Happy LNY

I hope the Giants win again! Not because I particularly care for them, but because I hate the Patriots with persistence. (Not even persistent passion the way I hate Duke - I often forget to hate them until someone reminds me they exist, but once I am reminded, grr those Patriots.)

Nishikori upset over Tsonga! I haven't managed yet to watch any of the Australian Open what with the time difference and my lack of cable TV, but I'm keeping up to date with scores and hoping to catch some matches once we get out of the rounds into the quarter/semi/finals. The women's side is a mess of surprises as usual, whereas the men's has kept fairly predictable. I think Nole, Rafa, and Feds have all swept through their rounds without dropping a set. No, wait, Nole dropped one to Hewitt in this last match. Oh god, the draw - if Rafa beats Berdych and Federer beats Del Potro tomorrow, they meet up in the semis and the winner is likely to face Nole. Nail-biting, always. Vamos Rafa, always.

In other sports news, Liverpool makes me cringe with despair, as ever, but you'll never walk alone, etc. etc. Team of my heart, stop making me bleed misery, please? Though this season is a marked improvement on last season, thank you!

UNC is holding fairly steady and I'm pretty happy there, aside from the FSU loss (let's not talk about it). Keep calm and carry on, Carolina! I visited campus on Saturday to see G, on exchange from NUS to UNC exactly a year after my exchange to NUS. She brought me kaya jam! Delight in my mouth - I had kaya toast for breakfast this morning and it's not the same as Ya Kun, of course, but it's the closest I'll get to Singapore in a long time. I can't believe it's been nearly four years since I graduated from UNC; it still looks the same in so many ways. It is the same in many ways. It's strange to see memory and reality overlapping, I guess.

Nothing more this time around: Happy Lunar New Year! It's the year of the dragon, which means...that I turn a quarter of a century old this year. Frightening prospect! Possibly the world will end also, which is always an option I'm up for. (Or perhaps only the internet will end, and that is close enough to the end of the world to be depressing.)

is it the beginning of the end where we stand?

If ever I once knew, I've since forgotten what poetry is like. Sometimes the lines write themselves in my head but perpetually they refuse to crystalize into any form more tangible. They prefer the amorphous, uncaptured state that leaves me dreaming but ultimately unsatisfied.

It's 2012 and either the world will end, or we will be forced to keep on living. Is it so horrid a prospect? There is much to live for, I discovered last year, if I can see past the blinders of depression. The sun (so says Annie) will come out tomorrow.

Here is our brand new year full of brand new opportunities. It is much like last year, say the cynics. Nothing will change, except foolish optimists will once again find their views tempered by reality. You are yourself and you won't ever be anyone else - and that's true, isn't it? You can never be anything more or anything less than yourself. But perhaps we can change the borders with which we define ourselves.

My past few years have been emotional roller coasters, but predictable ones: I know I will go up; I know I will come down. The past couple months, on the other hand, have held strangely steady. I can't help but be afraid of the inevitable change, the other shoe dropping, because happiness is too lofty, too rarefied, a goal - I don't believe I can achieve it or, if I do, hold onto it. If I am happy now, it must be fleeting.

I suppose it is something like the poetry that floats through my head at times.

Yet I am tentatively hopeful that I can write again this year, that I will; I am tentatively hopeful I can live, and be happy, and that somehow the new year will in fact herald new beginnings. I will ultimately be always myself, but maybe this year, my self can find, reach, keep happiness.

It's not a terrible thing to wish.

It is a far better thing to make it so.

pining for shoes

So tempted to buy shoes today. Or a Nook. See, Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals work because the sales are so great you feel like you're losing out if you don't take advantage of them, which causes you to spend money you might not have otherwise. Money you maybe don't have to spend at the moment...

I'll just debate with myself over these shoes all day. They would go with half my wardrobe. Those are some pretty versatile shoes for $50 + shipping, even if they are 4.5 inch heels.

spiced apple cider on my mind

Today was freezing but gorgeous. Despite the cold, rainy morning, the sun came out in the afternoon and really highlighted all the gorgeous red leaves that came into being after this cold snap. Fall might be edging spring out as my favorite season.

Sometimes I miss Singapore terribly, but I have to admit that I'd miss fall - the weather, the fashion, the warm delicious food memories associated with it (pumpkin spice, hot cocoa, roasted nuts, apple cider). It wouldn't be the same in an equatorial environment.

In between the same old same old tedium that is job applications, I have found myself reading more, following more TV shows, and attempting to be wrangle this whole adult life in small increments. Stress stays with me and manifests itself in poor sleep and unfortunate dreams, but I try to balance it out with coffee, good food, and excellent friends. And, you know, all the other distractions that live on the internet.

I bought some brie, fig preserves, and crackers today. Bliss in my mouth. I hope M can manage a visit next weekend; I'd love to feed her and take her back to UNC, where we can revisit our misspent youth, reminisce about the good times, and bemoan how old we are. (I like to see her miserable, what can I say?)

I baked cookies today and plan for a sweet potato casserole on Monday. I don't mind a life driven by food plans; those are the best kinds. Just like everyone knows travel plans should always be made in accordance with food priorities.

As for Snowtober - everything is a sign of the imminent apocalypse to me, but particularly the unexpected weather pitfalls.

people and things

Mark Salling is from Texas. And, unexpectedly, really into ornithology.

C was right: They do make 'em hotter in Texas. Tall, buff, and ridiculously appealing, or so goes the pattern of TV actors (whose shows I hate) I've crushed on.

In other news, I baked lemon bars last night and I am quite happy with them: they are tart and sweet and buttery. Never substitute margarine for butter when you bake; it's not worth the sacrifice of taste! In any case, if I'm stress baking sweets, we can assume I no longer have "healthy eating" as one of my top concerns.

Next up is raspberry thumbprint cookies, which require even more butter, and those amazing Pillsbury cookies that are seasonally-themed with little pictures on them. They are the plainest things, but they are unbelievably tasty. And easy. I am gaining weight just thinking about them, honestly. This is why I need to live around friends: so I can foist off baked goods on them and not eat everything on my own.

My plan for the night is to do something fun: catch up on last week's episode of Hawaii Five-0, read this Discworld book while plotting to acquire the newest (Snuff, out in 4 days!), or, you know, eat some lemon bars and look at pictures of Mark Salling being hot (all of them) while bemoaning to myself how much I really hate his show (a lot).

I hate my hair, and other metaphors

"I hate my hair!" I told M.

"...why?"

"It's a metaphor for my life," I said, tongue-in-cheek. "And, well, also I have split ends and need a trim."

The thing is: my hair totally is a metaphor for my life. Let me explain.

It's getting long and straggly; I am getting old and fraying at the edges. Whatever style it used to have, it has grown out of and I have no idea what the hell it's doing now except growing longer; I have no idea what I'm doing with my life but am stumbling forward without a plan all the same because, well, objects in motions tend to stay in motion. My hair is like an object in motion. Metaphorically!

The red from the dye has long faded and is now a dirty, diseased brown color with roots growing out on top. There are three options: 1) let it grow out bi-colored; 2) re-dye the entire thing a color that doesn't make my skin look ridiculously sallow; or 3) re-dye the entire thing black so the roots can grow out in peace and secret.

The issues with options 2 and 3, however, mostly revolve around cost. Dyeing is not generally a cheap venture; even with Asian stylists who don't charge an arm and leg like salons do, it's upward of $60+. (And that was my great St. Louis deal! I miss you, David from Hong Kong. He gave me custom color jobs.)

The metaphor here: the little luxuries in life have to be put on the back-burner when one is jobless and only dreaming of a steady income. Don't spend what you don't have; hell, don't spend what you have, at least not on things you can afford to live without. It's practical, logical, reasonable - and it's depressing, isn't it?

I don't love a lot about my body but my hair came closest to being my vanity. I joked around in high school of doing shampoo commercials when I grew up. I had strong, healthy, shiny, soft hair. I could scrub shampoo through it and make orgasmic noises with the best of them! My future back-up plan was set.

It's superficial (so superficial, I know) but I look at my hair these days and say, only half-joking, "I hate my hair." I wouldn't go so far to say it's painful, but it's certainly disappointing.

I suppose I really mean, I am dissatisfied with something I used to take vain pride in and am frustrated that it was pointless and that there doesn't seem to be any way for me to fix that at the moment.

Like I said: I have split ends and I need a trim.

I remember you as you were in the last autumn

Last night, I made beef stew from scratch! Well, in all honesty, it was more a hybrid between traditional (Western) beef stew (no tomatoes, though) and (Asian) beef noodle soup. Spicy and delicious! I am pleased, though I still think my mom's version is better. Must learn her secret...

Painted my nails yesterday, too, painstakingly attempting stripes - slow work and painfully difficult with tape. One day I will just acquire the proper tools - brushes and pens and whatnot. For now, I repainted them all blue in Zoya Yummy and they're kind of boring and not particularly autumn-themed, but they will suffice.

Also caught up with this season's HIMYM and H50, which continues to make me lol re: plot. Just--everything. /eyeroll People are still hot, though, so I'm good with watching. Needs more Kono and, oh god, fewer white people though. So many white guest stars, why. I do like the new governor though!

Had dinner Thursday with P & R up in Chapel Hill and that was nice; catching up with people in general is nice, even if as we slowly grow older it becomes less of a "daily contact" thing and more of a "once a month" thing.

Not too many updates on the job-hunting front, but I am seriously looking at apartments in DC now. So there's that. Terrifying in its way, but necessary, I think.

I like for you to be still - Pablo Neruda

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.
It seems as hough your eyes had flown away
and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth.

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca.

As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things, filled with my soul.
You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream,
and you are like the word Melancholy.

Como todas las cosas están llenas de mi alma
emerges de las coasas, llena del alma mía.
Mariposa de sueño, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancolía.

I like for you to be still, and you seem far away.
It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove.
And you hear me from far away, and my vvoice does not reach you:
Let me come to be still in your silence.

Me gustas cuando callas y estás como distante.
Y estás como quejándote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
Déjame que me calle con el silencia tuyo.

And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

Déjame que te hable también con tu silencio
claro como una lámpara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it's not true.

Me gustas cuando callas poraue estás como ausente
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.