love is all around

[invite]

last saturday, i went to my cousin Albert's wedding reception up in markham at Pacific Mall. beingboring's love interest drove us in his Infiniti, even though he wasn't invited. it was the first time meeting the love interest, and he was very nice to give us a lift. sitting in the back of his sports car where i had to slouch to avoid hitting my head against the top of the car, i checked him out. or rather i checked out the back of his head. he seems nice enough and scored low on my gaydar.

as usual, beingboring was running behind, and so we got there a little late. my dad calls beingboring just as we were about 10 mins away from the restaurant and says that the entire wedding party and the guests are waiting for us. but the invite said reception @ 6:00PM, dinner @ 7:00PM, she moans. who goes to the reception on time? well, it turns out that the bride's side of the family who flew in from Korea were waiting hungrily since six, sharp. the groom's side trickled in about half hour later and we weren't trickling in fast enough. i don't know if it's because the out-of-town in-laws didn't have much to do, so they got there on time? or is it customary to arrive on time? while not necessarily a chinese custom, starting the reception late has become quite common. of course it might just be my family.

when the love interest dropped us off, his parting words to us were, "Let me know when dinner's served." i hope he doesn't say that at his wedding. it's nice seeing beingboring excited about a guy again and excited about a decent fellow too, for once. but they're in that limbo state where neither side wants to waste time with someone not suitable and yet, they still have to invest time to get to know each other. when i was younger and had more idle time on my idle hands, i'd happily dive into a new relationship. i didn't really speculate too much, didn't measure all the angles and possibilities. of course, i did size up the guy and at least try to figure out if there was enough to make something work, but nothing too indepth. if it didn't work out, i thought, i'd just pick myself up and move on. now, i'm not so sure about that anymore. time slips away more quickly as each year passes, and so i understand the state that they're in. but it sure sucks. the love interest and beingboring are just moving along one slow step at a time.

but that doesn't mean they weren't getting closer and trying to get to know each other and their respective families. while speeding away to the reception, we briefly touched upon my parent's sex life. when beingboring was frantically going through my parent's house looking for the keys to the strongbox during DKB's crisis, she came upon a "truck-load" of viagra. well, i was shocked! shocked that he needed it and shocked that she found it. if any one of us had kids, they might've thought it was candy. and how do you explain that to a child? but i wasn't shocked that they were still doing "it". in fact, it was kinda nice to know that they were still into each other after all these years. also nice to know they don't read this blog. my god, i'd never hear the end of their displeasure for sharing their secret. hehe. but beingboring shared this with the love interest. it's always easier to talk about someone else's sex life. and viagra doesn't seem such a big deal anymore. a friend even asked me once if it was covered under my drug plan. *sigh* don't ask.

going into the reception late, we were afraid that we'd cause a scene. i imagined an angry Korean father-in-law shaking his head and evil glares from my grandmother. but we got seated at the cousins table, which was luckily right in front of the door. we both slipped into our chairs while the best man/groom's brother made the introductions. the banquet went off without too many problems.

it wasn't the first mixed marriage for our family and so we all took it pretty casually. i'm not sure what the other side thought and i can imagine that they might not have orignally approved. mix marriages, interracial dating! funny how some people wouldn't think this was interracial, or some people think it's cross-cultural, or some people just don't think much about it at all.

the bride wore a really pretty Korean wedding dress (i think!) and my cousin looked dapper in his tux. unfortunately, the bride's family didn't speak much english and no one on our side could spoke Korean. it was like a ping-pong ball going back and forth between Cantonese and Korean. one moment it was some Korean pop(?) karaoke singing by the maid of honor and friend, the next moment it was my uncle and aunt singing some chinese opera. the food was all chinese banquet food, and that's always yummy! lobster, abalone and crispy chicken!

by the end of it all, i had more fun than i thought i would. i got to see a little bit of another east asian culture. i saw a long lost cousin getting married, i saw members of my extended family i've not seen in years, and i got reacquainted with a cousin whom we haven't seen in over 15 years. it was a union between new loves and a reunion of old loves. everyone was happy. i hope this love keeps on ticking.

[flirt]

i finally got my moyapak last week! i haven't used it yet, because i haven't had the chance to go out with my iBook. but now i can stop looking at every person walking by with a bag/knapsack/briefcase. i've been obsessively checking out people's carrying cases and couldn't stop staring. some people thought i was cruising them. some people thought i was checking out their butt. i was embarrassed a few times. the only butt i was checking out was this cute boy's this morning at brunch. and he didn't have a knapsack.

my home is where the heart is

[carte postale]

it's been a few weeks since my vacation, or should i say non-vacation. it's been hard, since all the family stress hasn't changed much and work is still as bad. so i look at my friend Gerry's pics and wish i was off on a real vacation somewhere faraway.

shortly after leaving Canada, Gerry sends me an email from home saying that he's off to Spain for two weeks. really, two more weeks. i gasp and i think when do all these europeans find time to actually work? and what would i do with five weeks of holiday? a trip to Ibiza would just be lovely! and so, i get these wonderful photos of his trip and i just feel so... exhausted from pretending that i'm traipsing around town and flirting with all the cute locals. maybe i'll find someone to fall in love with and become an illegal immigrant. maybe i'll be a foreign exchange student and learn french in Paris. or imagine myself as F. Scott Fitzgerald, possibly drunk on some bad bordeaux, except i'll be writing bad novels.

at my dad's birthday dim sum sunday, we talked about going on a vacation cruise or go to europe. going to asia was a given, so we skipped that topic outright. my mum says she's tired of cruises and would rather go on a tour of europe. the whole thought of being on a tour across france with a bus full of chinese shoppers made me choke on my har gow. we'd all have to stop by prada or louis vuitton. can't miss any of the outlets or someone will have a kinipshin. i'm sure the bus would slow down as we get near the louvre, just in time for us to stop & jump out and into the souvenir shop. skip the mona lisa and go straight for the fridge magnets. while i love my parents and truly enjoy their company when it's broken up into small doses, preferably no longer than two hours at a time, separated by at least a week apart, i can't imagine going on any kind of holiday with them. i envy those who can go with their folks. i simply don't have the patience.

i look at Gerry under this big (palm? date?) tree next to some old building and i'm envious. there are no parents around, just him (and the camera man).

next year, i want to go somewhere faraway, not necessarily where there's sun and and some beaches. or a big tree. just somewhere far, so that i can feel like i've stepped away from my life here, and long enough to feel like i'm missing it. everyone has there own vacation dreams. mine is to discover a place that makes me not want to go back to canada, to not miss the life here. home is where the heart is, and so, i want to fall in love with a new place.

thanks Gerry for these photos!

as i walked out one evening

[recipe]

like this whole blog, i had not planned the postcard post nor the grass post. by end of the last post, though, i figure this is really a three part post. they're loosely interconnected, poorly planned, accidentally written, a little nonsensical, and maybe they're just little appetizers.

Y2 dropped by monday night to make gyoza. he brought over some chinese chives and napa cabbage and then went out with Y to Dominion's for pork and cabbage. i thought gyoza were vegetarian, but Y2 made them like gow gees. we had a whole pot of filling, so i helped out. i wrapped mine the way my dad taught me, the chinese way i guess. the top dumpling is mine in the pic. Y2 did them the japanese way, and his is the bottom one. his gyoza looked quite elegant and i had a bitch of a time trying to do them his way. i gave up his way, but i plan to practise more this weekend... cos we have a fridge full of cabbage to use up now.

in a way (can you see a simile coming?), blogs are like our dumplings. or better yet, they are dumplings! we make them our own way, we fill them with different things, we wrap up the exterior using our own techniques and style. some are filled with what we did in the day, some have opinions and commentaries. others regale us with stories about their dates, their celebrations, their woes and their loves. some are filled with really bad metaphors like this one.

and however they are different, with some days bad and some days good, i keep coming back for more. i read other blogs and find that the connection, while ethereal in a web-like way, is intimate and strangely compelling. the comments visitors leave behind are like graffitti drawn carefully and thoughtfully: they are beautiful and random.

and so i will have a "blog i read" sidebar, when i figure if i want to launch another version. there is no focus right now, just my random icy observations. in the meantime, i point you to Words, Weights, Whatever for Flooble it! (i imagine a room full of monkeys on typewriters) and his knack for finding the most appropriate pics off the web for his posts. check out the post Weekend Warriors... NOT. leave a comment and then visit No Milk Please. read the manifesto and feel sorry for the dairy industry. and then the funny post The Model Minority and give a read on his old car Helen. leave a note. and go on your merry way. but please come back.

there are more blogs and you can read on forever. somewhere along the way, i hope you wrap up a delicious thought and post it on your own blog. if you do, tell me where to visit.

we'll lay on the grass, and let the hours pass

[tourist]

i wanted to see Maria Full of Grace today, but missed it by thirty minutes. instead, i saw Before Sunset, because it was just about to start in five. i would've missed that too as the ticket guy was as slow as possible counting change for the guy ahead. five minutes i was thinking! five minutes! i didn't want to sit up front and i didn't even want to miss a single second of the trailers. luckily, the cinema was only a quarter full. i'm not joe full of grace, i'm joe, you give me my friggin' ticket before the sun sets. please.

i thoroughly enjoyed the movie and thought how it sorta fit my last post. it was about love and about friendship. and also, about fate and faith. but it's the connection between Ethan Hawke's Jesse and Julie Delpy's Celine characters that i most liked. having met in the original Before Sunrise movie, they reconnect years later. he writes a book about that night, she shows up for the book signing. their eyes meet at the end of his talk, and from then on, it's a long walk around Paris, talking.

who talks in movies these days? i mean really talk? there's David Mamet, but his characters don't just talk, they embody the words they mametianly say. there's Whit Stillman, but his characters speak in complete sentences. the charm of this movie lies primarily in the skill involved with delivering prepared dialogue (and the long takes). and what dialogue it is. it's nothing profound, but it's very real. the actors just don't speak the words, they simply connect the words between them.

it made me think of how we treasure these connections with our friends, these connections that seem so intense and so unconsciously alive. as we get older, there are fewer and fewer of these connections to make and fewer and fewer that are left. we discover that it's not just the distance that pulls us apart, but really the time. the time it takes to grow apart is only a few moments longer than the time it took to get us there in the first place. after six months, Jesse and Celine were supposed to meet in Vienna in the first movie. they meet only after nine years have passed in the second movie. yet, you can see and hear that the connections never died. i hope the same for me.

and so one reason i'm writing here is to reach out and pull my friends back, to extend the time between us, and also, hopefully, find a few more connections out there.

postcards of then and now

[phone]

i spoke to shib on saturday after many months since Y and i broke up. she and her man had just returned from Rio. did you know that in portuguese you pronounce the "R" as an "H" sound? she came back from Hio. come to think of it, i didn't get a postcard! and i don't have one from Hio! i wonder where the next conference will be? it better be somewhere exotic.

talking with her reminded me how much i miss having her closer, in the same city, and just being able to visit her easily. my last vivid memory of her is at the yonge/bloor subway station, by the exit where the ticket booths were. she was sitting on her suitcase, waiting. sort of like a tourist, sort of like a homeless person, sort of like an evicted student on her way home to a faraway place.

it was really good talking. strangely, the distance made it easy to talk about what's going on, because i didn't feel like she had to get involved. when i speak with brucebruce or with cuzcarol, it always feels like they're being pulled into all the problems without my control. it's weird. i'm not sure why.

it was also good to hear her voice because it's the happiest i've heard her since she moved away from phoenix. perhaps it's just my memory playing tricks, but i only think of the night when i think of her in phoenix. i imagine her walking in the cold night desert, tip-toeing around the snakes, heading towards the big bright gas station a few hundred metres away. and now i just hear the lushness and the atlanta heat in her voice.

i meant to write this as an update post and a shout out to a dear friend. but instead, i just replay pictures of her in my head. i think it's because i've been reading so many other people's blogs (more on that later) and realize how tenuous the holds we have on each other. i want all my friends to come back here.

thank goodness WTF is coming home for the film fest! maybe she'll stop somewhere in between and send a postcard.

i am canadian idol!

[fan mail]

Y got to go see the remaining 7 canadian idol-hopefuls compete on wednesday evening, singing lionel richie hits. he didn't even eat dinner! after it was over, he made his way through the swarms of teen girls groping cutsie frodo and punkboy and got a pic and autograph from elena. aren't they cute?


apparently, they sound better live than on TV. plastic man, apparently, is definitely better live. on TV he looks like he's got botox problems when he sings.

so after a few nail-biting moments, we all thought crazy girl elena was gonna get the boot. but alas, it was r&b hip-hop whiney dudeman got the kick ass out of there. he's got talent. but i guess he ain't got enough voters. there were plenty of fans there for him though.

next week, Y is gonna try to get some tix for me and beingboring too. but forget the singers! i'm going for benny mulroney. he believes in free love... er, i mean free trade. yeah. that's it.

it's a boy!

[love]

my very first computer was an Apple II+, a computer i loved so much that i remember stitching a big hanging sign out of felt in grade 6 home ec that said, "I love my Apple II+!" i never loved another machine as much, that is until i got my iBook. since getting my laptop, i have been unable to take my eyes off of it. it's such a beautiful machine. cute and compact, creamy white and grey, it's so beautiful, it's gotta be a boy. people name their cars, i want to name my iBook. do people name their computers? what name?

like an over-protective parent, i am now obsessing over laptop bags to carry it around safely. i never knew how expensive they were until i did a google search. scouring over mac forums, i've decided upon a few models. should i get this Crumpler Roll-O-Notes?

or how about this Crumpler Wee Bee? it's sorta round, but it is roomy. you can pack lots of stuff in both style of bags. i like Crumpler cos they're so darn colourful! but would i get red or orange?!

this Moyapak from incase is super fab. just perfect for my 12" laptop. it's black, it's got little interior slots for accessories like an iPod (what i want next) or a PDA and it doesn't look like a briefcase...

and i could look like this dude, minus the brown hair:


what to get? any suggestions? and do you name yours?

natural sushi

[warning]

Y thought it would be good to try the curry at Natural Sushi. we've seen their handmade yellow signs taped to the restaurant windows advertising japanese curry for months. we haven't been to this restaurant for a long time, and naturally we forgot why.

it was a bad sign when the waitress (chinese mandarin, not japanese) said that the beef curry was sold out. but it was 1:00 PM and the restaurant was empty. where did all the beef-eating curry people go? i looked at Y. Y looked at the waitress and said, "Chicken, that's fine." I thought, "Mmmmm... left-over chicken."

specials were written on the whiteboard behind the sushi counter. lunch was served all day and various spicy rolls and sushi were available for cheap. i pointed to the specials and asked about the spicy salmon, but Y quickly ordered the spicy tuna. my expectations weren't very high, since everything was pretty cheap. i just wanted to eat.

then the food came. the rolls weren't spicy, they were actually sour, with full of tempura crumbs (from last night?) nasty. the curry arrived shortly after in small individual hot pots. the potatoes were decent. it was hot. those were the good points. we didn't finish and we both left bits of chicken in the pot.

this is not a restaurant review. this is a warning.

sorry, no refunds

[date/sorta]

there's a new man of interest for beingboring. apparently a dentist. with all the things going on right now, he has been a grateful distraction for her. at least our conversations are not just centred around how much stress we're going through. a love life is a pleasant distraction.

to that end, i had a coffee date with this guy i've been chatting with on and off over the past year. i can't remember if we've had any thing of real interest to say to one and another and i distinctly remember our conversations, ever so brief, were very banal. polite and genuine friendliness, mind you, but banal nonetheless. he asked nicely and i thought it would be nice to finally meet.

we wandered around downtown with decaf in hand, and talked about what we did and about cell phones and about shop windows. he did most of the talking and i listened as attentively as i could and asked polite questions. he was funny, lively and seemingly caring too. ungenerously, i kind of moped about the crap. i didn't really want to talk about how stressed out i was, but it was easier to dwell on the surface than to let him know who i am. i could have discussed Iraq as he had done or discuss his work and how he tells stories with the mannequins. i could have talked about the poems i loved, the books i've been reading or this blog i'm writing. if i had spoken passionately, i was afraid we wouldn't connect.

instead, we didn't connect because i wouldn't let him. something i heard in his voice held me back. by now, you'd think i could small talk into some semblance of charm and flirt like there's a spark that just needs to be ignited. chemical reactions ready, just pour the reagents and solutions and stir. i just couldn't. i just wasted his time, and time you cannot give back. maybe i am as cold and icy as i think i am.

Spider-Man 2

[review]

Rating: * * * 1/2
Creepy Crawly Stars: Tobey "back hurts" Maguire, Kirsten "needs to eat more" Dunst, Alfred "why didn't i win an oscar for freda?" Molina, James "coulda been anakin skywalker, if the other guy didn't look older" Franco
Directed by: Sam Raimi

Science Journal Synopsis:
The species Aranea Americana mates with the red coloured Mima Puella while in the presence of the predator, Octopus Vulgaris, despite the predator displaying overt violent behavioural patterns. It was also observed that the subfamily species Cæruleus Gobelinus would reappear at some later date, which was beyond the scope of this paper. Perhaps a third film could explore this observation.

More to come.

starbucks' boys

[confession]

after a tumultuous few days, i managed to drop by the church street starbucks for a coffee and some alone-time in the late afternoon. the upstairs was surprisingly full, so i had parked myself downstairs where one can see all who enters. i confess that i am quite fond of the coffee at starbucks, but by no means consider their beans the best or more superior to, say, tim horton's. the difference is that there is a high probability that the barista serving you is a cute boy. like today.

with messy dark hair and a shy smile, but near incompetent cash machine punching skills, he punched in coffee cake @$1.95 instead of low-fat blueberry loaf @ $2.50. i was for a moment in love with his dark and friendly eyes. some might say vacant, but i dare to dream that this starbucks boy is just dreamy. my usual starbucks boy at work is a little less dreamy, but more sexy in a "i'm only working here while i write my great canadian novel" sort of way. (that's a look and attitude i could never pull off.) he notices when i got new glasses and knows what coffee i want before i even order. he acknowledges my preseence with a nod or smile when he's behind the bar making lattes and cappuccinos. one day, he even asked if i had gone to western university becasuse i seemed so familiar to him. you never get this kind of attention at tim horton's.

perhaps they train them this way. just like the weird distinct coffee they brew, they make all their baristas cute and super friendly. maybe they make them drink their own stuff. i don't know and i don't care. so long as they don't fire the cute starbucks boys, i'll keep coming back. maybe i'll marry one of the boys one day and we can make our own lattes.

some kind of stranger

[confusion]

outside i can hear some rowdy night dwellers, laughing or was it yelling? hard to say when you aren't part of their conversation. inside in my bedroom, i can see my one-sided converstations sent via emails. hard to say what they think when you can only see what they say, not hear what nor see how they say. saying the words doesn't even always mean you're saying what you really want to say. confused?

i sent a few emails to people who have said more than i wanted to hear. one person wanted more than i wanted to give. how do you write back saying that i hadn't even given anything and didn't want more, at least not from him? one other person wanted to be intimate with me, and all i could think of was what more did he want. how do you write back saying that i needed more, but not from him?

we're really all strangers, you and i. after a few minutes, a few months or after many years. we open the door to let people in to see where they can fit in our crowded or not-so-crowded rooms. sometimes you gently lead them out and close the door behind them, sometimes you ask them to close the door behind them, and sometimes you just slam the door on their faces. i've tried to gently close the door on a few people tonight. i know one is psychotic or delusional or both. so i didn't want to slam the door on him, lest he starts imagining more things. yes, i meant to say MORE things. i know the other one was trying very hard to be a gentleman and was charming as he can be. but we're still strangers. and i don't want him to come inside.

i wonder how many doors have been closed on me.

family ties

[news]

well, i've been away at the hospital the last week visiting my brother, DKB. it's been a rough week and a half so far, and it looks like it may just be another few more days. but this is just the beginning of the next step. i've been told that it's never going to be the same and that there will always be this thing there, in the shadows - and not just in DKB's shadow, but also in all of our shadows.

for those of you who know what's up, i think some of the support should also be directed at beingboring, who has taken a lot more of the stress. she's there every day visiting and is in contact with the physicians. DKB feels closer to her and he refers to her a lot. the irony is her ties to our family. she is pulled in so many ways, and yet still feels that she is tied to us enough to want to be there for him. and for me, the ties pull me back to a family dynamic that i had tried to run away from. like apron strings, like elastic bands. i can pull, but i can't pull them apart. it's selfish, i know, but i want to just rip them apart like wisps of web and feel free.

there's a long road ahead for DKB and for all of us. thankfully, i'm in good company. and i'm bringing my iBook along with me. but does anyone know where i can get a nice nifty bag/knapsack/sidebag/tote for my travelling iBook?