SEIU

The last day of summer? Say it ain't so! Well, I flagrantly overstayed my SPF at the beach today in an effort to soak up every last drop of sun. God willing and the bottom don't drop out, there may be a couple of beach days left in the year yet.

It isn't good for me to be alone. Someone wise said that way back in Genesis, but maybe I'm just now getting around to agreeing. Being alone means lots of time with one's thoughts, and oftentimes one's thoughts aren't good company. The mind wanders, and it settles on troubles of the past, unresolved emotional damages, questions of why that will never be answered. (Don't ask why questions, Anne Lamott's friend Father Tom says. He's probably on to something there.)

I miss things a lot. Very specific things. Last week I missed the Borders store in that enormous Berjaya Times Square mall in Kuala Lumpur. It felt omniscient to me, safe, comforting, like a big bookstore hug. We stayed for hours. I bought a fantastic book by Jonathan Safran Foer. Don't spill any coffee on it, Liza dear.

Then I thought about waiting for a bus on the side of the road in Kuala Lumpur, waiting and waiting and being not sure if we should just get on the next bus because it seemed like ours would never come. So we did, we hopped a random bus, and we got to where we needed to be. Oh God, there's that pronoun. I thought that I had ruthlessly eliminated that pronoun from my life. Epic pronoun fail.

Today I missed the New Siam II Guesthouse in Bangkok. As far as I can remember, this is the only place in my travels that I have ever returned to stay on multiple occasions. I love the tiny triangular shower, the echoy corridors, the Asian satellite television stations, the "Please Don't Flush Your Toilet Paper" sign that is a little more informative than most others. Actually, it answers the why question, so take that, Father Tom.

I miss my Grandma, my scooter, Marilyn at Wagor Bilingual Academy, McKays Used Books and CDs, the feeling of knowing that someone would be waiting for me when I got off of work on a Saturday. I miss Carolina beaches and going to Argo Tea with a friend.

Last week we found out that our bank branch is going to be permanently closed next March. This does not mean that I will be losing my job. The bank has said that we will all be moved to other locations. But this potential reality shift causes me two conflicting emotional responses: relief and trepidation. First I'm thinking, sweet, here's my exit. I don't want to stay in banking forever, but it is a bird in the hand at this moment of 10% unemployment. I should seize this opportunity next spring to quit and take some more time to travel before I (at least attempt to once again) enter school next fall. Once I'm in school, it is pretty much a career-track sort of thing, so this would be my last chance to really have a wide-open travel experience. If I chose to be moved to a new location instead, there's all sorts of starting-over trauma involved there. But then I would have a job to help me transition into graduate school, pay the bills, etc. Some interesting choices ahead, I guess.

Going down to Lynchburg this weekend to hang out with the family. Let's be optimistic - it should be a fun time. Ideally I'd like to just carry my luggage on the plane and not have to check any bags, but with the amount of patience that I am going to have to pack, that might not be a possibility.

I found the perfect location for opening up a Taiwanese tea shop today. It is a tiny storefront and has cute counters and basically no space - ideal. Sadly, the monthly rent is $4,800. I don't think I've saved up quite enough to buy a couple of lid-sealing machines and get this venture off the ground yet.

Currently Watching:
Brokeback Mountain

Currently Listening to:
Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens

Rock River

It seems that I am a single man once again. Furthermore, it seems that every time I become a newly-single man, I celebrate by purchasing a new bedding set.

Whatever, judge me, whatever. It helps me.

I actually rearranged my entire apartment yesterday. My apartment is a studio, so no big deal. But those small changes have given me a bit more space, a breath of fresh air, some nice tweaks. Oh, I like that last sentence! How I would like to apply it to my life writ larger.

Sometimes life is like a pretty bowl full of something that looks a lot like diarrhea.

I played pool boy one lovely Sunday afternoon this summer. I think this was, all things considered, the best summer of my life. I might be overselling it.

This pigeon waiting nervously at the bus stop with me was tagged. I thought it worthy of a photo.

Lincoln Karaoke is really Lincoln KTV. I went with a couple of Koreans. These aren't them. It was pretty fun.

I still look the same. I still wear that same hat.

Had to go to the last movie in the park (aka Chicago Outdoor Film Festival) alone. This is my favorite summer thing, these movies in the park, but it turns out that I don't like to go it alone anymore. Not after I had such wonderful company for so many weeks. Miss you, Marv.

I'm hoping to take some time off soon. I have a nice long weekend for the Labor Day holiday coming up. I should be going to visit my family down in Virginia the next week, and I'd like to make it out to Portland sometime in the coming months. I need to stretch my legs a bit, get out of this nutty metropolis.

Currently Reading:
Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

Buddy

It was my birthday. We went to a slightly pretentious Asian restaurant that I've always wanted to visit, replete with beautiful waitstaff, deafening music, and snobby people. I drank this watermelon martini. It was delicious.

So I'm 30. And big deal. Like I said before, as long as people are surprised when they find out that I'm 30, I'm okay with it. When I actually start looking 30 and acting 30 and having the kind of responsibilities that most people acquire around the age of 30, that's when I'll get all bitter and depressed about it. For now, it is cool. But I'm not changing my age on any of my online dating profiles.

I didn't do any sort of blow-out, big deal wham-she-bam or anything like that. I decided that since the events of my August - work and school-fizzle related - conspired to make this an unfortunately-timed watershed moment, I'm gonna have to really tear it up for my 31st. India in 2010, anyone?

I had a really great birthday, though. Everyone treated me very well, and for days on end, actually. Thanks for your cards and gifts and wishes and words.

This is Coldplay, when they came out into the audience to sing! Yeah, we weren't that close. But the concert was awwww-some.

This will be one of my favorite people to think about in the coming months. His name is Scott, and he looks exceedingly like James Marsden; four out of five friends who have been consulted on this agree. He leaves for Madrid next Tuesday for a year of schooling. He has made my summer wonderful in a hundred ways. He is kind, thoughtful, loving, adventurous, fun, and challenging. Because of his plans for this fall, our relationship had an expiration date stamped on it the very first time we met. But I'm happy to say that our friendship won't expire, and I look forward to having him in my life in the future.

Ending on good terms! How nice.

Currently Listening to:
Stupid Love by Mindy Smith

Grand Mall

And so the older sibling abuse begins: new nephew Jesse with old niece Ellie

Currently listening to Sufjan Stevens. Currently watching Watchmen. Currently reading something with the rather trite title A Fraction of the Whole - it is much better than the title suggests. Currently drinking root beer and locking my big toes together.

There is no taste more nostalgic for me than the taste of root beer. It is the taste of my grandparents' house in rural Ohio, the taste of the incredibly exciting visits there during holidays and summers. The tractor rides or trudges through that oh-so exotic substance called snow, the Christmas mornings or summer birthday parties with Dairy Queen ice cream cakes. Mine was the one in the shape of a log, Amy's was the heart-shaped one. Oh but the root beer - I remember the exact place in the pantry where the root beer was kept. I remember looking at it often, admiring it. Ignoring the other bottles of other flavors that were obviously for the boring taste buds of the boring adults. Ginger ale, anyone? Blech. Faygo was my grandma's brand. Didn't make any difference to me at the time, though now I suspect that seemingly innocuous bottle label may have had an acute effect on my adult sexual identity.

This afternoon on my bus ride home from work a woman in the front of the vehicle experienced some sort of medical crisis. It was intense and heartbreaking. The bus was full but not crowded, I was far to the back - my preferred seating - and the first indication that something was wrong was when this very loud, practical-looking woman with a shopping bag said, "Bus driver, I think we have an incident here." My first thought, hilariously, was that someone had touched her inappropriately, and she was gonna take care of business right there in front of us all. Instead, she crossed the aisle to this young African-American woman who appeared at first to be sobbing rather heavily. After a few seconds, it became clear that she was in fact experiencing some sort of seizure. Her head was rolling and jerking and her hands were moving very erratically. Another young lady from the middle of the bus moved quickly to the front to see to the girl. I thought they might have been together - funny how irrationally one can think during these critical moments - but it turned out that she was a nurse. I think she was a wonderful person to have on the bus, not at all shy about helping out or employing her skills. In a simple, understated way, heroic. These two ladies calmed her, encouraged her, and gave her comfort until the ambulance came to take her to get help. They are good people.

So, I bought one of those big hand soap refills and a 6-pack of toilet paper today. Guess I'm staying in Chicago. I actually did get an acceptance letter on Thursday to the school in Savannah that I applied to back in February. Ha ha, fuck you and all the snails that work in your admissions department, AASU.

I am still romantically involved with that handsome, vegan Jew that I told you about earlier. He's away for the weekend at a family wedding - oh my gosh, a Jewish wedding, how fun! - so I'm using these days as practice for returning to life on my own. He's leaving for Madrid in just a few weeks, so I'm wringing every drop of fun out of him that I can in the meantime. We went to a Coldplay concert up in Wisconsin last weekend, we've attended every Tuesday night movie down in Grant Park so far this summer, and we are now on a first name basis with the staff of the restaurant Crisp just down the street here. He's not big on shopping or the beach, so I get plenty of me time too.

What a great summer it has been. I hope that yours has been great, too. Let's have tea sometime soon and talk about it.

Currently looking forward to turning 30, just to get it over with already.

About Food

This was my dinner on Monday night. I like dinosaur-shaped meats. All meats should be dinosaur-shaped. In other thoughts, are McCain Smiles kind of black-face racist or do I just overcook them?

I'm sitting here eating Edy's Double Chocolate Brownie ice cream and remembering how I used to pay a small fortune for a midget-sized quart import container of this stuff at the Carrefour in Taiwan. Taiwanese ice cream sucks, and I would have absolutely died a miserable white man's Asian death without this crack. Even now, the taste takes me back to laptop movie nights under the mosquito net on the world's hardest bed.

Everyone that I know loves food. Except me. I've been running with a gang for a few weeks now that can easily spend an hour in Whole Foods' produce section picking vegetables for a cookout. This is great, excruciating madness. I see the enjoyment that eating out at new restaurants brings people, the excitement of trying a new type of cuisine, the fun that some find in cooking from scratch, from finding a new recipe.

I love ice cream, doughnuts, and Pringles, am passionate now about certain, very specific Asian dishes, and pretty much just eat to survive otherwise. I actually enjoy smelling food more than eating it most of the time. I work right by the break room at my bank, so I get the olfactory experience of biryani, Greek kabobs, and Vietnamese rice dishes on a regular basis. And then there was the day when someone brought sardines, extolling their Omega 3 content, and was savagely rebuked by all others in attendance.

Anyway, I don't love food. I guess some people have a hard time understanding this.

Just Watched:
Grey Gardens on DVD
"If you can't get a man to propose to you, you might as well be dead."