2.18.2008

Just a blog ... in between

there won't be any particular point to this blog i think; i just thought that i hadn't written an entry for a while and that i should do so. but nothing "too" out of the ordinary has happened though so don't expect any bombshells to be dropped in this entry. my last entry was about my business trip to china and my ever so brief a moment in Hong Kong (for the first time). it was a great experience, short for sure.... but great as "just a taste". i wish travel could realistically be like the"chef's tasting" menus at fancy restaurants ... just a bite or two of something absolutely extraordinary. but lots of extra-ordinary-ness however. i'm debating with myself if i will "have" to go to china again relatively soon (which is a possibility) if i should make a return to hong kong or take the opportunity to visit another "must-see" asian city ... tokyo (or maybe seoul...although technically i have been there ... airport stop). tokyo definitely.
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i was looking over the sparse entries the past year or so (sorry, the fruquency of writing really is nothing like what it was when it first started ... but i guess that is what happens when you "grow up")... and realized that if 2007 should be characterized in any particular way ... or in my way of thinking... if year 28 of my life were to be characterized anyway ... it would be by travel. it pretty much started with gaycation 2007 (which in its 2008 version is being planned already!) in provincetown and a week in new york; then a return to new york in november, straddling both sides of the holidays were two trips to san francisco (and maybe one coming up for pride in june) and a small but fun weekend get-away to dallas (with friends).... and let's not forget new orleans for southern decadence ... and of course.... china and hong kong. the excursions have been nicely spread out at about one a month ... but ha... the frequency of trip is rivaling the number of times i blog ..... which seems to imply that nothing of real significance happens in between trips... haha.
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work? well, fun travels aside... i think its in general good. the itch to get off my butt and start getting ready for licensure tests is getting to a fever pitch now... and for good reason ... if i want my license by 30.... i MUST start by my 29th birthday ... which ahem, is not too far away. the test will take a year or so to complete and with administrative processing and all that jazz ... it'll definitely be a year ... anyways, it long time overdue.... seven years after graduation is enough to do the expected and usual five years of work to get a license and then two years for grad school. getting licensed after 30 will just start becoming more and more silly. but work specifically though? welll ... its tied into the impulse to get licensed and that is to just get something to be excited about and work towards.
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of late, i have found something of that type that i have been trying to push at work... with certain degree of success. this is what i'll call "my" green agenda .... and that is basically a framework of things the office can do to become more ecoologically responsible. i was integral in producing a "green wall" of ecological news for the office... and have spearheaded a recycling initiative as well at work. my main view of other people's response... everyone will go on and on about how important the concept is ... but few are really interested in getting things done or changing things. my next push (when i feel the recycling is getting enough inertia) is to act directly on purchasing. all of this stuff stemmed from the conversations the firm as a whole had back in october ... and i want to carry that energy forward. i'll admit i'm not the best spokes-person for the job ... but i just hope small actions will be noticed.
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a "challenge" i am thinking of doing is some modified version of "carry your own trash"... basically you carry all your non-recyclable, non-food, non-"hazardous" waste around... in a trash bag... with you... for two weeks. it not only opens your eyes to what you waste in terms of amount... but HOW you waste ... which i think is the key... the first step begins before you even receive the item.... of the holy trinity of eco-awareness ... reduce, reuse, recycle ... the first two often get overlooked because they feel ascetic in some way. like my cousins said.... you don't need to recycle your plastic water bottles if you don't drink bottled water now do you? more to come on this "challenge"?
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friends and family? well, my folks seem busier than ever now-a-days. teh temple project of theres is in full swing and never a day goes by that something pressing happens is seems ... from architects quitting or engineers saying the soil reports are wrong. i guess this how projects like this work. sometimes i wish i had more experience in architecture as a real profession to know how to help ... but most of the time all i can do is aesthetic stuff ... makes you wonder ... how do people get "good" at what they do?? my parents did visit me a few weeks back and the best part about having them stay with me for a few days is them telling me how WELL my new bathroom looked. i am quite pleased by the effort, enough to hold a little soiree at my place of course ... a very successful party if i can say so myself ... full of good food, drink, mirth, and friends! exactly how things should be. my "friends" have definitely been a saving grace of my usually dull existence (i wonder if thats a fair statement ... i've always though my daily grind is dull but maybe not so much?? i dunno). we do just enough little dinners, parties, celebration, etc... to keep things fun. hector has become a great friend to just hang out with although we don't really share much of each other i have toa dmit ... we're just good "hanging-out" buds. andy and epsecially kahl have been beautiful lately. spending so much time with kahl (via training and then taking him to lunch bc of training) has in a strange way made me feel like his relationship with andy is definitely something to be envied... to some degree of course.
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in general i feel like i've been getting a good "dose" of friends, not too much as often happens with me and my love of "me" time and not too little to feel like a social outcast. i do wonder though if i should actively try to find more friends as when andy and kahl move (which is a definite possibility) a huge portion of my "real" network will be gone ... which could be bad. by the way, hector and esau have resumed being friends and i sometime hear bits and pieces of the "prince's" life, but in general i think both of us have gotten comfortable (at least i have) that are friendship has ended and will not resume (as it did with hector and esau ... to my chagrin). my next "event" that i am looking forward to is the "one year anniversary of living in my home" soiree sometime in march or april ... like all my parties, it will be one to top them all... haha!
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first i'd have to get some cash though. post holidays and post property tax season ... i have found myself in distinct financial narrows straights of late. at least i'm not in the red but i'm certainly skimming that surface though. it has gotten to the point that saving isn't much of an option for a few months i would bet... at least i had put away money before and trying really hard not to dip into those funds. its amazing how a few unexpected costs (mouth retainer $500, aia costs $400, traffic tix $300, various travels $1000s.... haha) all of that stuff adds up. its kind of depressing because with the spring usually comes costs for cleaning up , freshening up, and sprucing up teh house and garden ... and i just don't know where that money will come from. what about the march soiree? maybe just a nice meal? haha. on that note i did make a little quick money with a small interior design job and also got my first comission check from market america (but now my per month purchasing requirement has doubled!)
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anyways, when do i ever let money "really" get me down? hmmm.... haha, what do i say? lets go have a steak! of course now... the thing is ... let's go have some grilled chicken. the whole health thing is still going relatively OK ... i allow myself some slips here and there but they are conscious slips and weighed in relation to everything else. and exercise has also gone well. i met some people i hadn't seen in months the past weekend and they all remarked about how it really looked like i had lost weight ... cool.
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hmmm...basically thats about it i guess. last week there was valentine's day .. i didn't have one. but thats ok... i think. with my luck, some great guy will land in my lap when i'm busy trying to study for my licensing exams and now when i might really be having all the time in the world the season is dry as as drought. but you know, its OK.... and i know i've said this enough to now sounds as if i am trying to convince my own self ... but i AM "happily" single. i met a couple in hong kong at a bar and when asked where my boyfriend was i said i was happily single. in march .. along with celebrating a year of living in my humble abode, i will also be celebrating a year of being single (not always happily of course).
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28 has been somewhat of an internal sea-change in the sense of how continents move... standing on them you wouldn't notice a thing ... but way up i the sky (and fast forwrading millions of years) the changes are vast. being 28 saw my personal life abruptly shift in terms of my love life... and if we look at the sea-change of losing esau as a friend ... also a shift in my social life. virtually all the people i use to hang out with (through esau) i don't anymore and along with ron not being in my world ... i think ... overall ... it has been a good thing. but i get the feeling like with many things in my life ... this in itself is also an "interim" condition. maybe that's why travel has happened so much this year ... it some sort of fateful recognition of the changes in my own life inside? going to all these great cities (SF / HK) has made me yearn for the nomadic lifestyle i use to live again but at the same time ... Houston as home has also really sunk in. i dunno, sometimes i do get the sense that there is something "in-between" about life right now ... not in necessarily bad sense as it may seem ... just as... and in-between state.
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i still remember telling esau over a year ago when i realized i was falling in love with ron that somehow i could see him being the gateway boyfriend ... meaning the boyfriend before finding my husband ... and maybe thats a subconscious reason why i've been really sort of consciously putting a new love interests on the back-burner. or maybe i'm just still afraid of being hurt? haha... always that possibility. but whatever the case ... i do hope... yes... hope... i am in-between great things ... great friends, great loves, great sense of being.
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1 Comments:

At 10:16 PM, Blogger Robert said...

we have parallel lives Alex. Let's chat soon...!

 

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