Massive Incompetance
I’m in the process of writing the most epic letter of complaint between periodic dousings of my apartment with bleach.
Last night, BLACK WATER SEWAGE flooded my kitchen continuously and the property management will not take action until Monday.
It’s BLACK. It’s WARM. It SMELLS DISGUSTING. It makes me NAUSEOUS.
My entire kitchen has been contaminated with unimaginable filth.
Maybe in people in Chicago are used to all kinds of crap invading their homes, but where I come from, that’s unacceptable.
And We Come Back Fighting Harder
From Etsy’s blog The Storque today:
According to the lunar zodiac, the Year of the Ox, 2009, will be a “year of resilience.” Feng Shui experts have expressed sentiments that despite (or perhaps because of) the current economic turbulence the Year of the Ox will bring respite because the ox is patient, persevering and tireless. The ox symbolizes prosperity through fortitude and hard work.
Last year was supposed to be *my* year, the Year of the Rat. I was supposed to experience growth and good fortune. The jury is still out on that one. Economic turbulence aside, there’s plenty of other types of turbulence in my life that make me want to cry out for respite – from life in general sometimes.
I don’t know how much I want to invest, spiritually and emotionally, in Feng Shui. I grew up with its guiding principles in my household, but, for the most part, I think its greatest contribution has been its pleasing effect on my parents’ interior design themes in our home. As far as I know, Feng Shui tells us to keep dangerous objects out of the reach of children and asks us to maximize our use of natural sunlight. Can’t argue with that. Whether maintaining a Feng-Shui-Kosher lifestyle actually brings you peace and prosperity on its own is, I think, doubtful.
Nevertheless, I want to think that 2009’s challenges will pass like all the others, and I desperately want to hold on to that shred of hope that I’ll emerge on the other side of them in one piece. It’s difficult to maintain a grip on happy thoughts when the year begins in the middle of an icy winter. OMG - How could it be that I JUST realized that EVERY New Year holiday in Chicago takes place in the middle of the freezing winter? This is what they mean when they talk about that heavy feeling of dread unloading with a thump. I think Australia’s got this one right: from now on, unless I’m living in a tropical or Mediterranean climate once again, I’m celebrating MY new year at the beginning of summer.
Give In
Last night, I booked my flight back to Santa Barbara.
For a little bit there it sounded like I’ve been planning to move back, hm? Well, not in any real way.
I’ve been invited for a scholarship interview and I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to spend just over two weeks with my family at the end of March.
And on a related note, the weather forecast for today was an epic fail on the part of wunderground.com, which insists today’s high is 31 degrees with partly cloudy skies. Reality check: it’s 23.5 degrees at midday and SNOWING. AGAIN.
Heartbreak World
When I was 12, I had a crush on Leonardo DiCaprio along with every other human being with two X chromosomes under the age of 16.
In high school, I met and spoke with James Marsters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. It was fun and exciting to interact with someone I associated with “Celebrity-Ville”, but the experience left me a changed female fan. After the novelty of my encounter wore off, I decided to come to terms with a few things:
1. Cinematography and photoshop are ridiculously amazing. Petite people can appear tall, fair-skinned complexions can assume olive undertones, and the list goes on. People in print and on film are not what they seem.
2. A pretty face and/or a gorgeous physique do not a complete person make. We underestimate how important other aspects of human interaction are: the timbre of someone’s voice, the scent of a person, the range and intensity of hand gestures and other non-verbal forms of communication, etc…
3. What people do and say when they don’t think we’re watching or listening is just as important, if not more important, when judging a person’s character and substance. After all, how often do we encounter people we ultimately deem charming and irresistable for reasons completely unrelated to their appearance?
I swore off my adolescent fantasies years ago. None of us can afford to waste precious time and energy immersed in silly fantasies about people who don’t really exist. Actors are paid to portray made-up personalities (to varying degrees of sucess), and we often choose to ignore this inconvenient fact. We also like to dismiss other bits of reality – like celebrities can have bad days, famous people can exhibit inexcusable behavior, and not everyone can be prepped by hair and makeup staff before venturing out of the house every morning.
A couple of recent lapses in this kind of celebreasoning has gotten me to think more carefully about what it is that I find attractive in people, famous or obscure. I am horribly ashamed to admit I was (and is, hence the “lapse”) a part of the Twilight/Edward Cullen craziness that has gripped the prepubescent world. The books are a nasty waste of wannabe-pseudo-literary space and the movie had no hope of reaching any level of recognizable cinematic achievement. What got me, then, was the idea: a guy could be so devoted to a girl. I can’t imagine a person who wouldn’t want someone else to fall hopelessly in love with them just because. That’s why I’m a sucker for An Affair to Remember, Casablanca, When Harry Met Sally, and Sleepless in Seattle. Although these films vary in their relative mushiness, they present love and destiny in very different lights. These are my escape movies.
Ok, so back to real life. Now that I’m through with idolizing celebrities in their complete form because their human qualities (some will say faults) are all too plain to me, I’m picking and choosing specific things I like about certain figures, whatever degree of celebrity they may possess. This way, I can appreciate someone’s looks, talent, personality, or other attribute independently from the rest of the person I may or may not like as much. The object here is to identify that which I admire in others so that I may 1) learn (and emulate, in some cases) their passion, knowledge, style etc. and 2) be able to appreciate their human form without having to answer for their lesser qualities. After all, a pretty face is only skin deep and those individuals who are truly beautiful human beings often don’t get noticed for their looks.
Beware the Ides of March
19 days until it’s officially mid-March and my nerves are majorly jumping the gun. How I’ll get through the next few weeks is beyond me. Help.
B-O-L-O-G-N-A
Wikipedia shares some fascinating information about the history and ceremony of the Academy Awards.
We know the nomination process and the jury selection is filled with politics. We love (and hate) how much emphasis is placed on wardrobe and style. We can’t believe The Oscars broadcast rivals the Superbowl in length, and not all the awards are presented at the ceremony.
Despite how contrived the entire event may be, I wanted to make note of a very important theme in this year’s top films: human rights and equality. The films that received the greatest number of nominations (and wins) told stories with characters who challenged accepted notions regarding age, class, race, morality, sexuality, and politics. Hear what Dustin Lance Black and Sean Penn had to say when they accepted honors for their work in the film Milk. The Reader and The Defiance remind us that, although it took place 70 years ago, the Holocaust was real and terrifying for so many reasons. Wall-E and Rachel Getting Married asks us to consider what we take for granted in this world and in our relationships. Revolutionary Road, Slumdog Millionaire, and Doubt challenge us to think about our role in our communities, what we really want, our motives, and who we really are.
Hollywood may be make-believe, but the best films find a way to ask us to reflect on our own realities.
The Surface Of Things
New York Fashion Week. The clothes, the shoes, the handbags, the jewelry. Everything having to do with how we look and how we look at others.
The walk, the strut, the pose, the saunter. The idea that the human figure serves as a moving scaffold for art and creativity; the body displays that which we cannot express adequately in words: a feeling, a place, an idea.
I love Fashion Week. I love the way clothes can transport you to a different frame of mind. I love the way an outfit can take you to different place in the world. I love the way colors can alter the mood of your day. I love how the way you look outside can transform the way you feel inside, and the way you feel inside can transform the way you look outside.
Twice a year, I indulge in some serious runway watching and take note of my favorite shapes, colors, and textures, and twice a year I re-think my position on fashion. Is it a luxury thing? Is it a style thing? Is it an art thing? Is it something else entirely? The truth is, I don’t know the proper fashion lingo, so I can’t talk about these things the way I’d like to. Having some background in sewing, knitting, etc. (though not a ton), I can appreciate a challenging construction technique or the difficulty in working with certain materials. But ultimately, I have relatively boring taste and my untrained, unsophisticated eye never picks out anything particularly provocative when it comes to the next up-and-coming fashion statement. I don’t know what’s supposed to be “fabulous”. I’m an awful sucker for classic styles, traditional shapes, and tried-and-true combinations…boring, I know. You won’t find anything innovative or daring in my closet. I just like looking at designers’ ideas and I especially enjoy watching their imagination take shape on the runway – mostly because I would never come up with ideas like theirs and I admire their ability to realize a fantasy. So twice a year, while my friends mock my infatuation with fashion, I sit back and scroll through photos and videos, saluting those with the imagination and the skill to dream and execute ideas in ways that I cannot.
Love Story
Amazon’s revamped Kindle has gotten my panties in a bunch.
I’m a devoted book-lover. Too devoted. Previously, I posted about visiting the local library. Now that the new Kindle has come around, I find myself fidgeting for reasons (other than its exorbitant price tag) not to indulge. Utlimately, what it comes down to is I like to handle and horde books.
There isn’t a single book on my shelves that doesn’t bear my embossed imprint, a customized bookplate, or at least my name written in childish handwriting from years ago, in addition to the date it was first acquired and the date when I finished reading it (at least the first time).
I write in my books. I make a point of not committing any of the other book-reading sins (please don’t dog-ear the corners! please don’t!), but I have to write in my books. I scribble in the margins, I underline, I even doodle if there’s enough space to record the image that comes to mind when reading a particular passage. You can’t do that in a Kindle. Yes, you can highlight and record comments, but it’s not the same. Especially since I have a photographic (not sure if that’s even as comprehensive a word as I need in this case) memory, but I can pick a book off my shelf, flip to the approximate page I know I’m looking for, and point out a note or passage I’ve underlined because I remember where on the page it was recorded. It doesn’t matter how long ago I last read that book. I know my books, and I know my notes.
There’s something special about physically turning a page. You feel the paper between your fingertips and know that, whether it’s a fancy hardcover with thick, bright pages or a Dover Thrift Edition with its flimsy newspaper/toilet paper constitution, you’re moving ahead and progressing. Turning a page marks the passing of time (how cliche) and (hopefully) the process of acquiring understanding, insight, or just the experience of appreciating a work of art. With the Kindle, you click/scroll through the text, blurring the experience with other technical devices that already threaten to claim my life: my computer, iPhone, etc. I want my books to provide a special kind of experience not found anywhere else.
And, most geekily, you can’t smell a Kindle, and books lose their individual character once they’re fed through a Kindle. New hardcovers have their own smell, the resistance in the stiff cloth binding, and their own unique sound when you knock on their covers (depending on the density of the boards used, the number of pages in the volume…it’s like picking out a melon). New paperbacks have their own smell as well, and my personal favorite (found more often in children’s and young adult books): those times when you flip through a new paperback and you can feel the crinkly volume crackle under your thumb because the pages were glued in too tight with too much adhesive. Paperbacks have their own “thud” when stacked together, although it’s very different from knocking on a pile of hardcovers. I don’t even want to get started on the qualities of old books. Let’s just say there’s a bookshop in an alley in Evanston that keeps a rare copy of Paradise Lost in several volumes that goes for several thousand dollars and I have a piggy bank going.
Regardless of the binding type, the one thing you lose when you read with the Kindle: the ability to thumb through the pages and let the scent of literary accomplishment waft from the pages as they flip past.
Wang Ji
As if more proof were required to demonstrate how my memory is music- and/or scent-based…
While working on a project today, my iTunes was left unsupervised and decided to play some long-buried Chinese pop I almost forgot I had (there are too many gigs of music on my computer for my own good). Lo and behold, while typing away, Zhang Hui Mei’s Wang Ji (“Forget”) started playing, which instantly made me remember where I was when I first heard this song, and, more vividly, what I was doing:
For Christmas, my family always congregates at Aunt V’s house in Arcadia, home to way too many Asians in the greater Los Angeles area. We indulge in a very simplified gift exchange and a very complicated hot pot dinner. Usually there’s some video gaming and sharing of the current pop culture trends, courtesy of very-in-the-know cousins and an aunt who visits from Taiwan (I still keep hoping she will move Stateside again soon…).
Anyway, somewhere amidst all this hubbub, some of us are usually sent on last-minute errands to 99 Ranch or some equivalent Asian grocery supermarket. Funny enough – the song “Forget” made me remember the delis in 99 Ranch markets (“For 100, We Try Harder” wtf?) – buffet-style displays of super salty foods and, my all-time favorite, crispy roasted peking ducks hanging in the meat case under a heat lamp.
I could go for a bowl of dan dan noodles and some thinly sliced pork shoulder right about now…can someone remind me of the name of the place with the ridiculously hostile owner who scolds other people’s kids and kicks customers out of the restaurant for staying too long?
UDPATE: I remembered the restaurant, but didn’t know its English name. For those of you who are in the TC/Arcadia area and want to enjoy a quick bite (and I mean quick), head over to Dai Ho Restaurant in Temple City.
