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camilles is: in love an artist a biker chick a friend a sister a daughter a daughter-in-law shy an introvert dorky silly cool i took a break in november 05 nothing in june 06 too busy in september 06 december was busy, too february? forget about it got lazy in may |
 r e u n i o n this weekend is a reunion of sorts. i've got two of my wayward brothers sprawled out around the living room watching an episode of dog the bounty hunter as i speak. ben is visiting from seattle and greg is in town from san francisco. it's nice to have them staying with us. we headed up to escondido's cruisin' grand on friday night, and i got some cool pictures while we hung around. (you can click on the little pictures to see the big versions.)
 i'd hoped to get some riding in, but other than a short little 5 minute ride around the neighborhood being followed by greg on the vespa, i don't know if it will happen. the weather yesterday was horribly hot and humid, and we've got a pretty full schedule from here on out. maybe i'll try to ride to work every day this week, because we've only got 6 days until hawaii! you know how you never really think of yourself as having much of an accent? especially here in southern california...everyone sounds fairly bland and not exotic in any way? the other day i had to listen to a voicemail i had left for somebody to make sure i'd left all the info i had meant to...and imagine my surprise when i discovered i do actually have a hint of "valley girl" to my regular, conversational voice. i think it's something that only slips out when i'm in comfortable conversation with friends or people i know pretty well. funny. but considering where i grew up and continue to live, i guess it's only natural that i possess the vernacular and phonology of the region. looking into a california accent a little further, i found a whole wikipedia article on california english. language is so interesting. and yes. i am a huge nerd. but you know you love it. camilles (1:40pm, 8.31.08)
 i'm n o t s h y we were listening to my beck cd in the car, and when jeff flipped it to Que' Onda Guero, he asked if i had listened to it driving down el cajon blvd earlier. i said "yes...and the man in the car next to me rolled up his window." "did you have it up really loud?" he asked. "yes," i replied. i asked jeff if he had ever known me to really care what anybody else thinks. and the answer was no. which got me thinking... "maybe i'm not shy? maybe i just don't like people very much?" i asked. jeff said, "hmmm...yes. i would say that is probably more likely. i've always wondered why you've ever thought you were shy." weird. it's not every day that you learn something new about yourself. ok. maybe i'm not shy. but i'm still an introvert. so there. :) camilles (7:55pm, 8.27.08)
 e y e c o n t a c t ever find something that you can't stop staring at? why do you do it? what are you thinking about? camilles (9:49pm, 8.26.08)
 w h y s o s e r i o u s ? while i was driving home from work, i was passed by a lady in a red lexus convertible. i followed her for a little bit, when all of a sudden, a little kid's head popped up in the back seat, and he had his arms stretched up into the wind, and i could tell he was having a good time. it's so easy to have fun when you are a kid. i try to remember that it's easy to have fun as an adult, too...as long as you have the right attitude. so. why in the world do i, a 30-year-old-quasi-professional who works a 7:20ish to 5ish job 5 days a week still do things like dye my hair blue? hmmm...i guess part of it is to remind myself not to take things so seriously. kind of like why i regularly find myself drinking tecate even though i'm a fairly sophisticated beer snob. there isn't any reason why i can't enjoy the not-so-fine things in life, right? if i'd had the top on the car down, i would have been inspired to have at least one of my arms sticking into the wind, too. camilles (5:40pm, 8.25.08)
 f u n k y so much for a break. i snapped myself out of the funk, somewhere towards the end of the day on friday. i think it was on my drive up to la, while i listened through a couple of hours of johnny cash and contemplated. like i said the other day, this year has been good and bad, and when it all comes rushing at you at once, sometimes it's hard to really know what to make of it. but i decided that nothing is so bad that i need to be in a funk about it. and i always enjoy the challenges and hope that i come out a better person for it at the end of every day. leslie and i helped to move kirk's stuff out of riverside and into leslie's place in la. for a move, it was actually a fairly pleasant experience. and my first time towing a trailer. (mark that off the list of life experiences everybody needs to do at least once.) it was nice spending productive time with the two of them, even if i woke up this morning with super sore calves. i had originally planned on visiting the crazy chinese people at the mall for a chair massage (ever get one? they massage your booty!), but knowing how rough they can be and the bruises i have on my legs from the move, and the hobbling i'm already doing from carrying things up and down stairs...i decided to find other ways to spend my morning instead. i bought a new sweater and got an oil change and a car wash and loaded up on groceries for the entire week. the people who rang me up at all 3 different places complimented me on the plumeria in my hair. clip-in hair flowers are the best! jeff just called to tell me that they (he, l, and t) were on their way back from their motorcycle class...and he and l passed. hooray. that means they'll be licensed and our motorcycle gang can take advantage of the nice evenings for some riding. oh yeah...and less than 2 weeks until hawaii!!! how could i possibly be in a funk when i've got that coming up? camilles (12:38pm, 8.24.08)
i'm doing this now, while i'm at work, because i know i won't get a chance to once i get home. so...any great reflections after these 7 days of self-centered rambling and a few hat pictures thrown in? no. not really. well, i have been thinking a lot about how this year has been the coolest and the worst all intertwined. it's almost too much to try to wrap my brain around. don't freak out of you don't see anything here for a while. i just need a break. camilles (11:16am, 8.22.08)
 b e c a u s e i h a v e t o we've just spent the last several hours entertaining one of jeff's business contacts, which involved dinner and gambling at a local casino. lots of fun, but the guy has endless amounts of energy. a serbian guy who is living the american dream. it's inspiring, actually. but he IS completely nuts. anyway, i wanted to trudge upstairs, shed my clothes, brush my teeth, and crawl into bed...but i was reminded of my goal to update every day for a week. so here i am. a motorcycle helmet kind of counts as a hat, right? today is the closest i've ever come to getting into an accident since i've been riding. and that includes my time on the vespa. i locked up my brakes, skidded, wobbled, and was pretty sure i was either going to lay it down or crash into the car in front of me. but i didn't. i kind of wish i'd had that chain i keep talking about putting in one of my sidecases, so i could track down the driver of the car that almost ran me over and give him what for. but making it home in one piece with a still shiny motorcycle was still pretty good. either i got really lucky, or i've got more skills than i give myself credit for. probably a little bit of both. camilles (10:18pm, 8.21.08)
 b l u e h a i r today was kind of a sucky day at work. plus i'm doing my best to fight off a cold. i even slept in the guestroom last night to try to keep my germs away from jeff, which meant i was lonely and waking up every few hours to make sure that i hadn't slept through my alarm. and the past few days i've been feeling a little down in the dumps. so when i went and got my hair did after work...
 ...i got it did a little differently. no expectations that it's going to last too long, especially with a trip to hawaii coming up in a few weeks (sand! sun! salt!). but i like it. rock, rock on. camilles (9:00pm, 8.20.08)
 f a b u l o u s my most expensive, designer glasses...paired with the cheapest hat i've ever bought. and a grimace to tie it all together. make sure you click on the photo above to get a close-up of it in all it's foamy, meshy, unshapely glory. (and you can get just a peek at the flowers AND crystals embedded in my glasses.) we picked this up on our alaskan cruise last year. my brother-in-law, jeff and i spent something like, $7 or $8 for 5 hats. but this one was my favorite. the wolf fantasy animal hat is pretty good, too...but you can't beat the last frontier. i'm pretty sure we ended up seeing a few old dudes sporting it back on the ship. so it would appear i have a not-so-secret admirer at work. he told me i that i looked really nice today. which he immediately followed up with a "but then, you ALWAYS look nice." this as i was digging through a box of t-shirts, so i didn't fully understand what was going on to graciously accept the compliment while he stood there smiling at me. last week he asked me to give him a ride on my motorcycle. hee! i told him that i can barely give myself rides on my motorcycle and left it at that. while i'm not a good judge of age, i would guess he's several years younger than i am. and maybe he hasn't noticed the ring on my finger. or maybe he's just intrigued by how totally awesome i seem. it's cute, but i hope i don't have to break his heart one day. i'm definitely not in the market for an office boyfriend. :) camilles (9:39pm, 8.19.08)
 r e p r e s e n t a t i v e why the picture of big head (aka, the angry turtle)? wysiwyg! the angry turtle you see, is the angry turtle you get! the theory of most people having a representative built in to their personality, a version of one's-self that can be used when meeting new people, has recently been tossed around...and i'd have to agree that they exist. specifically, i know i have a representative. probably a few different ones. i'm just not really sure how close to me any of them actually is. and i don't know how many people i meet ever get past hanging out with one of my representatives. i don't think there are many people out there who know the real me. but it's ok. i actually don't mind and kind of prefer it that way. defense mechanism. the real me can be a big scaredy cat.
 6togo was the only one to comment on yesterday's hat...and she said i have a hat head. this one is for you. in honor of the olympics. and featuring my standard "picture face". i'm trying to update every day for a week as part of my 101 things in 1001 days that i have yet to get really working online. i'll see how many random hats i can pull out over the next few days. so...you know how sometimes you get stuck having to do something that totally sucks, because there is no other way to possibly fix it? and you have to keep reminding yourself that it is for the greater good? yeah. it's still sucks. camilles (8:19pm, 8.18.08)
 t i k i t i m e once a year, there is a big tiki culture convention in san diego that jeff and i like to take in...in small quantities. the kick-off party is at one of our favorite tropical spots in town, the bali hai, and this year we invited l and t to join us on thursday night. we drank some free tommy bahama rum (as pictured above), mai tais, and other alcoholic concotions, did some people watching, and took in the sounds of a zombie surf rock band before heading home. we ended up putting in a dvd from my exploitation madness collection...some movie from the 1930's that explored the horrors of venereal disease...but the power of the mai tai made me fall asleep, and i missed the part of the movie where the wife who had been given VD by her husband went around closing up all the windows in the house before she turned on the stove to try to kill them both.
 i had noticed a hotel/restaurant called the pearl the last few times we had driven through point loma, so after we had done a little shopping at the tiki oasis poolside vendor fair this morning, we decided to check it out for brunch. totally awesome. someone did a really good job of renovating an old motel into what you would imagine a 1960's modern hotel would have been like. the restaurant/bar opens up to the pool, which you can use if you get the all-you-can-drink mimosa brunch for $20. apparently they also host a "dive-in" movie night. the food was really tasty, and the crowd was a funny mix of the big sunglasses "cool" kids and older locals swinging in for a bite. it's just too bad that it's so far away from where we live, because i could definitely support what they are doing.
 when we walked into the restaurant, the hostess looked at me a little bit like i was an alien. granted, my hat is a little interesting, but if there ever was a place that my hat would have fit in, it was tiki oasis. and once i put the hat on, i wasn't about to take it off. i found this beauty on our last trip to las vegas, and when i saw it, instantly knew that it was a keeper. it's been sitting in my bedroom for months, so it was a big "ta da" moment when i emerged this morning. jeff was convinced i would receive a few compliments while we were out shopping...and he was right.
 when we were cruising through the parking lot, king kukulele was driving by. he stopped us and accused me of stealing his hat, and then wearing it wrong. i was like ??? so he grabbed it and flipped it inside out. he said THAT was the proper way to be wearing it...not flipped down...and warned me that i could wear it however i wanted, but that people might make fun of me. well...i don't know. what do you think? flipped up or flipped down? i'm pretty sure that with the pom-poms and velvet ribbon applied as they are to the hat, it only looks right when it's flipped down. and nobody made fun of me. :) camilles (2:36pm, 8.17.08)
 z o o t a k e 2 my trip the zoo on wednesday night was just my way of taking a little solo vacation for a few hours while i waited for jeff to come home. i like to go and watch all the visitors from out of town wander around, but i usually get my fill within an hour or two.
 my favorite part of having a membership is that i get to ride the "skyfari" for free. it was a beautiful evening, and it made me a little sorry that i hadn't decided to take a motorcycle ride instead. when i'm playing bachelorette for a few days, i've got the responsibility to remember trash night. after i had rolled the trashcans back in that night, i was suddenly struck by the delightful smell of my motorcycle as i passed it in the garage. it's funny how smells can affect you. my motorcycle smells like fresh air and wind and the heat coming off the pipes that have turned blue and the feeling of really being free. later that night, when i had stopped at the thai restaurant to get my sticky rice, the girl who rang me up asked me if i was part asian. "why yes!" i said delightedly, wondering what about me that night made my chinese-ness stand out. she was so struck by my "cuteness" (she DID say i was cute) that she mistook my $20 bill for a $50...but me being a big believer in honesty, corrected her before i took my change. and randomly, watching this episode of "man vs. wild" in baja really makes me want to go to mexico. i don't think i'd necessarilly want to hang out with bear and eat bbq skunk, but i'm pretty sure i could find better things to do with my time. camilles (4:31pm, 8.16.08)
 i r r i t a t e d i had it all planned out. visit the zoo. take some pictures. grab some food to snack on at home. enjoy some mango and sticky rice and watch some no reservations and update my website. i got as far as starting dessert when i get a phone call that threw me off. which requires me making a couple of phone calls. all the while, anthony bourdain stands frozen on my tv, ready to enjoy some foreign morsel of food, and my sticky rice is getting hard. phone call crisis out of the way, and now the cell phone is plugged into the wall next to the house phone, because i've completely drained the battery...and i'm starting to feel a headache coming on while i try to chew my way through at least half of the sticky rice i had been looking forward to since 4pm today. i settle down to try to start writing, and the house phone rings. but i put everything down, pause the tv, and get off the couch, and walk over to pick it up, since i know it's probably my husband telling me he's landed in san francisco. he's in san francisco. one step closer to being home. back to the couch. restart tony in columbia. pull the laptop back up from the floor. try to remember where i had been in my train of thought, and pick back up again. i think i made it about 10 words, and my cell phone rings again. this time i just ignored it, because i figured it was my sister, who i had left a message for during the previous phone call fueled crisis...and i just didn't feel like dealing with it anymore. get another 10 words in, and the house phone rings again. i ignore it. and then my cell phone rings, and i worry it's jeff telling me his flight has been delayed or cancelled or worse. put the laptop down. pause the tv. get off the couch. run to the phone. it's jeff telling me that...flight cancelled? delayed? airport is shut down? NO!...guy fieri has just walked by him in the airport being trailed by a gaggle of equally stupid looking loudmouths. STUPID guy fieri! by now i am grumpy on the phone. because i've spent the last hour answering phone calls or making phone calls, and i hate being on the telephone. and my headache is getting worse, and this 1 hour episode of no reservations has somehow stretched to almost 2 hours long. i sit back down, start the show again, pick up the laptop again, try to figure out where i was again, and start writing again. i'm on a roll. writing about things i had thought about all evening. and then... the keyboard on the laptop completely craps out on me. in the middle of a sentence. well, f it then. what was going to be a nice description of my evening, punctuated by positive observances of life around me, has turned into me complaining about how much i hate the telephone and headaches and stupid guy fieri. all of which i couldn't escape tonight. good night. hopefully i'll dream about something pleasant. camilles (10:13pm, 8.13.08)
"when did things get so complicated?" he asked, the second-to-last time we hung out together. "the day you got fired," i replied. the truth is, it has been complicated for a lot longer than that. but we were able to ignore it while we were still able to see each other every day, and it was a lot easier to suspend reality in denial as long as possible, given the circumstances. i've alluded to this situation with my friend for a while, now. the specific reasons why things snowballed into the mess it became aren't really all that important. it all comes down to the fact of life that all relationships are like baking. too much of this or too little of that, and it all falls apart. it's only when you've got the right mix of ingredients in the right quantity, in the right environment, is it destined reach it's full potential and come out a nice, gooey cinnamon roll or crusty baguette or even banana bread. baking references aside, here's to you dan...my best friend and partner-in-crime through so many work days and business trips over the past several years. we encouraged bad behaviour in each other, shared a lot of memorable experiences together, and got away with it for as long as we could. maybe one day, it can be banana bread again...but for now, i'll just appreciate that i had the opportunity to add you to the very short list of people that i can call a friend and mean it it with all my heart. that will never change. you are a good person and deserve all the happiness, success and contentment that life presents you. take care. camilles (8:43am, 8.11.08)
 g o o d t h i n g we went to another wedding yesterday. our friends bo and kristin, and it was lovely. there's nothing quite like a wedding to remind you how lucky you are to have found a good mate. and jeff's friends certainly weren't going to let him forget it! someone overheard me mention running to wienerschnitzel immediately after the ceremony to grab a bite to eat before heading over to the reception...jeff! hang on to that woman! jeff talked about how i'm a serious beer drinker, and we've got plans for the great american beer festival in october...jeff! hang on to that woman! i trailed outside with the rest of the boys to enjoy a stinky cigar...jeff! hang on to that woman! yeah, yeah...so somehow i've tricked people into thinking i'm someone worth hanging on to. but what THEY all don't realize is how i'm really the lucky one to have snagged such a wonderful guy. how it is that i found someone who is so full of sweetness and supportiveness and genuine love for me, i'll never know. but it's something i know i can't take for granted, and should do everything i can to make sure he knows how much i appreciate him every single day. camilles (8:38pm, 8.10.08)
i was talking with trista earlier today, and we discovered that we have both inherited the worry gene from our dad. we are such worriers, that our significant others make fun of us about it. sometimes, i have a really hard time accepting that i can't undo the things that are already done in life. and i really hate when i can't live up to my own expectations. but we don't always have a say in the things that go on around us in life. and we just have to accept it. camilles (9:53pm, 8.7.08)
 i h a v e a c r u s h . . . on a serial killer. ok. an imaginary serial killer, but dexter, you sure make me smile. camilles (8:08pm, 8.6.08)
 h a v e i m e n t i o n e d ? how much our place sucks, sometimes? click on the picture above, and you'll see my latest discovery. when i got home, it was 82 degrees, so i decided to run the a/c. i went to close the door in the second bedroom to keep the room cool, but the door wouldn't close. our awesome place has settled so much to one side, the door doesn't fit in the frame anymore. i managed to shove the door closed, but it made me mad. and speaking of the a/c, when we went to run it during the first heat wave this summer, surprise, surprise...all the freon had leaked out. for the second time since we've lived here. this place sucks. in happier news, i found out a little article i rewrote for a magazine that is based in cabo got published. nothing that i was paid for, and as it was basically a rewrite of a journal entry i had posted here several months back, it really isn't a fine example of literary genius...but i have to admit that it is fun to see the words i wrote and pictures i took in actual print. ok. i've only seen the .pdf. and the very first picture in the article was reversed so all the words on the race car are backwards. and they made a few edits i'm not so excited about (including adding a typo or two)...but whatever. first an interview with me and giant photo in an industry mag. and now i'm now a published travel writer. all in the first 7 months of the year. ha ha! p.s. my husband is adorable. camilles (9:15pm, 8.4.08)
 t h a t's l i f e it's late afternoon, and i'm watching "straight talk" (terrible!) on CMT and drinking a mimosa made from oj and flat champagne (which i fizzed up with a little sparkling water). i survived inventory, and was actually out early enough to join my husband and l for dinner at neighborhood downtown. this weekend hasn't been particularly productive, but we saw family for dinner last night, managed to visit the swap meet, did a little shopping, napped, slept in, and went for a motorcycle ride:
 jeff is helping clark install a bathtub, so i guess i probably should get off my rear end and try to do something a little more useful. happy august! here's to another exciting, eye-opening month. camilles (4:12pm, 8.3.08)
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Jeff
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