Red Headed Step Child #2

Instead of inheriting my father's height, athleticism, or slim build, I inherited his bad attitude, ability to almost effortlessly grind people's gears [I'm pretty sure I made my less than mentally stable boss break out into angry red hives all over her face and neck simply by using a blank stare during a meeting once. While I would be lying if I said this did not bring me a certain feeling of satisfaction, I would probably get more out of a skill like being good at math], and his prematurely graying hair. Oh genetics! I've been told that once upon a time he had straight, dark hair. However, sometime in his early twenties it began to turn white and kinky. Within a few years the straight, dark hair was replaced by a white Afro. Luckily, this was the 70's when Afros were cool, even for white dudes.

I have lived in fear of the white Afro for years. I knew that I would not fair so well with a similar hair situation. Many, many women find bad attitudes, problems with intimacy, and the ability to enjoy a good drink a pretty intoxicating combination in a man. Therefore, having a white Afro never got in my father's way of finding many nice ladyfriends. Unfortunately, James Brown really knew what he was talking about when he sang "It's a man's, man's world". Sadly, something in me just knew that most guys would not find a lady with those same qualities quite as alluring. As soon as I noticed the first couple of white, kinky hairs I knew that I had only two options if I ever wanted any chance of attracting any beaus:

1. Run as fast as my two legs could carry me to the nearest salon

2. Shave my head a start wearing a good wig

Even as an old-timey fag hag, I felt that perhaps I lacked the necessary flair for option number 2 and decided to go with finding a good colorist. I am generally not all that careful about my appearance. I don't buy fancy clothes, I almost never wear heels, and I wear lots of sweatshirts. However, I throw down almost $200 every other month to keep that white Afro at bay. I have always felt that it is was more than worth the investment.

Since moving to a nation where I don't speak the language I have avoided getting my hair done. I went only once to a fancy salon in Jakarta and got my roots done. However, they left the color in for two long and I seem to be shedding more than usual since then. Although I am terrified of the white Afro, I don't think baldness would be a better option. I put it off for as long as I could until my hair began to resemble a combination of these two people:

While I am pretty convinced that Patti Smith is the coolest lady of all time and I greatly admire George Clooney's work in Darfur, it was really not a cute look for me. This was made worse by the fact that I have taken a pretty serious beating with the ugly stick since moving to Indonesia. My mom always told me that you look good for yourself, not other people. Apparently, this does not hold true for me. Since I arrived in a nation where dating is basically not an option, I have pretty much stopped paying attention to my appearance. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of my reflection and say to myself "Really? You felt like it was OK to leave the house looking like this?". [Yes, I used to run errands in Brooklyn in my yoga pants, but I NEVER left the house without wearing concealer and some mascara.] I figured at least I could get my hair fixed, before I started to really loose control over the situation.

I wasn't that nervous about it since I just wanted a simple single process color. My mom's colorist/good friend had given me some hair dye before I left and told me not to worry since the method of dying hair is pretty much universal. Apparently, this does not hold true for chain salons at the mall in Borneo. Perhaps, I should have seen this one coming...

The first clue that something was not right was when I showed them the hair dye I brought with me. They said it didn't look like enough to color my whole head. I said you have to mix it and they looked at me like they had no idea what I could possibly mean. This is probably when I should have left. Unfortunately, my vanity got the better of me. The vision of having a head full of brown hair was dancing in my head and I told myself it would probably work out fine.

They took out their swatches of hair color and I chose a dark brown. The colorist started in the back, so I couldn't see what she was up to back there. By the time she made her way up to the front of my head I saw the dye was purple like you use when dying a person's hair blond. Sadly, by this time it was too late and I was already on my way to becoming a strawberry blond.

[Here I am contemplating my new life as strawberry blond #22. Am I wearing make-up? Nope. Did I brush my hair this morning? Not really. Am I in public? For sure. Can you see why the fear of the white Afro was even a little stronger than usual?]

The problem with this is, I really hate red hair. When I think of red hair I don't think of Joan from Mad Men, Agent Scully, a pre-rehab Lindsay Lohan, or a young Anne Margaret. I think of this guy:

And this guy gives me the shivers.

I would try to go get it fixed, but I'm afraid that it could get worse. Part of the reason my hair is shedding so much is not just because of too much hair dye, it's also because of the harsh water here. The pharmacy shelves are full of shampoos to prevent "hair fall" which makes me hesitant to put anything else in my hair. So I might just have to ride out the rest of the year as a strawberry blond and tell my little brother Michael [yes, we have THE SAME name] to watch out since he is no longer the only red headed step child in town. Either that, or I might start shopping for a good wig.

A Hot Sweaty Day

Noreen and I asked a lecturer at the University we were working at on Lombok to recommend a tour guide for us to hire to go see a traditional village. He said he would show us around himself. However, instead of taking us to see any of the area's villages, waterfalls, or temples, he took us to a school where I think they wanted us to teach lessons to junior high school students without telling us and to his house for lunch as Guest White People. We sorta forgot that in certain parts of the country we are a little rare and people don't necessarily want us to do anything. They just want to look and show us to some other people and maybe ask how we feel about Obama.

After a little confusion we told the teachers we has not prepared a lesson and spent the next half hour having children laugh at us, stare, and ask us if we were married [which becomes a very sensitive question when 40 children are staring and laughing at you AND asking how old you are all at the same time.] To make matters worse, Noreen was in extreme gastric distress and even had to stop on the way to the school and ask a stranger to use the bathroom in the house. I am under the impression this was a less than fantastic experience.

After visiting the school, we went for lunch. It was certainly the first time anyone had ever shimmied up a coconut tree to shake out some coconuts, hacked them open with a machete, and then passed them out for guests to drink. We sat outside with the men and were briefly introduced to our hosts 70+ year old mother who spent the rest of the time cooking. We were told she always eats while she is cooking and not with the family. He also had a wife, but we were not introduced to her. I guess she was too busy tending to their two small children. Am I starting to sound any less paranoid about the veils?

The traditional lunch was actually pretty good. Spicy food is popular on this island. However, I am still a big baby, so I ate with a spoon and not my hands. I was totally fine until the little boy joined us and lifted up his PJs to reveal some sort of ringworm/impetigo covering his leg with scabs. He then began to pick them and a fly landed on one of them. It was then that I began to feel a lot like Cher from Clueless before the big transformation which leads her to fall in love with Paul Rudd [who I still can't decide if I am in love with or just want to be more like] and my stomach got a little queasy. What can I say? I'm just not there yet.

Couples Retreat?

Noreen and I met during our first night of orientation in DC this summer. We decided to be besties in Indonesia with an almost junior high like intensity soon thereafter. I think the enormity of moving to the other side of planet earth to a country we had never seen, far away from all of our family and friends, inspired a return to certain adolescent tendencies.

Since then we have traveled to Jakarta, Australia, and Lombok together. We have called each other when spiders have jumped on our faces in the shower and when we locked ourselves out of our houses. We have posted comments on each other's FB walls and instant messaged.We have spent a real lot of time together. When living in a country where you don't speak the language or fully understand the culture, it's a little harder to make friends. We used to have about 50 friends and now we have around 5-10 each.

We gave a workshop on the Island of Lombok last week and then decided to spend a few days in The Gilis, three teeny tiny islands off the coast. After a very bumpity boat ride [during which I may or may not have almost had a panic attack inspired by a lack of life jackets and a seemingly very creaky boat with a fair amount of water INSIDE the boat and an engine that was started after the "captain" sucked gasoline out of a tube to fill the tank] we arrived at Gili T, the supposed party island.

However, Noreen and I are apparently so square, not only did nobody try to sell us any magic mushrooms [which I hear the island is famous for] but we failed to notice the giant signs advertising them. This does not bother me even a little bit. Call me a stuffed shirt, but I don't think any of that is a good idea in a country with some pretty intense laws regarding illegal substances [Has nobody seen Broke Down Palace and The Bangkok Hilton??? I wouldn't make it in a SouthEast Asian Women's Prison, I just wouldn't]. Besides, some of the scene looked a little Burning Man-esque and I have never been into art cars, puppets, or talking about things like aliens.

Instead, we booked a room in a very quiet resort away from the island's hustle and bustle and illegal shenanigans. Upon checking in we met Grace and Astrid, the lesbian kayaking champions who run the Karma Kayak. We also realized that the other guests were comprised of women, couples, and senior citizens. After we learned that the Karma Kayak served delicious Spanish tapas and a decent Balinese Rose, so we found little reason to make it back into town.

When we saw our room it seems just a touch too romantical for the occasion.

In addition to this, the lights in the room were permanently dim, I suppose this was meant to set a let's get it on kinda vibe. All it did for us was make it really hard to read. However, despite the gently crashing waves, the Balinese wine, the canopy bead, and the exotic island local, Noreen and I still felt zero bicuriosity. This was sorta too bad since our room didn't even have a TV. Maybe if one of us were something a little sexier like French or Swedish we could have had half a shot of feeling more adventurous, but, alas, we remain just two uptight Irish Catholic girls despite that bath we took together in September [please refer to September post "Rub-s-Dub-Dub]. Even when we had a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles type of moment ["THOSE AREN'T PILLOWS!"] where I mistook her foot for the chair and had a brief footsie kind of mistake, neither one of us felt even the teeniest zing or a zap. The canopy bed and mood lighting was so totally wasted on us.

After a day or two, we began to notice a couple of strange things. Because we have spent a great deal of time together over the past 5 months, including holidays and birthdays, we started many of our stories with a "We". We also finished each other's sentences more than once and laughed at a variety of private jokes. One night we even found ourselves in the canopy bed retiring early after good meal a couple glasses of Rose. I read the newish Jonathan Franzen book while Noreen checked her email. I sort felt like we were beginning to morph into life partners, sorta like Annette Benning and Julianne Moore in The Kids Were All Right minus the lesbian sex part. And let's face it, the lesbian sex part is a sorta a really important part of their whole situation. However, it's hard to get motivated to get out there when getting out there mean being surrounded by European and Australian teenagers experimenting with mind altering substances.

I felt like if we are not careful one of two not so fantastic things might happen.

1. We might contemplate hiring one of these guys

2. We might plan to go whale watching

Maybe we should have eaten some magic pizza and checked out the all night techno beach party. At least until we get over this whole being heterosexual thing.

These carts were the only mode of transport on the island. Noreen and I felt that perhaps the poor horsies were not ready for all of our jelly. We also felt like we almost fell out of the cart a few times.

However, I have no actual hope of this ever happening. While I have an almost magical effect on gay men, I have absolutely NO effect on gay women. I have lived in both Northampton, MA [the one time and perhaps present lesbian capital of the USA] and San Francisco without a single women even flirting with me once. This kinda made me feel bad [Really?Not even one lady ever ever?] and made me realize that even if I ever felt any impulse in that direction I would most likely not be met with much interest. Perhaps someone spilled the beans about how I feel about taking baths and talking about feelings. Darn it!

I Might Sound Like I Want To Order Freedom Fries

Before I say anything, I would like to say that I was introduced to this world by a Birkenstock wearing, macrame making, potter who was my mother's best friend and labor coach. I grew up listening to Free to Be You and Me. I've read The People's History of The United States and some Chomsky. I respect differences. I don't think my country has everything figured out. Usually, I feel as though people should mostly be able to do whatever they want as long as it isn't hurting anybody else. We are all captains of our own ship, right man?

Why is it then, that after 5 months of living in a Muslim country I've started to understand why France wanted to ban veils in public schools? It feels like something I shouldn't support. It feels like something I should disagree with. I mean, what would Marlo Thomas [key player in Free to Be You and Me] have to say about me trying to tell other woman what they should and should not wear? If this is what so many woman choose for themselves, why should it bother me?

I made a offhanded comment about it front of some other teachers this week at a conference and they sorta jumped down my throat. I avoided a debate because I wasn't really in the mood for any serious talk [I had been sorta but not really joking and had not had lunch yet and am often times not in the mood for serious talk], especially since one of them was a Fullbrighter who probably just graduated from Yale with a degree in Islamic Studies. I really didn't feel like being schooled in a debate by a very somber looking 21 year old about what he called "legislating theology". I really didn't think all of the Vampire Romances I've been reading lately would help me out very much. Although I'm pretty sure Sookie Stackhouse would totally understand my point of view being the little Southern Fried Spitfire that she is.

So I did what everybody does when they find themselves a little bit less informed than they would like to be on a certain topic: I Googled it. [I would like to say that even after my 60 minutes on Google the 21 year old would probably still school me debate wise. He seemed to have a great amount of seriousness on his side] What I found is that it doesn't actually say that women have to be veiled in the Koran. It says something about a "veiled bosoms" and some screens. It seemed like some feminists scholars feel that the conservative reading was a result of a patriarchal culture reading the text very conservatively, not the actual book. I also found that some Indonesian scholars questioned weather the veils are a result of following the rules of the religion or adopting Middle Eastern culture.

So, I guess banning the veils might be more about legislating culture than religion. Ordinarily, I am very opposed to this. As a result I started to ask of my students why the veils were important so I could better understand them and stop feeling like I was in danger of some day joining The Tea Party. They said that it was important because it showed a woman was "good" and "more polite". I didn't hear anything about devout. They also said that it protected them from rape. If a man can't see a woman, he won't want to rape her. I don't know. These just don't seem like great reasons to wear this outfit to the beach.

Shouldn't men just be taught that rape is totally off the table? Even if women are not wearing tents?

And babies? Why do babies have to wear them? Are babies suddenly a whole lot sluttier than they used to be? Are they trying to seduce people with their great big eyes and chubby cheeks? When I asked my students said it was because they looked cute and because it was good practice. It is totally possible that spending the last five months in the jungle away from red wine, boys, and good friends has made me cranky, paranoid, and xenophobic. But here's the thing: It seems like the veils have a lot to do with teaching women how to be quiet and subservient. It also teaches them that they have to be afraid and are unable to do even simple things on their own.

All of my female students have to be home by ten o'clock or their neighbors will gossip about them and think they are a "naughty woman". According to their essays, if they have "free sex" or are even suspected of having it, they risk being ostracized from their communities and being unable to find a husband [which is the number one goal around these parts]. All of a sudden, it doesn't seem like wearing the veils are all that much of a choice like my would be debate partners tried to suggest.

I totally think think that in your own country you should do whatever you see good and fit. However, I have some reservations about supporting these practices in my own country.

And yes, I know that statement makes me sound like this lady:

Yes, I too find this very scary. However, I'm not going to get totally concerned about it until I invite some friends over to my house to look at Russia and hunt some wolves from a helicopter.

I think it might be a matter of simple self preservation. If you look at the entire world, women have only really made big improvements in a few places. For the majority of women, life has remained pretty unchanged. Now, I would say that I am in the top 10% of Bigmouth, aggressive ladies in the U.S. This probably puts me in the top 1% of Bigmouth, aggressive ladies on planet earth. I hate following directions, I don't know how to cook, and I hate cleaning. I have to make sure there remains a place where I can hang out without people trying to throw rocks at me.

Besides, I am from a country where SNOOKI [a Jersey Shore cast member] is now a NY Times bestselling author and Sarah Palin was almost elected VP. You can't tell me that people couldn't sometimes use a little push in the right direction. I'm pretty sure it's what Betty Friedan would want.

The Middle

This week I had my mid year conference. That's right, people! Get ready, because I am halfway through my Indonesian Adventure and will be back soon to talk too loud and poke fun sooner rather than later. During my mid year conference I had to give a series of workshops to educators in a city called Surabaya. What struck me the most about the workshops is how excited everybody is just that you showed up. Everybody wants to shake your hand and everybody wants to take a picture with you. After one workshop there was a ten minute photo shoot to ensure that each participant got a chance to take their picture with me and my co-presenters. I never suspected I would get a small taste of how it feels to be Lindsay Lohan if she gave up booze, cigarettes, and lesbianism.

Basically, people are pretty wowed by the fact that you speak English and are from The U.S. This takes a certain amount of the pressure off. Just by walking through the door, I have already met a lot of their expectations. We are also presented with food, and gifts, and lots of smiles [we were also offered a ride past the biggest prostitute street in the city that our host thought we might want to see, but I told them I was not in the market for one at the present moment so we could just go directly back to the hotel].

While I sat in the 4 star hotel I was put up in for the week I thought about how my new position was a bit different from teaching in NYC. In NYC, teachers are constantly in threat of being "sifted out" if they don't have "the calling" [which I was always under the impression was necessary for nuns, not teachers]. Administrators sneak into your room and peak in the door in hopes of catching you doing I'm really not sure what. They also have secret meetings and generally act like they are running a school somewhere in Communist Russia.

Obviously, it's much, much nicer not to come to work and not be abused. It's much, much nicer to spend 12 hours in a classroom instead of 40. However, since I am not a loner, I cannot spend more than a year on the other side of the world in the jungles of Borneo. I miss laughing with my friends until my belly hurts, I miss going to shows, I miss having a drink at a bar where I am not the only women who doesn't charge by the hour, and yes, family, I miss you too. Therefore, I will return to the U S of A this summer and, sadly, I will have to get a job.

As I start to think about what I will do next, all I know is that this will be a very hard act to follow.

Bon Appetit

Growing up my mother's parenting style was equal parts hey now hippy and for real disciplinarian. [This was after the total hey now hippy approach came to a halt after I got kicked out of dance class, regularly threw temper tantrums [sorry Nana], and bit everybody.] The hey now hippy part let me choose my own bedtime. After all, it was me who would be tired in the morning if I wanted to stay up and watch Letterman. Later, I did not really have a curfew. If I wanted to drink coffee at Denny's late night or go see a rock show with my best friend who had pink hair that was my choice. It was my life and I had to make my own choices, decide what kind of person I wanted to be, and deal with the consequences. My mother focused on personal responsibility and defining your own identity. In theory, I think this is an excellent tactic that creates children who have worked to define their own character and values.

However, this method was helped along by the fact that the parent I always had trouble seeing eye to eye with was a lot like Sam Mallone from Cheers[former athlete, bar owner, ladies man]. This left me with chubbiness, sobriety, and celibacy as my only forms of teenage rebellion. I won't get into what a wild and sexy ride this made my teenage years. Needless to say, I didn't require all that much supervision. I did the dishes at all the parties in high school to give me something to do. Drunk teens tend to repeat themselves and not partake in the most arresting conversations.

Yes, I could make most of my own decisions, but there other things that were extremely non-negotiable. The two main things that my mom had a zero tolerance policy for were diction and manners. Diction was corrected always and emphatically. If I forgot any Rs at the end of a word, it was repeated until I clearly enunciated it. The same went for grammatical errors. It was suggested that if I did not pay more attention, I would have grammar and diction drills after school. I decided to pay attention. In my world, after school was meant for General Hospital and Magnum P.I., not grammar drills. This is probably why I have been accused of trying to pretend I'm not from Worcester, or Woosta, in the past.

Manners were also a biggie. Pleases and thank yous, general politeness, and shaking hands upon meeting new people while making eye contact were all important. However, the most important were table manners. No food was served until I was sitting up straight, the napkin was in my lap, and my elbows were off the table. There was also a lot of attention paid to waiting until everyone had been served to begin eating and using your utensils in the correct manner. To top it all off you also had to converse hopefully somewhat intelligently because dinner is not a time to sit in silence. If you could not figure out how to act at the table, you were asked to leave and your dinner was over.

As a result of these two parenting methods, I have little respect for rules I have not devised for myself, but I'm great at dinner parties. I make good conversation, show up with a bottle of wine, and know how to use a fork pretty well.

This is part of the reason I have very few dietary options here in Indonesia. Traditionally, Indonesians eat with their hands. I realize that it is simply another way to do things and my lack of ability to adapt to it illustrates a lack of cultural awareness and a certain amount of ethnocentrism. Be that as it may, I just can't. I can't scoop up food with my hand and shove it in my mouth. It goes against every lesson on table manners my mom ever gave me. I guess she did her job a little too well.

I went to a seafood restaurant with my staff the other day. There was a giant freezer full of fish caught fresh from the river [which is a deep, deep brown]. They arrived at our table looking pretty much the same, but grilled. I know that it is smarter to eat with your hands because then you pull the fish off of the bone, but I just can't. I used my fork and ended up with a large number of fish bones stuck in my teeth. I soon gave up and had a corn fritter.

Then this soup arrived at the table. That is a big fish head floating in the middle of it. Yes, I could have used a spoon, but I just didn't feel super hungry after looking at the big fish head. It's not that I have any trouble eating fish, but I don't like heads to be involved.

There are some other things I just can't eat, like street food. This is a cart full of hot, sweaty meat balls, noodles, and some fried thing that are out in the hot sun all day. They are somehow made into some sort of soup that I've never tried.

I really liked satay [grilled chicken and beef] for a while. Then I read an article about about a journalist who was here during the ethnic violence/problems with cannibalism in the 90s. He described how he looked over at a satay grill and saw a man grilling up a human thigh. This did not stop me from eating satay altogether, but I do enjoy it a little less. I have since decided to stop googling Borneo.

As a result, it looks my increasingly complicated relationship with Ronald McDonald is not going to end anytime soon. Yes, I read Fast Food Nation. I know it's gross. But I understand that processed cheese and those french fries. I don't feel like I should be asked to leave the table for eating it with my hands. It doesn't have any bones in it I will have to pick out of my teeth. All this is more than a little bit comforting, but not so great for operation fat camp.

Happy New Year! Vaya Con Dios

I should begin by describing the relatively contentious relationship I have always had with New Years. For some reason, my plans just never work out. Here's a rundown of the last 5:

1. I extended a ticket to stay in NYC in hopes of going to a cool party. When I arrived at said party with two very loved up married couples [one couple was so loved up they had each other's names tattooed on their chests in very big letters which to me represents both a passion and a certainty that is pretty unique and special], I realized I was the only straight, single women in attendance. I had arrived at a party of the oldest group of homosexual men I had ever seen [and remember I am not a stranger to gay bars]. A man danced passed me in salmon pants who I'm pretty sure was pushing 80. Needless to say, I failed to find myself a New Year's kiss that evening.

2. I went to a party at my friends house full of hot Jamaican dudes. However, all of the hot Jamaican dudes were spoken for and sat in a room drinking rum and playing Dominoes. All of their wives and ladyfriends stayed in the kitchen cooking and discussing recipes. Since I can drink rum all right, but possess no talent for cooking it wasn't really my kind of party.

3. I went to see my identical twins roommates 80's cover band play with some friends before I realized that they secretly,or not so secretly, hated me because I had asked them not to do some things I considered offensive, gross, and definitely not suitable for a Sunday in the living room. At the end of the night, one of my best friends was going through a pretty heartbreaking time and left for Port Authority at about 3 am and turned off her phone. Being a little neurotic at times, I was pretty convinced she had been kidnapped by bandits. Shockingly, she wasn't.

4. I went out in Brooklyn and nobody seemed that into it. I went to a show at Death By Audio which is a warehouse space and realized that I had reached an age where I have very strong feelings about T.P. I learned that I want T.P. available AT ALL TIMES and that this would probably prohibit me from really enjoying any shows at Death By Audio and most other alternative venues filled with 19 year old art students. I ended up at a bar I don't like where the breathtakingly handsome drummer from one of my favorite bands walked in. This sort of bummed me out. He had just recorded with Bowie. Shouldn't he know of some hip loft party and not be at the same lame bar I was at? I hypothesized that he was, like myself, was lured there by the W.T. inspired snacks. There is no denying that cheeseballs and Frito Pie are in fact crazy delicious.

5. Last year, I decided to stop trying to go out and find a good time. Lady luck just never seems to be on my side at the end of the year. My friend Amabile invited me over for dinner and we ate good food and drank nice wine and watched the ball drop with her friend Tammy Jo. It was mellow and nice and proved to be one of my best New Years ever. I liked both the bad ass view of the Marcy Projects from Amabile's loft and the end of trying to chase the dragon. However, I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little concerned when I found myself eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's in my bed solo at 1am while watching the movie Extract. Extract, was pretty funny and I do love Jason Bateman [although not nearly as much as Keanu Reeves], but it seemed like a potentially problematic theme with which to start the new year.

This brings me to this New Years. Since I am in Southern Australia, I decided to dedicate the last day of 2010 to Patrick Swayze. I sorta stole the idea from Yvette, my tour guide of the Yarra Valley. During the tour, she told me that every year on March 17th, she has St. Patrick Swayze Day and watches her favorite Patrick Swayze movies [She does not watch Dirty Dancing because she feels the role is too soft and not a true Swayze film. She prefers Roadhouse. I have to agree with her there. It's pretty hard to not love a movie about a bouncer at a super violent Honky Tonk bar who is also a philosopher and a Tai Chi Master].

While I do love Roadhouse and The Outsiders, my favorite Patrick Swayze movie is by far Point Break. This film tells the story of a young FBI agent, Johnny Utah who has gone undercover to take down a band of bank robbing surfers who finance their trips around the world in search of the ultimate waves through a life of crime while wearing masks of former US presidents. If it sounds ridiculous, that's because it is. It is also completely amazing and hands down one of my favorite movies of all time.

Now, it also stars Keanu, my number one celebrity crush ever since I first watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Point Break solidified my deep and special love for Keanu. This love is still going strong. My friends spotted him at a documentary in LA still hanging out with Alex Winter [his co-star in Bill and Ted's] which made me love him even more. How can you not love a movie star who has an old school BFF? I get a little bummed when I see pictures of him looking all sad on my favorite celebrity gossip blog, DListed. When my friend told me he had an office near hers in NYC and she always saw him in the kitchen buttering bagels and looked blue, I cursed the fact that I was all the way in Indonesia. If I could just suddenly show up one day and happen to bump into him, maybe I could cheer him up. I mean, Matt Damon married his bartender, right?

Despite my love for Keanu, I think it is safe to say that Point Break really belongs to The Swayze. Yes, Johnny Utah is gorgeous and undergoes a spiritual awakening through the magic of surfing and true love in the form of Lori Petty a feisty surfer girl, but it's really Bodhi who steals the show. Johnny Utah just can't really compete with the surfer, bank robber, and philosopher [a Swayze theme I guess] who is the film's Bodhitsattva. When he gives the speech about the dead souls in their metal coffins [all the people on their way to work in their cars], I really felt it and totally got where he was coming from. I also would like to experience 100% Pure Adrenalin. Who on earth wouldn't? Therefore, I decided to spend the last day of 2010 going to the site of the final scene of Point Break, Bell's Beach. It's where Johnny has finally caught up with Bodhi for their final showdown. Instead of taking him in, he lets him surf the giant and fatal wave of the 50 year storm. Bodhi rides his last wave and disappears into the ocean, living by his own rules until the very end.

I have to be honest. We didn't make it all the way to Bell's Beach due to extreme heat, confusing public transportation, and the fact that my friend Alisa and I were dressed more like we were ready to go to a Nirvana concert and less like we were ready to spend time frolicking in the surf. However, we got very, very close. In addition to this, we went to the Surf Museum and I kept both Partick and Bodhi in my thoughts all day long. I also bought a Bell's Beach beanie which I will probably not be able to wear in Indonesia, but I really, really love.

Very, Very close to Bell's Beach

Me trying to learn how to Hang Loose at The Surf Museum

Alisa learning about famous surfers

I decided to end my Partick Swayze/Goodbye 2010 Day with a Happy New Years Bikram Yoga Class. I figured it was the best way to make sure that 2011 marks the day that my Hippy Card comes in mail despite my love of Punk Rock, sarcasm, and black clothing. I think it's possible as long as I don't tell anyone how I really feel about Phish. I'm not sure why yoga works. The Doubting Thomas in me says that it only works because I become exhausted and slightly confused after stretching my body in 110 degree heat for 90 minutes which makes me feel more relaxed and less agrivated. However, I don't know everything. Maybe I really am freeing my mind and unlocking my potential, man! Either way, I figured it was a good way to clear my head and get ready for the New Year.

I decided to splurge on the more expensive brand of Coconut Water because it was made by a company called Nudie. I rightly assumed that this would be my sole chance to inject a little sexy into my New Year festivities.

I left the yoga studio and figured these words were not the worst ones to read right before I said good bye to 2010. I then met Alisa and Noreen for some wine and cheese to celebrate the New Year. I couldn't put on any make up because my face was way too red, but I was much too mellow from class and spending all day in the hot sun to care. At midnight Alisa's phone rang and it was my mom calling to wish me a Happy New Year [I miss you, too]. All in all, it was a New Years well spent. So far, my Jesus Year is proving to be pretty good. Hey mom, You just might have been right about 33.

Happy New Year!

Namaste, dudes!

xoxoxo