Lunar New Year's comes with no countdowns. There are no numbers really, no counting of time. A New Year's unlike the one that many Americans are familiar with. There is no silent boring ball drops, only loud pop crackers. There are no resolutions, or thinking of ways to "change" this year. It feels rather of a celebration of sorts. It's the Asian version of Christmas, Thanksgiving and Birthdays all mixed together. That is what Tết is. Everyone ages one year older when it comes around.
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I'm already thinking of ways to decorate my apartment now that I'm a working lady. I'm going to really push for comfort, cozy and vintage into every nook and cranny of my room and probably my living room. This is the first time really where I have a place (and the income sorta) to really decorate and see fit that my place, feels like my place. Keeping my inspirations in front of my face - that's important to me. Bringing it out in an organized fashionable colorful tasteful and meaningful manner.
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got nothing to lose.
24.1.12
23.1.12
Instead of city lights, I stare at freeways.
And perhaps that is the source of my unfortunate decline in blog postings. Time is money and money is time. It seems that I have been doing nothing but driving. Driving to work, driving to my cousin's house, driving home from work, driving driving driving.
Drive to work to pay for this car. Pay for this car to drive to work.
Would I say that L.A. is crushing my rather haphazard soul? No, I wouldn't say that. Instead I would say it's the drive. Those long cemented lines, the yellow dots, the vibrations. It's the red lights. It's the green lights. The heartbeat yellows. The yawns. Kevin and Bean. The honks. The angry drivers. The aggressive ones. The nice ones. The one's that don't know where they are going. It's the traffic. The long hours of driving. It's the stop signs. The look out for cops. It's the heat. It's the pollution. The parallel parking. The hipsters. It's the gangsters, the normal, the families, the smog. The trucks. The toyota corollas. The mercedes, the lexuses, the bmw's, the occassional Range Rover. It's the 60, the 10, the 101, the 110, the Wilshire. It's the Wilshire, the 110, the 101, and the 10. Exit Barranca. It's the things I never cared about but now care for. It's the finances. It's the making money part. It's the apartment searching part. It's the city part. It's the crime. It's the robberies. The rapes. It's the internet. It's craigslist. It's my carpel tunnel. It's craigslist. It's the renters, the owners, the phone calls, the emails, the visits, the scheduling. It's me suddenly missing the travel part of my life. It's me trying to settle in but not really. It's me living out of my luggage. It's me suddenly caring about skin products and sephora. It's me suddenly turning into a capitalist again. It's me trying to be stylish again, trying to return to someone I once was. It's me trying to move forward. It's me not forgetting. It's me caring.
I don't really have time to stare at the sunset which is really unfortunate. The other day I was driving and saw it from my rear view window. It was orange. So very red orange, but I stared at it for a second because I had to refocus on the road again. My world, now reduced to cement, red lights, and the action of braking. My world no longer what it once was, expansive, exploratory, confusing in a settled kinda way. My world and the world of others seemingly confined by the hour and traffic. My once open free running bicycle flowing world no longer hugged by the natural humidity but the stuffy air of my old car. How unfortunate this is. How unfortunate it is that many people don't know a world that is outside of this. It's even more unfortunate that I find myself in this world. The city lights are beautiful though, perhaps it is because they are still. Never inundated. Just there - calling through the black skies. If you look at the lights though - it's knowing that someone is still working through the night, their back aching, perhaps their ears ringing also thinking what the blue skies of the beach look like when happy.
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My ears ring. Almost every night these days. I tell a lot of people that I'm tired. It's my only explanation to how I feel. I feel tired. I feel exhausted. But what is it that's making me so tired? Yes, it's the drive, the apartment searching, but as I hinted above, I think it's something about starting a new chapter in your life and my body perhaps being on alert or stress for the last 3 months.
On a lighter note, I love my job! It's a great place. The last time I posted I was about to start my first day. I couldn't ask for a more supportive and fun job here in Los Angeles at such a great place. I have a big task that lays ahead of me, but I like the energy that's flowing aside from the commuting I do every day. 40 minutes in the morning and about 1 hour at night. Also I'm still floating a bit and it's starting to get to me. I just want to settle into an apartment and begin focusing on other aspects of my life other than driving and commuting (Such as the direction of this blog, having fun with my life, eating healthy, being financially stable)
I need a mental vacation. I would say beach but even then I don't think it's physical locality per say but I just want to feel relaxed. And that would include me NOT DRIVING.
