switching blogs.

for a few different reasons but mostly for my own convenience, i've decided to switch blogs. for you few die hard that still read this thing, you can find my new musings here.

what is the right thing?

we were walking through hollywood after standing in line for a few hours unsuccessfully trying to get into the price is right. "helloooooo, excuuuuuuseeeee meeeeee" we heard from a girl running towards us, looking a little disheveled with mascara streaking down her face. she'd obviously been crying and had all of her possessions in her hands. "do y'all have a phone i could borrow? i got kicked out of my room and need to call my boyfriend in san francisco." she had just run out of the hollywood guest motel.

unsure how to react, i hesitantly agreed, deciding i could take her easily if she tried to run off with my phone. she spent the next few minutes on the phone with some guy named chops, talking about a girl named apple and how some (slang words) were out to get her because she couldn't come up with the $14. after a few more minutes of bizarre conversation and feeling more uneasy about the cars slowly cruising by eyeing us, i told her we needed to get going. she wrapped up the conversation and we walked away as quickly as possible, not wanting to put ourselves in any more danger than we potentially already had.

this came after an interesting conversation from a few days prior-- if you see something sketchy happen, how would you react? most people don't do anything because they don't think it's any of their business or they don't want to have misread the situation and be wrong if there really wasn't any problem.

so we walked on. we didn't call anyone. we didn't do anything. we tried to forget it had happened. maybe she was a prostitute, maybe she wasn't. maybe she was in real danger, maybe she wasn't. we chose not to do anything. "someone has my phone number now, so if anything weird goes down, i don't want to be able to trace it back to me." we drove by about 45 minutes later and she was gone.

maybe we did the right thing, maybe we didn't. i can't help but think we didn't.

overheard in the office today

"do they still have real mermaids at disneyland? i haven't been there since i was a kid."

the endings

I know I was made to go up this mountain
Every bone in my body tells me it's right
I know I was made to go up this mountain
But I'm getting scared of heights.

--blindside, the endings

shampoo planet, take 2

"you mistake motion for growth and are lured into vexing situations."

--shampoo planet, douglas coupland, page 203

shampoo planet, take 1

"in periods of rapid personal change, we pass through life as though we are spellcast. we speak in sentences that end before finishing. we sleep heavily because we need to ask so many questions as we dream alone. we bump into others and feel bashful at recognizing souls so similar to ourselves."

--shampoo planet, douglas coupland, page 182

no, you may not take my picture.

yesterday, i went surfing. it was really fun, but i was not good at it (which i learned from my first experience last year). my friend had parked the car away from the pier we were surfing by because parking at the pier is ridiculous, so after we were done i sat and waited for him to bring the car back to load up and head out.

i pulled out a book and waited for a few minutes, when a hispanic man about my height wearing a camera around his neck approached me. in a thick accent he asked me, "excuse me miss, can i take your picture?" a little startled, i asked him to repeat the question. "why?" i asked him. "i collect pictures. for myself, personal use. not going to put it anywhere."

still very confused by his question, i eventually figured out that he had watched me and my friend rinsing off with our boards and everything, and knew that i was waiting for him to come back. he wanted to wait until my friend came back and then the hispanic guy wanted to be in the picture with me. a thousand thoughts as to why this was a terrible idea crossing my mind, i respectfully declined.