Situational Novelty
ahhhh... ok, i should get down to writing something i guess. today i already spent just a little too much time looking at online porn trying to make the day pass, should do something constructive and meanigful such as recording the busy busy fun fun few weeks it has been since i last wrote an entry, god almost a month ago now. but just to excuse myself a little for being so tardy on my usually more frequent posting, it has been a busy few week filled with getting ready to say goodbye to cambridge and travelling and getting ready to say hello to houston. in these moments where i have to remember a lot of stuff i am never quite sure how to start it off but rereading my last post i had conveneiently written a list of thing i was looking forward to doing or more having to do before i called it quits so i guess that is as good as anyplace to start. . the job thing? haha...so yes... i have really decided now where and with who i wanna work and i guess there is an amusing story or two about that. i think at the time i had last left off, i was entertaining a handful of physical job offers, baiscally about four, since i had already turned one down back in april. five job offers, haha... much much better than when i graduated undergrad and had like uh... a whopping one? good for the self-image. speaking of self image.... so basically even though i had four offers to consider, i really only was eriously picking between two, and lo and behold, both of them were from houston, and funny enough the first two that i had interviewed with, waaay back in january. funny how things go, all that effort the past few months to get more job offers and what not, well, it paid off in number of job offers, but still... its funny how the best were still at the begginning and in technicality if i hadn't looked further, they would still have been the best... but then again, they weren't the "best", unless you could compare them to other places. why were they the best? basically for all the right reasons i guess.... promising job opportunity and environment for growth and yes... decent pay! eventually with the firm that i did choose, after negotiation, i got about the amount i was shooting for... slightly less, but because its in houston, i think it all averages out to be pretty damn good. . so the two firms that i was seriously comparing, i wasn't quite sure how to compare them, so i spent a week after final reviews and papers were due, and basically entrusted some of my closer friends and asked them to help me compare the pros and cons. eventually, after such discussion i was begginning to lean towards one of the firms but still didn't want to throw the other one out fo the bag. my friend bobby, after hearing my side of story told me a good idea. i needed to let the firms know they were in the top tier of consideration and let them show me... again... why they would want me and what they could offer me. in short...i needed to interview them now. pretty smart actually...so that is what i did. i sent the two firms the same email basically asking them if they could rephrase why it would be a smart move for me...me... to join theire establishments. haha.... but the sort of funny part about the email, was that i totally began playing the harball "i am the shit and you better recognize" attitude. in short, in a paragraph conveneiently following my request for more information, i wrote to the effect that, in "the most sincere modesty", i wanted to let them know that only a "select" number of firms were receiving this request for more information, out of the "so many" offers i had received... and now it was their turn to prove to me... their... worth. haha. so could have backfired... but i guess my email was subtle yet direct at the same time and well... they played along. and its from what they wrote that it really did help me decide sort of how much investment they really had in me. and funny enough, the one i did end up choosing also had offered me the most money too...haha. i love how thinsg all sort of point in the same direction sometimes. and beyond that, after i had mentally decided to choose them.... i then sent that company and email about renegotiation of their offering salary... tacked up my own number... and waited for the sparks to fly. for a few days i was honestly a little nervous because i hadn't said no to that other firm, or any of the firms for that matter... and i wasn't sure if i had scared off this firm i actually wanted to work for or not. but in the end, fingers still crossed, i finally got an email from the chosen firm saying that they would agree to my renegotiation. Boo-ya! so grad school did do some good it seems. with bonuses and everything i am making almost 40% more than my previous salary... definitely not a bad hike up i would say...after 2 years? and again, living in houston, hopefully with the cost of living, i will be able to stretch those dollars even more... although thinking about it probably not, because i was already living pretty dirt cheap in new jersey anyways. well... anyways, i have my job now and in general i am really looking forward to the job. it's NOT architecture....whoa! they are a landscape architecture firm that does urban design...so i guess that is what i'll be doing... urban design. which is good, since that is what i went to school these past two year supposedly for. haha. but it actually kind of cool to think of the new challenges of landscape architecture. very cool. and the firm seems like a small firm, 30-40 people... and they all seemed realtively young and laid back. i think it could be a good social atmosphere as well... relatively casual where so non-coporate. thinking about it... yeah... it's a nice middle ground between the real coporate environment that i was in before and the really small firms that i was also in before... a medium size firm with small firm culture yet big firm professional reach. i love it when things all point in the same direction. . and my folks dig the place to. i had called my mom before talking to my friends and she said she felt the smaller firm, the one i chose eventually, was her choice too. and most of my friends like the way i describe the small firm as well... and in a weird way, i kind of knew in the back of my head... that place would have a better chance of making me happy... and that's just what i want to be. . ok, odds and end? well... right after the review i think i spent a week in catatonic shock....well, at least a few days. i had a better due the following monday... a real paper for my housing policy class that was suppose to be on the housing situation in Dubai. i didn't really start it until like friday though... so the weekend was interspersed with stretches of paper writing honestly. i think i managed to go have some fun and watch a movie with ira here and there but yeah... it was mainly a paper weekend. it was due at 5:00 pm monday... and i finished it around 3:00 pm i think...haha... but i didn't pull any really late nights for it...like that crazy paper i wrote from like 7:00 pm to 6:00 am, right before my flight to Taiwan for spring break... haha. that was a funny one i think! and a few days after that i had my real estate write up due, but honestly that was like a 3 hour write up just blah blahing whatever the hell i had already said anyways in the presentation. and i consciously avoided teh responsibility of "putting it together" so that was off my shoulders nicely. . anyways, i had other things to think about. i had about another week and a half after all my papers and academic responsibilities were due so that was filled up with packing my 250 pounds of books into like 10 boxes, my two designer chairs into two huge reconstructed boxes, renting a car, and having a mad dash one after noon to staples to UPS and then to the post office box while bobby and ira also used the car to move their shit from studio to their homes. haha... that was a fun day. oh, before that though, over the weekend i had to have my sidewalk sale as well. it happended on a cloudy sunday where we totally were hoping it wasn't going to rain. it did sprinkle a little but we definitely missed the downpour a few hours later thank god! and the sale was really fun experience... people walking by and some people completely disinterested but some really getting into it and saying oh i want this i want that i want this. haha. and proft wise, i walked away with almost $150 dollars by the end. granted i had a few bigger ticket items like a bed spread and a stereo that accounted for half my earnings, but still a $100 worth of $1 or $2 items... not bad. all i know is i didn't have to throw away too much stuff. and all throughout the week too i had posted up the furniture items on craigslist and they all went one by one. by the end of it all i had the garage sale which got rid of most of the smaller knick knacks and then all teh furniture except for the old ratty couch i had and the old tv...items which could have made me $50 richer, but you know... its just "extra" money anyways. i'm just happy i sold my bed and bed frame really! i think ultimately all in all, i probably made somewhere around $400-$500 in selling my crap... which is not too bad, since i rememembered i spent about that much buying the new furniture all in all... so actually sort of made money back i guess. well more precisely, i made the money that is gonna help to pay for shipping books and chairs home... about $200... and maybe chip in a little for the expenses of provincetown and my travels later on. . after all the stuff was gone... one of my last things to deal with was repainting the room... back to white... blah blah blah. teh first room i did was no problem... just an afternoon or nauseous fumes. the second room was a little more drawn out haha. i did some one afternoon... continued a bit after that evening... then went out and got plastered at this fun "pajama" party i went too... but haha... too wait off the intoxication i continued painting...pretty decently mind you and just had a little strip i couldn't get too because the big massive wardrobe that i sold to my roommate wasn't going to be dismantled untile after provincetown. so officially i finished teh paiting about a week later. it was sort of sad though seeing my room all empty and clean and devoid of my "essence". . haha...so i guess why i found it funny and ironic that i ended up leaving a little "essence" then on the floor... when i decided to just randomly email this guy that i kind of wanted to hook up with but never got around to doing it like literally three hours before i was suppose to catch my plane to philly. well lo and behold he calls me literally 20 minutes before i was suppose to leave, he comes over, he goes down on me and we leave our happy marks on the just swepted floor. kinky in a weird way no? hope the new tenants don't know my blog haha! . speaking of leaving essence it makes me fear the day if i ever get laid off...seeing the fact that after only like 2 weeks of not having classes i was already bored enough to just go looking for tail just to past the time. usually i am not like this and more am in a "dating" mode and meeting new people as real people in general... but well... i have ADHD so this is what happens when i don't have "projects".... i wash my hand of any fault...heehee. but these experiences sure do provide for some funny anecdotes. besides the just cleaned my room fantasy i told just recounted, there was also the robbing the cradle in harvard yard fantasy. haha...ok...usually my stance on things is that i don't do anything with guys in college or of college age...partly because i find them immature and party because there just not my type, physically or mentally. but as i've come to realize, i am a man of attracted to "situational novelty"... and am more than willing to bend rules if something interesting comes up. so yes... hooking up with a 19 year harvard freshman dorming in harvard yard had enough "situational novelty" to bend my rules. what i didn't expect though..or maybe i did... was the dude was a bad lay... and further more... he was such a closet case that he actually made me jump through the window to leave because his suitemates had gotten back. fucking aye! at least it was a first floor window otherwise i would have had no qualms about scarring him socially, walking out brazenly into that common room and saying... and you know what... he sucked in bed! ahhhh... serves me to break my rules... they are there for a reason alex! . ok... a little about like ... normal life...the last few days in cambridge. well other than moving out of studio which was actually pretty easy after i decided to pretty much dump everything i had except for one small cradboard boxe of "drafting essentials" and my computer (someone found a goldmine of basswood and supplies let me tell you!). other than that, i had the opportunity to have a little goodbyes to some good people i've met. i was mostly concerned with people not in my class though that is, since my graduating class, i'll them anyways at graduating so when can have our teary eye moments then. but yeah, some cool friends i've met epsecially this semester in dubai studio, i had to give more formalize goodbyes too. this boy bobby who is really fun but just pyscho somatic about his relationships (he's straight fyi) we hada good run, lunch, and a power counseling session where i hope i made some step into improving his relationship situation... is this how straight people say goodbye??? also sooyung...sweet girl i met also in studio who i enlightened about how to use a female condom...refuse to say goodbye... but it was nice to have dinner with her and some other friends...we take what we can. at least there are just good memories left. oh well... more funny than good... since, a few days after i left cambridge and i was in philly she randomly calls me and asked me where she can go get a bikini wax in cambridge... WTF? that's sooyung though... you just gotta laugh. . sooooo... what about provincetown, then philly (well, spaced by two remaining days in cambridge but i already pretty much covered that), and then NYC...which i am in right now... spending what is probably my last day in new york for a very long time.... typing away my life.... how appropriate (or should i be snorting coke and getting pounded somewhere in chelsea? haha!) . provincetown with robert and sharlene (robert's HSPH friend) was all in all a blast and full of so many fun memories. some of the heightlights included coming in the first night and being oddly discomforted by the fact that there were so many lesbians walking arounbd. actually robert's reactionw as the funniest i thought, as he truly seemed perturbed by the idea that there might not be any men in provincetown this weeked (since we later confirmed, it was indeed lesbian weekend). i mean, i shared concern, but robert seemed increasingly frantic with every dike that walked by. haha. where's the suasage??? eventually after dinner...we just came upa nd asked our male waiter....where are the men? with a laugh he said they were arounbd, you just had to go to the male establishments...haha....whoooooo! thank god there is men! it's raining men...ohhh lla oooh yah! heehee. taht evening we closed with a little drinkie drinkie on the outdoor balcony deck...which totally made up for a tiny tiny room...and of which we spent an exorbitant amount of time on...eating... smoking... but mostly drinking.... which actually is what we did mostly anyways. our first full day in provincetwon really was a drinking holiday. i think over the course of that day where we didn't do too much but walk around and eat at regular times....i perosnally had somewhere in the ball park of 10-15 servings of alcoholic beverage... it literally was a state of constant buzz where you had moments thinking...hmm... i'm feeling a bit too sober... let's drink some more. haha. we did the usual rounds in ptown... tea dance, afternoon drinks, nappy nappy, after nappy drinks, fabulous dinner, drinks, going to the Atlantic house for clubbing where was a mofo blast actually... met some fun people (from boston!) haha and goggled hot guys...one which we were teasing robert that he totally should have pursued becuase the hot guy was also checking him out... i think...haha. and i think sharlene, the token straight girl was also having if not a fun time, at least an eye-opening time, epsecially with her education on lesbos. haha....one funny memory is that of lesbofying sharlene... which sacrily enough i think is pretty easy for any woman... just put on some khaki shorts and a polo and sneaks... pull the hair back, take off any excessive jewelry...OH MY GOD! Sharlene is an insta-lesbian! heehee, after donning the lesbo transformation and seeing the pictures, she immediately freaked out and decided she indeed liked her cleavage and needed to be a woman again... haha! TOO FUNNY! that night we had an absolutely stupendous dinner at the lobster pot..yummy yummy yummy, with of course wonderful drinks! watermelon mojito yummy yummy yummy. and to top off the experience of provincetown that can be so surreal.... our meal was served by a young lady...probably lesbo... but which i found in an odd way... maybe and actualy i hope...it was the mojjito doing this... but i found too be actually kinda cute in a boyish way... like if she was a man and had somewhat of a beard, i'd do her...uh him... in an instant. OK... time to leave ptown! oh one last thing...we also went whale watching.... no real whales that swim in the ocean...not lesbian dikey ones that lay disgustingly naked on beaches (you'd be surprised about how many people made that joke when is aid i went whale-watching) it was so fucking cool... at first it was like...where the fuck are they... but mikey... our cool marine biologist tour guide really knew his way with the whales. at one point it was like a fucking orgy...if i can get the video i took to play i'll attach it to this post... but yeah dude..... it was really cool. what was funny was when one whale sighting happened on one side of the boat and then everyone went to one side and then when the whales appeared on the other sidemeveryone walked over to the other side.... at moment it kind of felt like the boat who just tipsy over and we'd become whale food. haha. it was a cool trip though, good call robert! our last day in ptown wasn't much of a day...we had plans to go to a beach but i think everyone wanted to just crash at home in boston so we just made our dainty ways back...had lunch on newbury, said goodbye to robert going back to NYC and then sharlene (it was nice she came definitely!) and i finally got back to cambridge... and yes that night like a devil i cleaned the remainder of my life and packed and packed and also painted! all for my big philly trip to see samuel. . so philly! it was really good to see sam again, one last time..at least for a while. i got into philly about wednesday evening and sam had to go to this book club thing but i met up with this guy i had met the last time i was in philly, one of sam's friends, and that i thought was really cute and we were very flirtatious last time. anyways, in the back of my mind i had always hopes that something a tiny bit more would happen with this guy and in a weird way i guess that was one of the things i was looking forward to. thank god he was there too since he had to leave for a trip the very next day. anyways... so we had dinner...also with justin and this other guy he was entertaining as well and it was fun. eventually sam met up for dessert and we also had a few drinks at this bar and it was pretty fun. eventually the evening drew to a close and sam had left earlier since he needed to go to work the next day so me and miler, the guy i was interested in, ended up together alone and just walking around and basically the question of what do you wanna do now came up. eventually we ended up at his place since i also wanted to see the renovation work he was doing at the house he nought..kind of cool. haha...so we talked some more and eventually it came to that point where conversation had dried up and i was thinking...well, better do something now or never. so i was direct and basically got up close and was like..so...i really kind of want to make out with you.... haha... the surprise on miler's face was cute. he was backed away just a little and said...whoa, this is weird. and i standing my ground said...why? he said well one, you were sam's ex. and i said, yeah...ex is right...meaning past tense. and then two, because he was totally in love with him before. well, what can i say about that...hmmm...i dunno... that was his issue.... i just thought he was really cute and i wanted to make out. and i get my way! haha. so we ended up making out and it was fun. he was a little standoffish or uncomfortable at first but i know how to work it and eventually it was just fun messing around. it eventually got to a point that it was too late to make the long walk back...he lives at the edge of center city and so i just decided to stay over because he had to leave for his trip in the morning anyways. fun times :) . with miler gone, then my attention focused on sam. haha.... no id on't mean it in that way. i really enjoy sam and am so glad we have managed to stay friends after our breakup. i mean i guess its not surprising since our breakup was pretty much mutual and totally based on circumstances we couldn't control but still... its nice we have maintained contact and i really hope we continue to do so. the next day i went to go see a little of what sam does for a living. it was kind of fun, sitting in court and seeing the drama in real time... kind of boring at times, but novel nonetheless. i spent the afternoon then shopping philly's version of newbury and got a cute shirt for sam...which was kind of cool because he was also sweet (he really is an absolute sweetheart... and like robert and alice before...it still amazes me that no one has scooped them up yet... but i guess that's a complicated situation that i don't have full knowledge of anyways... i mean damnit...i'm a catch...why don't i have a boyfriend...haha!) enough to get me a graduation present... a wonderful business card case with a Eames design on it... very cute! so we played christmas and then went to have dinner and later went to this fun fun fun drag show. the next day i spent mostly at home while sam was working, working on reorganizing my photo collectiomn, one of those things i told myself to do like half a year ago and have just managed to do now...haha. you know how that goes. anyways, it was nice to see all of it again... my life since high school. haha...it occured to me that a significant amount of the pictures had me in some silly costume or the other... man...i love halloween... aor any excuse to put on a stupid costume.... haha... there's that "situational novelty" fetish again! all in good fun. while i was working on the photos i was also looking for some "fun" that both me and sam could participate in. we had always talked about it even since we were a couple and i thought it might be fun to finally get it going. it was a first for sam, and i always enjoyed 3ways, so i thought it would be a neat idea. sam didn't complain too much. eventually we find a guy who although i don't either of us would really have done by ourselves...because of the "situational novelty" it made for an entertaining if nothing else, time. oh yes, i also met one of sam's other friends that he works with, a very cute 1st year law student entertaining at sam's job and that also has a very cute boyfriend as well. haha, they were one of those photogenic couples that were very cute yet very dysfunctional in a way. lovely! now that would have been a fun group scene... haha. i'm so naughty! anyways, saturday was my last day in philly and we went to have a late brunch..... yummy, i packed while he prepared for a party he was throwing that evening, and i got on, for the first time.... the philly new york chinatown bus. it was cool... relatively short so i just slepted. ahhh.... philly was good! . and now new york! i love new york. i'm gonna miss it. for the past two weeks, visiting provincetown, being in boston, visiting philly, and new york... multiple times i have spaced out and found myself thinking... man, look all this stuff i'm leaving behind. its a little sad, and sometimes i wish i could tell all my wonder friends here in the northeast... hey, i've decided to stay... but alas. that's not the case. i hope they come visit. i know distance can really be a bummer, especially this kind of distance... and it was the only thing stopping me from going south. but i dunno... i'm also excited that its sort of a clean slate... and scared. i'll have to write about it in another entry because i can seriously digress on this topic... but yeah. i'm glad i've done these series of trips and tasted one last time this "world" before i enter the next. . new york. my first evening in new york was spent with my bestest friend, or i like to think so. she's been my sister in weird ways so yes, it was nice just spending an evening with yvonne...dinner, and movies. like we've done so many times, especially in college. ok, i need to stop getting mushy and just say it was fun. the next day i had a great brunch with her and her now...exboyfriend... troche. it's a complicated situation and i don't feel at liberty to talk about here so i won't... but anyways... it was good. and then after that i met up with a guy that i had known for the longest time, like over a year and we had been meaning to hook up and had tried on various attempts when i visited new york (he use to live in boston but now new york) or he visited boston but to no avail. well, hell if i'll let this hot one slip by. but we finally did it...and man...whoa nelly... fun times! sometimes i wish there's was a blck out function on these blogs because i sure would like to write about what happened, but let's just say i had a good afternoon and he was actually the nicest guy in a real way that i have met in this fashion for a long time. ok, if you're wondering about the fact that i've been getting lots of action the past few weeks....well, yes, for various reason, i've had. but hey...it's summer. i'm always a lot more busier around this time of the year....haha! after that steamy rendevouz, i met up with Tony, alice's brother who was also coincidentally visiting in town! alice actually was out of town but i'm sure i'll meet up with her soon before i leave for graduation. we went to the chinatown peking house restaurant and pigged out on peking duck, heavied ourselves and lightened our wallets for sure... but eh... i'm graduating, i'll consider this taken from my bonus money pot...haha. after that we lugged ourselves back to alice's place, chilled out, and although Tony failed to convince me to go out to an all gay dance bash, he did convince me to check out the leather daddy scene at the eagle bar...haha...why not. if situational novelty has been the theme of the past week, why not now. so we went to the eagle and it was similar as what i thought it would be but not so much leather and chains... just beefy guys and you know, the type in jeans and t-shirt...very cruisy, but fun to watch. and w/o my glasses i couldn't tell left from right of people potentially cruising me, or Tony, not that it mattered, i for one was satiated for the evening.... and so it was just fun voyuerism. we called it a night and i went back to brooklyn and woke up at noon the next day. that day i then spent literally just messing around online, trying to write this entry but thinking napping after only being up for 3 hours a better option. then i went over to UES and met up with robert for dinner and drinks and then watched this funny movie called office space. it was a low-key last meeting with my friend robert, after our ptown bash. but it was nice. funny enough our last conversation was about smoking. its funny how some of my best friends the past few years have revolved around such a disastrous product.... but i guess the same could be said of alcohol. haha..which i'm not innocent of either. heeee. but i have had friend that revolved around sex (ok not much better) and also wrestling and sport (hmmm..somewhat better i guess). damn, i'm fucked up...heehee. anyways, again.... nice to have seen robert. and yeah, just made me think of the conversations we had on that balcony deck in ptown... pretty aimless and i don't really remember what they were about since i was half drunk anyways... but it was just fun to be able to chill you know. just relaxing and bullshitting... real friendship. nice. . so that brings me to this day and i still have half a day left in NYC before my flight back to boston tomorrow morning...and then an ensuing marathon of stuff to do for graduation and entertaining parents and what not. so i'm sure it might be a while before my next entry... but i hope this one has given you something to gnaw on. it has been a fun few weeks...busy, eye-opening, full of situational novelty... the biggest being the thrill of being again at a transistion in my life, kind of scared of what lies ahead of me and thrilled by the unknowingness of it all... definitely sad of what i'm leaving behind, but hopeful that somehow that which i'm leaving behind will still find its way to me in the future. . |
posted by faux chink @ 3:57 PM
1 Comments:
CONGRATULATIONS ALEX! You'll do great in Houston. Miss you already.
Post a Comment
<< Home