STICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW

24 weeks from tomorrow I will be on a plane set towards England with Ben and Amber. I am terribly excited by the prospect of it. I only wish that there was more going on for me now. Actually, one should be careful what they wish for, they just might get it! I guess I am feeling fairly satisfied at the moment.

The weather is slightly cooler today than it has been. It feels like it could possibly be autumn instead of mid-summer. It's a good thing, too. There are still massive fires burning in the vicinity sort of near where I live. Ben said that all we need now on top of the supermarket strike, bus strike and fires is an earthquake. At around 3:45 this afternoon we had a 3.7 on the Richter scale. Ben always gets what he wants!

I've sort of been looking for a new job. I updated my resume and portfolio, and I've been looking at listings and submitted my resume to a few places. Things have calmed down here at my present job. We recently did a photo shoot for a new line of products that went really well. The company even used me and the other graphic artist as models; it was really fun. I was dressed as a schoolgirl in some of the shots. Also, we are working on a new design campaign for 2004 that is really kind of fun. So I can't complain too much. But I have come to the realisation that I live so close to the community college that I'd be a fool to not take a class fairly soon. I've decided to learn web design properly. There are so many job listings for web/graphic designers. Especially in London. I hope that Ben will go to school with me, too.

My birthday kicked major booty this year. It was so much fun and every present I received was wonderful and had a very nice dinner at The Great Greek restaurant in Sherman Oaks with family and friends. Marianna and I went shopping all day and it was so liberating to not have a bored money-conscious companion to shop with. Marianna's visit here was so good, and went by way too fast. It's nice to know that I will have such a nice ready-made companion when Ben and I relocate to London (and a shopping pal when we visit in 24 weeks!)

In the pursuit of OTR, I had lost all the weight that I wanted to lose by Thanksgiving by the time it was my birthday (nearly), then gained back a few pounds, then lost all of the weight and an extra pound, but gained back a couple this past weekend. Today, I am 2 pounds away from my Thanksgiving goal weight, and I have 4 weeks from tomorrow to lose it. Sounds easy, until I consider how much weight I will put on this weekend in honour of Halloween - one of my most favourite holidays! I am fantasising about the candy I'll be eating already. I am dressing up as Zorro, a costume that a chocolate moustache goes well with.

A couple of weekends ago, I went to see my most favourite movie in the whole world at the ElCapitan Theatre in Hollywood. It was 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. I had seen it there 10 years ago when the movie was first out, and it was just as amazing as I had remembered. It was so nice to see it on the big screen with Ben and Amber and Andrea and her nephew Pete who is 4. I love the movie so much that our kitchen/dining area is decorated in that theme year-round.

I have been addicted to Ebay lately. Ben said that he won't buy any Lego for himself if I don't buy anything else for myself for the rest of the year. I really haven't been as bad as I could have. I only bought 2 frivilous things: 2 Flapper Barbies that I have wanted for years. Everything else I bought were useful things that I would have paid full price for anyway, and it ended up being much cheaper even with shipping. It's hard to make stingy people understand this. Oh, sorry, frugal people. I think I may want to sell a few items on Ebay, now that I have had such a great experience buying things. There is a lot to get rid of before we move.

I also bought a new area rug for our lounge room. It was cheap, and my old rug was falling apart, looked gross and I had it for 6 years. Why do I sound like I have to justify my actions, you ask? It's called being married! :-)

In music news, I am really sad that Elliot Smith killed himself. He was so talented and only 34. I am also still obsessed with Belle & Sebastian's new album 'Dear Catastrophe Waitress'... and a plan is still in the works to get together some rehearsals to sing christmas carols with my family. It's pretty much up to Tony, David and Ben to get it going, they're the musical ones. It will be very fun if they do.

GET ME AWAY FROM HERE, I'M DYING.

I still hate my job. I think that I should stay until after my trip to England next April. I was ok with that idea for a while. Now I'm not feeling very ok about it. Ben is miserable in his position here, too. I think he will be looking for a new job very soon. I think that is a very good idea. I didn't want to give up the bonus I might possibly get at the end of the year, or my vacation time. I need to really weigh this out and see what the best thing to do is. Just because I decide I want another job doesn't mean that one will be waiting on my doorstep as soon as the thought clicks. I really need to get my portfolio and resume together so that I can see what is out there. Then, if I find something great, that will be the time to leave. Life is too unpredictable to try to schedule it all out to fit around the trip to England. It's going to happen whether I get paid vacation or not. The benefit of being out of this hell hole will be bonus enough. I just want to go somewhere where I will be stimulated and I can make progress.

Ben and I are going to our first baseball game tomorrow. Neither of us have ever been. it should be a lot of fun. We're going with my friend from high school, Sandra, and her boyfriend Rich.

I've planned a nice birthday dinner party for my closest friends and family to come and celebrate my 29th birthday with me. We're having it at a greek restaurant on my actual birthday, September 30th. (Generous people with too much money - if you are reading this and feel like getting me a present, I have a gift list: http://www.findgift.com/cgi-local/Registry.cgi?m=View&rid=85161021299575748353737) I am really looking forward to it. I am also taking that day off from work, and Marianna will be here from England/Australia/Hawaii, staying with us, so I can go do fun stuff with her! I am very excited about that.

In pursuit of OTR, I got on the scale about a week ago, and was irritated to find that I was only 8 pounds lighter than I was at the beginning of the year. So I got tough. I have been counting calories and keeping a written journal of everything I eat. I am trying to keep my calories at 1200 a day on days when I don't exercise (which is most days), and 1400 on days that I do. In one week I have lost almost 4 pounds. It might just be water weight, but that's ok with me. I think counting calories until Thanksgiving is going to be my goal. I have to lose about 7 more pounds by then. If I don't, I will be sad. That will mean that I will either not be able to enjoy food through the holidays or I will do it anyway and end up being the same weight I was at the beginning of this year, making the entire year of dieting pointless. I am trying to teach myself good judgement and good habits in the next eleven weeks. I have realised that I have no concept of the portions of food I eat, so measuring has to happen. I am hoping that soon I will just be able to tell without measuring, so that when I do get down to my ideal weight, maintaining it will be a cinch. I am going to be in good shape when I go to England in April, I just have to.

YAWN! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' 'BOUT!

Things are kooky. I'm tired. Physically and mentally. I want to go home and I still have 20 minutes left at work.

In the past 2 weeks, I have been reunited with my friend Sandra from high school, my cousin Ginette, and my friends Kyle and Brandon. Kyle is the one who introduced me to the music of Belle & Sebastian. Belle & Sebastian is how I met Ben. Pretty much everything that is good in my life can be traced back to Kyle. It's been years since I've spoken to him. i am very excited about this! I found all of these people on Friendster.com. It's very addictive, Friendster is. More addictive than Blogs, I think.

In the last month, I have decided that it's time to find a new job. I am really hating this one. There is no way I am going to have any opportunity to grow here. Things are run so unprofessionally. I've been clinically depressed the whole 2 years I've worked here. I think it's time to move on. I don't want to be "stuck" here just because I'm planning to move to London in just under 3 years. That's enough time to get some good experience working somewhere else before I go.

In the last 3 weeks, I stopped going to psychotherapy. My insurance alotted sessions ran out for the time being. Plus, I've been feeling better. I've been trying to raise my self-esteem. It's difficult. Also, I don't know if Ben and I would ever see eye-to-eye on the therapy thing. I guess depression and therapy isn't really talked about in England. I'll probably still go occasionally, though.

In OTR news, I am still 10 pounds lighter than I was at the beginning of the year. I have not been being very strict with myself. I need to be better about that.

Last weekend, Ben showed Me and my brother Tony and his wife Tiffany and our friend Vicky how to play cricket. It was fun and really good exercise.

I saw Manchester United play in the flesh for the first time on July 27 here in LA. They beat a mexican team called Club America, it was fantastic.

Five minutes to go and I'm outta here!

YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE? YOU'RE IN THE JUNGLE, BABY!

Well, Amber's fish is dead and my blonde roots are showing. Amber got 3 new fish last weekend and they are really pretty yellow ones. As for my blonde roots, I wonder when I will get my hair done. Douglas cut it into a cute bob that is now slightly growing out.

The weather outside is gloomy. It was drizzling on the way to work from my therapist's office. I was listening to Suede B-sides on my new cd player car stereo. Whoo hoo! Therapy is good. I've gone for a few weeks now.

I had an ad in People Magazine the week of May 18th for Healthy Sexy Hair. It's the issue with Matt LeBlanc's wedding on the cover. It came out so nice. I'm glad, too, cos the ad cost the company around 50 grand to buy, which I hear is a bargain. I pretty much gave the girl all new hair and it looks nice! The slew of freelancing work I did for the company on my off hours has paid off. I am getting enough money for it to pay off my Mac G4.

This Saturday is the first game of the LA Galaxy at their new stadium. Ben and Adrian and I are going. It's going to be very fun!

So it's now June and I was supposed to have reached my goal weight in the pursuit of OTR by now. I have managed to put on 2 pounds, but that is because of too many birthdays. Also, I am letting too much sugar and cheese slip back into my life. I have to give them the keys to the street and do it tonight.

SYMBIOSIS-RIGHT THERE.

I got my hair dyed yesterday, dark brown. It's pretty, I like it. This is the first time I've had a natural haircolor in a year.

Last week, Ben and I financed a Mac G4 computer. It's great! Coincidentally, the art department at work got shut down due to a water heater busting and flooding a good portion of the room, so I worked at home from Wednesday through the week. Fortunately, our work load was light at the time. Unfortunately, I got the flu on Thursday evening which had me up all night. I spent most of Friday sleeping.

Tonight, Ben and Amber and I are going to the pet store so Amber can get a fish. I wonder what kind she'll get...

Friday, we're going to Mom and Dad's house for dinner in celebration of Tiffany's birthday. Ben and I are debating whether or not to go to San Diego this weekend so we can meet up with Tony and Tiffany at the Wild Animal Park on Sunday. We were thinking about going to Legoland on Saturday and staying the night in a hotel. But I'm not so sure we should spend all that money right now. We'll see.

Ben ended up not having to spend the night downtown at the INS office to file his adjustment of status paperwork. It turned out that he had to mail it to that particular office. And when he did, it also turned out that the fees they had listed on the internet were incorrect. So the paperwork got returned AGAIN. It's been a couple of weeks now and nothing was returned, so it must be ok. Finally!

In the pursuit of OTR (Old Thin Rachie), I lost 3 pounds when I had the flu. I also did yoga this morning and I hope to keep doing it through the rest of the week. I have about 21 pounds more to go in the next 7 weeks. That's just 3 pounds a week! Whoo hoo! I hope I can do it. I have to be good and overcome this plateau without resorting to starvation.

YOU'RE TERRIBLE, MURIEL.

I watched the movie Muriel's Wedding yesterday for the first time. I wanted to see it when it came out in the theaters a few years ago. Mainly because I like ABBA. Also because It's one of those crazy New Zealand or Australian movies like Strictly Ballroom, or Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. It was a good film.

I played soccer at the park with Ben yesterday. He said I'm getting better. My legs are sore today. I have the Sunday blues, like usual. I am feeling a bit down for no reason. Ben and I are going to go see Death Cab For Cutie tonight at the Troubadour. I know it's going to be fun. Right now, I feel unmotivated to do anything. I am also feeling a bit down cos after the concert, I am going to drop Ben off downtown at the INS office to line up all night. It's such a pain in the ass. He lined up there a while back to put in paperwork but they told him after waiting since 4 am that he couldn't file the paperwork there and that it had to be mailed in. So he mailed it in and it was returned to him cos it has to be filed at the office downtown. The person who served Ben there didn't know what they were talking about. It's annoying.

I changed my driver's license to say "Rachel Erin Apps" on Friday, and Ben passed his written driving exam. Now he has a permit to practice driving. He drove my car around yesterday in the industrial area where Sexy Hair Concepts' warehouse is, and he did very well.

Now Ben is building a huge robot out of Lego. And I am typing this. But I think I need to get out and do something.

HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BENNY!

Today Ben is 25. I remember when I turned 25. I said that my theme song for the year would be "All The Young Dudes" for the lyrics "It's hard to stay alive when you're 25." It turned out I had no problem staying alive. Which brings me to John Travolta. He just had his birthday a week ago, the same day as my brother David. Last night Pulp Fiction was on. Ben tried to make me watch the part when Mia overdoses and they have to stick a needle in her heart. No thank you. I almost fainted in the theater when I saw it back in '94 and I had to walk out. Ben wants me to face my fear of needles, but I said there's plenty of time for that when we have a baby. It's not worth it to me just for a movie.

Tonight we're going to go to the movies for Ben's birthday. We're going to see Old School. It looks like a funny movie. Will Ferrell cracks me up.

I just got a phone call from someone upstairs here at work. Cyndi wanted to know why Ben has so much candy on his desk today. So I let her in on his birthday secret (apparently?) cos he didn't mention to her that it was the occasion!

WHO WILL LOVE ALADDIN SANE?

I will. I do. I was compelled to dig out my cassette recording of David Bowie's 'Aladdin Sane' to listen to in the car on my way to work. 'Tis the season.

Work is busy today. I have that dry-eyed sleepy feeling. I should make notes of everything I need to do today cos I have a real absent-minded feeling.

Ben and I fixed the problem with our floppy drive on the computer. The ribbon cable was plugged in upside down. Oops!

THIS IS MY DOG, COMPUTER.

Ben and I rebuilt our computer over the weekend. It was quite a challenge. Neither Ben nor I really knew what we were doing. I am fairly fearless when it comes to computer stuff, though. I have a lot of faith that I can figure things out. I think that's because ever since my dad got our family's first computer back in 1992, he and I both fell in love with using computers. Dad got really great at programming and building computers as well as webdesign and stuff. I mainly stuck with graphic design. Through the years, my dad has built a lot of computers and replaced things, upgraded, cleared hard drives and reinstalled operating systems. So, going into this computer rebuilding endeavor this weekend was not so scary knowing that I had my dad as a "safety net."

On Saturday, we called Tony & Tiffany and asked them if they wanted to go to Fry's Electronics with us. Tony recently rebuilt a computer and he said that he enjoyed it, even though he claims that he doesn't really know what he's doing. We figured having them come along to shop for a new motherboard, chip and RAM would be a good idea since they undoubtedly know more than the two of us do. Fry's was as irritating as usual. The staff there for the most part are really unwilling or unable to guide people. It turns out, another customer there to buy a new motherboard, chip and RAM had the newspaper with him. In it was a deal for a Pentuim 4 chip and a motherboard together, and then he got some RAM which added up to about $330. Exactly the maximum Ben and I had discussed spending. The customer reccommended this deal to us, so we went ahead and got the same thing he did. We went home and discovered that our tower was too old, so the slot plate that faces the outside back of the computer where you plug stuff in could not be converted to fit our new motherboard.

Side note: at 4:30 am we got up to watch the Manchester Derby football match of Man United v Man City. It was disappointing cos it was a tie, 1-1. If United had won, they would now only be 1 point behind Arsenal (grrrrr).

Sunday morning, I returned to Fry's with Ben to purchase a new tower. Again, it was a fellow customer who gave us advice. He reccommended a tower that was really cool with pretty blue lights, 2 internal fans and a see through side casing. It was only $20 more than the one we were looking at. We ended up going with the cheaper one, though, because it had 2 usb ports in the front and Ben was really getting concerned that we were spending too much money. It looks really cool, too. $65, and 350 watt power supply to boot. Not too shabby.

Most of the day was spent transferring cards and disk drives to the new tower and figuring out how to plug in the power supply for each device. It took a few hours and I cut my thumb pretty badly by scraping it against the raw metal after popping out the slot coverings in the tower. Surprisingly, Ben was the one being doubtful that our project was going to have good results. He kept saying that it probably wouldn't work right and that we would have to keep buying new stuff to fix it. Usually, I am the pessimist and he is the optimist. I just said that I have faith that it will work, because how could it not? It should be like having a new computer.

It came down to the last plug-ins: mouse, power, monitor, and then the keyboard wouldn't plug in! Our keyboard was too ancient and not a ps/2 connector. So I returned to Fry's, solo. Ben got really bummed out cos he knew we would have to get more stuff. I tried to tell him that it was no big deal and that a new keyboard wouldn't cost too much. I ran in and ran out in 10 minutes despite the fact that I had to park behind the building because ALL of the spots in front were taken up. I got a cool black keyboard for $21.

When I got home, we started up the computer and tried to make our way through the BIOS setup and detection of hardware drivers. Windows was still looking for a driver for something that we didn't put in this new motherboard. It had been acting funny since before we did all of this and we knew that we should reinstall Windows altogether. So I called my dad for step-by-step instructions on how to wipe the hard drive clean and reinstall Windows. In this process, we discovered that the computer recognized the floppy disk drive, but whenever we put a disk in it, it wouldn't read it. So we couldn't make a startup disk to reinstall Windows. Ben got the printer working, which hadn't worked for AGES. Now the only things we really need to work out are the problem with the floppy drive and how I'm going to hook up the scanner with no SCSI port. I'm going to ask the computer guy here at work about the floppy problem, and I think we can probably buy (sorry Ben!) a cable adapter to go from SCSI to USB.

In the pursuit of OTR (Old Thin Rachie), I can happily report that I have lost 2 pounds! 25 more to go! Woo hoo!

YOU DOWN WITH OTR? YEAH, YOU KNOW ME.

I haven't weighed myself lately in my pursuit of OTR (old thin Rachie.) I have weiged myself once since going off the Atkins diet and I haven't gained any weight. So that's good, at least. I feel like I am thinner than I was when I got married. But I want to be down to my goal weight by June. I need to lose 27 more pounds. If I lose 7 pounds a month then I'm on target.

I am tired. It's hard to think about exercising.

Amber has been learning to bellydance watching training videos, and she's lost a lot of weight. I'm going to try the first video and see if I like it. She does. Our mom is making her a bellydancing outfit. She said that she'd like to bellydance professionally. I think that's a good way for her to meet the swarthy men she tends to dig.

MISSHAPES, MISTAKES, MISQUOTES.

Okay, so Ben said that he DIDN'T say that he would never doubt astrology again, just that he would rethink it.

I feel like I can never remember things that people say correctly. I must be a bad listener. Good thing I'm not an actress, I'd constantly screw up my lines. I wonder how I remember lyrics to songs when I can't seem to remember anything else accurately.

I am proud to say that I didn't weigh myself this morning in my pursuit of old thin Rachie (OTR). I switched from the high protein, low carbohydrate Atkins diet to a different diet that I can actually live with on a long term basis. Isn't that the whole point of weight loss? The idea is to be on a LIVE-it not a DIE-it. Anycrap, I had been weighing myself daily before, but yesterday the scale said I had gained 3 pounds in 24 hours, just by going off the Atkins diet. Now, I know that I shouldn't let that get me down. So today I skipped the weigh in. I feel a lot better now that I am off the Atkins diet, I mean, mood-wise, I am a lot cheerier.

¡VIVA RACHELS!

I am pretty excited because this mixtape that I started on the Belle & Sebastian Sinister mailing list over a year ago is finally finished. It started out because there were a lot of girls named Rachel on Sinister... and then the boys on the list named William challenged the Rachels to a "battle of Wills." We chose the weapon of making a mixtape. The "birth" Rachels recruited "honorary" Rachels. Soon, we numbered 13. Everyone got a breakfast-related last name, since there was already a Rachel cornflake, and I was known as Rachel fruitloop. One Rachel (Rachel Grapenut) couldn't participate because her parents didn't want her to give out her mailing address. The remaining 12 of us passed the tape from one to another, each adding our 2 songs. The rule was to try to put songs on it that had words in the titles that could be changed to "Ken" and/or "Chu." Ken Chu is the judge of the mixtape contest. Our tape hadn't been underway for long when the people on the Sinister list named Rob/y/in joined forces to challenge the Wills and Rachels. A Christine and a Chris even joined together to battle against the other teams.

It isn't surprising that the Rachels tape took over a year to make since the tape traveled from the USA to the UK and then to Poland. Now that I have it in my hands again, I am making a snazzy cover for it. Then, it will be sent off to Ken Chu in London. I think the Rachels will definitely win because I'm fairly certain that most of the other teams either gave up or sent Ken something crap. Ours kicks ass. Woo!

In other news, Ben and I saw The Divine Comedy play at the Troubadour in Hollywood last night. It was SO wonderful. I didn't realize that Neil Hannon is so charming in person until last night. I guessed that he was a scorpio just by looking at him. Ben said that he would check on the internet when we got home, and if Neil was a scorpio then he would never doubt astrology again. Neil's birthday? November 7th! Damn, I'm good!

I'M GONNA WASH THAT GREEN RIGHT OUTTA MY HAIR.

Those of you who know me well realize that I change my hair as often as the colors of this page are changing! I now have a new haircolor, or should I say, colors. Surprise, surprise! It's red-violet and burgundy. Yesterday, Ben and I spent the whole day at the Mariott by the Los Angeles International Airport for an event put on by Sexy Hair Concepts. I was modeling my new hairdo, which was made using this new color technique and the new hairstyle invented by the president of Sexy Hair Concepts, Mr. Michael O'Rourke. Woo!

The day consisted of SIX hours of preparation with 8 other models. Then I had my minute of fame on the "runway." Double woo! I was dressed as the "Vivienne Westwood Punk Rock Cupie Doll" and my dress was pinned up in the back to show off my red ruffled knickers. I got to keep those! Yippee!

It was quite a tedious day, but moreso for Ben. I dragged him along with me. I was really glad that he didn't protest too much. He helped out a bit and took lots of photos. We got free lunch, too. I was glad that he was there to see me strut my stuff. What a nice, supportive husband I have. Especially since he was just saying how all this hair stuff does his head in!