44 dead lions

I woke up before 5am this morning. That's because I fell asleep by 7pm yesterday night while watching tv in bed. I hate it, hate it when that happens, cuz it throws me out of my cycle. I didn't even brush my teeth or wash up or take off my contacts, so I woke up in the middle of nite with icky feeling. Anyways, I surfed on web for a few hours (fortunately not buying anything) and then went off to Mandarin class and learned to say "forty-four dead lions." If you knew Mandarin, you know that the pinyin of that would be sì shí sì zhi sǐ shi zi. On my way home, on Nineteenth Avenue between Lincoln and Irving, I drove by a house on fire. The fire trucks have not come yet, but there were already plenty of people both running away from the scene and running towards the scene. I didn't stop or slow down but rather felt fortunate that I didn't get stuck in the traffic jam that was sure to follow in the next few minutes. When I got home, I immediately looked out the window and was still able to see flames shooting out the the windows of the building. Pretty scary. For lunch, I ate some overcooked noodles and a couple of croquettes and drank a glass of apple juice while listening to my iTunes playing Santogold. By 2pm, I went for my haircut appointment. I told Karla at HK Hair Salon to take off 1-1/2 inch and not use clipper to cut the side - it turned out ok, maybe just a little shorter than I had anticipated but it'll grow to the right length in a week. I came home and took a shower and put in a dvd called Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School or something like that. It has Marisa Tomei in it but even that didn't keep me interested. I drifted in and out of the room, eating a Beard Papa cream puff and drinking a watermelon tapioca drink in between. When that dvd finished, I popped in Sandy Lam's Live 07 concert dvd. Sandy is my favorite HK singer - her voice is so pure and I love her image and her songs too. The fact that she chose to not sing her most popular songs at her most recent concert is so very Madonna of her - I love it. Speaking of Madonna - how many more damn days til Hard Candy comes out??? It's been like forever. I am avoiding all previews so as to not ruin any more songs. I am actually thinking I should take the 29th off just so I can enjoy the cd and all the new songs that day. Anyways, while I was watching the dvds, the wind was doing damage outside, knocking down part of an old fence in my backyard. Despite the blue sky, the wind is relentless today, and the trees are swaying every which way, holding on for dear life. I bet there will be at least a few trees in Golden Gate Park today that'll go down. Just a few days ago, a woman was at Stern Grove putting her dogs in her car when a tree branch fell and killed her. Her dogs were okay. I think when you die like that, it really is your time to go - it's too freakish of an accident. I mean, you think if the branch just fell a little to the left or to the right or a minute earlier or a minute later, she would be fine. Yup, death is unpredictable. Life is unpredictable. Well maybe except my life. My life is pretty predictable. Like I can almost predict what my life will be like in five years or in ten years. And it's not good. But hey, I stray from the topic of this post, which is just to record down my Saturday, which, after a dinner at home of pumpkin with spareribs, is ending with my lying in bed watching The Kite Runner and mouthing repeatedly in mandarin "44 dead lions." Thank goodness I sleep alone or else it will be pretty odd. This Saturday wasn't a great day. It was a mundane day, and that's precisely why I chose to record it down, for its tedium. It's like Warhol filming the front of a building. Tedium as art. Trust me - one day you'll get it, and enjoy it. Consider this an advance art lesson.