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.

                          

I just got back from from an annual gynecological exam. You know, routine. First of all, my copay just went up, apparently. Second of all, my office just hired a nurse practitioner around a year ago. My first visit in this office was with the doctor. Then, I got gardisil shots (which is another entry all together) with this nurse practitioner, which is fine, but she was also doubling as a birthcontrol consultant and in beginning she made me feel a little uncomfortable. For example, she touted using condoms, which is good… but she talked about them with me in a bit of … let’s say condescending manner. I like her, but I wasn’t  quite sure of that yet then. I will also say, I picked this office due to it’s facilities (it just moved right next to my office), doctor recommendations, and because he was a male doctor. Seriously. So, it caught me off guard when the nurse practioner was the one giving me my annual, today. My reasoning is this: I’m used to men being down there. Women, I am not.

On a separate note, if you’re a nurse practioner, shouldn’t you be better at drawing blood? I once had a terrible experience with another doctor drawing blood. However, for the past 2-3 years, I’ve had positive painless experiences. I guess I let my guard down. She pricked me on the right hand, and could draw nothing. It bled out, it still hurts. She found a vein, finally, on my left arm, and it was more than uncomfortable. Uhg.

She was quite nice, though, and very polite. She is very sweet and tried her best, I know.

Fail on my part: I kind of scheduled this appointment a little too close to my period. Since you can’t schedule the appointment even a day before your last appointment, I scheduled it today. (Last year, my appt was Jan 29.) I didn’t think about anything else. Woops.

Rant: Why do doctors only give Birth Control prescriptions out in 12 month increments? Other than Deprovera/Seasonale, meant to skip periods, all other birth control is given in 28 day increments. That is considered a month. Now, what about those last 2-3 days at the end of our calendar month? That, my dear, causes most women to run out before their next annual. Case in point, 28 x 12 != 365. In fact, 28×12=336, and 365-336=29… a whole extra cycle + 1day. I expect doctors to know that women have 13 cycles a year, if regulated by birthcontrol. Just sayin’.

                          

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?

                          

I went to Portland, came back, started the new year at work, had a million annual reviews (ok… just 2), and on a whole felt so unmotivated by everything except my gym membership. In the midst of that, lo and behold, no update.

For the first time in my life, I got offered a first class ticket + a $300 voucher if I would take the evening flight instead of my super early morning flight into PDX. However, I decided not to take it, since although I can just go my mother’s place and hang out (and bite the Newark train fee), I didn’t want to lose a whole day of doing nothing (and I took off from work – precisely so I would get to the west coast early enough to actually do something). So, I got to PDX, Ryan and I got lunch, and then my friend George was going to come over and crash at Ry’s parents’ place for the night. Well, some crazy ass snow came. It shut the town down. George couldn’t even drive to our place, since he wouldn’t be able to climb the snowy hills. If I had taken that later flight and got there at 10pm, I would’ve been stranded!

Portland was fun and relaxing. I didn’t do any crazy shit and I spent most of the time stuffing my face. I gained 6lbs in 7 days, people. Almost 1 delicious pound per day. This was, of course, before the New Year and it’s been 2-3 weeks and I finally just got to my pre-Portland weight. Sigh. Which is still like 15 more pounds than I was at my fittest 2 or so years ago.

I’m trying to go to the gym at least 4 times a week. However, fitting my workout around work is cutting most of the it short. 30 minute run here, 10-15 minute weight session there… At least I managed to lose those 6lbs. WHO PUTS ON THAT MUCH WEIGHT AT ONCE?

Anyway, I should change the topic. While Ryan was still in Portland, I was staying with my mother in Manhattan, because I was lazy and didn’t have the XBox at home… and then what was I going to do? Errr… I mean, I missed Ryan. Not the XBox. Ahem. So, while I was at home, I was also flipping through a copy of Elle magazine I bought for the plane ride and there was this crazy set of article of a bunch of bored editors challenging themselves to change up on feature of their appearance everyday… not clothes, but hair and make-up. I think it was interesting, but obviously in the realm of, “you ran out of ideas, didn’t you? This is something I would crazily do for my blog if I thought I had enough discipline.”

So, for a series of 3 days? Less than a week, I know. I came into the office with a Snooki/bumpit half ponytail and lots of eyeliner and shadow. People in the office would ask me, “what looks different about you?” And I would say, “this load of makeup on my face that I never wear?” And they would reply, “No, you did your hair differently.” Facesmack. Still, I will never be afraid of too much make-up again, after Cambodia. 3 Neutrogena face wipes and there was still make up on my face. They gave me new eyelids for shitssake! Anyway, so I know bored when I see it.

Like, for example, there was a time in elementary school where I saw how long I can go without wearing the same top twice. I started raiding my mother’s closet… yes, in elementary school, and cycled through ALL my t-shirts. I am pretty sure I lasted at least 3 months. No joke. I just wore a different tshirt every single day. I had a lot of damn t-shirts. (And yes, this was happening while I was wearing all those crazy leggings, because no one clued me into the fact that leggings were no longer acceptable for everyday. I think my first pair of jeans was this black skinny jeans, because I was that devasted about my leggings.)

Now, I am back to my careless aray of dressing kind of like Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, sans make-up, and seeing how long I can continue to get dressed in 10 minutes flat in the morning. Meh. If I think about going to the gym later in the day, I don’t even want to bother doing my hair or make-up. This is a far cry from my last job where I would make an effort to sort of dress up. I was also single then.

Although I am thinking that sometime in the future, I need to rock these eyelid tattoos the girl in the Elle magazine rocked… in pink and purple leopard print that goes over the entirety of the eyelid.

                          

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.