OakMonster's Den

It started with this picture of me with Olivia Munn.

I know she’s all professionally made up for the show and she’s already GORGEOUS.  But I looked at myself and thought: Fuck, I look like crap.

As I might have blogged about before, I don’t really like make-up.  I don’t like the feel of it. I don’t like the maintenance of it. But at 33…and another look at that picture…I’m rethinking that a little bit.

Armed with internet tips for doing make-up for girls with glasses, I adapt an easy new routine.  I’m already using tinted moisturizer, so I’m adding aqua pencil liner, my favorite cream blush, a little mascara and curler action, and lip tint blended with lip balm.

The first day I did it, Nhien noticed right away.  I don’t think anyone else did.  LOL.  So I gave it a week to see if I could maintain it.  And as it turns out, I can.  And I’m doing it!

After I reevaluate my face, serendipitously, other new things started to change too. Or maybe I’m starting to notice them more.

Holy crap. I’m having a little bit of a mid-30s crisis!

Naturally, after I upgrade my face, I decided on upgrading my work wardrobe.  Most things I have in there are either handed down from someone or things I don’t really like to wear.  So, I consulted Brandon and then my fashion forward friends and I dropped a bit of money on buying new nice shirts, pants, and cardigans.

I did get my hair highlighted reddish a few months ago. And I’m thinking about going in to get it redone fire engine red. But we shall see.

I’ve changed my beauty habit and my clothes.  But the biggest change of all is internal.

I am much braver at going out solo than I have ever been before.

And you’d think of all people I shouldn’t be scared of going it alone.  I mean, I’ve danced in front of hundreds of people as Zombie Slave Princess Leia after all!  If I can do THAT, going to events by myself should be a piece of cake, right?

Well, *I* didn’t know THAT.  LOL

Originally, going solo wasn’t by choice. At all.  Since there are a LOT of things I’d want to do that Brandon doesn’t have any interests in, I have to make new friends.  And I have.  But once in a while I found myself dialing down my phone list to find no one available…or interested in doing all that crazy shit that I do.  LOL.  Normally, if I have no buddy, I would cancel that plan and miss out on the event.

But I was determined to go to Phototasting event even after Gregg had to back out.  So, I grew some balls and I went alone anyway.  I had a wonderful time!

The proverbial light bulb went on in my head with accompanying proverbial “ding!”

Oh my god. Going out by yourself is totally fine!  Hellooooo!

What was I doing when I was single then if I don’t like going out by myself, you ask?  I am both a social butterfly AND a homebody. So those days when I was alone, I was either out with friends or perfectly fine alone at home.  I never thought I’d be going OUT alone.

I still feel a twinge guilty for not doing stuff with Brandon–who is perfectly fine being a home playing MMORPG with his buddies.  But I’m working hard on not issuing myself a ticket to that guilt trip.

Having gain my solo confidence, I signed up to join a GuerilLA improv “mission” without anyone going with me…which so far all of the past events I have missed was because I had no one to go with.  The result is this spectacular surprise musical we dropped on unsuspecting crowd at Universal CityWalk.  (Thanks Gregg for the video!)

And by product of that, I also abandoned Brandon’s family visiting from New Mexico for a day to run amok with other “Yellow Shirts” in Santa Monica ( Thai people don’t panic. It’s not what you think it is…heehee.) for ipOddyssey: an MP3 experiment. (Thanks Gen for the video!)

New make up. New clothes. New frame of mind.  All started because of Olivia Munn.  That figures. LOL.

Well, a life crisis doesn’t complete unless you get a new car, right?  Lotus Elise, darling, mama’s coming for you…

…in, like, 10 years when I actually have a midlife crisis…after a refresher course on driving stick shift…and a race car driving class.

In the meantime, I’m just going to continue working on my life.

We’re child-free by choice.

We don’t hate kids.  And we make great auntie and uncle.  We just like to play with them and hand them off to the parents at the end of the day.

We adore Brandon’s two nieces age 8 and 11.  We can hardly wait to hang out with Aurora and James’ 2-year-old Dresden and baby Chloe.  Olaina and Justin’s Ella is still too little to play with but we didn’t mind hanging out with her too.

I’m quite sure the fact that they are relations–or practically relations, our tolerance and patience for them are a lot higher than for that of complete strangers’ kids.

However, we don’t offer to baby sit the kids on our own.  Well, Brandon is okay with taking Dresden to the park for an hour or two, and Little D and I get along swell playing inside the house.  But overall, we never want to be left alone with the young ones for more than a few hours at a time before our patience run out and our heads explode.

We chose to be child-free for a reason.  And our friends know it.

Yet, it’s a constant question we have to dodge here and back in Thailand.  My dad especially.  I haven’t the heart to tell him, so my answer is usually, “I don’t have the money.”  My mom’s friends know I didn’t want kids.  Actually, and quite surprisingly, they were supportive of that choice.

I started to realize I didn’t even want kids back in college.  I still remembered the first time my ex-boyfriend mentioned our future children.  That freaked the fuck out of me out but I played along.  Hahaha. Yeah, sure, honey, a boy and a girl, right? Wonderful.  But in my head, Holy shit he already talks about KIDS?! God I can’t have kids?! I don’t want any kids!!

You can’t imagine the relief when Brandon brought up early on when we started dating that he didn’t want kids.

So far, our choice to be child-free has never been a problem in our social life because we can still hang with our friends who have kids.

We had Aurora and the kids over for dinner often.  And we were perfectly okay with going to the movies with Brandon’s nieces when we were in New Mexico.

On those certain days we weren’t up for kids, we politely decline the invitation for their company.  Most friends understand.  Some don’t.

We are child-free BY CHOICE. And that choice includes choosing to not be around a child when we don’t feel like it.  Because if we want to be with a child all the time, we would’ve chosen to have one.

We respect parents.  We do.  I mean, we can barely stand up to Dresden’s rambunctiousness for a few hours and Aurora has to do this all day with Chloe clinging on to her?  Holy crap!  And then there are friends and single parents who also work full time on top of being a mom/dad.  I mean, seriously.  How do you guys manage all of that?

Props. Mad props to you, parents.

We respect also your choice to have children. And we thank you for bringing your wonderful kids into this world and even share them with us sometimes.

We hope that you respect our choice to not have children–or not be with one when we don’t want to–as well.

I went online to shop for an item I needed for the kitchen that I couldn’t seem to find in the stores.  [I can't say what the item is until it is given. Read on to find out why.]  My friend @MacabrePhotog was the one who inspired me to get one of these, but he himself does not have one.

When I tweeted him that I bought him something, he was quite surprised.  Another friend chimed in asking it was because his birthday was in a couple of months.

Nope. I don’t need an occasion to buy a friend something.

This notion of a gifting without an occasion was quite new to @MacabrePhotog.  He sent me a message later saying that he couldn’t remember the last time someone bought him something for no reason.

Welcome to my circle of friends, I told him.

I have made some new friends this past year or so.  And they haven’t yet gotten used to the fact that I’m quite good at random gifting.

Old friends know that I would come back from a farmer’s market with the last of this season’s Asian pears because I know they like them; that I would turn up with extra cream puffs if I ever go down to Beard Papa’s; or that I would make extra meatballs so the new moms could have them later.

Yet another trait I’ve picked up from my mother.

As long as I remember, my mom and her friends have always picked up something for each other when they were out somewhere.  I’m not talking about souvenirs from far away places–but yes, we received those too–but from a trip to the mall or a stroll through a market.

Bags of mandarin oranges were messengered over from Aunty Rae’s office–because she found a great deal from a fruit vendor when she was out to lunch.  Aunty Sida’s driver dropped off barbecued duck for our dinner since she was at the restaurant that’s famous for duck.  Mom just sent some tote bags she picked up from today’s shopping trip out with my brother as he headed to the sports club to hand it to Aunty Jim.

You get the idea.

Mind you, this was even before cell phones.  They did manage to call each other before stuff get sent over.  But a lot of the times, things would just show up.

Even while I was away in the U.S., I could come home in the summer to find a pile of Thai souvenirs my mom had collected for me to take back to give to people for Christmas.  And 1/3 of that pile would be from the aunties who thought of me while they were out shopping.  Not to mention something else they had gotten for me specifically.

Buying a treat for your friends once in a while never hurt anybody…as long as you can afford it, of course.

That was the message I got from my mom and her friends.  My mom never really taught me to do this.  I just learned from watching her and the aunties.

One of the very last things I got to do with her before she had the stroke, and eventually passed away, was to hit the mall with the aunties.  It was in February and the mall was full of Valentine’s Day stuff.  My mom sent me slinking off to another cashier station to buy everyone a red carnation each. (”But mom, there are ROSES!”  “The roses are too pricey. The aunties will yell at you for wasting money if you get those. Get the carnations!”)

Aunty Sida outdid us by later passing around bright red hand towels with “love” printed on them to everyone.  But we didn’t even see her buy anything!  The trick was that she spotted them on the way to the restroom.   She had them held, then texted her driver to buy them up while we were in a different section of the mall!  LOL

Now I found myself wandering through Target, calling my friend Aurora to ask what size shirt do you think our friend Jim wears because I found a $5 Captain America t-shirt he’d love.

I’m a lot more like my mom that I thought.

Oh, and if you’re thinking I would be driving Brandon crazy with my shopping for other people, guess again.  The mister does the same thing. 

When disaster strikes somewhere in the world, if the media and celebrity is on board especially, suddenly you see the surge of donations and fundraisers everywhere.

But what about the everyday?  Where did that overflowing of generosity and kindness go?

Last week, my bus buddy was sitting with a bunch of other commuters waiting for the bus.  There was no room to sit so I was standing around the corner.  Once these folks got up to get on their bus, I moved in to sit down. There was a purse laying next to my bus buddy and I knew for sure that wasn’t hers.

I asked anyway, “That’s not your purse, is it?”

My bus buddy gasped. “Oh my gosh! I think that lady left her purse!”

A young Asian chick standing right by turned to me, “Oh yeah, she went on to that bus a second ago.”

My bus buddy and the Asian Chick kept looking at the purse and looked around.  None of them wasn’t going to pick it up, it seemed.

So I did.

The Asian chick put her nose to her blackberry and started walking away.  With much interest, my bus buddy watched me moving in to investigate the purse that laid right next to her.

It’s like watching “What would you do?” show on ABC.  This is the show that fake a situation to see how people would react.  At this juncture, it would’ve been a show where nobody was going to do anything.

I went through the purse, found a wallet with all kinds of IDs with no cash or credit card. There was a cellphone holder in the purse and fortunately no actual phone itself.  So at least she has her phone.  I found her insurance cards with her company on it.  While on my bus, I looked up the company and and called.  I told the receptionist I had recovered this lady’s wallet.  She gave me the lady’s cell phone number and took mine.

My bus buddy signaled at me from the back of the bus to see if I actually made a connection with the purse owner, and I nodded.

The following morning, the purse lady called me and we met at Starbucks.

Apparently, she was on the phone talking to someone the entire time and didn’t realize one of her many bags had slipped off her shoulder, and soon after that her batteries went dead.  That also explained why the neither the receptionist or I could get a hold of her that evening.

“Can I hug you?” she asked.  LOL.

Now, of all of this ordeal, here’s what  I don’t understand.

Both my bus buddy and the Asian chick were just staring at the purse.  Neither one was going to pick it up.  I mean, what if I wasn’t there?  They were just going to leave it there?

I mean, the Asian chick definitely was going to leave it there since my bus buddy sits right next to it, I’m pretty sure. She was already started to move away after she told us, people who stood next to the purse, that she had seen the owner left to get on the bus.

Would you want someone to look on by if that was YOUR purse?

This isn’t even Haiti, folks. It’s somebody you stood next to not more than 5 minutes ago.

I’ve seen this similar thing happen before.  Someone dropped something without knowing it. 10 people saw it and nobody was going to tell that person until one brave soul did.  A person came running to the bus yelling for it, 10 people turned to look and heard him but did nothing.  Once in a while, someone helped yell or wave or something but not always the case.  On the crowded bus, nobody was getting up for anybody.

Seriously. Where did the human decency and kindness go these days?  We’ve become such a “Me Me Me” society. I mean, even the giving to the disaster, for some people, it’s  because it’s trendy at the time, not about they actually care.

Thailand had a celebrity-packed fundraiser for Haiti with drew quite and outrage. Um, helloooo there are Thai people who need help just as much and you’re sending your money where?

The giving and the kindness suddenly become a hip thing to do; not THE thing to do.

I’m sure there are still decent human beings out there who would always do the right thing and step up to help.  I know at least 3 guys on my bus who would’ve given up their seats if the bus is full. I know that Brandon and Justin and his friends would step up to help those in need of help.

I mean, yesterday we were walking back to our car at the farmers market. A lady was loading stuff into the truck and there was a huge cart full of stuff on the floor next to her.  Brandon gave me the keys to the car and he himself ran over to the lady to help her put all of that into the truck.  Loads of people walked by doing nothing.

These little moments when a door is held open, a dropped item returned, or a seat given up that restores my faith in humanity.  These moments are what keeping me from becoming a complete misanthrope.  (Right now, I’m just a little bitter, heh.)

How about you? Have you seen any act of kindness recently? Or perhaps you’ve done something good yourself?

A lot has happened since I got back from Costa Rica.  As I was coming to grip with how to take life a little bit easier, this shit went down in Bangkok.

“How Did Thailand Come to This?” indeed.  (And this report is pretty accurate and surprisingly unbiased.)

My family home is literally in the war zone.  I mean, they had been since the Red Shirts camped out not 200 meters down the street.  Everyone is safe now, but my dad and brother, my uncle and his family, and our family maid were more or less held hostage by all of the activities all around.

My brother did take a heroic run to take an elderly neighbor with a heart condition to the hospital and returned home with food and supplies to stock up.  And he did it again the day after the city was ablaze, to take my dad with a severely painful “stuck shoulder” to the doctor.  Ah, calcific tendonitis, calcification of the tendons in the shoulder! You know just when to reveal yourself!

I didn’t realize I’ve inherited my mom’s ability to worry too much.

Hellooo anxiety!  Thanks for visiting.

I’m sure the level of angst I had since last Tuesday was multiplied by each mile away from Bangkok.  And that inadvertently made me shut down and mentally run away again.

Ask Brandon what I’ve been doing these past few evenings. That’s right. I sat in front of the TV and didn’t move.  The good ol’ self defense mechanism when things got too much for me to handle, I just ran away into TV Land.

As things seem to be returning to normal in my hometown, I came across another fork in the road of life.

But making the decision on which direction to take wasn’t a problem.  It seems things have been decided for me already.

Those who have read “The Alchemist” know this well: “When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.”

So many things happened to so many aspects of my life these past few weeks.

First, a few weeks ago, Brandon and I were deciding what to do for Memorial Day weekend.  Do we stay? Do we go?

Do you want to go to Monterey to re-do our disastrous first romantic getaway or go to Hearst Castle?  How about Joshua Tree before it gets hot?  We couldn’t decide but we know for sure we didn’t want to be in town.

Then I saw posts from our friends in Portland.  And I was reminded that we told them we’d going to visit them this year. Why not now?

Cheech’s dad is visiting but he’s leaving tomorrow morning, leaving him enough time to clean up and be our host.  Matt and Traci are lined up for dinner on Saturday night, and Rachel for Sunday breakfast.

And then just last week, another universal alignment.

Did you know that I’ve always wanted to do archery?  I don’t recall having shot any arrows when I was in Thailand, but I sure as heck ran to the booth the first time we went to Renaissance Faire. I was in love with the long bow.  But I didn’t quite find time or resources to explore further or take it up.

Then I started to go to shooting range with Brandon and his colleagues.  As much as I like to shoot firearms, I don’t really care for the noise.  I’d prefer something quite as deadly but a lot quieter.  We’re back to the archery conversation. And again, it didn’t go anywhere.

And then, out of the clear blue sky, Brandon’s coworker posted something on Facebook about his daughter doing archery class. He found out a new range has recently opened in Los Alamitos.  He was telling me as we got in the car to go get dinner.  But he suddenly changed his mind about where to eat and we ended up at Pasties…which is down the road from the Archery Outpost.

We popped in and I already felt right at home.  We chatted with the friendly staff, and got the tour of the place and a bit of the history of this family business.

This comes in the heel of my decision to step further back from my involvement with Thrill the World Los Angeles.

The universe couldn’t have been clearer about its plan for me.

This Easter weekend brought out friends old and new.

Saturday I spent the morning with my hubby cruising down to San Pedro for a feast that is breakfast at Gaffey Street Diner.  The rest of the day I spent baking, mostly.

That night, the hubby set me loose to party with my Twitter crew.

We threw an early birthday party for @always_blond at @fstop23’s place.  The ever gracious host didn’t call off the party when he heard that his daughter-in-law had gone into labor earlier in the day.  However, we had contingency plan as to where the key is and what we were to do if he had to run off to the hospital to hold his first grandchild.

All the usual suspects were there: @macabrephoto, @sendchocolate, @vbesack, @joncruz and @dananner who brought her daughter.  We also met @kerbehr and @hankito for the first time and I hope we didn’t scare them off…too much.  @phraktyl and @phraklet made an appearance after a long absence.  Finally, a surprise drop in from @anaperiodista completed the crew.

In the middle of all of the party, of course, @fstop23 suddenly yelled out, “Sophie’s here!!”

The condo exploded in squeals and applause.

I had made a promise to @fstop23’s daughter-in-law, who adores the Nigella’s Guinness Chocolate Cake recipe I make, that she would get her own cake once the baby’s here.  So I came to the party with one cake for the birthday girl, and a small one to be delivered to the new mama.

“@fstop23, take the cake!” I called out after him as he was grabbing his keys.

“Oakley, she just gave birth. I don’t think she’d want to eat anything right at this moment…” He didn’t even get to finish that sentence.

Almost every woman in the place is a mother. They weren’t going to let him leave the condo without the cake.  And some plastic utensils.

“She hasn’t eaten anything since she’s gone into labor. She KNOWS you’re here with your friends and the cake. AND you’re going back out there without the cake?!  Are you fucking kidding me?!” That’s pretty much the general chatter.

He sent a picture back to us a while later of the mama holding the baby. A hospital bed table in front of her, on it was the cake–with a fork stuck out and a good chunk of missing.

Great time was had by all that evening as we rocked out to Rock Band.  @phraklet singing Eye of the Tiger was adorable. @macabrephotog posting the pictures of our butts on the internet–whoever stood in front of him during Rock Band–wasn’t quite as adorable but funny as hell.  And here’s a payback…

What a night, indeed!

Easter Sunday usually is just another Sunday for us. But this year we were invited to have dinner with Amy.  I have just visited with Amy last month but Brandon hasn’t seen her in a couple of years.  The mister doesn’t like to drive up to Los Angeles that much so once in a blue moon he’d do the honor.

We missed the earthquake on our way there.  Amy and her niece filled us in on the action while Kaya, the golden retriever, showered us with love. We also made a new friend with Jenni who arrived a while later and we all hung out and chat and drank wine while waiting for the roast.

And the what a roast that was!  I’ve always known Amy is an awesome cook.  But hot dang it’s been a long time since I’ve eaten her cooking.

Besides, it’s kind of nice to eat someone else’s cooking instead of my own once in a while.

The weekend wrapped up with a surprise message.

My high school friend and former BFF Jen has finally joined the Facebook.

Another point for social media.

And here’s to new friends, old friends, good friends, and 4-legged friend!

Guys, at this rate, going meatless is becoming a normal part of my routine.  Very comfortable with it now.

Then again, it’s easy to do when you have a restaurant downstairs selling awesome vegetarian/vegan sandwiches at lunch time.

Breakfast:

• The usual coffee treat from Starbucks
• Fage yogurt with peach puree. Yum!!

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Lunch:

• Half of the French Onion Soup Melt sandwich from Mendocino Farms.  Grilled onion on melty aged gruyere on pretzel roll.
• Organic tropical iced tea
• A nice dose of sunshine
• Afternoon snack: crackers and a big spoonful of whipped cream cheese.

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Dinner:

• Trader Joe’s frozen entree of paneer masala and spinach rice.

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Satisfactory level: So so.  Well, the breakfast wasn’t all that substantial and the lunch, although nice, was a little bit on the light side.  It also didn’t help that I was cutting up 7 lbs. of meat to make the St. Patrick’s Day Guinness Beef Stew when I’d usually be cooking dinner either.  LOL.

Thoughts: Like I said, it’s becoming more natural and less of an obligation.  I was VERY tempted to drink while I cook dinner but I did very good.  Then again, knowing that I’d be indulging the following day is a pretty good motivation.

**

Oh yeah, St. Patty’s day at my house was off the hook.  We have a full house this year with my friends and Twitter gang.  Lots of food but not a lot of booze consumed.  Well, you know, it’s in the middle of the week after all.  But we managed to have a few Irish car bombs thrown about.

I had two. And was still standing at the end of the night. Yey me, the wayward alcoholic!

I don’t know why nobody has pointed out before, but my Twitter/blogger friend Dave Conrey called me a Thai-rish.

Kiss me, I’m Thai-rish!   LOL.

He said he’s going to make a t-shirt out of that.  I’m still waitin’, Dave!

**

The week of fun-ness to balance out the crazy work week continues tomorrow as Brandon and I will go on a little romantic getaway to Sunset Strip for the night.

Why?

Well, you’ll have to tune back in later to find out about that now, won’t you?

Today, the Universe decided that it hates people in my life.

1. Brandon tore his calf muscle

As he changed the oil on his car on Friday, Brandon discovered some coolant leakage. Upon further inspection by the auto shop, there are more than just that. We think the Anniversary accident knocked things loose. So, this morning, instead of waking up to drive me to my stop, the Mister decided to sleep in a little. I left my car 5 blocks down at my bus stop.

As he was walking over to the car, Brandon stepped off the curb and, according to his ER doctor, probably landed wrong on his heel. He heard something popped and he was in excruciating pain and couldn’t put his foot down. Being a Marine, dude sucked it up, hobbled across the 6 lanes to the other side, then his body went into a bit of shock and he sat down and passed out for a second. He then proceeded to hobble some more to the car, got in, calmly called me, and drove himself to the ER about 8 blocks down.

I received the call around 8:30.  By the way, I’m in Downtown LA, 25 miles away, with no easy way to get home at that time.  You see, my special commuter bus runs 3 times into town and twice out in the evening.  If you need to get back any other time, you’ll have to take the Disneyland bus to Norwalk Station and either catch 2 more buses to get to my house or someone else have to come get you from the station.

Thank GOD for my former bus buddy Patty who retired about a month ago.  I called her asked for a ride and she was available.  Now, skip to read #2 and come back to read the rest of this.

Patty dropped me off at the ER and I waited for a good hour before Brandon hobbled out on crutches.  Torn calf muscle, he said, and possible torn tendon but they don’t know that yet.  And now we were off to his physician to get a referral to see a specialist and get an MRI or something else.  His doctor gave him a shot of stuff and sent us home with vicodin.

2. Patty’s car died on the way to rescue me

After she hung up with me, my friend Patty went to finish her errands.  Her car sputtered and died on the way home.  Thank GOD her sister was home, so she drove over to sit with Patty’s car until AAA arrives so Patty could use her car to come get me.

3. A coworker had to go to the hospital

Meanwhile, as I ran from work to come home to take care of Brandon, a coworker apparently got ill enough to need to be rushed to the hospital.

4. Burbank DMV’s computer system went down

My boss took the morning off to go to her DMV appointment.  System was down so no appointment could be kept.  She pretty much wasted her morning.

5. The bus before my usual home bound bus broke down

Ana took the bus into town with me this morning.  She usually takes a different bus or she would drive.  However, she was getting on the earliest bus home.  She waited, and waited, and started to get panicky about the bus home.  As she found out later, when my usual bus showed up, the one she was waiting for has broken down.  So she was on a super crowded bus back, behind her usual schedule.

I’m telling you. Cosmic Fuckery.

I’m no literacy scholar. Nor am I someone who’d go through 100 books a year.

So when I say I hate a book, you don’t have to agree with me.  I don’t expect you to.

I have a policy when it comes to reading a book.  Once I start, I must finish even if I don’t enjoy it all that much.  You know, the whole finish what you’ve started thing.

There have been occasions, however, when I just couldn’t go through with it.  Sometimes it was because it was boring. Sorry, Dickens. The Great Expectation will be read someday…as soon as I can stop falling asleep every 5 pages.  Like Reading Lolita in Tehran. I didn’t even get to actually reading Lolita, I don’t think.  About the 5th time it was complained about the horrible situation for women, I was done.  We got nowhere for 1/3 of the book already.  Sheesh.

Sometimes it’s the writing style…which you’ll read about later on.

At least with these that I quit early, I didn’t feel like I wasted my time.  You know, it’s like tasting something you weren’t sure you’d like. If you throw it away now, then you only have a little bad taste in your mouth.  But if you go finish it, you will suffer the pain and hate yourself for having gone through with it.

And that is exactly what happened with the first book of 2010, Anne Rice’s Angel Time.

It was one of those that I was hooked into the story and the characters just to get let down at the end.  Those that I really want my time AND money back after I finished.  I am so angry and disappointed to have invested my emotions and time (and money!) into it that I do want to burn that fucking book down so nobody else has to suffer the same fate.

First on the burn list, Angel Time.

From the cover, Angel Time showed some promises. The jacket grabbed my attention while I browsed through limited new fictions in Asia Books in Bangkok.  I grabbed this from Anne Rice’s website.

The novel opens in the present. At its center: Toby O’Dare—a contract killer of underground fame on assignment to kill once again. A soulless soul, a dead man walking, he lives under a series of aliases—just now: Lucky the Fox—and takes his orders from “The Right Man.”

Into O’Dare’s nightmarish world of lone and lethal missions comes a mysterious stranger, a seraph, who offers him a chance to save rather than destroy lives. O’Dare, who long ago dreamt of being a priest but instead came to embody danger and violence, seizes his chance. Now he is carried back through the ages to thirteenth-century England, to dark realms where accusations of ritual murder have been made against Jews, where children suddenly die or disappear . . . In this primitive setting, O’Dare begins his perilous quest for salvation, a journey of danger and flight, loyalty and betrayal, selflessness and love.

Intriguing, right?  So naturally, I ordered it when I came back. Amazon ratings gave it 4 stars.  Brandon was also interested to read it.  Today’s Assassin in 13th century? Yep, we’d really like to know how he’d pull that off.

Brandon got no more than a few chapters in when he gave up.  Now, you have to understand the the Mister is an avid sci-fi reader.  He’s willing to suspend disbelief for the fully fabricated story. However, the inaccuracy of something we know as true will drive him bonkers. One point he couldn’t get over is how Anne Rice would say that the Mission Inn in Riverside is “a couple of hours away” from Beverly Hills and San Juan Capistrano.  Seriously, lady. Have you actually DRIVEN in Southern California?  It definitely takes more than 2 hours from 90210 to the 909. Ditto to SJC.

Brandon also warned me that the writing is very tedious.  Apparently Anne is spending time describing every crack in the beams on the high dome ceiling held together by 18th century glue made out of prized race horses. Or something like that.

Having more tolerance to narrative than the hubby does, I was determined not to let the book defeat me.

Yep. Tedious is correct.  I even caught Anne rice using the same phrase twice within a few paragraphs from each other a few times.  Still I soldiered on.  A quarter of a book in and he still hasn’t killed anyone yet, but he’s getting to it.  Okay fine.  I’ll read a little more.  And then the Angel showed up and we were introduced to how Toby came to be Lucky the Fox, the lute playing, history book reading, mission visiting, quietly praying assassin.

THAT was the part that got me very interested.  Cutting through the tedious tiny details were action, tension, and drama.  Fantastic fun!  Now I know all of Toby’s skills, I was actually excited to see what he’d do in the 13th century.  Oh boy!  It’s going to be worth trudging through the first half the book!

Not so much.  Actually, it’s the second half of the book I want to burn.  Talk about TEDIOUS!  Do you really need 3 chapters to tell a back story? SERIOUSLY? And predictable. I mean at some point you can tell how it’s going to end. I skimmed through the second half because I already know how it is going to end.

The first kicker.  All the stuff you’ve learned about Toby before, what he could do, none was used here.  He didn’t play the lute.  He didn’t use his master of disguise skills since the Angel provides him with magical assistance whenever it is convenient.  He didn’t kill anyone.  All he did was, well, a Lord of the Rings journey: go here to get the story which will lead you to over there which you will have to bring something back here etc.  WTF?!?

The final kicker. One thing I didn’t see coming happened. And dude woke up in present time with a few pages left in the back. If that was all dream, I will send a VERY angry letter to Anne Rice.  It wasn’t all a dream though, I have to say.  But there’s a bombshell.  And the bombshell is contrite as hell and I kind of already guessed that too.

I truly hate it when I was strung along for the ride and there was nothing at the end. No resolution. No answers. Not even a fucking t-shirt.

Yeah, I’m talking to you too, Dean Koontz. *mumblegrumble* Never explain that stupid slow room in Odd Thomas. Don’t tell me it’s in the sequel because you already lost me there, sir. And that slipping through the slot in time thing in From the Corner of His Eyes wins shark jumping medal. *mumblegrumble*

In case of Angel Time, I’ve been strung along and driven off the cliff a long time ago–I just didn’t know when I was going to hit the ground.

Now, back to the fact that I also have books I couldn’t get through because of writing styles.

I must be truly too dumb to appreciate the Pulitzer Prize winning The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.

Again hooked by the glowing review everywhere for the young writer and the premise of a multicultural sci-fi nerd teen.  The writing style is what gets me. I know it was supposed to be the point of view of Oscar with all of his Spanglish etc. Then there’s some Spanish thrown in for good measures without any translation.  But my GOD it was really hard to read, disruptive and frustrating.

I wanted to give it another try after I was done with Angel Time but of course only a few pages in and I was reminded once again why I didn’t get through it in the first place.

There’s another critical acclaimed book like that that I bought years ago–it was a HUGE volume too–that I didn’t event get past a 1/4 of it.  It was supposed to be about wizards in 18/19th century England that were going to war. Or something like that. I don’t even remember the title. Nor whom I given the book too.  The book was written like a term paper. TONS of footnotes and even more notes in the footnotes.  Disruptive as hell and just wayyyy too much information.

Would I toss that Oscar Wao into the fire with Angel Time?  I might as well. The fire’s already roaring.

And I think Brandon would throw Michael Crichton’s Timeline in after that.  He’s STILL pissed off about the cop-out ending even now.

I’m sure Kuri would add Twilight to the fire too.

Now, your turn! You tell me what book(s) you wish you haven’t wasted time on?  Which book you haven’t gotten through?

Holy CRAP! It’s all ready been a week?!

My god. Am I a bad blogger!

But I promise to have something much more entertaining than my weekly food journal in a day or two.

For now, on to Meatless Tuesday.

*

Breakfast:

• Open faced “grilled cheese” sandwich: one slice of 7-grain bread, buttered, topped with slices of one whole vine-ripen tomato, sprinkled with Nature’s Seasons seasoning blend, and a few slices of snack-sized cheddar cheese, toasted in the toaster oven until the cheese is melted.
• A mug of full-leaf oolong tea.
• Mid-morning snack: 2 whole grain crackers (they’re like 2.5 inch across!) from Fresh & Easy with generous schmear of whipped cream cheese, my mid-morning snack of choice these days.

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Lunch:

• A bowl of vegetable chili based on the recipe in Food & Wine magazine (which I will blog about later).  In that: heirloom carrots, daikon, red bell peppers, kidney beans, hominy, onion, garlic, chili powder, cumin, and generous shakes of Chipotle Tobasco.  And a piece of 7-grain toast.
• Late dessert/afternoon snack: a Godiva dark chocolate truffle.

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Dinner:

• Because it was a buy one get another one for $2, I got 2 rustica pizzas from Z Pizza: Moroccan (egg plants, pine nuts, feta, basil pesto, caramelized onion) and Mediterranean (artichoke hearts, feta, roasted red peppers, greek olives, pili pili oil).  I ate a few squares out of each.
• A glass of organic peach oolong iced tea.

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Satisfaction level: Meat? What meat?  Nope.  Didn’t miss it one bit.  And I was full all day.

Thoughts: It’s getting easier and easier each week, I have to tell you.  I even didn’t miss the meat too much today.  But I did have an egg for breakfast.  I did crave some proteins for dinner but I didn’t go for my usual burger or ribs, but salmon.  A little weird, I know.  I’m sure I’m going to want me a juicy burger in a few days.

I’m also more conscious now of what I’d eat on a Meatless Tuesday and Brandon has been helpful in keeping me in check on that too.  He’d try to help me think of places I could get something meatless to eat at.

Now, I’ve been thinking about it today that since I’m doing this a Buddhist reason, perhaps I should also not do alcohol on Tuesdays as well to make the whole religious day out of it.  After all, abstaining from alcohol is one of the Five Precepts a good Buddhist should follow.

By not eating meat/eggs on Tuesday, and having not kill anybody, abstaining from taking life is checked off the list.  Abstaining from alcohol? One day a week, I can do that.  Abstaining from sexual misconduct is everyday…although I wonder if lusting after  Taylor Lautner and/or Sam Worthington or dreaming about Jason Mraz counts.  Abstaining from taking what is not given, no klepto here so check.  And finally, abstaining from false speech aka lying. Well, that might be a little hard to swing in a corporate world, but we’ll do our best, won’t we?

Alright. It’s decided. Tuesdays will be meatless AND dry.

Oh boy.