Sakura of DOOM

Whoo! I hit 30 last weekend! Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, and I apologize if I missed some due to being only sporadically online of late.

I kind of feel like I've been 29 forever (the past two years I kept forgetting how old I was), and I am particularly puzzled that I am hitting 30 sans job but plus boyfriend, which is exactly the opposite of what I thought it would be. Anyway, the weekend was great fun, and I got to karaoke with friends! Song selection included a lot of very random showtunes, laurashapiro serenading me, "Snakes on a Plane," a poor but extremely enthusiastic rendition of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," various anime theme songs, and assorted duets with sister.

Also got to hang out with Trinker, which was awesome ^_^. I am a big fan of this meeting more people in person thing!

... not that I was really gone, since I obsessively check email and LJ and comments even when I'm visiting other people.

Anyhow, I had, as sophia_helix calls it, a night of extreme debauchery, if you count eating lots of chocolate and cookies, watching lots of Honey and Clover and Black Books, and knitting a lot as extreme debauchery. Also, actoplasm was nice enough to find me Reload 6 so I can finally read it in English and stop wondering if someone is saying if they want to do something or if they don't. Yay!

Also, Lily the Cat is extremely amusing and managed to stalk the very threatening door crack, drank from the toilet (which I am assured that she has never done before), got lost amidst colorful afghans, and in general acted incredibly cute, although she would probably glare at me if I told her that.

Unfortunately, I'm about to keel over right now, since I have been very sleep-deprived, thanks to constantly being woken up at ungodly hours of the morning by coughing fits. Blech. Can I trade my nose in for a new one? How about my respiratory system?

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.

So, I've been procrastinating so much on this post that I've actually done some book blogging, wow.

I am going to be wimpy and default and blog about the personal; I have been keeping my head in the sand and not following any of the political ruckus, particularly that concerning ABC's "docudrama." Suffice to say, I don't want to get in any sort of political arguments, and I am tired.

Pictures under the cuts.

When 9/11 happened, I was still in college. I had been in New York City from around the 8th through the 10th; my dad had just flown back to Taiwan the night of the 10th, and my mom and I had taken the train to New Jersey. Despite only being an hour away, I didn't go see Ground Zero while I was in New Jersey.

I saw it for the first time this Labor Day weekend; my sister, her friend and I were trying to find our way to the subway to get to Chinatown for dinner, and ( there it was. )
I've been to the Two Towers before, the most memorable time being during freshman year of college. I don't really remember the landscape around there, but it's so odd to see such a large flat space in New York.

The odd thing is that ( it's incredibly beautiful. )
It was the setting sun reflecting off the buildings, or something.

I hadn't seen the ( gallery of pictures before. )
I really liked how multicultural they were; black and Asian and white and Latino (I don't remember if I saw Native American or not). I liked the feeling that they were trying to include everyone in the memorial: the people who live in New York and the workers actually trying to find people in the rubble and children and old folks and women and men and people of all races and ages and sizes and tourists and bystanders and people watching from TVs everywhere and people caught out in the streets.

It was particularly nice because right after 9/11, I felt so excluded because of the rise in nationalistic sentiment. Despite my US passport, I was very aware of being from Taiwan and not being "born and bred" American, particularly in conversations about foreigners and Muslims and how the French sucked because they wouldn't back "us" up and how the British were wusses. I put "us" in quotations because I didn't feel included. As a side note, while I appreciate the sentiment in trying to make me feel better by saying that no one deliberately excluded me, I think there is a very good reason as to why I didn't feel included, and it is because anti-foreigner sentiment was running high back then (not that it's necessarily stopped now).

Furthermore, whenever American values of mom and the flag and apple pie get pulled out, many of the images used are images of white America. I am not a part of white America. I don't particularly want to be a part of white America, as I am quite happy with who I am. And my America, the one I live in every day? That's not white America either.

Anyway.

There was a long ( list of names posted. )
It reminded me a great deal of the Vietnam Wall, but more for thematic purposes rather than political parallels.

Underneath the long list were small memorials people had put up ( Picture! )
As usual, the flag bothers me, but this is more related to my own tangled issues with nationality and nationalism, and people have to right to remember their dead in any way they see fit.

I still found it very touching, despite my flag issues, and was glad that people were still putting things up five years after the fact.

I couldn't read through the ( entire timeline. )
But, uh, to make it All About Me, this is where I was in time when I learned what had happened. And I am going to stop here, because I am too tired to write up 9/11 and race relations in America and nationalism and racism.

Note to self: stop buying yarn.

I was too lazy to go to the farmers' market today, even though I woke up in time, so no peas for me =(. Thankfully, I still have enough fruit from last week for all of this week, even though I'm sad that I'll miss next week's market as well. But! I will miss it because I will be visiting rachelmanija in LA, which is extremely exciting!

Other than that, not much was done. I sat in bookstores and read manga, nearly caught up on all my book-blogging, and started a new knitting project. I'm not techinically done with my other one yet (my current rule is three at a time), but I'm done with most fo the knitting stuff. I have to seam before I can pick up stitches for the collar and the sleeves, so really... it's obviously not going to be done for quite some time!

In other news, one more month till my birthday! Aka, one more month until I finally have the excuse and the money to buy myself my much-beloved, much-longed-for pink KitchenAid stand mixer! Whoo!

Sadly, despite making three separate bookstore trips over the weekend, no one seems to have Naruto 9 or Bleach 8. Grrrrr. I want my fix, damnit. But I did manage to get my hands on Death Note 6 and Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden 4. Amazingly, Watase is not putting in the standard female rival that I hate so much, although there have already been two gratuitous nude scenes. Ahhhh, such crack.

My allergies continue to torment, and my cold thankfully seems to have retreated, though I can still feel it somewhat in the back of my throat.

*sigh*

Have dreadfully overslept for two days in a row. Missed the farmers' market and as such, have no peas =(. At least I still have fruit and veggies leftover from last week and am planning on making massive leftover veggie stew and just chuck in onions, carrots, canned tomatoes, beans, string beans, leeks, and whatever else I can find in the fridge. Too tired for recipes. Maybe if I randomly throw in cumin and cinnamon, it will miraculously become delicious Moroccan soup.

Also broke yarn-buying moratorium with a vengeance and splurged on yarn for pattern in Vogue Knitting, despite already having ten other patterns in line. Feel guilty. Have not recalculated budget yet and am rather frightened of it.

Also, (to put pronouns back in) I started Weight Watchers on last Monday. I've never dieted before. I do realize that I look ok. On the other hand, according to BMI and whatnot, I am just shy of overweight, and my cholestreol levels are also just shy of being in need of preventative measures. And, more importantly, my eating habits are completely whacked, especially given the move and not cooking and thereby randomly eating whatever passes my way. And I just feel heavier, less active, less able to do things with my body, more out of shape, and I don't like it.

Anyhow, I don't like it so far -- too many things to keep track of and too many things I can't eat as much as I used to. Of course, this may be a good thing, considering what I would eat a lot of. So hopefully Week 2 will work better once I have vegetable soup and other, healthier options available.

I am moved!

Not quite all the way; there's still some stuff at the old apartment, but that'll take just a car trip or two. And then it's on to cleaning the old place and furnishing the new place (note: need lots of trash cans).

Arms so sore. Very, very grateful to nice coworkers who helped out. Very, very grateful to the mom organizing things. Despite being quite frazzled throughout the day, everything went all right. And it didn't even rain!

So far, the entire place is a huge mess and isn't likely to get anywhere near organized in the next few months, given that a lot of the furniture being picked by my mom isn't arriving for a while. Next important items on the list of things to buy are a desk (more important than shelves, even, because I need somewhere to sit and do computer stuff), and, of course, tons and tons and tons of bookshelves.

Also, the little study has been partially set up so that there's a connected phone, rats, some yarn, a sofa and my coffee table, my computer and laptop, internet and TV. I managed to hook up everything by myself too! For some reason the wireless is working but the landline (aka, my desktop internet) is not. I am baffled. I will restart and try again.

Heh, aren't you all glad you don't have to hear moving whining anymore? Now it'll be unpacking whining!

Well, instead of packing up the kitchen like I was going to, I spent most of the weekend sleeping in, watching anime, reading manga and lazing around.

Le sigh.

I'm having a tough time getting motivated to finish packing. Ah, the problems of dragging a move out over the space of a month. On the other hand, if it hadn't been over the space of a month, I probably would have driven myself crazy trying to get everything done in a shorter amount of time.

On the other hand, I did buy a washer/dryer. The new phone line has been ordered, all relevant utilities have been contacted, reservations are made. Mostly all that needs to be done now is figure out furniture with my mom, figure out the logistics of selling my shelves, and packing up the rest of my books, the kitchen, and assorted random stuff and moving. Gah. Almost there!

I walked by a dead rat on the street yesterday, which basically sums up my entire week.

( Whinging )

To stop complaining about everything, here is Happy List #5462

1. I have jeans with sparkly things down the sides, and they are cute and sparkly and flare!

2. Finding that I actually really like Have His Carcase so far after reading 2 1/2 Sayers books and failing miserably at liking them.

3. Frog socks! I'm sure it's been on the list before, but they still make me happy.

4. Saiyuki Gaiden reincarnation fic from edonohana! Actually, it more broke my heart than made me happy. But in a good way.

5. I help paint a house tomorrow! I am strangely intrigued by this, given that I never did much house-fix-it type stuff as a kid.

6. I spilled a little Shanghai on myself this morning when putting it on, so I can still smell the lovely lemongrass-tea-honeysuckle-ness of it now.

7. I finished my first crochet piece of clothing! It is beautiful! I am also too lazy to weave in all the ends, but oh well.

8. I think I shall go to Michael's today to buy yarn for sophia_helix and to get myself crochet thread to start a new project! Whoo!

What's made you happy lately?