My Vaalie Windgat.

Avery and I have been dating for a decent amount of time, and I'm honestly shocked every time a month passes or what not because we are two absolutely different people in every respect. Those differences were never more apparent than this past weekend, and no I'm not talking about the fact that he was busy all weekend and had tons of plans and had no time for me anywhere in there, not even enough time to text me back. It's his birthday and his friends and family are in town from DC, so I shall let that one slide.

I'm talking about dinner on Thursday night at the second most expensive restaurant in all of Oregon, which, when you're an artist is a rather big deal seeing as I'm usually teetering right above the poverty stricken area of the financial continuum. I mean I absolutely love what I do, but you're insane if you think you can draw/make music for a living and come out of it with a ton of money unless you hit the mortal coil's jackpot. But! That's neither her nor there. I saved up, I made reservations a month in advance, I went out and got a darling little dress and spent the entire day trying to make myself look not so much like me, and then my perfectly planned evening, which I had to reschedule four times to accommodate birthday asshole's wishes, fell to complete shit.

While we were conversing, somehow the topic of aesthetic appearance came up before we even got our drinks {thank the lord for vodka}, and somehow the focus was on my own appearance. I think it got started because I made a comment about how he hated my hair coloring motif. Regardless, I tried not to let the words spewing forth from his mouth like tiny little daggers leech my mind and overall desire to make the night all about him, but I distinctly remember the words "ashamed" and "you" coming out from the landfill of his mouth in rapid succession and it wasn't until I had to excuse myself to go to the restroom because a bastard tear fell from my eye that he openly declared a cease fire denoted by a "sorry."

Now, to be fair, the tear was purely the result of PMS, which, I'm ashamed to admit, has the effect of making me much more emotional and leads to my crying that much more easily. Rephrase, it makes it that much harder for me to hold the tears back. I had no intention of letting that little bugger carve a path in my cheek, let alone while I was sitting in front of him, but I just couldn't keep it in. Why? 'Cause it hurt, that's why.

It hurts when someone you care about, whether they are serious or not, looks you right in the eyes and says that they are ashamed of you. It hurts even more when you've spent the entire week ensuring that the night would go perfectly, fine tuning the night to comply with that persons whims, and going out of your way to look cute and presentable for them, and then be told that the person you did all this for is ashamed of you.

In his defense, he said he was sorry and that he didn't mean it in that way. He simply meant that my look is very unorthodox which is something he has to take into consideration when he has business dinners or whatever. Also in his defense, he says a lot of stupid shit and has grown quite fond of the taste of his foot. He's even started using flavored moisturizer on his toes to make his foot go down easier. In my own stupidity, I dropped it and shoved it to the back of my mind, drank a few more martinis, felt righteous when the waiter said I had an absolutely adorable accent, and acted as if nothing had happened and let the good times roll.

I dropped it, which pretty much means I'm not allowed to bring it up again per the rules of our relationship and the unyielding female ability to not let things go and the deficient male ability to think things are over with when the female is simply saving grace at that moment, but it rather bothers me. I haven't met his friends, I haven't met his family, and though I haven't told my family about our liaison, I have good reason: My mother parents are nutty. They would demand to meet him, demand to know the details of our relationship, and every conversation from that point of divulging would go to my relationship with him. I perish to think how the conversations would go should they disapprove, which of course they will. Thus, my reason for not telling my parents is because it's not worth it unless it's something serious and by serious I mean there's the possibility of forever in the cards, which isn't to say that's not the case here, but I'm not going to be domkop enough to put my familial relations on the prospect just yet. He knows that, and he's met the majority of my friends. Now all I know is that he's ashamed of me, and coupled with the fact that he's fairly adamant about not intermixing me with his friends and family, I can't help but see a conjointment between reality and the lovely pink elephant that is now in the space between us.

I suppose I don't understand. I know I'm not traditional in any sense of the word when it comes to my appearance and style, and I know most people probably look at me and think I'm an absolute freak, but much like he insists on wearing polo's with the caveat of "It's my personality, and I like them," I feel it's a bit unfair that my insistence on dressing somewhat rockerish, having tattoos and piercings, and dying my hair random colors, though suiting my "personality", aren't acceptable representations of who I am because they fall short of societal dictate. It's especially unfair that the man I tried so hard not to fall in love with but failed miserably at is sitting across from me and wondering when I shall grow out of this apparent "rebellious" phase I'm in and be more presentable, a term that is seemingly defined as he sees fit. Unfortunately, I'm not in any phase, and I'm not trying to be something I'm not. I'm me. Me involves burgundy hair and visible tattoos. Sure I'm not the mean, but I'm not entirely far from it I'd say.

I don't know. He says he loves me and maybe he didn't mean what he said, but it's absolute bullshit I have to sit here with the equivalent of a divining rod to get at the verity of what he said and meant. Who would have ever thunk I'd end up with such a windgat?

Just Like Eating Glass

Portland, Oregon doesn't strike fear in the hearts of anyone. It's about as plain vanilla as a city can be, and aside from the benefit of being able to euthanize the fuck out of yourself when you're already old and on your death bed, there's nothing extraordinary about this place. Sure, you can surf, snowboard, enjoy the perfect 21*C weather {70*F for you Celsius haters} nearly year round, but as far as excitement goes it ranks slightly above retirement home.

Oregon is a retirement home, it's just instead of old people, we have hippies who are too hardcore to make the trek down to the land of liberal nut-jobs, California. I think Oregon, at one point if not still, had the highest number of disaffected homeless youth in the entire country, and that's something you can certainly tell, but crime has never really been an issue. Least not in my mind. Avery, however, did insist that we get "secure" parking at a whopping price of $120.00 a month, and I wasn't about to argue with the boy from the rough streets of Washington DC: Crime is rampant there and I've just learned to accept the fact that he is one anal retentive fucker when it comes to safety. Thus, we live in the Fort Knox of apartment buildings that offers a night guard and a supposed inability to enter the building without a key or someone within the building letting you in, and park in the parking garage of our apartment complex which offers the perk of surveillance cameras, and it all adds up in our monthly rent. Sounds pretty fucking safe, right?

So, imagine my absolute delight when I walked down to my car tonight after a 10 hour work day, blou as shit, so I can go to band practice, walk up to the driver door and see something all over my seats. Ahh yes, I come to find out that the passenger window of my car has been completely shattered and my iPod is missing. Not only was the passenger window shattered, but it it was done by the very cunning method of throwing a fucking cinder block into my car. THERE IS GLASS EVERYWHERE. So much so, that when I was looking at my car to see what the fuckers had taken, I had glass stuck in my skin.

Cinder block+ passenger window= all they fucking took was my iPod. That's it. They left the book of 200 CDs I have sitting on the floor of the passenger seat, left the CDs that sit in the area under the stereo, left the CDs that were in my armrest compartment, and left the iBook that was in my glove compartment. Kind of begs the question: Who would go through the trouble of lifting a cinder block, throwing it at someones car, being bombarded by flying particles of glass, removing whatever glass was not shattered by the cinder block, only to reach in and take a fucking iPod. Also kind of begs the question: HOW THE FUCK DID SOMEONE DO THAT TO MY CAR WITHOUT ANYONE KNOWING?! How did someone get into the garage to begin with?

Anyway, Avery is working late at the lab today and I really would rather not bother him until I'm in a position to do more than just sit here fuming, so I called building's management and the best they could come up with as far as my course of action was to call the police.

Fantastic! I pay a shitload of money to park in this garage that is under constant surveillance, and they can't even flatter me with at least the false hope of them looking at the tapes to see what fucker did this and how they got in.

I suppose I shouldn't expect too much from a country that honestly puts priority in Oprah's opinion and what she "approves of" but has no clue where Belize is.

Fiesta!

Anyone ever notice that people who bag your shit at the grocery store are slightly above protist in the intelligence ranks? I realize that the people who work there aren't working there to pay for their medical school tuition, but you'd think that placing shit into a bag really isn't an artform.

How wrong I am proven each time I carry my groceries upstairs from the garage to the apartment.

Apparently it takes some spark of genius to realize that placeing seven cans of canned corn into a single plastic bag just isn't a good idea, and the trail of canned corn now leading up eight flights of stairs is proof of that.

Straight.

It amazes me how fucking oblivious men are sometimes. Is it genetic? Is it a lapse between their mouth function and their brain function? Or do they just not have anythin to say and rather than keeping their fucking mouths shut they just let dribble fall out to fill th silence?

Avery and I have been dating for nearly four years. FOUR YEARS! He knows how absolutely, disgustingly, straight my hair is. How does he know? Well for one, I bitch about it constantly. For two, he bitches about it. For three, his sister has taken it upon herself to make my hair the biggest afro known to man repeatedly, only to fail and bitch to us about it.

So! Imagine my shock last night when we were sitting on the couch all cuddled up, watching his beloved Bulls kick some Piston ass, when during a commercial he asks: "Babe, did you straightern your hair?"

"Avery, why would I straighten my hair?"
"It was wavy yesterday."
"My hair was in braids all day, yesterday. We showered this morning, remember?"
"Ohhh, yea. That was good. Better the second time, after the shower."
"Fucker. So, why would I straighten my hair?"
"It was wavy, now it's straight."

He has got to be the most idiotic, brilliantly intelligent person I have ever met. Or maybe it's just his degenerate Y chromosome.

Harumph

Well, I putzed around with the template a bit to make it a bit less ugly, and now it has all the appeal of ketchup, mustard, and an allergy attack. I'll figure it out eventually.

Until then, I learned how to add a picture to posts and that is teh! exciting!

Bernard the silly little wanker!

Alex (the black one), with my mum and their dog Chloe. He's only 4 months old. He's going to be HUGE!


Azon, the little bitch. God forbid she drink out of a bowl like a normal cat-sinks only.


And of course my darling, Avery (far left) and his doltish friends.


Oh, and this is me, The Zee, when my hair was black like my heart on Christmas. Total inside joke there, don't make me out to be a grinch yet.

So, here I am.

Yup. I've finally joined the ranks of the masses and have culminated my existence into its pinnacle: ownership of a blog. Actually, my friend told me I need to sublimate my acerbity into more than brief moments of road rage and onstage antics, and recommended I create a blog and let it all out here.

We'll see how well that works out.

So, a little bit about me is in order, right? My name is Emanuelle Ziva, but you can call me Zee, and I live in the gorgeous state of Oregon where surfing and snowboarding are past times you can engage in nearly year round. I'm not a native Oregon, actually, and I'm not officially American yet either, but all good things come to those who wait.

I like to say I was destined to be an absolute fuck up, after all, what else can you expect when a Columbian man and a Lebanese woman have a perchance meeting in South Africa and decide to get married and set-up house and home only two days after their first utterance of the word "Hello" to each other. Just like that, my father never returned to Columbia and my mother never returned to Lebanon, and just like that they made their home in South Africa. Naturally, children followed and I am the most haggard middle child. Well, sort of. I have two older brothers and one younger brother, so I assume it's safe to say that I share my middle child syndrome with my twin brother, Matai, who is only older than me by four minutes mind you. And so we Ziva's lived happily in Soweto amongst the lions, cheetahs, and zebras, oh my! until the real world decided to bite my dad in the ass.

I should probably phrase that differently, because my dad was on cloud nine when he got word of his promotion. It was I who watched my happy little world in the bush crumble into a big black abyss of moving to a brand spanking new country. At the ripe old age of 14, my family packed up and headed east to none other than the US of A.

I've always had a mutinous edge to me. While my brothers would sit and languish at the world of dinosaurs unfolding in the books before them, I would be drawing all over the walls; while my brothers played nice in the playground with the other children, I would instigate fights; and, while my brothers excelled at all things academic, I skipped school to go do graffiti art wherever I thought appropriate. I'm a bit of a Ziva anomoly.

So, that's the gist of it. I'm a South African, half Lebanese, half Columbian, obstinate fem-fetal that lives in Oregon and has a twin brother. Pretty run of the mill, aye?

I'm also the guitarist, singer, and songwriter in a band that I'm literally putting all my faith into with regard to my financial and employment's future. Until that misplaced faith comes into some kind of fruition, I'm an artist. I currently work at an advertising firm doing drawing boards, and let me tell you there is nothing glamorous, fun, interesting, or enjoyable about it. Well, other than the fact I get to draw all day. I also live with my boyfriend of 4 years, Avery, who happens to be doing his PhD in chemistry. Much like you, I have no idea what such a brainchild is doing with me, but sometimes it's better not to ask and force people to think about things, you know? Along with Avery, I also live with our two dogs, Bernard the Bernese Mountain Dog, and Alex the 3/4 wolf 1/4 German Shepherd, and Avery's bitch of a Bengal cat, Azon. Leave it to my nerd of a boyfriend to name his cat after the world's first smart bomb. He loves the little bitch, otherwise I'd let Alex go to town on her litter-box missing ass.

And, I guess that's it. I'm sure you don't care about any of this, but it's just the first post. Sit-tight. I'll try and make this place smashing.