Funny thing about endings.

Isn’t it funny that ever since we were young, we are taught to think in endings?

We (or mostly me here) spend our days trying to answer the big questions:

What do I want to be when I grow up? Will I live happily ever after in a bamboo cottage built around a banyan tree with THE love of my life? Would I say that I have lived the life I wanted? At the end of the day, what can I say is the most important to me?

Jeesh, there are many movies about it… (I will let you fill in this spot with countless titles you’ve Netflix)

They become these points of pressure for us to reanalyze and dissect our every decision.  I am sure somewhere along the way, it was meant to be a good habit to assess our goals and provide some internal searching.  But lately, I just feel like they are another layer of doubt and incessant need to linger onto every possible mistakes/failures that happenED.  

Why aren’t we taught to wonder when the things that are important to us today begin to become the things that matter to us at the end? Or when do we begin living the life we want and how do we get there?

I mean, why isn't that stolen first dance that Phillip took when he sneaked up on Aurora in the forest as magical as the waltz at the end (minus the color changing dress)?  Why do some believe its more logical and believable to assess love at the end of a relationship but not by the first glance? 

Perhaps this year, my biggest resolution is to stop thinking in ends but with beginnings.  For every end, there must have a beginning and after that end, there is a new beginning… right?

I will stop my instantaneous expiration marker and pause my deadline clock.  I will try to plan my take-offs instead of estimating my finishes.

To beginnings.  Happy New Year.   

It gets better. Lucky me.

So all these It Gets Better campaign postings has me thinking on my way to work today...

I wasn't lucky enough to grow up in a progressive liberal city.  The majority of my secondary education was at public high schools in a bible belt sort of high school where the kids are not so Jesus like.  So I was reclusive from the majority of mass culture, I kept myself in the kitchen.  I watched sexy foreign movies alone.  I flip through fashion magazines.  I picked up this absurd taste for music.  All these things that made me weird in High School.  Lucky me?

Then college came... 

The first boy I met, on a campus tour... He was Thai, handsome, with a immaturely developed taste for Etta James and the Blues. After 3 years of skimming the net for the best versions of  STOP THE WEDDING, man, did I have it.  Of course, he turned out to be my first.
...
Then the summer that followed, I met my first bf. A tall handsome Vietnamese writer/student with the same name as the first part of mine.  A few days into our fling, I proposed the idea that we should rent a small student housing rental on top of the fabric outlet by the Chinese Binh Tay Market.  Of course, being about a decade older, knew instantaneous of the reference to L'Amant (The Lover 1992).  I think I fell in love for the first time that summer.   
...
A series of guys later, I met the first law student that I dated from Ohio. A guy with a small kitchenette in his studio about 2 miles from school.  After a late night of bouncing, I was hungry and the only thing that was opened was the Schnucks (St. Louis's QFC).  So we went there and picked up some chicken, bacon, and the medleys... which i turned into Coq Au Vin. Though I knew it was impressive, I just did not realize how much until that point.
...

Well, I am not trying to say that my sprinkling of romance is a sigh of progress to match the theme of getting better.  I just want to say that teenage seclusion sure made me quite Lucky. ;)

Joking aside, it really does progressively (though slowly) get so much fucking better.  From the awkward boy thing I once was to the confidant mannish boy that I am now, the difficulties of growing up a bit quirky and different was a process of ... fabulousness (I love "gay" words). 

To all the boys (young boys in my family especially... who's mommy is telling them that she will jump off the roof) out there...You have no idea how much it gets better. Just hang in there. And when you can look back and say Lucky me, It got better. We can toast gay bubbly champagne to that!

Old habits die hard.

Some nights I just can't help it.  
TV dinner + grocery store sushi 
+ Carrie Bradshaw&Co. 
Bliss.

4 years ago.

I played this song on repeat over and over. Walking in the dirty snow to class each morning.  Feeling the wind break against my chubby cheeks with the harsh and early winter.  Buried inside my coat and layers, I felt this song.

Tonight I am feeling it hard.  It brings me warmth knowing somewhere in me, the same kid is buried deep in those layers.

Feeling the change a coming.

Princess Tiana

After a long talk with a buddy of mine tonight, for some reason the soundtrack of Disney's The Princess and The Frog came into my head.

I remember Daddy told me: Fairytales can come true

You gotta make 'em happen, it all depends on you"

So I work real hard each and every day

Now things for sure are going my way

Just doing what I do

Look out boys, I'm coming through

And I'm almost there, I'm almost there

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu9mktOGvY0&feature=related)

I feel like I am at the stage in the movie where I (the hardworking "princess") still believe entirely in the dream I want for my life.  And some very unexpected things will come into my life and off-course the dream just a bit. Yet our princess will meet the goal if not only bigger and better than she had conjured up in her nightly prayers.  

Right? I sure hope so.  And I hope the next time, I compare myself to a Disney character it is not another ethnic princess ... 

Minh-ing-ful Favorites for 09/05/2010

This will be a new thing, I will post my favorite moments of the day.  Just to remind myself of all the positive things that can and do happen.  So for the first list: 

1. Mom is in town and I get to play host/tour guide of Seattle.  And actually doing things on my checklist that I have been putting off for so long.

2. 5$ bouquets from Pike’s market.

3. Dinner with mentor from work, friend and family.  Integrating 3 different lives into 1.

4. Opening a suitcase my mom brought with her, filled with things I left in St. Louis.  Very crucial things like this pregnancy pillow.   

mmmmmm HMMMMM! 

Follow-up: Summer Squash.

If you are curious...

The squash, I baked with red bell peppers, plums, leeks, white wine, green onions, a bit of tumeric and curry powder. Topped with Viet style shredded pork and a stack of baby spinach.  Wasn't bad. ;P

A meal isn't a meal without meat to me. So I paired the summer squash with some roasted Cornish hens with mango chutney glazed and some mustard/molasses glazed (not in pic).

I had a fun time at dinner, thanks to the company/clean-up crew.