“Heyyyyyy Good-Lookin…”

So… I’m cooking again… with a minimal degree of incompetence.

Since I am squeamish and unable to handle raw meat (insert dick joke), I’ve gone apeshit on the vegetables. Amazing isn’t it? I can prod and cut at a fetal pig or cat for a couple hours, but pulling a goddamn chicken breast out of a package nearly makes me want to hurl. Slimy, slimy, pink, ugh. It turned into a great chicken cordon bleu, but I’m not doing that again. >_<

Back to the vegetables. Necessity is the mother of necessity, I guess. I have gone through tomatoes, lettuce, spring mix greens, carrots, red bell peppers (green ones can go fuck themselves), baby portobellos, broccoli, red onions, potatoes… and there is an eggplant sitting in the refrigerator waiting to be had at. Some of these I won’t eat at home, but here, it’s just like “Okay, they’re not so bad…” It helps that they cook quickly and easily, and that nobody is making me to eat three times a normal portion of anything.

I don’t miss bok choy or asparagus at all, but I wish spices were sold in small enough containers that I could experiment more with those. Curried cauliflower sounds pretty good right now, alas.

By the way, if for some odd reason, you ever want to know what I’m having for dinner, you can always follow me on Twitter. : /

Onto other things, fruit for one. Blueberries, pineapple, apples, one whole bag of oranges, peaches, and a metric shit ton of strawberries. My ex-boss (yeah, I got laid off from the old job) took me strawberry picking on Saturday. That involved a drive through Etna, Freeville, and Dryden; getting the car stuck in a foot of mud; and the horror of seeing fuzzy gray strawberries shoot spores into the air. But I ended up with a six pounds of those bright little gems.

These babies went into a sauteed broccoli and strawberries. That was not the best idea. The berries are too acidic to go decently with cruciferous vegetables.

At least it looked colorful.

Cranberry juice in a wine glass. Classy?

Strawberry and black pepper tarts… on a cinnamon-sugar puff pastry. This is before they go into the oven… note the messiness of the baking sheet.

And after…

Well shit.

The smoke detector didn’t go off, and nothing actually caught fire… so only having to scrub burned sugar off the pan is a good thing. Also, these are quite delicious.

For the curious, recipe is here (I omitted the thyme, and used the pepper very liberally).

And now I’m going back to work.

I’ll Keep on Spinning…

…until I find myself again…
-Delta Goodrem, Disorientated

I’m sure it’s been said by somebody of celebrity wit, but years ago, I came to the conclusion on my own: all the talent in the world means nothing if you haven’t the passion.

Of course, back then I was simply spouting off observed naive wisdoms. Naive not in untruth, but in that I had no idea how it really applied to myself.

Eight years of classical piano training went nowhere. My fingers can fly over the length of the piano, pounding out the chromatic scale; I can improvise an hour of simple, harmoniously blending chords and melodies; I can sight-read comfortably; and muscle memory takes over when I sit down to favorite sonatinas—it’s exhilarating.

“You’re very technically-skilled,” I was told in art classes. Clearly defined lines and colors, realism, pen-and-ink stylization–great. I have a closetful of sketchbooks, with unfinished ideas on nearly every page. I don’t know if it was burn-out, if it was that directionless feeling, or what. Within minutes to a day of generating an idea, I simply lost interest.

I only produced for a grade, and all the work was shit. For any number of reasons: time, space, lack of adequate materials, the final product was always really unworthy of being called finished, or being thought of as truly mine. “Oh I’m not done with it yet,” I would say, as if that actually excused a shitty piece of work that I had to carry around in the morning before class.

“Play with more feeling!” my piano teachers (six total) began to tell me as I got older. “What do you think this section of the piece feels like?” In one of my books, Schumann’s Wild Rider has places with BLACK and RED penciled in. My parents even tried to force me to play as if emotion could be methodically evoked—(“—raise your hands off the keys here—now put them down—”)—as if they fucking knew better than I did. Needless to say, I quit playing after a couple of months, and didn’t touch another piano for a whole year.

They made me take up the violin at one point. My teacher, the venerable Mr. Q (who always reminded me of a Chinese Rowan Atkinson) said in halting English, “Do you think a robot could play a violin?” I replied that yes, it probably could play. He simply sighed and shook his head. Well certainly a robot could play the violin. Just not very well.

So that lasted a few years. I suppose you could say I never figured out how to play an entire piece without a terrible squeak emanating from the strings, yet I doubt that if I had regularly practiced, it would have actually made a difference. I didn’t practice regularly, because regularly practicing was something I was supposed to do. Because I was lazy, because I had no passion for the instrument. I suppose if I had as much passion as a certain comrade of mine, you wouldn’t be able to keep me away from it. Perhaps if I had wanted to learn it in the first place, not been shepherded towards it in an attempt to “well-round” my knowledge… perhaps if there had been more interesting songs to play than predetermined lesson books with ugly illustrations or heavy Russian marches. Perhaps if there had been more sonatinas, and if I had actually finished playing the Sonata Pathetique after my teacher moved…

Maybe I should make that a goal for the upcoming semester. Maybe I should dust off those talents and try it again. What else are they good for?

---

Bored this week. Hadn’t picked up the pencil in a year. Spent about half an hour with each. That’s a bottle of vitamins, by the way.

Only So

In this life, I have walked through a hundred churches
Amongst a thousand temples laid end to end.

I have imbibed a thousand wines of song and incense
They pour like rains from a thousand holy clouds.

I have prayed a thousand prayers with every footfall
Each soft echo flowing and coursing a pale river.

I have caressed a thousand golden statues and
Laid sweet oranges at their tarnished feet.

I have lit a thousand candles with a single spark
Fed a thousand beggars with one loaf.

I have thrown light into a thousand panes of glass,
And yet, a hundred churches.

RIP, Jacko.

Eating pasta alfredo again, this time with broccoli and chicken. Got my game idea approved by the Professor, wrote a brief design document while trapped in the law library.

Yes, trapped. As I was about to step outside, I saw that it was just a torrent of water coming down, heard some thunder, and didn’t have an umbrella. I finally left the building around 7 PM. It closes at 5.

I am noticing that the above paragraphs sound like a combination of my Twitter posts and the FMLs I read. Twitter is… eh, micro-blogging is so overhyped in the media (CNN, I’m looking at you), and there simply is not too much that I want to share with the world. It’s just there now. Nothing to rant about. And by the way, you can follow me here. : P

Thank goodness for lint rollers.

I did laundry today, and one of the items I threw into the dryer was a new, yellow-green towel. An hour later, I go in to pull all my stuff out. There is a landscape of green fuzz all over a pair of black shorts. Oh shit. I forgot to clean out the lint catcher before starting the machine.

I pull out the catcher. Jesus Christ. It is entirely green and overflowing. I could have played mini-pool on it.

As for other mundane household duties… it seems that I don’t despise cooking and cleaning so much when it’s just for myself. You know, because if I don’t do it, nobody else will. 9_9

Also haven’t set anything on fire yet. Thank goodness for ovens as well. The oven is probably my favorite kitchen appliance… I use it almost every day. It’s nearly 9 PM and I have yet to figure out what to make for dinner. I’m thinking herbed potatoes and chicken fingers, maybe with marinara for dipping.

I saw three really cute gay guys in a tree today. I’m sure there’s a joke somewhere in there.

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Roses

If I have to say it, I love the way you laugh
A sound full-bodied—deep and dark and rich.
From the bottom of your chest, it echoes
And reverberates, off the walls, and resonates
In my own throat.

Blood runs from my nose to yours
A taste metallic—of gold-dipped roses—
Dripping down your lip—with my bare hands—
I catch each crimson petal.

I would pick roses for you,
Leave them waiting at your door, awaiting arrival,
Until the gardens here were bare.

Butterfly

In one of ten futures, the sun floated in
Between the folds of a covered morning.
Pale light came to warm and smooth this paper skin,
A calm breeze came to rock this shaken cocoon.

I tasted the coolness of tears, the salt of uncertainty.
Somewhere inside lies a frail worm—or two.
If there is a word of comfort I can whisper to you,
Let it be known; I will.

The soft muscle of your tongue falls into mine.
Under a searching gaze, encapsulated, I learn to let go.

Air

From an open window, between heavy curtains,
With the late afternoon light, I find a reason.

We dance, over the bridge, across an intersection.
Beneath a streaky sky, you fill an ocean in my heart.

My hands remember the strength of your shoulders,
The ripple of twenty-four vertebrae.

With every warm breath, I recall the shadow
Of dreamlike tranquility falling over your countenance.

If I keep sleeping, maybe I’ll wake up beside you.

A Short Poem

running by with newspapers overhead–
that only stops the rain for seconds.
sometimes seconds are enough.

“Not only does your body bang…

…but I miss the conversation too.”
-Jesse McCartney, How Do You Sleep

Cornell is the same as ever. It’s really green out here, and all the buildings are still standing, I think. The only difference is that there aren’t hordes of students and backpacks crawling around the campus, not that I miss that very much.

The apartment I’m staying in is pretty interesting, structurally. My room has a really high ceiling, because there’s a loft in the top half. I don’t go up there though. There’s also a fireplace that’s been carpeted over (this is common around here), and plenty of windows (through which I can hear drunk kids screaming at each other to “shut the fuck up no you shut the fuck up” on Friday nights). I’ll post pictures sometime.

My flatmate is really nice… it made me wonder whether or not K and I would have gotten along if we didn’t have to see each other, or be subject to each other’s music and habits 24/7. Then again, J and I got along just fine, and K wasn’t exactly a good person to begin with.

[Interjection: how do you know whether someone is a "good person?" Over this past year, I've met a lot of people, some whom I didn't like being around, but I would admit they were "good people." What's the defining quality?]

I walked the wrong way going to Mann library last Wednesday, and came within view of North Campus. I can’t look at that place. On the way to the mall, I had to turn away when the bus drove past. There’s no reason to return, no point at all, until graduation, where we go back to reminisce. Right now, it kind of pangs.

We have a bit of an ant problem out here. Every time I walk into the kitchen, I see one or two ants (1 cm in length) crawling about. I hate killing bugs… I’d rather just throw them out the window, but I don’t like touching them either. I prefer sucking them up with handheld vacuum cleaners to smashing them with a wad of tissue. I shudder as I type that.

I should go to sleep earlier.

“You are my destiny…”

Well… we’ve come full-circle again. Another school year is behind us, and strangely enough, I feel like it hasn’t quite ended yet. Even though I know next couple weeks are reading days, finals, and saying good-bye to everyone leaving early; even though I know next next Saturday I will be in my own bed, at home, back in CoMo; even though I know how different things are going to be come August, I haven’t come to terms with it.

Not until the day finally arrives is it really going to hit me.

I came to Cornell on Early Decision. I didn’t visit the campus and I only applied because it was in New York and was prestigious. I won’t say because it was Ivy League, because I didn’t apply to any other Ivies. I figured that if I didn’t see it beforehand, I couldn’t complain about it.

When I got here, I couldn’t find much to complain about anyway. Sure, the architecture is a bit mismatched, some buildings are strange, if not downright ugly (Gannett, Uris Hall, Upson…), but it’s grown on me. I’m going to miss walking across Thurston Bridge every day, to and from class; looking up at the architecture students on the second floor of Rand (fitting name); and having the best bus stop right outside my door.

I’m going to miss running into people at the dining halls, Nasties, and just walking around North Campus. That’s how I got to know some of my favorite people this year.

I still hang out on the edge of all these social groups, the same way I did in high school, but I’ve made a handful of very close friends, a couple who may not come back in the fall.

So much has happened here that could not have been possible anywhere else (CoMo, to say the least), and I am almost overwhelmed, when I think of everything that has transpired. Right now my life feels like a Latin pop song, one with a quiet intro, a thoughtful verse, and a full-bodied chorus, the kind of song that can be listened to over and over again, because it feels uplifting and heart-wrenching at the same time.

The upcoming year is filled with the promise of great things…  there is still a lot to learn and a lot to be gained. I’ll find some things I took for granted, which need to be rectified, changed, maybe lost entirely.

I still don’t really don’t know where I’m going, and still find that I don’t know myself as well as I think I do, but that’s not something I have to panic about any longer. I’m not going to sit around and wonder about that when I have the capacity to take an active approach.

There is a lot more I want to say, that I can’t entirely verbalize (plus, it’s getting kind of late/early). I am really grateful for everyone back home for being there for all my crises and silly moments… even though we don’t see each other in that little room every day, it seems that we have grown closer still.

If there was one more thing I could have said at our college forum back in January, I would have told you guys that when you look back, you will realize that you have changed in unexpected, unforeseeable ways. I would tell you that not only do you have to grow with your fellow freshmen, you have to grow with your friends back home. Keep in touch through whatever way is easiest; make time for phone calls and lengthy emails; share those bizarre experiences and questions with each other–I’m really glad I did.

“I hate birds. They look stupid.”

-Albert Li

It is my opinion that no bird ever makes the conscious decision to shit on anyone’s head.

Should a bird happen to fly overhead and leave a present in your hair, rest assured it did not mean to cause you any distress.

Why?

I am pretty sure birds aren’t going to bother with taking into account distance and velocity in order to calculate the right time to drop a shit on you.

“My current velocity is v, which will be the velocity in the x-direction of my poo, since I am flying in a horizontal direction…” you have got to be kidding me.

And no, I have never been shat on by a bird.

My Personal Taiwanese Drama…

…just began. It’s ridiculous and I feel incredibly silly for moaning about it to certain others. That aspect of my life is completely out of the bounds of my control.

I haven’t cried about anything in a couple of years now. The last time I really cried about anything was something I brought on myself. Actually, that’s giving me too much credit. I half-brought it on myself because I was still naive and a little stupid.

Here at college, there have been times where I’ve been really lonely or frustrated or what have you, but I haven’t been able to let out anything. I’ve certainly felt like it, but my tear ducts alwas feel like they’ve been soldered shut, and the most I can eke out is a whining “I want to go home.” Because at home, I have places all to myself, and I can wallow in self-pity all I like.

Today, things just went from bad to worse, from 7 AM to 12 PM. That’s an entire day’s worth of shit. It’s actually a different kind of shit from a couple weeks ago when I had my life crisis. And like I mentioned in my Facebook status (ha?), I might as well have been hit by a bus.

At least I might have seen it coming.

But no. I definitely didn’t see any of this lumbering down the road. So there I stood, in a puddle on the stone steps, wishing it would rain again so I wouldn’t be the only one out there with a wet face. I got five or ten good minutes out of that; I didn’t time it, but I ended up laughing at my ridiculousness partway through. So that was me, clutching an umbrella and a good friend, letting it go, and not really knowing what would happen next.