I was sitting in Bryant Park the other day. It was a nice day and originally I wanted to lay across the lawn. Unfortunately, the lawn was closed and I sat in close proximity to a couple that started chanting. They kept repeating this over and over and then concluded with a cuddle. The guy was clearly leading the show and the woman going alone with it… prompting high-fives and “YAYs!” while throwing their hands up after every chant.

What was the chant? It went like this, “USA! USA! If you don’t like us, GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY. GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY. We’ll kick your ass! We’ll kick your ass! YAY!” over and over again.

The interesting thing is that these two weren’t Caucasian. They looked Asian, Mexican, and Hispanic. Also, at first you thought they were friends just hanging out, but later on, they started to cuddle. These were two crazy freakin’ people who were into each other. That kind of warmed my heart. These people were crazy in a way that the other didn’t mind.

I told Ryan, later when he joined me, “I want to go talk to these people or start the chant with them. What do you think they will do?” He replied, “Uh… maybe kick your assk?” The thing is the sentiment in the chant is not particularly anti-immigrant or anything. They just kept saying, “IF YOU DON’T LIKE US, GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY!” Like dude, maybe I am Asian and I don’t seem American, but maybe I still dig your country? Let’s be friends! Ok, so they did scare and disturb me, but you know, fascinated me at the same time. It’s all kind of romantic.

                          

So, where I work, Christmas comes early… like now. Things are all a flutter for Christmas festivities and although I don’t deal with it, my coworkers do. They left me a little something on my desk! You can imagine the headaches here.

Timelines are a little screwed up here, which might be why I keep forgetting what day it is. And last month, I completely forgot about my father’s birthday. (Don’t worry I’m not hurting anyone’s feelings who is living… except maybe my mother) It’s not a big deal, but personally that’s disturbing, although I would guess… normal. I mean, I would almost forget my birthday and keep forgetting to do anything for it. Whatevs.

Universal holidays are a little easy, because I can just jump on a bandwagon. And despite not doing anything special, I still want to do something special and love Christmas. Couple of years ago, I was invited for a Hanukkah dinner, and I got up on that bandwagon too. It’s multicultural up in here. Myself, I don’t know what it is, but for birthdays and all… I feel like I’m imposing my plans. Either way, on the date of my birthday I’ve been invited to a goodbye party. Hah. That same friend and I were talking last year about having a barbeque up on the roof and needing a reason to celebrate… oh wait, my birthday. I guess good bye party is as good a reason as any. (She’s going to Japan for like half a year or something)

In other news, April is winding down and the warmer weather is getting a little more frequent, and light is creeping all the way up until 7:30pm. Also, I finished my taxes a few days in advance, all in an annoying Sunday, you want to read all about it. In other news, I am beginning to think that diet coke is an acceptable way of ingesting your caffeine. If you know me, you will know how weird that is.

                          

Currently, I’ve run out of things to read. The last thing I enjoyed was Jay Rubin’s Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words. I thought I would dislike it, because I’m generally not very interested in other people’s readings of my favorite fiction authors. However, I enjoyed Jay Rubin’s book, because it was more than his interpretations. It had a lot of biographical data about Murakami that really enriched my ideas of his works.

Before that, I finished the Deptford Trilogies by Davies and Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein, both works of which I absolutely LOVED, and Miranda July’s Nobody Belongs Here More Than You, which I thought was indulgent, and at times, interesting, drivel. Eh. I was curious about and picked up Eat Pray Love and consequently kind of regretted it. However, it might be morbid curiosity that keeps me going back for more.

Otherwise, I’ve been eating great and watching tons of Law and Order: SVU. Law and Order, it’s my new thing. I don’t know why I am all of a sudden so fascinated by it. At the end of the day, it’s what I want to watch; experiencing this morbid schaudenfraude.

I HATE that during the week, I get home, cook or buy dinner, and then watch 2-3 episodes of instant watch netflix and go to bed. However, I’ve had lovely weekends of lazy mornings cooking hash, eating on my roof top in the sun, and drinking lots of bubbly drinks. I guess it works out. I’ve become one of those drones that go on automatic pilot during the week to try to bask in the weekend…

I’ve been going to the gym twice to three times a week. That’s it. I’ve been slowing things down and enjoying the sun. I’ve been really enjoying walking around again. I finally bought some bras for the first time in 2 years. Did you need to know that? No, but it’s just such weird and awful knowledge that lets you in on how much I’ve let go of certain things…

Life life life…

                          

In terms of my job, I’ve moved on to a new company, which is always frightening, exciting, and sad. I think it was just a mood I was in, but I really missed my old coworkers for the first part of the week. I still do, but I really need to get over that.

The first few weeks are really just the worst. You don’t remember anyone’s names, you feel awkward, and you feel mostly restricted to your desk. It’s hard, you know? Coming from a place where I had a lot of free reign and lots of fun coworkers to goof around with, it’s been a little lonely. Still, the past week has been pretty busy. Not that things didn’t get busy at my last gig, but as of late, there has been a lot of down time. And jumping into the fray at the busiest time of year is … awkward.

A question I’ve asked myself for the past month was … “when do you know when enough is enough?” And my current answer is that you don’t, but you need to weigh it out with other circumstances and opportunities. You might not be at the end of your rope, yet, but you can’t let another opportunity pass you by.

I left my job without really saying a proper goodbye to everyone, since the last 2 days were effected by the snowpacolypse. I didn’t go in Thursday and Friday, no one was in. It was in a way… easier that way. No awkward goodbyes, because I was dreading that. I would have liked to get drinks with couple of people, though, but that might happen this week. When I came to my last job, couple of people were leaving and there was a great to do about them. Now, it’s changed, which is a shame. (Not that I really wanted anything for myself. There were others leaving before I left, and there was nothing really planned for them.)

Work culture fascinates me. In the last 10 years, I’ve seen a number of environments and I have to say, the most dysfunctional places forges the strongest bonds.

I developed an annoying cough the weekend before I started my new job. REALLY ANNOYING. I managed this WHOLE time to avoid getting sick. And now… to add to the annoyances of being in an unfamiliar place, everyone probably thinks I am carrying the plague, too.

My mood has been easy to foul… lately.

In other news, two of my coworkers have fashion blogs, or something. One of them asked me and the other ladies in my room to post for a Korean fashion blog. Apparently my coworker and I both raised our brows and said… “For what? To show what NOT to wear?” I think I was wearing a thick, semi sparkly gray turtle neck from express and thick gray slacks from Banana Republic. He told me to wear my purple scarf, cause “It looks cool,” he says. That an my blue patent pumps… OMG. I just checked the site and there I am buried among other photos of random New Yorkers. I won’t link there, because it’s quite unflattering.

Overall I really like the people I work with. The people training me are very thorough and very supportive. I feel lucky. Overall I have never been in a circumstance where my direct supervisor sucked. If there was any discontent, it was usually at a higher level…

I’m waiting for spring.

                          

But seriously, I find that I want the days to go by faster, because everyday seems more tedious than the one before. Is that depression? And then I realize I lost a whole month, and I kind of want the months to pass by too, because I should be out of this funk when I get more sun, and when more paycheck days go by. Haha. That’s sad, though, because I don’t have too much youth left, imagine if I spend most of the rest of my 20s that way. What a waste! I should be delighting in the days that go by… and the only analogy I can come up with is savoring every bite of my thai curry noodle soup today. Figures. Each day grows dinner once lunch time is over. Then I look forward to dinner. Then… sleep.

I’m finding it hard to keep my up my discipline, about work, being frugal, about eating right, and going to the gym. I feel like each day crawls by, but all of a sudden, I’m still caught by surprise. That’s not a way to live. More and more, I am convinced by that.

I feel like perhaps I need a resolution. Not a New Year’s one, but goals for this month. This month’s goals were to go to the gym for at least an hour 4 times a week and keep the apartment clean. I had an easier time doing the former than latter. Still, I should clean the apartment today, so I can say I did it. I need fun projects, though, like reading a book a week for 56 weeks? I should be able to read that much, right? I used to read 200+pages a day for Grad school… freakin’ german Philosophers, for godsakes.

First and second week of January, other than my fashion magazines, I’ve been reading Malcom Gladwell’s “What the Dog Saw.” Ryan got Nocturnes by Ishiguro for Christmas, and I loved his “Remains of the Day,” so I read that. The story, unfortunately, was a bit sterile, especially compared to “Remains…” I started Davies’ “Fifth Business,” but I let Ryan read it first. I took his finished, “Tokyo Vice” by Adelstein, which I am pouring through. Now I am seeing Yakuza’s in every elvis haired older Japanese male.

Of course I can challenge myself to find new work projects, some freelance projects, etc… but that won’t be very enjoyable… and then my procrastination comes out. It’s an uphill battle.

Maybe my resolution should be 3 posts a week? HAHA, start with 1 post a week?

                          

There was a weird unmarked dark bus parked on Bedford, which offered pictures with Santa and some drinks inside. That was a little creepy. I’m not in the habit of getting into weird buses to drink wine and sit on a strange man’s lap.

I went Christmas shopping with Ryan and his sister, however, I ended up getting things for myself. Tracy and I both saw respective ear warmers/mufflers that we liked, so we bought each other one and switched. Something like that. I bought these Pantone colored mugs with the color label on the bottom. I’m really taken with them. I love the concept and I want to collect more colors. For now, we just picked up the primary colors of red 186 C and royal blue 286 C.

I love the concept and I love how easily they integrate with our other things. I am even tempted to get a mug for myself to use at work. I am that tickled by this idea. It would be awesome if I could get a custom mug with the specific Pantone color of our logo, that would be awesome. D at live events would laugh, as half the time we’re trying to track down particular shades for banners and other materials.

Otherwise, I’ve been playing with a lomo-esque camera that Ryan got me this year, for Christmas or an anniversary present, or something. Who knows?! He found it at Paul Smith and it’s rubber/plastic exterior is really pretty. It splits the frame of the picture in half, so that instead of 36, you can shoot 72 photos, where two frames taken in conjunction share a shot. I look forward to see how my play shots come out.

But the snow, people are calling it Snowpocalypse, why? I mean, we get bad snow. I don’t know why Delta and Jetblue refused to fly. I guess we aren’t used to getting snow so early in the year. I remember last year we barely got a white Christmas. Usually it snows during January or early February. Either way, this unexpected snow fall in the east coast caused Jetblue to cancel all flights out on the 20th from the Boston and NY area, offering no other contingency plan other than a free booking on Christmas day. It was ridiculous. The customer service representation that we spoke to originally was even smug about it all. Finally in the middle of the day after being on hold for well over 5-10 minutes, there was a voicemail that asked us to call them back at a later date due to the high call volume. I know I will be very reluctant to fly Jetblue in the future, since if something goes wrong, they will be less than accomodating. Other Airlines have packages and contingency plans with other airlines and WILL book a flight for you on another carrier. Jetblue will not.

In other news, the other week we finally put up some art that we bought. I bought some sculptures before Thanksgiving by artist, Darla Jackson. Her What are you afraid of? piece caught my attention. She juxtaposes animals in very human poses and emotions that I completely dig. Her other works that I like include the Birthday Party series. I couldn’t quite afford the bigger works and the one that I love best (unfortunately with my Cambodia trip in the horizon, I couldn’t even afford it in installations), but I really liked the flock installtions she did, and I bought some plaster birds from her. She was sweet and packaged them lovingly and securely, and mailed them to me minding some high maintenance requests. She also apparently had a baby recently and had to take time away from that bliss to mail these out to me, so thank you! We love them.

I was SO afraid of taking them out of their packaging! I didn’t realize that the birds were so fragile… that plaster was so fragile. In the end, Kevin Curran from Laundromat Gallery installed them and the below art we bought from him, when he came over.

Months ago, we attended a Laundromat Gallery opening for Liz Atzberger, and Ryan fell in love with one of her works. Apparently it was priced accordingly so that no one would buy it, but that plan was obviously a “fail.” In return, Kevin offered to come over and install it and other works he needed hanging, like a commissioned poster of one of Ryan’s big works for Celebrate Brooklyn and NPR, for some beer. He was also nice enough to lend his services and expertise in hanging my bird sculptures I bought.

                          

Composing and Cocktails at the Le Poisson Rouge

There was iphone composing, electronic music coupled with live instruments, and theremins!

                          

I did not see Obama. He spoke inside and came and wen through the back (of course), which was blocked off by a big Mack Truck. I kid you not. However, he did apparently go through William Street and wave to everyone!

                          

Ryan is in Portland, OR, and it’s easier commuting to work from my mother’s place. Also, I think I would just feel really lonely in that apartment. For someone that likes her space… you would think that I would relish being in the apartment.

I will say that I went to go check on the place today and surprisingly, it felt like home. My mother came with me (it was her first time seeing the place, believe it or not) and I entertained her *in my own apartment.* I find that funny. Of course I feel familiar and comfortable in my mother’s apartment, but it was nice to be in my own space.

My mother was concerned about the neighborhood, but I told her not to worry. I think it was starting to grow on her too. Of course, they cleaned up the elephant head, which is good. That would have been odd.

Otherwise, I went to Williamsburg and had dinner for a friend’s birthday. It was quite lovely. I’m going to make more of an effort to discover things in Brooklyn/Wiliamsburg, not because it’s cool, but because it’s *my neighborhood.* I’ve been a bubbled up manhattanite for way too long…