inside the wonderful world of vee

the topic of maury for today: “i was in a coma! i can’t be your baby’s daddy!”

man, nearly forgot to mention james’ wedding this past weekend…

james and grace got married at some random church in the south bay (i know not what city even). hip-hop wedding. they met on hip-hop dance team, so they interjected a lot of hip-hop dancing into it… for example, during their first dance, they danced like normal, and then during the hook, broke down into a hip-hop routine… then went back to normal… then more hip-hop… then normal. amusing.

during grace and her father’s dance, grace’s dad had a headpiece with a mic attached to it and he sang, “the way you look tonight,” which was very impressive cause he actually had a good voice. ridiculously talented wedding.

the night closed out with another dance… they brought their church’s hip-hop dance team and all did a routine together. grace is goooooood dancer.

you know what’s cute? grace is a teacher and evidently all her students were invited to her wedding… lololololol. young, elementary school students. how ridiculously cute.

and finally… pastor jack’s marriage message. :D

he started it off by saying that when he first became the youth pastor of tcbc, james’ parents asked james what he thought of the new pastor. james was about 12 then. james said, “he’s alright. he plays basketball at least.” so… pastor jack decided to use a basketball analogy. HAHAHA.

three tenets of marriage, as it is compared to basketball:
1) never give up. in basketball, you always play until the end. don’t even think about the d word. it doesn’t exist. everything can always be worked out. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
2) the third quarter is the most important quarter. your first quarter is your life with your parents, your second quarter is your life in college, and the wedding is half-time. the next day is the first day of the third quarter, your marriage. fourth quarter? he didn’t mention that. what’s that? death and sucky oldness? no idea!
3) dream team. the cheesiest of all. prefaced by something like, in the 1960’s, the u.s. brought their basketball dream team to the olympics. this is the dream team — grace and james. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

*__* hilarioso.

september 7th, 2008 - traveling / copenhagen, denmark.
- fly out of seattle at 7:35am -> washingto -> arrive in copenhagen at 7:15am
- explore copenhagen on our own.
- board cruise sometime before 8:00pm.

september 8th, 2008 - at sea.
aka boring? maybe.

september 9th, 2008 - stockholm, sweden.
- arrive at 10:00am.
- visit:
   - the vasa museum (warship museum)
   - royal armory (battle gear!)
   - old town (where stockholm began)
   - coronation church (where people get coronated and married, too)
- leave stockholm at 5:00pm.

september 10th, 2008 - helsinki, finland.
- arrive at 10:00am.
- tour visit:
   - porvoo (historic district)
   - temppeliaukio rock church (church carved into bedrock)
   - senate square (neoclassical buildings? sure!)
- opportunity to go shopping for 45 minutes. mer.
- pass the suomenlinna fortress but don’t get to go in (unfortunately) :{
- leave helsinki at 6:00pm. i wonder what happens if you miss your boat?

september 11th, 2008 - st. petersburg, russia.
- arrive at 6:30am.
- tour to visit:
   - peterhof palace & grounds (built to rival versailles)
   - peter and paul fortress (russia’s tower of london)
   - st. isaac’s cathedral (220 pounds of pure gold on its roof?)
- 60 minute canal tour. oOoOo.
- hopefully go to the catherine palace, although i doubt there will be time. fuck. :{
- do whatever we want for a night. opera, perhaps? dance, perhaps? long live mother russia!

september 12th, 2008 - st. petersburg, russia.
- tour to visit:
   - http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/index.html”>hermitage (winter palace)
   - yusupov palace (site of the assassination of rasputin)
   - the church of the savior on spilled blood
- leave st. petersburg at 6:00pm, which is no doubt going to be cold as fuck at this time of year.

september 13th, 2008 - talinn, estonia.
- arrive at 7:00am.
- tour to visit:
   - toompea hill (upper town? whatever…)
   - alexander nevsky cathedral (russian orthodox cathedrals are LOVE!!!)
   - dome church (elaborate sarcophagi and more than 60 coats of arms!)
   - town hall square (whatever…)
   - holy spirit church (ancient woodcarvings?)
- leave talinn at 1:00pm.

september 14th, 2008 - gdansk, poland.
- arrive at 9:00am.
- tour to visit:
   - malbork castle (one of poland’s oldest surviving castles!)
   - gdansk main town (arches, fountains, merchants’ palaces…)
   - st. mary’s church (brick gothic?? church!?)
- eat lunch while students from the gdansk music academy perform to us hahahahahahahahha.
- leave gdansk at 6:00pm.

september 15th, 2008 - at sea.

september 16th, 2008 - oslo, norway.
- arrive at 7:00am.
- tour to visit:
   - viking ship museum (home to three viking long boats.)
   - vigeland sculpture park (iron and bronze sculptures?)
   - holmenkollen (cradle of ski jumping in te 1952 olympics?)
- leave oslo at 2:00pm.

september 17th, 2008 - copenhagen, denmark / flying / barcelona, spain.
- arrive at 6:00am.
- explore.
- fly out of copenhagen at 2:20pm -> arrive arrive in barcelona at 5:10pm.

september 18th to 21st, 2008 - barcelona, spain.
- do whatever in barcelona.
- picasso museum? maybe.
- la rambla is apparently right up my alley.
- la padrera. (jesus, did the word gaudy stem from the man gaudi???)
- park guell.
- la boqueria.
- casa battlo.
- museu nacional d’art de catalunya? maybe.
- soccer game at camp nou? maybe? if they have soccer at that time?
- … barcelona sure would be boring if not for gaudi. lolol. jk. but maybe 1/2 as interesting for sure.
- torre agbar… no, it’s not a penis, it’s a skyscraper… with LEDs in it.

september 18th to 21st, 2008 - madrid, spain.
- prado, which houses the world’s largest collection of paintings :0
- madride pubcrawl? :0
- garden of earthly delights.
- el rastro — open air flea market? i’m thereeeeeee.
- reina sofia. the “guernica” is here.
- botin, the oldest restaurant in the world.
- puerta de europa.
- i wanted to see a bullfight but apparently the one weekend i am there there are none… :[ yeah yeah inhumane, blahblah. need to see for myself before making that decision :0 :0 :0

september 22nd, 2008 - madrid, spain / ireland, dublin.
- fly out of madrid at 6:35pm -> arrive in dublin at 8:10pm.

september 23rd, 2008 - flying.
- fly out of dublin at 6:45am -> london @ 10:05am -> vancouver at 1:45pm -> arrive in seattle at 2:35pm.
- jet lag ain’t shit; go to work.

man. coming home can’t help but render me a negative nancy. no wonder i was so damn emo in high school. seems like the less time i spend away from home (read: my mom) the more positive i am.

yesterday after dinner, my mom turns to my brother and is like, “THANKS FOR THE PHOTO FRAME!” uhh, and i was like, “WHAT ABOUT ME?” the person who bought the photo frame and uploaded pictures on it to BEGIN with… my brother didn’t do shit. he hasn’t even paid me for it yet. W T F. this shit always happens. i am starting to hate giving them presents.

the bitching never stops. yesterday i wore a pair of sneakers to the wedding, with my dress. i made sure to hop in the car really quick before mom could see. later in the car she asked me what shoes i wore and i mumbled sneakers and she freaked out. later she thought it looked okay, though, particularly because people also said it was fine and fashionable.

strangely they were somewhat lax about my lip ring. at first they were like WTF but they got used to it and then started to make fun of me and each other — they went from absolutely hating it and saying i wasn’t a little kid anymore to my mom telling my dad that she would put one on his top and bottom lip and sew them together. lol.

today i was going to go to san francisco by myself so that i could go to the moma. that woulda been nice but my mom ended up tagging along. dreadful. so many complaints about every little fucking thing possible. fuck. i can see myself like that sometimes and it’s fucking terrifying. not nearly AS much but man. too much even if it’s half as much. jesus.

sometimes her bitching is concern but most of the time it’s just really really annoying. maybe a combination of both actually. bleh. at the MoMA she also hated all of the art that was not photo-real or kind of intricate… basically anything that is not straight-forward painting. meh. i care not to explain such things although all i said to her about some of the older ‘uncreative’ pieces was that the reason the pieces were significant was because they were created in 1900, not in 2008. i think that went over her head and/or she did not care.

during dinner we ran into nancy’s parents and there was talk about how it was great that i came back for james’ wedding. earlier in the dinner my mom brought up that since her and dad gave $500 as a wedding present, hopefully james and grace didn’t think that the $500 was including me and phil as well. i mean, that’s a reasonable sentiment to have but when james’ parents came by she was like, “yeah! vivian was sooo excited to come back and told me to hurry up and go buy james a wedding present because she couldn’t wait to buy them a present.” LIKE WTF. what kind of freaking lie is that. and to like, one of your best friends?? so fucking fake.

afterwards, i was like, “why did you say that?” and she said it was to just make sure that they knew that i had bought my own separate present. it’s not like it wasn’t written on the freaking cards. FREAKS. chinese people, i swear. my dad doesn’t give a fuck but my mom, man. insane. so yeah pretty much i wanted to die all day. +__+ good thing i had a book to keep me occupied part of the time…

and uh yeah that’s why i won’t be moving back anytime soon. i think i will go pretty much INSANE. i am *definitely* the black sheep of the family. jeebus.

that being said every time i come back now i’ve been exploring san francisco, as i never really was much allowed to go there during high school except for the occasional trip (followed by really anal prodding). yesterday sherry and i went to golden gate park — which i have not been to before — and went to the deyoung museum inside it. it was kind of rad. <a href=”http://artandmusic.wordpress.com”>see pictures here!</a>

on a random note, i always get sick in enclosed cars from the fumes… i always thought they were kinda harmless though but my parents got a rental car and since california requires (i think this is a rather new law) stickers on things that have cancer-causing materials in them, the window of this ford focus — which smelled inside — said that items used in building the car are known to the state of california to cause cancer. so i’m not just being a freak. it’s good to open the window, kids. being holed up in a stuffy, smelly new car is BAD. good to know my being nauseous from new car smells is actually legitimate.

uhhhh i just got a google alert for redefinemag.com and this is what our site showed up on:

http://walk2web.com/site/www.redefinemag.com or you can see the main site at http://walk2web.com/ (make sure you go to the main site, not the redefinemag.com site, for maximum WTFness…)

seriously, though? this is like… the weirdest website i have ever seen in my life. make sure to keep your sound on. wtf?

i’m in california right now, for a couple of days. i’m going to james’ wedding today. for it, i purchased a $15 dress from buffalo exchange. i told my mom that and she freaked out. see, i knew this would happen because it has happened before but it accidentally slipped out. she’s like, “you don’t need to treat yourself like that!” thinking that i’m like living in poverty and reluctant to spend any money on myself or something. i told her thrift stores generally have clothes i like to wear more often. she found that hard to believe and thinks the whole concept of buying thrift store items is degrading. LOL.

lately i’ve been in a bit of a funk so i haven’t written much. usually after the redefine print deadline push i pretty much want to die and therefore do not do much except for veg out. been playing a lot of ninja gaiden II with alex (and eddie the other day), watching a lotta siff movies reviews here, and working a lot on sushimonsters.com and other projects — new sushimonsters blog, too! wewt wewt. but yeah, if the last (current… spring…) issue of redefine doesn’t sell well… like 50%+, i think i’m done with printing. we’ll see………………………… it’s just………… too hard. yo. i wonder if i should try to hire someone one last time, though, to sell ads… i think i will try that maybe and see how effective they are… :/ but really it seems pointless. hmm. weighing the options here.

but yeah, if the last (current… spring…) issue of redefine doesn’t sell well… like 50%+, i think i’m done with printing. we’ll see………………………… it’s just………… too hard. yo. i wonder if i should try to hire someone one last time, though, to sell ads… i think i will try that maybe and see how effective they are… :/ but really it seems pointless. hmm. weighing the options here. oh yeah, amanda, the boston terrier i used to live with, had like a heart attack earlier this week. maybe she will die soon T__T must visit.

cali tomorrow. james’ wedding. too bad i’m missing a fuckload of events this weekend in seattle. GODAMMIT. if i had known i woulda just stayed here.

anyway, last friday we had a really interesting conversation at work. i wish i’d written about it earlier cause i can’t much remember now but yeah… here’s an attempt.

we got started talking about catastrophes somehow… natural disasters, and then went into some schpiel about how we needed to protect ourselves from natural disasters. first up, earthquakes and how seattle is long overdue for one. we assess our building and think that it should probably be okay since it’s brick and we’re on the top floor. there’s also the olympic sculpture park right next to us.

“triangle of life,” i told them. “not duck and cover.” there were visions of perplexion until i described to them the triangle of life routine and then they understood.

we decide that we’ll take a computer tower — probably mine, since it’s closest to the window and most bulky — to smash our single-paned windows (would be quite a feat really since there are wood bars in between). then we would jump to safety — or wait… we would take one of our ikea tabletops (which is basically just a flat sheet of wood) and use it to lower people… although sucks for the last person, who we’d have to catch on the bottom.

then we’d run to the olympic sculpture park and hide under this black squarish sculpture they have, since its underside is large triangles and it wouldn’t be smushed or anything. after all, there’s a lot of high skyscrapers all around us even though our building is not.

since we’re near the water, kristoph mentions that he has read that seattle’s ports are a top place to potentially smuggle nuclear weapons. what’re we going to do about that?

summer brings up indy’s using a lead-lined oldschool refrigerator to escape from nuclear holocaust in the new indiana jones movie, and we decide we need some of those in our office in case of nuclear war. and who knows, maybe it’ll work in other events, too. someone brings up that we probably won’t even notice that the nuclear radiation is coming until it’s too late, but kristoph says we can see the mushroom cloud before effects. i suggest that with every and any small move, we’ll just jump in the fridge. doesn’t matter what it is — we can find out later. summer says the problem is that we won’t know when to come out. good point. kristoph says that we’ll probably end up in there when the ups guy comes and freak him out.

but then we think… in the event of an earthquake or something, a tsunami is a big deal. what’re we going to do about that? we decide that we should put our lead-lined fridges outside the building and use little chutes to go into them (after all, the islands will feel the wrath of the tsunami before we do)… and we’ll have little drills inside the fridge so that we can drill a hole to eventually open the door of the fridge. and oxygen tanks for when we get out of the fridge. i mention that the fridge has to be IN the water for maximum safety (since sherry’s ex-roommate was in thailand during their last tsunami and she was in the water scuba diving and was safe, but when she got up, the boat they had come in — and all the people from that boat — were gone). hell while we’re at it, why don’t we just build a lead lined submarine so that we can all get to safety? custom-made. with persicope.

then comes talk of the fact that if seattle has a really long earthquake, the ground will liquify (solid liquifaction) and that buildings will sink into the ground. scurry.

that’s the gist of the convo. i’m sure i left some shit out but man, was it amusing.

really, though, living here is scurry.

and though we did not believe in god
the gray skies fell, we felt the pressure drop
and we were feeling down
some eyes were looking down at us
the souls that made the call
the judgment when they spoke, said, “not at all”
the words that came made not a sound
a mouth said, “not a sound at all”
what surely said, “we wrote a book”
and rearranged the signs and forms to look like something understood
Like something we had seen before
and waiting pensive, sad, and look
up to the stars and counting all the suns and all the moons
how sad it was that we could not believe

and everyone who believes
and everyone who believes
and they said,
we all said hallelujah
we all said hallelujah
and everyone move around with ease
and everyone move with ease around and then,
we all said hallelujah
we all want answers anyway

still we could not conceive the call
the midnight fell, we felt the measure fall
and we were feeling down
some eyes were looking down at us
and waiting pensive, sad, and look
up to the stars and counting all the suns and all the moons
how sad it was that we could not believe

and everyone who believes
and everyone who believes
and they said,
we all said hallelujah
we all said hallelujah
and everyone move around with ease
and everyone fell right to their knees and then,
we all said hallelujah
we all want answers anyway
we all want answers anyway

THE HELIO SEQUENCE - HALLELUJAH.

who wants to go? november 1 & 2. DIA DE LOS MUERTOS @ WIKIPEDIA.