"DAMN, she makes lazy look GOOD." A Jaya-type of interview.

One of my favorites; it's easy peasy but all kinds of jazzy. "Too jazzy?" Ha! That's for J.

Jaya just did an interview for the blog, The Plump Pinay (and for those not in the know, "pinay" stands for "female filipino")! Internet high-five!

Go read it. Go. Now. GIT! Go learn about Jaya and maybe you'll pick up a thing or two... or three.

**Things that'll BLOW YOUR MIND about my sister (and maybe even a little about yourself):
+ She DIGS menswear (but still goes girl-nuts for shoes).
+ She's pretttty loquacious, or in her words, "verbose." I mean, "brick and mortar store"? Whaaa?
+ I inspire confidence in her?! I'm "never ever callus"?! Maybe she can't verbalize my facial expressions... how would you describe "eyebrows-raised-grimaced-face" or "confused-face-shaking-head"?
+We're twins (maybe you guys knew that? maybe not? surprise?).

Soooo go check out her tumblr/blog, if you haven't already, and try to cop her style @: I've got the Heebie Jeebies.

"Do you know how antennas are made, Kaya?" A HAPPY FATHER'S DAY CELEBRATION.

My father, at around my age, straight chilling in a raft. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Tucked away inside my dad's salt-and-peppered noggin is a veritable wealth of knowledge- but, really, only the kind of nonsense needed for JEOPARDY! and ridiculously obscure trivia games.

Here are some of the diamonds that he has bestowed upon this world, and other funny gems that make it out of his mouth:

+ My dad tells me he wants to change the antenna on his car (the reception is awful). when he turns, looks at me, and asks:
Dad: "Do you know how radio antennas work?"
Me: "Vaguely." (that sound pretty 'modern jackass'-y, I know, but I recently read an article about how a certain amount of copper is needed for an antenna to work and how it's coiled up in that shark-fin shape for cars nowadays to accommodate the size. I know, I know: "shuuuut up, jackass".)
Dad: "It's a pieces of copper that's coiled around blahablahablahablah. FM blahahah... Do you know what 'FM' stands for? Yah, that's right 'frequency modulation.' What about 'AM'? Do you know what 'AM' stands for?..."
Twenty minutes later: I'm left dazed and confused and less informed than when I started the conversation.

+"Kaya, can I see your laptop? You should defragment the hard drive every so often to free up space." Twenty minutes later, a fear-inducing blue screen pops up, my computer crashes, and it's slower than ever before.

+We're driving back to the house and there's a gap of silence when he asks:
My dad: "Do you think you could learn how to drive a motorcycle?"
Me: "I guess. Yeah, sure, if someone taught me I could learn."
Dad: "The only thing that would hard would be driving on pavement then having to drive on dirt."
Me: "Okay. Yah, sure... because of the change in surface and..."
Dad: "(slightly talking over me) You'd have to turn the handle to compensate the change because the dirt is so loose. I'd never drive a motorcycle on gravel... I was thinking of getting a motorcycle."
Me: "Really? Do it."
**Silence.


+ My younger cousins/any impressionable little kids he meets when he travels: "What's that? (they point to a 2" wide keloid in the middle of his chest)?"
Dad: "I was shot in the chest."
Baby kids: "REALLY? No, you weren't!"
Dad: "Yeah, I was."
My cousins/little kids would turn and look at either me or my sister, scared and amazed, and we'd shake our heads and mouth-out, "Noooo," while my dad, smirking, nods his head, insisting he was shot in the chest. (And nooo, he wasn't, he just likes scaring little kiddies).

+ When Jaya and I were in highschool, the three of us loved watching Roswell and Firefly. Then a few of months ago (and just a couple of weeks ago, actually): 
Dad:"Hey, you know who was playing golf ahead of me? That guy from Roswell! Brendan Fehr! He's a pretty decent golfer."
Me: "Did you scream out 'ROSWELL!'? I hope you screamed out 'ROSWELL!'"
Dad: "No, but maybe I'll get to play him soon...."

Royal/T + Art Walk.

The other week, The sis and I had a hankering for iced mint tea (for me), iced coffee (for her), and gooood grub so we headed down to Royal/T

If you are EVER in L.A., specifically Culver City, sh-sh-check out this seriously cute cafe/restaurant/art space/shop; It's a Japanese-ophile's delight! The biggest draw of this multi-purpose space are the waitresses: they are dressed in "Lolita"-style french maid uniforms. 

WHHHAA?! 

And the food and beverages they serve there are ACTUALLY good! WHHHAA x 2??!

**SMALL ASIDE: One of the previous times we went there, there was an exhibit for the 03948203th-ish (okay, maybe 35th?) anniversary of Hello Kitty, and we got a petit-fours and cupcakes decorated with the famous kitty-kat's face.

This time, serendipitously, The sis and I happened upon the Culver City Art Walk, which was taking place on Washington Blvd. at the same time we were there, inside the tens of hundreds of nearby galleries. 

Okay, maybe not hundreds... but you can't throw a stick without hitting a small gallery, art space, or someone's personal studio. We braved the hot weather and big crowds (aggggh) and walked the 10+ blocks to look at local art work. 

Here are some of the pieces of work we saw (CAUTION: the following photos were taken with my camera phone, so prepare to do some eye squinting):

 @ Royal/T:

Be prepared to have your MINDS BLOWN (by adoooorableness!): 

YES, IT'S A CUPCAKE ON MY HEAD. An older white lady cooed at me, saying, "Ohhh, that's soo cute!" and pointed me out to her friends. AHHH, DON'T LOOK AT ME! PEOPLE OVVERLOAD. (Annnd NOPE, I didn't buy it).

Here are some other random works of art from various galleries (soooorrry, but I didn't get artists' names or titles):

***LASTLY: A skateboard-centric gallery had photobooth and Jaya and I NEVER miss a chance to take a picture (we've taken, like, 12 photobooth pictures, from places like the county fair to Frontierland at Knott's Berry Farm). Plus, it was free. There are tons of other pictures which you can check out over here.

It ain't the greatest, but it happened.

***EDIT: I was just looking at photobooth pictures from the aforementioned website and, OMG, ANDREW KEEGAN took a picture. "Whooo's Andrew Keegan?" you ask?! ANYONE over the age of 25 should know that he played Zack Dell (I actually had to look that up... that name doesn't float around my head...) from one of the greatest 90s movies: CAMP NOWHERE.

California KNOWS HOW TO PARTY...

Soooo.

This is AWKWARD, huh. I give you a teaser photo of fun happenings then NOTHING.

I went on this totally fun and amazing roadtrip vacation with Jaya and I was soooo hyped to share all the awwwwesome photos when we got back.

That was almost three weeks ago. Ohhhh, I'm shaking my fist at myself! I was going to write some quippy/witty crap like,

"Ohhh, isn't it the pits when people force you to look at their vacation photos? They either have too many landscape/architectural/olde-tyme church things (none of which you care about) or they have too many face photos (and don't get a sense of where they went or what they saw). And they almost NEVER put some kind of description. So, you end up looking at pictures of your 'friend' smiling like a jerk, with some olde-tyme ruins behind them, and you have no idea where they are. Then you start hating them juuuust a little because they got to go somewhere and you didn't. NOOOW HERE'S MY VACATION PHOTOS!!! Enjoy."

Now, I'm not "trying" to make excuses, but be happy that I waited this long to post because I'm pretty sure I could've done 3+ posts of just vacation photos.

Sooo, if you want to give in and look... NOW HERE'S MY VACATION PHOTOS!!

A baby description: Jaya and I drove up the scenic route of the 395, from Los Angeles to Bridgeport, CA, then down to Bishop, CA, then continued on the 190 to Death Valley. I drove approximately 1,200 miles in 3 days.

001/ MANZANAR:

002/ CONVICT LAKE:

003/ LEE VINING, CA/BRIDGEPORT, CA:

004/ BODIE GHOST TOWN:

005/ MONO LAKE, SOUTH TUFA GROVE:

006/ BISHOP, CA.

007/ DEATH VALLEY, CA/MESQUITE DUNES/BADWATER, CA.:

I've spared you the "you-had-to-be-there" jokes and commentary, but if you're interested, I have more photos on my other Flickr account (I wrote more detailed accounts). If you haven't seen it already, watch the video of Jaya and I in Bodie (it's cute; it's funny; the music is weird and frenetic; and Jaya learned how to do alll of the editing in, like, 2 hours time).

--
All I gots to say now is, without all its big cities and glaring lights, California is STILL an AMAZING STATE.

In one day, we went from the highest point in California (Conway Summit @ 8,143 ft above sea level) to the lowest (Badwater, CA @ -282 ft below); I drove one of the craziest stretches of roads that was rife with "squiggly line" caution signs and 9% grade inclines [click on the link to see a beautiful panoramic shot]; there were sequoias, redwoods, joshua trees, sand, and salt flats for daaaays.

Old women hassled me the "appropriateness" of my dress. We saw an older French couple that found my keys in Bodie a day later, 300 miles away, in Death Valley. On the way back home from Death Valley, Jaya and I got crazy "lost"- meaning all we had was an incomplete AAA map and a sketchy sense of direction. For a couple hours +, I was shit scared that the car would break down and we'd be desert toast.

Gooood times were had, most definitely.

--
**BECAUSE IT'S SOOO GOOD: There was one song that says it best (just replace "Watts", "South Central", and "Compton" with "Lone Pine", "Furnace Creek", and "Trona").

2Pac's California Love: