August 2005 Archives

I posted a review of Bernie's Southern Bistro on Digest. It's a really good restaurant. You should go there.

In less than two weeks I will be in France. I feel like I am on the cusp of a dramatic whirlwind, and yet at the moment life is normal, mundane, and comfortable. I'm savoring that because I know it won't last. Of course what I'm going to do is probably going to be wonderful and mind-blowing, but at a cost. So for right now I am enjoying nights at home with Kev, frozen taquitos, the all-James Bond channel, and running in the neighborhood. Our neighborhood smells the best, like flowers and sweets from the honeysuckle trees and some ghost bakery or confectionary that I never see, only smell. Also, our bathroom smells good from six-dollar soap. Everything is comfortable because it's summer. I was sorting through my clothes to decide what to bring and leave behind, and I was trying to imagine extremely cold winters and what I would want to wear. When it's summer it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to be cozy with the right garments, but when it's winter I feel like I'm always uncomfortable, either because I'm cold or because I'm wearing too many unwieldly layers. There's got to be a way to do it right. For now though, comfort comes easy.

That is a really good song.

Yesterday I had to buy a replacement for my white belt, which I'd worn into the ground and was falling apart. I'm sure that earns me some sort of massive hipster cred somewhere, like on some outdated '90s hipster punch-card not in use anymore that would earn you a free case of Pabst after 10 such hipper-than-thou moments. It was weird, I went to Naked City and realized I was looking at the enamel flower pins and Who buttons instead of the cherries-and-dice stuff only because I had arbitrarilly decided to subscribe to one subculture instead of another, and wanted to like things I had formerly hated (like flat mary janes) because it was appropriate. I lose! I am a fashion victim too! Oh well, wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

I sort of feel a pressure to start looking sharper these days for a variety of reasons.
1. Kevin has chided me for looking too conservative ever since I stopped hanging out with hipsters and started working at Ann Taylor Loft.
2. Watching period movies makes me understand the benefits of a society that values looking presentable.
3. The study abroad program I will be starting next month is totally giving me back-to-school jitters like when I started junior high, and I feel excited about having a totally clean slate and being able to present whatever image I want to people who have never met me, but anxious about doing it well.
4. The French supposedly are dressier than Americans in general and I don't want to look like a dork.

I've been spending a lot of time shopping this week and not really buying anything because nothing ever fits. I have found that I can fit into shirts from the children's department, but they never have anything black. It's heck of annoying, but again, there are worse problems to have.

“Fashion is being willing to pierce your collarbone to hold up a tube top.”
— Joan Rivers via City magazine's Fall Blowout issue.

I wish I'd thought of that after my bike wreck a couple years ago.

I'm sort of having this 1963 via 1999 mod moment, which basically means my last 10 years of evolution have gotten me nowhere. Not that that's a bad thing; I think fashion's biggest fault is that when it hits on something good it just moves on in the next minute to something else. It's almost like hitting on something good is accidental and never fully appreciated, and for the most part new is more important than good. Maybe it makes me a pathetic, nostalgic stick in the mud to be perennially obsessed with the same style, but I think it's better than going around looking stupid just because it's a la mode.

Anyway, it's not like I don't branch out. I do the trendy mall girl thing, I do the rocker-punk thing. Recently I was doing the '50s rockabilly thing kind of by accident, because the only thing I could do with my hair was a pompadour twist thingy, and with a button down shirt (for work) and cuffed jeans (cause it was hot) it's just automatic. I even did the total 80's revival thing last year. Well maybe not total, but sort of. See, my friends would laugh because I say I go through all these different styles, but I do them all with the same pair of jeans, and to everyone else I probably have looked exactly the same for the last however many years. But the little details, a pair of giant neon green earrings or some pink lipstick or knee-high boots or a crappily silk-screened teeshirt, maybe they don't make the biggest visual impact in the world, but they really make one's outlook on life different, and anyway it's all I can afford.

But maybe the reason I always look the same is I always come back to the same thing, and at this point it's too ingrained in me to go away on demand. Me, me, me. I'm sick of talking about me.

The weird thing about mod is that although I love the style, most of the mods I have known over the years have been horrible people. Yeah, arrogance is part of the aesthetic, but still. It's hard to recall someone's outfit some night and be like, "Dang she looked good... but man, she screwed me over so bad!" It's hard to hate your fashion icons. Or to really respect someone's style and image, but then when you try to have a conversation with them (or a relationship with them) you find that there's nothing going on beneath those short black bangs. Oh well, I guess you can't have everything. I will never really pull together the whole look from straightened hair to pointy kitten heels, but that's OK, because instead of spending my time trying to do that, I'm doing this.

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"La mode est vouloir se faire percer la clavicule pour soutenir une chemise tube." -Joan Rivers.

Si je l'aurais su apres avoir tombe de mon velo.

J'aime beaucoup le style "mod." Je souhaite je pourrais etre comme Davy Watts.

I got a webcam! AND, I figured out how to upload pictures to my blog! WOW, THIS IS SO COOL!

OK, this is kind of a long shot, but does anyone have a continental European voltage (I think 220 V) electric toothbrush that they don't need for six months? Just thought I'd ask. Thanks.

Est-ce que quelqu'un a un brosse a dents electrique pour l'Europe dont il n'a pas besoin pour six mois? Je n'ai pas de l'assurance dentale et je ne veux pas perdre tous mes dents. Merci!

Tonight is the Twilight Crit. The boring old park blocks will be turned into a cycling arena with all the spectators, spandex bike dudes and all that. Should be fun. It isn't every day that an Oregon bike racing event is within biking distance of home. Usually they are in Bend or something. Kevin's biking friend, the Quiet Storm, is moving to Bend.

Ce soir il y aura le "Twilight Crit." Les même park blocks que nous savons transformeront a un stade du cyclisme avec toutes les choses: Les spectateurs, les athletes avec leur spandex, les enfants qui crient... Ca devrait etre amusant. D'habitude, les epreuves de cyclisme en Oregon sont trop loins d'ici pour y aller a velo, pour exemple a Bend, où un ami de Kevin, The Quiet Storm, va s'installer avec sa femme. C'est mal pour nous, mais c'est bon pour eux.

All I want to do is be efficient, productive and healthy. All I seem to be able to do is slack off and eat junk food. I know that the more I am good the easier it will get. The first thing is the hardest.

In other news, a big, juicy spider has camped out in the blinds adjacent to the chair where I eat breakfast and work on the computer every day. Like so close that I would lean on it and squish it if I didn't know. In our house we wait for the spiders to die naturally because as unpleasant as they are, they eat the other bugs. We once watched a little spider fight a fly three times its size and win (the fly was old). It wrapped it up, then later abandoned it on our kitchen counter.

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Je ne veux que d’être sage. Je ne peux que d’être stupide. Je sais que plus on essaye de faire les bonnes décisions, plus c’est facile. C’est la première chose qui est la plus difficile.

Il y a une araignée qui s’est installée hier dans le rideau à coté de ma chaise où je mange du petit déjeuner. Elle est encore là. Dans notre maison, c’est une question d’attendre jusqu’ à les araignées mortent naturellement, parce qu’elles mangent des autres insectes.

A customer at work today told me I couldn't add. At the time it was true, but still. It's not polite to actually say so. I was stupid all day because I hadn't had any coffee, after having drunk coffee or eaten chocolate all week. It's hard to write in French when you're not taking French classes. All the little things, the rules, I've forgotten them all. I've all forgotten thems. I don't know. I wrote most of that in French first then translated it into English. I am so relieved that I can still dork out about something, that it's actually interesting to me.

Une cliente à mon travail m’a dit aujourd’hui que je ne pouvais pas faire des maths. C’était vrai à ce moment-là, mais à tout cas ce n’était pas poli de le dire. J’étais stupide toute la journée parce que je n’ai pas bu du café après avoir bu du café ou mangé du chocolat toute la semaine précédente. Ecrire en français, c’est difficile quand on n’est pas en train de suivre des cours de français. Tous les petits choses, les règles, je les ai oublié. Je les ai oubliés. Je ne sais pas.

Chocolate Cola will now be a bilingual blog. Thanks to Joon the Freedom Girl for the excellent idea. I apologize in advance for all the grammatical errors to come. And now, time for bed.

Chocolate Cola sera maintenant un blog bilingue. Merci à Joon the Freedom Girl pour l'idée merveilleuse. Je suis désolée en avance pour tous les erreurs de grammaire. Maintenant, c'est l'heure de dormir.

One of my employers, Ann Taylor Loft, is opening a new store in Pioneer Place. Today everyone who's going to work there and some of us who work at other stores went to start putting together the store. We were all women, mostly young except for the managers. It's weird how a bunch of girls who have never met before can begin talking openly about underwear and relationships within the first hour with almost no introduction or pretext. It's kind of cool.

One of the managers likes me because I'm "so quirky." For instance, I ride my bike to work. It's so wacky! I'm glad she likes me but it's still kind of irritating, in a way that's almost impossible to explain. I'm too tired to try to explaim but I'm sure some people will be able to understand.

I brought leftover pizza for lunch, which I'd practically had to beg my boyfriend to let me have. But the managers bought us lunch. Pizza. There was one kind of pizza that had chicken and instead of pizza sauce, there was barbeque sauce. It was hella good. There was also a garlic chicken one with tomatoes and some other stuff that was yummy, and pineapple-Canadian bacon pizza. There was a ton left over and I wanted to take some home, but I couldn't because I had quirkily ridden my bike and couldn't carry it.

We're doing the same stuff tomorrow.

Yesterday I went to a market research survey thing and received $30 for drinking a bunch of orange vodka. Yes, I have become such a square that you have to pay me to drink. Kevin, my mandatory designated driver, received $10 for picking me up. I was vaguely embarrassed for him to see me in that environment. It was just sort of cheap. But whatever, I guess it wasn't any more humiliating than working retail or food service. Afterwards, since we were in the Lloyd District (the survey was held at the Red Lion Hotel), we went to Red Robin for dinner. Kevin worked at Red Robin in Yakima when he was in high school, so I got to peer in on his own humble beginnings. The waiters even came and sang the birthday song to someone at the table next to us. I really wanted this thing that was like a chicken burger with onion rings and all this crap in it, but Kevin said it would eat me instead so I ordered off the kids' menu. Chicken fingers.

Stephanie did my eyebrows yesterday. Nothing had ever been done to them before. It was exciting.

A lady came into my job with a real stingray-hide purse. I recognized it from a magazine. A lady came in who was beautiful, tall, young, and most likely in a position of power. She was looking for another suit. I was torn between admiration, jealousy and indifference. I wish I had a reliable job and an excuse to wear cute, structured clothes. It's probably for the best that I don't because people seem to think there's something wrong with dressing like a young republican, but that's all I've been able to get into lately. I don't know what's wrong with me. It's like I hit 25 and my sense of style expired.