(no subject)

Yay! It's nice outside again! Went outside with fannishly for a little dinner picnic in the park next to the library. Next time must remember to either go early to catch more sun (I adore sun, I could bask for hours) or to bring a warm jacket because the nights are still a little chilly. And then we walked up and down the teeny weeny downtown and just peeked in random stores. New club! With no cover charge! Ergo, free dancing without having to drive up to the city and worry about all that stuff! Joy!

I love my dinky little city, which is neither cool nor cosmopolitan. It's just the right size for me, with grass and trees and strange little stores that I can pop into. I feel local here, and I like that. I suppose I am not much of a big city person, even though I like big cities, because they're fun to explore. But I like getting to know places, finding stores in the alleys, knowing the good, unknown restaurants and things like that. So while I like visiting different places, sometimes it's annoying doing the tourist thing, because underneath all that, there's a real, living city underneath, and I feel that that's how you get the sense of a place. Not that I dislike going to museums and historical monuments and the like, because I adore them. But I also want to know where the best place to buy bread is, where the hidden ice cream store is, which place makes their own pasta, or whatnot.

Speaking of which, I finally ventured into the bead store around here, and they all sorts of nifty things! I really want a sari now. I loooove that fabric, so gorgeous. I always sort of wonder if people think I'm strange because I am a random Chinese girl who really likes Indian things (well, food and traditional clothing and the colors at least), but then, I like Japanese things and Chinese things and homestyle American things (meatloaf! It's all about the meatloaf!) and Californian and French and Italian and... Must console myself that simply liking other cultures is not a bad thing and not appropriation by default. It's always strange how political and academic notions like cultural appropriation and exoticism is personal for me (and many other people, of course). Ditto with feminism. I suppose that's why it always takes me by surprise when people disagree with those notions, because they are so woven into the way I look at things, the way I act.

Ahem. Anyhow, the bead store has lessons, which I desperately want to take. Wire coiling! So neat! Alas, it is $40.00 a lesson.

Both fannishly and I are a bit short on money now, so we're sitting around trying to brainstorm how to go out and do things without spending money, because sometimes I just want to go out and feel like I am going out isntead of perpetually sitting on the couch. I have enough for gas money, luckily. Also, luckily, a lot of things are within walking distance, thanks to my lovely, lovely apartment location.

My list currently consists of things like:

- go to the really posh outdoor mall dressed up and made up to the nines and walk around window shopping and pretending I'm so filthy rich that I don't need to buy anything. Also, touch lots of rich fabrics, because I like them. Lala, salespeople hate me.
- go to a bookstore and camp out and ogle at all the books
- go to the library
- eat in the park and bask
- walk around downtown and pop into random stores
- go to Andronico's and eat all the cheese samples (um, yes, I am rather shameless)
- go to Sephora and try on all the perfumes
- walk around another posh outdoor mall and look at all the flowers
- go dancing at the dinky local club with no cover charge (within walking distance, so no waste of gas!)
- walk to Safeway and back, just because it's beautiful weather for walking
- walk to the local farmer's market and look around at all the nifty vegetables
- go bike riding somewhere
- sneak into a rat adoption fair and play with baby ratties
- go to department stores and try on outrageously priced ballgowns

Any other ideas? Mine are sort of silly and take lots of advantage of sales samples. But I sort of figure, if you are in the right mindset, going for samples is fun too.

Brief note

As with pretty much everything in my life, trying to keep things compartmentalized isn't really working out. I.e. real life is sneaking into my LJ, LJ is sneaking into RL (the second is not quite as frightening as the first, amusingly). And I linked my LJ with my real name in an online magazine and googled myself.

Part of me sort of regrets the loss of anonymity, the other part doesn't quite. Because the me on LJ is still me (hopefully not too foreign to those of you from RL who are reading this).

Anyhow, I'd still prefer people to keep my real name off this LJ for now, even though I have linked the two. Also, I'm f-locking more entries, I find. None of the book posts or movie musing or anything like that is locked; mostly if you can't read them, you're just missing me whining about a whole lot of stuff. If anyone from RL really wants to read them, get yourself to an LJ! Not as bad as a nunnery, I swear! ;) I don't know why, but everyone that I know in real life is on Xanga. Also, I know I'm on a bit of a friending hiatus right now, for which I apologize. It's difficult enough keeping up with the flist as is, but I do drop by people's LJs every so often to see what's going on. It's always strange realizing that people not on my flist actually read my LJ and lurk. *gasp* Heh, I say that ironically because that's pretty much all I did for an entire year on LJ.

But please, always feel free to drop comments, introduce yourself, etc. And if you don't have an LJ and comment anonymously, feel free to do that, though usually I'd really appreciate it if you left a screen name or name or something.