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| 23 nov 2001 jay is a stud.� witih the help of margaret, he cooked up the thanksgiving dinner shown above.� what did i do?� i was passed out from some weird sort of coma on the futon in the living room.� and even if i were awake, i wouldn't have been able to do much except for some menial work.� it was fascinating to watch jay confidently go about his turkey stuffing (carrots, celery, onion, apple, and some spices) and basting and stuff.� they started cooking mid-afternoon, and still were able to get everything done in time.� impressive! cooking know-how eludes me.� not that i've tried to accumulate my knowledge of how to make things other than mac and cheese and omeletes and maybe some japanese curry, but man... it's pretty damn impressive if you ask me.� maybe that's why iron chef (tonight at 9pm on UPN) captivates me so much. like i think about my mom, and how she knows how to whip all sorts of stuff, and i just wonder how many years of implicit training it took.� how many times of trial and error when the thing comes of the kitchen and tastes like shit, but she just goes back undaunted and tries again until it tastes good. i was in a weird funk last night.� i must have dreamt again that i was lying in bed not being able to go to sleep, because i don't have any conscious memory of getting any peaceful sleep.� i remember tossing and turning with my eyes closed, and then rolling over and checking the alarm clock: 4pm or so.� and before i knew it (i.e., before i had any cool dreams to prove to me that i was sleeping), barden called me up at 11. barden and i are leaving at 1 for SLO (san luis obispo).� we're heading down to emi's family's place there, even though emi's not gonna be there.� but her sister gwen will be there, so there _is_ one link that will prevent us from just showing up at some random friend's parent's place uninvited. i'm most hopeful that i'll see a part of the family's annual thanksgiving slide show.� i know usually they show it on thanksgiving night, but gwen said that this year's show might be in two installments, and i just want to see the family's pictures from the japan trip.� i dunno.� i'm kind of hungry to try to relive parts of my stay there back in august.� as much as i bitched about it, and as much as i was stressed out of my mind while i was there, by now all that bad stuff has melted away, leaving behind the notion that i really enjoyed my stay there. so after tackling maybe 2/3 of the turkey, jay and margaret and i watched _shrek_.� it was still good, even though i have to admit that the third time around didn't bring me as much enjoyment as the first and second times did.� i was most interested in a dvd bonus short about the technology behind the animation.� apparently PDI (the animation company) modelled the faces and bodies with real muscles, which makes the deformations and bulges and stuff more realistic.� fucking impresive! i was thinking of writing last night, but i was just too lazy and tired. jay's probably out shopping right now.� i admire him for his tenacity, but i definitely wouldn't want to face the hordes at the stores right now.� he's especially drooling over this mp3 player that's selling for a ridiculous $29 that he can take with him jogging. but anyways, it was a nice thanksgiving.� i wonder if i should have gone to alan's and left jay and margaret alone for an intimate dinner... but they didn't fuss about it and seemed to be happy i was there.� besides, alan was sick and probably needed some rest, and now that jay is my roommate, my first allegiance is to whoever i'm living with. i was looking over some e-mails karine and i sent each other the other night.� it's pretty bittersweet stuff.� love of "i love you's" and "i miss you's" typed out, and i was just amazed at how _together_ we were.� like that's an amazing and beautiful thing, right?� pretty sweet.� but the bitter part is how we're not even like friends anymore.� and that's another amazing albeit "rude reality awakening"-type thing... how two people who were so close and so, um, devoted to each other just blow up and come to have nothing to do with each other later on.� funny how relationships can be so bipolar and extreme. my mom and brother didn't get to spend thanksgiving with me or my dad.� my dad got held up in some company meeting in taiwan or something, and he'll be flying to dallas tomorrow.� i feel really sad for my mom and dad.� they've been on opposite sides of the pacific ocean for.. TEN years now?� i know there are reasons (i.e. my dad's career), but it's just really depressing to see two married people have to live their lives so far apart.� i'll just be glad when my brother graduates high school, so he'll leave my mom free to be with my dad if that's indeed what's going to happen... but now that i think about it, i doubt my dad will be done with his duties in taiwan by then, and i don't think my mom want to live in taiwan, either.� man.� i guess some compromises are too hard to make in relationships, and this is the result... distance of crazy magnitude. it was (is) nice to put the whole job search in the back of my mind for a few days.� i mean, i do fret about when i am trying to go to sleep (i worry about all sorts of shit during that time), but during the day, it's nice not to be checking my e-mail or cell phone voice mail all the time to see if companies or recruiters have called.� i know all i've really talked about in my journal for the past month has been job job job shit, but the one thing that's good about my boring documentation is that i'll be able to go back to this idle month or so and figure out exactly what i did every day... i'll be able to prevent this time from being just a big blur in my memory.� and that's one of the main reasons why i write. once again, i got one of those huge ambitious "i'm gonna do this!" conviction phases when i tried to go to sleep two nights ago.� i was gonna write all sorts of letters to friends, you know, just to keep in touch and stuff, but WHAM-O!� i wake up and all that motivation is gone.� like i said before, if i could carry forward with my nocturnal ambitions, i'd be a great man.� and if i could figure out how to capture and bottle that stuff, i'd sell it and become a rich man. ok.� let's see.� i have to pack, clean out my car, check my tire pressure, and jet in an hour.� i'll be back on sunday (my birthday!). |
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