Yesterday was amazing. I wish I had pictures. Basically, it started when I spent like 2 hours getting ready for this art opening at Barnsdall where my friend Denise Uyehara was showing work. I put on a skirt! And I put on make-up, and did my hair so that my bangs weren't flying straight up. I don't know what got into me, I was like, "If I am going to an art opening, I'm going to look freaking pretentious and badass."

I looked so good. If only I had pictures.

The Barnsdall was really happening. Tons of folks were there and there were vendors outside the museum. There was a woman selling cute handmade stuff like cute purses and pins that she made. And she was like, "You have good style. You are like those Japanese fruits. I would love if you modelled for my site."

In my head I was screaming: Me? A model? You mean I don't need Tyra Banks validation to be a model?!!?!

"Oh, I would love that," I said in a really calm voice (like people had said this to me all the time).

Then I ran into my friends and was screaming to them, "Oh my god! Someone thinks I should be a model! Holy shit!"

They laughed.

Then with my newfound superficial confidence I went over to Lovecraft in Silverlake to check out veggie oil cars. Because when you look as good as I was looking, you go down to Silverlake and you let all the hipsters get a good look at you.

They are so freaking cool down there, and I am glad now that I am getting a Veggie oil car when I am. Because Lovecraft really should be selling cars for more than they are. I really believe based on the research I'm doing, that they are underselling themselves. There are only a finite number of cars that can be converted because only a finite number of Mercedes Benz cars exist. And I've noticed how hard it is to buy an MB on craigslist, they get snatched up almost immediately.

They were prepping this gorgeous red two door Mercedes that Mandy Moore had bought.

I was jealous. I wanted it.

I test drove a veggie car. I looked so badass. And the car smelled like a french fry as I drove. There was a rumble under my butt from the way the car's engine is.

I got to talk to other people on the lot. I asked people who had bought cars what they thought. I got to watch them put veggie oil in their tank. The cars are so 80s, it's really awesome and brings me back to my youth when I was driving it. It reminded me so much of the Buick Regal I once had. I loved looking at the Mercedes thingie at the top of the hood as I drove around Silverlake. I felt so worldly and continental in a Reagan-Era kinda way.

I put down a deposit for a pink one (they paint them custom for you).

I may have it within a month.

I am planning to take such good care of this car. Wax and wash it all the time. Custom plates that say something like "WONGSTA" or "DA WONG" or "YO WONG" or "NO WAR" or "STOPWAR."

Picture me, driving, smelling like french fries. Looking so badass. Me, an internet model for an obscure handicrafts site.

This is my future.

I see it now.

Something is wrong with me because I've spent the last few days looking at my Myspace profile over and over again and listening to Surface's "Shower Me With Your Love." I swore I wouldn't get sucked into Myspace. But It's 3am and I am frantically adding more and more friends. And I just can't stop looking at cute pictures of myself. I'm so conceited. Come and flatter me by looking at adorable pictures with me in them.











Here I am with my little friend, Rockett Wong.












Here I am on Helena's Vespa, exuding raw animal sexuality.

















And here I am making snow angels in DC.




My cloth pads came today from the girl in North Carolina who makes them. So fast! They are soft and cushy.

I love my partner. I said to him, "Baby! I am going to start washing my own menstrual pads." He said, "That's nice sweetie. I support you."

Then he drove me to get my haircut and I got a whack ass Betty Page haircut from the sloppy hipster haircutter. My partner said, "Oh, you look like me when I was 4 years old. Don't worry, it's cute."

Aww.... You gotta love a man who doesn't mind that he's with Moe of the Three Stooges and who doesn't care that our home will look like a murder scene in a few weeks.

I did it. I bought the cloth menstrual pads off of a seller on etsy.com. (A site where people sell homemade stuff.) In approximately three weeks, I'll be bleeding all over these babies...

This one is called, "Red, White, and Bled all over." There is a similar one called, "Don't cry over spilled blood."





This one is called "voodoo doll." It's intended to be a voodoo doll for capitalism. The idea being that I will indirectly menstruate on corporate America when I don't give my money to the chemical using pad companies. Oh Yeah. Wall Street will get a dose of "Carrie" when my cycle hits next.

There are quite a few sellers who make cloth pads. I was into these because they were handsewn and really funny conceptually. It's too bad that once I start using these, that I can't really share my laughter with anyone-- I can only describe it.

I'm not going to make it through my period on two pads (though I hear it's been done), so I'll have to buy more. It's an expensive undertaking. But already I feel like there is granola running through my veins.


I am going to try to do a short film on the whole process of using these. (I'll do video simulations with ketchup and a prop pad so my audience doesn't get as nauseous.) I don't think it's going to be pretty. But a great way to see if a modern feminist gal in a modern age as this can do one little thing to prevent diaper rash and leave a tinier imprint on the planet.


My superactivist friend Anida says I can have the "World's Greatest Activist Award" if I can pull this off with the veggie oil car.

I also found out I am getting $3300 for my piece o crap car that really now is a piece of crap. Not bad. I don't know that I could have sold it for that much otherwise. Not in this market.

It's nuts trying to find a car that I can convert to Veggie. Because old 80s Mercedes Benz are the only cars that you can get affordable used, and being one of the few cars that run on diesel-- they are really at a premium. Most of the MBs that are affordable seem to disappear the same day they get posted! Some people are selling MBs with more miles than my Buick for over 4K. Freaking crazy.

I called the folks at lovecraft in Silverlake, one of the few, maybe only, places in LA that does biodiesel conversion. They said that they sell converted cars but are currently oversold and keep a waiting list for people who are waiting for cars to arrive. They have a car now that's an old MB 300 SD. It's $5300! Yikes! I am really counting on the cheap/free oil to make the investment worth it. Lovecraft actually plans to have a pump soon with waste veggie oil. Only $1.50 a gallon to fill up! I'm there! And they are working on "delivery" systems to get oil to drivers.

Yep, it's totalled. I'm just happy that I wasn't just parking the car when the hit and run driver backed into it. I'd be dead.

We found an eyewitness who says that a man in a green mini van backed into it, came out, assessed the damage and did a messy three point turn and sped out of there, taking a street sign down with him.

Oh well, onward to the vegetable oil car.

I found a new favorite guerilla art project. Vandalism by yarn!

I love it. I feel so archaic that I haven't done any fresh bad ass guerilla art in so long and I am totally too pooped to join the myspace craze and whatever the f technology craze there is.


While I wait for the insurance company to call me back, I will post some of my latest projects.


Here is a baby blanket that took less than a day. It's for my friend Joan who had a baby a few months ago. I used a big hook and three strands of acrylic in a triple crochet stitch. It was fast and easy. I think I'll make a few of these to bust through my cheap acrylic stash! I think the key is the color combos. Pick the right colors and it looks that much better.

and here is my personalized tag...




This was a great and easy project.


My friend Eryn Ramirez from high school is now a mom of two and does home loans. She also just bought me a book off my amazon wishlist!

Eryn is so awesome, I am so proud of her. We grew up just blocks away from each other. She wanted me to let you know that she does home loans all over California, even LA. I am several decades away from buying my mansion in Malibu, but am looking forward to hitting her up for some home loan money. We have a high school reunion coming up this year. Everyone will have a kid and a spouse. Except for me, living in sin and working as a performance artist!

Because she was so generous to give me a gift, I made her this beautiful neck warmer. It was supposed to be a scarf but I was running out of yarn. It was my first attempt at flowers or a neckwarmer.





It looks kind of like a neckbrace here, but it's really cute, I swear. Here's another angle of it.





Yay Hipster DIY gifts!

So, yesterday I was taking around my friend Jackie who is visiting from NY. She was here visiting her friend Charity... who just so happens to be the girl in the below clip.




Small world eh? I remembered seeing her in this Talk Soup clip over winter break and as soon as she told me she was on "NEXT" I was like, "Oh my god! Are you the girl who fell of the bus?!" She's as kooky in real life as in the clip. A bigger trip than yours truly.

I was driving both of them around since I was the only one with a car. And we were talking about being carless, and I was saying how much I hate driving which is why most of the week my car sits in the carport and whenever I can walk or bike, I do that. Someone dinked my car once and it was in the shop for a couple weeks. I took the car rental money and pocketed it, and bused and biked around. And life didn't come crashing down on me. It was just quite, perfectly fine.

I even said some really prophetic words to the two of them: "I sometimes wish that somebody would just take this car from me. It's such a financial burden. Then I could just share my boyfriend's car and cut down on a whole lot of expenses. Or have an excuse to get a prius. Or just live life without the car."

"Please somebody, take this car from me."

Famous last words.

Today I parked my car in front of Leilani's and we carpooled to our performance workshop in San Pedro. We come back 5 hours later and the car is gone. POOF! The car that was parked in front of me is a brand new blue car that is severely rear ended. A street sign that was behind where I parked was knocked to the ground. Broken glass was the only evidence my car was there. Markings of metal scraping on the asphalt.

Where the heck was my car?!

As you can imagine, when your car is gone from where it once was, it's totally a dislocating experience. I handled it well. I was like, "Huh. Where is my car?" A few years ago, I would have started crying and screaming to 911 about it. But I was cool and collected.

Even if it was stolen, or hit and towed away, I wasn't concerned about "Oh my poor baby car" as much as I was concered that there is a portable record player, a borrowed overhead projector, a vintage slide projector, every costume and prop for "Free?" in the car.

The LAPD was so assholish and useless in the matter. They had no record of an accident or that the car had been towed. They refused to come out to survey the scene. So I had to file a stolen vehicle report by phone. Yeah, because someone really wants to steal my clunky Buick Regal.

These street sign people came by to fix the sign that came down (proof that someone knew of some kind of accident that had happened there) and were able to help me track my car down in an impound lot.

When I called the impound lot, they told me that my car was "blocking a driveway" (total bullshit) and that damage was "360." Also that it would cost something crazy like $177 a night for every night it was there. I've never had to deal with impound. What a freaking pain in the ass. First of all, I was not blocking a driveway, so I don't know what they were smoking. And second, what the heck is 360 damage? Is it 360 scratches? or is it 360 degrees that the car is totalled? They were such jerkos. Vague money sucking jerkos.

Then I called the police and finally they had in their computers that some dumbass hit my car and created this huge collision. But of course, if I want a copy of the report that might give more information as to the driver and what happened exactly, I'd have to order a report and wait weeks for it to arrive.

So here is where this long story leaves me....

Basically, I am carless. And the things that most bum me out is the fact that I still had half a tank of gas in the car (approx retail value $25), just had my old coolant drained by the sleeze bucket guys at the Sepulveda EZ Lube for $90, and also had some performance art technology in the trunk that may have been damaged in the wreck.

I'm not tripping too hard about tomorrow when I will see my "who knows what shape it's in but most likely it's totalled" car of memories at the impound lot. I have a feeling my insurance will give me the blue book value of the car. Meaning I can find new wheels to ride around in.

I am already ripe with excitement. What will my new car look like? My new license plate? Will I make the jump and get the Prius? Will I do biodiesel? How badass would I be with a biodiesel car? Where in my neighborhood will I find the vegetable oil to power my new veggie oil car? What if I just give up on cars altogether and bike and bus it all the way? Or use my boyfriend's car and enter further into a pseudo marriage?

I'm researching biodiesel now. If I end up doing that, the reusable menstrual pads, the bikes, and the crochet-- you can officially hand me the hippie stick.

Proof that the Asian American movement never got to Odessa, Florida.



It's a sad day when Janice Dickinson has her shit more together than this girl.

So last night I was trying to finish up this essay for a feminist anthology being edited by Melody Berger of the F-Word Zine. It's taken me like eight years already to put a two page ending on it. Why has it taken so long? Yarn. That's why. What should have taken a couple hours to wrap up took an entire weekend because I was too busy looking at yarn online.

In fact, last night I had to IM Wes Kim at 3am (he had left it on but was not awake) because I found myself wandering around his wife's yarn stash blog and then her knitting blog and I was laughing out loud. Laughing out loud at pictures of socks and knit bonnets.

I was IMing Wes, "Please help me! It's 3AM and I am laughing at pictures of Jessica's yarn."

But he was asleep, as was most the world. Nobody could help me.

I finished my essay at 4am, emailed it and couldn't sleep til 6am. Why? Because I was visualizing color patterns in my head.









Here is another part of my stash that I neglected to include in my already robust collection.


I also found a Yarnaholics support group online. I am not alone. Though it does concern me that these so- called "Yarnaholics" own less than me. My comments appear on page 24 of the thread. It is warming to know I am not the only one. It's so easy to feel so alone with all this yarn.


My partner (ooh! look how PC I am) rented this documentary about Amish kids called "The Devils Playground." A lot of footage of Amish kids in their Amish clothes drinking beer and doing meth. It was the most unreal thing I've ever seen. There are Amish kids selling crank to each other. What's "crank"? Yeah, I don't know... you'd have to be Amish to know. There was one Amish kid so messed up on meth that I couldn't understand him, he was literally a sloth. He said he spent all his money on meth. $100 a day.

So I decided, that even though I have a habit, a problem if you will, at least it's not as bad as Crystal Meth." Wes Kim said, "That's the catchphrase of the year."


Benefits of Yarn Hoarding over being a Meth Addict

Yarn will not make my teeth fall out.

I will not accidentally light myself on fire bidding on yarn on ebay.

I may become anti-social, but my speech will not slur as badly as a meth addict's will.

I will not lose my chances of getting a job because of my yarn addiction... well, I have a better chance of getting a job over a meth addict.

I will not sell my body for yarn... yet.


Yarn will not make my face look like this...









After reviewing this list with myself, I decided/rationalized that it was a-ok for me to add some higher quality yarns to my collection. Here is a recent acquisition from ebay today. I had to get it, I am going to make something for my dear mother with yarn in this lot.




I can quit whenever I want. I swear.

So my swollen arm from crocheting so much did not stop me from picking up a knitting project earlier this week. Even though, what was I doing knitting, when I was already two days behind on a very important deadline? And this morning, I won over 40 knitting needles from ebay. I don't need the needles really, because I already won a lot of the same size last week. It's just that these were bamboo, and I have to have bamboo.

And yesterday the library called to tell the books I requested on knitting and crochet were in and so in the rain I rushed over, even though I hate driving in the rain, and even was reading the books on the car ride home. Cars were honking, because I didn't move at the green light, because my head was down at the passenger seat where I was studying knitting patterns and diagrams.

And today I ran to Michael's with my 30% off coupon convinced I needed to buy something, there had to be some yarn, some needle, something that I don't own yet. But as it turns out, I own almost every kind of yarn there is at Michaels. But there had to be something I didn't own yet. There had to be. I went up and down the aisles trying to figure out what to buy and settled on a stitch counter. The one thing at Michaels that I don't yet seem to own.

And last week I picked up a lot of yarn I won on ebay from a seller in Burbank and didn't bring it into the house because my boyfriend was home and I was afraid he would get mad at me for bringing more yarn in the house, so I kept it in the car and have been bringing it up slowly, one skein at a time, under my jacket, so he doesn't notice that our entire home is being eclipsed by the shadow of merino wool.

And yesterday another huge lot of yarn I won came in the mail and as I opened it my fingers trembled in excitement. My blood moved so fast through my body, as those skeins of chenille yarn looked back at me I thought I was walking on air. I was flying.

And I count down the days til Sunday when Michael's puts a 40% off coupon in the Sunday paper. Two weeks ago they didn't put an ad in and I shook every section of the paper loose screaming, "Goddammit! I know you are in here" the way a coke addict will just suck every piece of dust off the table when he's out, then start licking the table. I went to Leilani's and shooke her paper loose, after all it had to be a mistake. Someone had the coupon. And it was mine.

And I find myself applying for grants, for my performance art, but really I want the grants so I can buy more yarn. And buy the entire second floor of Michaels.

And please god, if you are reading this, please buy me the crafty books off my wishlist. I'll do anything. I'll even... I'll even....

Please baby I need it. Please baby, be good to me. I can quit anytime I want, I need it, I need it. Just one more, please baby.... just one more....

My hand is sore from compulsive crocheting. I need to take a break. I also had another relapse and bid and won another estate of yarn. This lot includes hooks and needles. Someone help me before I get swallowed up by more yarn.



Here is Jin's finished shrug. She liked it a lot! It fit her well and she looked quite Fiona Apple-esque. My most complex crochet creation to date! Total it took about 5 hours which I did on and off, in traffic, during a show, at a party talking to friends, etc. It was basically a wide scarf taken in for sleeves with fringe crocheted at the wrists. Very easy!

I am going back to knitting for a week while my hands recover. I can barely type....

For my novel, I have scenes that take place in a Chinese owned laundry. I tried to google "Chinese Laundry signs" to see if I could get some images to stimulate my writing. In particular, I wanted to see signs inside a laundry. Instead, all I get are search results of racist jokes about Chinese owned laundries.

Terrible.

My father called me yesterday afternoon to tell me that he had met people who had seen my commercial. He said in an urgent voice, "Let us know as soon as you see it."

I don't quite understand why he doesn't understand that I don't get any TV stations and would never know when it airs. Nor do I really care when it airs. He's been down here on many occassion. He knows, I think, that I don't really watch tv. I'm too busy working on my big bad ass touring career-- what should really be making them excited.

"Let us know as soon as you know when it's going to air!"

It's like this commercial to them, is as important as a baby, or something really life shaking, earth shattering. And somehow to my family, this commercial is greater than any other accomplishment I have ever achieved. Why? Because it's on tv. The greatest human validator of them all.



Watch what makes my parents so proud. What makes every hellish day in Los Angeles living so worth it.

I am the power. The glory. The eskimo on the far right.

Ah yes! The days of clunky html files and resizing photos are over! Come and get me world! I have a freaking real blog! Thanks Wes Kim for being bored and geeky enough to set this up for me.

...it's her friend Wes who's setting up her new blog. She'll be back soon though.

-- Wes