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…

                          

Tangent: I LOVE shopping for gifts when traveling. I guess, cause I just love shopping when I’m traveling. My mother has a problem, where she would be frugal in everyday life, but when I travel with her, she’s a crazy shopaholic. Anyway, it’s the best time to get gifts. And I actually kind of dislike being pressured to buy gifts. I like to browse a lot and buy gradually. I feel the stores pressure you to get certain gifts. Only certain things are available seasonally. If I thought about this earlier than I would have gone to my go to online store: Think Geek. I haven’t been shopping these days. Seriously. The first time I shopped in MONTHS was last week with Ryan and Tracy. That’s probably why I splurged on the mugs and earmuffs. I’ve been itching to buy things.

I actually had the perfect gift in mind, but it wasn’t anything I can pull off. Stevies’ model photos, autographed. There is this whole HILARIOUS story about how he used to be an Abercrombie and Fitch model, back in the day. Although he is a very good looking man, the idea of him being a 20-30 something six pack half naked model is kinda hilarious. After that got out, we hired a new customer service rep, ie. Kelly Kapor, called MJ and she ended up having these very posters on her wall. She recognized him! Funniest thing ever. Unfortunately, she lost the posters. Anyway. This guy is hilarious for other reasons that would take too long to go into, but it is an unintentional hilarity. Still, we all love him.

He’s the type of person to easily get persuaded to come into work in a Santa outfit and push back his vacation flight. Of course, in the end we told him he didn’t need to… although I do think someone should have dressed up after hours as Jesus, a la The Office, to be offensive. This guy is one of the most gullible person in the office. And he’s such a good sport about being Mark’s main tease.

I was trying to convince my boss to participate and wrap a huge box with a gift certificate to our company store or something. Haha. However, he’s just a scrooge. I pointed out that he could always rewrap the 100s of vendor gift baskets we received. Oh my gawd, this whole week I was munching on chocolates, chocolate cookies, butter cookies, buttercream frosted cookies, caramel popcorn, and chocolate popcorn. For real. I practically did not need lunch everyday (although that didn’t stop me). Insane.

I think I do good on individual gifts for people but these general gifts throw me off. It needs to be unisex and I don’t want to get something random. In the end, since I give out tea quite often, I got a tea set, and it was well received with the person that got it. It came with some dorky lap mug. I also enclosed a silicone teaspoon, which I thought was cool. And a variety of Stash tea.

I think it was the knowledge that last year the present that went through the most people’s hands were the lottery scratch offs. I didn’t understand it, but I thought maybe there was something I was missing. So, this year, I stole some scratch offs. Last year, 3 people stole scratch offs and I was puzzled. I stole the dartboard and kept it in the office. I screwed Ted over, who in the end got a leather wallet. So in the end, I got $18 in scratch offs. It wasn’t very satisfying, actually. I would have rather gotten the borders gift certificate or something. I was actually thinking of taking this one gift, but I’m glad I didn’t. I guess I need it., though It was a coin counting jar. Yup.

This year no one wrapped a present in a shoebox and duct tape, no security needed. And the for most part it was quiet, unlike last year. Last year it was Christmas Eve and last minute thing and we went to go find something during lunch in the snow storm. This year, my cube was my gift storage and I had wrapping glitter tissue and bags galore stored there, along with boxes for Sophear and Danny. This year my presents were different things for just lounging or something. I don’t know. I got them a cool “Around-the-World” tea set (see a pattern – I saw it when I was shopping for white elephant), silicone teaspoon, and other things that promote sitting on their bum.

                          

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.

                          

I really like my coworkers, however, the first week of work, when I started (and maybe I am walking down memory lane, because my year review is coming up) they gave me this motivational calendar with pictures of landscapes and captions like, “Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” Really? Why would you ever give your employees that? It’s just asking to be made fun of. And don’t get me wrong, most people here are smart, funny, and ironic, which is why I appreciate them. On the other hand, it can’t even be twisted sense of humor. In the end, it’s probably apathy, which is worse. It was lying around and they gave it out. I think they got it free from their work supplies company.

I had another coworker who used to draw ridiculous doodles all OVER my calendar. She would say, “Girl, this is seriously NOT YOU. I need to get you a new calendar.” LIke, you know Suicidal Bunnies or something.

So, the other day, I bought a new calendar! I am addicted to this discount store called, LotsLess! It’s like Odd Job, and it has all these great thigns that were banished from other stores. I love $99 cent stores, even if the one near me is actually a “$99 and above” store (Yeah, I don’t get it, either. Typically everything is around $1.29). I got this 99 cent calendar of cute poppy 50′s-esque art. The calendar is called “Suburban Socialites.” I would prefer the Suicidal Bunnies, but for the office, I’m a bit cheap. This will do.

You know, and maybe Suicidal Animals aren’t very appropriate for the office. I all ready have a suicidal fruit on my cubicle. Not to mention a creepy photo of myself and 2 other coworkers masked as Steve clones. (That clipping was given to me by a coworker that no longer works here, “Tweeting can make you heartless: Study,” it says. At the time, I thought it was a not-so-subtle hint and a some twisted sense of humor that caused her to give it to me. Of course, I put it up.)

This is all to say that at times, I feel like my calendar is silently mocking me. Well, I win after December, stupid calendar, “I GET TO REPLACE YOU!!!!!” (Maybe I am overthinking this?)

In other news, I left for Cambodia at a weird time. I WAS SO BUSY the day I was due to leave, I barely ate and left 30 minutes later for the airport. This is why smart people like Sopeark opted to stay home the day of. “It always happens,” he says. I, just didn’t want to give up my vacation day for packing. (I also went to work the next day after I came back, so there!) The thing is, the end of the year and beginning of January gets slower for us, since the holiday season is here. The busiest time is Fall, which past. Now, we need to stimulate growth through the slower months. This just means, I don’t need to stay those late nights these days. It’s nice, but also weird. I mean, it’s not like I get to enjoy any daylight, anyway, though… since it gets dark around 4-5pm. Boo.

                          

So this road trip… We could have been in a chartered big air conditioned tour bus for around $10 each. However, a relative recommended this driver and his van, although there is no AC, because he knows his way through Siem Reap and he will stay with us and drive us down to Penom Penh. That seemed like a good deal. There were 9 of us and they said his van will fit 13 people.

Little did we know, the driver was half deaf, the speedometer and headlights of the car was broken, and the car fit 8 people comfortably and two people had to squeeze up front with the driver. (there was a pull down bitch seat that Ben put his injured foot on in the back) Overall, it was an adventure.

Our windows were rolled down the whole time and we had to keep our face masks on, because the dirt roads were dusty. We had a 4-5 hour road trip to Siem Reap, except that it got dark and our headlights were broken. I think at one point we resorted to sticking flashlights out the window to light the path. We got in to a repair shop in a small village where we were stuck for 3 hours. 3 HOURS! They made a temporary fix to leave the headlights on for the duration of the travel and we headed on. There was also something wrong with the main circuit… which would power off the car every now and then.

Dogs are rampant in Cambodia and for a lot of people they are sort of like rats. They are abundant, mangy, and they have no remorse when you hit them with a car. Our other host, Sophea’s cousin hit two dogs, she was saying. “I’m glad it wasn’t a pig, since we wouldn’t be able to run over it.” Right. Our driver, of course, hit one that leaped out onto the street. We felt the bump in the back tire, and looked back, and the dog kept going. Poor thing.

And the corrupt cops… There were a group of police officers stopping cars on our way from Pursat to Siem Reap. They pulled us over, gave us some shit about looking behind us, and our driver paid them money. However, the f-ed up thing is, the next day in the paper, cops did this to a soldier AT THE SAME INTERSECTION. The soldier, who was a high ranking officer, didn’t stop. The cops started to shoot and the officer shot back. The officer ended up killing two cops. No joke.

Eventually around 11 that night (we were trying to get there around 7-8), we got to Siem Reap. We were relieved. We stayed there for 2 nights. Unfortunately the quick fix to the headlights wasn’t a permanant fix, so we stayed an extra night so we didn’t need to drive in the dark. (Although for some reason, on our trip to Penom Penh, we got there very late. We were on the roat for 7 hours, when the anticipated time was 5.) The kicker was that when Sophea’s cousin kept telling us we were lucky as the guys pushed the cars away from the driveway. I didn’t understand that it stopped starting. I thought there just wasn’t enough room to maneuver. Can you imagine? One more bathroom stop and we would have been stranded again?

Ankor was impressive and vast, though. I was surprised we were allowed in so many corridors. Sophea made a good point that Ankor Thom was peaceful, with less people, and beautiful. Ankor Wat was just vast.

                          

I spent 3-4 days (left on the fourth day) and 3 nights in Pursat, a small village between Penom Penh and Siem Reap. Following the wedding, we took a road trip (on that 4rth day) and spent 2 nights in Siem Reap, a larger village/small city. There, we went to the Ankor/Bangor region and saw the temples. The area where we stayed was cheaper than the 5 star hotel strips, rustic, but still slightly touristy.

Come to think of it, a lot of my time there was spent in a damn car. After the 24+ hour plane trip, we had a 3 hour car ride ahead of us to Pursat. Then, we had a 4-5 hour car ride to Siem Reap, except our car had to be repaired along the way, so add another 3 hours. SERIOUSLY. Then, it was a 5-6 hour car ride back to Penom Penh, which took much longer than that.

So, I really appreciated it when we got off the car, that first day, and the first thing they do is to take us to cut down a banana tree. We sat in the back of the pick up and drove through the village. It was kind of fun. Then, when we cut down the banana tree, we sat on the sides of the back, which was an exciting ride. I mean, people pile on and ride these things in huge groups, so we were doing it like the locals, you know? I guess no seat belts required.

Yes, we needed a load of coconuts and like two whole banana trees for the wedding. At the time, I was thinking, “that’s not how we harvest bananas in Farmville,” but apparently banana trees only bear fruits once. (Apparently banana trees aren’t really a tree, and once the stalk bears fruit, it dies. You can cut it down and a new one will grow through the root/stalk.) I was looking forward to having some bananas. Little did I know that they were going to spray paint the whole thing silver and decorate the front of the tent in an arch of the banana trees. Like, you would think they would just get fake trees if you wanted to spray paint them silver. I don’t get it.

Anyway, her relatives there mumbled something about going to cut down banana trees to be a tradition or good luck or something and sent us on our way. With one other local and someone’s aunt/grandmother to guide us, us white people went to cut down a banana tree. No joke! It required couple of poles, pushing the trunk/stalk down and hacking at it. This was all in someone else’s backyard. I think we cut a stalk of coconuts, also, where the local kid just jumped up on a coconut tree and climbed up barefoot, cut some down, and climbed and jumped back down. Just like that. They gave me a coconut to drink and it was quite delicious. Unfortunately, these coconuts suffered the same spray painted fate as the bananas. (I guess we can still drink from them, right? Still, I never found out what happened to them after the ceremony and reveling. They really like spray painting fruits, though. They spray painted some limes, too.

                          

I was in Cambodia for 10 days. Well, technically I was IN Cambodia for 8 days and 7 nights. Flying there took me over 24 hours. Believe it. I wish I could have stayed longer, but I only took off 4 business days and went through the Thanksgiving holiday. I would have loved to had a chance to go to Thailand and Vietnam. Maybe visit my mother’s friend in Malaysia.

I was there with Sophea, her family, and some of our friends. Yes, we crashed their family vacation. Well, technically, it was a wedding. I was a bridesmaid. I arrived in Cambodia on the 21st (I left on the night of the 19th) and the wedding started on the 22nd. The next two days were a blur of jetlag and not eating or drinking through 10+ costume changes. I felt bad. I felt bloated, sleepy, nauseous, and uncomfortable. However, the wedding was long, pretty, and we had plenty to laugh about later. They caked us up with makeup that would make anyone look … well … like how I looked. They will make a man, gorilla, or a cow, look like a Cambodian bridesmaid. For reals.

I managed to upload the first few days in Pursat (where the wedding was) and the wedding pictures I was able to get in up. I couldn’t get much pictures in after being uncomfortable and doubled over when I wasn’t garbed (and for the most part we wanted to get out of the get up pretty quickly) or being paraded around.

I say this all now, but I was pretty laid back during the whole affair. I think I got a little grumpy when I was doubled over sleeping by the end of the night during both nights of the wedding. Other than that, the whole thing was a rather new experience and something we all uncomfortably shuffled through together. You know, it’s like a bonding moment or something.

Otherwise, the rest of the trip was quite an adventure. Right after the wedding, we chartered a run-down van and took a road trip to Siem Reap to see the Ankor Temples. We eventually got there and saw Ankor Wat, Ankor Thom, as well as some other sites. Then, we took a roadtrip back down to Penom Penh, the capitol (and where we were flying out of). We went to the Russian Market and took a look around the city before returning. (I also got to visit a gym and swimming pool once for some relaxation).

Overall the trip was a PETA fail… I rode an elephant and tried to avoid the scary monkeys that would attack and steal from people (although I did feed some babies… you know… to encourage bad behavior in the future). We had to step on the elephant’s head to get to the seat in the back. Geez.

The Ankor Temples were amazing, although, the jungles around the area isn’t really a jungle anymore. The kids selling wares are super competitive and aggressive. I think my friend Carlos managed to make one cry. HAHA. I was really surprised how tactile we were able to be. Seriously. There were collapsed columns right there. They did close off some dangerous stairs that have been worn down over the years. Sophea told me those were open to tourists few years before.

I bought tons of things, and for 4000 Riel to a $1, everything was super affordable. The hotel rooms for $10-15 a night and meals hovered around $1-4 regularly. We tried some nice restaurants for $6 a plate, but I wasn’t impressed. While the smaller establishments were quite good!

I had a good time. I’m quite happy at the variety of things I was able to experience. I really liked going to Pursat, which was a SMALL SMALL village and much more rustic experience than the big city. I think everyone needs to visit Seam Riep and Ankor. Next time, though, I want to visit other Southeast Asian countries.

Throughout the week, I will try to post some stories of my trip and some pictures out of my album.