Thought Provoking Discussion

I want to start a discussion and in order to do so I can't really write about the waste-of-time sample sale that I'm coming from, the annoying day at work or even my trip to L.A.. If my attention starved ego wants comments, I need something interesting to write...err...blog about.

What's interesting about the commute home on a crowded subway? What's interesting about the blistering pain in my feet or the splitting headache that I have? You're correct - nothing, but it can be. Some of the best novels ever written are based on everyday events of everyday lives. Maybe if I lost the pretense of "me" I'd be able to write more interestingly - changing the names and revealing the lives of people around me. Yet, I still want to have friends to talk to and haven't come up with a clever pseudonym to exhibit my innermost thoughts, crazy ideas and intense feelings to the world.

But what if I did? What if I become the blogger that gets published? What if I become a household name by transcribing my life story? What if nobody wants to read it?

Until I have the courage to put my thoughts through a word processor, they will be locked in the sanctums of my head, my heart and a gazillion emails, notes, letters, photos and other such nonsense. For now, I'll just be Alla, a tax accountant, event planner and blogger on a quest to discover what it is that I really want to do with my life....so much for a thought provoking post.

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Lily's Bachelorette

Goodbye Malibu

I want to be (Malibu) Barbie...the B*!?@ has everything!

...The beautiful house on a cliff overlooking Pacific Ocean with a three car garage and a 50 car driveway, because you never know who might show up...

...As our LA trip is coming to a close I'm beginning to like it more and more...the weather is (finally) gorgeous...and so is the lifestyle...a girl can dream....

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City of Angels

I've now been in Los Angeles for three day and thus far I'm still not impressed. Yes, Rodeo Drive and Hollywood Hills, the Kodak Theater and Bel Air are all nice; as is seeing D-List celebirties like a former Golden Girl and Larry Birkhead, but my heart belongs to NY!

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"The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary." -Vince Lombardi

Krassota Russkogo Yazika :-)

I < \ 3 New York

Not on Mondays, not when it takes me 2 hours to get home, not when it's cold and miserable outside. As with anyone, I have a love-hate relationship with New York. Of course, I love it, but on days like today - I just want to strangle it.

How can a commuter city such as New York have such terrible transportation? It's unreliable, undependable and uncomfortable. With the amount of people pushing me on the subway each morning and at a $2 fare, you'd think we could fix the system - nah. Who needs that?

Something happens at least once a week and generally on a Monday morning when I have to be at work at 8:45 for a meeting. Sometimes it's at night, like today. And every so often it's more than once a week!

Driving isn't better - I drove to and from downtown Brooklyn and then downtown Manhattan for years and that sucks too. Considering that the only thing I can do right now is play "brickbreaker" (because I don't have a book to read) or write, rather type on my BB, I choose the latter. Although, like most of my posts (especially lately) its more complaining than writing! Ooh air - chk mail time, l8r!

Another one from my sis . . .

1. Красивую женщину можно целовать без конца и не разу не попасть в одно и то же место. Януш Макарчик.
2. Женщина - это человеческое существо, которое одевается, болтает и раздевается. Вольтер.
3. Для женитьбы нужны двое - одинокая девушка и озабоченная мать. NN
4. Даже самые красивые ноги, где-нибудь заканчиваются. Юлиан Тувим.
5. Он любит её больше, чем всех других, но ему нужны другие, чтобы в этом удостовериться. Натали Клиффорд Барни.
6. Не врывайся к жене с криком "Я всё знаю!", а то она чего доброго спросит тебя, в каком году была битва при Трафальгаре. "Пшекруй"
7. Не бегай ни за мужчиной, ни за трамваем. Всегда придёт следующий. Итальянское изречение.
8. Мужчины, которые относятся к женщинам с наибольшим почтением, редко пользуются у них наибольшим успехом. Джозеф Аддисон.
9. Из двух зол выбирай более смазливое. Кэролайн Уэллс.
10. Мир тесен: в конце концов, все мы встретимся в постели. Бриджит Бардо

I <3 New York

Just walking around in New York, it's amazing the things you will see, I just wish I had a better camera. . .(hint, hint)

A brick wall in SoHo, a modeling shoot outside Bloomies (I was trying to be incospicuous and shoot without a flash) and a Saks display in the NY rain. . .

Mother's Day

with Mommy Dearest at Kittichai and $18 Mimosas :-)

April showers won't let up, although it’s May. My head is spinning and I cannot concentrate on anything. Maybe there are no selfless deeds, but does everything have to have an ulterior motive behind it? Can't you just be nice to your friends? Your family? I feel like I'm rambling...I probably am. . .

. . .going back to the technology ramble, I had lunch with a friend today whom I haven't seen in the last 10 years. She came down from Chicago for only a day and unfotunately, we missed each other yesterday. We went to Camp Rising Sun together in 1998 and lost touch over the years. There were 50+ other people that went to camp with us from all over the world that I lost contact with until recently when I got an invitation to a group on Facebook followed by friend requests. We reconnected and a bunk mate from Norway was even here a few weeks ago. It was so great seeing all these grown-up women with carreers and college degrees, married, engaged, etc. Since I last remember them we were 14 - 15 year old teenagers.

On odnoklassniki I found a girl who lived in my building and went to my school. We were inseparable. Two of my 1st grade classmates found me - one is a journalist in Kiev and one does site design. The world is getting much smaller and although there are [many] downsides, there are many positives too. The same friend that I saw today, posted a status message on FB about being frustrated with her taxes and seeing that, I emailed her and helped her out with her returns. I emailed my cousin in Israel since he's in the army and I have no other contact with him. I have a blog and when I was about 15 I started writing a book until my computer crashed and died taking my hours of writing of prose, poetry and other randomness with it. Until I have that willpower again, it's just musings on this pointless blog with all of its three readers.

From the Labyrynths of the net . . .

I read this a while back, but my sister just emailed it to me and I share:

Тихо падает бакс,
мерно тикают клокс...
Настроение сакс,
словно нюхаю сокс.

Залетел свежий эйр
сквозь балконную доор.
Мне постричь бы свой хэйр,
да побриться уанс мор.

С похмела ноет хэд –
был вчера трудный дэй.
Все какое-то бэд,
все какое-то грэй...

Настроение файн,
хоть за окнами колд.
Хоть успехов э литл,
а уж 40 еарз олд.

Скоро вновь будет спринг,
будет солнце нам шайн.
Будут птицы нам синг,
в целом-трули дивайн!

Чем травить себе соул,
лучше ставить на лак:
Снять на улице герл
а потом ее фак.

Настроение найс,
но кругом братцы шит.
И повысили прайс,
на Тверской факинг стрит.

Обломали, блин, кайф,
вся надежда на хэнд.
Вот такая, блин, лайф!
Вот такой хэппи энд!

Always Connected - To Txt or Not to Txt

I have always been a fan of modern technology and while I may not have ever been the first to get a beeper, a computer or a blackberry, once I acquired them I became a rather proficient user. No, I cannot write code or take apart a cell phone, but I love the world wide web, txt msging and other such nonsense. If something exists on the internet, I am the girl to find it - I will Google and Wiki anything and everything that comes to mind. My original AOL profile from about 10 years ago listed "America Offline" as hobbies and with each passing year, I find myself glued to a computer screen more and more - school required it, work requires it and now even personal life requires it.

I am not sure how we survived without email and cell phones even ten short years ago. Today, you cannot survive without at least 4 email accounts (aol, gmail, hotmail, yahoo), 2 social network accounts (facebook, myspace, odnoklassniki), 3 chat accounts (aim, gTalk, ICQ) and don't forget things like evite.com, nyt.com, yourfavoriteblogs.com, and the list gets longer and longer. While sites like digsby try to rectify the jumble by consolidating all of our email, chat and social networks, we still have 3 browser windows open with 7 tabs each.

With the proliferation of PDAs and other mobile devices text messaging is becoming pretty much the ONLY form of communication (amongst young people). Nobody calls anymore it's TXT, TXT, TXT to the familiar "bzzzzzzzzzz" or your vibrate setting. I feel that I'm the only person that uses punctuation in text messages, but it's bad because I will not send a work email or type an essay without running spell check and erroneous text messages are running rampant. And as I learned from Wikipidea this morning (thanks to a link that someone shared via e-mail and I'm now posting on my blog) it is an addictive vice.

Text messaging was reported to have addictive tendencies by the Global Messaging Survey by Nokia in 2001 and was confirmed to be addictive by the study at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium in 2004. Since then the study at the Queensland University of Australia has found that text messaging is the most addictive digital service on mobile or internet, and is equivalent in addictiveness to cigarette smoking. The text reception habit introduces a need to remain connected, called "Reachability". . .

. . .A Malaysian court had ruled that it is legal to divorce through the use of text messaging as long as you are clear and unequivocal.

Sometimes, I love being "disconnected" when on vacation or leaving a phone at home on a random Tuesday. Yet, I feel naked and strange. I took my laptop with me on my last vacation and uploaded pictures daily. With my "berry" not working normally for a few days, I felt like I was going nuts (and still am), but isn't it nice to pick up the phone and actually say, "Hello?" Isn't it wonderful to laugh in the presence of old friends as you kick back and enjoy a cocktail? Isn't it great to feel the warmth of a lover's touch on your skin? And as much instant communication as we may have they will never replace the comfort of a human being. Click.

Rereading The Second Neurotic's Notebook

by Mignon McLaughlin

Many beautiful women have been made happy by their own beauty, but no intelligent woman has ever been made happy by her own intelligence.

When a man falls in love, he wants to go to bed. When a woman falls in love, she wants to talk about it.

With two people who can really talk to each other, sex is no more than a marvelous bonus. And vice versa.

Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway.

Bang Bang

Finally watched Kill Bill on Friday and although I fell asleep with 15 minutes left to go, I cannot get this song out of my head. It kind of got to me and I'm even not sure why. Given the never-ending rain, perhaps I'll finish the 15 minutes left and watch Volume II and maybe even watch Pulp Fiction while I'm at it.

Running with Scissors

[He] believed that anger was the crux of mental illness. He believed that anger, unless it was expressed freely, would destroy a person . . . Anger was the ground hamburger of our existence. Its versatility was inspiring. There was Anger Turned Inward, Repressed Anger, Misguided Anger. There were Acts Made in Anger, Things Said in Anger and people who might very well die if they didn’t Face their Anger.

For exactly the same reason, it is sometimes satisfying to cut yourself and bleed. On those gray days where eight in the morning looks no different from noon and nothing happened and nothing is going to happen and you’re washing a glass in the sink and it breaks—accidentally—and punctures your skin. And then theirs is this shocking red, the brightest thing in the day, so vibrant it buzzes, this blood of yours. That is okay sometimes because at least you know you’re alive.

Ours had become a seesaw relationship, and right now it was all saw.

I have all these things to worry about on top of [ ] school. It’s a wonder I’m even alive. Sometimes I think that. I think that I can’t believe I haven’t killed myself. But there’s something in me that just keeps going on. I think that it has something to do with tomorrow, that there’s always one, and that everything can change when it comes.

Our lives are an endless stretch of misery punctuated by processed fast foods and the occasional crisis or amusing curiosity.

That’s kind of how I felt. Sure, I would’ve liked for things to have been different. But¸ roll of the eyes, what can you do? Shrug.

I just finished a very interesting memoir that read like a novel. Augusten Burroughs’s childhood was very berserk and unreal, but it made me grateful for everything that I have, despite my own bouts with weirdness, the rainy weather outside and the questioning of my own thoughts. Above are a few lines (in chronological order) that kind of hit home or stood out. I’m a blogger, so I share with the world. Who has anything else [good] for me to read?

С Днём Победы!

For everyone that fought for peace. . .

It's Not Fair!

So What? - Fairness, idealism and other atrocities - Los Angeles Times

It's Spring again . . .

The showers are gone, it's sunny and I'm back at work and sleepy. For some strange reason I just couldn't fall asleep last night. At 4:15 am, I was still up despite the fact that I had an 8:45 meeting this morning. I'm not sure if it's the mosquito that kept biting me, my full stomach or my [random] thoughts that just wouldn't let me rest. So now it's Monday morning, I have a pile of work, no desire to do it and my eyes are closing and my blackberry is dead until my new one comes (hopefully tomorrow) - Sounds like a beginning of a great week . . .

. . . the weekend was busy, yet fun - went to see Made of Honor, attended a surprise birthday party for another friend and topped it off with brunch at Blinnaya and another birthday dinner. So another weekend bit the dust and now we are at the beginning of yet another looong week - followed by more birthday celebrations, taping of love stories and whatever else just might come up.

Back to [ ] One . . . AGAIN

So say you have a passion and truly enjoy the headache that most people fear. It has nothing to do with your sadist ways. Maybe you are doing something on the side, or can't say no to a friend - but how do you set your price? Some ask and you don't quiet know what to say and you don't feel comfortable taking money from friends. Some understand and simply send you a check or a gift in the mail. But you can't keep working for free.

While it's great to know your worth and ask a fair price, when you're starting out, your friends are your clients because you can't yet rely on word of mouth. So how do you name a price for your services? Yes, you may think that you can do a good job, but you don't have the experience yet and there's no industry stardard. . .

. . . it's almost 6 p.m. on a Friday night, I need to go make some plans instead of drone on here. . .going dress shopping with a friend tomorrow, wooohooo! Kleinfelds and Pronovias here we come at 9:30 am on a Saturday morning :-). . .

DISCLAIMER:
ANYONE WHO I AM HELPING OUT, I'M GLAD TO DO IT, I PROMISE (AND WILL GLADLY HELP WITH ANYTHING THAT I CAN, PROVIDED THAT I HAVE THE TIME) :-)