Some "totally awesome" news

Guess who just bought a car!

Me!!

J and I have been looking at cars for the past month and decided our favorite car within our price range was a 2003-04 C-series Mercedes Benz. (Jon Hamm being the official voice of the brand played no part in my decision. I swear.) We were going to take our time looking for the right one when J emailed me at work last Thursday, telling me our little Hyundai wasn’t going to pass smog this month because…it needed a new cat converter (wah wahhhh). Since the Hyundai was always supposed to be a temporary car and we had paid so little in cash for it nearly four years ago, we decided to nix dumping money into it and instead upgrade our lives.

So we did that Thursday night after I got off work:




It went down something like this on Thursday:

5:00 pm: Leave work
5:05 pm: J picks me up at the curb. (Curb-side service. Score.)
5:25 pm: Test driving our Benz.
5:45 pm: Going over price/technicals with dealer. Bargained down $2,000.
6:05 pm: Signing paperwork
6:06 pm: Freaking out.
6:35 pm: Leaving dealership to Black Eyed Peas on the radio.

I named it Andiamo, because it purrs down the freeway at 80. And it’s shiny. So shiny. I love how shiny it is. It makes me want to rub it gingerly with a diaper and sing songs to it in a Barry White voice. In the words of Lester Burnham (he, of American Beauty fame): “It’s the car I've always wanted and now I have it. I rule!”

I never thought back in April that my financial life would be so different mere months later, but it still hasn’t sunken in that it’s mine. Sitting there, surrounded by leather, I can’t help but feel that I’m sitting in a corporate rental car or something, mine only for the weekend till I have to hand in the keys and fly home. But it’s not a rental. It’s mine. And I’m already home.

Some people wonder why, in the last year and a half, I worked hard saving. Obvi it was because with no incoming salary and the little part-time work I had not amounting to much, my savings had to stretch. Which was expected and completely fine, leaving my job to write was THE best decision of my life. In the words of Madonna, “Absolutely. No. Regrets.” *said with a deadpan expression while wearing ostentatious sequined leotard and clutching disco-inspired horse-riding whip*

Sure the compromise was inevitably going to be scrimping, but it was a small price to pay. Andiamo was worth it. I paid almost entirely cash for the car and it felt so fulfilling driving off the lot, truly owning something of value. The feeling is so different than the quick high I used to get from buying a few nice dresses from Banana. This purchase, in contrast, feels like an actual reward for all that time I spent budgeting and saving. It's like that scene in Almost Famous when Stillwater upgrades from their broken down old bus and heads down the tarmac to board their shiny new plane.

Next big purchase: A house. Probs within two years, but we’ll see. In the meantime I’ve become one of those people who looms outside of your friendly neighborhood Safeway in front of the real estate publication racks, flipping through house catalogues and carting home dozens at a time.

My Monday is my Friday

I woke up today around 6am (like I do every weekday) and began grumbling (like I do every weekday morning) about it being Monday/how much I hate waking up early/how comfortable the bed is as I awake in a small puddle of my drool/how I just want to hit snooze a COUPLE more times (and by a couple I mean about 12)/general things of that nature -- when it dawned on me:

I’m going to Cabo tomorrow. *suddenly alert, an evil smile unfurls slowly across my face as I giggle quietly, maniacally, under the covers*

Yeah, yeah, I’m excited about Mexico, but I’m also happy about my one-day work week. I’ve decided Mondays are so much better when they also double as Fridays. Perhaps the French are onto something.

Even better: today I get to leave the office for a handful of hours to head down to Palo Alto with one of my reporters to have lunch with a gaggle of litigators at their firm. (Apparently there is such a thing as a free lunch.)

After lunch I’ll have a couple more hours in the office then I’m off to pack a week’s worth of bikinis and one very large-brimmed, Elizabeth-Taylor-in-Puerto-Vallarta-circa- 1963-esque sunhat for lazing poolside. Oh and dresses and heels for salsa dancing at night. And maybe I should take boat shoes just in case I get all Old Man and The Sea on J and decide to go marlin fishing just for kicks. Ample opportunities abound south of the border.

Obvi, I won’t be posting for the next week or so, but I’ll share pictures (and hopefully some great stories) when I’m back. Cheers!

Victory is mine

Guess who got a call yesterday for that editorial job? Me! I guess the stars really have aligned. I accepted the offer without a second thought and after getting off the phone I glided into my living room to tell J the good news. It basically looked like the final scene of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, except my good news came minus the headbands and tunics and rolling hills and colorful banners (unfortunately):

Mystic crystal revelations, reader-friends.

So to recap: I'm working in news (like serious making-a-difference kind of news -- no fluff here), I'm No. 3 on the editorial totem pole in the newsroom, and I'm getting paid (well!) for said job (read: I can actually buy stuff now! Who wants an island??)

Let's welcome the sun into its new age.

Whatever happens in Cabo...

...will most likely show up on this blog, recounted in painstaking humorous detail, because guess who's flying to Cabo San Lucas in August?

ME!!!!!!!

J and I just booked our vacation package yesterday and I'm so excited my head feels like it's going to explode -- poof! -- into a cloud of Pixie Stick dust. (My sugar high is apparently not helping).

I've been all over Mexico countless times (Cancun, Mexico City, La Paz, Guadalajara, et. al.), but in all of my 28 years I have yet to visit Cabo. And so I'll share with you the extent of my knowledge:

What little I know of Cabo can be chalked up to that third episode (aptly titled "Whatever Happens in Cabo") of Laguna Beach Season 1 (yes, I am a huge Laguna Beach fan, The Hills pales in comparison to the splendor of its predecessor, and don't pretend you never obsessively watched Laguna Beach either.) Clearly, watching Stephen yell "Slut!" to a drunk, dancing-on-the-bar-in-a-miniskirt-with-no-underwear Kristen Cavallari in what looked like a Senor Frog's is not all that Cabo has to offer. Neither was the swim-up bar in the resort's pool where the Laguna Beach gringos spent their afternoons.

Originally we were going to book a week in Vegas as a post-Bar/Thank God Law School is Over/belated three-year anniversary trip, but after seeing how cheap beach destinations were, we decided Cabo would be a better way to unwind. A better way to lay like broccoli. The pricetag was unbeatable: $780/person, which includes...well...everything. Seriously. Airfare, six nights in a luxury beach resort, various amenities, and all food and drinks (including alcoholic beverages). Basically we won't have to take out our wallets the entire week we're there. We can just sun, swim and consume, which is exactly what J wants after three years of torts and civil liabilities. (Oh and I had no idea prior to us booking but our resort is the one Mtv sent the Laguna kiddies to in that spring break episode! It's fate, minus the annoying spring break crowds.)

Any fun, specific things I should check out while in Cabo? I know the ocean currents at the tip of Baja can get a little cray cray, and the last thing I want is a picture of me bear-hugging Lola stolen off Facebook by CNN as my name flashes by in the news ticker as "An American Girl Lost at Sea After a Minor Mishap While Banana Boating"....so banana boating is out. Other activities I should know about?

I am quite the salsa dancer when the right music is blasting, so I know I'll be doing that. And floating up to the pool bar multiple times a day. And shopping (how I love the peso-dollar exchange rate). And reading in a hammock on the playa. Lover's Beach also looks fantastic, so I'll probably be taking a boat ride to check it out:


All of J's classmates have flashy, expensive post-Bar trips planned after July. Some are going to Europe for a month, or taking a few weeks on a Mediterranean cruise, or going to Costa Rica till they have to start work in October. While I would have loved a month in Italy, right now a week in Cabo will more than suffice.

A bold fresh piece of humanity

Well, we made it this far. Today yours truly is 28 years young.

I never thought I'd actually be 28, as it sounded so old and mature back when I was spry, but I have to say I don't feel that much different. Not older. Not wiser (even a genius like me has limits). Definitely not more mature. When people ask "How old are you" I still blurt out, "24..." followed with a quick "Oops, er, I mean, 28." Guess this automatic response means I'll always be 24 at heart?

Anyway, I've resolved to make 28 the best year of my life. How so, you ask? I have no clue. But I will.

I'll try more things I've never done; say "yes" more than "no"; dance more; sing more; send out more of my short stories, keep chugging away at novel after novel; listen to music louder; learn to cook as well as Tony Bourdain; possibly even meet? Bourdain (I would die, that would be ah-mazing); pay homage to my youth by getting into the best physical shape of my life and finally take those professional pin-up pics I've been wanting forever; invest in an apartment complex (or five) as part of my retirement plan; force persuade J to learn the dance at the end of Dirty Dancing with me; be completely fluent in Farsi; listen to more Journey (if that's even humanely possible); be Gilda:

I want to live. Really live. I've done an excellent job of living to this point, but now I want to ramp it up a notch. I'm 28, after all. I want to go to the big annual New Orleans Jazz Festival; I want to bicycle down the length of California (and then possibly tackle bicycling cross country); I want to eat what's been called "the best sushi on the planet" at the hole-in-the-wall sushi joint Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo; I want to get seriously involved in making puppy mills illegal (I hope it helps that after this summer I'll be married to a law student lawyer); I want to go salsa dancing on a regular basis; I want to join a book club; I want to dance in a fountain and publicly blame it on the wine (only J and I would know that all I had to drink was water); I want to see a tornado in the flesh; I want to be an expat for at least a year of my life; I want to live near my brother and sister so I can stop by at a moment's notice and vice versa; I want to break bad in some way or another.

I want to go wine tasting in Santa Barbara and pretend to know what I'm talking about as I swish Zin across my palette; I want to get my books published and see my name on the spine of a copy (or three) at a bookstore; I want to go camping cross-country; I want to laugh so hard I puke (J beat me to this one); I want to read everything F. Scott Fitzgerald's ever written; I want to try going blonde for a spell just to see what I'd look like; I want to rent a sparse flat in Florence and write near an open window with a view of the Ponte Vecchio; I want to sit down with my two grandmothers (who are 98 and 85, respectively) and let them each recount their life stories into my voice-recorder, then I want to do the same with my parents; I want to drive a black Porsche 911 Carrera and feel the leather steering wheel gripped in my hands (even if it's just for a test-drive down a few miles of 101 on a slow Saturday afternoon. Hey, the sales guy doesn't need to know I'm not actually serious about buying).

Foolish? We'll see. I can't possibly accomplish all of these things and more in a year, but I can start by accomplishing some. The point is I've laid down the gauntlet. This will be the year that's going to kick me into a higher gear. Life is short; I want to experience as much as I can.

Theme song to kick-start 28: "Foolish Heart" by Journey Steve Perry, on loud.

My first Work in Progress: COMPLETED!

Let it be known that at 10:10 pm, January 30th, Crystal completed her first first manuscript, entitled "In the Hall of the Mountain King," a literary fiction novel about an ex-Nazi doctor who flees to Buenos Aires after WWII to start a new life as a cab driver under an assumed identity.

She can't come to the computer right now because she's overwhelmed with excitement and yes, she realizes it's annoying to talk about herself in the third person, but feels she's earned it now that's she's finished an entire. bloody. manuscript. (!!!) (Finishing said manuscript also entitles her to use such British dialect as "bloody" in lieu of something more crass and unrefined. She is a lady, after all.)

It's true that the clouds didn't part and God didn't speak to her in the psychedelic trip she expected upon typing that final word. But she's still frolicking about in the snow right now, basically pulling these moves in a parka on the sidewalk to share her elation with passing traffic:



J has no comment.

Of course, she realizes that the easy part is behind her. Now the REAL work begins. John Irving once said that half of his life was an act of revision. She says let the revisions begin!

Merry Christmas

Brought to you by Chris "Christmas" Rodriguez:

Let's start the week off right

Must keep the momentum going through November, people (currently at 20k words), so here's the theme for this week (be prepared to dance):

GOLDFRAPP - Ride A White Horse (rUmPeLsTiLtSkIn)

rUmPeLsTiLtSkIn | MySpace Video

A few quick thoughts:

- I die for her shoes...hairdo...makeup...everything.
- Why is this song so infectious?
- The world would be a better, more peaceful place if we each had four choreographed men in tightie whities dancing backup for us.
- I am so making a toilet paper roll microphone.