romantic despair, i call it.

The most wonderful notion of knowing what you need romanticly. No longer do you go open eyed into every encounter you have with an attractive member of the opposite sex. Instead we stand armed with a checklist of things that are necessary, unecessary or forgivable. First, forgive me for all my romantic ideals, for my commands. I just want someone to challenge me, as well as meet and overcome all the mental obstacles I build around my heart. I demand, I desire, I deny. 


I am a Rubik’s cube of romantic opportunity. I am all intentions, I have plans, I have plans about plans. I will fight, grab and want. I need for you to do the same. Do not tell me you don’t know, tell me what you want. Tell me you want for nothing. Tell me that it is working, or it isn’t. I can’t read you mind, so I say what’s on mine. Blunt, perhaps. Or maybe I just know that moments are precious and if I have expectations then I won’t spend trying to find out what I want. Or finding out you don’t really want me. Fight for me. I want a confidante. I want someone who will grab me up and laugh loudly with me. Be foolish with me. Touch my elbow, or arm. Let me know that you, like me, sometimes just have to reach out and touch. Double check, that this, us, is as real as it’ll ever be. 


I don’t want the moon, don’t throw a lasso over it and bring it to my door. Don’t bring a boombox under my window. Don’t even pick me up after my sister’s wedding when everyone forgot my birthday with your perfect hair and your perfect car Jake Ryan. Just indulge me on my silly requests. Get my jokes, even when they are horrid. Understand how my “blog” makes me feel. Listen to my music. Kiss me often. Do something with me. Let’s build something, or make something. Hell, let’s invent something. I just want it to be about challenging each other, or understanding the horrible days. Let me cry, I am not pleasant nor pretty when I am snotty and weepy, but just let me get it out. Love my pets. Get along with animals, if you don’t I just may have to kick you to the curb.  


I will cook for you, I will come home from a long day and throw on some sweats and botch. I will try to be positive. Our lives are not a J.Crew weekend Lookbooks. I am not always beautiful in the morning, Usually I am not, in fact. I am sarcastic. I am sassy, when need be. I will stand up for what I believe. I will fight my own fights. But you having my back is always nice. 


I drink beer, and please don’t buy me a miller or bud light. I eat meat. I devour salads. I dance, enthusiastically and wildly. I like to run and stay fit. I want to live in the city, but not too long, I want to settle in the suburbs, but not too soon.  


I want to instill the same values my parents instilled into me into my kids. I don’t want to have kids until I am emotionally, and financially ready. I want to name them ridiculously old fashioned names like Winston, and Gwendolyn. I want to fall head over heels and yet I don’t want to give up my independence. I call it romantic despair, and it really just gets more despairing. 


Honestly, I know you, sir, are out there. I know. I feel it when I finish books like Pride and Prejudice, I know that once I find you, or you find me, or we are thrown together by the universe that it won’t be perfect. It will be hard, and work. I can’t wait, though because once you get to know me you know if I want something, really really want something, I work damn hard to get it, or as close as I can get.

bom-sha-clack-clack

a peacefully brilliant song.

anticipating avicii.

Translated from Sanskrit/Pali to English, Avicii means “without waves.” A mixture of upbeat, anthem-driven trance and fist-pumping, melodic Swedish house, uniting electronic music ascetics of all kinds, that remedies a forced rift within the Buddhist paradigm in a prior existence. Avicii also known as Tim Berg is my highly anticipated concert to start out this amazing year. Avicii’s music seems to have been made for big groups of jumping people. Glad I have my homies to join me in this amazing DJ experience on Thursday. 2012 is a new year, and it will hopefully bring new beats and even more concerts with around-the-block lines for Avicii. Until then, seeing this DJ anywhere is definitely a hot ticket for any house music fan, and being in such an animated atmosphere of thousands of psyched up dancing people is a pretty great feeling.

let go.

Heres a piece of advice: let go when youre hurting too much, give up when love isn't enough, and move on when things aren't like before. Surely there is someone out there who will love you more.

the beauty and importance of traveling.

I have never been able to understand people who don’t see the point in traveling. The common reason is that traveling is a waste of time and money. I’ve heard some are scared to travel too far away. I can’t help but feel sorry particularly for those who perceive the experience of seeing a new place as a 100 % negative one. Telling them stories about unusual encounters doesn’t result in the expected curiosity but a ‘Why would you wanna go there!?’ It makes me lose faith in humanity. Experience is the best teacher and knowledge is power. The things traveling can teach you are beautiful because you learn to trust in what you see rather than what you are told. And you learn that possibilities for yourself are endless.
Simply believing what others say has formed many problematic situations in the past. And yes I am talking about historical events involving prejudice due to what we are told about what we don’t know. In some cases xenophobia-causing stories are passed on from generation to generation. With all these factors bumping into each other, it’s almost understandable why some people fear traveling.

It was Mark Twain who said, ‘Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness,’ which in my mind goes down as the closest to the truth about traveling. Too bad there aren’t enough people with the means to travel actually doing it. It could be fear, it could be a lack of interest and curiosity. Somehow, I believe, our grandparents’ stories and the negative portrayal of many countries in the media is still more dominating than it should be. But a country and its people shouldn’t be judged by a couple of devils among them. You should be the one to spread the word about your positive travel experiences, no matter how unusual they might be. If you have the means to go abroad, you should do it despite going out of your comfort zone. You might only realise why you loved it once you’re back home but you are more than likely to want to do it again.

This is exactly what leads to another reason why traveling is like therapy. I think it’s the best thing you could do if you feel depressed at home, don’t know what to do with your future, your life, your partner, anything. Once you are away, preferably somewhere very new and unknown, you are forced to adapt and meet people. This works especially if you travel alone but no worries, it worked for me when I traveled with my Mother and sister. A new life and especially the new relationships you build, even if only for a short period of time, reveal opportunities and views you never would have thought of and had otherwise.

When I was 23, I traveled to my mother's native country, Vietnam. We went to the villages and met relatives whom I never even existed. The country still remains impoverished and many people work back breaking jobs just to put food on the table for their families. The people I have met there taught me to be laissez-faire and I have realised that I could just return home, work harder and be grateful for what I have.

Writing this makes me appreciate the times I’ve been away. Without them I would not have known what to do with my life. I wouldn’t say I ‘found’ myself as the meaning of that has always been unclear to me and I don’t know if humans are boring enough to ever want to ‘find’ themselves.

I know now that life only feels empty when there’s nothing to look forward to. And I know that the best way to fix that is to leave your daily life. Being lost for a while helps you find yourself, I’ve heard. Well, it helps you figure out what to do next, too. Even if that means going away again. You’ll return home working towards something and appreciating having traveled more than ever. This is why I’ll never stop traveling.

I could go on about the beauty of traveling because there is so much to it. Is it cheesy to say that I believe if everyone traveled, the world would be a better place?

don't chase love.

how appropriate.

"Yeah, it will be ok
Do nothing today
Give yourself a break
Let your imagination runaway"

sia - sunday.

how appropriate for my fourth of july weekend. yet again, i lie around like a bum with a goofy sidekick sister and a mundane dog. i think the only productive thing we did today was eat! so glad i suggested us go to eat hu tieu nam vang (vietnamese Phnom Penh noodles soup) We are a couple of heffers because on our way home we stopped by Kebab Korner to order our dinner. Mmm...can't wait for chicken karahi, tamarind chutney and garlic naan. perfect pre-independence day food, i know!

pre-fourth of july weekend shopping - I can't wait to sport my new swimsuits i just bought yesterday.


hubbel and hudson beer and cheese fest was a success! i got my free buzz on!current favorite beer: brooklyn's summer ale.It’s a smooth drinking, well balanced beer with just the right amount of malt and hop bitterness to invigorate the palate while sitting outside relaxing under the sun. I won’t be passing on this one again on my next trip to the store. Quite a decent pale 'summer ale', I wouldn't expect anything less from the Brooklyn Brewery. It's a nice beer that quenches one's thirst and is a nice opener to any session and stronger beers.

artistic quenching.

due to laziness and lack of time i am slowly crawling out of hiatus to blah-blah-blah. random opinions would just flutter about but here i am with nothing to show for those moments of shear brilliance. i think i needed a spark of inspiration again so i could organize my thoughts. thus, i finally got it when i went to the menil museum with an old friend and a new friend. it was a ying and yang balance, i suppose. its always fun to show uncultured people there's more to life than just video games and comic book fantasies. ignorance is NOT bliss. nonetheless...it was an enjoyable time. we leisurely walked about and went to the rothko chapel. it wasn't what i expected...it was deathly quiet and awkward as i walked and had to refrain from bursts of laughter when i saw my friends' expressions. people really did come to the rothko to get in touch with their inner spirit...i sure didn't. after the utter disappointment 0f black and purple canvases...we proceeded to go to the menil museum which semi-quenched my cultural satisfaction for art. it blows my mind how other people can put their imaginations on canvas and sculpture. crossing off the menil collection and rothko chapel off my list.

epic teen angst.

As I was channel surfing...Sixteen Candles happened to be on TBS. Classic John Hughes film that I absolutely adore. I couldn't help, but stop and watch with commercial breaks and all. Contemporary retro take on a happy-feel good ending romance. It's strange how quotes like "Donger's here for five hours, and he's got somebody. I live here my whole life, and I'm like a disease" and "She's got her period. Should be an interesting honeymoon" can be so relate-able. Who doesn't have that one boy or girl they have a crush on in fear of rejection if they confess their feelings? Overall, I think its a pretty damn hilarious movie. The Geek is triumphant in spite of teenage awkward social skills. Reminds me alot like myself. My favorite moment is when Jake and Sam celebrate her forgotten birthday! Makes me swoon for a boy who can be thoughtful to a girl he adores.  

session beer.

I am rarely in the mood these days for a boozy or remotely heavy beer.  I'd rather be able to have a "session" without feeling loaded or tired. Furthermore, there is something very special and sophisticated about a well made session beer, which is not an easy task for a brewer! I'm on a mini-mission to expose to people the beauty of a low abv, drinkable ale or lager. Bigger is not always better.

progression.

evening wear.
office casual off to happy hour wear.soft semi-formal wear.

bayou art fest.

had a lovely time with my favorite peeps at the bayou art fest this past weekend. it was a definite mind fuck to see all these different interpretations of what people find humorous, beautiful and fascinating. whether it was on canvas, organic, a sculpture, or a photograph...it was amazing! i was lucky enough to be invited by Yelp Elite to attend the VIP tent and lunch with the Mayor of Houston. free booze and food sure adds depth into looking and appreciating art. i highly recommend looking at art while inebriated with people who have a sense of humor especially those who don't have the same mind frame as you.

sincerest form of flattery.

be suspicious of flattery. the desire to be liked and appreciated makes people vulnerable to flattery. how charming. how utterly winning that someone you hardly know has lavished you with compliments or humbly confessed complete admiration. watch out. you're wonderful, but not that wonderful.

beer gear.

with the season to give coming up...why not give that special companion of yours a beer holster? a practical gift.

stealthy ninjas.

If you don't have a lover, it's a problem. If you do have a lover, it's another kind of problem. Lovers don't solve problems. Rather, they add layers of complication and difficulty whether they are absent or present. Dont kid yourself. All lovers are unpredictable shadow-warriors capable of snapping your soul like a matchstick.

brad.

a girl friend and i went to two rows (local micro-brewery that closed down) for the last hurrah. we saw a bartender that was above average on the attractive scale and made a hypothetical name for him: BRAD....unassumingly thinking that every chiseled cute caucasion guy goes by that name. as for the fine-looking young model in the above photos, his name is brad too.

third time's a charm.

I'll allow someone to lie to me three times before I withdraw my trust. For some people, one lie can destroy a whole relationship. I'll allow three because most of us tell little fibs for innocent reasons, or because we can't remember details. But three --significant lies-- is my limit. One of my friends has a five lie limit, thankfully, which is why we're still friends. I'm on lie three with him. It's important to set a limit on how much dishonesty you can tolerate in your relationships. Stick to it.

Don't worry if people hate you.

They'll survive, and so will you.

threads.