Little Things

Sigh.

How quickly the halcyon days of Spring Break pass.
How fleeting its joys, which included:

(1) Spa time with girlfriends. Please...enlarge...admire my perfectly polished (but eminently impractical--it's snowing next week!) piggies in Malaysian Mist.

The hands belong to someone else, of course. I'm not that...flexible(?)

(2) Getting my graduation dress in the RIGHT size, finally. Two times the charm. Simple, classic, and supremely versatile: the LBD. Good for work, good for drinks, and good for graduation!

(Aside: I wouldn't have chosen such a drab color but they told us to wear something dark cuz the robe sometimes stains the clothes underneath)

After this nice week-long pause, life will be at 2X speed!
3 weeks until finals.
6 weeks until Bar Classes begin.
And 8 weeks before graduation and a cross-country move!

In between throw in some out-of-town visitors, lots of in-town goodbye parties, and LOTS of packing, and you've got a very frazzled Alice. Eek!!!

I think I need another pedicure...

3 Truths and a Soak

In the past few days some disappointing things have happened:

1. I ate an entire filet of undercooked cod. My own fault. I'm still paying for it two days later via intense bloating! (Or maybe I'm just legitimately fatter...)

2. I ordered a great graduation dress from Ann Taylor. It was supposed to be a single-digit size and 20% off. Stupid item came without the discount AND in size 10! WTF.

3. I finally got my greatly anticipated pair of white jeans from Boden (it was on back order for 2 weeks...now the back order is 8!) They don't fit. Too tight. Gave me a total "muffin top" effect that I couldn't completely blame on the (hopefully temporary) raw fish bloat.

But I did get this nice email yesterday:

Dear Ms. Chung,

This email serves as a confirmation for your upcoming appointment(s) at Pyara Spa & Salon. Sat 3/29/2008 03:15 PM Focus Pedicure with Leigh Ann Marticio

I'm going to get my first pedicure ever!

Part of me thinks: what's the point, it's still snowing and raining here. The other part says: Shut up! You need to relax.

Two Rights Don't Make a Right

****Warning: This post is rated VS for "very superficial."****

How did Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, two very attractive people, end up with deformed looking kids? To wit:

Daughter: Rumer Willis (aka Butterface)

Another unfortunate daughter: Tallulah Belle Willis (that name's ironic)

Life can be so "unfair." It's as if some awful genetic expression happened because Demi and Bruce are actually long-lost half-siblings. But seriously, what happened?!

Girl Crush of the Day

I was just browsing the channels this morning and happened to see this hot mama on the Rachel Ray show.

She was sharing some of her favorite beauty tips and products, and if I were white, I would totally take note. That woman has been a Cover Girl since 1976!!!! And she still looks amazing. Sigh--she's so beautiful she makes my heart hurt. To wit:

This picture was taken a year ago. How old do you think she is here? 45? Nope. She's 53 in this picture!!!! She makes most 20 year olds look frumpy and dumpy! She looked even more youthful today on the Rachel Ray show, if you can believe it.

There's no doubt that Ms. Brinkley has won the genetic lottery, but she's also incredibly good humored and good-natured too (at least she seemed to be on Rachel Ray). Instead of those degenerate and self-destructive young starletts or neurotic and freakish-looking old celebrities, Ms. Brinkley seems to never do anything that would make her look idiotic in the tabloids.

But she doesn't seem so lucky in love. Married four times, and none of them "the charm," she's known to have these 5 main lovers (one of whom she never married):

Jean-Francois Allaux:
Christie and Jean-Francois met while she was in France. Christie and Jean-Francois Allaux married in 1973.

Olivier Chandon de Brailles:
Olivier and Christie Brinkley met at Studio 54 where she was hosting a party to promote her 1982 calendar. Christie and Olivier Chandon de Brailles never married.

Billy Joel:
Christie and Billy Joel met in 1983 on the Island of St. Barts in the Caribbean. Her engagement ring was reportedly a diamond solitare the size of a sugar cube.

Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley were married on March 23, 1985 on a yacht on the Hudson River. This was the second marriage for both Billy and Christie. Christie and Billy have one daughter.

Richard Taubman:
Christie and Richard Taubman met in March 1994 when a mutual friend introduced them. He proposed in May, 1994 although Christie and Billy were still married.

Christie Brinkley and Richard Taubman were married at 3:30 in the afternoon on December 22, 1994 in Telluride, Colorado near the area where they were both in a helicopter crash in March, 1994. Christie wore a white satin dress that she designed.

At the top of lift No. 9, the simple ceremony was 11,900 feet up Telluride Mountain Christie was 40 years old, and Ricky was 46 years old when they wed. The 150 wedding invitations were drawn by her daughter, Alexa.

Christie announced at their wedding that they were expecting a baby boy. Guests at their reception at the Gorrono Ranch Restaurant were served a turkey, ham, pasta, and salmon buffet.

They had a roving magician on site to entertain the children. It was the second marriage for Richard and the third marriage for Christie. They honeymooned for two weeks in Italy.

Peter Cook:
According to an interview in the April 1997 Redbook, Peter Cook and Christie first met in 1979 when he was modeling, and had their paths cross a few times after that.

But at their re-introduction by mutual friend, NBC's Jill Rappaport, Peter and Christie felt an immediate chemistry with one another.

Peter and Christie announced their engagement in August 1996 after he gave her a sapphire and diamond engagement ring.

Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook married on September 21, 1996 under a gazebo in a broad meadow at their ranch in Bridgehampton, New York. Both Peter and Christie wore Armani suits. Christie's was white with a long skirt and train. Peter's was a black-crepe suit.

They had nearly 120 guests at their wedding including Billy Joel. Christie was 42 when they married, and Peter was 37. Christie and Peter have a daughter.

Would you rather win the genetic lottery or the love lottery?
I wonder what Christie would say about that...

Who are your girl crushes?

Weak...gasp...dying...help...

It was Michael's bright idea that we should fast today, Good Friday.

I thought it would be a nice pious gesture, but it's only 9:30am and I'm already hating it.

The irony is that I usually don't feel hungry until 11:00am so these hunger pangs are obviously just psycho-somatic--it's all in my head.

Just knowing a food-less days yawns before me fills me with anxiety and desperation. I'm starving! People were not meant to live like this! My ancestors honed their genes to prevent this kind of deprivation!

Not sure if my resolve can last the day...(or the morning)...

I'm so impious!

The Curse of Freedom

"No one can live happily who has regard to himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility." ~Seneca

I've known a lot of people who feel like their lives are meaningless. They find their thoughts gravitating toward suicide for lack of anything to care about. I myself have toyed with those sentiments before in a previous life.

It's always been somewhat of a mystery to me though. Why do relatively well-off Americans seem so much more miserable than subsistence-level farmers in developing countries, or even their own ancestors just a few decades ago?


This excerpt may enlighten:

"In the late nineteenth century, one of the founders of sociology, Emile Durkheim, performed a scholarly miracle. He gathered data from across Europe to study the factors that affect the suicide rate. His findings can be summarized in one word: constraints.

"No matter how he parsed the data, people who had fewer social constraints, bonds, and obligations were more likely to kill themselves. Durkheim looked at the 'degree of integration of religious society' and found that Protestants, who lived the least demanding religious lives at the time, had higher suicide rates than Catholics; Jews, with the densest network of social and religious obligations, had the lowest. He examined the 'degree of integration of domestic society'--the family--and found the same thing: People living alone were most likely to kill themselves; married people, less; married people with children, still less.

"Durkeim concluded that people need obligations and constraints to provide structure and meaning to their lives: 'The more weakened the groups to which a man belongs, the less he depends on them, the more he consequently depends only on himself and recognizes no other rules of conduct than what are founded on his private interests.'

"A hundred years of further studies have confirmed Durkheim's diagnosis. If you want to predict how happy someone is, or how long she will live...you should find out about her social relationships.... An ideology of extreme personal freedom can be dangerous because it encourages people to leave homes, jobs, cities, and marriages in search of personal and professional fulfillment, thereby breaking the relationships that were probably their best hope for such fulfillment.

"Seneca was right: "No one can live happily who has regard to himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility."

~The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt

Doubting Doubt

Here is a clip of Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC, giving a talk at Berkeley about his new book, The Reason For God. He talks about all the typical reasons why nonbelievers don't believe:

"It's arrogant to say there's only one right religion."

"How can there be a God when there's so much evil in the world?"

"Religion is a strait-jacket."

"Evolutionary biology basically disproves religion."

"How can a loving God send people to hell?"

"The Church is responsible for so much injustice!"


(Length: 95 minutes)

New Things I Like

...and you might too!
(1) Photoshop Disasters
This blog is hilarious! I now realize that you cannot trust ANY media picture ANYWHERE! It's all photoshopped! To wit:



Since when does Kirsten Dunst's arm stretch 5 feet long and contain two elbows?!

(2) Black Bargainers and Obama's Problem


This article is the most insightful thing I've read on why the Rev. Wright's incendiary comments are problematic for Obama's campaign. This author is spot on!
Looks like Obama's going through an identity crisis now. Is he black-black or is he bargainer-black? Let the carefully-crafted rhetoric begin!

(3) The perfect pair of white jeans.

Nothing says Spring/Summer 2008 like a pair of crisp white jeans. Trust me--if you add only one thing to your wardrobe this Spring, white jeans is it! I personally prefer them to be slightly cropped so as not to get dirty dragging on the floor.

I've taken all the guesswork out for you. After researching tons of stores: Gap, Banana, Old Navy, Target, Levi's, Kohl's, AnnTaylor, and J.Crew (just to name a few)...the winner is: Boden! They come in two convenient inseam lengths: short and shorter.

Fun Feminist Fairytale Fantasy

I have nothing to write about, but following my zesty resolution to blog more often (see 3/11) I'm writing nevertheless!

Let me tell you about something I recently saw: Antonia's Line.

It's a delightful feminist fairytale film that won the Academy Award's Best Foreign Film in 1995. It's all about women--how great they are, how independent from men they are, how utterly capable, lovely and sometimes lesbian they are.


The central figure is Antonia, a woman in her late 30's who returns to her small Dutch farming community shortly after WWII with only her teenage daughter, Danielle. Antonia is played by a lovely and sturdy Dutch actress who just oozes wholesome goodness and health.


All the men in the sleepy town turn their heads toward Antonia when she walks by, like flowers to the sun, and she finds favor in everyone's eyes. A gentle widowed farmer asks for her hand in marriage and she slaps him down, saying she doesn't need men to take care of her. This nice man becomes her friend and eventually she says, "I won't give you my hand, but you can have everything else." Ah, feminist geezer love (just like Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell!).

Danielle eventually grows up and decides she wants a baby, but without a husband. Antonia doesn't bat an eye, and takes Danielle into the big city to find the early prototype of an anonymous sperm donor--he ends up being a James Dean look alike complete with leather jacket and motorcycle.

Danielle finishes the deed while her mom waits in the hotel lobby and then they return to their sleepy town. Nine months later Danielle gives birth to a baby girl who turns out to be a child prodigy and is sent to a special school to get extra tutoring from a female teacher. Danielle falls in love with her daughter's female teacher and it is reciprocated. Ah, lesbian love.

Eventually, Danielle's daughter grows up and has a daughter of her own (of course! We can't have any boy babies in this feminist fairytale!) They all live together on this giant farm/commune and life is peaceful and idyllic and matriarchal.

The men in the film are portrayed, at best, as unecessary but pleasant appendages to have around (but no neediness!). At worst, they are rapists. There are only two "bad" and tragic things that happen in this fairytale (well maybe three).

First, there is death. Some characters die, but not anyone we really care about except Antonia. But her death is not really sad, it's just matter-of-fact.

And second, there are rapes. Two to be exact.

And that is all the tragedy that exists in this fairytale. No thwarted lovers, no jealousy, no famine or disease. Just the ugliness of male intrusion into the lovely female sphere.

There is a side tragedy though: the restraints of religious doctrine. Oh that favorite bogeyman and strait-jacket of the modern world. Throw off those wretched doctrinal fetters that bind you!

This anthem is epitomized by the dour middle-aged priest who decides to quit the priesthood. On the day of his "liberation" we see him ringing the church bells with glee to announce his resignation and him frantically tearing off his clerical robes as if they were laced with acid, just burning a hole through his skin.

He's free, he's free! He instantly marries, has a new child each year (remarkably by the same woman) and eventually when his wife dies, devotes his life to social welfare work! Ah, the social gospel.

This kind of ideological fantasy world is hilariously out-of-date now as philosophers on their treadmill of deconstruction have already turned the page on this and moved on. Now it's theism and absolutism that the philosophic academia respects.

But even so, the hoi paloi are still singing this idealistic chorus: Women don't need men, reproductive choices are purely individualistic, and doctrine is death. Fa la la la la. Antonia's Line is the orchestral celebration of this song--full-bodied, lush, and delightfully witty.

The Homeless Man Incident

I have a strong sense of smell. That's why I almost always gag when I ride public transportation. This summer when I rode BART everyday I held perfumed paper up to my nose the entire time. And I won't go to the gym when it's crowded cuz the sweat smell is too overpowering.

So, needless to say, my volunteer activities of choice are not with the homeless. I like kids, I like hospitals, I even like prisoners. But the homeless...I just can't do it. The smell. (Aside: I heard that rubbing Vick's Vapor Rub under your nose can really help with that--that's what coroners do--but I have yet to try it.)

But sometimes the homeless come to you.

Last night, I was having a nice bible study at my house with 10 friends or so and one of them announces suddenly: I met a homeless man last week and I invited him to come here. He's on his way now!

Well, the group was thrilled. "Great!" "Tell him there's cupcakes!" "We're glad he's coming!"

I was less than thrilled. Who is this guy? Does he have mental issues? Is he going to talk and shout erratically and be covered in the dirt and grime of the streets? (I pictured Pig Pen frm Charlie Brown and comforted myself by reasoning that in the cold winter clime, no fleas could survive, right?)

And the smell...Oh, the smell...the overpowering, stays-in-your-sofa-fabric, can't-get-it-out-with-Febreeze smell.

The man came, he scarfed down some cupcakes, he stayed and prayed with us for about an hour, and then he left.

The smell stayed.

Now, lest anyone misunderstand, let me just say that I do feel compassion for this guy. He's homeless in the middle of winter, enough said.

But there is a time and a place for things. There are avenues of help for the homeless, like a shelter or the deacon committee. They are trained to know how to help this man with his many material and mental needs.

We were just a group of clueless yuppies who didn't know how to help.

Or maybe that's just how I try to justify things to myself. A better person would've helped him to get shelter, get food, etc. Stayed with him until it was apparent that he was going to be ok for a while.

I'd like to think that is someone else's job. The deacon committee's job. The professionals. The ones trained to help. Specialization, it's the rage.

And while it's imprudent to treat the homeless like they are just scruffier versions of ourselves (most of them have serious mental issues--how else could they have burned through all their social capital)...I was shaken out of my complacency.

I'm going to be thinking about this incident for a few days. Wondering, considering, confessing, and repenting.

The World Title: Meh

Today was a good day, basically...

It was 24-hour Technibond on HSN, so that's always entertaining. For those of you who don't know, Technibond is genuine sterling silver bonded to 14k gold so that you can have the look of gold for a fraction of the price. Brilliant, eh?


I also watched the documentary King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters. At first I felt like I was watching a mockumentary of the saddest geeks of all time. But towards the middle of the film I became really emotionally involved in the journey and drama of Steve Wiebe--all around decent family guy trying to beat the Donkey Kong high-score with the "establishment" working against him.

It had all the makings of a great drama. A winsome protagonist, an evil antagonist, and a dream. I'm not going to lie, I actually teared up towards the end.

But it's still pathetic--trying to be the highest scorer in Donkey Kong. Who cares if you hold the world record? You don't get money, you think you get validation, but I'm sure it's a real let down.

In highschool, my swim coach actually won a gold medal in the Olympics for the US water polo team. Mr...forgot his name...Barnes? He always said that winning the medal was the most exciting moment in his life. And the next day was so unfathomably empty. The thrill lasts for just a moment. And then the abyss.

Psychologists have studied that effect: adaptation (I think they call it). People adapt to the great fortune they have and that becomes their new baseline level. Unless you keep rising, you can't feel great for that long.

But I think when you win the world title (or achieve something you thought was the ultimate achievement), you don't just "adapt" to it like a flat-line. I think you would actually feel extremely depressed because, what else is there? What else is there to live for? Like Alexander the Great on his 30th birthday.

La Blogue du Jour

I've been watching my blog die slowly...of natural causes...I've been busy! And then, I thought to myself (this morning), I miss blogging!

Since when did blogging become a chore so onerous that I can't find the time to do it for weeks at a time? Since when did it become a photo-essay assignment that requires semi-serious thoughts to spring fully-formed from the head of Zeus (or mine)? Zut alor!

So, mon ami, I'm returning to the blogging I love. The reason why I began in the first place. It's time to get back to basics: off-the-cuff, randomn, daily, (a)musings. I'm returning to the joy of mere expression, with or without the reflection!

Viva la blogue du jour!