Sea Spray

As my old possessions that I don't remember ever existing have slowly been thrust back to me as their proper owner, I've found myself rereading my old high school books. 

The first one I picked up was The Once and Future King. And while I love Arthurian legend and the story is a classic, I found the writing to be quite dry. I never managed to finish it. 

The second book however, was Moby Dick. The writing is so rich and entrancing that it has cultivated in me a yearning for the sea. The proper ocean, I might add, not these straits that I live by, nay, there is land in sight not a mile out! I want the ocean, the scent (or what some might call, the stench) of salt and fish, to be able to taste the sea spray on my lips. Seeing the bend of the horizon, the curve of the earth over the vast body of water, and the sense of fear to know that once swept past that horizon, there would be no land in sight until you reach Asia. I've also acquired a fascination with ships - they seem almost an anachronism, still sitting on the water's surface when now we have aircraft able to fly through the air, not limited to traveling on one surface and not having to deal with obstacles that may be in the way. 

So that's my latest obsession. In other news, I've been trying to quit my internet addiction (it was getting bad) and replacing that activity with reordering my house. 

Have any of you read Moby Dick before?

Meaning

I looked up at the sky tonight and saw Orion and his hunting dogs peeking through the palm fronds above my front door. It's kind of comforting to know that at this point I've pretty much had the constellations beaten into my memory, even though my time working for the Astronomy department was not altogether a pleasant one.  The stars are my friends, and a welcome sight they were tonight. It's been a while since I've taken the time to look up on a clear night, so it seems I've rediscovered an old habit of mine of stalling outside to look at the stars. 

One of my biggest challenges right now is not having goals. Some days I'll just find myself in a stupor, thinking, what now, what's the meaning of all this? At work I file things away only to have them pulled out again, and then need to be filed back. At home I wash dishes and put them away only to pull them out for the next meal and have them end up in the sink again. It's this reoccurring cycle of actions, seemingly mundane but altogether important, that I get buried underneath sometimes.

What am I working towards? Who, or what, do I want to become? These have been questions that I've had to consider, as my life lays wide open in from of me. What I know so far is 2 things: to give things meaning, and to create. Heck, all of our lives seem insignificant at some point. But if we give things meaning, realize the worth of small things, and recognize the worth of our humble creations, our lives will be less mundane. 

So hold me to this - I need to get my butt off the computer, especially kick my habit of aimlessly surfing Tumblr or Youtube, and live more meaningfully.

I'll keep you posted. 

Rejuvenated

Dear friends, I hope you have all had a good holiday season and are rejuvenated and energized for going back to normal life. For me? New Year's weekend was the best, I spent a lot of it cleaning, surprisingly, but there's just something cathartic about cleaning your house, tossing out old things, and just clearing room to breathe. I've been in a decorating frame of mind lately, always trying to think of new ways to arrange our place but as I cleaned, I remembered the saying, "Cleaning is the best form of redecorating." So there I have it!

For New Year's Eve Matt and I just stayed at home watching anime's until midnight. I'm getting old, to the point where I find it hard to stay up till midnight (I think I even fell asleep before midnight last New Year's?) but this was just perfect, something low key, you know. 

But we watched an amazing anime the other day, it's called "Hoshi O Ou Kodomo." It's so good! Very magical, with many moments reminiscent of Miyazaki, and bittersweet - I love it. It's not out in the States yet, but when it comes out, I'm totally buying it!

The picture is of a souvenir I bought at the Dickens Fair, from the pirate booth - a ship ornament. I'm getting to be quite attached to ships these days, us living in a harbor town and all. The ring is just something I picked up at Forever 21 the day after Christmas (the lines were so freaking long it was barely worth it). I coincidentally wear it every time I go to watch Rozen Maiden with my friend, which is funny cause in the show all the dolls have a magical rose ring that contains their life essence, and I swear I'm not trying to cosplay, but secretly it makes me happy. ^_^*  

Happy New Year!

Tonight we bid farewell to 2011, a year that will always remain in my memory as the first year of my "real" adult life. 

I hope you all had a good holiday season thus far!

Here's me posing in an "alley" at the Dickens' Fair, a Victorian-style Christmas Festival in San Francisco. The atmosphere there was amazing, the decorations and building facades all made to look like Dickensian London, the people dressed up in period costumes... it was very very crowded though! (but that probably added to the historical accuracy, right?)

And I still haven't mastered the art of taking self-timer pictures, but....

I just wanted to wish you all a happy new year!

The Middle of Somewhere

Yesterday I walked to the laundry room in flip flops and a t-shirt before realizing it was nearing the end of November and it's really getting too cold for that now. November, almost over? What have I been doing all this time? Well, I can think of a few things I've done recently that I haven't blogged about yet:

1. Extreme makeover: With some outside encouragement, I realized that I have, in a manner of speaking, "let myself go" in terms of my wardrobe. So I'm getting a wardrobe makeover and receiving all sorts of neat additions to my wardrobe. I've been trying to take outift pictures but have yet to find the optimal place in my house to take them. They'll be coming though, don't worry!

2. New Hair: As a result of watching too many consecutive anime shows I decided I was tired of having black hair, and decided to color my hair for the first time in my life. Luckily, I managed to have enough common sense to not dye it the red color I was obsessing over, (specifically, Makise Kurisu's hair, from "Steins;Gate") and just got brown highlights instead. It's a nice change! Of course I worried about the effect this would have on my ability to cosplay as Mana, but we'll worry about that when convention time comes around again, right? XD;

My new hair! Apparently it looks a lot lighter in real life, according to my sister.

3. Adventure Thursdays: I've had Thursdays off this whole month, so I've been driving around with my friend and having all sorts of adventures! We went to a farmer's market I used to frequent as a little girl out past the vineyards and orchards, I got to try different kinds of Filipino food and found a place I can buy all my asian food without crossing the bridge, and I went on an Air Force Base for the first time! I love exploring, it just helps you love the place you live even more, don't you think?

So it's gonna be Thanksgiving in a few days, so Happy Thanksgiving guys! I'm excited for the long weekend, yay!

This is Halloween, Nah-nah-nah

(pic from this here tumblr)

Happy Halloween everybody!

Eat all the darn candy you want! I'll just be sitting here jealous with my left cheek puffed up smothering my face in frozen peas and popping pills since I just got my freaking wisdom teeth pulled, but you know what? That's ok. Cause I got the day off work today. And I get to hand out candy to freaking trick or treaters, assuming we get any, but we BETTER cause I actually bought the candy this time! And I'm excited. (I've never handed out candy to trick or treaters before, tee-hee). And they're all gonna be like, "Your face is kinda lopsided, lady" and "Who's this crazy lady giving us Almond Joys, who even likes Almond Joys?" But man, I'm excited. Excited! 

I'm gonna keep it low key this year, just wear a random combination of black clothes and throw on a witch hat and call it good. I'll post pics if I feel brave enough to show you all my lopsided face. ^_^

Hope you all have fun!

Nostalgic 90's

This may be a lesser known fact about me, but I love 90's music.

It's kinda funny because even though I was alive in the 90's, I wasn't old enough to appreciate the music or culture yet, so why, I often ask myself, do I like 90's music so much?

I guess I should clarfiy, when I say 90's music I'm referring to mostly Brit-pop/rock and Japanese rock:, bands like The Cure, The Cranberries, L'Arc en Ciel, Raphael, Penicillin... etc. As I was getting back into the jrock and visual kei scene a few years ago, I noticed that I didn't really like a lot of the newer bands like I did the 90's bands (with the HUGE exception of Versailles). Even though the 90's bands were plagued by pixelly and blurry video footage, poor audio quality recordings, and oftentimes looked like tacky drag queens with 80's style bangs, I just loved the melodic, reverby and dream-like sound of their music.

And the other day as I was the listening to the Cure, I realized that it's not just something specific to Jrock, but that all the 90's rock bands I like have a similar sound. And I can't help but wonder, do you think the 90's will ever be a "thing"? Like right now some 80's trends are coming back, but will we ever see the 90's come back? Or more specifically, the part of the 90's that I loved?

Just some musings on a Thursday morning.