that's the last time i ever let anybody have my user ID and password for my blog. haha just kidding. but seriously, you didn't have to advertise for yourself in MY blog, you could have done that in your own blog.

hi! my name is annie and i am the coolest person erika knows.

eww, the weather is muggy. and gross.

i shouldn't have. but it's too late, the cheeseburger and fries are already in my stomach. when you live just up the hill from in and out, you'd be tempted too.

jessica shopaholic kwok has dragged me in tow to the mall at least five times in the past week and a half. "so i bought the A&F pants on ebay and i sent them to your house" was what i heard this morning. not only does she have me charging things on my credit card for her but now she has packages delievered to my house - there comes a time when you should realize your shopping habits have gone out of line when your mom has cut your credit card and monitors your ATM withdrawal like a hawk. but i still love the kid. i find something to buy everytime i'm with her.

the piano. i played it for ten years and as i tried to glide my fingers over the once familar keys to a consolation by liszt i actually forgot the key i was playing. this is sad. i'm so not meant for music.

the summer. how much i hate it's almost over. but i guess, as for all things in the world, time must go on.

my full name is erika lynn shao. if i were born a boy, i would have been an eric. i asked my dad what it felt like to have witnessed my birth. he said it was the worst day of his life. i believe him.

i'm an only child. when i was younger, i talked to my stuffed animals, created imaginary friends, not because i didn't have any friends, but because it was lonely when they all had to go home.

i'm from LA, specifically, diamond bar, suburbia los angeles. it's a bit fobbed up, but i like it that way, or else it wouldn't be home. i'm an LA girl, i'll always be an LA girl.

but i'm a cal girl for the next year or so. i go to uc berkeley. i plan to graduate with two bachelor of arts degrees, one in mass communications, the other in sociology.

i'm indecisive. i changed my major about four times.

i've always wanted a dog, but my mom's scared of them so when i was eight, my parents bought me a rabbit. her name was krackers. she lived a remarkable eight years. i cried when we had to have her put to sleep. she started seizuring and she was blind in one eye. thinking of the pain she must have been in is making me tear up, even right now.

i believe in the good in people. i trust people from the very beginning.

i carry my heart on my sleeve. i fall easily.

i wish i were an artist. i love paintings. i love museums. i love david hockney. i love photography.

i can sit in a bookstore for hours, going from section to section, reading about alice walkers' recipes to what really happened during the vietnam war.

i intern at teen magazine. i see how ruthless and how superficial the entertainment industry is. and i still want to be a part of it.

i want to attend the annenberg school of communications at usc. i want masters in communication management and print journalism. i want to write for vogue, vanity fair, rolling stone. i want to interview celebrities. i want to write.

i remember faces and places. i have a good memory.

i love shopping. what girl doesn't?

i have a hat fetish. fedoras, baseball hats, paper boy hats. hats, hats, hats.

i need to be reminded every once in awhile that people are human. i need to learn that everything isn't always centered around my feelings. i need to grow up.

i hate the taste of alcohol. i turn red with the smallest sip of it. but i like wine. dessert and plum wine to be exact.

i want to live in new york for awhile. i want to study in london. i want to spend 6 months in paris. i want to take a train around europe. i want to teach underpriviledged children. i want to show them what a childhood is all about.

i want a white mustang. i want to be able to drive a stick shift perfectly, not stall every five minutes and ruin the gears.

i'm going to buy a gorgeous house in the malibu cliffs one day. and i'm going to decorate it all by myself.

i want to fall in love and have my heart broken. and fall in love again.

i'm sensitive but learning how to not be. i'm scared of the world sometimes. i'm terrified of failure. i'm afraid of change.

i'm idealistic. i'm a hopeless romantic. i love colin farrell. and angelina jolie.

i'm erika. nice to meet you. what's your name?

don't you just hate it when things are out of your grasp? you're still in the damn situation but you can't get a hold of it to fix it. and it pisses the hell out of me, people & things piss the hell out of me, but that's life. and it goes on.

filing. i enjoy it in the comforts of my own room but NOT in a dusty cubicle where there are endless slides of god-knows-who, from three year old pics of a fat nick carter to none other than beyonce's butt making headlines. WEEE fun.

proven wrong. i made the argument that all guys looked better clean shaven BUT i was proven wrong. there are some guys who look better with stubble. SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER. haha just kidding christopher who's sitting right behind me as i write this. i felt i needed to write something and this was the only unsignificant blog i could think of. oh well.

shay gentry

i first met miss gentry an hour into my first day at work. i met her fifteen times. that is, fifteen envelopes with the signature shay gentry return address stamp later, i was starting to become a bit impressed. as damon remarked, "oh she's infamous throughout this office, we get a daily dosage of shay gentry everyday."

i wasn't in the office for the remainder of the week but as i came in the next, i was more than impressed. there she was, amidst all seventy-something hopeful girls hoping to win from our latest contests, sparkling on about thirty different envelopes. as i sorted through all the contest mail it became more evident who shay gentry is. i scanned the return address, a local. mission viejo. each and every envelope was the same, a small business one with a handwritten address. whether it's "teen magazine: cool treat contest" or "teen magazine: summer skin contest", at least ten envelopes come in a day from her. i imagined an intelligent, well put together girl of about thirteen or fourteen sitting at her birch wood desk in her room decorated with posters of justin timberlake to shane west, writing these envelopes every day hoping to be the winner of each one of our contests.

you could say i've grown a little fond of shay gentry. it almost feels like we have a personal connection, she addressing her envelopes while i sort through them days later. though i'll probably never meet her, i wish i could tell her that i admire her. i admire her determination, her diligence, her drive to win all our contests. at such a young age, i want to tell her to keep that determination she has because it'll only bring her further in whatever she decides to embark on in the future. perhaps we were all a bit like shay gentry when we were younger but a good portion of us has lost it somewhere between the days of ditching high school to sleeping through college lectures. for people like me who was once an idealistic version of shay gentry, it'd help if we were instilled with a little bit of shay gentry right now. we all could use a little shay gentry in us.

all right, i have to say, the more i use a mac, the more i fall in love with it. it's just...so beautifully different i absolutely adore this operating system!

inspired by christina's profile.

been looking for another place awhile
seen every town up in northern cal
searching further every country mile
i saw new york and i like its style

but i've gotta say i love LA
i guess that's why i feel i've gotta stay
the hot streets and the summer nights
so lonely

ozma | los angeles

hrm. it ends with "so lonely"?? aw hell, everyone's lonely right? but anyhow, there you go. summed up perfectly the way i feel about this city. there's just something about it, draws me in, like a good dessert wine and a fancy chocolate cake, its got me hooked.

playing in the waves at 7:30 in the evening is one of those absolute moments that feels so incredible, even though your legs are becoming numb and your entire body close to spasming. and what makes it even more incredible is that two of your good friends from high school are right by you, feeling exactly the same thing.

thanks to jenn for having great taste in music - i seriously need to install more memory at this rate.

i love ... southern california beaches, cold drinks on a hot day, the air conditioning of a mall, lattes at eleven in the morning keeping you sane as you wake up ready to shop at 10 am on a saturday morning.

me three years ago: the simple pleasures in life, whether said or unspoken, cannot compare to the breathtaking influx of emotion that accompanies a simple kiss.

me right now: romance is for idiots too stupid to realize it doesn't exist.

me a second later: fine, it's somewhere in between.

conclusion: she grew up. she realized it isn't a world of perfect cotton candy clouds and peppermint skies. she's not so idealistic. hopeless, perhaps. a romantic? you bet it, straight from the heart.