catholic school children know how to party hard

I was a cradle catholic but now do not even associate myself with that religion other than being a fan of the gruesome religious art and architecture of churches. I went to catholic school my whole life. All of it. K-8, high school, and for some reason, chose a catholic university although there wasn't much that screamed "i'm still at a catholic school?!". There's definitely something about going to catholic school most of your life. You hear stories of crazy bible tales, nuns, rules and all sorts of crap. In catholic school, you're taught to be god fearing, and if you sin you must repent or your soul will burn in the pits of hell. I knew going through 9 years at Incarnation that we'd all be a little bit fucked in the head. I think we all knew that. We all formed a bond because it's better to pave your pathway to hell with friends than with stupid people.

I don't think I know many people that keep in touch with elementary school friends. For some reason, my friends and I from elementary school still see each other a few times during the year if not more. In a class of about 30 I think we'd be able to contact most if not all of our former classmates. Personally, I've seen about half of them in the last couple of years and regularly keep in contact with them. Even when we don't see each other that often, when we reconnect, everything falls back into place. I think it was being so close to each other during those formative years coupled with the evils of a catholic education that brought us together.

This weekend I hung out with a few people from my childhood. We graduated 8th grade 13 years ago. Most of them I met nearly 20 years ago so I think it's pretty good that we can keep in touch this long and party as hard as we always do despite failed marriages, kids, and overall insanity. People had little hope for the 8th grade class of 1996. Sure we can party all night with little to no sleep but we've been getting our shit done and for the most part, are doing well. Where am I going with this? Oh yeah, we're still a mess, we probably hate catholicism even more but in the end we've come out helping and understanding each other and have formed ever lasting (so far) bonds. We're like wounded veterans, the scars of battle will still be there but at least we have each other to count on and get through life.

melting....hot...hot...hot...

One of the top reasons why I HATE living in Los Angeles:

the HEAT...ugh hell on earth 100 degrees or 38ish for you Celsius folks. It's April, it's still spring, not summer, not HELL. Well, it might be closer to hell than spring.

hostelling indefinitely and other stuff with lots of pics

March felt like quite a busy month for me despite being unemployed for most of the month. I spent a lot of time not looking for a job and just relaxing, being social, ya know. Mojito organized a lovely pre-spring outing to Echo Park to do some paddle boating, eating, and stuffs. It was really nice and even though I've lived in LA my whole life I have never paddle boated on the lake so I was super jazzed to do it. Thankfully, the weather was perfect.





Our house, AgLago threw one of our infamous parties to welcome spring. It was a pretty good party complete with a discoball, 3 djs, homebrew beer, and live silk screening of an image of our late duck Gary. It was a great success and really fun.

I believe if you click the picture it will take you to the rest.

I finally decided to seriously look for a job since money was running low. Nothing looked promising but I found a posting for a temp position thru May working at a youth hostel. I jumped on that early in the week and by mid week I had interviewed and by the end of the week I was hired. So now I work for Hostelling International in San Pedro. San Pedro is located in the southbay part of Los Angeles. Completely different from areas closer to the city. I'm right by the ocean, different lifestyle, smaller town vibe and a bit San Francisco-ish. I live here on site and I'll probably be here through the summer while we're in full hostel operating mode. Right now it's the off season and we're only host educational programs and large groups. All that ends in May and then the second week of June the hostel opens up for all sorts of lovely travellers. Pay isn't that great but I don't have to pay rent and I have a nice view. It's good so far. I'm definitely less stressed and the only time I commute is to go back to the house on my off days. I gave up my room at Aglago since it seems ridiculous to pay for a spot that I'll only be at two or three times a week. I'll just bum it with Jimi in the tiny room again. Ahh like last year all over again hahaha.



See that row of little buildings behind the bell? Yeah that's the hostel.

My birthday was nothing super exciting. Plans to go to Disneyland sadly fell through. I had just started my job so I drove back the night before. I hung out with Junue, Lara, Liz and we had a sort of impromptu mini bday party. Junue's Ebt card + Pavillions + club card holders + a group of hot messes = fun. The evening was a bit hazy and so was my head so I ended up passing out earlier than I wanted to and woke up still "hazy" the next day. Note I said hazy, not hungover. Ha! The morning was full of more debacherous behavior until I stopped so I could be composed for the usual family b-day meal. We went to lunch since I was in the neighborhood. It was delicious. When I came home I went to happy hour with Clay and Lauren at El Conquistador for margaritas. It was pretty awesome and I'll have to go back there again. We returned home to a house meeting and cupcakes courtesy of Patsy. Overall I spent my bday with various friends which was super nice. My birthday gifts are appointments to the dentist and eye doctor. Sigh. 27 years old. Oye. I feel like it could be a good year. 7 is one of my lucky numbers and I'm getting a good vibe from 27 so far.

I'm excited for the coming months. I'm excited to explore San Pedro and learn more about this part of Los Angeles that I know nothing about- not to mention it's like a whole other world down here (separate entry will eventually come). I'm excited to learn how to fly a kite haha. Yay.

news of the week

What a week so far for news...

First, this earthquake in Italy. What a fucking nightmare. I'm a seasoned vet when it comes to living through earthquakes but then again, I live in LA where retrofitting is standard and buildings up to code are all over the place. However, central Italy, or any part of Italy really for that matter, is not prepared for earthquakes or any other disasters. Trust me I saw "firemen" beating out a fire by hand the size of the Griffith Park fire. They lack resources to be safe from natural disasters and it's sad because there is so much history involved (let's not forget I was a history major).I cried when I saw pics of this church. A 14th century structure gone in minutes. It's just tragic to see a town destroyed like that because a lot of Italy is constructed the same way many of these structures in L'Aquila are made. This could happen all over. Plus I have family in Italy (Sicily) and it kinda puts me through it to think that this could happen there. Old buildings, not safe for earthquakes. Sigh. History, dead. Double sigh.

While I'm on the topic of tragic news, the story about Nick Adenhart, an up and coming pitcher for the Angel's baseball team was horrifically killed last night in a car crash in Fullerton. I'm not a baseball fan but the story just kills me because hours before he had played an amazing game and was starting to get attention and was well on his way to being a baseball great. 22 years old, dead from a drunk driver. NEVER DRIVE DRUNK. Not only is he dead, but two others are as well all because a 22 year old douche bag made a bad choice. Not just one bad choice, no, this was his second and obviously last DUI because his ass is going to jail for life at this point.

In lighter news Officials: Pirates, terrorists not linked directly! I love this headline. Now that the U.S. has been raped and pillaged by the pirates, it must have something to do with terrorism. Cuz before I never heard terrorism linked with pirates. The Somali pirates are at it again! I've been fascinated with these Somali pirates for months. Ruthless bastards! I never thought I'd hear about real piracy on the high seas in this day and age.

And lastly, in completely ridiculous news, here's a reason not to have kids in this technologically driven society. THIS BITCH a 13 yr old, racked up a phone bill to the price tag of $4,756.25 due to excessive texting with out a text messaging plan. Even if they did have a plan, that shit still would have been at least 2k. How do you manage to send out 300 texts a day? How stupid are you to not ask your parents if you have unlimited texting. I'd ground that bitch until she graduated high school and make her get a job the minute she turns 15 to pay me back, interest included. The best part is that her dad took a hammer to the phone. I can picture myself getting all cray at my kid and making a scene and dramatically smashing the phone to bits. Epic.

And that my friends is my commentary on news stories this week. Maybe soon I will have an update of my personal news aka my life. HA

farewell our fine feathered friend

Our dearly beloved duck Gary was slaughtered sometime yesterday by some vicious blood thirsty raccoons. We know he fought the good fight to defend Goldie, the hen. He will always be remembered for his incessant quacking at inanimate objects, various attempts to hang out on the sidewalk, and his overall love for life at AgLago. We will seek revenge on your killers, homie. Rest in peace.

money hungry bastards

you know what grinds my gears? the fact that LA is celebrating the return of Manny Ramirez for a hefty multimillion dollar deal. a deal that went back and forth, starting off with a ridiculous sum of money and finally settled at the mere price of 45million for a two year contract. how could that sum of money be so publicly discussed with out anyone feeling guilty about how ridiculous it is. roughly 12 million a year to play sports while everyone else in LA is suffering. Unemployment in LA is at an all time high, education has gone to shit and it going to face a budget cut unheard of and this dude is getting 12 mil? it just doesn't seem right. however, i did read that, supposedly, he is donating 1million (1, only 1 of 12 million?!) to the Dodger Dream Foundation. Great, more kids will have baseball fields to play in. I guess that's better than kids having nothing to do when the whole education system in LA collapses completely. how about you donate another million or two to LAUSD, Manny? Or maybe to homelessness? How about that? i'm not just trying to hate on Manny, who is loved by too many people; i'm hating on all these sports bastards that get paid too much and don't give back enough, especially during these "trying times".

no hope for LA

For anyone living in LA that happens to be reading this, what the fuck? How did Villaraigosa get re-elected? I used to live in Glendale and felt there was no hope left for Glendale politics but LA got them beat. I feel like one of the few that voted and now I have the liberty to bitch and complain about LA politics! Wonderful!

This past Tuesday was an election, supposed to be a primary but at the numbers of the votes showed that Villaraigosa won by 55% of the vote. Re-elected. I think everyone was just exhausted and tired after the whole Presidential election. The Presidential election was all over the place and in your face everywhere you went. Everyone was distracted by that; too distracted to realize that elections for Mayor of LA were coming up. There were barely any fliers in the mail, no commercials, no real signs of an upcoming primary election. The only reason why I knew was because I got my sample ballot. There was just no real opposition to Villaraigosa. Sure there were plenty of candidates running against him but none of them campaigned enough or got their shit together on time. Even the news was saying how they didn't expect voter turn out to be high at all. I think they mentioned something around maybe 10% turn out. I believe they said the voter turn out for President was 82%. What the fuck Los Angeles?! It's great to be involved and jazzed about the President but let's be real here. Is Obama going to fix this clusterfuck of a city? LA is a hot mess and now it's going to get worse with Villaraigosa back in power. Self-interested, rich, corporate bastards that work to exploit education, the working class, and anyone else that isn't going to pay them to take their pictures. It's ridiculous. Like all the signs around the neighborhood read: Obama may be President but he's not going to fix LA. It's true, LA needs some fixing and now look what happened. An opportunity for change and we blew it. No one turned out to vote. It was a joke. The polling place was dead. In fact there were barely any signs other than printed out arrows and an American flag that indicated that I had arrived at my polling place. Not even a sign on the sidewalk just in cased you missed the little fence opening on the side of the building to get in. Disappointing. At least measure E seems to not have passed and I'm hoping measure B also retains the No vote. I just don't trust them. I just have a bad feeling about the way the city is being and will be run. I fear it will get even worse before it can get better. Kinda like our economy of the U.S., ha! On that note, I'm gonna put my unemployed ass to bed.