Passport? Check. Mexican auto insurance (who knew)? Check. Directions? Check. Emergency cash to pay off federales if need be? Double check.

My roommate and I are preparing for a holiday weekend in Rosarito, Mexico. It’s somewhat of a reunion vacation, as it’s the first trip her and I ever took together when we first became BFFs back in the eighth grade. Only this time, we’re traveling without my parents, and we will be partaking in the readily available adult beverages, poolside, in fact.

I, myself, really have no reservations about crossing over to the other side of the border, but as the voyage approached, it became clear that my parents and I are not operating on the same frequency. From calling me every day at work to pepper me with various questions (”Did you go to the Auto Club and get a map?” “No, and I’m not going to, for the fifth time.), to emailing me demanding the exact time I plan on leaving and returning, it’s evident they’re worried we might not make it back. (more…)

Whenever I have groceries delivered I’m always shocked at how different things look on my countertop versus the tiny image on the web. I ordered some yogurt which must have passed through a field of heavy radiation on the way to my house causing it to triple in size. Next to a regular container, it was an exact replica, except 300% bigger. It would CRUSH the regular size.

Then came the “large eggs”. which looked like ostrich eggs. They’re fucking huge; I definitely started to wonder if I’d open my fridge Ghostbusters style and find a huge gargoyle in the mix. I like me a good egg though, so off into the frying pan they went one by one, morning after morning.

Then something funny happened: the first of the yolks were TWINS. What the… that’s weird, two yolks, one white? “DOUBLE-YOLKS bitches!!” I yelled shaking my fists in the air. Had I won the egg slot machine or was this a weird voodoo sign of dark days to come? I was nervous but excited. I had 3 eggs instead of two. Nothing unique happened in the following day except the AC breaking on the F train, which in retrospect isn’t unique.

The next morning, DOUBLE-YOLKS again!! Sirens at the egg casino were goin’ off and I was filling buckets with runny yellow yolk that poured from the slot machine! I win AGAIN!! I started to realize that maybe this wasn’t a sign of good fortune, but more of a new freakish thing happening down at the dairy farm. The double-yolked eggs are likely a bit bigger, and get siphoned off into the “Large/Jumbo” egg bin. But still, this many twins? Are these chickens drinking hormone injected milk? Are their breasts larger at an earlier age? Are they humping in the Jr. High gymnasium after school?

I just might get some regular, home-grown, no-hormone, organic, 500 million dollar eggs next time, cause this is bugging me out. Who eats twin embryos anyway? At least, who eats them five days in a row?

Apparently, I’m fresh out.

I fucked up and gave the milk, hell, I gave the entire cow away for free last weekend. At least that’s what I knew my friend Boo was thinking when I told her the new boy I had met a little more than a week ago had slept over. “And what’s his last name?” Shit, she had me stumped at the first question. Couldn’t she just ask something simple, like what color his hair is? But it’s never that easy with Boo, because girlfriend knows how to play the “game.” In fact, I think she wrote the book on it.

As a general rule, Tuffie operates under a no-bullshit policy and that includes dating. If I like you, then I like you, and try as I might to follow these so-called “get him to like you back” rules that involve such intricacies as when and what you should text and even if you should include a fucking emoticon, I just can’t seem to stay between the lines. (more…)

Where the wild ones are…

Things have been slow at work. So slow, on Friday they sent my partner and I south, to the Human Resources division of our company, where we spent five hours filing.

When I was told that we were being sent there, I tried to get us assigned to something else. But not until we arrived did I realize what I was trying so hard to avoid.

When you are tasked to file all day, it really means File All Day. There is nothing else to do, no break in the monotony. Read the last name, find the file, place the paper in the file, repeat. When you finish the pile the File Room Lady gave you, she then proceeds to give you another. There is no end. There is no “finish”. There is only filing. Filing, and the crappy hip-hop station the File Room Lady is listening to. It is somewhat akin to reading the copyright page of a book again and again and again and again and again. You can actually feel your brain cells making the conscious decision to commit suicide. (more…)

I was lamping on the couch today, feet up drinking a Tecate after a fine cruise through the hood on my bike. A low beastly roar and some audible pounding from next door caught my ear. I quickly muted Cops and turned off the AC. Silence, then…

“FUCK you!! YOU’RE my ONLY friend and you’re a SHITTY FRIEND. FUCKYOUTOO!!!

I felt bad for the guy. Whatever situation he was in, he was upset. Really really upset. Like scary alcoholic dad upset (Happy Father’s Day!) And all I could do is turn down the TV to listen. I heard his door slam and again silence. Neighbor, I’m tipping one back for you and your beef. Good luck with it champ, here’s to you.

Ewwww, I think there’s a hair in my huevos.

My father thinks that just because he’s lived in Southern California for the past 36 years his Spanish is of “conversational” quality, if not better. He knows what a burrito is; he certainly knows how to order a cerveza; and he thinks he understands what’s going on when he watches Spanish telenovelas. “Look, that woman’s plotting to kill that guy because she just found out that her sister’s brother-in-law’s cousin slept with her father’s mother’s uncle-once-removed who is also her step son.”

When I was 13, we took the standard Southern California family summer vacation down to Rosarito, Mexico, and when we crossed the border my father confidently told the border patrolman “crotches.” No, it wasn’t code for “adios motherfucker,” what he meant to say was “gracias.” From the look on the border guard’s face, it was clear we were lucky he didn’t send the federales after us. (And Americans wonder why everybody hates us, it’s because we can’t pronounce shit!) (more…)

The Watts Towers, made by a crazy person

Around two this afternoon, I get a call on my home phone. The number is in the L.A. area, like me, and the caller ID says “payphone”. As I pick up, I’m expecting a friend in need, someone stranded, reaching out for help. I am not expecting a crazy lady. Yet, amazingly, that is exactly what I get. At first, what with the guy cutting the grass outside, I have trouble making out what she’s saying:

“Can you repeat that?”
“Is ___ ___ there?”
“One more time.”
“Is John ____ there?”
“Oh, um, no, no one by that name here.” At which point she should just hang up, right? WRONG.
“Well, can you transfer me, then?”
“Um, you have the wrong number, there’s no one by that name here.”
“Then can I have another department?” This goes on for two minutes. It actually takes me two whole minutes to figure out she’s a bona fide nut job. It’s been a busy weekend, I’m beat, give me a break.

“This is the wrong number”
“So, can you transfer me, then?”
“No, because this is the wrong number”
“Then, i should just come down and visit him then?”
“No, because this is a house. A private residence. He is not here. You would come here, and he would not be here, because this is the wrong number. You need to go to the person who gave you this number, and get a new number, because this number is wrong.”

“Who should I call then?”
“I do not know (at this point i started using my ghetto voice, in an effort to hurry things along), you have called the wrong number, miss. if I called you asking for John, you do not know John, you could not give me John’s number. That is what this is.”
“So, can you transfer me then?”
{sigh}
“No. No, I can’t, because you’ve called the wrong place.”
“So, I should just come down then?”
{sigh}
“Yes.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do. Thank you. That is all I wanted to know. I know everyone’s just trying to do their job. You have a nice day.”
“You…you have a nice day, too.” You crazy, crazy, beautifully batshit crazy lady, you.

When telemarketers call my house I don’t have to hang up on them and never get stuck listening to some lame pitch about why I should participate in their particular survey. Instead of launching into their opening remarks, I instead get, “Is your mommy or daddy home?” Excuse me, but fuck you, right? In my case, not so much, because my voice does, in fact, sound like it belongs to a child. I sometimes like to fuck with said telemarketers by responding with an, “Ewww, you’re dirty. Mommy and daddy said I can’t talk to strangers,” before hanging up. I figure it spices up their day a little.

It’s not just telemarketers who are fooled by my voice’s pitch and who I am then able to fuck with. When I was an editor at my college’s newspaper a publicist I was working with accidentally sent me an email meant for one of his coworkers. “Here’s her contact information,” the message read. “She sounds like a 10 year old, let’s hope she doesn’t act like one.” Oh no you did-int. (more…)

12 PM
Girlfriend leaves to visit home for extended period of time. I help her pack up her car with lots n’ lots of suitcases and bags. She looks like she’s going to war, maybe she is? I kiss her goodbye and return to an empty apartment.

1 PM - 2 PM
Impulsively check all blog, MySpace and email accounts. Find that one person from my distant past now has bleached hair and spooky sunglasses. I don’t know who she is. She knows who I am.

After 2
Take poop with door open, reading graphic design publication. Accept phone call. Keep it brief. (more…)

It’s day three of 80 degree weather here in New York City, and so it’s official, summer has hit. Or as my brother might refer to it, the “Season of Urine.” Unlike the dry sunny west coast, we got this beastly humidity that acts as a stink incubator accentuating the funk in everything, most notably, the piss. Long dormant pee in various concrete corners of the city becomes alive with stink; for spring there’s rain and blooming flowers, for summer, there’s the garbage and pee smell. As we book up our calendars with various summer crap, plan to drink outdoors as much as possible and struggle to be fully dressed in the saunas of the subway, let us celebrate summer’s arrival with a good strong healthy wiff of that NYC summer air. Breathe in… breathe out… and raise your glass, summer is here!

I don’t know what you heard about me
But a bitch can’t get a dollar out of me
No Cadillac, no perms, you can’t see
That I’m a motherfucking P-I-M-P

I knew something was up when it took me more than an hour to drive 1.9 miles (I had navigation). I called the hotel. “Oh, didn’t you know? Miami Beach is a popular destination for Memorial Day weekend.” No shit Sherlock, but this traffic was clearly beyond that. As I neared the hotel from the much quicker approach the front desk woman had shared with me, I suddenly understood why she had felt the need to also mention that there was a big hip-hop concert taking place on Monday, the following day.

The streets were packed shoulder to shoulder with people, it was like Cancun or Vegas, but even crazier and much, much louder. In fact, one lane on each side of the road had been procured and blocked off with barricades to accommodate the increased street traffic. And as I took in this madness, I realized that I was, quite frankly, the only white and/or Asian person within this two-mile radius. Simultaneously I felt like a fish out of water and like a six year old in a candy shop. Given my love for rap music by the likes of Tupac Shakur, the Game and Snoop Dogg (and my need to rap along with their songs, earning me both the nicknames Michael Bolton (Office Space) and Blasian), and my interest in the belief systems, practices and mating rituals of any culture other than my own, I was chin deep in my own version of heaven.

The minute I got into my hotel room I turned on my computer and did what I should’ve done before I left, Googled “Miami Beach, Memorial Day weekend.” The first page on the search: Black Beach Week’s official site. Fo’ sizzle. (more…)

The Dead Girl (top left), The Art Director (top right), The Star (bottom left) and The Director (bottom right)

Was on the set of a short film yesterday, helping my best friend out by taking photos. And once again I got to experience the magic that is film-making. The set was too hot, several people didn’t arrive on time, the air conditioner leaked, the food was late, this thing was forgotten, that thing was misplaced, this didn’t work the way it was supposed to, that worked too well, this had to get cut, this just had to be added.

But hell if the shots from the monitor didn’t look damn good.

Because, as I’ve seen before, this is how it goes on a movie set of any size. It’s all madness, sturm and drang behind the scenes, but, on a good day, solid gold once it hits the screen. It’s like being the coach of a dozen basketball teams, simultaneously, and anyone who walks out alive is aces in my book.

And of course folks were having a good old time, making something like this work. The crew is always having a good time, joking between shots. I like being on sets with little to do, being able to hang out with folks, shoot the shit. And I feel like an integral part of the crew when I put the headphones on and use my “I’m listening for something” face as I listen in on the filming.

Maybe I’ll go out and be a producer. How hard could that be?