Sakura of DOOM

Last night, when I stepped out after dancing, the world had been transformed from the somewhat oddly warm winter night to the California version of London. I could see maybe ten to twenty feet in front of me, and everything was blurred over, like I had lost my glasses. I feel like I should write about this romantically, but all I can think of are metaphors in which the air equals wet towels draped around my neck, or in which the oppressive humidity trails nasty, damp fingers everywhere, leaving everything just that much more sodden. It was beautiful, though, everything ghostly and veiled over.

I mostly leapfrogged between attempting to compose horrible prose describing the fog in my head and cursing the thing as I tried to drive home without running into anyone or anything.

Lifewise, I am calm and collected for the first time in... oh.... a long time. Things feel like they are in stasis right now, largely because they are; I've stopped worrying at things I can't fix, and either done what I could for things that can be fixed, or at least have a vague plan and enough time to not have to worry. And soon, it will be the holidays. I don't feel particularly Christmas-y this year, probably because I haven't been out that much and seeing decorations or hearing the music 24/7. I don't even have a tree up yet -- either I'll get one up last minute, a week before Christmas, or I just won't have one. Either way, I doubt my sister will really care; I'm usually the only one in the family who does this stuff anyway. Presents aren't mailed yet, but they will be, or they'll just end up being New Year's gifts.

It's odd, this not-worrying. I'd be more worried about it, except I think I'm worried out. I've been stressed and overworked and underrested for the majority of the year, and I think my brain is just saying that it's had enough and it won't stress or worry until the new year kicks in.

It feels as though the year is slowly drifting to an end, somewhat aimlessly, and I am slowly, ever so slowly and lazily, collecting loose ends and tying them up, or at least tidying them to take care of in January.

I adore California summers (yes, I insist that it is summer already). I love the warm to hot days and the sun and the cool night air. It makes me so aware of my skin and of the sheer joy of how it feels.

It's very interesting -- after reading Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses, I sort of came to the realization that I don't really use all five of my senses to the same degree. Er, I mean, I suppose that is rather obvious, but it wasn't something that I used to think about before. But I do more now, particularly after reading mrissa, jonquil and yhlee's posts on smell and scents and BPAL perfumes and realizing that I have no nose for scents. It's something that I would like to pay more attention to. It's also very obvious when I'm living with fannishly, who has a much keener appreciation for physical beauty than I do. And I've never really been a big music person -- I love music, I love the emotions it invokes, but I can't analyze it to the same degree that some people can, and I know my musical taste is very, very odd.

The scent one is particularly intriguing to me right now, especially since I'm waiting for my first BPAL imps order to come in and because I've been having a whole lot of fun playing around with fannishly's perfume collection (having a girly roommate is fun!). I don't even know what type of scents I will like, which made picking the BPAL imps very random and difficult. I'm not sure if I don't like musky at all, or if I just dislike the alcohol base on most perfumes. I used to think that I hated all perfume, but I think it may be that vaguely artificial smelling alcohol base, because I don't have this problem with essential oils or scented soaps and lotions. I do dislike a lot of scented candles, though, just because they smell too strong and too sweet. I particularly dislike the smell of vanilla when it's not associated with baking, just because it tends to be so overwhelming. And I very much cannot pick out different notes in perfume yet, much less different flower scents or anything (with the possible exception of roses, because I love roses). So I'm very much looking forward to the BPAL imps. I'm much better with food and cooking smells or nature smells... perfumes tend to confuse me a little. I like things like the smell of grass and the smell of pretty much anything cooking, of fresh coffee and of clean laundry. I suppose they are more life-smells than fancy smells, but now I'm totally intrigued by the perfumes and oils!

The thought that I have no real attachment to beauty is also very interesting, considering that almost everything I do is very visual. And yet, it's not the visual that gets to me the most -- the visual is merely how the information is conveyed in books and on the internet and on tv. I'm not very good at noting visual parallels or motion or whatnot, and so it often takes me multiple viewings to actually get a vid. It's always interesting reading yhlee's assorted tv posts because I'm generally a character-focused person, whereas she is very good at spotting visual motifs or visual foreshadowing or the like. I took a class on Japanese film just because I have no idea what the language of film is, and this is just really interesting that I don't pay that much attention to these things, given that I read a lot of comics and manga and watch a lot of tv. I don't know... I appreciate things like sunsets and beautiful architecture and the like, but it's not as ingrained in me as some other things are.

Music-wise and sound-wise, I'm completely awful at analyzing. I really wish I had taken a class on music theory or the like back in college. Even though I learned the piano when I was a kid (like all good Asian children, heh), I don't quite "get" music, if that makes any sense. I've taken singing lessons and such, and while I have a fairly good ear for tune, I don't really analyze music or listen to it on anything higher than a very instinctive level. I really wish people would talk about music more, because it's something that I wish I knew more about. jonquil and coffee_and_ink's posts on musicals and the like are fascinating because of this, as are yhlee's posts on music theory, which goes completely over my head.

The two senses that I pay a great deal of attention to, though, are taste and touch. The taste bit is probably not at all surprising to anyone who reads this LJ, given how much I talk about food and how much I love food. I love how things taste, I love the layers of them, I love how cooking different things together and in different ways brings out different flavors. I don't quite appreciate wine yet, but I think I am growing to more and more (this is all my dad's fault), and I totally get the cheese thing and how some cheeses taste clean and fresh (mmmm, goat cheese), and how some taste milky, and how others are strangely sharp yet sweet. And then there are the slightly nutty ones, and the somewhat sour ones, and then the layers of tastes. I love garlic. I love how herbs bring out flavors, and I love simply cooked meats and vegetables so that they just taste pure and clean, and I love food with just enough salt to leave the smallest impression that is sometimes there and sometimes not. This is the only time I really do pay attention to scent, when it's associated with taste. I don't know if I'm particularly good at tasting, whatever that means, but it's something I am very focused on (mmmmm, food) and something that I derive a great deal of pleasure from. A good meal is one of the very basic joys of my existence, and a sublime one is often remembered for years to come. Er, why yes, me and my dad will go around and talk about that meal we ate at that restaurant several years ago in France and how good that salmon was or something. Hee hee.

The other one that I think I really tend to pay attention to and didn't realize I paid a lot of attention to is touch. I didn't really think about it much before, but I think I am a fairly tactile person. I may not care that much about how something looks at times as long as it feels good next to my skin, and I don't buy clothes that have fabrics that I don't enjoy touching. If it's too itchy or scratchy or just feels too rough, I don't want to wear it. I could lie outside all day and feel the heat prickling my skin or the cool breeze, and I very often lie indoors all day on my very, very comfy bed with cool cotton sheets that warm to the touch and down pillows. I like being warm and cozy, and I like touching things. I find that when I go shopping, I like running my hands over all the clothes, just feeling the different textures. I like cotton clothes the best -- I like how clean cotton feels, how soft it can be and how forgiving it can be, I like how it just comes out more and more worn after several washings and dryings. I like textures and nappiness, I love silks and velvets, but not taffetas so much. I like the way skirts swish around my legs, and have I mentioned how much I like cotton shirts? I love the way wood feels when it's been worn down and touched often, and I love the warm squishiness of my rats' tummies and their fur and their little paws and whiskers. I like the way things feel on my skin. I think this is why I've been enjoying knitting so much -- it's so tactile. Going to a yarn store is so fun, and there are so many different kinds of yarns to feel and touch and rub, and knitting itself requires that yarn run through my fingers all the time.

I don't know... what do other people tend to notice?

So we drove down to Monterey today to pick up old college roommate. I forget sometimes how beautiful California can be -- mostly when I think about it, I think of things like the wonderful weather and the loads of Asian goodies. But it was beautiful today.

It's fall/winter here, and that means instead of having the normal brown mountains with dry plants, everything has suddenly sprouted under the rains, and the entire landscape is covered with this thin layer of shimmering, flourescent spring green. I like how while the rest of American is dying during winter, California is coming to life. It somewhat lessens the usual seasonal depression. So there were the suddenly lush mountainsides, and the slanting light, coming down through a really gorgeous cloud cover, would every so often illuminate a little nook or cranny and make it seem like a spot of paradise.

I deeply love living here.

New Jersey was never home to me. It was too cold, and too damp, and filled with too many American people. It was very hard to get used to after eight years in Taiwan. Plus, I always stuck out like a sore thumb, I felt. Here, it's very different. There are assorted ethnic markets everywhere we go, and so many different types of restaurants and people and shopping centers. And while many people at work are your standard American, there are also a lot of people who are from different countries who have just settled down here. Back in Princeton, you were from very far away if you were from California ;). I enjoy the melting pot feeling here very much.

And the weather, of course.

The boy has just taught me about the art of burning candles. Apparently one cannot simply burn candles haphazardly. Instead, the first burning is very important because it gives the candle the diameter of the well it'll burn down later. So if you just burn it a little in the beginning so the pool of wax doesn't get out to the edges, that's the widest it'll ever be. Did anyone else know this?! I feel this is much more complex than candles should really be.

I continue to be all excited about Christmas -- I listen to carols in the car on the way to work and stuff. And then me and the boy went to Target (where all the good ornaments are, hee hee) and I was very happy because I saw these gingerbread house making kits! I really wanted one, but then the boy told me they were kind of sad and pathetic. Apparently his family bakes out giant sheets of gingerbread and then cuts out special shapes and make everything themselves! It's quite amazing! I really want to do that ^_^. But I don't think I or my small oven/kitchen are up to the task.

It's just all so new and nifty! Everytime the holiday season really got kicking around college, it'd be break, and I'd go home to Taiwan. And here there's carolling! People from the community came into the bookstore yesterday and starting carolling at the register! So cool! I really wanted to join them and parade around downtown and sing carols, but I was really hungry and the boy was at home waiting for me to have dinner. And people actually do things like turkey dinners and gingerbread and candy canes! In Taiwan, it used to be impossible to get candy canes. We'd have dads going to America on business trips buy stuff for us and lucky kids would pass them around in school. We had school all of December except Christmas Day, because that was Taiwan's Constitution Day. Now I don't think anyone gets it off anymore. But you can buy candy canes now! Still impossible to find glass ornaments though.

The only thing that's really missing here is the snow, but I don't really mind that because I already did my "wow first snow seen in eight years" dance back in college (technically I saw some the year before when we visited Hokkaido, but it wasn't the first snowfall of the year. That always has a very different feel).

Oh! And maybe I will watch It's a Wonderful Life for the very first time! Wow! It'll be so traditional and American!

I have lots of fun doing American things (despite having some problems with the country's foreign policy), like eating meatloaf for the first time ever and going to Rockefeller center. It's fun because even though I was raised here, I never did those things because my parents were trying to keep with Taiwan/Chinese traditions. And that's great too because I get to celebrate Chinese New Year's and the Dragon Boat Festival and eat tang yuan (sticky rice balls filled with peanut paste or sesame paste, sweetened, and boiled, very good) for winter solstice. I like local customs. They are quite fun. So looking forward to my first real American Christmas!

I just realized I've started thinking of myself as belonging to this place. Not sure if it's home yet, because while I definitely belonged to my college, it wasn't the same in my heart as Taiwan. But I was shelving this book on the culture of the Silicon Valley and found myself thinking, "Hey! It's about me!" Except it's not, because I just moved here! Funny.

The boy still has to make s'mores with me because I've never done that either.

Well, the boy is off doing a scavenger hunt type thing for the gsb, so I am all by myself. It's kind of odd. Things that passed through my head today at work:

- I wonder if the whole bit on looking down at romance novels is because it's women's fiction? Not that I think people are consciously doing it, but there's been a steady trend of that in the past. I had a course on American Popular Lit. and it was amusing how up in arms everyone was getting about women reading scandalous books! So of course all the books they were reading were denigrated as trashy (I was always mad that Jo gave up writing her potboilers for Bauer). And I wonder if that's kind of carried on? I mean, Romeo and Juliet, giant romance, as were tons of the operas, but romance novels are supposedly a different thing. Is this because of the cultural propensity to think tragic endings are somehow "better"? Is it the women's fiction thing? Also, why is it that even though critics denigrate feel-good chick flicks and stupid action movies, I get the feeling that going out to watch a chick flick is somehow a much worse or sillier thing than going to watch cars blow up?

- How can a mass market paperback on the evils of life insurance go online for 100 some dollars?!

- Who is it buying and reading all the books I'm processing anyway? Seriously, I love the researching part more than shelving because things come in batches -- I'll be going through a batch of books like Gospel Parallels, New Testament Concurrences, Greek-English dictionaries of the NT, and I wonder, does the person read these for fun? Was s/he a Bible scholar? Why sell them? Was it for a class? Then there are streaks of books on art or crochet or quilting (those were fun to flip through).

- How can there be so many books in the world? I walk into a normal new bookstore and there are tons and tons of books I want to read, or at least flip through. Then I go to work, and I find that's just the tip of the iceberg! I go through soooo many books that are out of print, and it's just overwhelming how much there is!

- California sky (or at least South Bay) is giant. I eat outside everyday because I get really cold from the aircon, and it's nice after being inside for forever to be able to go see green things and feel the sun on my face. I love sitting outside in the park and looking at the pine trees and reading my book and letting the sun bake my skin so I feel like I'm soaking up all the warmth that was never really there in Princeton. Because while indoor heating is nice, there's just something about the dry heat here from the sun that makes me feel good and settled and real. Must remember to get sunblock too so baking doesn't turn into burning into a delicate, painful red. Back to sky... I look up and it just seems to stretch out forever, this giant expanse of blue against the trees and the buildings. Sometimes there are a few white clouds to accent the blueness, very rarely enough so that there's no sun. I think something about the flatness of the land and the buildings makes it feel like a giant upturned bowl.