Snapshots of my Christmas break

Best friend photo shoot

Best friend photo shoot

Best friend photo shoot

Best friend photo shoot

My other dog who has problems

Elaborate Christmas breakfast

Pad's first Christmas. She didn't eat

the wrapping paper and I was so proud.

Christmas morning

My first trifle

Hosting a Christmas feast

(Drawing by Theodore Tarantino)

Taking advantage of Theodore's

orange zesting skills, and his

ability to look candid for a photo

A tic for me, a tac for you

Joseph Heller frustrated me sometimes

with his back and forth contradictions;

but I'd still recommend this book because

I laughed and wanted to be Yossarian's friend.

I only take recommendations of

books seriously if I trust the

person and if they convince me.

Although I love my sister, telling

me to read Twilight because it's

about unquenchable love doesn't cut it.

Apparently, according to chapter 2,

Sedaris took up smoking and it rid

him of his tics for the most part.

I took up smoking for a while, but then

realized I was doing it to be cool.

I stopped after three weeks when

coughing became a regular thing for me.

Catch-22 was interesting. Took me long enough to finish. Funny, contradictory, ingenious, stressful. I'm glad I read it, but even more glad I finished it because now I can move on to the mountain of books that I received for Christmas.

After finishing the first season of Curb Your Enthusiasm (Theodore and I started it only a couple days ago), I began reading David Sedaris' Naked.

(Side note: I don't always do nothing all day. I had plans: picnic in Long Beach with best friend, then work, then hang with Theodore. But then I tried this experiment yesterday. I really hate cashiering. I do. It's probably the worst job for me, besides clothes retail because I can barely dress myself. So I'm trying this new thing to force myself to be happy at work and then trick myself into being happier overall. I heard that the healthiest people are always the happiest ones, to which I said, "Well, of course they're happy. They're healthy for fuck's sake." But apparently it's the other way around. The studies go that they're healthy because they are happy. I started thinking, for instance, about Julia Child. She ate so much rich food all the time and she lived until she was 95 or something like that. From what I can tell from the movie Julie and Julia, she was a pretty happy woman who had passions and was excited about life. I thought maybe that was the solution to a long and healthy life. I did an okay job yesterday at forcing myself to be happy ringing up rude costumers, one in particular that threw things at me, wore sunglasses inside and had the smallest breasts I've ever seen. But my contrived joy did not work. Oddly enough, I woke up sick this morning, the first time since March I think. So today, I played Bananagrams and Scrabble with my mom, finished my book, and started another. And curled up in a ball for an hour. I am not lazy. I am sick. Okay, you didn't have to read that. It was just so you don't think less of me.)

Naked is kind of a memoir of David Sedaris' life. A friend recommended it to me and it's fantastic. I just finished reading the chapter on his "plague of tics" and it got me thinking about my own.

How could such a normal girl like myself have tics, you ask? Oh, you are so presumptuous. Although my tics may have been self-induced for attention seeking reasons, they had been and are currently quite serious and are not to be taken lightly.

I used to have to count ceiling tiles and I thought that was so cool. I thought I was so cool and artistic to have such a tic where I would sit down in a movie theater with friends and I would automatically look up to assess the squares and patterns of right angles. Then I realized that a lot of people have tics like that, counting things and such. And since I'm no rain man, I gave that one up because I didn't want any smart ass to grab me, flash a jar of M&Ms in my face and make me tell him the exact number.

I don't know why I wanted a tic so bad to be honest. I guess it was the same reason I got jealous when a kid broke his arm and came to school in a cast. Everyone would ask him what happened and he'd get to talk about himself all day. I never broke a bone, because I was chicken and didn't climb trees or walls or anything then. Tics seemed like the perfect solution. Just get a weird, unique one and people will think you're special and different and eccentric. All the good artists were eccentric.

I can't remember the other tics I went through until I landed on one that stuck. What is so fantastic about this one is that it wasn't forced at all. It birthed itself on its own, right there. Out of a tragedy came a beautiful, individualistic quality I can call my own.

As many know, I am legally blind in my left eye, which has given to my sometimes cross-eyed appearance and my always lack of depth perception. During the first nine months of having my license, I was in three car accidents, all of which were my fault and all of which were due to my inability to determine the distance between my car and another. They were minor, and the emotional damages were always deeper than physical. I have never been in a car accident since, and I like to think that my safe driving is all thanks to my tic.

Now while driving, I constantly gauge myself with four important checkups: is my gear in drive? (which is weird because I'm driving forward) in my E-break down? (done that one too many times) is my gas tank closed? (even if I haven't gotten gas in a week) and is my rearview mirror in alignment with my rear window? (weird because I'm the only one who drives my car)

I do these things about every 10 minutes. It's not that big of a deal when I'm just driving to school or to work. But up to Erin's, kind of annoying. Down to Elle's, irritating. When I used to drive to LA twice a week, a nightmare.

But now that I have this thing I can't give it up. And not because I can brag about, because I don't, I am slightly more mature than I was in elementary school. I can't give it up because I believe deep down that those regular surveys are what keep me in one piece.

I hate driving. Since I don't like listening to music that much and I can only take so much of Rush's exclamations, I'd rather walk every where. Some day, I shall live in a city where I sit next to strange people on the metro and accidentally sit in gum and complain to my roommate about public transit, but she will be too busy calculating gas prices and car insurance since she doesn't have my tic and just got into an accident because she was driving in reverse for 15 minutes and had no idea.

Celine and Me

Although Destiny's Child's "The Writing on

the Wall" was the first cd I bought, "Let's

Talk About Love" was the one I worshipped.

She's so crazy; I love her.

Disclosing this kind of information is probably not the wisest, especially given the certain wideness of this world web. But it was the only thing I could think of to write. (I was going to write about my latest obsession with the show "Ghost Hunters" and how Theodore and I watched it until one in the a.m. on Christmas Eve and how I couldn't sleep after that and swore I heard a thumping that was from anything but a living human being. But I didn't not want to freak myself out again.)

Alas, I will share a secret of mine and you cannot judge me. Here it goes: I have 5 Celine Dion cds, and I know most of the lyrics. There. I said it. If you knew only that about me you'd probably consider me a lonely girl who waits in lines for Celine tickets and makes t-shirts saying "I love you Celine, BECAUSE YOU LOVED ME." But I am not that girl, let me assure you. My affinity for Celine Dion is not my fault.

It all started when I was about 10 years old. A woman from my church happened to be involved in one of Celine's concerts at the Staple Center. Celine, being the compassionate performer that she is, wanted to include a bunch of mindless children during one of her songs. They were to stand in this lame ass semicircle and sing background for the song "Love is on the Way" from her album "Let's Talk About Love." The woman from my church picked the children she thought were the most talented I guess, plus the pastor's daughter because, well, it was just a nice subtle way to give a nod to the big guy upstairs. Most of the girls my age were picked. My best friend, Brittany, was picked. My sister and I, however, did not make the cut.

Elle was disappointed. She wanted to stand in a semicircle with Celine Dion, too! I, however, was devastated. I convinced my mom to buy me the album, then I sat in my room, and memorized "Love is on the Way." What a beautiful song that was. I cried. I was a regular pathetic weepy girl who longed for a little bit of glory, a little bit of bragging rights to my friends from school. Maybe I no longer would be that odd, freakishly skinny girl with the glasses and short boy hair. Maybe I would be, "Hannah, the singer."

But I learned that I was not a singer. I was wonderful at performing the songs, smiling in the right places, clenching my heart when the lyrics were sad. And that was about all I could do. Singing was as foreign to me as doing a pull-up. No one told me, though, so I continued to believe I was great. Even when I auditioned for the 6th grade showcase a couple years later and didn't make it with my rendition of Celine's "Because You Loved Me", I did not think it was because my practicing with a wooden spoon did not pay off. I thought that it was because I was not one of the cool kids or something, or because they really had run out of room like the music teacher said. I even took singing lessons from the woman who was also my piano teacher, and then she encouraged me to stick with piano after I performed Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" at my last recital. I thought it was only because piano came a lot easier to me and she thought I would be a real prodigy. Then I thought she told me to stop singing because she was old and couldn't relate to Christina's sexy song.

There is something about singing that is so attractive to a girl. Maybe because when a woman with a beautiful voice stands up to sing, all her physical flaws seem to melt away and people get goose-bumps. When I would be in a crowd at a recital, or in church, or at a competition or something and a girl with a pretty voice sang, people in the audience would whisper to each other, "She's so good. What a lovely girl." I guess I wanted that. (Luckily I found other ways of getting attention, like the drama team, Comedy Sportz team, junk like that. People laughed. And I eventually forgot about singing.) But it did not change the fact that before I got to high school, I had purchased all of Celine's albums from 1993 to 2002 and listened to them constantly. I had no good music mentor. My parents let me listen to Ricky Martin, Destiny's Child, Celine Dion, and the Hansons. What rubbish that was. And what rubbish it is that I still like it.

And that is the story of how I came to own (and like) 5 cherished Celine Dion cds. That is why I stop to sing along when I'm at work and "It's all coming back to me now" or "Misled" come on. I am unashamed.

I really am a sucker for a good pop song every once in a while. Today at work Miley Cirus' "Party in the USA" came on and I had to sing along. Not only because it is such a moving, deep, and powerful song, but because it is the only thing that wakes me up at 4 in the morning on deadline weekend.

Cookie monster

I think it's required to take food pictures

up close like this.

Parson Brown

I might be most proud of these holly berry

cookies. I've never actually eaten one,

but look how impressive.

Some may call me a child; I just say I'm American. I know nothing but instant gratification. And to make things worse, I am a bit privileged and was slightly spoiled as a child. Perhaps these are the reasons why Theodore and the employees of three different grocery stores experienced my fake smile and bubbling anger last night in a seemingly endless quest for Christmas shaped cookie cutters.

I have baked cookies almost every single day since I finished the semester a couple weeks ago. I started with chocolate dipped ginger snaps, then moved on to coconut jam-thumbprints and glazed sugar cranberry. I am finding the most creative excuses to bring cookies to anyone who has a digestive system. (If you want some, give me a call.)

This semester has been quite a hectic one, with my full class load and editing the paper. I used to love hearing the beep of a text message or phone call, but now I dread it, knowing that it's something to do with the paper or one of the other obligations I have dedicated my life to. And so once Christmas break hit, I was excited to do something other than write and fix people's grammar.

Baking provides delightful projects for me that I am actually very good at. Sure, giving cookies away and making people like me a bit more is always a pleasure. But personally, I think people eat too many sweets, me being one of them. Not one of the sweets. One of the people who eats too many sweets. It is really the actual process of rolling, whisking, sifting, frosting, rushing around and burning your elbow that I enjoy.

Theodore came over around 7 last night and I told him we were making cookies, whether he liked it or not. We were going to stay up late and frost Christmas shaped sugar cookies and make them look absolutely superb. Others would ask, "Where did you buy these marvelous cookies?" "Oh," I would say. "Theodore and I finished them early this morning." That is not exactly what happened.

I made the dough just fine. I am a pro, after all. But it needed to chill for a couple hours and we were without the necessary Christmas cookie cutters. The only shapes we had were a Christmas tree and a circle, which I consider a ornament with the proper imagination.

While the dough was in the refrigerator, we went to the first grocery store.

"Cookie cutters are on aisle 6."

There were not an aisle 6.

"Let me go check if we have any in the back."..."No, sorry. We sold out of them."

Second grocery store.

"They're on aisle 12."

They were not on aisle 12. I asked someone else.

"Oh, all the cookies are right here."

"No I don't want cookies. I want to make cookies. Do you have any cookie cutters?"

"Try aisle 12."

"They're not on aisle 12."

He asks a coworker.

"Sorry, we don't have cookie cutters."

After a moment in the car, I realized we were at the point of no return. It was almost 11 p.m. and I was determined. I drove a little further to the biggest grocery store I know of.

I walked up to a cashier and asked if they had any cookie cutters.

"We're closing in 4 minutes and they are on aisle 5."

They were not on aisle 5, and I swear, every damn baking aisle in every store looks the same.

We walked up and down the aisles as a voice over the P.A. system hurried us up in a countdown to closing time.

I ran up to a manager-looking person.

"I'm sorry. I work in a grocery store, too. I know how annoying it is when customers are in here when you're closing. But I have to find Christmas shaped cookie cutters."

He was very generous and helped us look. After a minute of quick paced walking, he found them by the yogurt.

"They must have moved them."

Swell.

I walked out semi-victorious. The only shapes they had were Santa Claus and a Christmas tree. We already had the tree. So that entire hour was spent on purchasing a $2.59 plus tax rubber and metal Santa Claus.

While Theodore watched music videos and napped with Padme, I cut out the shapes and baked the delicious cookies. He left around 1 or 2 a.m. and I continued with my decorations. After decorating with my homemade frosting, I finally went to bed at 3:30 in that damn a.m.

Was it worth it? Of course. I could have waited until the morn to buy cookie cutters. But by that time, my desire for them would have passed. I am quite impulsive.

If I ever tell you I'm going to get a tattoo, please don't let me.

"I'm reading 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville." "Moby what?!"

I missed my books today. When I moved back in with my parents in September, I stored my book case and other unnecessary furniture in the garage. But today I hauled up the dusty, unstable plywood to my crowded room and took my livres from my closet.

A quite beautiful man bought me eight beautiful books yesterday that I got to pick out myself. Besides reading books, I love picking them out and holding a big pile, only to be devastated a few moments later knowing that I have no money to purchase them. Yesterday, I held Joyce Carol Oats, James Frey, and Charlotte Bronte and then actually got to walk them through the check-out line. Except I don't get to open them till Christmas. There's always a catch. Today I prepared for their homecoming.

The other thing I love about books besides reading them is organizing them. But I don't like to organize them alphabetically; that is much too boring. I like to throw them in a pile then put them on my shelf as fast as I can, shuffling them around according to personality. I put Rand next to Camus because I know they won't get along, and I hope for a good debate once in a while; some of my text books at the bottom because I do like them and miss them when school is not in session; the French novels dispersed amongst the English ones so it seems I am just as comfortable in both languages; the French dictionary at the top so it seems I read French daily and am openly humble with my inability to know all the words; the first edition of "White Noise" that my sister gave me at the top just because it looks cool; "Infinite Jest" somewhere in the middle because it's an awesome cover and an awesome book but I am slightly ashamed that I only got to page 362; and the books I've borrowed and never returned at the bottom so that in case the owners come over they will not notice.

(I have recently heard blogging getting a lot of flak because it is so self-absorbed and all anyone talks about is himself or herself. I almost agree. But it is really the same as anyone who has a Facebook. What's the point of putting up pictures and Facebook statuses? So that you get attention and people look at you and think, "Hm, interesting girl that is" or "I want to be his friend." This past week I have not put up a new post, partly because I have been busy baking cookies every single day, but also because I don't want to be that person who just talks about herself all the time. But I realized that I am all I want to talk about. I am a little self-absorbed. Aren't we all? Therefore, I shall blog and I shall blog about myself because I like myself. That's all I really have to say. Over and out.)

Olive and Theodore

What's a 5 letter word for the mad hatter?

5 down really got me: six letter word for pig's innards? Hislet. 5 across was not any easier: five letter word for a bad thing to marry in? Haste.

This is what consumed my Saturday, Nov. 28 from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. I hadn't done a crossword puzzle in so long, but I was reading the paper and it was so enticing.

It looked so easy: simple clues, cute, little boxes. But no. It was devastating.

I don't think I had been that stressed out since, I don't know, the last time I watched Neil Cavuto on Fox have two opposing people from the shoulders up arguing with what the other said a few seconds ago because of the delay in transmission and hearing Neil's scruffy voice try to moderate and get some answers, damn it!

I do get stressed out easily, even when watching others stress out. And I have been busy lately and have had recent and real cause to stress. But this crossword puzzle topped them all. I was babbling nonsense and sweating and hadn't changed out of my pajamas and needed a shower and drank too much coffee and wouldn't let myself eat until I finished.

It all started with trying to incorporate some good family fun into my Thanksgiving break. I often ask my parents to hang out with me. I ask them to watch a movie with me, or play Euchre, or I sometimes force my mom to eat breakfast with me before I have to head off just so we can catch up. They rarely want to chill. But this time, I got them with that checkered box and challenging hints.

I gathered them around and threw out hints.

"Mom, google a herringlike fish!"

"Dad, what's that one unit measurement in physics?"

It was intense and we were bonding.

Until my dad had to run an errand and my mom had a dance lesson. (Yes, she and my father are ballroom dancers. But that is for another time.)

I was left to my lonesome and looked to the internet for answers. I did that thing called "Yahoo answers" and got one of the toughest ones from that. Some mysterious person revealed that a "popular parking spot" was "LOVERSLANE". Oh, it was coming together.

Some people on Facebook tried to help out, but the words I asked of the Facebookers were above their pay grade(s).

My mother returned, took her dancing shoes off, and I made her sit down and help me. We found this cheater website called One Across, and oh boy do I want to go one across that thing. I don't know.

You just have to type in the clue and the letters you have and how many spaces and VOILA, God gives you some possible answers.

So I won, kind of. After cheating, I proudly displayed my glory chicken scratch on the fridge and made my mom give me a hug. She obliged and said, "Okay." (If you know my mom, say the "okay" in your head the way she says it.)

I vowed never to do another crossword again. If I call/text/fb you for help in the future, refuse me. Come over, take the paper, whack me on the head, and tell me to do something more productive like edit the last issue of the paper or do my homework or read that book or write that screenplay or wash your hair!

Or!! We could start a crossword puzzle club. We could sit around and wear sweater vests and eat Twizzlers. And play crosswords of course.

Before my family (minus Elle) started the puzzle that day, my father said that his mother, Ester, used to do crosswords all the time, with her usual Screwdrivers always in hand, of course. I've never met her because she's dead. But I felt like we were kind of hanging out that day. Although these delightful inklings might only have been actual delusions from staring at the same piece of paper all day.

Moral of the story: never do crosswords in pen. And don't cheat. I feel kind of guilty even after a few days.