Oops

  For two weeks, I was doing so well with blogging . And it's not like I don't have anything to say, it's just that I I get overwhelmed by all the thoughts swirling in my head that I shut down. Which just makes me even more overwhelmed.

Breakfast

For a few weeks, this was breakfast. We had a 2.5 kg bag of so-so (sour) frozen strawberries that were not fit to eat by themselves so I added them to my instant oatmeal. It seemed like a lot of trouble to chop up four frozen strawberries, wash a knife and a cutting board every morning, especially when all I was eating was instant oatmeal, but I did it anyway for those few weeks. And those few weeks were good. The strawberries are gone now and I reused the bag to line the small kitchen trash bin.

Rain

   I was taken over by an impulse to capture the glorious rain, that cools and cleanses the air.  It was a welcome interruption from the heat and humidity and I wanted to save its sight, sound and perhaps though not successfully its smell.

Feng Shui

My bed against the window. The orange thing is just ribbon from gift wrapping that I don't want to throw but don't know what to do with.

     I switched my bed's and my table's positions. Now the table is against the corner and this bed is beside it. It's no big deal, but some things just feel right. As I'm growing up, I'm learning to use feeling as part of good judgment, and the importance of making myself feel comfortable in my skin.

Bougainvillea

  The best thing about my mother's house is the view from the window. It isn't that nice: opposite the house is an old movie studio that now is occupied by a colony of rough built houses. In between the old movie studio and my mother's house is a small creek. It's officially "biologically-dead" (and visually so) but it still attracts a variety of creatures including birds. I hope you can hear their calls. The bougainvillea hasn't been trimmed in months but it looks wild and romantic don't you think?

A Note on Music: Flaws by Bastille

1. Dan Smith's soaring voice
2. Classical string section
3. Clapping for percussion
4. The soft powder pink filter of the video
5. The time signature, I can't identify it (supposedly it's 6/8) but 

And the lyrics. The lyrics... They're so meaningful. Every single line.

When all of your flaws and all of my flaws
Are laid out one by one

A wonderful part of the mess that we made
We pick ourselves undone

All of your flaws and all of my flaws
They lie there hand in hand
Ones we've inherited, ones that we learned
They pass from man to man

There's a hole in my soul
I can't fill it I can't fill it
There's a hole in my soul
Can you fill it? Can you fill it?

You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve
And I have always buried them deep beneath the ground
Dig them up; let's finish what we've started
Dig them up, so nothing's left unturned

All of your flaws and all of my flaws,
When they have been exhumed
We'll see that we need them to be who we are
Without them we'd be doomed

There's a hole in my soul
I can't fill it I can't fill it
There's a hole in my soul
Can you fill it? Can you fill it?

You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve
And I have always buried them deep beneath the ground
Dig them up; let's finish what we've started
Dig them up, so nothing's left unturned

Oooooh
Oooooh

When all of your flaws
And all of my flaws are counted
When all of your flaws
And all of my flaws are counted

You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve
And I have always buried them deep beneath the ground
Dig them up. Let's finish what we've started
Dig them up. So nothing's left unturned

Oooooh
Oooooh

All of your flaws and all of my flaws
Are laid out one by one
Look at the wonderful mess that we made
We pick ourselves undone

Step 1: We admit that we are powerless over our flakiness -- that our blogs had become unmanageable

  I was going to write my thoughts about the Bridget Jones novels, but I was drawing up blank and when the things get hard, I hide. So much for blogging regularly. I'll be back on Sunday (which was just yesterday, but obviously I mean this coming Sunday).

Things I'd like to do when Visiting a New (N. American) City

  I found the cheap spiral notebook that I used as a diary, to-do list, and general repository of scribbles to be forgotten. Uploading them online doesn't help much either because which app should I use? I have accounts with Spring It, Kippt, Wunderlist and Evernote and documents on computers and Dropbox that I don't know where things are. I used to think how my high school classmates would tediously keep color code their assignment notebooks frivolous and flippant but it turns out that it's a transferable life skill.

  Anyway, long story short, since people are travelling this week and summer travel is generally upon us, here's a list I made of things I'd like to do when visiting a new (N. American) city:

1. look for an (old-fashion) soda jerk
2. try local candy, cake or baked treats [I guess I meant local confection in general]
3. lingerie, sunglass and hat shopping
4. go on easy hike
5. fabric shopping
6. listen to music/performance
7. bookstore!
8. perfume shopping
9. local spirits/beer
10. gardens
11. "heritage" apparel [to look, less likely to buy]
12. cemeteries/graves
13. Top Chef restaurant
14. get a haircut
15. speciality stores: Marimekko; clogs; Moomin; Tintin, etc
16. buy local traditional crafts
17. fashion-forward boutiques
18. Goodwill
19. Antiques/flea market
20. historic residential neighborhood
21. specialty stationery store
22. artists/craftsmen's workshop

Over half are shopping related (11), but not all of it is typical clothes, shoes, accessories shopping, and four are food related.

New additions:

23. architecture tour
24. coffee tea cocoa
25. alternative sports/recreation
26. parks
27. fishing
28. antiquarian books
29. usual museums
30. unusual niche museums
31. try out different (historical or unique) modes of transportation
32. swim in public pool, skate in skate park, etc
33. shoe shopping
34. try out boutique fitness classes (nyc!)
35. roller coaster
36. buy wall maps preferably in specialty map store
37. walk, bike or hangout by the town's riverwalk
38. buy seeds of plants that are endemic or indigenous or specially cultivated in that area
39. tour the local university (hopefully it has a beautiful campus)
40. go to farm, orchard or garden and pick fruit

  I wonder if there's anything to add..?

Moomin Haulin

My Moomin T-shirts

  I was supposed to buy one Moomin t-shirt, one Moomin tunic, and for my friend A one Snoopy t-shirt at Uniqlo, but ended up buying three Moomin t-shirts for myself. They were on sale and look, only one is gray.
  

You can't see them, but the style of the sleeves is "French" aka slouchy shoulder, shorter than cap sleeves, not set-in and not raglan either. The sleeves and the torso are one piece of fabric.

Moomin and Snorkmaiden on a Boat

  A bought me a present from Hong Kong. It's a Moomin diary. While she was there we messaged over Viber and said that she saw Moomin figurines in a character store. Mucho dinero. I wasn't expecting to receive a present so I'm very happy with it. Thank you A.

  On a side note, while at Uniqlo I asked the shop assistant to use my own reusable bag to pack my t-shirts which he did, but proceeded to put the pair of sunglasses that I bought along with the t-shirts in a plastic bag before putting it in my own bag. The three t-shirts and sunglasses fit in that bag.

Shows I Have Loved

Currently running:
The Good Wife
The Americans

One Season Wonders:

Emily Owens MD
Jack & Bobby

Coming of Age Nostalgia:
Everwood
Gilmore Girls
Veronica Mars


I like a lot of Greg Berlanti (aside from Jack & Bobby and Everwood, I liked Dirty Sexy Money and Brothers & Sisters,  though didn't really attentively follow). I generally like shows that aren't the hottest Neilsen #1 rated shows, like Glee and Mad Men nor the alternative cult TV shows like Orange is the New Black, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Homeland. That's not to say I don't like those shows, it's that they don't initially appeal to me thus since I don't have an introduction to them, I don't watch them. I like shows that are a little bit on the mellow side, though I have dabbled in serious intense thrillers by way of Prison Break season 1. Story telling and character development are mostly what I'm after.

Things I Like: Liberal Arts Edition pt 1

Religion; religion as culture; religion as group identity; Quakerism; Shakers; Shaker furniture; the Reformation; Art History; MoMA; Suprematist Composition: White on White.

More to come once I build up the mental stamina and after I do laundry and return from shopping.

Listening is Feeling

  Because I've never had my heart broken, I've never loved and lost, and only imagined love from novels and movies and celebrity gossip, I've always fantasized heartbreak and its exquisite romantic pain.

If you metaphorically pierce my heart

it'll spurt a little blood but it and I am too tired to doing anything more.