Riddle Me This.

I tend to be indecisive about most things. Waiting in line at Chipotle, I'll order a burrito - half chicken, half steak. And when faced with an ice breaker question, I'll give two responses, as various contexts must be considered. But there is one question that I know the answer to. Should you ask me what my favorite movie is, it's simple. I'll say Breakfast at Tiffany's in a heartbeat. Delve a little further and ask me why it was my favorite film, I would have been hard pressed for an answer.

As I'm learning that design is about solving a problem, not just mere aesthetics or decoration, I got to thinking about why I loved this movie so and wanted to highlight the paradox that is Holly Golightly. The girl about town has her wild side and little black dresses (Givenchy, no less) but is, as Paul Varjak aptly puts it: "a girl who can't help anybody, not even herself." She accepts $50 for trips to the powder room from mafiosos, rats, and super rats alike, while maintaining a distance from those who really care about her. She's stuck in a cage she built herself, and a night spent in jail, a failed romance with a Brazilian aristocrat, and the untimely death of her brother Fred aren't enough to jar her out of her mental confines. Her breaking point comes when she throws her no-name Cat out into a rainy New York alley, only to realize that she's formed an attachment to the cat. And if a no-named Cat could find a place in her heart, maybe, just maybe, someone could accept her - hang ups and all.

And so all this I wanted to channel into this poster.

I'm delirious, and I stayed up all night designing it, but I'm done! Here it is:
The city and the cat are technicolor to reflect the format of the original 1961 film. Black and white text to further the paradox. Didot serif font selected for it's curvy y's - reminiscent of a cat's tail. Cat gets center stage as he embodies the core emotional value, serving as the one constant, whereas Holly is here and there and everywhere. And robin's egg blue background to reflect Tiffany's, of course. There's more, but delirium seems to have taken over.

It just occurred to me that I must wake up for work in two hours. Oh my.

Ugly Jesus.

I went to visit my friend Dave at his studio the other night, when he reintroduced me to a familiar figure. After walking around his studio and stopping to examine each piece, I then came across a face painted on a small square canvas that had been casually strewn aside.

"Who's that?" I asked. "Santino Rice?"

Now Dave is the kind of guy who can't remember what happened thirty seconds prior. He once called me and the first two minutes of the conversation consisted of him trying to recall whether I had called him or he had called me. He's an artistic soul.

To say that Dave knows pop culture - music notwithstanding - is to say that I am coordinated. Unless it's Yo La Tengo we're talking about, all I'll get is a blank stare. That an homage to Project Runway could lie amidst the rest of his artwork is unthinkable. I should have known.

"That's Ugly Jesus," he replied.

Now, I was thoroughly confused. Dave is a fellow believer, but not cut of the same cloth as the conservative right wing Bible belt Christian that seems to be today's prevailing stereotype. Come to think of it, I don't know very many of those. We probably wouldn't get along.

"Ugly Jesus?"
"Yeah, Ugly Jesus."

Dave simply believes. And so he explained. Explained how he thought Jesus was ugly, of how he was rugged and dirty but charismatic in the unconventional sense - the guy that marches to his own beat and everyone loves him for it - much like San Francisco. Of how in order for him to care for the people that he did, how he couldn't possibly have been a smooth operator.

"Oh, okay," I said, nodding thoughtfully as another painting caught my eye. And I proceeded to ask him about that.

I Wish.

When I was young, I wished for many things. I had read this story about a man who caught a leprechaun and was granted three wishes. Being both male and unable to think past his immediate needs, upon minor hunger pains, he wished for a sausage. Furious for having wasted a wish, his wife proceeded to berate him for his stupidity. He then wished the sausage upon her nose. And as his wife's fury descended into pleading at the newfound appendage, he wished the sausage off her nose, unable to tolerate any more of her nagging. And then they shared it as a meal and lived happily ever after.

Something happened today that got me to thinking about some of my childhood desires. I wished to be an Olympic figure skating champion. Sad to say, I never saw the day, and I never even made it to triples. I wished blond haired, blue eyed Vince G. would reciprocate my three-year long first crush. He never did, or so I thought, but he rocked my world for the entirety of the fourth grade.

I wished for a chinchilla upon having petted one at what I now can only presume was an illegal pet shop by the skating rink. And just like my parents repeatedly nixing the puppy idea, they soon laid this one to rest as well in the graveyard of bright-eyed dreams. I wished for glasses, and those I got, only after mock-squinting and lying during my eye exam.

"O.. F, no wait, E, I mean, F.. L.. C? Er.. I think it's another O.."

And to think, I was so pleased with my pink plastic-framed nerd glasses. The prescription lenses were probably what caused my descent into bad vision.

Lastly, I wished for a broken bone. There would be a story:

"Yeah, I must've caught a rut when landing my lutz," I'd say nonchalantly. "The ambulance had to come." I could barely do a toe loop, but it didn't matter.
"That's soooooooooo rad! Did they ring the siren?" This was to be followed by a series of oooohs and aaaahs.

And I, too, wanted a cast that all my friends could sign. I had it all planned out. There would be markers and Sharpies, and I would provide subtle artistic direction on what the best use of space would be. Vince's signature would be front and center, of course. And there would also be flowers, Sanrio characters, and thoughtful messages. Well, as thought-filled as is possible for a fifth grader. And for all those reasons, I so badly wanted a hairline fracture.

Today, after a series of x-rays and years of unrequited longing, that dream came true.

Let's Get Symmetrical & Feel Alright.

They say that symmetry equates to beauty. According to Wikipedia, in evolutionary psychology, symmetry, especially facial symmetry, is one of the traits associated with the health, physical attractiveness, and beauty of a person. And if it's in Wikipedia, you know it must be true. I've heard that Denzel Washington has one of the most symmetrical of faces, which if the theory holds, makes him one of the most attractive men around. Which I suppose he is. And while I am an advocate of such beauty ideals as natural beauty, inherent style, and pretty much anything embodied by Liya Kebede - I was never fully sold on the symmetry bit until now.

Through a series of rather unfortunate events, I'm coming to realize that whether we realize it or not, this very notion is built into our genetic makeup. Maybe it does have to do with beauty ideals, or maybe we're just wired to compete and compare. What one side has, the other must eventually follow suit. Take, for example, the following:

When I was in the sixth grade, I ended up with stitches just above my right knee - a freak accident from foolishly trying to do axels before I knew how. The next thing I knew, I was sprawled out on the ice, with my blade protruding from my right thigh and blood everywhere. The six stitches eventually came out, and I was left with a scar the size of a quarter. Twelve years later, I find myself with another round of stitches, this time in my left knee from having tripped and fallen at work. Scars from injuries sustained on both legs. It all comes back to symmetry.

Not wanting to be left out, my arms followed suit. Two weekends ago, while playing tennis, I somehow managed to spin around and fall while swatting an off-balanced forehand. As I peeled my face off the pavement, I saw that my right elbow was speckled with blood. Ominous. Just yesterday, I fell down a set of hardwood stairs. Lo and behold, it was my left elbow that broke my fall, and I was left with a bloodied, possibly fractured left arm. The extensiveness of the damage remains to be seen. If beauty really were about symmetry, I must be off the charts.

I wonder if I ought to simply double-fist it. Next time I catch myself plummeting rapidly to the floor, I shall extend both elbows, and thereby save myself two trips to the emergency room. Kill two birds with one stone, if you will.

And that, I suppose, is the evolutionary process. I like to think that man learns from his mistakes.

Favorite Things.

Like brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my faaaavorite things..

Creativity. Bright & rustic. Flower arrangements I designed for Easter.

Chocolate + cupcake. From my birthday chocolate crawl.

And The Beat Goes On.

I'm in a fight with my washer/dryer. We're no longer on speaking terms. I have no desire to be in the same vicinity as said Machine-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. This has been manageable by simply throwing in detergent and skulking off; good riddance! I am pounding away at my keyboard as we speak.

It all began with my second favorite pair of jeans. Being the sneaky little machine that it is, it decided to play games with me and v. deliberately, shrink the denim pant. The first time was funny. I have a sense of humor; I can take a joke. And then a second and a third and a fourth.. As a result, I am currently one pair of light blue Citizens short, and I no longer fit into the entirety of my pants collection.

I don't know where this sudden grudge came about, but one thing's for sure. Unless it coughs up my long lost pendant or 7 mates to my mismatching socks, I'm not apologizing first.

And to think, we were such good friends until I started working at Google..

Truly, Madly, Deeply.

Addiction. It's been years since you've mastered it - attended meetings, found support in a network of friends, resisted and then eventually succumbed to intervention. And somehow, despite the odds, you muster up the will to overcome. You think you're doing well. But how quickly we tumble off the wagon.

I sit here typing away at 3:57am, eyes bloodshot. And I want just one more fix, or that's what I've been telling myself for the past seven hours. One becomes two becomes three becomes eight.

It was never good for me. I saw the damage it did, but I didn't care. I took health sciences. We had D.A.R.E. at our school, and I saw the Rachael Leigh Cook commercial. You know the one:

This is your brain.
This is your brain on drugs.
(Partnership for a drug-free America.)

The drug of choice being Korean dramas.

I have been sober for almost ten years. With the exception of one weekend at home, when I was unwittingly lured by what I thought was my alma mater, UCLA, projected on screen (it was in fact, "Harvard"), I can honestly say I have been clean. I have this theory that Korean dramas do psychological damage, putting to rot the minds of fanciful girls in LA and greater Asia. And I had since made it my personal mission to lobby against said damage before it was too late.

My relapse began with a family visit. As my grandma can no longer remain on her feet for extended periods of time, we had an early dinner at EOS and called it a night, which meant Korean drama marathon. And so, this little family unit of mine took to the couches and bonded, Korean style. Although initially skeptical, the wonderment of the non-linear plot structure soon wore me down. It was better than any trainwreck I had ever seen.

The anatomy of a Korean drama is as follows:
The FORMULA is circulated around the production world. Give or take a few tweaks to the job here and various names for characters there. It doesn't change, but you didn't hear it from me. Mix in two parts crack cocaine, and voila! A miniseries is born.

My brother and I like to play up the drama, with exclamations of: "Ooooh.. He looks piiiiiiiiiissed!" This, of course, results in my mum shooting us a look, which we gleefully ignore. It's too much fun. My grandma, meanwhile, is dozing in and out of consciousness on the couch. Andy likes to break it down: "This is the common scene in Korean dramas - the ub bwoh joh* scene," he explains to me, knowingly. "You see, here, his preconceptions about her are changing." He knows because he has just moved back home, where K-dramas are a nightly fare.

My brother is also surprisingly analytical. "There is a strong foundation for a relationship, Erika. Take notes." He runs an exegesis on the composition of the scene at hand, noting: "Is there supposed to be some hidden innuendo about how they drive a white Hyundai Sonata?" I stare blankly at him and roll my eyes. "Isn't this thing called Winter Sonata or something?" My views of my brother are slowly changing. And I'm supposed to be the English major.

With symbolism like that, how can I resist?

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* translates to piggy-back