Road Trip Part II (St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati) / Week in New York

Hello my friends. I write from the kitchen of our Oxnard home. The last three days have consisted mostly of bingeing Reply 1988 in an Advil PM fueled haze. But now I feel as if I must rouse myself and get back to some sort of routine.

The last few weeks have been jam packed with traveling and it’s kind of nice to be back in a stable location.

Looking back I’ve really been all over the map this past month.

• DC

• Harrisburg

• NY

• Seattle

• Cross country road trip

Nice!

Anyways, here’s what I’ve been up to. Filling in on the last few weeks since I’ve missed a post here and there.

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Road Trip Part II

St. Louis

We left off in the last post in Kansas City. After Kansas City, Harry and I made our way to St. Louis.

St. Louis passed by in a blur to me. All I really remember is popping out of work for a quick break and heading over to the arch.

Blazing hot. There was a river. Some people lounging around on a lawn. Really not much beyond that.

I remember being impressed at how huge the arch is. In hindsight, it’s obvious that an arch of this renown would be big but wow. I guess I don’t have much experience with arches… The arch in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza—perhaps the arch I am most familiar with—beautiful though it may be—is not very big.

Other memories from St. Louis include eating a St Paul Sandwich, a uniquely Chinese American invention that involves placing egg foo young between two bread slices with mayo and other meats. Would definitely eat again. Cheap, delicious, filling. One of those regional dishes where you wonder why it isn’t more widespread.

Not sure if I’ll find myself in St. Louis again. Didn’t seem like there was that much to do. Also read up on some crime statistics and (according to the rankings) it seems like a pretty dangerous city.

Chicago

After St. Louis we made our way to Chicago. A truly beautiful city.

I waved but not a single person waved back >:(

Worked out of the Chicago office. Got deep dish with Harry at Lou Malnati’s. I may just not be a deep dish guy. The crust was great. The rest of it was meh.

Afterwards we watched F9 at an AMC. I think at this part of the trip we’d been traveling to a new city every single day and were feeling a little tired. It would have been nice to see a little more of Chicago… next time.

Greyhound

That night after we got into Chicago we made our way to the Greyhound station headed towards Cincinnati. One of the most uncomfortable rides I’ve been on.

Greyhound people are rowdy. Far rowdier than the Amtrak crowd, which is kinda weird considering they’re pretty similar prices.

Example: a baby started crying a little after we boarded the bus. Not only did the driver tell the mom to shut the baby up but other passengers started chiming in too… That shit would NEVER fly on an Amtrak.

Another difference: you’re more confined so you end up involuntarily eavesdropping.

• Dude across the aisle spent roughly twenty minutes talking about his uncle who raises raccoons. Apparently you can train them to pick up trash

• The same mother whose baby started wailing at the start of the trip would not stop talking about her life. It’s 4AM and the majority of the bus is trying to sleep but this woman goes on and on about her personal life. Talking about her husband, how they met… they went to a mutual friend’s party. He’s a bit of a shy guy and wasn’t too straightforward about liking her. Towards the end of the party as everyone was leaving, the group was trying to decide what to do next. At that point she knew that she liked him so she declared to the group that she was going to ride in his car to the next destination and from there they started to get closer.

  • Honestly if it were daytime and I weren’t trying to sleep the story would have been great but I was pretty pissed at that point.

We had a layover that lasted a couple hours. Kind of interesting to see how collectively annoyed the crowd became. This was well past midnight.

Cincinnati

After the terrible Greyhound we finally arrived in Cincinnati. Cincinnati was a special detour for us. The only reason we ended up taking that Greyhound out of Chicago instead of going directly to New York.

We lived in Cincinnati from ‘98 - ‘08. It had been more than a decade since Harry and I had visited.

We did the main things to do in Cincinnati:

• Got chili from skyline

• Passed by a Graeter’s

  • We got ice cream from United Dairy Farmer’s instead. The good old spot we’d go after a day of hanging with Mom at the library

• Tried to get pizza from Dewey’s pizza

• Went to Bob Evans

  • I don’t think I was a big fan back in the day but Bob Evans is all over that midwest region. We saw a bunch driving into Pennsylvania as well.

• Ate a buckeye (peanut butter/chocolate candy)

We also swung by the old school

The old Taekwondo studio

And the old neighborhood.

We also went through downtown Cincinnati, a place we hadn’t experienced as children (we stayed almost exclusively in the suburbs). A bit of a surprise to discover, as adults, that Cincinnati is a proper city. Bars, restaurants, skyscrapers… pretty much everything.

Going into this part of the trip I think there was an expectation that I’d feel a deep nostalgia. Did not feel that. Maybe it was that we spent just a night in Cincinnati. Or maybe the fact that almost everyone we were close with has left. Or maybe because we hadn’t come with the entire family.

For whatever reason, I didn’t feel too nostalgic. Cincinnati was a long time ago.

We left Cincinnati and did the ten hour drive into Manhattan. I really enjoyed that ride. Hours on hours of podcasts. Caught up on Asian Enough, Comedy Bang Bang, and Fun with Dumb.

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New York

We ended the road trip in New York. Harry left after one night to go back to California and prep for his new job. I stayed the week.

Some quick highlights:

• Pocha 32 with Kelvin, Will W, and CJ

• Jollibee’s

Chicken was pretty damn good. Spaghetti was a surprise hit too. I kind of get why it’s so recommended now

• Soba with CJ at Soba Noodle Azuma

  • Decent soba. Pretty good gyudon (really feeling this dish these days). Great portions. Would go again. Maybe order some extra dipping sauce.

• Renting piano practice rooms at Michiko Studios and 244 Studios

  • I think this is the move when I head back to New York. It’s amazing to have a space where I can be as loud as I want without bothering the neighbors. Therapeutic to bang out my feelings on the keys. Also used the room to get some vocal practice in.

• Catching up with Will T at Junior’s over cheesecake and milkshake

• Hanging out with Frank at Dokodemo

• Karoke at Karoake City with Kelvin and Annika

• Asian fusion at The Tyger with Kelvin, Annika, Sunmi and another dude who’s name I forget… sorrybud. If I ever meet you again I will not forget your name, I promise.

• Eating a black and white cookie

• Biking into the office in 90 degree weather, back soaked and feeling like a sweaty pariah

And that’s about it. Squeezed in a lot for that short amount of time.

I realized that I want to do more once I’m back in New York. I think it’s important to have regular things outside of work to meet people and stay active.

My current plan is:

• One art related activity

  • Joining a choir most likely

• One physical activity

  • Playing volleyball

• One social activity

  • Harry suggested a book club which I’m slowly warming up to

I am excited for my return.

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Music Update

Still taking lessons with Michelle. Got a good amount of practice in during my New York trip. When I went to karaoke with Kelvin and Annika I felt a bit of an improvement with my singing. In the past I’d strain my voice hitting the high notes. Not this time around.

Also think I was able to use my diaphragm more and rely on my mixed voice (although I cannot claim I am that familiar with my mixed voice yet).

I feel more in control with my voice, which is exactly what I’m looking for right now.

I miss producing though. I haven’t sat at my DAW for a few weeks at this point.

When I’m back in New York I’m going to go HAM on performing.

Intermission (a little sick)

As I lay here in my home bedroom after having binged several hours of Reply 1988 (greeeeeaaaat show btw) I regret to inform you that I’m feeling a little too sick to write. Gonna knock out from these two Advil PMs I’ve just taken and probably write my post tomorrow. Bye!

Nomading / Albuquerque / Train Life / Kansas City

Nomading

I’m sitting here staring out the window of the train and I’m suddenly struck by the thought that I’m doing exactly what I want/should be doing. 

Here are the circumstances:

• The biggest pandemic of my lifetime (so far) appears to be wrapping up

• Global travel is mostly locked down

• I received my full vaccine a few months ago

• My company just went 50% remote (aka work wherever you want half the time, show up at the office the other half)

• I am on a cross country train going from Los Angeles --> Albuquerque —> Kansas City —> St Louis —> Chicago —> Cincinnati —> New York

What better thing could I be doing with my life right in this moment? Can’t think of much. 

Maybe dating? Would be nice F O R S U R E. But! 

This is the first time in my lifetime that I have both the funds and the freedom to work wherever I want. It won’t be easy but it’ll be possible to bounce from location to location. May not be the best timing to get into a relationship right now (although who knows how the timing works out with these kinds of things). 

I’ve been thinking of what my life will look like post-September (the arbitrary month that most tech companies chose to recall their workers to the office). 

A plan is starting to form:

• Home base will be New York. I like the city. My office is here. The rent is terrible but it can’t be helped

• I’ll live out of Airbnbs and keep most of my stuff in storage (maybe 1-3 months at a time)

• When I start feeling restless and want a change of scenery I’ll do 2-4 week stints at different locations

  • Japan

  • Portugal

  • England

  • Korea

  • Los Angeles

I feel like I’m part of this Great Shuffling occurring right now. Everyone is so shaken up right now. For a number of reasons:

• The pandemic “shocked” their system. No one can fathom going back to the life they had pre pandemic and will use this time to do something new

• They’re sick of the location they had to quarantine in and want a change of scenery

• They now view life as so fragile/fleeting that they now force themselves out of their comfort zones… to live! To truly live!

So I guess people will try to change up their lives in one of three ways:

• New location

• New job

• New relationship

The truly adventurous will change all three. 

Anyways, with this new plan of mine I think it’s pretty good. Don’t know how long I’ll sustain it but a half-year/year sounds good. How sustainable is this nomadic mode? Will I thrive in these constant environment changes or crumble to the desires of stability? Who knows.

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Week in review

To recap, here’s the route I’m currently taking:

As I move from place to place I wonder what I’m looking for. I’ve been wanting to do a cross country trip for a while now. And I’ve thought for a while that doing it on the train would be particularly fun. 

I think these are the main reasons I’ve been wanting to do this trip:

• Be able to say I’ve crossed the country coast too coast

  • Seems like a rite of passage as an American. To know this country and all its offerings

• See how people live in other parts of the country

  • I’ve been coastal most my life in America. There’s a huge disconnect between how the coastals and middlers live. What is it like on the other side?

Another point—as an Asian American these days I find myself fearing certain places because I may be subject to racism. I wonder how necessary that is. 

Albuquerque

First stop was Albuquerque. Breaking Bad was filmed here. True to the story we did see a few very aggressive drug addicts.

As Harry and I navigated the streets, we kept encountering aggressive druggie after another. Felt like a perverse pac man. From the left you have aggressive druggie #1 screaming her head off. From the right you have aggressive druggie #2 coming towards you at a semi-concerning speed with a shopping cart. Only so many paths available…

After walking a bit we decided to hide out and grab a bite at Monroe’s.

Something I absolutely enjoyed about this city: the obsession with green chile. They seemed to stick green chile all over the place. Eggs, burritos, and my favorite—the green chile burger.

Monroe’s was nice. Their chips and salsa were a highlight as well.

After the meal and a harrowing walk to the hotel we decided to check out the town. Made our way to Old town. From what I understood this was one of the epicenters of the city. Everywhere else we walked was pretty much deserted but this spot was poppin.

A good number of tourists, a classic car show, a jazz band playing at the square. Not bad, Albuquerque.

It was hot as balls though.

This is how I felt when I first came into Albuquerque

After Old town we walked over to Sawmill Market—a pretty nice, developed food court/hall/bar area.

Got me a second green chile burger at Dr Field Goods. Man oh man. The heat, the spice, the meat, so nice. The juiciest thing for miles around.

LOOK AT THAT MEAT

look at them clouds

Train Life

There were several days on this trip where we slept overnight on the train. These next photos were all from our overnight from Albuquerque —> Kansas City.

I love taking trains. Zoning out, watching the scenery. Peeking into random ass towns in the middle of nowhere with people/lives that you will never meet/interact with. Something so enjoyable about that. Maybe the realization that this country is a lot bigger and diverse than I normally give it credit. Also the realization that this country is absolutely beautiful.

Spent most of these overnights watching pre-downloaded TV (shoutout to Hospital Playlist, Loki), listening to music, taking edibles and staring out the window.

There was a really cool night when we rode through a MASSIVE thunderstorm. At the tail end of the storm we drove through a city where people were shooting off fireworks for fourth of July. Alternating blasts from the fireworks and the thunder. Never saw that before, probably may not see it again.

Kansas City

Kansas City is litty. My previous conception of it was a podunk town in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do. Oh how I was mistaken. 

The land of barbecue and jazz. What a combo.

Right after checking in at La Quinta Inn we grabbed Birds and traversed the city. SO MUCH FUN. God what an enjoyable time. Idk what was up but there was barely anyone on the streets when we first started. Rode from our hotel (near the university) through downtown and eventually down to the Missouri river.

After the ride we hung out at city market (a plaza + farmers market) and bought some board games for the trip.

Made our way to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art—an amazing free museum.

Had lunch at Char Bar. Harry claims this is the best barbecue he’s ever had. Kansas City is known for their burnt ends (the fatty, somewhat burnt parts of the brisket). These particular burnt ends were amazing. Fatty, meaty, tender. Was not a huge fan of the ribs. The brisket was not as good as Texas brisket (see Austin Part I, Part II).

Later that night we wandered into the city looking for food. The streets were deserted. We walked around until a bouncer (host?) beckoned us into the Green Lady Lounge. We found comfort in the AC, great drinks and live jazz.

Ended the night with a papadilla from Papa John’s. Haven’t seen food innovation like this in a while. They fold the pizza into a flat bread and crisp the outer edge with cheese.

I’d been waiting to try this for a while. Was underwhelmed but would try it again.

That’s the trip update for now. Will follow up with the rest later.

Some parting thoughts:

• Take it with a grain of salt given how short my time was in each place:

  • If I could do this trip again I’d slow down a bit. This constant nightly location switch is a pain when it comes to working

• Pre trip I thought there might be moments where I was treated alien because of my race. Didn’t reaaaaallly feel that.

  • There was a slight incident* where the conductor leaned up real close and spoke loudly/slowly in the way Americans like to speak to foreigners…. But guess what that was in LA.

Another thought here: I wonder if my experience moving as an Asian in these cities would have been different with an accent. Language is the weapon by which Asian Americans defend our right to be here. I feel this moment of triumph (relief? Approval?) when I encounter a non-Asian American who I suspect may suspect I’m not from round these parts and I respond back in perfect English. Language is a shield. With the security of my language I feel assured knowing that if a potential racist talks shit I can talk shit back. 

So yeah, I bet having an accent would be a huge deal. Now that I write it all out it seems very obvious. But hey that was a cool metaphor right? The whole sword and shield thing? 

*Another annoying incident where this half naked man was washing himself in the Amtrak station sink. I took the sink two away from him to give homie some space. I tap the soap. Damn nothin coming out. Tap it again 2-3 times. Nothin. The dude turns to me and says in the most bratty, passive aggressive voice “you 👏 gotta 👏 use 👏 the 👏 sink 👏 next 👏 to 👏 me 👏 for 👏 soap.” 

Me: “Ahh gotcha thanks” 

I stop tapping the soap but truthfully am not rushing to get close to him

Half naked dude showering in sink-: “young man stop tapping that soap. You are going to beat up that soap” 

I’m getting annoyed. Who the fuck does he think he is. Well can’t confront him cuz he’s biiiiiigger than me and who knows what weapons he might have on him // shootings are out of control this year 

Me: “Ahh thank you so much. I really appreciate you showing me how to use the soap”

He says some other bullshit and I move quick to get the soap next to him making sure I don’t accidentally brush up against his soapy nude skin. 

Probably not race related at all but man annoying af. 

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Music 

Had my second vocal lesson with Michelle. I wonder how useful these thirty minute lessons are. Are they enough to dig into ways I can improve? 

For this session we:

• Did our vocal exercises together

• Sang through my current assigned song (Best Part by Daniel Caesar, HER) ~4 times with notes in between each try

And that was about it. She gave me some additions to my practice routine but besides that it’s mostly the same…

I’ve been decently diligent with the vocal exercises (4/7 days). The traveling makes it somewhat hard to squeeze in sessions. 

Anyways I plan on sticking with it for a month and seeing how I improved. This was my first out of four contractually agreed upon lessons.

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Thanks for reading. Here’s a cool website I stumbled on: https://sidequestjobs.com/

I’ve never seen a part time tech job before and am impressed with the concept.

Thaction / Seattle

Sup reader. Apologies for the delayed post. I’m writing this from the Comfort Inn in downtown Albuquerque—a city I never imagined I’d visit. These past few weeks have been packed with activity and the blog fell to the wayside :(. I’ll aim for a double post this week.

Btw I’m changing the format of the blog. Adding headers in each section so you can skip to whatever parts you’re interested in. Was reading someone else’s blog the other day and after being hit by a wall of text I realized that I gotta shape up on my end as well.

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Idea of the week
I’ve been overthinking a lot in the past few days. Which got me to thinking more: how do you stop overthinking?

Thaction—Thoughts and action exist on opposite ends of a spectrum. If you find yourself doing one thing more than the other, lean the other way.

In other words: stop overthinking by taking more action, doing something.

I think my life as a software engineer has nudged me towards the thought end of the spectrum. It’s a very thought driven industry that attracts a lot of thought oriented people. Also a very comfortable industry which leads to less risk taking and more comfort zone.

I contrast my experience as an eng with my experience as an actor back in college. The other end of the spectrum. Skipping CS classes. Practicing scenes. Breaking up every beat into an action. Going up on a weekly basis to perform in front of an audience. Taking risks. Putting yourself out there.

That’s been missing in life these days.

Step 1: Do more stuff.

A few things I’ve been wanting to do but haven’t (out of fear, apathy, laziness, or overthought)

• Singing lessons with a vocal coach

• Cross country train trip

• Surfing lessons

I’ve started singing lessons (have my second lesson coming up this Tuesday). I’ve also started my cross country train trip (which is why I’m writing from Albuquerque). Have not yet started surfing lessons but I’ll aim to do that when I get back in two weeks (my current thought here is that I might be too busy for surfing lessons? But I think that’s just an excuse to not do something out of my comfort zone).

I’m the type of person to come up with a lot of excuses not to do something but I want to shut that part of my brain off for a while and see what happens.

Step 2: Become a better person

Overthought/lack of action stems from laziness, apathy, or fear. Curb that by becoming stronger. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my most overthinking days occurred when I was feeling inadequate/out of shape/lonely and my least overthinking days occurred when I was in the best shape/most fulfilled I’d been in years.

To that end I’m revamping the habit tracker (awwww yeaaaaaah). I’ve found in the past that I ignore habit tracking during life event changes (e.g. moving, going on vacation, hosting a friend long term) but I’ll try not to do that this time and am diligently tracking my habits* on this cross country train trip.

As I near the end of this section I realize there are maybe 4 (broadly stereotyped) classes of people:

1. Bad at thinking, bad at taking action (the neckbeard)

2. Bad at thinking, good at taking action (the musclehead)

3. Good at thinking, bad at taking action (the nerd)

4. Good at thinking, good at taking action (the hero)

I’d say I’m the third type aiming towards the fourth type.

*My current set of habits

• Sleep habit (goal 5/7 days but hopefully every day) // honestly the hardest one

  • Get to bed by 10:15 local time and wake up at 8:15

• Close apple rings (goal 5/7 days a week)

  • 700 calories move goal.

• No Reddit (takes too much time)

  • To this end I’ve blocked reddit on my work/personal computers and my iPhone/iPad.

• Track calories (goal 7/7 days)

  • I’m aiming for 500~600 calories for lunch/breakfast so I can eat whatever for dinner (totaling around 15/1600).

• Vocal practice (goal 6/7 days)

  • 20 minutes of vocal warmups + practice singing the assigned songs

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Week in review: Seattle

Ahh Seattle, the classier, cleaner, safer version of SF! We went on a family vacation to Seattle since none of us had ever gone (instead of going to Cancun which would have been n i i i i i i i c e—but I’m still glad we went to Seattle).

The land of salmon and coffee! The land of Amazon and Microsoft! The land of mountains and hiking!

Stuff I enjoyed:

• Space needle

do u like my space needle cosplay

a delicious strawberry shortcake at the bottom of the tower

• Chiluly glass museum. Imagine a wonka factory where the candy is actually glass. The whimsy and delightful colors oh my. Would go again

• Dough zone. Late night dim sum with the fam. Dan dan noodles, dumplings—great stuff. We also got Din Tai Fung with Andrew and his roommate but I think I overhyped myself on it.

• Catching up with friends. Hung out with Andrew at Stars in the Sky. I thought the chicken was good but the fam raved about it. Afterwards Andrew and I also went to Gasworks Park (a cool industrial park by the water that reminded me of Dolores park) and saw some people fire dancing.

• Also saw Jessie. Hung out at an overcrowded, overheated pike place market and saw the disgusting gum wall. Afterwards caught a ride to the Expedia office and checked out Kirkland. Felt like old times even though we hadn’t seen each other in 4+ years.

Stuff I didn’t enjoy

• The heat. We went during a historic heat wave and it was humid AF.

• Aquarium. You seen one aquarium, you’ve seen them all (same applies to zoos). Couple this with the heatwave and you’re in for a mediocre day.

my face when someone asks me whether I want to go to an aquarium

• Was in a terrible sleep deprived mood when we went to Mt Rainier. The heat also got to me. Some cool waterfalls though.

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Music update

As mentioned above I’m taking singing lessons. Pretty fun so far. Definitely provides ease of mind knowing I have an expert to guide me to where I want to go.

Michelle asked me during our session what I wanted out of singing lessons. I muttered back something lame like “I want to become a better singer” when in reality I meant “I want to get so good at singing my listener either cries, vomits or has an orgasm”

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Review of the week

This week I finished the Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. I was sleep deprived for the majority of the time I read the book but I had a good amount of fun. Vietnamese refugee/double agent moves to France and works as a drug dealer to the upper echelon of french society. Comedy, some points on being Asian in a predominantly white society (how many books are there from that POV?).

Would recommend.

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Last note: Yale school of drama just went tuition free. If I ever decide to leave my job I’ll apply here too.

Oxnard --> DC --> Harrisburg --> NY --> DC

This week is a twofer. Feel kinda bad for missing my streak of writing every week. AGH!

The blog helps me remember a lot. I was riding the Megabus from NY to DC earlier this week. Zoning out, staring out the window and feeling kinda bad that I hadn’t written a post last week. I tried to think about what I had done the week I missed the blog post and realized that I could barely remember a single detail! An entire week of memories lost to the wind.

On the other hand I’ve written about some pretty mundane weeks to this blog and—despite the monotony—even those weeks still feel like a full week of memories.

This ties into my working theory on time where the more distinct memories you accumulate in a period of time the longer that time will feel. So the plan here is on my deathbed (hopefully 100+ years in age) I’ll read through every post of this blog and truly feel like I’ve lived a rich and lengthy life. Hope you stay in business that long, Squarespace.

Anyways… I write this from my bedroom desk back in Oxnard. Been all over the place these past two weeks.

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We start at the week of June 6th.

This week I mostly prepped for my trip to DC. Besides prepping I continued my new habit of skateboarding to the local Starbucks which helped break up the restlessness from being stuck in the house all the time.

I also started reading Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro after hearing his name pop up a few times. I particularly like “Come Rain or Come Shine” where a foreign language teacher is invited to his friend’s house to save his friend’s marriage. It turns out he was chosen to save the marriage because he’s such a loser that the husband hopes to look good by comparison.

I also hung out with Yang and we watch In the Heights (fun watch for the dancing but the plot seems to go nowhere…).

Later this week I flew into DC to explore the neighborhood/see apartments with Harry.

I had the best tagliatelle I’ve ever had at Via Sophia. I also picked up one of my favorite/addicting East Coast snacks.

The next day we met up with Apollo and drive to Annandale to hang out at the Koreatown. We anticipated a solid Koreatown (maybe a lil worse than the NY/LA spots) and were somewhat disappointed. Annandale Koreatown turns out to be a couple of strip malls with a couple Korean restaurants sprinkled in. They do have a Gopchang Story which is a pretty fire intestine restaurant (not a huge fan of intestine but this is delicious).

Apollo was iffy on the intestine so we went to Kogiya for KBBQ (where we end up eating some intestine anyways…). Kogiya is decent but probably wouldn’t go out of my way again. NY/LA KBBQ is on a different level.

The next day Harry and I took the train to Harrisburg.

Harrisburg was chill. I got a final iced coffee at Little Amps coffee.

Wandered over to the Capitol where a Trump rally was going on.

Felt like this guy as the only Asian person in the crowd when they started crowing about Beijing Biden.

Final eats in Harrisburg included a meal of Carnitas Birria tacos at Taco Solo and some great Indian (Master’s Chicken Curry, Paneer Tikka Masala) at Nalan Indian Cuisine.

Goodbye Harrisburg.

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Spent the next few days in New York.

Crashed with William W at his hotel downtown. Will was lowkey obsessed with going to the water and would suggest it at every event we hung out together 😂. Reminded me of our trip to Japan with Kelvin where we played a stupid game of rock paper scissors every time we saw a body of water (fountain, puddle, river). Loser would have to touch it no matter how dirty or inaccessible.

Hung out with some ex coworkers (Chris, Naveen, Pierce and Naveen’s girlfriend) at Eataly (also ordered a less delicious tagliatelle). I thought the dinner went well but we ended up roasting each other towards the end. As a newcomer to the group William thought we went overboard with the roasts (which might be true).

Met up with a big group of ex Berkeley/work friends the next day (Kelly, Reia, Jason, Nicole, and some of Jason’s friends) at Tsurutontan.

Afterwards Kelly, Reia, Will and I went to Decibel Sake Bar and drank a ton more. Ended the night at 99 Cent pizza in East Village which was unfortunately the only slice of pizza I had on this leg of the trip.

Following day met up with my team for happy hour at PJ Clarks. A bittersweet day with Ishan leaving the team. We drank a ton on company dime and ended up at Das’s family’s restaurant where he overloaded us with delicious, free mango lassi, saag paneer, chicken tikka masala and gulab jamun.

After walking off all those calories I met up with William and Daniel at Small’s Jazz which kicked us over to their sister club Mezzrow. The jazz started off mediocre. Some drunk guitarist who didn’t seem to completely press down on his strings when fingering the chords. A weird plucking technique where he’d pluck one of the notes super loud and shock us every now and then with the volume. His friends came onto stage later and the show got better.

Even then it seemed like they had never practiced together and were playing together for the first time. Some talented soloists that shined in their own moments but didn’t seem to get along with the rest of the band. There was a point in the show where the trumpet player and sax player had a solo battle where they tried to overshadow each other’s playing.

These three days in New York felt very eventful. Fun seeing everyone though. A few thoughts here:

• So many people are moving into New York. Especially a bunch of Berkeley people

  • Now that the pandemic is wrapping up (hopefully) people want a change of scenery and are shuffling all over the place

• A lot of people seem to be moving on career wise for similar reasons.

• There are rumors floating around that we might go fully remote… Wonder how that’ll affect my plans

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Ended the trip back in DC. Got dinner with Apollo and Harry at North Italia where I got a pretty good bolognese.

Also went to Tatte Bakery several times for some delicious tomato flatbread and sandwiches.

Look at all this good food

We also wandered around Georgetown.

Stared at the sky for a while on our hotel rooftop. DC is so much quieter than NY.

And THAT’S ABOUT IT. Thanks for reading see ya next week.

California Schedule / Week in Review (Video Games, The Sympathizer, BCD)

A quick update on how I’ve been living these days. A somewhat idealized schedule that I don’t perfectly follow:

• Wake around 8-9 AM PST

• Skateboard over to the local Starbucks or Coffee Bean (10 min)

• Drink coffee while staring into the distance/zoning out/people watching (20-30 min)

• Work at the cafe (1-2 hours)

• Skateboard back home (10 min)

• Take a break (anywhere from 10 min to an hour depending on the day)

  • Examples include taking a walk, playing some video games, listening to a podcast while I dangle from the backyard hammock

• Finish up work (couple more hours)

  • I end anywhere from 3/4 PM depending on my schedule

Then after work I

• Play some MORE video games

• Write music

• Read

• Take a walk with the parents

• Listen to a podcast/music while dangling from the backyard hammock

• Eat

And that’s pretty much it. I try to get to bed around 10:15PM, listen to an audiobook or read for an hour and start all over again.

Some thoughts:

• I don’t work that long… the worker drone in me feels antsy considering how “low” my work hours are but hey at least I get my stuff done. My manager doesn’t seem to care much as long as I maintain my responsibilities and that makes her a great manager in my eyes. Crunch time comes around every major project we start and I make up the hours then so it all evens out

• This schedule is the result of several weeks of ~fine tuning~. When I first got home my schedule was a chaotic mess.

• I’ve been trying to be conscious of spending more time outside. Something about being inside the house all the time leaves me in a fugue state where hours seem to fly by and I have no idea where the time went. Maybe the lack of variability in the day makes it all lump together?

• I miss the routine of being in a place with other people. Those pre-rona late nights at the office ordering Mala Project, grabbing drinks at the kitchen tap, making our way to k town for Korean fried chicken… how precious those days gone by turned out to be :’). You never know how valuable those times are till they’re gone. And that habit of looking back on days gone by repeats for the rest of your life as you miss out on the present looking back on the past. :’’’’’’)

  • Being out here in the burbs mostly alone makes me feel like an aimless blob.

• On a positive note it’s a cozy feeling to be back home with the parents (and Harry) again. How precious few opportunities will we have for all of us to be in the same part of the world. If only IF ONLY I had this and some regular contact with a group outside of my family as well. The best of all worlds.

  • Maybe I’ll move to socal someday in the near future

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Some specifics this past week:

• Spent a lot of time playing video games. The following games are ranked by how much fun I had playing them

  • It Takes Two

    • What an INCREDIBLE co-op game. Played it with Harry. Almost every ten minutes I found myself saying stuff like “this game is so creative”, “wow did not expect that”—and I am not the type to say stuff like this out loud while doing most activities

    • This game really goes places. A true unexpected adventure.

  • Demeo

    • Also played this with Harry. Imagine dungeons and dragons in VR form.

    • A bit on the short side and I can see myself getting tired of it after 3+ plays but it’s been a great couple hours so far

  • Beat Saber

    • I like to go into trance while chopping blocks to music what can I say

  • In Death Unchained

    • You go around shooting baddies with a bow and arrow in VR

    • Had a lot of fun playing. Ranked lower because it’s kinda scary and I’m not into horror :)

    • Also this one is a roguelike which feels like a bit of a grind sometimes.

  • God of War

    • Really well made game. I was very invested for the first few hours I played it.

    • It feels like an investment to get into every time I pick it up. Some activation energy required to get into it which is why it’s a bit lower on my list

    • Great game though. Put another way this is a game I admire for its achievements but it is not a game I’ve fallen in love with

Also finished The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Picked it up for a few of reasons

• The writer is a Berkeley alum

• I—like so many other Asian Americans right now—wanted to go deeper into our history (mostly in response to these Asian hate crimes).

  • There is a history of Asian Americans banding together in response to traumatic events to our community. Seems like there’s a cycle of:

    • Not placing much meaning in our Asian American identity

    • Being traumatized as Asian Americans

    • Rallying in response to these traumas to deepen our understanding of Asian American identity/find solidarity with other Asian Americans

• It seemed funny

Overall good read. Reminded me of Catch 22/Kurt Vonnegut in that absurdist style mixed with comedy. Thought the premise was clever. Exploring that in between status/seeing both sides as an Asian in America. Also liked the historical context surrounding the Vietnam war/perspective given from a Vietnamese person during that time.

The writing itself was funny but in parts I found myself zoning out a bit. But that could be my fault because it has been some time since I read a book and my focus is l a c k i n g.

Will probably check out the sequel at some point.

And in other news Harry’s off in Pennsylvania again. He got a new job hallelujah! So he went off to pack all his stuff before he moves to DC next. Dropped him off at the airport and got BCD (korean tofu stew restaurant) on the way back.

Oh lord BCD was delicious. Praise be in all earnestness that some meals can taste so damn good. Got the dumpling soondubu. Got all the best banchan—kimchi, fish cake, spinach cooked with sesame oil. Great stuff.

Purge / LA / Big Bites, Small City

Almost a month since I came back to SoCal.

My PS4 run has subsided and I’m putting in far fewer hours. When I first came back home I went through a bout of retail therapy. Buying up a buncha gadgets/toys I kinda wanted to fill a void.

I’m on the tail end of that as well and have realized fully what I knew all along—buying things doesn’t do much for me.

I think back to my media purge days—days of going overboard trying to eradicate every non-work-related usage of the internet in my personal life. Uninstalling the web browser on my phone so I’d focus more on the world around me. Denying myself Netflix/TV during solo quarantine and relying on books/podcasts instead.

Absolutely over the top. But I think the underlying idea was worthwhile. And the practice of purging every once in a while is a good idea too.

Cut on the non-essentials. Force myself to keep a quiet mind for a while.

Might dip my toes in again. Pick one day a week to go over the top like that. Maybe Wednesdays? A nice mid week break to declutter the noise.

Yeah—I’ll try that out this week (hope I remember) and see how it feels.

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Quick catchup on the last few weeks. Some highlights:

Visited Grand Central Market / Downtown LA
Originally went for the eggslut but that was closed.

Got tacos instead at Villa Moreliana, a taco shop with more cuts of pork than I ever remember seeing on a single menu. Got the tripas and chicharron tacos. Tripas were great—the right combo of fat/funk that I look for in a taco. Only wish they were slightly crispier.

Chicharron were almost too chicharrony. Crunchy to a fault. Too much crunch detracting from what the taco’s really all about—the meat.

Good price, great flavor. Would go again.

We also got donuts at Donut Man. Not a huge donut guy to begin with and the one we got (Tiger Tail) was meh. Some of the other flavors looked great though.

shoulda got this instead smdh

Wandered around after eating. Downtown LA was a weird mix of pre/post gentrification. Even just a street over you could feel a drastic difference.

After lunch in DTLA we headed over to K town for KBBQ with Raymond (and his friend Jay). Hadn’t had KBBQ in a while but it was pretty mediocre. Was shocked at how poppin K town was that night. Put my name down for Quarters and Kang Ho Dong and the wait times three and two hours, respectively.

K Town with the fam
We’ve been in celebration mode since Harry got a new job. Got lunch at Jae Bu Do, which serves Korean seafood barbecue. Course after course of various seafood dishes (shrimp, clams, lobster, eel, etc.) as well as some other Korean staples (buchimgae aka Korean pancake, corn cheese).

look at all that butter

Good overall. Hadn’t been here in two years. In the absence of this restaurant I built this grand expectation of what the meal would be and was subsequently a bit disappointed. Would recommend though. Unique and I haven’t seen any other restaurant do anything similar.

Next time I go to K Town I’d love to get some ganjang gaejang (raw soy marinated crab). A top tier Korean dish in my book.

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Big Bites, Small City

This is a new segment suggested by Harry. If you’ve ever driven past a small town/city and wondered what kind of food that place might have then this is the segment for you.

We start this segment with Burnin Mouth, the hottest new place in the Collection food court. With my newfound expertise on Nashville style chicken sandwiches (had Howlin Ray’s a few weeks ago, no biggie), I can soundly declare that Burnin Mouth is an even better spicy chicken sandwich spot.

I ordered the Coo coo sandwich at an Ugly spicy level and it was an experience. Spice sneaks up on you like a devil. A mix of spicy/tasty that drives you to keep chewing. By the end of the meal I was pacing around and shaking myself in an attempt to drive out the pain. Didn’t work but I’m glad I went through it.

Next time I’d probably get a lower spicy level though. Spiciness fugs me up these days.

California in a photo. Even just looking at it now makes me want one.

The second spot I’d highlight is the elote cart in my neighborhood. This very exclusive spot will be hard to track down. Only available on the weekends near the park where the neighborhood kids play baseball. Not only do they serve the only known elote available in walking distance from my house, but they also serve a variety of other Mexican snacks.

I’d seen this spot a number of times on different walks around the neighborhood. Mom, in her omnipresent overabundance of caution would consistently protest when I’d suggest going.

This time around I went alone with Dad, the far more lenient of the two.

We ordered two items—elote for me, strawberry ice for him. All for the cheap price of six dollars.

Strawberry ice—delicious. Right on the verge of too sweet, but not crossing that line.

Elote—delicious. Korean and Mexican cuisines consistently have these parallels. Corn cheese at the KBBQ spot. Elote at the Mexican cart. No wonder Korean Mexican fusion is one of the most accessible fusion foods these days.

Harry and I discussed fusion foods on a walk recently. One combo that I think would be delicious that doesn’t seem to have been done: Korean Halal. Imagine halal rice, some veggies, a nice layer of korean barbecue (bulgogi, for example) and a spurt of that delicious white sauce. Doesn’t that sound like something you’d want to eat?

Anyways, back to the elote: absolutely hit the spot. This particular elote was a great representation of that essential elote flavor combo. Sweet, juicy(?) corn, a nice layer of mayo, and a layer of spicy seasoning for that added kick/tang. My only wish is that the corn came off the cob. Elote is too hard to eat cleanly.

This has been the first edition of Big Bites, Small City.

Thanks for reading!

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That’s it for this week. For the upcoming week I’m going to get my sleep schedule back in check and give this occasional media purge a shot.

Here are some random photos from the last two weeks:

BEAUTIFOOL BLUE

A tried and true method

Intermission [Got a PS4]

I am very busy this week with my PS4 so I’m taking an intermission.

I have almost a decade of video games to catch up on so please bear with me.

This week I’ve mostly been playing Persona 5 Royal (AMAZING so far) and Borderlands 3 (pretty mindless/fun/violent shooter).

Late Night Kpop / The Burbs

Here we are my friends. At this fateful hour I sit at my kitchen table having spent the last hour and a half bingeing kpop videos and I ask myself where oh where oh where does the time go.

There was a period when I thought music was a beautiful but frivolous thing. Pretty to listen to but with little effect. I’d wonder occasionally whether there was such a thing as LIFE CHANGING MUSIC.

As I stew in the haze of my post-binge my answer to that is yes. There is such a thing as LIFE CHANGING MUSIC. Little by little do these kpop songs mold my soul and life trajectory as the water molds the canyon.

Here’s why. As I get older (and as I start to believe that “time is running out”) I succumb to a feeling of helplessness. Thoughts of “it’s too late for that” or “life is all the same” abound. And at a certain point I forget that feeling of conquest. The youthful, unshakeable belief that one way or another I’ll get what I want out of this world starts to fade.

I don’t want to live like that.

And when I see these kpop groups with their dancing and singing and rapping—chasing as close as they can to perfect their craft—I am reminded of the fact that I too must muster all my strength and courage to chase perfection where I can. Never succumb to that humdrum feeling.

TLDR: At this late hour of the night I am inspired by kpop groups

Though it’ll make me feel like a complete koreaboo* let me share the videos that have put me in such a contemplative state:

• Stray Kids "神메뉴" M/V

• j-hope 'Chicken Noodle Soup (feat. Becky G)' MV

• [MV] STAYC (스테이씨) _ SO BAD

• HYO ‘DESSERT (Feat. Loopy, SOYEON ((G)I-DLE))’ MV

• Jackson Wang & Galantis - Pretty Please (Official Music Video)

*as a native Korean I don’t think I can qualify as a koreaboo in the first place

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As hinted above I’ve been grappling with my return to the suburbs.

In the suburbs I require far more activation energy to do anything.

You want to leave the house in the city? Just walk out the front door and wander around your neighborhood. Walk to a cafe. Catch a subway. EZPZ. Just look out for potential Asian hate crime attacks or belligerent homeless people or gigantic rats the size of small cats or pigeons pooping on you (I’ve literally seen this happen to two friends so far) or rising gun violence and you’re all good.

Want to leave the house in the suburbs? You could walk out the door and wander but the neighborhood’s boring as hell. If you really want to go somewhere you absolutely need a destination in mind since the default mode of transportation is by car. It’s hard to wander around because (again) you’re pretty much going by car. Your method of discovery boils down pretty much to Yelp (or maybe a few Reddit posts).

Anyways I started to get sick of my own complaining (I have so many damn complaints these days… when did I become so cranky?) so I’ve been actively trying to force myself out of the house:

• Going on daily evening walks with the rest of the fam

  • Also trying to squeeze in a skateboard ride around the neighborhood when I’m not lazy

  • Some photos from the hood:

As I peer into the eyes of cat I wonder: am I the observer… or the prey?

Our street in particular has several cats that come and go as they please. My dad was napping on our recliner once and woke to the feeling of fur brushing his feet. A random cat had entered our home 🐱

• Buying a hammock as a nudge to spend more time outdoors

  • The thought process here is that I’ll feel less encouraged to watch TV or play overwatch if I’m outdoors and therefore more likely to do something I’d rather do like read or listen to music

  • So far I find myself just playing overwatch on my hammock but it still feels great laying in a hammock so I count that as a win.

Enjoy the feet pic you pervs

• Driving to Kay’s Coffee in Camarillo

Preach, road sign near Kay’s

I’ve also been trying to build up a social life:

• Friday I caught up with Yang to watch Demon Slayer: Mugen Train

  • Yang is perhaps one of my oldest close friends. We started hanging out freshman year of high school.

  • Wow… Demon Slayer was amazing. So many feelings. Incredible fight scenes. Heart wrenching emotional scenes. Gotta love it

• Saturday I caught up with Erika. We got chicken sandwiches from Howlin Ray’s (regular readers will note that I listed that as a goal in my last post. I’m proud that I got to it so quickly). And walked around Chinatown and Silver Lake

  • Erika is a friend from church. I guess family friends since our parents are also friends with each other. Wild that it had been 2 years since we last saw each other.

  • Howlin Ray’s was delicious. Literally three different groups of passersby commented on how delicious the sandwich was while we were eating them at the park. Next time I’d get medium plus spicy

  • Chinatown was cool! Did not know Chinatown existed in LA (obvious in hindsight). Seemed a little dead when we visited but they had some interesting stores/restaurants. We also got tea at Steep

  • Silver Lake was also cool. Gave off some hip Austin vibes. Maybe a more compact Austin.

  • I realized that I truly hate parking in LA. The panic of slowly driving around looking for an empty spot while countless cars back up behind you.

Some stairs we found in silver lake. Great view from the top… should have taken a pic

Drive back on the PCH

Also diving back into making music.

• Rejoined my producer discord

• Started reworking a song (Waiting) I’d been working on late last year.

Anyways, I’m slowly building out a life out here. Will try to explore more and keep pushing for kpop level perfection.

Prospect Place / Back Home

Well! I finally moved out of my apartment! Since 2013 I had essentially moved every single year. This apartment was the very first place I’d lived in for more than a year (February 2020 to May 2021).

It housed me during the great pandemic of 2020 and for that I am extremely grateful. Moving here to Prospect Heights from my tiny “one bedroom” (more like a studio with a wall running down the middle) in East Village was a stroke of great timing.

I still remember answering that post on Facebook Marketplace, making my way to Prospect Heights from the office with DLO tagging along for emotional support, making small talk with the tenant about Mac Miller’s latest album (Circles) in the hopes of making a good impression and being selected as the new tenant, grabbing dinner at Geido (I’ve always wondered why there are so many sushi spots around my apartment. 5+ on my street in a 2 block radius…), and getting drinks/bitching about the boss I had at that time… it all worked out.

I truly loved this spot. From the wide sunlit windows through which I’d look out during the pandemic to remind myself that there was actually still a world out there.

To the small recording booth I’d set up in the corner to record all my vocals.

To the wonky shower that required turning the handle all the way to the left then gradually to the right to get any hot water at all. To the weird pentagon shaped tiny bedroom with a door that opened outwards. To the lantern I set up in the corner of my bedroom that I’d stare at while listening to a podcast (Mission to Zyxx or Hello From the Magic Tavern) until I felt sleepy enough to drift away… I loved it all!

Thank you apartment, for keeping me safe and alive through this wild year and a half.

I’ll miss the neighborhood (Prospect Heights/Park Slope) as well. Thoroughly enjoyed the corner of Vanderbilt and Prospect where there were not 1, not 2, but 3(!!!!) different spots to get coffee and sit down for some people watching. Of the three (Mille-Feuille Bakery Cafe, Milk Bar, and Olde Brooklyn Bagel Shoppe) Olde Brooklyn Bagel Shoppe was my favorite. Great benches, strong coffee, and the cashier recognized me after enough time to remember my go to order (1 small coffee 😂).

I also enjoyed biking through the Prospect Park loop and walking down Prospect Park West until I hit 15th street. Park Slope and Prospect Heights have some of the most beautiful buildings in New York by far. Brownstone after brownstone after brownstone. A feast for the eyes. Here is that walk recreated in photo form:

We start at Grand Army Plaza

Walking down Prospect Park West

Peeking down one of the streets in Park Slope

Brownstones!

All these beautiful buildings!

Fifth Ave

Stumble on a street concert depending on the time of year

Cross streets near my apartment

One pleasant surprise to this neighborhood was the prevalence of Jamaican food. Before living here I’d never tried Jamaican food. Cinnamon Girl and 3d's Delight Restaurant and Bakery were my spots for beef patties (the crust is great at Cinnamon Girl. The filling is great at 3D’s). I also had Peppa’s Jerk Chicken a number of times for jerk chicken and oxtail. Good stuff.

Strolling down 5th and 7th ave. Hanging out on Vanderbilt with friends (Chuko Ramen, Brooklyn Homeslice, Bierwax). Being delighted in discovering an Asian grocery just down the street (DNY Natural Land). Getting high and gorging myself on a chopped cheese from the bodega (Best & Quick Gourmet). MEMORIES!

Who knows when I’ll be back?

Moving out was a pain. In the history of mankind I wonder how many people have actually enjoyed the move out process. Ahh well at least it’s done.

Me in my apartment for the final time :’)

After the move I met up with Jess and we went to Brooklyn Homeslice so I could say goodbye to my neighborhood spot and enjoy a final two slices.

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After moving out I took a flight back to LAX. I have a newish tradition where every time I land in LAX I go to Benny's Tacos & Chicken Rotisserie for a California burrito. This burrito was good but not as great as the last one. Benny’s Tacos, you slippin…

nothin like eating a burrito in a car

Settling back into the SoCal suburbs will take some adjusting. The main issue is that I don’t have a car which means the last few days I’ve been tumbling around home alone for the bulk of my day. Going from the busy-ness of the city to the dead silence of the suburban home has been a little disorienting.

I also need to get out of this techno slump. It seems almost every hour I’m not working I’m either

• Watching youtube

• Watching netflix

  • Shoutout to Sherry who watched the final episode of Vincenzo with me using Scener. I’m sad that the series is finished :’(

• Playing switch

• Playing on my Oculus (recently bought one)

now THIS is an action shot

Before I had other things to do like walk around the city or meet up with some friends. But here there’s not much else.

On the other hand, a huge benefit of being back is spending time with the family. Not only am I with my parents, but Harry also decided to come back home as well! This is the first time in months all four of us are together.

This past weekend we headed out to Koreatown while waiting to pick up Harry at LAX. Went to Shin Beijing for some Korea/Chinese fusion. The highlight of the meal was Jajangmyeon—black bean noodle—which is a childhood favorite of mine.

Also went to the beach and got crab boil from Crab 'N Spice.

A Rude Dude

A Rude Dude Part II

Yeah… Overall happy to be home and with family. Slightly worried about what life is going to look like here.

Some general things I want to try while I’m here

• Hit up all the good food spots in SoCal (eggslut, howlin ray's are on the list so far)

• Try living in Ktown (or any LA neighborhood) for a few weeks

• Learn how to surf

• Take singing lessons (so my family members stop trashing my singing)

• See the few friends I have in the area

Not sure what else there is but I’ll update the list as I go along.

Here’s a lil treat for you BTS fans out there. TBH the coffee sucked tho

Harry's Burg V2: Soy Loco for Solo Taco / NY the return / The Gap

Alright buds. We’re doing a speedrun for this blog post because it’s past 11PM and I want to squeeze in some Overwatch before I go to sleep.

Had a very fun week.

We start the week off in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Harry and I squeeze in a lot of activities before I head off.

• Get birria tacos at Taco Solo and holy cow they are fantastic. I had a shitty day at work and this was one of those meals that completely revamped my fighting spirit. Crunchy, cheesy, gooey, fatty, meat-so-soft-your-teeth-slice-through-like-knives. Got the al pastor and the carnitas. Carnitas were some of the best I’ve ever had.

• I like this trend of serving tacos with consomme. The consomme was a flavorful, soul enriching broth that transformed the entire taco experience. A sauce and a soup. What a world we live in~

• I am a city elitist. I’ll fully admit that. Having lived in NY/SF for the past four years I’ve developed the snobby mentality that these places are where all the good food’s at. Taco solo knocked me off my arrogant ass and reminded me—once again—that great food can exist anywhere.

After dinner we crossed the bridge to City Island, which is an island right in the middle of the river running through Harrisburg. Good size. We lapped it in 30-40 minutes. Saw a groundhog.

I liked the vibe. Kinda reminded me of Huckleberry Finn where he camps out on that random island after floating down river on a raft. Felt like it would have been a fun place to hang out on as a kid. Baseball field, mini golf, ice cream, parks, trees, woodland creatures, minion trash can art. That kind of vibe.

Anyways, goodbye Harrisburg! Who knows how long Harry will live here. Without him here there’s no sensible reason for me to visit (besides Taco Solo but that’s a hard sell). Makes me wonder how much there is in the non-popular parts of America. Would love to see what the rest of middle America has to offer.

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NY Subway eyes

Had to swing by for a Levain’s cookie upon arrival

Got back to New York and hung out at the office for the next few days. Caught up with some work friends who happened to be at the office. First question they asked me was when I’m leaving the company…

The company does feel so different from when the pandemic started. So many have come and gone. Morale has been down, abysmal, and now back up again (but maybe back down now due to certain regulations/stock price movements?).

In any case it was great seeing some faces I’d completely forgotten about during the certain times of the pandemic. Makes me feel like the city really is rebounding well from the pandemic.

Got to see a bunch of people before my departure later this week.

Met up with Chris and Chynna to get chicken at Frangos Peri Peri. I was missing some context but apparently this is a copycat of Nando’s chicken? At least according to the Aussies at the table.

stop squinting Chris

• Chicken was pretty decent. The sauce was unlike anything I had before. Tangy, a lil spicy. I don’t think I’d go out of my way for it again but I’m glad I went.

• Afterwards we went to Black Crescent for a buncha random cocktails. Met a mutual friend who works as an actor so it was cool asking her questions.

Met up with Dan and Tony for biking. I went from Prospect Heights to World Trade Center to Chick Chick in Upper West Side.

• I truly love biking. Within my top three favorite physical activities hands down absolutely 🙏

• Chick Chick was great. I wanted to eat Korean fried chicken before I left and this definitely scratched that itch.

  • Apparently the restaurant is known for Korean fried chicken as well as Nashville hot chicken. I’ll try the Nashville next time.

• Upper West Side in general was great. We grabbed boba afterwards and chilled on a bench in Riverside Park which frequent readers will note is one of my favorite activities.

Later that night Tony and I went drinking with Annie and Raymond at Crown Alley and Jungle Bird. We got a punch bowl at Jungle Bird. How many years has it been since I’ve had one of these?

Played the classic fingers on the bowl game where each player has the option to lift their finger or keep it on the bowl each round. We go around in a circle and guess how many fingers will remain on the bowl. The correct guess means you’re safe and no longer need to play. Last one to guess correctly drinks.

I lost several times and Raymond delighted in my misery. “Finish your drink bitch” — haven’t heard those words in a while either :’).

Fun night.

I am slowly re-acclimating to going out with friends again. Earlier this pandemic I could only go an hour or two before burning out socially but now I’m getting back into the game.

Speaking of games one of my favorites from back in college. Was too drunk and stupid to play properly but had fun

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Got to see Dominic and Jess before I left too (and Sherry via video chat).

Random photo of Dominic chillin on my sofa. He sublet my place and I’m glad I can share that experience with someone. This was a great apartment.

Dinner with Jess at Miti Miti. Coconut shrimp taco was great.

Jess dropped the bomb that she’s quitting soon and staying unemployed for the rest of the year (?) to figure out what she wants to do for the rest of her life.

What an incredible move.

I don’t know a single person who has done this or would currently do this. Her plan is to pursue some creative stuff. Make pottery, make music, maybe go back to study something interesting unrelated to tech.

We talked about how we have decades ahead of us to focus on our careers. We’ve both done decently well career-wise, put in the groundwork and can probably afford to take a bit of a detour.

I don’t know if I’d be comfortable living unemployed for months (especially since healthcare is more of a concern for me vs Jess who’ll live in Canada) but I applaud her and will live vicariously from the sidelines.

I think it makes so much sense to take this gap year. Work life/work culture has been a non stop ride since college. Gotta take some time to see what you want/like. It’s a privilege to do so.

Your decisions are always influenced by the people around you so who knows maybe I’ll end up doing something similar too.

And here we are at the end of the post. I’m off to finish one last task and play some Overwatch until sweet sweet sleep takes me away.

Before I go here are some random photos from this week

pre-Sherry-video-chat cold brew

Even the cows wear masks in Upper West Side. This is THE PLACE TO BE

The gates out of ToAnnie’s place. Possibly the last time I see it since they’re moving to the Bay but I will always remember the sentiment :’)

Pigeon art near the office

Frank Ape in candle form!!!!! Currently one of my favorites

Blonely (bored & lonely) / Harrisburg (Harry's burg)

This one will be long to make up for missing last week.

I’ve been pretty out of it this week. A combination of loneliness and boredom. As I write this blog post though I feel pretty good so don’t worry bout me reader.

Anyways, here are some highlights from the last few weeks:

• Went on a date last Friday. We’d been texting back n forth a couple days before meeting up. Not usually a fan of this because I usually build up a perception of the other person solely based on our texts and it’s a hit or miss as to whether that perception matches the reality. We started at Beer Street South, moved over to Chuko for ramen, and ended with drinks at Bier Wax.

  • Decent time overall but the date ended terrrrribly. Will definitely not see her again haha

• Saturday I met up with Dominic for tacos from this Birria truck (Birria Landia) I saw on youtube. Tacos were kinda overrated IMO but I’m glad I went. We got drinks afterwards at Rocka Rolla and We Got Company and I got very drunk. Saw a cutie across the bar and hit her up but got shot down :(

First time trying tacos with consomme

Creepy cool mural I saw on the way home

Brooklyn Academy of Music has these light installations that alternates patterns. Andrew L and I once spent almost ten minutes zoning out staring at these patterns. Out of respect for that memory I stayed here a couple minutes before drunkenly stumbling my way back home

• Sunday I met up with Naveen, Dominic, Chris L and Chynna at Tatsu Ramen. Kinda wild that all of us worked together at some point but everyone dispersed to other companies through the course of the pandemic. I am the only holdout still at our company. Attrition has been notoriously bad at my company so I am one of the few people still left here out of the cohort I started with… SAD! But hey at least I see my old work friends from time to time. We ended the night at Veniero's Pasticceria for Italian desserts.

Chris actin a fool per usual

• Monday I went to Pocha 32 in K town with Raymond and S.Lam. Got the watermelon soju, budaejigae, and potato pancakes. Fun overall. Walked from the office downtown to ktown. Perhaps the longest I’ve walked in Manhattan (in recent memory at least). Here’s that walk replicated in photo form:

Mural near the world trade centers down town by Frank Ape. I’ve seen some of the artist’s work in Brooklyn as well. Such a pleasant figure 🐵

A bar/grill that I once went to for a team offsite. Located near Tribeca. Snapped mostly for the kpop band AOA 😍

Passed by a fire near NYU in Greenwich. Wonder what happens to the residents while they wait for their building to be repaired

The beautiful arch in Washington Square park

Arrived a lil late to K town. It had started raining. Took a pic of the Empire state building. Looks a lil evil right here

• The rest of the week kinda blurred by. Celebrated 4/20 with a few edibles. Tumbled around my neighborhood. Some random photos:

Damn I love cherry blossom season

Finally tried the salmon patty at Cinnamon girl. Good but not as good as the beef patty

I don’t understand adults who put kids on leashes. Will I be one of those parents someday? Stay tuned…

Going back to the boredom/loneliness topic—it just felt that every day was the same. Maybe it was post travel blues, or the loneliness of living alone, or working during a pandemic, or the fact that I seem to be getting older but it seemed like almost every day was the same. And every day would continue to be more or less the same.

I’ve been thinking more and more recently that I have to do something. But I’m so used to making excuses not to act. There’s always a reason. Always some logic that points me to the safer, stabler route.

Don’t wanna live like that.

Before I get too old I want to roam around the world a little bit. Live that nomad life a couple months and see how it is in other places. I think that’s the next move.

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Updates from the current weekend:

• Been working on music again. Hoping to wrap up the song in a week or two and release~~~~. When have things ever gone according to schedule though 😅

• Caught up with Sherry. One big highlight from the convo is that she’s considering working freelance for a while and roaming from location to location. Would be amazing if we could coordinate.

• Took the train to visit Harry in Harrisburg. Got a late dinner at Cork & Fork with a great meal of pistachio pesto pizza, mushroom ravioli and scallop risotto.

  • Been watching a lot of Vincenzo recently which is about a Korean lawyer who ends up as a consigliere in the Italian mafia so it felt very fitting to be eating Italian.

    • Fire K drama btw. Definitely in my top three so far.

• Went to Hershey Land with Harry. An amusement park created by the Hershey chocolate company. What a concept! What a world we live in!

• Got dinner with Harry at Troegs Brewery. Sampler of beers, chili cheese fries, charcuterie board, and half dozen oysters. This spot has great pickles. Come fo the beer, stay for the pickles.

Btw I’ve decided to add photos of myself and friends. I was against the idea due to privacy reasons BUT I now think that I want to look back at the blog in a few years and remember all these random memories and photos would be nice. Also who actually reads this blog besides myself, some of my friends occasionally and Andrew my number 1 reader (shoutout to my boy Andrew).

Philly / Apollo in DC / Return to NY

Guys gals n non binary pals yall are in for a treat. It’s a double feature blog post this week since I’m making up for last week.

We took a flight out of Austin into Philly. Here are highlights from Philly:

• Landed and went straight to Chinatown. With the anti Asian racism going on these days you gotta go straight for the most Asian part of the city to get your bearings you feel me? Also really wanted to get dim sum at Dim Sum Garden.

  • Overall the food here was pretty decent. Good price. Mostly tasted as expected, nothing crazy. However, the Pan Fried Beef Potato Cakes were amazing. One of the best things I ate this past week hands down. If I ever found myself back in Philly I’d go out of my way to eat this

• Visited the Eastern State Penitentiary museum. This was an audio guided tour where you go from checkpoint to checkpoint listening to curated facts/history. Great tour overall and pretty COVID safe since most of it was outdoors. Some facts:

  • Eastern State Penitentiary was the first to pioneer solitude confinement. In their case they truly believed it would help rehabilitate the patient. They believed that the prisoner would reflect and repent in the quiet. Unfortunately/obviously this isn’t how solitary confinement actually plays out

  • Some prisoners go into solitary confinement for 20+ years. Can you possibly imagine being stuck in a cell with no one to talk to for that amount of time? No wonder people go crazy in solitary. They had a few quotes from some of the prisoners that had spent years in solitary. One of them challenged the reader to lock themselves in their bathroom for a few years to understand what it feels like. Terrifying.

• Visited Reading Terminal Market. Buncha food stalls there. Not super impressed sorrybud

• Got cheesesteaks at Oh Brother Philly. This was a great meal. A real trashy smash-food-down-my-gullet-like-a-good-american kinda meal. Split the bacon cheese fries, Truffle cheesesteak and french onion cheesesteak.

• Hotpot at Chubby Cattle. Was good overall but kinda pricey. Also wasn’t AYCE. How now brown cow? How you gonna do hotpot with AYCE? Smdh

• Boba multiple times at Tiger Sugar. This spot currently tops my list for boba.

Always lookin for that Korean flag. Right by the art museum

Thoughts on Philly: I’m a real hater but I did not like Philly (sorrybud). Too small. Too dangerous. Too many random homeless dudes getting up in my face while I’m walking the streets. Just leave me alone bro. A week here was too long for sure. Will be a while before I return.

Harry’s got some moves

Oldest street in America so that’s somethin

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Took a slight detour from Philly and visited Apollo in Washington DC.

Caught up with him about his new job at a DARPA contractor. Don’t know anyone else doing that and hearing about the job was pretty cool. We talked over perhaps the best burger in Washington DC at Duke’s Grocery’s. Will come back to this spot for sure the next time I’m in DC.

Afterwards we went to a few monuments.

Got some beer at Red Bear Brewing Company where I had the delicious Grande Goddess Vanilla Latte Stout.

Ended the night at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream.

Great seeing Apollo again. Harry really enjoyed the city and may end up moving there. Love you DC. You’re the next East coast city I’d live in if I were somehow forced out of NYC.

Creepy shark thing found on the side of the road. WTF is the story behind this?

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Ended the trip in UWS. Man I love UWS. Man I love New York.

Walked through Central Park sleep deprived and lonely (“sleep deprived and lonely”—title of my upcoming self published autobiography ). Basked in the glory of the rain and the water and the cherry blossoms.

Shook to my core with the belief that this was the greatest park in the greatest city in the world.

Wrapped up with Japanese curry from Shinbashi 72 (sick name, decent curry). Aiming to try Curry Mania next.

After testing negative for COVID I also went to the new office. Baller views.

A bittersweet feeling to see faces I haven’t seen in over a year. More bittersweet thinking about the coworkers that left or were laid off during the pandemic.

Ended the workday by meeting up with Naveen and Dominic over Korean BBQ at GunBae. Two of the wiser friends that I have for sure. A quarter of the time was spent catching up. A quarter spent pouring drinks respectfully-with-two-hands-korean-style while drinking at the same time. A quarter spent chowing on some delicious KBBQ. And a quarter spent listening to the wisdom Naveen and Dom were spitting at me.

Talked about race in America. Talked about how race plays out in India and Jamaica (where they grew up) and how in other countries race is less integral to your identity. And a buncha other topics.

Ended the night out singing karaoke. The thought of Dominic doing the monologue from Boyz II Men’s End of the Road is a memory and video that will stay with me for years to come.

Dunbar / Austin Part II

There’s a scene in one of my favorite books (Catch 22) where Dunbar is obsessed with doing boring things so he can extend his perception of time.

Dunbar loved shooting skeet because he hated every minute of it and the time passed so slowly. He had figured out that a single hour on the skeet-shooting range with people like Havermeyer and Appleby could be worth as much as eleven-times-seventeen years.

Oh Dunbar you silly bitch. You’re doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing.

As all of us who survived the great pandemic of 2020 can attest:

The more time you spend doing something you find boring/un-pleasurable the more quickly that time will seem to have passed

Who among us can say 2020 felt like a lengthy year? Almost no one. Why? Because every damn day was spent doing pretty much the same thing.

I bet there’s a science to this. Something like temporal landmarks.

If you’re in the forest where everything looks the same you have no idea how far you’ve travelled. If you’re on a busy road with a buncha landmarks it’s a lot easier to tell how far you’ve travelled.

Same thing with time.

Here’s a reddit post that sums it all up:

In other words:

If you want to live a seemingly lengthy life fill it to the brim with interesting and different things

Throughout the past few years (especially 2020) time has felt like it’s flown by. I catch myself off guard when I calculate how many years I’ve been out of college (4), out of high school (8). It will probably only get worse from here unless I do something different.

Gotta roll the dice. Switch things up. Can’t just do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Here’s the current fantasy:

• Find a completely remote job and rotate locations every 3 months or so

• Find a four day work week job (they exist!) and do some acting or focus more on music on the day off

Both would require some sacrifices (i.e. walking away from that sweet sweet tech money) but isn’t that a gamble I can take at this age?

I want to avoid being too comfortable and too complacent.

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The remaining time in Austin was a blast. Here’s a random assortment of what I remember doing at Austin

• Went to Terry Black’s for barbecue. Got their gigantic beef rib along with brisket, mac n cheese and creamed corn. Was pretty delicious but I either overate or got food poisoning because I spent the next day throwing up for hours.

  • Would not do again :/ and will probably stay away from barbecue for a while

• Went to Veracruz tacos a few times. Really enjoyed working out of the patio in Radio Coffee and grabbing Veracruz tacos in the mornings. Great shrimp and breakfast tacos.

  • Veracruz, I love you. You served perhaps the best tacos I’ve had in my short time on this planet. How do you do it?

• Tacos again and queso at Torchy’s tacos. I’m a sucker for queso. Torchy’s was pretty well rated so we went there. Slightly on the salty side for me but overall enjoyable. Torchy’s gives off an elevated Jack in the box vibe where they have kinda trashy late night food but they do it well. E.g. one of my tacos was a chicken finger taco—exactly the type of dish you’d expect Jack in the Box to attempt

  • Would go again for sure. Probably great as a drunk food

• Met up with ToAnnie’s friends a couple times. Super nice welcoming people (shoutout Ryan, Kevin and Izzy). We played a couple of board games. The most memorable one was Boss Monster (would play again).

Final thoughts on Austin: fun city for sure. Love the open space. Love the patios all around where you can lounge for a while sippin on coffee or beer. Probably a little too hot for me in the summer but I can see why everyone’s moving over there. Also not a fan of the lack of sidewalks.

I hope it does not go the way of SF.

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No Wydbot this week. Kinda gave it up while I was away from home. May get back into it once I’m back in my routine.

Intermission

A lil burnt out from work (project launch week). Will write a new post later this week

Revenge / Austin

Busy busy busy week.

Don’t remember much of the week. Just remember feeling a little lonely after Andrew left. I had gotten so used to living alone and his visit reminded of how alone I’ve been lately 😭. It was nice having a roommate for a short while. May get a roommate later this year.

Also video chatted with Sherry. Amongst other things we talked about the “evil” side to our personalities. E.g. if you could take revenge with zero repercussions—absolutely destroy your enemy’s life with no blowback or target on your back—would you do it?

I think I would. I think most people would.

Not sure why I’ve been thinking about this topic so much. Also talked about it with Andrew for a while.

It’s been more of a thought with the Asian hate crimes happening recently. Revenge fantasies or something like that.

Here’s another revenge fantasy I have these days. You could call it race honeypotting (racepotting).

Dress up a smaller fighter (Manny Pacquiao?) in old man clothing and makeup. He would roam around by himself in an area with more attacks against Asians (Flushing, Oakland, SF, Manhattan Chinatown—take your pick) and pretend to be vulnerable. Wait for a scumbag to attack and he would beat the shit out of them.

That would be nice.

A very stupid idea for a very stupid scenario we find ourselves in. Who’d have thought that assaulting old Asian people would ever become a trend.

Crazy times call for crazy measures.

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Anyways, I’m in Austin! Andrew, Tony and Annie are all in Austin this week. Harry agreed to tag along as well.

After landing I went over to Andrew’s Airbnb. Saw some friends I hadn’t seen in a loooong time (Raymond, Eric from the old SF frisbee crew that I was a light member of).

My arrival timing was good and bad.

Good because Eric had chosen that day to secretly propose to his girlfriend.

Bad because I’m not that close to Eric and felt like I’d somewhat invited myself to his proposal…

With that in mind I did my best to be a productive member of the proposal prep party. Helped the crew untangle some lights to hang on the gazebo where Eric would eventually propose to Elaine. This task alone took roughly 90 minutes of untangling under the hot, humid, mosquito ridden Austin sun but I was happy to be doing something useful. Also bonded with Andrew’s new girlfriend Carol while we both untangled the lights.

Afterwards helped Alfonso (a native Spaniard who had made paella literally “hundreds” of times) cook his paella. It was my first time helping make paella so that was cool. His technique involved cooking each ingredient separately (green beans, peppers, chicken, tomato sauce) instead of throwing them all in at once). I was also surprised to learn that he relied on a paella spice packet but apparently that’s more for the beautiful golden color than for the taste. From my observation of this single session, paella doesn’t seem that difficult to make. But it does require constant attention/love/supervision for a long time (total cooking time took ~1.5 hours).

Once all the prep was done the proposal itself went well. The gazebo looked beautiful :’). Elaine said yes and we all celebrated afterwards.

While we were all seated at the dinner table eating I felt like I was looking into my near future. What a mature adult thing to do—organizing a dinner party after having proposed to your girlfriend.

Eric is a few years older than me and most of my friends (I’m currently 26 and he’s around 30) but in a couple years this sort of thing will be happening all the time. I’ll probably be going to party after party of proposals and engagements and weddings (given that I don’t lose all my friends in the near future). And one day I may even be the one throwing that party.

What a thought.

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After the engagement party I slept in a bit.

Met up with ToAnnie the following morning at La Barbecue. Call me a barbecue noob but I thought Hometown BBQ was just as good. Tony seemed annoyed when I said so…

Full of barbecue we made our way into downtown Austin. The four of us (Harry, ToAnnie and me) formed a scooter squad and roamed across the city.

After some riding and some sick tricks in an empty bank parking lot we got some coffee at Halcyon.

ToAnnie bounced after that and Harry and I met up with Andrew + friends at Veracruz All Natural where I ate the best barbacoa taco I’ve ever had.

Also got some chicken from Gus’s World Famous Chicken which I thought was a little overrated.

This following week will be more Austin adventures. One note is that the people here are noticeably friendlier. At least the Uber drivers seem really eager to make conversation.

Doesn’t this thrift shop look cool?

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This week’s wydbot is a little inaccurate due to my Austin plans.

UWS + Stop Asian Hate Rally / Jeremy Long

A great week overall. A very busy week. This was week 2 of hanging out with Andrew in NY and we had a packed schedule.

Friday:

Met up with ToAnnie in Ktown at BCD. Got overpriced but delicious boba at Machi Machi

Saturday:

Mostly hung out in UWS. A bit of a scouting trip since I’m considering moving there

Liked it a lot! Doesn’t feel too crowded but has a lot more to do than Prospect Heights. There’s a good amount of racial diversity as well. Everyone seemed extremely friendly. This was my first time in my 2+ years of living in NYC where someone purposefully made eye contact with me and greeted me in the streets. Not only did this happen for me for the first time this past Saturday in UWS but it also happened AGAIN in the same day on another street in the neighborhood. What is going on UWS?!?!

Andrew and I discussed why this might be happening and we both considered it might be a response to the mass shootings in Atlanta that targeted Asians. Both of our greeters seemed to be well-meaning older white people that may have been trying to be more welcoming to Asians? Or maybe people are just significantly nicer in UWS.

Our first stop in UWS was at Jing Fong. Pretty expensive dim sum but man oh man those vibes. I read somewhere that UWS is almost like the Europe of NYC and it felt that way at Jing Fong. Perfect 60 degree weather with outdoor seating chewing on xiao long bao, shiu mai, and bbq pork buns while having a conversation with a close friend. That’s good living right there.

After food we walked a bunch. Went through Hudson River Greenway (a lil park by the waterfront). Wandered through the different streets. Seems like UWS is kinda dead above the mid to high 80s and dead below 72nd so I’ll try to look in between if I end up moving there.

Got an early dinner at Jacob’s Pickles. What a wonderful place. Southern food serving huge portions with everything pretty much dripping with oil and fat. A bunch of outdoor seating with plenty of opportunities for people watching while slowly making your way through a pile of food. A literal pile of food.

We got the poutine and the hot fried chicken (with grits) and it pretty much knocked us both out. Throughout this trip Andrew had been talking a big game about being able to eat a ton (to be fair he did eat a ton on this trip) but even he could not conquer the mountain of poutine. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

We ended the night in my home neighborhood and got drinks at BierWax. This was actually my first time drinking in a bar in my neighborhood (I live alone, don’t like drinking alone, and on the few occasions I drink I end up in Manhattan). It was great!

The theme (if you’d even call it a theme) is the bartenders pick random records to play throughout the night. Mostly heard older R&B like Otis Redding but also some salsa music if I remember correctly. The outdoor patio in the back gave off Jupiter’s vibes (shoutout to my Berkeley readers who know what this is… man I miss Berkeley).

Drank some flavored mead for the first time. Pretty tasty and goes down easy.

From this day alone I can confidently promote Jacob’s Pickles to one of my top 10 NY restos and Bierwax to one of my top 10 NY bars (to be fair this list is only 3-4 entries long).

Sunday:

Made our way to Chinatown to join the Stop Asian Hate rally. I was slightly hungover and wanted coffee so we popped into Kam Hing. Cheap and delicious. Got a Vietnamese coffee and a sponge cake for 4 bucks or something. Can’t remember the last time in NY I was so shocked by how little I was paying for something.

As we walked towards Columbus park to join the rally we accidentally joined a separate protest walking through the streets demonstrating Asian and Black solidarity. It was a day of protests. Literally in the span of a few blocks there were three different protests going on.

I’m always looking out for that Korean flag

Hasan Minhaj said this in Homecoming King:

My dad’s from that generation like a lot of immigrants where he feels like if you come to this country you pay this thing like the American dream tax. Like you’re going to endure some racism but if it doesn’t cost you your life then hey you lucked out. Pay it. There you go Uncle Sam. But for me like a lot of us I was born here so I actually had the audacity of equality. I was in honors gov I have it right here. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness all men are created equal. Says it right here. I’m equal. I’m equal. I don’t deserve this.

They could yell at us to go back to China while driving by in their cars or call us Jackie Chan or do the slanty eye thing or speak down to us like we didn’t know any English. But those things could be brushed off in the past. At least it isn’t worse.

But now we’re starting to realize it can absolutely be way worse and it will continue to get worse unless we do something. Asian people can be assaulted in the streets solely because they’re Asian. Asian people can get stabbed in the back with no words exchanged. Asian people can get shot by white supremacist scum and be gaslit and silenced when more white supremacist scum calls the shootings just a bad day, not a hate crime.

America has made it so easy to be outraged as an Asian American. That rage is a good thing and things will absolutely improve as long as we sustain that rage with the right actions.

The most important things we need as Asians (my current working theory) is

• More representation in media

• More representation in government

• Cross community support/integration

Media
We’re dehumanized and vilified in media. The more Asian stories we tell the more we humanize ourselves to the American public. Hate comes from ignorance and ignorance can be reduced with the right stories in media.

Government
One of the speakers at the rally (Yuh-line Niou I think) mentioned that from a budget of billions of dollars only a couple hundred thousand were used to aid poor Asian communities. We need to be better organized and represented politically to get the right legislation in place to support our people

Cross community support/integration
Asian and Black solidarity is absolutely necessary for both communities. Minorities can not make it in America if we’re fighting amongst each other. Let’s be real though. There’s Anti blackness in Asian communities and Anti Asianness in Black communities.

Why is that?

Maybe because we never actually spend time with each other and dehumanize each other on baseless stereotypes.

We will have to go out of our way to make these connections. I’m an Asian American software engineer. Take a wild guess as to how many non-Asian minorities I interact/work with on a daily basis (although to be fair my latest team is slightly more diverse than previous ones).

Anyways that’s my current lite working theory on the whole situation.

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On a somewhat related note I stumbled on this story about Asian American porn star Jeremy Long.

This dude leaves Berkeley law school to start a porn career because he hates how Asian males are emasculated in media and wants to thwart those stereotypes. That’s just the start of the story….

He then becomes a full fledged porn star and starts having almost way too much sex. He mentions in the article some sense of disillusionment:

There are some things we just know. The first “thing” and one that everyone, even those not considering p‌o‌r‌‌n at all should think about, is that there’s a ceiling to the amount of sex that will fulfill your life, and it’s quite low, and a place once reached, pretty disheartening… And those who have an unsuccessful sex-life at the heart of their unhappiness will quickly realize their unhappiness is grounded in something else.

And is pretty explicit later about how bad his life got because of porn (e.g. overdosing on Caverject).

Porn pretty much destroys his life and he hits rock bottom.

A friend tries to rouse him from rock bottom on Christmas Eve and convinces him to drive them to Hmong New Year in Fresno. They end up in a car crash (possibly due to his intoxication) and the friend eventually dies.

He starts chopping off joints of his finger in a Japanese custom called Yubitsume to show his remorse to the family. His wife ends up killing herself.

Crazy and tragic story.

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Overall happy with how I spent my week. Hanging with Andrew made me realize how isolated I was living alone. Got used to it during the pandemic but now that things are opening up I realize there’s a whole world out there again.

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Weather Vocals Wrap Up / Andrew in Town

Yet another busy week gone by.

The first half of this week was a mad rush to get vocals finalized for the song I’d been working on for the past month.

Two recurring thoughts when it comes to music:

Finishing music is a muscle that must be trained
Which musician amongst us does not have a hard drive full of unfinished songs? It’s so easy to start songs and so much easier to never finish them. I have to keep driving towards that point of unperfect but good enough.

Also it takes physical energy to make songs. At least if you’re recording and singing a lot in a session.

Musicians stand on their entire catalogue of music. Not just on a few songs here and there
I get caught up in the small details of the song—which is necessary since I’m doing most of it myself (songwriting, producing, recording for this one at least). But as I wrap up more songs I realize that each one is just a piece in the bigger puzzle. Even if I make one banging ass song (which I think I’ve done with this one) it’s just a blip on the radar.

Anyways, I’ve had to pause the music for now since Andrew’s in town for this last week and upcoming week. I’ll make a few final tweaks to the instrumental and send it off to a mixer. I cannot wait to be finished with this one. I guess I’ll take a few days (weeks?) before moving on to the next one.

I was listening to a podcast with Rick from Year of the Ox where he mentioned plans to release 2-3 projects this year. Projects!!!

Will I get to that point? Where I measure my progress in number of projects released in a year vs number of songs?

maybe…

I am getting a better sense of how much time I spend at each part of the song making process. So that’s some progress.

General thoughts for upcoming songs:

• Work on controlling your breath when breathing

• Find the right key to sing the song in. The balancing act between singing high enough where there’s good emotion coming through and low enough so I can actually sing it

• Don’t record dozens of takes for any single vocal part. This just makes it a huge pain to comp everything

• Emotion > perfection. The main goal with most vocals should be to convey an emotion or a desire. I.e. it’s not enough to just sing. Gotta sing for a reason

• Work out the doubles/harmonies before starting the recording session

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Andrew visiting has been a big shock to the system. I hadn’t realized how much time I was spending alone:

10AM: wake up
11AM: pop out for a coffee
6/7PM: head out for a walk around the neighborhood
8PM: cook/eat
9PM: work on music

Most of this entirely by myself with occasional sprinklings of human interaction. On weekends I’d pop out and hang out with a few friends for a couple hours. So all in all 4-5 hours hanging out with people in person and a few hours through the week on zoom calls. And this is how I’d been living since late January.

It’s interesting how normal this became for me. I’ve always enjoyed spending time alone (for the most part) but perhaps I’ve gone a bit overboard with the solitude.

So yes, a big change with Andrew visiting. We packed in a bunch of activities over the weekend (a lot has surprisingly opened up recently) including:

• American Museum of Natural History (I got kinda bored after a while—I guess animals are not really my thing)

• Hanging out in UWS and Central Park, eventually getting dinner at Naruto Ramen

• Jamaican food from Peppa’s Jerk Chicken (Oxtail was great! Got a side of great macaroni salad as well)

• Bagels at Olde Brooklyn Bagel Shoppe

• Walking the Brooklyn bridge

• Chelsea Market

• Late night pizza at Tigers Lions and Squares

• Pizza at Homeslice Pizza as well

• Wandering Chinatown and getting boba

• Watching a zoom wedding(!)

• Delicious cookies at Levain Bakery

Hung out with a buncha friends too (ToAnnie, Frank, KFH).

I realized I gotta get my social stamina up. Get used to hanging out with people for extended periods of time again.

All in all pretty fun and packed week. I’ll save up my energy for next weekend too.

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Spent a lot of time with friends this week. Did I really spend 7 hours drinking coffee? I also expected my time spent on music to be higher.

Well. At least I didn’t spend much time on Tiktok at all

Coffee on a Bench Life / Acting vs Songwriting / Minari

It’s been a pleasant week. I’ve started this new habit of stepping out to my local bagel shop, buying a cup of coffee ($2.48) and people watching from the bench right outside. Sitting there in my beautiful neighborhood with all these randos passing me by while I do absolutely nothing… what a life!

This means a lot more to me than you’d think. Back in college during the most idyllic period of my life I’d spend hours sipping coffee and listening to music on a bench on Sproul watching people walk by. There was a weird sense of pride in taking life so slowly.

Before that point I felt like I’d rushed through so much. There was always something to do or something I had to go towards and fuuuuuug what a grind.

Then I graduated college, work started, the grind resumed and I lost that practice of drinking coffee while doing nothing.

So it feels great to come back to it full circle.

I also love benches. Possibly one of my favorite things to sit on.

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Been listening to a few songs on repeat this week.

• Telepatia - Kali Uchis

  • Haven’t been the biggest fan of Kali Uchis but DAMN this song is fire. The production is incredible and gets you bobbing along right from the first sound. The lyrics are beautiful. That moment in the middle when she hits you with that English out of nowhere? Fuego.
    
    That melody at you know I’m just a flight away—whoooo—so good.
    
    I love it when artists mix up languages mid song. Maybe I’ll do that as well once I improve my broken Korean

• Dead Man Walking - Brent Faiyaz

  • That voice right from the first verse. Played this a few times on the piano. There’s something about the vocal register you have to sing in that makes it pretty fun to cover. I like the production for the song as well. It’s pretty sparse but that’s what makes the drums/harmonies hit harder in the second verse.
    
    Not a fan of how long the intro instrumental takes though

• Leave the Door - Open Bruno Mars, Anderson Paak, Sonic Silk

  • Fuggin incredible music video. That vibe. Those vocals.

• The Point - Year of Ox

  • They’re so fuggin cool.

A bit of a tangent—I’ve asked myself in the past what the point is in making songs.

My acting teacher back in college would always repeat this phrase (paraphrased because I forgot the exact quote):

Art is the process of finding meaning amongst the chaos of life

This idea resonated a lot and I tried to imbue it in my acting. Exploring each beat within the scene and trying to extract the truth for every moment. Taking apart very possible moments of a human’s life and deep diving into what it means to experience each one.

So it’s never been a question as to the “value” of acting. As the actor you learn about what it means to be human and as an audience member you also learn what it means to be human by watching.

How good is music at teaching you what it means to be human?

Jury’s still out on that for me. How many songs can you list that hit deeeeeep. How many songs have changed your life? Changed the way you live your life?

Books and movies/plays are great at this (todo: write out a list of life changing books/movies in a future post) because they can go deep. They also have the benefit of your near undivided attention whereas most song listening (for me and most people?) happen with other activities.

Yeah… I’m still trying to think of life changing songs.

In any case, I really do appreciate Year of the Ox’s The Point. I respect it because it talks about topics worth talking about. Once I finish my current batch of songs I want to write some more about Asian Americans. I want to rep my people and dive in to what it means to be Asian living in America.

So yeah maybe this is a song that changes the way I live my life and encourages me to think about/embrace my culture more.

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You can tell I’ve been thinking about Asian Americanness a lot these days. I’m in this weird place where I’m trying to define what it means to be Asian American despite having lived that experience for the past two decades. I wonder why it’s taken me this long and I think it’s because we as a people don’t talk much about these things. With our parents, with each other. I have been talking about it more with some of my friends (shoutout Andrew, Sherry, Sylvia) but even that’s mostly because of the influx of attacks on Asians recently.

No one has ever sat me down and said “this is what it means to be Asian in America.” And as I’ve said before you’re not going to learn Asian American history growing up unless you specifically study Asian American studies in college.

I watched Minari earlier this week as part of this effort to educate myself more (also just love seeing Asian actors on the big screen).

I also watched this interview between JJ Abrams, Lee Isaac Chung, and Steven Yeun about Minari. Here’s a excerpt paraphrased from Steven that I thought was pretty interesting:

Sometimes we as this middle immigrant community are caught in between two worlds. These third culture kids often times are tasked by the American gaze to engage in an authentic rendering of our culture from another place. But the truth is we don’t have access to that at that level because we’re us right here. And on the other end we also have our motherland’s gaze placed upon us where we’re seen as American. This dissonance creates this weird place where we’re trying to authenticate ourselves in a polarized vacuum where it’s either American or Korean but the truth is we want to say who we are right here. And this is valid enough.

We don’t need to be made by the framework of these nations but we are this own unique thing within the construct of America. And that is uniquely American. The American dream is to be able to make your own life. The freedom to be you and live and die by your own choices.

There’s this itch that we have where we don’t feel validated by Parasite, per se. And in that same way we’re not completely validated by a Terrence Malik movie.

How beautiful is it to be in this place? There’s a lot of difficulty in being Asian in America but I’d never swap out this experience. In these uncharted waters, this undefined middle ground, we have the opportunity to define Asian Americanness.

It’s sad that we have so little representation in media and politics. But that’s an opportunity.

It’s sad that we’re so unaware of our own history in this country. But that’s an opportunity

It’s sad that we’re getting physically and verbally attacked. But that’s an opportunity (although if I’m real on this one this issue seems the hardest to solve).

And the list goes on.

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This week’s post is getting pretty long. Anyways here’s this week’s update:

Going to keep an eye on my Tiktok usage going forward. 11 hours in a week is a lot…

In other news:

• Got dim sum with Sylvia at Dim Sum Palace in East Village. First time seeing her in years (last time in 2017) so it was great seeing her again. Drank way too much jasmine tea. The dim sum was good but not as good as I expected

• Went to Cinnamon Girl (local bakery) and got a beef patty and a slice of upside down pineapple cake. Wow. Biting into the crust of the patty was a Moment of the Week. Flaky goodness. The pineapple cake was delicious as well. First time I’ve had upside down pineapple cake.

Unfortunately did not take a photo of the pineapple cake but you can look it up on Google you lazy bum

• Caught up with Sherry now that she’s more settled in in Singapore. Had a lot of fun. In the middle of the conversation I marveled at the fact that we’ve known each other about a decade. Time flies.

• Took a walk and snapped a pic. I call it Mixed Signals. It’s a commentary on the confusion of the life we feel daily on these everyday streets

Yeah I’m a photographer now. What of it?

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Asian American / The Next Picasso - Oh Brother III

The more things happen the more I realize how little I know.

Been catching up these past few weeks on all the Asian hate crimes that have been happening in America.

The first instinct is outrage. Elderly Asians shoved in the streets. An Asian man slashed in the face with a box cutter in the middle of a full subway car begging for help with no one else lifting a finger to help. A man stabbed in the back with a knife in the streets of Chinatown simply because the suspect “didn’t like the way“ the victim looked at him.

It’s easy to get mad about this kind of stuff. It’s hard to actually figure out how to help the problem. As of now I don’t know what to do besides donate to the orgs that are dedicated to fighting this (e.g. Asian American Federation and Stop AAPI Hate) and sign up for some community watch/elderly chaperone programs, which I’ve done/will do but even then I wonder how much that actually helps.

Been seeing a lot of stuff on Tiktok/reddit/twitter related to these recent attacks and it’s clear that there’s so much ignorance surrounding Asian Americans. A lot of perception that we’re this monolithic group—not only across the different Asian ethnicities but encompassing all Asians globally.

E.g. a common response I saw in response against Asian support was “this [group of Asians] or this [generation of Asians] or this [country of Asians] did something bad and that is how I perceive the rest of the group so all Asians deserve what’s going on.”

So obviously ridiculous but a number of people really seemed to believe this.

Where does this ignorance stem from?

I think a big part of it is the lack of history. White and black history is so integral to the story of America. But what’s the story of Asians in America? Growing up in Ohio and California I don’t think I was ever taught—beyond a few minor snippets—what that story was. You hear about the Chinese railroad workers and the Japanese internment camps just barely and then BAM that’s the book on Asian American history.

Even at this point I don’t know much beyond that. I’d guess unless you went out of your way to study Asian American Studies in college you wouldn’t know much beyond that either.

On a tangent—I think this lack of history also results in a lack of a shared culture. Might just be my perception but it seems like so much of Asian American culture is centered around trivial things. Do you like anime? Do you like kpop? Do you like boba? Do you watch kdramas?

Does that cover the extent who we are as Asian Americans? Do we ourselves know what it means to be Asian American?

I mean yeah, obviously I think we do. If you live the experience you must innately understand what it means to be Asian American right? Whether we talk about these things or not is a different matter.

Anyways I don’t know. Just know there’s a lot of stuff to learn. On that note I’m reading through The Making of Asian America: A History to learn more.

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Besides that, highlights for this week:

I am the next Picasso (nah)
Got an iPad. Started using it to draw on Procreate. Been following these channels (1, 2) which make it super easy to follow along.

Painting #1

Painting #2

Oh brother
Harry came into town. We went to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, binged Wandavision and walked around a bunch.

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And finally, for our weekly recap:

Wasn’t as accurate at logging my hours so this may not be the most accurate graph.

That said, I did end up painting a lot. Also watched more movies than expected with Harry coming to visit. Compared to my last update I really cut down on the tiktok 😂.

For this upcoming week I’m thinking of imposing a light media purge where I try to avoid too much tv/youtube/movies during the weekdays and doing that all on the weekend. I think this will result in more time spent on music and reading.

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