Let's All Do The Bump, Bump, Bump. Listening: Go on do what you've got to do. You've got your dreams I've got mine too. Be strong get off at the next stop. Don't worry about a thing. Keep taking it easy.
Greeting from Canadia, the fifty first state! Nah, just kidding. I'm up here and I'm actually having a pretty decent time. Although I was supposed to get here on Chrismas night, I didn't get here until the morning of the twenty-seventh. On the twenty-fifth, my brother and I got bumped for a sum of money, so we ended up just hanging out and playing poker with a bunch of folks at my place. It was a good use of a holiday. It was so much fun, that I hope that we can make a habit of it. I think that everyone else had fun too.
When my brother and I went to the airport on Boxing Day, we asked the gate attendant, again, if they were oversold and needed people to get bumped. At first, they said, "No, we should be fine," but when we got back from having breakfast, they were hardcore looking for people. There was this hot chick in the military, who was either hispanic or mulata, who needed to get to the left coast for some orders, but she wasn't able to get on the plane. My brother and I gave up our seats for more cash. Since we were so accomodating, they were bending over backwards for us. They tried to get us upgraded to first class (which they couldn't), but they did get us to Seattle that night via Cincinnati, a hotel room in Seattle, and a flight up to Vancouver the next morning. Oh yeah, between these two days, my brother and I got a total of seventy dollars worth of meal vouchers. We ended up eating in a Wolfgang Puck's in Cincinatti. Yeah, baby!
So now, I have enough money's worth of vouchers to go to San Francisco to check out that The California Culinary Academy and to go meet Raver Girl and Fry Queen in Amsterdam for Dance Valley. Yeah, mofugga! I'll prolly have even more money left over after that! Technically, I could even go to Japan on that money.
So far, the theme of the trip to Vancouver has been "Eat, eat, eat." I've eaten significant lunches and dinners for the past four days. At home, I don't eat that much. I swear to god I'm gonna come away from this trip looking like about five months pregnant. Most of the food has been Chinese and Japanese, but we found this local chain restaurant called "Milestone" which is decent for a chain restaurant. The two things that are very different in Vancouver, as far as I have seen has been the salmon and the toro tuna. The salmon here is a much deeper red. It doesn't quite have the same taste either. It's kind of a much more delicate flavor than the stuff we get in Boston. The toro up here is pretty good too. I have to say I like the maguro much more than the toro, but we have the killer maguro in Boston.
At dinner the other night, I also found a new vegetable. Chive flowers. They were chopped up and put in noodles. It was kind of like if the long skinnyn string beans were solid all of the way through. I can't wait to get back home to try to replicate the dish. I actually think that the chive flowers would also be pretty good finely chopped in eggs or an omelette.
The shopping here has been killer too. I'll be bringing back at least five DVDs including My Sassy Girl (so I have my own copy), another movie starring that same girl (because I know that many men drool over her), 2046 (the new Wong Kar Wai film), a couple of Faye Wong DVDs. I also found a Hikaru Utada DVD that I'm going to get for The Violent One. I'll be bringing back three Faye Wong CDs as well. Can you tell I dig the Faye Wong?
The big score of the trip, though, has been finding this cook book store. It's an entire store dedicated to cook books. Glare would be in heaven. They have just about every cook book that you could ever want, magazines, and they even have cooking demonstrations, meet the chef sessions and so on and so forth. I'll prolly be picking up a local cook book from them before going back to Boston.
Anyways, I don't want to sit in this internet cafe for much longer. I'm going to go walk around more of Robson Street. Maybe I'll see the cute girl at the bookstore that I was flirting with yesterday. Now that I'm not with my baby cousins or my brother I can go and lay the mack down. Well, not really. Maybe just see if she wants to have coffee. I figure what do I have to lose.
The Scent Of A Woman Listening: And there's a danger in loving somebody too much. And it's sad when you know it's your heart they can't touch. There's a reason why people don't stay who they are.
There's a commercial on televison that shows two women hanging out in a kitchen, rolling their eyes as their presumed boyfriends hoot and holler at the football game on the TV in the room behind them. When the team that they're supposed to be rooting for scores, one of the boyfriends comes into the room and hugs his girl and she gets this big smile on her face, just because he smells good.
I know exactly what that feels like. My sense of smell is one of my sharper senses, which is kind of disappointing seeing as I have been a DJ and I want to become a cook. I love my sense of smell and I love some of the feelings that it can give me.
For the last couple of nights, I have brought my comforter up to my face to smell the odor of sweet perfume, and it sends me right to the stars. Seriously. The smell is amazing. See, I have this friend. She's totally hot, totally cool, and totally just wants to be my friend, which I'm totally cool with. I met her just under a year back at Avalon. She was with her recently ex-boy who asked Special K and I for a light. We brought them into Avalon with us on the list and we were pals since then. I thought that she was hot since the day that I met her, but she had a boyfriend and so on and so forth. But she has this incredible perfume that totally gets me. I remember it from the first night that we met and I know it every time we hang out. Seriously, it's a thing of beauty.
Anyways, she crashed at my place on Friday night after we watched a DVD and drank some beer and some wine. It was all completely platonic. She crashed on my futon, on my pillow, and under my comforter. And for the last two nights, I have been enjoying it. It's faint and subtle, but it's still there. Last night as I crawled into bed, I pulled the covers to my face and I could smell the perfume. Good GOD did it rock.
There really is something about the scent of a woman that you dig. I think it's all a part of chemistry. I don't think that digging a scent has to be there, but it certainly does help. Some people, to me, simply don't smell like anything. They have no scent. If they're women, I wouldn't rule out dating them because they had no smell. Then, there are people who just smell bad. One of my roomies from college, for instance, reeked. The kid showered. The kid did his laundry, but the kid just smelled anyways. I don't know how anyone could date the kid, and yet the kid had a couple of girlfriends. I guess it wasn't so bad that I wouldn't room with him, but I don't understand how anyone could have dated a smell like that.
On the opposite side, there are people who just smell good. Sometimes I'll see a beautiful girl walking towards me, and I'll wait for her to walk past me. A few seconds after she passes, there's a wave of air. Sometimes you catch a whiff of what they smell like and sometimes you don't. There have been occasions where, I'll be hit by this wave and I'll just melt. She could walk by me a hundred times telling me that she's a crunchy PETA vegetarian who loves Dubya, Britney Spears, and Abercrombie, and I would still stand there dopey eyed saying, "Gah."
Now I'm a man who insists that I don't like perfume. That could be a complete lie. I think it's just that I don't like bad perfume or too much perfume. Too much perfume makes me sick. One time, Photogenic tried to plug in these room deodorizers, or a plug-in or whatever and after about five minutes, I began to feel sick, so I unplugged it. So I'll maintain that I like the more natural scents.
Anyways, for the last two nights, I've enjoyed her scent. It's almost been a year and I still haven't named her. There is something that seems apropos, but I'll have to ponder it some more. I'm going to bet that when I go to bed tonite, the scent will be gone. It was getting faint last night. If it's still there, well, that's just an added bonus for me.
In other news... This weekend turned out to be pretty cool. Friday night started off with going over to VWMod's loft and ripping up more hardwood floors. I met a girl from his workplace that he thought that I would hit it off with. She was pretty cool. She's got a great sense of humor, a strong spirit and a she was just down. To be honest, I wasn't like, "Heyyyy..." so I don't really see anything happening, but I'm sure we'll end up being friends. She was cool as shit.
Since I had planned on going to Rise with the girl who smells nice later on that night, I closed up shop with them at eleven and was driven over to Central Square. Originally, I planned on going home, taking a quick shower, changing and then heading back to Central to pick this girl up. When I got to the the Central T Station, I had just missed a train. Then I thought about it and decided to just pick her up, bring her to my place an have her knock a few back while I showered and changed and then we would go from there. That was the plan anyways.
I did pick her up. We did come back to my place. I did change, but when push came to shove, I don't think either of us were feeling it. See, her apartment is cold. She went to college in Texas. She likes the warmth. My apartment is hot as balls. Put all of that together and she's in love with my apartment. Couple that with a long work week and some alcohol and we're old and not up for going out anymore. Instead, we stayed at my place, watched Clerks on DVD, polished a bottle of Ommegang Witte and a bottle of Pinot Grigio, popped some popcorn and chilled out. It was a quality evening.
She had originally passed out on the couch as I watched some of the deleted scenes. I knew that she really didn't want to go back home to her cold apartment, so I thought it would be best if she slept at my place, just not on the couch. I thought that if my roomies woke up to see a strange person sleeping on the couch, they might have been weirded out. So, I got her up and had her sleep in my bed. Since nothing was going on between us, I crashed right next to her. Luckily fo her, she only had to shake me once to stop snoring.
The next morning, I walked her to the T and came home. Whisper woke up and gave me a standing ovation. Later on that morning, I took a shower, and walking back to my room in my towel, both Whisper and Photogenic gave me an ovation. I calmly explained to them that nothing happened and that nothing probably would. Whisper and Photogenic don't buy it. Oh well. I wish though. That would be something.
For most of Saturday, I helped VWMod work on his loft some more. I finished the hardwood floors and I look forward to moving on to something else next time. Hopefully we can really get cracking on the bathroom and on the kitchen. I can't wait for that. It's gonna be so much fun. One thing that wasn't fun was that I hurt myself as I used these clippers to cut nails that were sticking through the hardwood boards. I squeezed these clippers so hard that I felt something pop in my neck. From that point on, I was almost useless.
I ended up leaving VWMod's place at around six or so, stopped at New Deal Fish Market for some tuna, and came home. I was in such pain that, The Violent One put these ibuprofen patches on my neck. They were really cooling and nice and minty. They made me happy. Hurt, but happy. My neck pretty much hurt all night. So while The Violent One and Photogenic went to a FKB holiday party, which I was was invited to, but really didn't feel like I was all that close to the crew and thus didn't feel right going to, I stayed on the couch, bitching and moaning to myself, watching Remember The Titans. It really wasn't a productive night, but I think I needed the rest. Luckily by three in the morning, the pain had gone away and I went to sleep.
The next morning, I woke up bright an early. Sunday was the day that my friend that smells nice and I set aside to go to the Fetish Fair and Fleamarket down at the Sheraton near the Hynes Convention Center. The fair was open on Sunday from eleven to three, so we decided that it would be best to get there early as possible, but that didn't really happen. At a quarter to eleven, as I am just getting out of the shower, she calls me and tells me that she needs to send off some grad school stuff and won't be ready to go until noon. I'm cool with it since I wasn't ready to go anyways. It gave me a chance to slow down, drink some coffee and chill out a bit.
With the extra time that I had, I finished the e-mail that I believe is putting the final nail in the coffin of my last relationship. I'm pretty sure that I'm through and over with it now. I feel like I have woken up a little bit as to what was happening, which has helped me move on a bit. It's not to say that I'm not still sad now and then about it, but I think that I'm now well on my way to moving on and leaving her behind. I have to say that it was a good e-mail too.
I ended up meeting up with my friend at half past noon, and we got to the fair at probably half past one or so. Now, going into the event, we thought that we would be the most straight laced folks there and that there would be all sorts of fetishes from Leather and Lace to Zentai to Furries to Clownsex, but we were wrong. We thought that we were just kind of interested in learning about some of these fetishes and so on and so forth, but when we got there, everything really changed. We, most definitely, weren't the most straight laced there. There were folks there who were completely covered up who looked mildly shocked by some of the things that they saw. We, on the other hand, were looking at things with curiosity and with appreciation.
There wasn't really that much of a variety of fetishes there. It was mostly bondage and leather and lace. There was a little bit of costume play, but most of it had to do with domination roles. There were some police type uniforms and some pirate stuff, but all in all, it was pretty tame. The leather goods there were absolutely amazing. There was all sorts of outfits, straps, paddles, body armor, masks, gags, everything.... My friend and I walked around the place as quickly as we could making the most of our short time there. I wanted to buy so much stuff there. I wanted these fuzz lined leather shackles, these handcuffs that were separated by a bar so that your hands couldn't touch, a leather ball gag with a mahogany ball, a leather paddle, some crazy leather armor, a tie that said "Sexy Loser," spiked collars, bondage ropes.... There was just so much stuff to pick from.
Since some of the stuff was completely out of our price range, we each decided to pick one thing to get. We both picked the same thing. One of the first things that we saw at the fleamarket was a booth that sold hand crafted molded leather masks. We're not talking gimp pasks. We're talking about leather Venetian masks. Mine covers my cheek bones, around my eyes, my temples and part of my forehead. It fits perfectly on my face and makes me feel like a superhero. It fades from dark green to dark blue. It's so hot. She bought a smaller mask that just covers the area around her eyes. It's bright orange and has the word "slave" written all over it. SO FUCKING HOT. *ahem*
Anyways, we had an awesome time walking around the fetish fleamarket. On hindsight, I think that we would have gone both Saturday and Sunday if we could do it all over again. The people there were all so nice and so interesting. There were the "normal" people walking around who might have dabbled a bit, as well as the people in full bondage gear. There were women with their breasts hanging out here and there, which made it difficult to decide where to look as to not be rude and stare. It was so liberating being in a place that had that sort of open dialogue about sex and about play. Now, it's not something that I want to do everytime that I get down, but I think that variety is the spice of life and it can really add spark and creativity into things. Hopefully the next girl that I date will have an open mind and a good sense of humor.
After purchasing our masks, my friend and I were completely elated. We walked down the street singing, "We got ma-asks!" Now if only we had places to wear them. I might bring mine up to Vancouver to wear on New Years Eve. I think that my friend is going to wear hers in Sydney for New Years as well. For Valentine's Day this year, or rather for Anti-Valentine's Day this year, I'm thinking about having a Master/Slave Masquerade Party. Maybe I could get Carpenter to throw something together that we can tie people up to and have Polaroids taken of everyone tied up as party favors. I think that if people get into it and don't take it to seriously, it could be a lot of fun. I have a lot of interesting ideas about this party, some I think will fly, and some that I don't think a lot of people will be down with, but all in good humor. I really want to do this. Give me a shout if you think that you would be into coming to something like that.
By the time the fetish fleamarket was closed and we were kicked out (yeah, they had to kick our asses outta there, because we wouldn't have left on our own), we were both hungry as we hadn't really eaten anything all day. So we went to Whiskey's for a burger and a couple of beers. The conversation was easy and smooth. It covered a broad range of topics. We'd both experienced recent heart break so we talked about that quite a bit. We also talked about how surprised we were by the fetish fleamarket. We both went in expecting to just sort of gom "Oh. That's kind of interesting." But instead, we both ended up being liked, "Hey, that's really cool. I might be interested in trying that." It was an eye opening experience. I realized that not only do I talk the talk, but I really might be interested in walking more of the walk.
Burger and beers were followed by a jaunt down Newbury Street, where I took my friend into the Fairy Shop for the first time. They sell all sorts of mystic and gothic types per merchandise from fairy pictures to jewelery to books to shirts and so on and so forth. She walked out of there with two tanks, a necklace and a ring. I walked out of there with something that I felt that I needed. It's a silver keychain that has the words "BELIEVE in yourself and magic will happen." It's something that I think that I need to look at on a consisten basis as to not lose faith in that good things can happen to me.
Our final stop before calling it a day was Urban Outfitters. I actually went in there looking for a holiday gift for The Violent One, but instead found a gift for my friend and she found one for me. When we started looking around, we saw a red guy's t-shirt that says, "Everyone loves an asian boy" in black letters with black hearts around it. My friend looked at me and said, "I have to get this for you. It'll be my holiday gift to you." Later on, we found a shirt for her that says, "F is for Foxy." It was totally her. So we got each other t-shirts for holiday gifts. It was pretty spur of the moment and fun. And I think that we both got something out of it, not meaning shirts, but we actually saw something that made us think of the other and hence was a good gift to give.
After walking her home, since it was such a nice warm evening for December, I came home. Photogenic had some folks over and I showed them the spoils of the day. I totally meant to socialize, but I ended up nearly passing out on the carpet between our kitchen and our living room. When I figured that out, I decided to take a nice long nap. Two hours, in fact.
All in all, it was a killer weekend. I had a great time hanging out with my friend who smells nice and helping VWMod work on his loft. I cleansed myself a bit from the metaphorical cancer that has been eating away at me, and I'm looking forward to the next dose of mental chemo. I feel so much better after this weekend. It could be a mood swing. It could be for real. I don't know. I just hope it's real. Oh yeah, remember to give me a shout if you think that you might be interested in the Master/Slave Masquerade party in February. If enough people are down, I'll make it happen.
A Commercial Break Listening: Take whatever you’re needing. Take whatever you can. We are broken from within. Run to another land.
Heya, kiddies. Thanks for all y'allz concern over the last little bit. I know I haven't been writing and I have been getting the IMs and e-mails to prove it. Right now I'm on a little mental health break. I've had such a hard time gathering, let alone focusing, my thoughts that I really haven't had the ability to write an entry or even an e-mail that's longer than a couple of sentences.
For the most part I have been keeping to myself. There have been a few people who have heard what's been going on, and to those five people, I appreciate it very much. I've been trying to contain it all so it doesn't leech more than it needs to. Not much is going to make me feel better right now. Of all of the things that I think would, I think fois gras would do it. No, I'm just kidding. I'm really not fishing fois gras. No, I'm lying. I am fishing for fois gras, but I don't expect any.
Anyways, I don't know how much longer this time out is going to last, but I expect to be writing and posting when I go to Canada, so probably no more than a week. I might even post up some bullshit entries before that, but I don't know. But for now, I'll leave you with a little survey that I lifted off of a high school friend's xanga.
TEN Random Things About Me 10. I haven't gotten taller since 8th grade. 9. I am a HUGE sap. 8. I can't find the Mickey Mouse stuffed animal I got when I was like 6. 7. I have had more fulfilling relationships with food than I have with women. 6. I have mooned someone while at an Olympic venue. 5. Almost every time I'm sad, I buy a CD or a piece of vinyl. 4. I miss my grandfather. 3. When I'm sad I don't eat. 2. When I'm sad, I eat a lot of crap. 1. I believe that I am THE biggest Faithless fan in the US.
NINE Places I've Visited 9. Amsterdam, NL 8. Osaka, Japan 7. Kobe, Japan 6. Kyoto, Japan 5. Omihachiman, Japan 4. Morioka, Japan 3. Montreal, Canada 2. Orlando, FL 1. Friends' houses.
EIGHT Things I Wanna Do Before I Die 8. All 3 of the Charmed sisters... at one time. 7. See Faithless perform live and meet them backstage. 6. Travel by myself so I can be anonymous and meet people on my own. 5. Visit my family villiages in China. 4. Live for a period of time in Europe. 3. Find a deep, meaningful, and mutual connection to last me the rest of my days. 2. Own a small bistro, a cafe, and a mid-range large restaurant. 1. Be happy.
SEVEN Ways To Win My Heart 7. Have pretty eyes and a nice smile. 6. Be able to appreciate a wide variety of music. 5. Give me constructive criticism on my cooking. 4. Say that you eat vegetarians for dinner. 3. Push me to be better than I am. 2. Believe in me. 1. Understand me.
SIX Things I Believe In 6. My friends. 5. Me being a work in progress. 4. Free music for everyone. 3. The perfect hug. 2. The Power of Cheese. 1. Honesty.
FIVE Things I'm Afraid Of 5. Americans. 4. Sweetbreads (though I will try them someday). 3. Loneliness. 2. Failure. 1. Myself.
FOUR Of My Favorite Items in My Bedroom 4. My records. 3. My CDs. 2. My DJ setup. 1. My computer.
THREE Things I Do Everyday 3. Listen to music. 2. Shower (with the exception of Finals time in college) 1. Think.
TWO Things I Am Trying Not To Do Right Now 2. Think. 1. Feel.
ONE Person I Want To See Right Now 1. Me... Happy.
Gritting My Teeth Listening: "Don't tell me I don't understand." He said, "I know I don't understand. I understood when you were ten. Nothing's added up since then." He said, "I'll give you a piece of my mind."
It's half past one and I just finished some ice cream. Neopolitan. Last night was a weird one. I went to sleep earlier than usual, at one in the morning. I was actually pretty proud of myself. I passed out in a hurry too. I slept really well until about a quarter to five, when I woke up parched. I made my way to the refridgerator, drank a mouthful of pomegranate juice to make my mouth taste better and then some filtered water. I went back to sleep rather quickly, but waking up was the difficult part. I woke up late, not incredibly late, but late. I was in a rush to get out the door though. I don't know what it is with my sleep these days. If I wasn't so scared of them, I would try to hook myself up with some sleeping pills and would just pop them every night at a reasonable time like half past midnight.
This weekend was pretty interesting. I got a call from Shaft at five in the evening on Friday, while I was still at work saying that he was going to be in town hanging out and to see if I was gonna be around. I told him that I was. His plan was to leave work at five, and drive up to Boston, be here around ten for when his other buddy got done with a date, and then we'd all go party somewhere (potentially crashing a Tufts fraternity that they used to belong to). I said I was game and that he should call me when he got into town.
In the meantime, I went to have dinner at Super 88 with The Violent One and The Boy Wonder (chicken fucker... okay, okay, I'll stop with that). We had a nice long dinner in the food court and cruised around grocery shopping for a good long time as well. There was no real eye candy there and I really wasn't looking for any groceries, so I only walked out with a bottle of oyster sauce and a belly full of kimchee bi bim bap.
By the time we got home, it was well past ten in the evening. After the week that I had, I was exhausted. I was really tapped out. I didn't really want to go out and party with silly little undergrads. I really only wanted to hang with Shaft, because we don't get to chill much. So I kind of let it go. He didn't call. I didn't call him to see what the deal was, so I just went to sleep.
The next morning, I woke up, showered, and put on my shittiest clothes. I was going to help VWMod renovate his new loftspace (bastard!). While I was waiting for him, I got a call from my parents. They told me bits and pieces about our coming trip to Vancouver. I half listened as I checked out some stuff on the internet and uploaded some of my CDs. All of the details they were talking about didn't really matter to me. I think the one thing that did matter to me, we didn't really talk about, which was, "where are my tickets? what is the exact time of my departure?" I was a little too brain dead to really home in on those questions at the time. I figure I'll get the information later. I do have another nineteen or so days.
VWMod picked me up at around noon and we headed to his loft in Somerville, He lived exactly where I thought he lived (bastard!). It was one of the smaller lofts, but it had tons of potential and a huge patio. When I walked in, the place was completely torn apart. His bathroom looked like a giant had tried to swish his finger around the toilet and inadvertently ripped it out of the wall along with the vanity, the shower and the tile on the floor. He's planning on ripping out a wall or two, taking down a platform and just completely renovating the place. I ended up working in the kitchen instead of the bathroom, though. I sanded down the cabinetry so that he could prime and paint it later. Even though it was extremely mundane work, I had a good time doing it. I know it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do it, but when you do do it, you see the results of your labor in front of you instantly. You have physically altered the object that you're working on. It was extremely satisfying.
VWMod and I did a fair amount of catching up. We nerded out about what the place is going to look like when he's done with all of the renovations and really has a place to call his very own. I'm psyched. I'm also going to try to help as much as I can. Helping VWMod renovate his loft is a cheap way for me to do something constructive and fun. In addition, it gives me a chance to hang out with a friend.
Later on that night, I went to Blondie's baby shower/annual Feuerzangenbowle (red wine with rum-melted-flamed sugar) party. It was pretty cool, because I, again, got to see a bunch of people that I hadn't seen in quite some time; two of them being Hulk and Harley. They live right down the street from me now, and I have yet to do a pop-over. I updated them on my current life status and so on and so forth. It was cool.
Unlike last year, I had no desire to walk crookedly down the sidewalk, talk to Ralph on the big white phone, or wake up the next afternoon on my couch in the same suit that I wore the night before. It just wasn't in the cards for me this year. I took easy sips off of the Feuerzangenbowle concoction and limited my intake of alcohol. I did have some nicely aged scotch (I don't even like scotch) and some random other european liquers. The interesting thing about the scotch is that I can appreciate the complexity of the taste, but I just don't enjoy the drink. I think it's like mustard for me. I can appreciate the flavors and complexities of mustard, but I just plain don't like it.
Sunday, I just sort of chilled out all day long. I watched television and just sort of lolligagged around. I had plans to get together with Special K and another one of our friends (It's been a year since I met this chick and I still haven't found a name for her), but, again, I got no follow up phone call. So I ended up having dinner with a bunch of people at the Porter Exchange. Following dinner, I went grocery shopping with Japanaphile, came home, ate some ice cream, had some coffee and watched some more television. Yeah, it was a real exciting Sunday. I did, however get a call from Special K saying that he was still up for hanging out and that he was going to ge our other friend to come out too, but that didn't happen. It ended up just being Special K and I shit shooting at The Cambridge Common over a pint. Something came up and our friend had to deal with some shit, so we're gonna get together sometime this week. So, that was my weekend, for the most part.
Over the last three days, I have received a lot of advice and points of view on my life. It's all been pretty cool and very interesting. I think that the bottom line for all of them is that I need to go to culinary school and I need to do it now. I need to either go to culinary school in Europe or forget Europe. There are so many people who are so confident that I'm going to open a restaurant someday, it's amazing. I think that the only person who is is doubting it is me. I wish I could transfer their confidence into my own. It's funny that the only person whose confidence in the matter that matters is the one person who is unconfident. One of my friends even said something to the effect of, "Dude, you're already a chef. You just need to go out there and get the credentials."
So, I started researching more. I found a book called The Guide to Cooking Schools 2005: Cooking Schools, Courses, Vacations, Apprenticeships and Wine Programs Throughout the World. I figure this book will help me figure out all of my options. I know that it'll have a lot of fluff in it, but it will be a resource to find schools other than the California Culinary Academy that I might want to go to. Hell, it may be able to find me a school to go to in Europe. Right now I have it on order at Barnes & Noble. I'm pretty sure that I'll be getting it before I go to Vancouver. I figure it'll be good in-flight reading.
Another thing that people have been giving me advice on is my current girl situation. There was a contingency of people on Saturday night that told me that I should hop a plane and just see what's up. Their arguement was that if it was something that I could have seen myself in for the long haul, I should go and fight for it. I should go and just make sure that there isn't even the glimmer of a chance. Another opinion today kind of bounced the line. My friend said that I should screw the girl and save the flight money for culinary school. But then, upon reflection, he said that what going over there would accomplish would be closure if it was over for sure. And he said that closure is a very good thing. But then he said that people in weird positions do random weird things and that you really never know what's going on in this girl's mind. As for me, I don't know what I'm going to do. Right now it looks like I'm letting her walk away, but don't think that I haven't thought of hopping the pond. Don't think that I haven't checked availability and prices. I'm a huge sap like that. I don't know. I've just been getting a lot of opinions on the whole ordeal.
Anyways, it's a quarter past three now. Time to sleep.
Bad Vibes Continue... Forecast Uncertain Listening: Says she’s got another life that I am living in, my friend. Through and through she says it’s nothing I can change. I always was the one. The celebration ends without a sound and the friends they’re not around and you find you’re all alone, talking to yourself again.
I realize that this journal has taken a nasty turn for the unhappy, but then again, it's life and it's what's happening. Writers might call it a "slice of life." Ernest Hemingway said that after he writes for a while, he strips it down and finds the one true sentence in his writing and it becomes one of his opening lifes. This is all true. Every word of it. It may not be neat and pretty like the little parcels people are preparing for the holidays, but it is true.
Before I really get into it, I want to throw some shouts to a couple of people. VWMod, thanks for the encouraging words. I know you got my back and though we don't hang out enough, I know you're there. Second, Rebound Girl. Good god is this girl my savior. She listens to me vent with a level head on her shoulders. She tells me I should give myself a break even if I don't know how to do it. If only she were fewer miles away, she would be hearing it over coffee instead of over the keyboard.
So, onto the nitty gritty. I realize that a while back I said that I wasn't going to talk about work as much as I used to, but I think it's coming out today. In the past three weeks, we have lost three people; one who was layed off and two who jumped ship for more intelligent positions at different companies. This has hacked our team down from what was eight down to five. Luckily since I handle one of the more difficult bits of work, not much more was added onto my plate. It was mostly fluff bits. However, when we have to hand in weekly and monthly reporting packages, where I used to have six packages, it has now grown to ten packages. This is two thirds more sifting for things at the huge report printer. This is two thirds more keeping things in order. It's two thirds more of my desk it's taking up in an effort to be organized. Imagine the surface area of ten individual stacks of paper. It's not pretty.
This month end hit me hard. I stayed late on the thirtieth just to get myself a little ahead of the game. I printed some of my stuff then so that I wouldn't be conflicting with other people trying to print stuff out. I stayed about a half hour late. I was the second to last person to leave the floor. When I got home, I was so thoroughly dead that all I could really do was warm up dinner and ignore Gilmore Girls on television eventhough I haven't seen the show in weeks. Things were flying around my head and all I could think to myself was, "What the fuck?!?" After I washed dishes, I pretty much shut myself down for the night.
The first of the month (yesterday), I thought everything was fine, until I realized it was a thirty-one day month this month, which means that I have to mess around with a bunch of things to try to make them fit at work. What bugged me was that this stuff that I was doing was not precise. It will never be precise. It's not my fault that it's not precise, but I have to cope with it anyways. So, I spent the entire day at my cube trying to figure out this puzzle that I may or may not have gotten right. And it may not even be a question of right or wrong, but more like close enough or not close enough. Eight straight, I was at my desk or at the printer sifting through papers. By the end of the day, I had stayed another fifteen late and the embers of what had happened the day before had started to smoke. I was not a happy camper.
The funny thing was that despite my unhappy state, I had to go to a friend's holiday dinner gathering at Charlie's Saloon off of Newbury Street. It was Ebonically Linguistic's little get together, so I had to go. I think she's cool shit, and any opportunity to hang with her is rawkin. Unfortunately, it's not as rawkin when you want to put your fist through any solid object that passes before your eyes. I tried my best though. I had myself a New York Strip Steak Au Poivre, which was the only thing on the menu that I felt like eating. I guess it's good, though. I rarely make steak at home or order it in restaurants and I do like steak a lot. There was a whole arts and crafts part of the evening where everyone was given a cardboard snowman ornament to color with markers and so on and so forth. It was kind of a contest, but I really wasn't up for it. So, mine was simple. I put two little circles towards the bottom of the bottom part of the snowman and wrote on his chest "Check out my snowballs" with an arrow pointing to the circles. It got some chuckles. Yeah, I was in a vile mood though.
I was in such a vile mood that I needed to find some new music. I picked up a couple of cheap used discs at Newbury Comics. I got the deluxe two disc edition of Norah Jones's Feels Like Home, Joss Stone's sophomore disc Mind, Body & Soul, and the One Giant Leap disc that I have put off buying for so long. Heh. That one was only four dollars. When I got home, I hung out with The Violent One for a while before calling it an early night.
I was hoping that the extra sleep would do me well, but it didn't. Today was wretched as well. Since it was the second day of the month, all of my reporting had to be in at the end of the day. I have to admit that it was a lot neater and cleaner than it was last month. I attribute that to the day that I stayed a half hour late to print out those reports. The funny thing about these packets of reports is that they're all about seventy-five pages in total. Some are single sided and some are double sided. However, not only do I have to compile these packets, but I have to make a second photocopy. So I am probably using at least a thousand sheets of paper while making copies of all of these packets. I did all of that today. I also faxed a one hundred and thirty-three page packet of reports today as well. Yeah, I tried doing it yesterday, but the fax machine got jammed two thirds of the way through. I was about to chuck that piece of shit out the window, but I thought better of it knowing the strength of the glass the fax machine would have probably just bounced off the glass and hit me in the head.
So, today was another day of either being at my desk, solving problems that people in my old job are creating or at the photocopier desperately trying to entertain myself. Sometimes I would just leave the packages copying, go do some work or print out something else that I would need annd just come back to it five or ten minutes later. Thank goodness I had some good tunes.
Anyways, weird shit and bad shit continues to happen to me. I haven't been very good at looking on the bright side of life lately. I'm trying to find some upsides, though they're few and far between. This Saturday I'm going to help VWMod renovate his new bathroom. I'm hoping that the physical labor will do me well, even if it is being on my hands and knees laying tile. At least I'll be learning something interesting.
I'm letting a couple of odd things play out around me, but I'm attempting to be very passive about it all. The last thing that I need to be doing is taking an active roll in getting myself deeper into shit.
The Violent One is throwing around the idea of going down to NYC to check out Shaft's holiday party. Originally, I was going to pass it up, because I didn't want to take the bus down there and so on and so forth. However, if The Violent One drives, I will most definitely go with her. That's something I'm looking for. A change of scenery, if only for the weekend.
I am also looking forward to the last two weeks of the month. I have from, like, the twenty-first of December through the third of January off. I'm pretty psyched. I'll be in Vancouver from, I believe, X-Mas eve through the day after New Years. I haven't seen my grandmother in years, so it's time to visit. I don't know what I'll do with all of my time over there, though. There's only so much catching up with cousins and uncles and stuff that you can do. I know that there will be endless amounts of sushi and at least one fairly nice Chinese dinner, but other than that, what is there? There will be questioning of my my brother and I about when we're getting married (which neither of us are close to at this point), when we're going to have kids (which would require the marriage or a deposit at the local sperm bank), and when we're going to buy houses and so on and so forth. I actually fear having to answer questions about my life to them. Family can be really judgemental, especially Asian families. It's like you have to have all of your ducks in a row. You need the house, the car, the picket fence, the two point five and the dog, pulling down a hundred Gs a year or else your nothing. In that case, I'm nothing and I just don't want to be reminded of it. I'm hoping to not spend too much money while I'm up there either. I'll have the powerbook with me so I'll be doing some writing and if one of my cousins have wireless, I'll be posting some blogs. I don't know what I'm going to do with December twenty-first through the twenty-third. I'll probably just sleep in and pack.
Speaking of sleeping, it's time for me to be trying to do a little of that. Since most of the month end stuff is done, tomorrow should be much easier. I should have some more down time and maybe even some time to relax a bit. Maybe I'll actually take lunch. *Gasp*
