay.

Our little dinner crew:

In Jordan’s words, “This was the show at 3:45 a.m. The one they don’t advertise in the brochures.”

Not much in my life to complain about. Not much to brag about, either. Not much progress in my workouts to report. (In fact I only worked out 3x this week; a 3-mile run on Monday, lunchtime gym sesh on Tuesday, jujitsu on Wednesday, and that was it.) So I guess I’ll tell you a gross cruise story.

When we arrived in Florida for the cruise, they had just had their first rain in a long time, and it was supposed to have been a pretty bad storm. Unfortunately, our cruiseship followed the storm’s path out to sea. The first nite at sea, we actually caught up to and navigated thru the storm. The waters were rocky and choppy, and early the next morning (day 2 onboard), the ship was swinging to and fro and a lot of people got seasick.

I tell you guys this not because I believe I got seasick, but there is an existing debate as to whether I got seasick. See, we had yoga scheduled for 7am that morning, and the exercise/spa section of the ship is at nearly the very top level of the ship, so we get the bulk of the rocking. This is also the peak time, as I found out later, that people were seasick because this was the time we were in the most unsteady waters. I had told Mr. W before and also that morning that I shouldn’t eat before yoga because I’d done yoga on a semi-full stomach before and it made me very nauseated. Nevertheless, he insisted on grabbing a small bite before yoga class. So, factor 1: 6:30a breakfast off Florida means 3:30a breakfast in Los Angeles time. WAY too early for my body to function. Factor 2: food in my stomach, even tho it’s just a little (plain yogurt, half a muffin, half a cup of juice), makes me sick in yoga. Factor 3: the exercise room in which we were doing yoga was rocking so hard that people couldn’t hold their poses; they kept falling over. I could do the downward dog position just fine, everytime I was inverted I was okay, but the moment I got up I was sick. I got sicker and sicker until my forehead felt cold and clammy, so to keep from passing out, I just excused myself from yoga and sat out at the side of the room on a bench. An older lady got up from her yoga mat and sat by me, saying she was sick too and she was going to take a break from yoga. Then she asked me where the bathroom was, and I pointed her in the direction of the women’s locker room. She left and came back in about 10 minutes, during which time I continued to get sick until I decided that to play it safe, I should go into the women’s locker room and be near a restroom.

When I got into the women’s locker room, my throat was reaching back into itself to access my stomach. You guys know the pre-upchuck feeling. I quickly walked to the towels, grabbed one, and walked into the only available stall, which was a large handicap stall, with about 2 seconds to spare as my diaphragm was already pulling itself in to start the first wave of regurgitation. I popped into the stall, locked it, then swirled around to lurch toward the toilet. With that little time, there was nothing I could do about the fact that someone had already vomited all over the toilet seat, on the floor in front of the toilet, and on the back of the toilet. I barely made it around the side of the toilet away from the farthest-reaching pool of brown and peach puke on the floor, and did my best with projectile vomiting, aiming for the toilet. I hadn’t thrown up in a long time, and vomiting then was surprisingly painless and easy. I wasn’t even grossed out by the pre-existing vomit there. Even tho I was barefoot from the yoga class. I know what you’re wondering. Yes, yes I did. A little. But what bothered me the most was that I didn’t want people to think that *I* had such bad aim with my vomit and just left it there like irresponsible decor that announces my breakfast choices. But I wasn’t gonna clean up someone else’s bug juice. I did a great job vomiting, not a drop outside the toilet.

After puking I felt much better but went back to the cabin to take a nap. It really was still just too early in the morning. Mr. W went to have lunch on his own, and when he came back, he offered me a white folded-up paper bag. “I was just at the infirmary,” he announced. “It’s full of sick people. People are all green walking around the ship. But here’s a barf bag for your seasickness.” “I am NOT seasick,” I announced. After I threw up, I wasn’t sick again for the remainder of the voyage, even tho I heard people who were actually seasick were sick for most of the day. For the next few days, every time we saw the bag on the windowsill in our cabin, I’d say, “What’s that? Oh, that’s your barf bag.” “No, it’s YOUR barf bag,” he’d say. “It’s YOUR barf bag cuz you went and got it, and I’m not seasick.” “Yes you were, it’s YOUR barf bag.”

Mr. W didn’t know about my barfing experience until yesterday. He heard me tell the story to someone else (sans the barefoot detail) and he asked, “Is that where you disappeared off to? Were you upset that I wasn’t there to hold your hair up for you?” Ew, no. I wouldn’t have wanted him there. He would’ve blamed the poorly aimed upchuck on ME, and used it to say that I was seasick.

Yay, I have internet access at home again! My man’s my hero. =)

I don’t have much to report today on a post. My judge took today and tomorrow off to give himself a 5-day weekend (Monday’s a holiday) to help his son with some huge school project. I think that’s very sweet. I’m in a courtroom with one of my favorite judges doing a criminal trial. He’s easy-going and the pace of the trial is comfortable. I tried to check my gmail but I keep getting a blank white screen instead of my inbox. It’s been like that for 2 days. I complained about it to Mr. W, whose solution was for me to just check my email from home, and then I told him I have no internet access at home cuz my modem or DSL and/or router aren’t working. So he insisted on coming over after work to fix my computer. I’m so excited about that, he hardly ever comes over. If he doesn’t stay long, which he says he wouldn’t, then I guess I’ll be catching jujitsu tonite. They gave me a little bit of a hard time for not going Monday and Tuesday, cuz they all know that my cruise was only last week. But Monday was a holiday and Tuesday was Vday, so what’d they expect?

It’s nice to have a placid and well-paced day, actually. Yesterday, I was so bored that I drove myself crazy and miserable.

Woohoo, it’s 2:17pm and the judge is recessing the trial for the day because the defense ran out of witnesses for today.

For those of you who aren’t “Friends” fanatics, the title of the post refers to an episode of “Friends” in which Joey asks Chandler to hook him up with one of Chandler’s film producer friends for a movie audition. Joey wants the audition on Thursday. “Look, if you can’t remember Thursday, this’ll help you. Just remember, Thursday: the third day.” Chandler looked puzzled, like how is Thursday the 3rd day? Joey continues by counting on his fingers. “Monday: one day, Tuesday: two day, Wednesday: when? huh?, THURSDAY: the THIRD DAY.” This Thursday really is like my 3rd day since Monday was an idle day when I just unpacked, watched a lot of TV, ran 3 miles, then went to meet up with college roommie Diana for dinner.