Happy New Year!
Thanks to my loyal readers for the well-wishes. Very kind.
We made it through the holidays, telling everyone the news and fielding generally positive reactions.
At Chris' aunt's house on New Year's Eve, there was supposed to be a champagne toast to us but her fire twirling daughter and the Rose Parade floats parked a block away took precedence. We left the gathering without the toast but with the promise of an uncle playing the bagpipes at the ceremony and a cousin tossing fire and/or singing (she's a trained opera singer too).
My mother rolled her eyes when I told her that we wanted Chris' cousin to twirl fire. It's perfectly fine entertainment but I guess it's not in her book of wedding wishes. "Mother," I said impatiently, "It's MY wedding." That is the first, and definitely not the last time those words will be coming out of my mouth. Call me selfish but no one is going to bully me into or out of our ideas. I want everyone to have a good time, and fire-twirling is a good time!
We rang in the New Year at my friend Peter's house. I think I inappropriately announced the news to some people. "Hey, Happy New Year. I'm engaged." Not exactly smooth. And I got the feeling not everyone needed to hear the news. Lesson learned. Oh, and a friend put a picture of Chris and I up on her Facebook page with the caption "engaged" and now I'm getting well wishes from Facebook friends. That is not how I want people to learn the news so I've untagged the picture.
Today I found out that one of my favorite spots in town, the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, is available for events. The view up there is spectacular and Chris and I wandered up to it and explored it before it was ever open. It is a State park, so there are rules, rules and more rules. I've sent an email to the designated person to inquire about open dates in August, September and October. Hopefully one Saturday will be available.
One of Chris' neighbors also gave me the lowdown of having an event at the community room at the Village Green, where they live. He and his wife were married there four years ago and it sounded like a hoot. They're creative, Burning Man types so they decked out the space in a Moroccan theme. I'm not that talented in that area but I bet we could think of something cool for decorations. The Village Green probably costs a lot less than other spaces. It is Chris' task to find out.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Engaged Daily -- Dec. 29, 2009
I came home from work yesterday to find out that my sisters and mothers had gone through a preliminary guest list for me. It wasn't on paper, but everytime I mentioned someone, one of them said, "Yep, we thought of them."
Chris and I haven't discussed it but I am pretty sure that our wedding will be smaller than larger. This gets tricky with so many cousins on my end but after a preliminary count, my side will be 80 people. The breakdown is about 30 relatives, 12 friends of the family, and 30+ friends.
The only person from my dad's side of the family will be his sister and whoever drives her to the wedding. The only person from my maternal grandfather's side of the family will be my cousin Goyo, whom I lived with for a month in Guadalajara in 2008. The rest are my aunts, their kids and spouses, my maternal grandmother's brother and his guest/my cousin, and my cousin Diane's family. I hope my dad isn't offended by the lack of representation of his side of the family but he knows I'm closer to my mom's side.
Thinking of friends to invite was pretty clear. There are my go-to gal pals, a couple of junior high and high school friends, a few former co-workers, anyone whose wedding I've been in or attended in the last five years, and basically, the people I call and talk to most. As I've gotten older I've realized that there are fewer people I call with my problems or good news. Basically, if I wouldn't call them when I'm down they're not on the list.
I told the last of my co-workers about my engagement today. Everyone was very nice about it. My superviser got married not too long ago and was especially happy to share her wedding know-how. The reporter that sits next to me, Jay, even asked to see my ring. He said, "So sparkley!" My ring is actually too big for my finger and falls to the side all the time. Must get to that and also promise myself to get it cleaned every six months so that my lifetime warrantly will be valid.
I've never owned any fine jewelry. I would have never worn something this nice in Argentina or Mexico. Call me paranoid but I don't want to give anyone a reason to rob me. Women wear bling all the time. It needs some getting used to. I stare at the ring a lot. My first diamond! What a man. What good taste. I love him.
Other good news... I spoke with my boss yesterday and he said I was being considered for a permanent position. It might happen but he wasn't guaranteeing anything. The worst thing is that the position will most likely require a Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday. Yikes. That sounds awful. I won't poo-poo it until a) I am offered the job, b) I see the salary, and c) I can commit to a crazy schedule. We'll see. The good news is that they like me enough to consider me for full-time work. I wasn't sure that was the case and now have to put my best foot forward in January for the new owners of the paper. I can also keep looking for positions elsewhere. Yay to 2010! Ass-kicking time.
Chris and I haven't discussed it but I am pretty sure that our wedding will be smaller than larger. This gets tricky with so many cousins on my end but after a preliminary count, my side will be 80 people. The breakdown is about 30 relatives, 12 friends of the family, and 30+ friends.
The only person from my dad's side of the family will be his sister and whoever drives her to the wedding. The only person from my maternal grandfather's side of the family will be my cousin Goyo, whom I lived with for a month in Guadalajara in 2008. The rest are my aunts, their kids and spouses, my maternal grandmother's brother and his guest/my cousin, and my cousin Diane's family. I hope my dad isn't offended by the lack of representation of his side of the family but he knows I'm closer to my mom's side.
Thinking of friends to invite was pretty clear. There are my go-to gal pals, a couple of junior high and high school friends, a few former co-workers, anyone whose wedding I've been in or attended in the last five years, and basically, the people I call and talk to most. As I've gotten older I've realized that there are fewer people I call with my problems or good news. Basically, if I wouldn't call them when I'm down they're not on the list.
I told the last of my co-workers about my engagement today. Everyone was very nice about it. My superviser got married not too long ago and was especially happy to share her wedding know-how. The reporter that sits next to me, Jay, even asked to see my ring. He said, "So sparkley!" My ring is actually too big for my finger and falls to the side all the time. Must get to that and also promise myself to get it cleaned every six months so that my lifetime warrantly will be valid.
I've never owned any fine jewelry. I would have never worn something this nice in Argentina or Mexico. Call me paranoid but I don't want to give anyone a reason to rob me. Women wear bling all the time. It needs some getting used to. I stare at the ring a lot. My first diamond! What a man. What good taste. I love him.
Other good news... I spoke with my boss yesterday and he said I was being considered for a permanent position. It might happen but he wasn't guaranteeing anything. The worst thing is that the position will most likely require a Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday. Yikes. That sounds awful. I won't poo-poo it until a) I am offered the job, b) I see the salary, and c) I can commit to a crazy schedule. We'll see. The good news is that they like me enough to consider me for full-time work. I wasn't sure that was the case and now have to put my best foot forward in January for the new owners of the paper. I can also keep looking for positions elsewhere. Yay to 2010! Ass-kicking time.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Engaging daily
I might have taken "Julie & Julia" too seriously because I'm going to blog about my engagement and wedding with the hopes someone turns it into a book. Yes, I'm engaged. Chris proposed to me on Christmas Eve in front of my whole family. It was ballsy and brave and sweet and wonderful. I said yes and it's on.
Sooooo, in the hopes of getting a book deal that will secure my future, I'm going to write about the wedding. It's the only thing people want to talk to me about anyway so why not? Seriously, it's as if life before the engagement ceased to exist and now I'm in weddinglandia. I've been advised to enjoy it and will my best to.
I had actually hoped that Chris would propose during the holidays. He did and now I look like the good guy, not the person who was going to pressure him about it in the new year.
So many thoughts have gone through my head these past days. The fact that my sleeping around days are over. That I've picked a partner who will make a great dad. That I love Chris' politeness and dorkiness and thoughtfulness. That I never thought I'd end up with someone like him: He's a straight arrow for the most part. He didn't sleep around. He hasn't taken drugs. He's not a stoner.
The fact that I'm taking the plunge in my late '30s is also a game changer. I'm not a giddy bride-to-be, giggling and telling everyone I can think of about the news. I've been spreading the news slowing, making sure I actually speak to my friends/family to tell them, not leave a message or send a text. I had been trying to tell a friend about the engagement for days but every time I called her, she returned the call with a text message. Then she asked me why it took me so long to tell her. Uh, it wouldn't have if she had actually picked up the phone to call.
Neither my mother nor Chris' mother was excited about the news. My mother was not smiling when the rest of the family was going wild during the proposal. Was it shock? Disapproval? Same with Chris' mom. He announced the news right after we had taken our seats for Christmas dinner. It was Chris, his sister, his mother, and his mother's roommate and no one got out of their seats after hearing the news. No one got up to hug me. It was like, "That's great. Can you pass the butter?" Later in car Chris said his mother was happy, she just didn't show it. I can't complain, my mother was the same way.
Our fathers were much more vocal about their excitement/approval. My dad was happy and congratulatory. His father and stepmother had him call me as soon as they heard. That was nice. They were excited and offered to assist us in wedding planning in any way possible.
Sooooo, in the hopes of getting a book deal that will secure my future, I'm going to write about the wedding. It's the only thing people want to talk to me about anyway so why not? Seriously, it's as if life before the engagement ceased to exist and now I'm in weddinglandia. I've been advised to enjoy it and will my best to.
I had actually hoped that Chris would propose during the holidays. He did and now I look like the good guy, not the person who was going to pressure him about it in the new year.
So many thoughts have gone through my head these past days. The fact that my sleeping around days are over. That I've picked a partner who will make a great dad. That I love Chris' politeness and dorkiness and thoughtfulness. That I never thought I'd end up with someone like him: He's a straight arrow for the most part. He didn't sleep around. He hasn't taken drugs. He's not a stoner.
The fact that I'm taking the plunge in my late '30s is also a game changer. I'm not a giddy bride-to-be, giggling and telling everyone I can think of about the news. I've been spreading the news slowing, making sure I actually speak to my friends/family to tell them, not leave a message or send a text. I had been trying to tell a friend about the engagement for days but every time I called her, she returned the call with a text message. Then she asked me why it took me so long to tell her. Uh, it wouldn't have if she had actually picked up the phone to call.
Neither my mother nor Chris' mother was excited about the news. My mother was not smiling when the rest of the family was going wild during the proposal. Was it shock? Disapproval? Same with Chris' mom. He announced the news right after we had taken our seats for Christmas dinner. It was Chris, his sister, his mother, and his mother's roommate and no one got out of their seats after hearing the news. No one got up to hug me. It was like, "That's great. Can you pass the butter?" Later in car Chris said his mother was happy, she just didn't show it. I can't complain, my mother was the same way.
Our fathers were much more vocal about their excitement/approval. My dad was happy and congratulatory. His father and stepmother had him call me as soon as they heard. That was nice. They were excited and offered to assist us in wedding planning in any way possible.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
What do you do when you're good at nothing?
Ah, I was so spirited in my last post. I'm still excited about Poptimist, which should be on streets now, but I am not excited about the job I did on the December issue.
I gave it my all: editing stories, giving feedback, getting stories rewritten. I even wrote up a band myself -- San Diego's Tape Deck Mountain. (This was less of an exercise in writing than it was a way of making my budget. I decided I could up writer's rate if I wrote a 200-word article and two album reviews myself.)
I devoted nights after work, my Fridays off, and weekends to the project once all the stories were turned in. I read and reread the copy, changing punctuation here, checking spelling there.
Last Sunday I sat with the publisher for four hours as we made last-minute changes. The artist she had contracted wasn't working out so there was a lot of last-minute scrambling. She sent the final version to me an hour before it went to the printer. All the last-minute changes produced some errors, which I was quite proud of catching on my final read-through.
This all went to pot on Sunday. I had been out from morning to evening throwing a friend's baby shower and was horrified to see this email from our publisher awaiting me at home: "the concert listings all say 'November.' "
What?!!! Where?!!!
I scrambled to the print-outs I had gone through for the issue. The error wasn't on our club picks pages, it wasn't on our live picks pages, whew. Oh, but there it was, on the club listings pages. Clear as day it said "November" on the top of the page instead of December. It said "November" four different times.
I had poured over these listings many times. I changed dates, spellings, punctuation but apparently never looked up at the header. Oy!
This drops our publication from awesome to amateur and it's my fault. The buck stops here. I am paid to catch these kinds of errors. I take pride in catching these types of errors.
So for the last couple of days I have been blue. I am earning a living right now as a copyeditor yet I didn't catch what is now an obvious mistake. So if I'm not a good copyeditor or a good writer, what exactly am I good at? How can I sell myself as either when this keeps haunting me?
I dread seeing the magazine now.
I gave it my all: editing stories, giving feedback, getting stories rewritten. I even wrote up a band myself -- San Diego's Tape Deck Mountain. (This was less of an exercise in writing than it was a way of making my budget. I decided I could up writer's rate if I wrote a 200-word article and two album reviews myself.)
I devoted nights after work, my Fridays off, and weekends to the project once all the stories were turned in. I read and reread the copy, changing punctuation here, checking spelling there.
Last Sunday I sat with the publisher for four hours as we made last-minute changes. The artist she had contracted wasn't working out so there was a lot of last-minute scrambling. She sent the final version to me an hour before it went to the printer. All the last-minute changes produced some errors, which I was quite proud of catching on my final read-through.
This all went to pot on Sunday. I had been out from morning to evening throwing a friend's baby shower and was horrified to see this email from our publisher awaiting me at home: "the concert listings all say 'November.' "
What?!!! Where?!!!
I scrambled to the print-outs I had gone through for the issue. The error wasn't on our club picks pages, it wasn't on our live picks pages, whew. Oh, but there it was, on the club listings pages. Clear as day it said "November" on the top of the page instead of December. It said "November" four different times.
I had poured over these listings many times. I changed dates, spellings, punctuation but apparently never looked up at the header. Oy!
This drops our publication from awesome to amateur and it's my fault. The buck stops here. I am paid to catch these kinds of errors. I take pride in catching these types of errors.
So for the last couple of days I have been blue. I am earning a living right now as a copyeditor yet I didn't catch what is now an obvious mistake. So if I'm not a good copyeditor or a good writer, what exactly am I good at? How can I sell myself as either when this keeps haunting me?
I dread seeing the magazine now.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Introducing Poptimist!
I am the editor of L.A.'s newest music magazine, Poptimist. Electronic copy here: http://issuu.com/poptimist/docs/november
It's a labor of love and gets the creative juices flowing again. It's my first time as a magazine editor and I am digging it. We'll be out again in December. It's available for free in L.A.'s hipster spots -- record stores, Rudy's Barber Shop, boutiques, coffee shops, etc.
It's a labor of love and gets the creative juices flowing again. It's my first time as a magazine editor and I am digging it. We'll be out again in December. It's available for free in L.A.'s hipster spots -- record stores, Rudy's Barber Shop, boutiques, coffee shops, etc.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
iPod shuffle -- don't buy it!
I recently purchased the newest generation of the iPod shuffle. My original shuffle disappeared between the gym and my house one day and I really like it for working out so I bit the bullet and shelled out $59 (plus tax) for the latest one on the market.
I hated it.
True to advertising, it is a bitty little thing. Thinner and longer than the square one I had, and free engraving was included with purchase. Well, my "Sofia" personalized gadget is going back this week.
The shuffle's deal-breaker is that besides the off/on button, the navigation controls are all on a slim clicker attached to the headphones. The clicker hangs at about chin level and is a pain in the ass to use. You can't use any other headphones for this shuffle because the commands are built in to the headphones. Terrible idea.
The good news is that Macintosh has good customer service and is taking back my iPod shuffle free of charge. They're even paying for Fed-Ex. I'll now wait until the shuffle charge is cleared on my credit card and then start searching for a used, previous generation shuffle.
I hated it.
True to advertising, it is a bitty little thing. Thinner and longer than the square one I had, and free engraving was included with purchase. Well, my "Sofia" personalized gadget is going back this week.
The shuffle's deal-breaker is that besides the off/on button, the navigation controls are all on a slim clicker attached to the headphones. The clicker hangs at about chin level and is a pain in the ass to use. You can't use any other headphones for this shuffle because the commands are built in to the headphones. Terrible idea.
The good news is that Macintosh has good customer service and is taking back my iPod shuffle free of charge. They're even paying for Fed-Ex. I'll now wait until the shuffle charge is cleared on my credit card and then start searching for a used, previous generation shuffle.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Crenshaw Blvd., it's where I'm at
A look at the Sigalert website before leaving work indicated that all freeways home were jammed. Accident here, slow there....so I decided I'd take Crenshaw Blvd. as far as it would take me. The commute home is an hour no matter how I drive so I was fairly certain this wouldn't lengthen the trip by too much.
South down Crenshaw it was. It's a rough commute approaching the 10 and past Rodeo, but once you clear Martin Luther King Blvd. it's smooth sailing. And it's pretty too. Trees line the street all the way through Leimart Park and when you drive through Inglewood, there's a pretty center divider with sculpted trees.
It was an especially clear afternoon and I wish I could remember which cross street had this beautiful view. Sadly, the landscape turns into a nightmare south of the 105. It's crazy what a difference there is north and south of the freeway. Ugly power lines as far as the eye could see once past the freeway at which point, I cut my cruise short and took the 105 to the 110 south. I made it home in an hour. So instead of the usual gridlock, I saw something different today.
On another note, I went karaoke-ing for the first time in ages last night. Chris and I had dinner with his friend Peter from college and some other people, including Shumway and Marc. They wanted to get drinks afterwards but it was heavy metal night at the password-protected M Bar (R Bar?) and we voted to change venues. I suggested the Brass Monkey because we had driven by it earlier that night and we had the best time!
We arrived between 8 and 9 and were one of the first groups there. This was cool because we were called up to sing quickly. Chris and I started with Weezer's "Buddy Holly." Chris played a mean air guitar during the song. Next came "Seven Nation Army," which was lots of fun. I'll totally do the White Stripes again. The drinks flowed and we got progressively worse. The low point was our rendition of "Sabatoge." Marc, Chris and I were screaming into the microphones and jumping all over the place. The ending "Whhhhyyyy??!!" cry was super fun to sing but I'm sure it was no fun to listen to. Good times. Our evening ended with a "Love Today" quartet. The crowd was not into that song. That reaction was disappointing but the evening was such an unexpected good time that I did not care.
Our bikes were stolen from Chris's garage sometime during the evening too. City living.
South down Crenshaw it was. It's a rough commute approaching the 10 and past Rodeo, but once you clear Martin Luther King Blvd. it's smooth sailing. And it's pretty too. Trees line the street all the way through Leimart Park and when you drive through Inglewood, there's a pretty center divider with sculpted trees.
It was an especially clear afternoon and I wish I could remember which cross street had this beautiful view. Sadly, the landscape turns into a nightmare south of the 105. It's crazy what a difference there is north and south of the freeway. Ugly power lines as far as the eye could see once past the freeway at which point, I cut my cruise short and took the 105 to the 110 south. I made it home in an hour. So instead of the usual gridlock, I saw something different today.
On another note, I went karaoke-ing for the first time in ages last night. Chris and I had dinner with his friend Peter from college and some other people, including Shumway and Marc. They wanted to get drinks afterwards but it was heavy metal night at the password-protected M Bar (R Bar?) and we voted to change venues. I suggested the Brass Monkey because we had driven by it earlier that night and we had the best time!
We arrived between 8 and 9 and were one of the first groups there. This was cool because we were called up to sing quickly. Chris and I started with Weezer's "Buddy Holly." Chris played a mean air guitar during the song. Next came "Seven Nation Army," which was lots of fun. I'll totally do the White Stripes again. The drinks flowed and we got progressively worse. The low point was our rendition of "Sabatoge." Marc, Chris and I were screaming into the microphones and jumping all over the place. The ending "Whhhhyyyy??!!" cry was super fun to sing but I'm sure it was no fun to listen to. Good times. Our evening ended with a "Love Today" quartet. The crowd was not into that song. That reaction was disappointing but the evening was such an unexpected good time that I did not care.
Our bikes were stolen from Chris's garage sometime during the evening too. City living.
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