Wits and Wagers

Listening to: Lullatones, "Morning Coffee."

My Facebook fiance had her baby three weeks ago -- it was due Christmas -- and I didn't even find out until a few days ago. I insist on knowing things when they happen, and in this case I was betrayed! Okay, not really, but still. George and I's favorite question post finding out about something is "Who else knows?" Few things are more important to us than establishing the chain of knowledge/gossip.

Another San Diego friend popped out a baby today too. So since I don't have much to offer new parents, and certainly no frankincense or myrrh, I can give only give my usual standby: music. Every parent could benefit from some Kanye Rockabye Baby, the Lullatones, a few atmospheric Air tracks, and most of all, Kenny Loggins' "Return to Pooh Corner" album.

For a lot of my tween years, I was obsessed with the title track, and when I finally found the entire album, I played it non-stop. Freshman year, Greg and I used to sit in his little dorm room, and have this on in the background while we played video games or waited for the fried chicken to warm up in his toaster oven.

Anyway, if you're about to have a child, I'll have a playlist ready for little whatever his/her name is.

I am finally back in San Diego. I took off on Monday, ready to sail back to California but after forty five minutes on a plane and then a ten hour wait in an airport, I found myself on a train headed back to New York. Heavy fog grounded everything in Baltimore and I didn't want to sleep in an airport, so to Brooklyn I went.

Earlier, when we were playing a lot of Pocket Planes, fog would often be a reason a city shut down. If it was a hub city, you were screwed. I would like to think that a few months of playing Pocket Planes gave me some perspective on how hard it was to re-route all those flights, and so I was patient.

However, due to this long-ish ordeal, I have decided that non-stop flights are the way to go. Thus another addition to my list of "things I used to do in my twenties that I will no longer do in my thirties." Before, traveling was about finding the cheapest flights regardless of number of stops. Now, the potential aggravation of waiting, missing connections, etc. are just not worth it. So for that extra $100, I will fly direct. It's a big step, and hopefully part of my growing maturity into a real adult. Adults fly straight to their destination.

The other day, a friend of a friend, who's a flight attendant, was excited to recruit me for their hiring process. (We met up with her at a super fancy CVS on 14th and 8th Ave. The space used to be an old bank and it's basically the Grand Central of CVSes as the interior has vaulted ceilings and marble columns.) While I don't really need a new job, after hearing her talk about the lifestyle, I would seem to be an ideal candidate. Being a flight attendant would allow me to have a super flexible schedule traveling the world for cheap, and think of the people I would meet everywhere.

On my ride home, I studied the flight attendants, to see if I could stomach being fake nice to so many people. I could probably do it for a few flights a month, but as always, there's no way I would want to fly around and travel without a buddy in tow. So there goes the flight attendant dream. Also, I'm supposed to be putting down roots, not trying to find more efficient ways to be nomadic. I am still going to apply though, because the interview process seems interesting, and maybe I could article it up or something.

I just wrapped up Ender in Exile, which is the book in-between Ender at the Battle School and before he finds a place to settle in Xenocide. For most of Ender in Exile, Ender is traveling with the first human colony, speeding away from Earth. Due to near light speed relativity, he only experiences two years aboard the ship, while everyone behind him slugs through forty years or so.

While I'm hardly on an almost time traveling spaceship, I think that sometimes the feeling is comparable. I leave people for a few months or years and when I return, they're aged/changed. Actually anyone who moves around a lot can relate to this, because friends get married, get kids, get houses, whatever. And you feel the same. Or at least I do. Catching up with a friend via email, she said, "you've moved back and forth enough that there might just be a slightly worn down trail of airspace between us now, with all that flying to and fro.

Reading Ender in Exile made me think about the stuff you miss if you don't stick around. And I wondered which of my friends would choose to leave everything behind to journey away while everyone died behind them. I could probably do it, but I'd need someone to come with me. Ender had Valentine, his sister, but I know George so would not do it. Any volunteers? I can barely go do laundry by myself, so I'll need someone.

In contrast to Ender watching his friends physically age, I tend to more experience changes in people as they shift internally. Like maybe my friend will look the same but their insides will be different now. A shift of perspective perhaps, or something momentous in the intervening months happened that are now hard to explain, unless I was there to live through it. Since I hate catch ups, and am terrible about keeping up, we're kind of semi-strangers for a bit again, as I'm still working off a mental model of them from before. That has to be how Ender feels, as he falls further and further behind.

Another thing about Ender traveling far away. Even if he writes an email a day, his recipients would only be getting updates every few weeks, or months, because communication is not instantaneous. Can you imagine the pressure to clean out your inbox? I guess it's not that different from when mail used to travel by pony or boat I guess. But it seems incomprehensible nowadays, how you would keep up if the time between writing and delivery took months.

Who would bother?

What The Water Gave Me

Some things I'd like to share with you. One of the best things about New York, and something that never fails me, is that going out and being social is always rewarded with fun interactions. Even as I've been crammed inside my room for 90% of the time I've been here, I've managed to get out and meet some cool people doing stuffs.

I love insta-connections and rocking out to favorite songs you'd request from the DJ, movies you thought nobody else saw, getting the back story on people you have in common, random Internet addictions shared, or simply being inspired to learn something you didn't know about but now do, because now there's a personal connection. Like my new friend who drove me back to Brooklyn the other night. ManSee's current project is running back and forth between NYC and Fort Bragg, working on a documentary about Danny Chen. I vaguely knew about the Chen case before, but after meeting ManSee, I went right home and read up all about it, and returned with questions. Info loop!

These are not all New York related links, but I'm overdue on sites to share so here we go:

(1) Analog Girl World. I can't tell you what the other blog of Tiffany's I read is, otherwise I'll be booted of it, but Tiffany's camping site is an aspirational blog for me. As in, I aspire to do any of these trips, but I know I'd be left behind to die. Tiffany's off to South America in a few weeks and just like when she went to Thailand last year, I'll be following closely along on Tripping With Tiff.

(2) être the girls. Nothing I like better than personal confessional blogs, they're my favorite addiction. So of course I was sold when I read Jennie's "I like you, but…" piece about non-committal relationships. It made me sad, it made me nostalgic, it made me want to cry -- if I was capable. It also made me bitter that I can't write like her. Jennie's site is nominally a fashion blog, but it's really so much more.

(3) Joshua Nguyen. I've only met Josh once, but I've followed his blog since. He used to work at Tumblr, his wife works at foursquare, and he's always putting up startup/media/travel/food/photography stuff that captures my attention. For example, linking to essays like "Why I Love Twitter and Barely Tolerate Facebook." Plus, Josh reads, like real literature books, which is a rarity among males.

(4) Karmaphilia. Susie, who actually went to high school with George and I, recently quit her lawyer job, jaunted off to Europe, and will soon land in New York slash Paris. Her blog is tracking the journey from office jail to international jet setter. Here's "The Post That Started It All..."

(5) Melinda Mae. I am going to trade Mel books for bag; we've settled on the exchange rate and everything. All of her stuff is lovingly handmade and here's an article about'em. I also spent an afternoon cruising through her music selections, and there's likely some guest dance movie commentary coming from Mel in the future since there was a reference to the Wade Robson Project in our recent conversation.

(6) Moblog of the Universe. The Man of the Universe himself, Daniels is off on an adventure that started in Italy and has now carried him to Korea. Nobody knows when he'll return but his moblog is blowing up with everything a moblog should be. Color me jealous. As always, the DLMOU is my hero.

(7) Rob Don't Stop. I've never even met Rob (yet) but his blog and his Tumblr are constant sources of art, music, social justice, and many other great things. I am hoping to strongarm Rob into doing a hip hop book with me. Insider sources tell me he's a hell of a great guy too. And what wonderful hair he has!

(8) 9-Man. Stef's sister, Ursula, is Kickstarting to finish up her 9-Man documentary. They've hit their funding goal with just over a week to go but you should still donate donate donate! Unfortunately I missed out when Ursula did a panel on The Future of Jeremy Lin last month. Shame on me. The entire Liang family are die-hard Celtics fans and really, that's the only safe barometer to determine good people isn't it? Also, Stef's Alphabet Rockers just dropped an iOS app. I don't even have a child but I got it anyway. You should too.

(9) And at karaoke the other night, Yasmine's friend was wearing the greatest cape jacket. Turned out she's a designer who made it herself. The jacket looked a bit like this, but black and long to the floor. Titania Inglis' line is inspired by medieval armor, Ernst Haeckel's marine life illustrations, and My So Called Life. I don't think fashion can really get much better.

The Best Laid Schemes Of

Unchained after a more or less final draft turned in on Wednesday, I was free free free. With the weather warm and inviting, even briefly hitting the 60's one day, I set off to find adventure and well, adventure. So since then I've crammed in four movies -- Central Park Five, Silver Linings Playbook, Killing Them Softly, Rust and Bone -- ran around to see friends old and new, and had a karaoke session filled with songs from musicals. Cue a rousing rendition of "America the Beautiful" too.

On Friday night, I prepared to go find a dance party, even if by myself. I headed out to Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich as the rain started, and then waited around for plans to solidify. There was a semi-line outside, and a hefty cover, so we changed venues, walking a mile or so in the drizzle to arrive at Bob Bar in the Lower East Side -- our usual standby. There was not too crowded dancing, followed by a wind down walk uptown, and finally a long subway ride home, wet and bedraggled.

The previous night, I had met a friend's new romantic interest, downstairs at a jazz bar run by Asians. I want to say Japanese? I wondered if the proprieters had read Murakami, and been inspired by him. I read there's a coffee bar in Taiwan called "Kafka on the Shore," and perhaps B Flat was yet another nod to Murakami's jazz bar owning roots. The servers there wore baggy slouchy pants, long suspenders, and pageboy caps. I had creme brulee. (Murakami is fitting here, as I'm about to talk about a lot of food.)

Later on, we jumped into their car and I got a ride back to Brooklyn, listening to DJ Neil Armstrong, smoking cigarettes with windows down as we crossed the bridge. You can imagine how happy I was. We then made a pit stop in Brooklyn's Chinatown for late night skewers. There was a huge karaoke parlor around the corner, decked out in massive chains of lights, with a gangster's array of vehicles outside. Clearly I'll need to return to that street for more exploring.

Note: JMZ is pretty much obsessed with skewers, the kind you typically find in Beijing, the signature one which is lamb topped with spicy cumin powder. We both pretty much crave this constantly. Since our discovery of a cart in Flushing a few weeks ago, we've spent a night in Chinatown wandering, looking for a sister cart. While the place we found that time wasn't the best, it's comforting to know that skewers exist a little closer. Brooklyn's Chinatown is mostly Fujianese, versus the Cantonese of Chinatown or Flushing, which means JMZ should be double excited to eat the food of his people.

On Saturday, while bar hopping up and down my friend's street in Midtown, we had pickelback shots and I was introduced to some of the best mac and cheese I'd had yet in the city. Wonderfully melty crispy bits and a beautiful egg on top. The perfect complement to tempura green beans. The Liberty, I'm coming back to you. I was supposed to go to a hypergender burlesque show after that, but due to concerns about too many cisgender folk in one party, that fell through. (That's a whole 'nother conversation.) As I was suffering from first drinks in awhile hangover, I parked myself into a nearby movie theater until JMZ and Jenn showed up for late night eating at a rowdy K-Town pub, the best part of which was a half watermelon carved out and filled with juice and soju.

Over the next couple of nights, I hopped out to Greenpoint for drinks (I ordered Jameson when asked to "surprise me" and subsequently found out it's not really a good whiskey), dinnered it up all around town, and got the aforementioned three hour karaoke session in. And then last night I confirmed my dislike of bar karaoke, as you're forced to sit through terrible people singing terrible songs you don't know. This particular karaoke spot offered a free drink if you scored 89 or more on a song.

Despite the fact that almost all scoring systems on karaoke are a farce, most of the singers were determined to score high by using a combination of faux falsetto -- one method is to grab the skin by your throat and yank it around -- and songs you know you can nail out of the park. Neither of these are things I typically look for in a karaoke session. I prefer my karaoke to be a group exercise in enjoyment, and with plentiful skips. Also, when the opera guy decides to try his hand at En Vogue? Not a good look. Or rather, sound.

There was also the time post-karaoke when I failed miserably at saving my friend from a guy. I thought he was asking for a light but instead he was asking if I was her boyfriend. Hey female friends, I don't know if you know this but I'm pretty useless at saving anyone, as I'm hardly intimidating -- see, mugging. And most of the time I'm an enabler. My dancing partner in crime this summer also had this complaint. "You're like practically selling me off." Sorry! We need to work out better signals if you require some saving.

This is how I want my New York weeks to be. This is how my New York weeks should be. Wandering the streets, hopping in cabs, jaunting around, an adventure every night. I can't believe it's taken me three months to accomplish this. Even for a brief moment. I will savor it all, even if I have no photos to preserve the memories. Did it really happen if there was no photo documentation? Apparently, some would argue "yes."

I return to San Diego in five days, to reassess, recuperate, and return. We have big Sea World, Celtics vs Clippers, and Les Mis plans. I think I'll be back here mid-January, perhaps a tad later. I've already committed to sticking it through a few more months, as the living situation is just too good and because I haven't done anything here yet. A friend I've only just met has told me twice already, "I feel like you're not coming back." Is my word that unreliable?

Times I've done laundry here: three and a half. Pepcid ACs popped in the past week: seven. Times I've eaten ice cream for breakfast this week: every day.

Wild Style

Listening to: Rye Rye, "Hardcore Girls." Working my way through the music of the artists profiled in "The Novelty of Up-and-Coming Female Rappers Isn't That They're Female."

It's not every day you get mugged while listening to Bieber. Last weekend I was walking home at four in the morning, just minding my own teen pop business, when a skinny dude jumped in front of me, threatened that he had a gun, and demanded my phone. I thought he was asking for change or something. Two guys grabbed my arms from behind, otherwise I never would never have surrended my precious new iPhone 5. What a wonderful nine days we had together. I'll miss you forever little guy. To get a new one, it'll be like six hundred dollars. I could run right out and replace it I guess, but that's a little crazy. Sigh.

The lesson? Don't walk home with white earbuds dangling around, your hood all up against the cold, and have a tougher soundtrack playing when getting jacked. The police were overwhelmingly helpful. I rode around in a squad car, trying to spot the perps -- they really do call them "perpetrators -- and as they pressed me for details and urged me to recall their faces, the one thing that was flashing through my head was "man, I so do not want to be racial profiling." Eventually we found my purse ditched a block away from the subway, and there was no catching them after that. Aside from the iPhone, they had taken my Kindle, my camera, my backup floss, and my friend's precious Les Mis paperwork that I had been keeping safe for her after she attended a pre-screening.

Strangely, the thieves left my checkbook behind. How thoughtful. The police were almost overbearingly helpful too. Aside from the car ride, I received no less than four phone calls, as well as a visit from a detective. I was like, "It's fine, it's just a phone, I'm good." One of the officers had gone to the trouble of checking the security cams for like three hours, to no avail. I felt apologetic for their having spent so much time on this. They must have really felt my pain. The incident put a small damper on my weekend but it wasn't too bad. Nothing replaceable was taken, my wallet and keys were intact, and I had to pivot straight into another deadline anyway. Now I just won't listen to music on my walks home at night. All in all, a minor event. The past few months, everyone has been getting their stuff stolen -- including everything from one friend's apartment and fifteen grand worth of recording equipment from another friend's trunk  -- so it's hard to complain.

Last night we watched a new Ken Burns' documentary, The Central Park Five, about five black teens arrested and incarcerated (falsely) for the 1989 assault and rape of a white jogger in the park. It was a highly publicized case because of many factors, not the least being the obvious race dynamic. New York in the Eighties was the crime capital of America and this case ushered in the death penalty and a few years later, Rudy Giuliani's reign.

The film was very powerful, but Burns wasn't that interested in presenting a nuanced look at the events, which was something that I can both understand and criticize. The goal of the film is to get the story out there, to get supporters galvanized, to give the five men a voice, and not necessarily to present a balanced perspective. Overall, worth a watch, or at least a spin through Wikipedia to learn about the case.

Take a look at this amazing n+1 piece about The Atlantic's penchant for blasting out all those link bait articles "intended to terrorize unmarried women, otherwise known as educated straight women in their twenties and thirties." I've read every single one of them, as you probably have. Here's The Atlantic's latest, "When Do Men Become Grown Ups?"

We all know the answer to that one.

Skyfall

My friend called me at six for a six o'clock Twilight showing. I was still in bed, passed out hardcore. Twenty four of the last thirty six hours had been spent in front of my computer, trying to make the infinite deadline. I came close this time, really close, but ultimately the work was not where it needed to be.

What I realized is that my schedule will look like this for a couple months, as there will be no writing reprieve after this book. The due date for the next one looms early next year. Hopefully I'll be better prepared for it, and with this one 90% under my belt, I'll have learned what their expectations are and also what I'm capable of.

I'm hoping to take a breath to prioritize what I need to do in 2013. I feel like I've neglected all manner of things, from work to social, and I should probably literally make a list. I need to get back on track doing other projects, as my days can't revolve around writing this one thing. My general strategy of holing up until something is done isn't sustainable.

Here is a short video of Shanghai's marriage corner, made by a family who has taken a year off to travel the world and explore. Just looking at their itinerary makes me tired. The marriage corner is a park in Shanghai for the parents to go and exchange profiles of their unwed children. The detail that fascinated me is that some of the profiles contain information about when the parents are looking to retire, and how much financial support they will require in their old age. You aren't just getting a husband/wife, but the whole family too. Very Confucian.

Someone needs to make an online version of this for immigrant parents in the United States, as I'm sure they'd love to hook up their American children in a similar manner. This is my great idea nobody will invest in: social networking -- and matchmaking -- for Asian parents.

I've been obsessed with David Chang and his new PBS show, The Mind of a Chef, produced by Anthony Bourdain. The episodes are available online and I can't recommend them enough. Really, I can't shut up about them and I literally talk about something I saw on the episodes to anyone who'll listen. AMR took the effort to poach some eggs Chang-style, so clearly he is a true friend.

I met some Danish people the other night and totally forgot to ask them about Noma, holder of the title for "greatest restaurant in the world." Chang visits Rene Redzepi in episode six of his show. It's not my favorite episode, but coming on the heels of just reading a lot about Noma, it was interesting to get a look at Redzepi and his restaurant.

And then there's Eddie Huang and his series on Vice, Fresh Off the Boat. The current episodes are set in Taiwan -- earlier ones were in the Bay -- and regardless of how you feel about Huang's personality, the episodes are great simply for showing you spots you'd never find on your own. Here's an earlier video of Huang's trip to Flushing for soup dumplings. A couple of years ago I read through all of Huang's blog and followed him for awhile. Now he's got a memoir coming out. The actual buns he kicks out at BaoHaus? Decent, nothing amazing.

We've been eating recently at a few hipster-y Asian places (see "The Year of Asian Hipster Cuisine"). The food is Asian but the presentation is white people. M-Noodle is open late and it serves Chinese food that's exactly home made. The entire front and wait staff are Williamsburg hipsters and the people making the food are straight Chinese. The one time I went there with JMZ, in the mid-afternoon, we sat at the counter and watched them bang out the dumplings while JMZ talked to them about where they were from.

I've been trying to figure out how this setup happened, like the owner just went out and found these cooks after he decided he wanted to open up a semi-trendy but very traditional Chinese food spot? Or was it the other way around? At Talde, located in Park Slope, the food was quite good but a little overpriced. Most of all, the decor was interesting/jarring. It was half Oriental-looking stuffs, and then paired with a dark wooden pub sort of feel. I guess JMZ nailed it by saying it was like a trendy PF Chang's.

Talde has this variation of halo halo with Cap'n Crunch in it. It comes in a huge bowl and I had to bring the rest home because it was so damn good. The next thing I need in my home: a shaved ice maker. George and I had this Snoopy one growing up and I may now need this Doraemon shaved ice maker. I'll blast some music through my new speakers and we'll go heavy on the condensed milk.

Pioneers Without a Frontier

Whenever I'm around St. Mark's, I always think about Patti Smith. This despite the fact that I know absolutely nothing about Smith except that St. Mark's Church plays a big part in her mythology. If you're a frequent bookstore browser, you'll probably recognize Smith's book, Just Kids, as it was one of those titles that greeted you at every entrance and check out counter. It won the National Book Award a few years ago and just about everyone's reviews were glowing.

I started Just Kids today, and with subways delays both to the city and back, I'm about 75% done with it already. Verdict: It definitely measures up to all the acclaim. At its most basic, Just Kids is about being an artist. More specifically, a starving artist in 1960s New York. It's got a lot of Truth & Beauty in it too, intermixing the creative life with friendships that come and go and ultimately never leave. They'd make nice reading companions I think.

Another thing that hooked me was that the beginning of Just Kids is set in Brooklyn, as Smith moves right to my area, with a few head nods to DeKalb Ave and Myrtle Avenue, the two streets sandwiching me.

The thing that strikes me most about the book is that even though I'm three-fourths of the way through, I still wasn't able to figure out exactly what kind of artist Patti Smith was/is, until I hit the Internets. Turns out Smith is mostly famous as the "godmother of punk rock." Here's her biggest Billboard hit: "Because the Night."

But before that, Patti Smith was a poet, a visual artist, a music critic, a sort of actor, a sort of fashion trendsetter, and then finally, she became a rock star. The other subject of her book, Robert Mapplethorpe, has the same sort of confusing trajectory. He painted, he drew, he made jewelry, and he ended his life mainly identified as a photographer. Basically, the two of them were just artists, through and through. They happened to get famous for specific stuff but their message was in every medium, as the non-saying goes.

When we went to the Met a few weeks ago, I half-jokingly decided that I'm going to make a transition to becoming an "artist." Apostrophes emphasized. What I realized is that being an artist doesn't necessarily have to do with technical skill, whether you draw or sing or carve wood or push pixels around -- none of which I do, keep in mind. The most important part of being an artist, the most essential bit of being an artist, is having a point of view. It's about expression. Doing comes first, sharing comes later. (Or you could not share, up to you.)

This is no great revelation.

However, not just any P.O.V. is an "artistic" point of view. After all, everyone has a subjective viewpoint, but we're not talking about mere opinions here. Art is finding something you care about, and then trying to make other people care about it. I think.

Also, artist, craftsman, creatives, those are different things. But that's a differentiation I'm still working through. Perhaps it's too close minded me to think that they should have to be separated. But I do strongly feel that just because you can paint, you aren't necessarily an artist, etc. To be explored.

The first thing I've decided to do on my self-appointed "so you want to be an artist" journey is to start learning how to write those art blurbs. The ones about the artist's work, or explaining the specific piece installed in front of you. That's a useful skill to have, and while sometimes I think those snippets reek of art school bullshit, learning how to write in that specific b.s. language can only help elevate my eventual art from the living room to the galleries. Right?

Reading Just Kids makes a strong argument for the idea that you're either an artist or you're not. So if I'm not one now, it's highly likely I'm in the latter camp. Are my hopes dashed before they've even been formed?

Before I Let Go

Listening to: Shanice, "I Love Your Smile."

I'm so ashamed to say it: I didn't vote. There are no excuses really, especially since yourexcusesucks.com exists. My roommate went to Ohio on a bus last week, to go door to door and get voters out for Obama. I sat at home. I was okay with not voting, thinking that I had clearly missed registration and being in Democratic California and all that. But then I opened up the mail on Tuesday -- a big envelope sent by my mom -- and there was my mail-in ballot. It would have taken less than ten minutes to fill it out, since I mostly knew where I stood on the props. I considered doing it and just dropping it in the mailbox, but it would have obviously not made it back to San Diego by eight o'clock. Ugh, I'm lame.

I'm one of the 100 million people eligible to vote who didn't -- there are about 220 million eligible voters. I can't even talk to my politically minded friends. They'd castigate me. As they should. I sometimes rail about people who don't care about things and I have no soapbox to stand on, not after this.

What if Romney had won?

I've got about four days between now and annihilation. I need to finish up this project and get it 95% great and just out the door. I've run out of time. Hurricanes, elections, snow storms, nothing can stop me now.

Actually I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make it.

Hurricane Sandy wrecked New York for most of last week, you may know this. I haven't seen any of the effects personally, aside from a fallen tree or two. Everything in my immediate vicinity was fine, perhaps too normal. I spent most of post-hurricane time camped out at JMZ's house -- there was a lot of Letterpress playing. They eat good over there. Like it was deliciousness on top of deliciousness. Personally I've stepped up my food creation by making a daily grilled cheese turkey sandwich. Onward and upward.

I've also lost the taste for cigarettes. Poof, gone. Being out and about on pre-Halloween weekend, it took me an hour and a half to get home via subway and I think I lost the will to go anywhere after that. My friend passed me David Rakoff to read and we've decided to adopt his curmudgeonly charm to the max. Experiments in misanthropy will commence soon. Stay tuned.

Oh look, snow.

• An Exclusive Peek Inside Keith Haring's New York City Studio
• An Oral History of the 1980s Houston Rockets
• Rock, Paper, Scissors: How We Used to Vote
• Ken Liu, "The Paper Menagerie" and a reaction
• Has Hollywood Murdered the Movies?

Don't Regret Me

Twenty three days and no post. This could be a record. The other week I went through and tried to update my journal, which had not been touched since February. Februrary! That was most certainly a record. Could so little have happened that I didn't have to turn to my journal? Watching Cloud Atlas, I realized that people back in the day used to write journals about everything. People sailing around would write all the mundane stuff down and then a hundred years later they would become valuable anthropological artifacts. Thus, as an ode to them, I must return to the journal, however trivial.

My friend sent me an email the other week, sort of thanking me, sort of inspiring me, and it reminded me that I was a really different person ten years ago. I cared more about stuff. I cared more about people. Somehow I best return to that. In the meantime, let's catch up.

Okay, nevermind. That was useless. Mostly I just had two weddings, a week long visit from San Franciscans, and a neverending deadline. On Sunday night/morning, after the wedding, I was in the hotel lobby cranking out the finishing touches on a non-masterpiece. The last New York wedding I went to, in 2008, I did a similar thing. Post-festivities and I was downstairs trying to cram in a few edits before I sent a draft off. Clearly my writing career only coalesces around New York weddings.

Right now there is a hurricane combo storm. I am underprepared but at the same time overprepared. I was built to subsist on not a lot of food, little to no light, and so far I've lost neither power, Internet, or sanity. Mary isn't here so I'm just chilling out, filling my bathtub full of water in case things go bad. Most everyone I know has lost one service already. To be flippant, nothing is different here in Fort Greene, even as I look at all the flooding photos and lower Manhattan de-powered. I can barely hear the wind tucked into my back room.

You should read Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett. It's about her friendship with Lucy Grealy, who is semi-famous for having her face constantly reconstructed due to cancer. It's the kind of book that's right up my alley, which was surprising to my friend who recommended it. She had told me to read it because it came closest to mirroring the type of relationship she had with her best friend. Somehow she thought I might not like it. That made me question why. What kind of books do I like, from her perspective?

This song by These United States is the right kind of mood setter right now: "So High So Low So Wide So Long."

"The archetypal California girl is long, lean, and tan with knobbed knees and ankles and salt-tangled, honey-colored hair. I am short and pale, with skin that burns and hair that snarls so that I leave the beach pink, itchy, and disheveled."
-Zan Romanoff, "California Girls" (2011)-

I forgot how I got to this blog, Zanopticon, but it's good. Also, I've been following this one, My Dead Parents, trying to discern if it's real or not. It almost certainly is but part of me is afraid it isn't. If it's some broader fiction project, I could even love it more so. I miss the types of blogs that existed more often long ago. Confessional, wordy, brilliant. I must find more.

"My parents have been dead for different versions of 'a while,' so I know I'm not supposed to be crushed by grief, but I never really felt sad at all. That makes me feel guilty, and a little broken. When I hear about other people being devastated by their parents' deaths I think, Shouldn't I be as sad as they are? I don't feel connected to those people at all -- I feel a mix of pity, jealously and revulsion."
-My Dead Parents, "What I Am Up To"-

Liquidate With Extreme Prejudice

If you're looking for something to watch, I have a few recommendations. Looper for scifi action movie fare, the Ai Weiwei documentary Never Sorry, and if you're feeling really adventurous, The Master. Actually the latter I couldn't rightly recommend to anyone. It's not that it's bad, it's just hard to pinpoint who I would tell to watch it. I guess if you like breathtaking cinematography, Joaquin Phoenix, and general confusion, get thee to The Master. I haven't been so anxious to hear a post-movie podcast in quite awhile. Of course, the spoiler podcast didn't really clear stuff up either. Which is okay I guess. Some movies are supposed to be impenetrable.

Everyone should see Never Sorry though, if they can. We were impressed with first time filmmaker Alison Klayman's sure handed direction and editing. She's quite young and sort of stumbled into the project, but her timing could not have been better as Ai Weiwei blew up over the time she was filming him. To think that Klayman, an American who learned Mandarin during her time in China, produced this great documentary is mind boggling. If I went to China, I can't imagine how I could undertake such a project. She must be fearless.

• Q&A with director Alison Klayman
• ReThink Interview: Alison Klayman
• Chance Encounters Interview

We convened our first book club meeting tonight, after talking about it for most of the summer. It's taken awhile because I read half of the wrong Murakami -- the three-in-one monster that is 1Q84 -- before realizing it. So I had to skitter through Kafka on the Shore as fast as I could. (I hadn't known about it previously but the highlight text feature on the Kindle is fabulous. Even better than bending down the corners of pages.) Murakami is known for passive protagonists and this book is no exception. His main characters lack agency, and they basically don't choose to do anything.

Generally, Kafka on the Shore is about memories and dreams, but that's just a tiny slice. There's also a cat killing scene that will stick with you forever if you let it. Never mind the incest. Even though we spent three hours talking about it, complete with going over specific quotes, I still feel the need to gain perspective on Kafka on the Shore from Murakami lovers. I feel like maybe I missed something(s). It's the kind of book that sucks you in but then frustrates.

We began book club with a warm up discussion about Fifty Shades of Grey, while downing a giant ball of mozzarella-like cheese that I forgot the name of. The ball was seriously the size of my fist. And really, two people can only eat so much cheese, however delicious. My food ignorance is reaching embarrassing levels as menus nowadays hold many mysteries to me. Tonight's WTFs: escarole, polpettine, orecchiette, bucatini, polpettone.

"In ancient times people weren't just male or female, but one of three types: male/male, male/female, or female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangement and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everybody in half, right down the middle. So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing other half."
-Kafka on the Shore-

Back and Forth

It's been just about a month since I've been here.  I feel like I've done nothing.  First two weeks was people visiting and then I launched into some writing that had to be done.  I had a deadline yesterday and I hit it, sort of, but rewrites have to begin again. I was lamenting today with Jennifer about how we really haven't done anything since being in New York.  She's been on a project that has taken a lot of time to put together and then two weekends in Syracuse to install and show.

We were talking about how the pressure of a deadline really just makes life and creation unbearable.  The constant "how fast can I work" calculations balanced with "how good will this be" fears.  I really don't like that aspect of it at all. I just want it to end.  The reward is a sense of accomplishment -- however fleeting -- but I don't really care about that.  I'm pretty good with not accomplishing I think.

I thought the joy was supposed to be in the work, the time spent doing it. But instead I just tend to avoid it whenever possible.  Until it's unavoidable.

Things I have stepped out to do:  Brooklyn Book Fair for a few hours, a wonderful outdoor dance party to stalk a DJ I'm in love with (the kind of true love where you just stand twenty feet away and stare), a Saturday conference for book bloggers.

Those are the only times I've left the house in about two weeks.  Have I been more productive?  Not particularly.  What I've done instead is just sit in front of the computer trying to get words out, even while I completely let everything online fall apart.  Is this how regular people feel?  When they just keep falling behind and there's no time to do things?

Every day I look out the window and see the incoming weather change and lament that I can't even get away with wearing menpris soon. I don't even have an iPhone 5 in my hand, as I've been waiting to reward myself for a job well done on this book.  Since the book is not done, no reward.  Sigh.

Wait, what am I even complaining about?  Geezes. Snap out of it man! I hope to return to regularly scheduled programming in two weeks, when everyone arrives for weddings. In fact, it has to be, because if this project doesn't get done by then, I'll have no time to play. It's October but I'm already staring at November.

For our first roommate activity, Mary and I went to do laundry yesterday afternoon. Since moving in, we haven't walked to a subway together, seen each other outside of the apartment, or eaten a single meal that involved sitting down. She's out, I'm in, or vice versa.  It's working out well.  Except our grand plans to explore and attend things is clearly not happening.  Perhaps next month.  When she's in the Yucatan.

Basically we are time sharing an apartment, with occasional check-ins if our paths cross.

Pour a Little Liquor

Cruising in from an expensive sushi dinner that was worth every penny. My friend had said, "It's the best sushi in New York." I waited for the disclaimer. Usually, when discussing sushi, people add something like "most affordable sushi, most authentic sushi, quality but worth it sushi." No, my friend just said "best."

I had almost forgotten when top end sushi tasted like. The dragon roll was ridiculous. And I don't even normally like eel.

Being in New York is often about the hunt for a "best" of everything. Finding the definitive best food item is first among these. Already I have been informed that I live quite close to the best red velvet cake. And I know I'm already blocks away from the best corn. What else could be around? I better start a best of me list. I'm disappointed that I haven't had one of these going already. It's like I've failed myself.

Relationships man, why do people get in them? People around me are having all sorts of relationship issues. If it ain't the same thing, it's that other thing. I've been lending my ear to a few tales of woe recently and here is what I've distilled my relationship advice down to:

• You'll do what you feel like, so just go for it. There is no more right or wrong. Just do it.
• There's a chance shit will all go bad, now or later, so just be ready.
• If you can't handle being alone, it's better to be in something at least, than to have nothing.
• If you're not enjoying it, plan an exit strategy.

This seems to be cynical in many ways, but really it's all about me believing in the power of love. See, I've decided to stop giving actual relationship advice awhile ago, because people won't listen anyway. Everyone will just follow their heart. They can't stop it, you can't stop it, nothing on Earth can stop it. The only thing is to just speed it up or slow it down some. Make the ride less turbulent.

Personally, I'm of the philosophy that you just go full bore until you know what's at the end.

We're celebrating five years of moblogging this summer. I started mine in July 2007, right after acquiring the original iPhone, and JMZ came heavy with his that September. Prior to the official moblog, I had a year and a half of Sidekick photos on their proprietary platform, but those are now mostly lost forever. Here is the first and last pic from the Sidekick. RIP.

As with all blog things, most people have fallen off but those that remain stand as near daily archives of the things that have happened. Nearly everyone who has started a moblog has expressed, at one point or another, how much they like having such a record -- even if they don't keep up with it. In the age of Instagram, Facebook Timeline, and other such things, it could be argued that moblogging is outdated. However, it's still hard to beat the organization and versatility of having archives and permalinks.

The question is, where does the moblog go now? Does it just remain a glorified food blog and a record of who I'm hanging out with and what we're doing? Or should it be something more? These are the kind of trivial questions that keep me up at night. That and procrastination.

For the first year or two, I stubbornly refused to stray from the one photo per line format, until I caved and went to the superior side by side alignment. With such an arrangement, everything looks good. And the magic of moblogs is that even if your life is mundane and terribly boring, having all these pictures organized neatly makes things seem like they were exciting. Heck, I moblogged almost seventy five times from work -- the last real job I held -- and even that looks super fun in retrospect. Oh wait, that job was super fun in retrospect, that's right!

If I had a child, I'd moblog him/her all day long. And since I don't have a child, here's Kevin's son's, which will document his journey from baby prodigy to NBA superstar. You can say you knew him when.

Blossom

Three Hendrick's gin and tonics, three B-52 shots, all consumed in two hours without any dancing to be had. Toast time, as in I was toast. (The B-52 is Kahlua, Baileys, and triple sec layered out all nice and neat.) The other night I went to a reading event that among others, featured actress Amber Tamblyn. You know her from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Or um, maybe you don't. Tamblyn was on stage to share some of her poetry -- an upcoming series about child actresses who died in their twenties, think Brittany Murphy -- and she brought up four shots to drink before each piece. Her poems were not long and I wondered what kind of drinking fortitude she had. It was an impressive display.

After my own almost as impressive display, my friend and I went to her apartment down the street and watched the back half of Adventures in Babysitting -- she had it saved on her DVR -- and ate sushi. Then I made the semi-long subway ride home and took two Tylenol and called it quits for the night. My plan to "play by day/evening and work after midnight" will suffer badly if this keeps up. There is just too much to do in New York, too much.

Also, I am gushing money. You can't walk out of the house here without expecting to drop a hundred dollars. I'm going to have to move to an all cash system to limit my spending. And I'm seriously not even doing anything. Just eating and drinking. And I don't even really drink.

For example, today was big box retailer day, and JMZ and I went to Target and IKEA. Making a firm commitment to staying here for longer than a month, I was in the market for a bed. It it were up to me, I'd just sleep on the floor, or the use the couch, or continue air mattressing it, but that's not proper. Thinking way ahead, I had brought sheets with me from San Diego, knowing I would make that big adult purchase of a mattress once I arrived. Plus, guests can't be expected to sleep on the floor right?

Well, after a bit of princess and the pea, and caving to my thriftiness, I am now the proud owner of a twin bed. Yes, you heard me right. I am pushing my middle ages and rocking the twin. There was some thought given to going with a full but the price difference just wasn't worth it. And really, who do I have to make room for? The last time I had to buy a bed was probably ten years ago. Since then I've been gloriously bed-less.

Somehow I rang up $350 at Target and IKEA -- the bed without frame was $89. This is what happens when you decide to stay awhile. I bought cleaning supplies, two lamps, a six dollar light bulb, extra towels, a fluffy blanket, a mini-carpet to put our dirty shoes on when we climb out on the patio to smoke, a 50 count bottle of generic Pepcid AC for all that drinking, extension cords, power strips, a small trash can, detergent, a lint roller (I'm recently incorporating black into my wardrobe), and hangars. I can't believe I bought hangars. But AMR told me he hangs up all his t-shirts to avoid center creasing so I'm gonna have to do that too.

And this was really nothing as this apartment is already well stocked with 90% of what we'd need. But when you go into something like IKEA, you're just forced to re-think your lifestyle choices. I made myself rationalize how much I didn't need. Handy buckets to hold things, organizers for my random tidbits, a big plastic tub to put clothes in, wet Swiffer pads, these were just a sampling of items I put in the cart and left behind. People don't believe me but I used to overdecorate my rooms. I had jars for my jars. Picture frames for my pictures frames. LACK tables for my LACK tables. I can consume with the best of them.

I need to find a fucking dollar store.

Also, I cleaned like crazy tonight. My room smells like biodegradable all purpose cleaner. I want to turn this scent into a cologne. Last week, during mid-afternoon sangria, we decided that we were basically the Househusbands of Brooklyn. It's the most boring reality show you've never seen. I can't cook but I'm so Tony Danza when the mood strikes. And those smoking gloves are just the thing for not getting your hands dirty. While I was perched up high, wiping down the big windows facing the street, someone walked by and gave me the double thumbs up. That must be the universal greeting for post-midnight, semi-OCD, cleaning people.

Come visit, I have a bed for you now.

"I have slept in 26 locations in the last seven months.This was never my intention, this peripatetic life, but looking back now at the age of 40, I can finally see I have been doing it for decades. I wanted so much more for myself at some point, though I cannot even remember what exactly it was that I wanted anymore."
-Where I've Laid My Head-

Dance on Glass

So the soundtrack of my short few days so far is Q-Tip's Renaissance. It came out in 2008 but somehow I missed it until maybe earlier this year. I think everyone gave up on Q-Tip after Amplified. I don't even know what his albums sound like after that. But if you're slugging through the subways of New York, nothing's better than ATCQ. Or at least nothing's more appropriate and reminiscy. And here's the thing, Renaissance is a great throwback album. It's what ATCQ fans wanted from a solo Q-Tip, even if he wanted to move himself artistically in a different direction. Here's a track I've been having on repeat: "Manwomanboogie." What's going to follow is a "what I've been doing" post so really, skip it unless you care about this kinda stuff.

Des is visiting New York for a few days, and she was part of the reason I rushed out here and popped up so suddenly. Vacationing in New York with nobody to play with during the weekdays? Oh me me, choose me! As it turned out, we didn't actually hang out all that much. Our first day in the city was a marathon. Chinatown for Taiwanese breakfast at two, mid-afternoon sangria followed by karaoke, then I split from them as they went to a beer garden and I went to a book thing. Then we followed up with Susan Sarandon's ping pong bar, SPiN Galactic. And finally a clean up session for late night Korean food.

Thing was, it was only midnight and we were dones. Also, hanging out in New York necessitates a whole lot of drinking. I can't go from zero percent to three mid-afternoon drinks so soon. It just made me sleepy. Luckily the cure for any sleepyness is karaoke, and this new place we went to dished out the songs via iPad and had a ton of current stuff. Yes, even some Frank Ocean -- which JMZ performed quite credibly. "I think I started something / I got what I wanted / did didn't I can't feel nothing."

But the first day's lesson was that going ten hours in the city is freaking exhausting. All the noises, the people, the physical act of walking up and down stairs, of being hot, then hotter, and just all of it. I do this every time I come back, the adjustment. But this time was rougher than most, because I think I've been away for too long. I've been a hermit in San Diego for almost a year, I can't handle this much stimulation.

Friday was a late start, as poor Des had to wait for me and JMZ to gear up. If I was on my normal NY schedule, I wouldn't even head into the city until 9 PM or later. But she was ready and prepped to go at noon. In the end we settling on a compromise of meeting at five for an eating tour of Soho. Which stopped after two locations -- meatball parm rolls and Cuban corn -- because while the sandwiches at Parm were amazing, they were bigger than anticipated. No stomach for lobster rolls, or even dessert!

We parted ways as she went to go fancy rooftop drinking on the Upper East and I hoofed it over to Chelsea to meet some people. They were eating tapas so naturally I had to try a few bites. After a jaunt through Chelsea Markets for tiramisu making items -- my friend was making it for her Sunday pig roast -- we settled into a Chinatown alley for Malaysian. At the table behind us, someone was talking about how his friend was a postmodern belly dancer. Yeah, exactly.

The rest of the night ended up being my impromptu birthday celebration because the fact it was my birthday pretty much was sprung on everyone. They were nice enough to insist on celebrating me, which was very big of them as I popped up in New York out of nowhere and didn't even inform them I was here until that day. Thank you friends, for your consideration. Clearly I lack basic human values and like to guerilla guilt people into celebrating. Anyhow, part of their niceness was hitting up an Italian dessert place that dropped like eight different desserts on us, which was +3 more than we had people. Won't complain about that.

The only thing I had wanted to do for my birthday was go find some music and dance, but that proved harder than imagined. The only places I knew were from a year and a half ago and you know that's outdated info. We ended up at a place that was filled with absolutely the wrong crowd, and then went to a place that had the right crowd but the harshest rap currently out there -- none of which we knew -- which was regardless fun to dance to for a sec. A quick getaway meant we met up with my cousin and her boyfriend who is also cousins with my good friend and so on and so on.

Then we karaoked until late/early. They had "Gangam Style." I requested my friend sing "Save the Best" for last, and three hours later it was a wrap. JMZ and Jenn have a car in New York so the whole experience of being in the city is a bit different. Sitting in a car makes New York seem much less New Yorky. High marks for convenience though. Driving home at dawn is a heck of a lot easier. Especially if JMZ is doing the driving.

Saturday I woke up with the back of my jaw area completely swollen. I seriously thought it was from too much karaoke. I'd never had this before and my face looked like it had gained thirty pounds. Turning one year older really did make a big difference this time. After some research, it was determined that I just had swollen lymph nodes. It could mean that I was getting sick but outside of being tired, I felt perfectly fine. More karaoke! Actually, I did go to karaoke again a few hours later, but I refrained from participating because, well, because.

This recap is going nowhere. It should end soon. Suffice to say, Saturday was spent crawling around at some more bars, after a freak tornado blistered through Brooklyn (and nicely cleared the humidity and the streets), and we ended the night at a tucked in bar filled with beautiful black people. I know what that sounds like but it's exactly what I mean. It was like when you read about 1940's Harlem. Only instead of jazz, it was incredible hip hop. Even though it was a very slow night, people were dressed so stylishly, and the crowd was just so damn good looking. I was like, "Where are we?" Chelsea, of all places.

And at the very end, my friend was accosted by the cutest Puerto Rican dude, who was trying to play it off like he didn't ever talk to girls but you don't get to just stand here at our booth for thirty minutes talking to a girl and also protest that you never do it. Puerto Rican Ken, complete with accent, was twenty one -- he showed us his ID -- and I was hoping for a How Stella Got Her Groove Back story. Alas, probably not. I need to return to this bar though, because the music is so damn good. And when a certain spazzy friend hits NY, I know just where to bring her. It's going to be my opening salvo in the campaign to move her out here.

While I was sitting down talking to my friend, a girl walked by and literally fondled my ear/ring. I didn't even react I was so shocked. I don't know if you know this but there's this whole online thing with testimonials about AMBW couples. Actual videos where black women talk about how wonderful their Asian boyfriends and husbands are. Like this is real life. My friend just told me about it the night before, and I had spent some of my afternoon Googling this phenomenon. The common factor seems to be anime. And asserting/defending the masculinity of Asian men. It's really something. You can decide how to feel about it yourself.

Sunday we went to a pig roast. And I had $7 rice pudding. Outrageous. The pricing, and the extravagantly durable packaging it came in. It was pretty delicious though.

Tomorrow I need to get my life back together. My computering has been neglected and I'm behind on everything. My life can't handle this much activity, it's too much.

Oh yeah, Fun's "We Are Young" is the new official karaoke closer. No debate. And please, no more Journey, ever.

Check the Scenario

If this were a movie, it would just throw together all the montage bits and that would be my move from SD to NY. It would start with the two desperate nights of staying up to pack and write, then stumbling to the airport and getting a middle seat and not being able to sleep. It would then transition to showing up in New York and getting picked up by JMZ, and us cruising to Frank Ocean on the way to my apartment in Fort Greene. Then it would just be a ton of fast cuts as it shows the next few days of running around Manhattan while I try to squeeze in settling in.

The credits would roll as I do a voiceover about how I miss my double screens and my speakers. I've been living in luxury too long with my computer setup. Now I feel so inefficient online and my music doesn't sound as nice. I know, totally #loservilleproblems. It's disturbing how much "#" has permeated our thoughts processes isn't it? Twitter is really quite a thing.

So, Fort Greene. I haven't explored much of it because I've been hopping to the city but everyone tells me it's a great place to live. It's like the midway point -- both literally and figuratively -- between hipster capital Williamsburg (where I lived last time I was here) and boho parent capital Park Slope. It's like the older hipster people who basically moved south and west a bit from Williamsburg. Expressed as a percentage, I would say it's 70% gentrified, and you get advice like "don't cross the park at night." Also I read that people get their iPhones jacked a lot coming off the subway, so clearly I'm very cautious about when I head up the stairs. There will be nobody reaching over the railing to grab my iPhone and run, no sir.

On a side note: There has to be a neighborhood gentrification percentage model right? Or is that, like, just the census? After having a conversation with JMZ about when/how people use "gentrification" versus "ghetto," I'm trying to cut both out of my vocabulary. JMZ and Jenn live two miles away from me in Bed-Stuy, and they are the only Asians on the block, sandwiched in-between the blacks and the whites. They have a much more impressive roster of rappers who hail from their area. Although we have a few too. My other friend also lives only two miles away from me, which is vastly exciting. I've begun bike shopping so I can shuttle myself between their two locations.

Bikewise I am looking for something very cheap and basically disposable as there are many carcasses of bikes when you walk around. If only I could skateboard or be confident enough to use my Razor. Awhile ago, my friend bought me one -- he knew I wanted one very badly -- when they were super popular that one summer, but I've never been able to use it much. I would look so cool now, skimming across the sidewalks.

My apartment is right above a very coffee geek coffee shop, where they are serious about their cold brew coffee or something. Reviews claim it's amazing but I've yet to try it. There is also an excellent indie movie theater around, and I know there's a fantastic bookstore somewhere nearby too, so really I'm all set here. I hope to become a Brooklynite who eschews the city and laughs at going anywhere above Chinatown. I hear that's the cool thing to do.

Mary, my roommate has long been one of my best friends, and while we've never spent more than a week together, this is clearly the move that will brings us oh so much closer. Already we have misassembled an Ikea coffee table. We are destined for great things. Sidenote: If nineteen year old me would have known that Mary and Jennifer -- then my two best friends -- would now be living within walking/biking/scootering distance of each other, he would have been thrilled. And panicked. They were the yin and yang of my inner world, and I couldn't even conceive of what it would be like if they met and interacted. And now we're all here. Plus JMZ!

The actual apartment I'm in has super high ceilings, a wonderful smoking balcony that looks out into lushy backyards and fire escapes, and while I do not have a bed, I may make a bold mature move and buy one. Yes, I might buy a bed. I've been advised that a twin bed is not the move for a man of thirty four, so I'll be in the market for something bigger.

Oh yeah, I just had a birthday. To be discussed. The takeaway is that I'm in New York and that I'm paying rent. Please, hold the applause until intermission. No flash photos either.

Quarter Mile

What a busy week I'm having. Shock! Is this what it's like to have your schedule packed? I can't handle it. Normal people are superhuman. I can barely stay awake for six consecutive hours. This is going to be a huge problem in New York. Can someone install nap rooms or something in the city? I've read that Tokyo has these. Tiny sleeping cubicles that you can rent out for a mid-day nap. This is something we need to transfer over right away.

By busy I mean I've had two fantasy football drafts, a few friends popping in, Georgmeer here in San Diego, a last run of going to look at people's computers and giving them important music, and minor work messes to sort out. Plus I've picked up a spare project here or there -- btw I'm starting a web/blog design company, spread the word -- and I've been writing on deadline. The last thing sprung out of nowhere and in the span of a few days I went from writing purgatory to cranking out lots of words. What this has taught me is that I'm pretty sure I'm only motivated by deadlines. All those writers who write because they just have to do it, otherwise they'd shrivel up and die inside, those people are true writers. I only write when external pressures come calling.

"Write for yourself." Possibly overrated.

Also our cousin (and aunt) are here for a squash tournament, and she's usurped George's room. Early bird gets the comfy bed I guess. My cousin is gonna be a senior and will be using squash to leverage her way into her preferred college. I've noticed that people will talk to my cousin for a good ten minutes before rewinding to say they don't actually know what squash is. For the record, it's like racquetball but predominantly played by old Jewish people. It's the sport of the Upper East Side.

I've been reading over T's practice ACT writing bits and trying to help her improve them. The classic 1-3-1 school essay -- thesis, three points, conclusion -- really does a tremendous disservice to learning to actually write. It just makes writing so formulaic and boring. No wonder most people hate writing essays. It's entirely pointless within the confines of 1-3-1. It just becomes Mad Libs, or math. There has to be a better way to show that you "get" something.

A good friend of ours got surprise engaged over the weekend and he announced it over GroupMe. No phone call, no text, no email. GroupMe. For a group of close friends, we're all incredibly secretive about dating situations. I don't know if this is something abnormal or if most people just like to keep their shit private.

I'm pretty sure George and I are part of the root cause of our group's ____ mentality. We love secrets way too much and have a penchant for gossiping. Everybody's business is our business. That's like the family motto. However, this means people are reluctant to divulge things to the group as a whole and nobody actually knows anything except through guessing and hearsay. So when someone is about to pop a question -- or in this case, the question -- we find out after the fact and not before. It's like people don't trust each other or something. Cheers, to friendship!

You would think someone would have asked me for my pre-engagement advice by now. But no, they have not. Not one single person. Even some of my bestest friends. "Hey Jon, I'm about to marry so and so, what do you think?" Although perhaps their not asking me proves their wisdom.

When I told my friend about this sudden engagement, she asked if the couple was happy. I hadn't even considered that. I mean, is that even relevant anymore? Who knows if anyone is happy? Just say yes to the dress.

In other news, I spent a Monday morning driving around San Diego, helping JMZ sell off his beloved BMW M3. It's been sitting in our garage for a few months and nobody is around to drive it. The guy who came to look at it loved it from the jump, and the buddy he brought along was a huge BMW geek. They wanted to get matching M3s and he'd been looking for one in good condition for months.

Riding in the back, cruising up and down the freeway to get the carburetor warmed up, I spent a lot of time listening to their conversation about every aspect of the car. Having never participated in a used car purchase before, I realized that I'd likely be swindled pretty easily. When dealing with things that cost thousands of dollars, it's best to have some skepticism. This guy though, he was a super stand up guy and he and this car belonged together. Plus, as we discovered, him and JMZ had the same birthday. It had to be fate.

Toy Soldiers

Over the last few nights, Lilly and Chris have been educating me on cheesy 80s soft rock with our/their shared Spotify playlist. They're dropping hits I didn't even know I knew and none of us have been very productive during our shared late nights. "At This Moment," Billy Vera & The Beaters. "You and I," Eddie Rabbitt and Crystal Gale. All this technology and we can't karaoke with friends from our bedrooms. Someone get on that.

If you wanna get crazy, jump in and add on to 80s soft rock madness. It's an open playlist. Lilly is also gonna educate me with a Jheri curl playlist that I'm already excited about. Shalamar, DeBarge, Kashif, I'm coming for you. Also I learned that "All Cried Out" is not really an Allure track. I can't get into the original, like at all. Sometimes you just have to go with what got you here you know?

I don't even know what to think about this Richard Aoki thing. Scott Kurashige, American culture professor and director of APIA Studies at Michigan had this post in response, "My Initial Thoughts on the Richard Aoki Controversy." Was he or wasn't he? This is like finding out Grace Lee Boggs killed ____. (I have to blank it as typing the name would probably be blasphemous.)

I'm working my way through Mike Davis' City of Quartz again. I think I first read it ten years or so ago, upon Mary's recommendation. It stuck with me a lot, and it led me to read a lot of LA-based non-fiction. City of Quartz mostly deals with who controlled Los Angeles and traces the evolution of power in the city -- and how the city separates the haves and have nots. It's really great. I happened to be thinking about the book while up in SF and not five minutes later we walked by a big pile of giveaways on the corner and there it was. Right on top. "No fucking way," I thought. "I have powers!" Normally I'd be loathe to take a book off the street like that but this was a case of kismet.

This leads me to believe that I should read Kurashige's The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles. It could be dry as shit but we're about to find out. Actually I don't mind a little dry, it might be good among all this fluffy fiction I've been taking in.

Also, my go to torrent site went down. This is curtailing my culture consumption by the nth degree. Especially books. Goodness where am I going to get those books! My night shift nursing friend texted me at three in the morning (she reads a lot at work): "Deliveroid is down, what do we do?!" Panic, that's what we do. I can't go back to buying all my books, I just can't. Yes I know this attitude is in direct opposition to my writing career. Still, I believe data wants to be free. Can't fight the bytes.

Summer's End

This is already a problem, I know. @relationships is this Twitter account I started following a few weeks ago and it just has the best/worst things to say about well, relationships. I have no idea who runs it, what this is for, but me and almost 400,000 other people can't be wrong. I like to imagine this is stuff I'd say to girls, or stuff they've already said to me. Or just advice I'd like to dole out.

A few of my faves:

• "I know we're not dating, but whenever I see someone else flirting with you, I want to shoot them in the face!"
• "He saw you. He met you. He wanted you. He liked you. He chased you. He had you. He got bored at you. He left you. He broke you."
• "Promises: we break them. Memories: they break us."

It all makes a nice companion/counterpoint to the Helen Gurley Brown obits that have been going around.

"Helen Gurley Brown, or H.G.B. as she's known in the Cosmo universe, is the patron saint of Cosmopolitan's sex-centric brand of female empowerment. The author of the then-scandalous self-help book 'Sex and the Single Girl' -- which advised women on how to better enjoy their jobs, relationships and bodies -- Brown re-branded the magazine with her frank, sexy tone in 1965, when most women's magazines were focused on family and home economics."
-How Cosmo Conquered the World-

Over the weekend one of my favorite people in the whole wide world came back to visit San Diego. She used to live here maybe seven years ago. The story of how she met AMR and Henry is a great one. In fact, I need to record AMR telling it, in his inestimable way, and then preserve the video for eternity. It involves my craptastic Old Navy Oregon tee, some random girl's boobs, and lots of squishing. I wasn't even there to witness, probably because I was at home dealing with some pre-breakup post-makeup soon-let's-breakup almost-not-yet-makeup stuff. Definitely that's what I was doing.

The ensuing summer was a great time to be in San Diego. Gems was leaving in a few short months so we had limited time to make the most of it. Everyone was single, everyone was ready to play, and it was late nights and fun times on dance floors everywhere. I forgot who took the credit for bringing Gems in. This was like a big deal then. Getting the credit for bringing a person in. Whichever of you it was, AMR or Henry, great job!

Now that I think about it, that was probably the last classic San Diego summer, ending our 2003-2005 run, before everyone split and moved away. #nostalgiaultra. The other night we drove out past Belmont Park's Big Dipper roller coaster, to Gem's old house on Mission Bay. The whole place was dark but we analyzed the exterior for changes and tried to figure out what kind of people lived there now. Certainly they were no naughty nurses, or night owls. We sat in the car, blasting a few Hall and Oates tracks and then gave it up one final time, fists in the air.

Closure.

Roadmap to the Future

The other day my mom asked me about Mitt Romney. What he was about, how he differed from Obama, etc. I gave her a semi-explanation but basically said, "You're probably pro-Romney." Generally I just assume any older Chinese person is Republican. Or maybe that's just the Chinese parents we grew up around. Del Mar, say hey!

In all the parties my mom has hosted here, I can only recall a few dinner conversations that have even touched on politics. During one of them, my mom's good friend was trying to explain why everyone had to register and vote for Obama. Hearing her rail against Romney was surprising.

Later I asked her if her pleas generally fell upon deaf ears. She said, "probably."

This was an interesting article about Paul Ryan, Romney's newly selected running mate. It's mainly about Ryan's economic theories and his rise to prominence in the Republican party. I took one of those "which are you" quizzes awhile back and Ryan came up as my match. That, plus his (prior) allegiance to Ayn Rand, made me pay attention to him. Of course I'm not a Republican but I try to read as much as possible of the other side, especially on the economics stuff, in which I'm fundamentally conservative. Reading all of Rands' books will do that to you.

What Ryan espouses is pretty drastic though. Privatization of Social Security, vouchers for Medicare and Medicaid, a government that is drastically scaled back. And the military. There's always the military. Since 2001, "annual defense spending has risen more than a hundred per cent...and it already constitutes more than half of all discretionary government spending." Anyone surprised by this?

"In practical terms it would make most of what the federal government does -- from maintaining infrastructure to air-traffic control, environmental regulation, and crime fighting -- unaffordable. Ryan's path to prosperity, in other words, is a path that ends with the federal government spending its money on health care, Social Security, and the military, and little else."
-Call That A Budget?-

I keep trying to dig into what I really think about the ideological gap between the Republican and Democratic ways of handling money. I tend to start with what rules I'd impart on my children. Am I responsible for their financial well being? For how long? What legislation would I pass to keep them accountable? For some reason though, I'm pretty sure using the parent/child analogy isn't helpful in thinking about national economics. So I should probably not try to model it that way.

In the 1990s, Charles Barkley's grandmother once admonished him for supporting the Republicans. She said that only rich people were Republican. His reply was that he WAS rich. (Barkley is pro-Obama now.) That's basically how it lines up. If you've got money -- or are ultra-religious -- you're Republican. If you're not, then you're a Democrat. Obviously it's not that simple but that's the two dichotomies. It's rare to meet people who don't vote according to their financial status/background. Which makes sense I guess. Even if that seems kind of predictable.

Really, I think it just comes down to "earn" and whether you think those quotation marks are necessary. Younger Randian me would have knee-jerk said, "Nope, those aren't necessary." But older me knows better. What I don't know is what older me thinks about other stuff because I'd put all that aside for awhile. I guess it's a good time to start figuring that shit out again.

"Ryan told me that the class of Republicans elected in 2010 was transformational. 'Usually, you get local career politicians who want to be national career politicians,' he said. 'They’re more cautious. They’re more risk-averse. They’re more focused on just reelection.' He went on, 'This crop of people who came up are doctors and dentists and small-business people and roofers and D.A.s. They’re not here for careers -- they’re here for causes."
-Fussbudget: How Paul Ryan captured the G.O.P.-

Another thing that caught my eye was Ryan's proposed ten year budget, which amounted to only 70+ pages. That's novella length. I mean, it's probably dense as hell but I would've thought that planning our nation's fiscal future would take a lot more ink. Throw that sucker up on Amazon for 99 cents Paul, I'll download it.

Last Saturday my mom pulled up to the driveway in a newly purchased Lexus GS 350. She'd been talking about getting another car for awhile now and after seemingly endless consultation with friends and family -- I think George gets her roundabout decision making process from my mother -- she decided to eschew a used car (my recommendation) for a new one.

My mom was positively giddy as it's the only car she's ever chosen, because my dad always used to pick our cars. I doubt she'll be this happy ever again, until there's a grandchild presented to her. I know George inherited this giddiness from my mom because she got a new bike recently. Take a look at this smile on George's face from her big day and that's exactly what my mom looked like last weekend. Now we are a family of go-getters. My mom in her Lexus, George on her bike, and me on whatever they aren't using.

In related news, I am now free to drive anywhere/anytime I want because we are a two car family again. Thanks for caring about me during this joyous time, you know who you are. Who you are.

My mom has also declared that nobody else can drive her car. Except maybe family. It's just too pretty and precious. We spent an afternoon shuttling between Walmart, Costco, and Target looking for the right sized floor mats. Keep in mind that the car already comes with factory perfect ones. My mom just wants an extra layer of plastic protection. I took the opportunity to explain to her what O.C.D. was. She's been constantly using that acronym ever since. "Is this OCD? Is X's mom OCD? What else is OCD?"

All of it Mom, you've made us all OCD. For life.

Funky For You

I hate silence. It doesn't work for me. Yet I often find myself surrounded by silent people. This is a problem. In this article, "On Shutting Up," the author says that he used to think "awkward people beget awkward silences." Um, isn't this what silences are? Awkwardness? The article concludes with the sentiment that maybe silence is a beautiful thing. However I'll go ahead and contend that no, it is not a beautiful thing.

Perhaps it's anxiety. I'd never thought about it that way. Are silent people less anxious about social situations because they just don't care about the dead space in-between? Don't they see how boring they are? Why are you taking up this wonderful seat across from me if you're just going to sit there like an inanimate object? Nothing is worse than someone who insists on being in the middle yet contributes nothing. We used to have a term for this. I forgot what it was.

Hum, this might be a corollary to my 2011 declaration about attempting to talk to non-talkative guys. Sometimes I'll play a game where I resolve to not say anything until the other person does. Most of the time I lose. I can't handle the silence!

Next social event I'm going to just sit there and not saying. Actually wait, I've done this before. At horrible wedding dinners. Actually have I ever been to a wedding where the wedding dinner was enjoyable? With strangers I mean. I don't think so. Nobody is invested to talk to anyone around them because you'll never see each other again and really, you're just a table of one-offs. Then I just put my head down and eat my food and wait for the coffee to arrive. And I go wash my hands a lot.

Forget it. The move is just to pull out my iPhone next time and play a podcast. That will be a statement. "I'm comfortable with silence, very comfortable."

"Before virtually every social encounter I have, I anticipate the conversation rather obsessively. What should or shouldn’t I ask this person? What might they like to know about me? Do I come off as cocky, naïve, or neurotic? (Probably.) It’s both exciting and unnerving, because I feel as though I arrive prepared. But I’m also left disappointed when an encounter falls flat. In overthinking the encounter, I leave no room to be surprised."
-On Shutting Up-

Actually I'm not that fond of chatterboxes either. I guess it's just the lesser of two evils. Here's the rule of thumb to determine if people call you a Chatty Kathy behind your back: are you entertaining? Some people have a lot to say but because of the way they do it, it's boring as all hell. They could tell me about their incredible Mars landing and how they got to meet aliens there and back. Boring.

Other people will talk about their day but put just the right spin on things to make it amusing and worth the time. Please, when in doubt, opt to be amusing. Or silent.

Annus Mirabilis

Spent my weekend with Ren McCormack, the gang of K-Town, John Keats, and a murderers' row of murderers. So much can happen when you just stay in and watch/read things. Back in May, I went to see a SD Junior Theater production of Peter Pan that exceeded all expectations. I vowed that if I was in town when they did Footloose, I would have to go. Well, on Friday I dragged L with me and we had a great time. Laughing.

A good way to ruin Footloose is to cast the most awkard moving Ren possible, and then to have hilarious dance routines, most likely choreographed by someone way out of touch with current trends. And when the underage girls are flouncing around with too short skirts in front of an audience of parents and children, it just gets fantastically uncomfortable. Also most of the second half was accompanied by a hip hop soundtrack blasting through from the wedding party situated next door. T-Pain and Reverend Shaw's sermons don't mix that well. Needless to say, we'll be back for the Junior Theater's next production.

Also, I went to the movies four times last week. Two near midnight showings for action flicks and then a couple of indie romantic comedies. That might be a new record for me. In order for romantic comedies to work, the main actress has to be very compelling and both Safety Not Guaranteed and Ruby Sparks work because of their leads. Aubrey Plaza is the embodiment of seductive sarcasm and Zoe Kazan out-Zooeys Zooey Deschanel. Of the two, Ruby Sparks is much better, but the premise for Safety Not Guaranteed is both based on a true story and brilliant. "Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. Safety not guaranteed."

In Ruby Sparks, Paul Dano literally invents his own Manic Pixie Dream Girl and while it's impossible to not be cognisant of this trope, it's also impossible to resist. I mean, MPDG is what guys like me live for. Even if it's unoriginal and a real life impossibility. "Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive." Every time I watch one of these movies I wonder what kind of Manic Pixie Dream Girl I'd write. She'd be brunette, of course...

Actually, Ruby Sparks is sort of about tearing down the myth of a dream girl. Think a literary Mannequin. I'm almost afraid to watch it again because I don't want to notice its faults and right now I can't think of a single thing I would have changed about the movie. As it turns out, writer/star Zoe Kazan is the granddaughter of Elia Kazan, director of On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, East of Eden. Damned if cinematic prowess isn't inherited. There's a scene at the end of Ruby Sparks that is just so well acted and written. Zoe Kazan is my hero.

And then there's Bright Star, which I've had waiting in its red Netflix envelope for too many months. I use my Netflix queue as "to be watched" list and most of the time I don't recall what made me stick something on it. With Bright Star I suspect it's because I heard it was Abbie Cornish's best work and somehow that made it matriculate to the top of my queue. Or maybe it was because she once dated Ryan Phillippe, and that somehow made me want to watch her movies? Geezes I hope that's not the reason.

During most of Bright Star, which is slow paced but effective, I was Googling away to get some historical background on John Keats and Fanny Brawne. They suffered from a great love and Keats' ineligibility to marry Brawne because he had no name and no money. Of course, Keats is now regarded as one of the greatest poets that lived but during his lifetime, it was estimated that his three books of poetry sold about two hundred total copies.

Keats had a cadre of friends and admirers that financially supported him and while they recognized his brilliance and tirelessly promoted him, that didn't help much when it came to the reality of his social status. The strangest thing about Bright Star was how it was just so matter of fact that Keats and Brawne would not be together. This was not a story about a love that conquered all. If anything, their love was restrained beyond belief and it wasn't until he was near death -- Keats died at twenty-five -- that they were engaged.

At the beginning of the year, I read Dan Simmons' Hyperion, which references Keats many times over, and is, in fact, titled after Keats' poem. The rest of the Hyperion Cantos are named after another of his poems, Endymion. It made me want to give Keats' poetry a try but I don't have the patience to decipher Ode to a Nightingale nor the inclination to slog through the rest of his work. There was a time I would have, but I think I've lost my interest in stanzas and meters. Plus it's impossible to read this stuff without someone explaining it to you.


Somehow this has turned into a review post. Which is not what I intended. While I'm here though, Bill James' Public Crime is much recommended. If you like murders and serial killers, this is the book for you. Bill James is famous as the father of sabermetrics -- the inspiration behind Moneyball -- and this has just been his side obsession. If you can count reading hundreds of true crime novels and becoming an expert on the subject as "just a side thing."

It goes to prove that if you care about something, you should obsess over it.