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.