sound bites

"There's comfortable (in your own skin), confident, then cocky...you like comfortable." -Ali

where everybody knows your name

Or at least your face. As fated, I've become my Chinese mother, who knows every owner of every Chinese restaurant in the Bay Area on intimate terms. Gawd.

Well, for me, make that the bus boy and maitre d' at Five Points, Alice Cheng from ACheng boutique on 9th and A, and Eloise from Gas (my favorite jewelry shop).

I always thought knowing the bartender at your local bar was the coolest thing, but one of those New York City phenomena that seemed unattainable because I'm just not a very good chatter. Who woulda thought?

The black bartender at Galaxy makes a smashing G Spot. Miki and I were there Friday night and I was surprised he recognized me. We chatted, then I got into a debate with his friends sitting next to us about music genres. All I asked was what kind of music did he play, and the dude gets all hot and bothered and replies his music has no "labels". I was just trying to make conversation, sheesh. He was trying to be all PC but it was such a trivial topic to be PC about. The dude finally laughs and says, "You're from California aren't you?" How did he know??

At Von, I noticed the elfin, slightly effeminate bartender noticing my green Google t-shirt. We exchange smiles and make small talk. I can barely understand his English, and he seems a bit flighty and ditsy, but he's got a cool fauxhawk. He asks if I want to get coffee the next day, I give him my number, he calls the next day and cancels. Whatevs. Last night, saw him again and we did the nonsense chatter. Though I still couldn't understand him, he gave us free sparkling water.

Coming home from work, from a run, from grocery shopping - I often times wave hello to the Brazilian maitre d' at Esperanto, standing at the corner of 9th and C. Recently, I went there with Bella - we got the best table and a mango mousse on the house.

At Gnocco last summer, a skinny Italian waiter with horn-rimmed glasses runs after us as we leave the restaurant and asks if I want to get coffee sometime. Feeling adventurous, I gave him my digits - which I later sort of regretted. Though he was an amazing cook, turned out to be slightly on the crazy side.

Teehee, we love nyc.

February snowstorm

View of garden below from my balcony


Old squatter apartments across the street

The Gates

Winter sun and Saffron billows.


Running the Central Park loop, stopping to photograph the sunny version.


Gawking, milling, strolling, jogging, photographing, enjoying - the spectacle that is The Gates.

14D

I got into my first verbal altercation with a black kid on my morning bus commute!

Don't know what got into me, I mean I know I can be spazzy, bitch-y at times, but I'm usually passive when it comes to actual confrontation.

I was late for a meeting, and, as I boarded the bus, looked for a seat as I needed to read my meeting notes to prepare.

I reached the back of a very crowded bus, and saw that a punk-ass black kid was purposefully sprawled out on two seats. I asked him to scoot over and he just looked up and laughed at me.
Then shifted over slightly.

"Can you move a bit more." He glares up at me and doesn't budge an inch. At this point I had unconsciously decided that I was going to see this through, so I sit down anyway, cramming myself into the half-space.

I turn and stare at him, "This is a public bus, you have to share." He looks around, "I am the public." I stare back at him, "So am I."

He and his buddy start to laugh and point at me, cussing in some foreign tongue that I couldn't understand - ebonics I think they call it? I looked over every now and then and made eye contact with his buddy, who was apparently cursing obscenities at me.

I knew he was talking smack, so I tried the reverse psychology approach. "What, did you say something?", and smiling innocently. I was listening to my iPod, reading and ignoring them, but privately shaking as I pretended non-chalance.

Then my thoughts wandered to the recent shooting of a women by 'punk' teenagers on the lower east side. Maybe it was stupid to have picked a fight with a kid? All I wanted was to teach him some manners! God I'm getting old.

By the time we got to our stop, the whole thing seemed to have blow over. And now I am a true, angst-filled, morning commuter in New York.

year of the rooster

gaze at the large, round moon,
and think of family and friends that are far away from home,
gazing at the same bright moon as you

-Chinese poet Li Bai

sound bite

"You're too polite, AND you always feel guilty, which is why you only recently realized you can leave a conversation (in a party situation) without any excuse." - Bella

Summer night on our balcony. Had a smoke and couldn't sleep, so started taking photos of the winding flower plant thing on our balcony.

getting old

Rather than go out tonight, I opted to stay in, have a dirty martini w/ 2 olives, watch Buffy, and blog. "Love, sex, pain, death - it's all the same to you vampires."