gonna live life 'til we're dead

S came down from Boston to visit this weekend. \o/ Picked her up at Union Station on Saturday morning and we had coffee/food and wandered the mall there a bit, then walked down to Chinatown in search of the promised coffee haven of glory and national-recognition-receiving baristas. What we found was the hipsterest of hipster coffeeshops, aptly named Chinatown Coffee. I will admit the cafe mocha I had was good, but I'm not sure it was worth how much I paid for it. Maybe I am just not cut out to be a hipster snob about coffee; my soul is too frugal.

We actually then ran into A and J and their friend, who were up from NC for the weekend and whom we were meeting for lunch anyway. A and S acquired bubble tea and then we traipsed a whole half a block (Chinatown, DC is all of one block) to Matchbox, the famed pizza place everyone and their mother says you must try. To be fair, the pizza was pretty darn good. I enjoyed that it was on a crust so thin as to almost be nonexistent because I hate unnecessary bread and Chicago deep dish is the stuff of my pizza nightmares. If I had nightmares about pizza, anyway; usually dreams involving food are good ones. And then sometimes I have dreams about going to Backstreet Boys fansignings, like I did last night, apropos of nothing, but I digress...

Post-lunch, S and I watched The Dark Knight Rises! I will not spoil, but suffice to say it's hard to sympathize with the main character when Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne elicits nothing so much as apathy from me, but everyone else was great! T-HARD was fantastic. Anne Hathaway was a lot of fun. JGL impressed me. Gary Oldman is always Gary Oldman, meaning excellent. Marion Cotillard was also great, though I was thinking "Inception reunion" the entire time. Michael Caine had a much briefer appearance than I expected, as did Morgan Freeman. But Tom Hardy! Did I mention Tom Hardy? Plot was questionable but entertaining, and the ending made me really happy. Because I am baised. :)

It was raining after so we ducked into a Starbucks, where I randomly came across J from Duke KDPhi Alphas. O: Unexpected pleasure! I did love the Alphas and J has always been great. So S and I sat with her and her friend and we chatted and caught up a bit. She's living in Rockville and going to law school in NYC in the fall, and I extended all my dubious congrats and well-wishing and preemptive sympathies.

Quick dinner and then S and I headed up to V apartment for her housewarming/housecooling, though with the rain, it was cool enough. So I suppose that counts as mission accomplished! We met her other fannish friends, had lots of food and drinks, talked fandom and generally had a terribly good time. We played Cards Against Humanity, which is like Apples to Apples but for terrible people. The cards were more in line of "War! What is it good for?" Submissions included "Team building exercises" and "Genghis Khan". The winning card: "Inappropriately timed Holocaust jokes."

My last drink had too much vodka in it, which I was not sober enough to realize, so I actually ended my night sort of miserable and throwing up in V's bathroom. Oops. I thought I'd put those poor life decisions behind me in law school, but apparently this whole growing up and making smart decisions things is something I still need to work on. S and V were both great though. Soooo grateful for knowing awesome people. V actually let us crash at hers for the night, so I got to do a walk of shame the next morning, except my shame was mostly at my poor drinking decisions and not a one-night stand, but I suppose in the end all walks of shame = shame for poor life decisions.

On the bright side, I wasn't particularly hungover because I'd gotten most of the alcohol out of me the night before! Still, I realized too much greasy food was not good when I went to brunch and only managed to eat half my Eggs Michael (like Eggs Benedict but with sausage patties instead of Canadian bacon) before feeling a bit queasy. I had my coffee instead. But I did survive and spent the afternoon watching Running Man episodes with S - until she dozed off into a nap. Naps trump everything, though; fair enough!

We grabbed some really great Thai food (including tom yum soup and mango-sticky rice dessert!) before I sent her off to the metro so she could get back to Union Station and catch her bus back up to Boston. Then I went home, cleaned, and passed out because, meh, life.

Apparently I am just in that state of mind where I am like meh, everything. The tired apathy is strong with me this week. Stuff I need to do: so much car stuff. Effort it requires: a whole of a damn lot.

Anyway, going to make my to-do lists so I can make sure I'm not forgetting anything and feel satisfied when I get to check things off. Thing I should add to this list: eat.

visual consumption

Sometimes I go on Tumblr and look at pictures of all the places I want to visit - which is, really, the entire world. And then I sigh. I also look at The Art of Animation and make starry eyes because art. It's all beautiful to me, whatever style. Strangely, it's always music where I have the lowest aesthetic for. Oh I love it; I just have no objective standards for it. I miss words though.

if poetry could describe the way you made me feel...

A Softer World straddles "pretentious" and "unsettlingly incisive" for me. There are strips less wistful and more sardonic that also apply, but I try to not dwell on my cynicism; the world provides me enough of that on a daily basis.

Sometimes I reread old entries and wonder if I've grown at all, when all my issues - my fears and worries - are still the same. Other times I reread those entries and am profoundly thankful for where I am today and the people who got me here.

Friendship is a funny thing. Every friendship is shaped a little differently, even if echoes of similarity ring through them; every interpersonal relationship is different, after all, rooted at the bottom from two separate people. Some friendships require constant care, though not always the most tender consideration each and every time. Other friendships can pass quietly in the background, faded from immediate occupation of your consciousness, but reemerge as strong as ever when you reach for it.

Some friendships die without the proper care or attention, if you haven't figured them out what they require and how - if - you can give it.

Friendships change, too. New ones and old ones. I don't know how to tell which ones fall naturally into the kind where you talk frequently and share everything and which ones are the kind where you talk infrequently but always with feeling. Always with feeling. Everything with feeling. That's how we do things 'round here. I got a whole bunch of feelings, y'all.

Hope is the worst thing, that treacherous feeling left in Pandora's box, and yet where would we be without it? Grimly stoic, perhaps. Resigned to our fates, for better or for worse.

Hope is a flower I don't know whether I should guard and water and raise, or one I should secret away where no one can see it wither, should I be disappointed.

I'm not a risk-taker but sometimes I want to take risks. I don't know what I'm doing and it's going against every comfortable, familiar instinct I have. My radars are broken and I have no guide.

What do I have but hope? It's too late. I've already planted that seed, built that tree house in the sky. Let's reach for the clouds.

Also: happy fourth of July.

more pages to this book than the cover

I have always wished I were brave enough to be everything I admire in others.

The other part of me wonders how long is long enough to show that there is more to me - enough of me, in all that I am and am not - worth getting to know better.

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.