Monkey In a Suit

I’m back from Sonoma bleary-eyed and droopy-tailed. What a wedding!!

I was telling m that the pictures she posted of her wedding venue didn’t really do it any justice. “How could I take a photo that could capture this?” she asked me. And she was right. I’m sure her photographer is going to come real CLOSE (and Leah, of course) but it’s difficult to describe this idyllic setting. A small lake, with a tiny sandy beach. A dock. Abandoned canoes and geese. Hell, we were surrounded by hills covered in vineyards and the neighbours even put out some prop ponies to complete the picture.

That night I was drunkenly (come on, it’s a wine country wedding! I popped 10 metamucil fibre caplets that morning, which went a long way towards helping) telling my friend Big Bird that I…well, that I actually felt overcome by emotion.

Me: …And I sniffled because when Doola was saying his vows he looked so in love and you could hear the emotion in his voice and then…my eyes got a bit wet and I was very confused because you know I’m evil, cold and have no feelings.

Big Bird: Awww Monks-you do have a heart after all!

I promise better posts this week.

(PS, it was awesome to see Miss EEK, Cil & Mtn_Grrl as well)

Here are the rules I must follow:

* Pick 15 of my favorite movies.
* Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie.
* Post them on el bloggo for everyone to guess.
* Fill in the film title once it’s been guessed.

Stolen shamelessly from Toddles, eek and doola.

These are the rules, people!

* Leave guesses in the comments.
* No Googling or using IMDB search functions. Don’t cheat, suckas!
*Know-it-alls, limit your guesses to three movies. Save some for others!

 1.  Now that’s a real shame when folks be throwin’ away a perfectly good white boy like that. (Better off Dead-JV)

2. It’s like my mom says, “The weak are always trying to sabatoge the strong.”

3. Well, some teachers are trying to low-ball me, Daddy. And I know how you say, “Never accept a first offer”, so I figure these grades are just a jumping off point to start negotiations. (Clueless-Average Jane)

4. Good evening Sir, my name is Steve. I come from a rough area. I used to be addicted to crack but now I am off it and trying to stay clean. That is why I am selling magazine subscriptions. (Office Space-Average Jane)

5. Somewhere out there is a lady who I think will never be a nun. Auf Wiedersehen, darling. (Sound of Music-M&Co.)

6. I’ve always been able to do this, break up with someone and never look back. Being alone: there’s a certain dignity to it.

7.

“Do you ever think of getting married?”
“I believe in arranged marriages, don’t you?”
“Rather out of date. “
“Not at all. I’ve always like the phrase, “A marriage has been arranged.” When I feel like it, I’ll arrange one.”

8. Christmas? Christmas means dinner, dinner means death! Death means carnage; Christmas means carnage! (Babe-Average Jane)

9. You know what capitalism is? Getting fucked!

10. Well, I am pretty. Nearly all spiders are good looking. I’m not as flashy as some, but I’ll do. (Charlotte’s Web-JV)

11. Jack, please, I’m only an elected official here, I can’t make decisions by myself! (Nightmare Before Christmas, BritneyMarie)

12. It’s always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth. I don’t really know what the truth is. I don’t suppose anybody will ever really know. Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we’re just gambling on probabilities – we may be wrong. We may be trying to let a guilty man go free, I don’t know. Nobody really can. But we have a reasonable doubt, and that’s something that’s very valuable in our system. No jury can declare a man guilty unless it’s SURE. We nine can’t understand how you three are still so sure. Maybe you can tell us. (12 Angry Men-JV, M&Co.)

13. Cheerleaders are dancers who have gone retarded. What you do is a tiny, pathetic subset of dancing. I will attempt to turn your robotic routines into poetry, written with the human body. Follow me, or perish, sweater monkeys. (Bring it On-stephanie)

14. I’m like a bad penny, I always turn up.

15. You go over there and Fuck ‘em. We’ll stay here and Masturbate. Go, go, go!

I’ve been feeling fairly glum for the last few days, mainly because my job is so DAMN BORING.  But I guess the cloud of discontent decided to evaporate and I woke up with my traditional good humour intact today.

Of course, buying this dress helped a little bit. It fits really nicely but I need it hemmed (surprise surprise). I’ve decided to wear it to my sister’s graduation.

Maddus Proppus to my fellow nerds who get the blogpost title of Further Lunch Menu Fail. Remember my friends, the Circle of Dorkitude Shall Remain Unbroken.

Lunch Menu Fail:

Presenting, the only husband I’m ever going to have:

The only thing going on this week is that I’m waiting to leave for a friend’s wedding.

By the way, thanks to the folks who emailed or called to check up on me. I’m okay! Doing fine! I was in closings for the second half of last week (they can take up to all day), and we were off work on Friday. I’m doing peachy. Just fine.

Incidentally, I did NOT buy the Bebe top. I put it on and

a) The small was too big and the extra small was too tight in the bosom

b) It definitely definitely definitely billowed out and I refuse to wear clothing that excuses food babies. Or baby babies. Whatever.

On the other hand, I did buy a lovely linen pencil skirt (black) and the shoes I linked to, though I purchased the exact same ones from Nine West instead of Bebe. I shall be returning them. The thing is that they look decent when you put them on-but pair them with a skirt and all of a sudden my calves began to look STUMPY and stocky. And I will say that I have very very toned calves (complete with gigantic lump o’ muscle) so any shoe that makes them look stock and stumpy is out out out. I began to have buyer’s remorse in Bebe (as I tried on multiple outfits with said shoe) and my consternation grew over the course of the week. By Friday I’d pretty much decided to return them, but the real kicker was when I showed them off to my friend Big Bird and he wrinkled his nose and tried to find something nice to say and I was like “I KNOW, RIGHT? THERE’S JUST SOMETHING OFF ABOUT THEM.” I think the problem is that they cover up so much of the foot it kind of looks like I’m wearing ankle boots. And you know only 1 in 1 skillion people can wear ankle boots without looking stump city.

This weekend was lovely and relaxing. The biggest thing I managed to work myself up to was going hiking in Malibu (with Big Bird, though not in the offending shoes) and watching half of Better off Dead together before conking out on the couch.

Me: Am I boring you? Am I being boring? Is this dull? Do you want to like…go freebase some meth or something?

BB: No! This is awesome! I’m having a ton of fun. You know how to score meth?

Things I worry about incessantly: boring my friends with my laidback life and lack of clubbiness. Secret fears that they’re going to tell their other friends stuff like, “Oh my god she is so DULL, she does nothing. She wakes up at 11 and then bullshits on the couch for eons and then we went hiking for a bit and came home and she made dinner and that was IT.”

Why am I always so suspicious that the rest of you are living it up somewhere? And also too much exposure to a Monkey might make her friends run off?     

ETA: By the way, many of you made excellent points on cultural co-optation on my last post. I just wanted to say that I DO plan to write a full post with my thoughts on this issue. I just got a bit distracted by having weekend plans, being able to shove my foot in a guy’s face and say WHAT DO YOU THINK TELL ME THE TRUTH SO HELP YOU GODS and my closings. FTR, and as a bottomline statement on my POV, I think cultural co-optation is a pretty offensive notion and it really angers me when people in my own culture act holier-than-thou after the very people many spend incessant amounts of time complaining about reach out to try to enjoy, you know, our culture. I also really dislike the double standard-when I fit into American society by wearing skirts, pants and Blandana Republican, I am assimilating like a good little American. If a blonde dates a desi guy and wears a sari she’s stealing my culture. Smells kind of like bullsh*t to me.  

Okay readers, more clothing advice requested.

I was cruising Bebe’s site trying to come to terms with the fact that even though I’ve sufficiently replenished my shoe closet, I must have these shoes. DON’T ARGUE WITH ME. Just accept the fact that I love them and I NEED 4.5 inch heels.

While I was there, I encountered THIS top.

Conundrum:

a) I have my gorgeous flowered red tunic top I bought from them last year which is essentially the same style, but with long sleeves (which I prefer, anyway)

b) I’m not a huge fan of the split sleeve

c) But the flowers! The embroidery!

d) I have a GORGEOUS kimono top from Anthropologie that is way more original/unique/kimono-ey, with a better sash

e) But it’s yellow! Or black and white!

f) I need their slutty white skirt a lot more than I need that top

g) And I REALLY need those shoes, come on.

h) And also those Bebesport sexypants in order to go hiking

i)  My sister and dad claim that even though kimono tops look good on me, very formfitting stuff looks better

j) Did you see the white flowers on yellow? Which one do you like better?

k) I feel like I need a new dress for mle’s wedding, but I could wear the one from Anthropologie because it is totally appropriate for an American wedding blahblahblah

l) But it’s a wee bit long and I’m lazy about going to go get it tailored

m) I love the Blandana Republican dress in yellow more than that top-which I’m watching online like a hawk because I’m not going to buy it until it goes down in price since I DO need to put the money into having the pleats tailored out

n) Bebe tops, and kimono tops, are the only ones that have room enough for my breasts (on account of the high percentage of the Siliconed who enjoy their offerings, I think)

o) I’m still losing weight and don’t want to buy a lot of clothes (naturally, not through any great expenditure of effort)

p) But I’m never going to get smaller than Bebe’s “S” because their sizes run much tinier

q) How is it that I make more than the average paralegal downtown but they don’t obsess as much over every purchase and carry different louis vuitton purses to work everyday? Where does that money come from?

r) Mmmm, Cadbury mini eggs

s) Venice beach is awesome for jewellry. Flat gold hoops a la Anthropologie, $5.00. $15 on Etsy or $30 at Anthro.

t) Is my love of ethnic inspired clothing wrong unless it’s Indian? I don’t think so, but I’ve noticed Americans ask questions like “is it wrong for me to want mehndi” and now I feel weird that I’m obsessed with Moroccan jewellry and qi paos.

u)  Lemon glow or black on white?

v) You think I should more productively use my money for their white pencil skirt, which I need more and could work with other stuff in my current wardrobe

w) And also that I should get my red top drycleaned already

x) And you want to remind me that I need more bras and my size is expensive

y) And those shoes are slutty.

z) I know. That’s why I love them.

On the other hand the 14th is cool because it’s mle’s birthday!! Happy Birthday darlin’! I hope you have a great one.

Hidey Ho Readers! It’s amazing what we’ve all been up to.

Anjali just delivered her third daughter, Siri Francesca!! Welcome, baby!!

Stephanie is celebrating a birthday-Happy Birthday, dude!

AND, the time has come for yours truly to attend everyone’s favourite yearly snatchfest, Blogher, where I plan to room with one of my favourite blog reads (and friend) Cagey of Rancid Raves (and baby Anjali, who I’m sure will be repelled by me, of course, because I want to pick her up and kiss her and smoosh her and otherwise torture my shmovaries).

We’re thinking lunch or dinner at Shalimar (it seems QIR and maybe Big Bird have expressed interest in attending (if we can convince BB that we won’t eat him alive for daring to have a penis). Unfortunately, I don’t eat beef so I can’t participate in the nihari or haleem gluttony (unless they’re lambing it up that day), but I’m quite eager to try other things on the menu (like chicken kofta curry yummmmmm). Also, it’s time for my Foodiebytes plug. Please click! The more you click the more likely they are to launch it in MY neighbourhood. Actually, just the other day I was clicking around on Yelp, trying to figure out where to take my friend for dinner, and clicked on Foodiebytes only to realise that they’re still only in SF. We ended up at an old favourite in Little Tokyo…but I live for when they launch Foodiebytes in L.A..

Umm, what else? Oh yeah, I just talked to my sister

Bunsen: *whining* Why didn’t you take both days off? I want to go to this sample sale in Santa Monica.

Baba (in the background): I will take you to the sample sale.

Bunsen: No! Baba! Sample sales are places where they sell things like Gucci and Ferragamo. You have to be discreet, cool and hip. We may even see Kirsten Dunst there. Or LiLo.

Baba: *indignantly* I can be very discreet, cool and hip.

Bunsen: *shrieking* YOU WEAR VELCRO SNEAKERS.

Oh family. It’s sweet to be a McWearingchaps.