I'm a lazy dancer. When you move, I move with you.

Today is my first lazy Sunday in a very very long time and days where I have no obligations I tend to be creatively productive. And since I know that nothing can be created without trying, I am going to try. And because I believe sharing is caring.

I'm still obsessed with Metric's Fantasies (2009) album after a series of not so fantastic albums for 2010 from returning bands (ahem We Are Scientists, they do put on a great show though kids).  I reverted back to albums of 2009 that I still have not given the time for.  I tend to overlook details such as album and song titles. I usually fall in love with artists and albums after my own personal experience listening to them, not the hype (hispter comment noted). However hype is not necessarily a bad thing, but this is a whole other contradictory blog post to be written later.

So when I tried to look for a song by Metric that I remember from a show I realized I never listened to Fantasies. I recall a fellow biology classmate once said that an artist puts all their efforts into making one album and that he listened to entire albums not singles. Since then I try to listen to the entire album to get it, artists tend to put songs in order for a reason, one song is first because they want it to be, so do them a favor and listen to the whole damn thing. Sometimes I'll "get it" a whole year later.

Metric was the last band I saw in America before I left.  I am severely deprived of danceable shows/good music to the point where I think I have gone nuts. I can truly say that I love every single song on this album.

wishing you could keep me closer

i'm a lazy dancer

when you move, i move with you

-Collect Call, Metric

The following video video really inspires me.  Everyone has their flaws and downs, but getting through your "block" can become one of the most clearest, beautiful things.

Everybody, everybody wanna fall in love.

After realizing that I never listened to Metric's Fantasies (2009), it's been accompanying me for last week or so as I cope with a few things. My aunt from America just left Vietnam so I'm recovering from the mess it left me in haha. 5lbs later, a very tired and sleepy me, I've realized that I have learned how to be really flexible in Vietnam, routine is anything but achievable and perhaps I will never achieve that while I am here. While people come in and out of this country, as I make new friends, miss old ones, and talk to the best ones, I learn alot about the nuances of people and what makes them who they are. Due to the lack of freeways and my ability to drive, my time is spent talking to people or really just existing with strangers.

I'm okay with that, although I can be achingly shy at times. I work at an all women NGO, so I have little to worry about in the boy department. Anyways, I tend to stay away from that in general, knowing my tendency to be easily smitten. My emotions I can't control, but who I interact with I can. Distance I can do, but closeness is hard for me.

The future is scarily coming around the corner, and before I know it I'll be back in the states trying to make something of myself. I may return to the states in December and I really really look forward to that. One week in the lovely Bay and then two weeks for SoCal although I detest it.

My thoughts awkwardly float around my mind all day long and then at night too. They want to get out and become something but can't, instead I'd rather daze out into imaginary situations and reliving things of the past, it seems easier. I've been sleeping alot or feeling sleepy in general. This past weekend I somehow made it to Tra Vinh to visit my wonderful confidence boosting friends Linh and Thy who tend to smother me with so much love that I don't know what to do with myself if I didn't have a dose of them after two weeks or so. Linh is from Iowa and Thy is from Wisconsin (SO COOL). There is something very curious about the midwest and how individuals grow, interact, and shape their identities that intrigue me in general. Actually anything outside of California makes me curious in general.The landscape in which we develop and shape our minds cultural changes and its different.

Anyways, after a few bus exchanges and nice xe om drivers, my mood lightens. When xe om drivers are nice and trustworthy I conclude the place is nice. The xe om drivers didn't rip me off nor were they creepy so I concluded that Tra Vinh was a very nice place.  I have a general distrust when I first travel anywhere, until I understand what is going to occur, until I know what things are suppose to look like and how things run I  become comfortable and at ease. Tra Vinh is approximately 5 hours away, I had to take the bus from Long Xuyen to Can Tho (1.45 hours) then from Can Tho to Tra Vinh (3.5 hours).

The harsh sun tires his wrinkles. They collapse and try to hide but can't. Instead his skin retreats into dark bitterness.  I stare out in front of me with a religious sticker staring at me. This is the same image of a lady that hung on the rearview window of my dad's truck. It is the same lady that stared at me when I looked at my rear view mirror. I didn't know her significance but I just knew she was a lady. My dad took it off after a while saying that it hit my window too much and obstructed my view, yet, he had originally put it there to protect me. She stares at me and I hope she will protect me.

I stare out the window and see a women with no teeth pester a driver. Her small demeanor is defeated as she runs and  kicks the nose of the van and starts hitting the driver. I notice they're laughing, he throws water on her, unable to physically hit her. She yells in the screeching Vietnamese voice that occurs after too many years of yelling. Or maybe it just comes with the beating sun. The heat gets to me and I sit uncomfortably in my seat waiting for it to be 9:00 am so the bus can get going.   Although I am doing anything but moving, the heat is tiring me and all I want is the breeze from the window to come by. She stares at me. I try to let my thoughts wander as buses grumpily arrive at the bus station xe om drivers and others run to the bus and yell a myriad of things, locations, questions, xe om offers. I don't really get to see Vietnamese people run too often I was entertained. 

Because this was their life, I was interested. The bus station was their life, it was a microcosm for their memories, laughter, and friendships. Bus stations hold a general distrust, with people coming in and out, and the dirt clinging to anything it can.  For some this was all they knew and it pulsed in conjunction with theirs. I looked at our driver. He has a few "wisdom" moles. The driver's eyes are no longer dark brown, as if the bitterness retreated and no longer cared to remain. He lights a cigarette and starts the car while she stares. 


Now I leave you with a link to my friend Donna's new website. I admire her as an artist, awkward lovable friend, for her diligence and I don't know her overall inspirational badass-ness to get her creativity out for the world to see it. Hopefully I can do that too one day.

No, it's not that I don't have time but rather I am in a constant state of imbalance.

Imbalance. That's a good word for it. In the slew of the disroutine life that I live due to a combination of procrastination, wandering thoughts, and family I have done a very bad job of focusing on my objects of affection: music & art. Although I've always loved these two things because I can do them rather mindlessly and enjoyably and somehow they always returned to my life even in the midst of change.

During this time many albums have come out, actually I believe in the last few months that I have not been able to give my full attention to particularly: Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, We Are Scientist's Barbara, and Chromeo's Business Casual. Lykke Li will be coming out with a new album as well. Not including the slew of new things that are consistently popping up in our informationcrazed generation. And as a result I've been not feeling the spark in these albums as I try to listen to the music while working on some grant proposal. My hands hurt. I think the combination of listening to work and music doesn't work so well.

I've always taken a long time to warm up to albums. They have to hit me at a certain moment. I've had metric's albums in my ipod for over 2 or 3 years before I was like these folks are pretty damn awesome. Time it takes.


Okay, I'm going to find balance now. Be back soon. Until then my draft box, notebooks, and books remain incomplete and hidden.

In lieu of my non existent music blog.

Not only does his name consist of my last name (brownie points x a million) but Dam Funk from Stone Throw Records is coming to Southeast Asia. Short notice but I just saw glanced over my email and thought I would let my bloggy friends know for the sake of knowing. Asia Airlines should have some flights left.

Aug 27: Solo Set @ Zouk, Singapore 

Aug 28: Solo Set @ Capocaccia Jakarta

on another note my mother calls me today to ask me where the flea market was that I took her too. She lost her beanie which she bought from a Chinese lady that hand made them. She wants to go back and get it.  

I really like to talk on the phone.

I just have no one to talk with. The kind of phone with a cord. Not this wireless disconnected wireless crap. The kind of phone that you can twist your fingers around, that leave you tied to a room so you can't do anything else but talk to that person. That's what I like. I like to talk to people on the phone and commit my full attention to them when I talk. One of my biggest pet peeves is talking on the phone with someone in the room, with someone listening the conversation it's never the same.

Today my mom called me, and while I listen to her tell me her stories about Brisbane to Malaysia to her cruise from Canada back to southern California I couldn't help but smile and think how much I miss the phone. Miss my mom. I travel because of her.  Maybe that's why watching scenes pass by on a bus or train puts me at ease. If I can't see the window or road I feel uneasy.

Anyways not cellphone. The phone with a cord where you can wrap your fingers around. My office has one, and I'm dying to find someone to talk to on it for hours. I used to talk to my best friends in high school for hours, in fact I think I made best friends through the phone. It was my way to the outside world, because I when I was younger I wasn't allowed to go outside too much. I remember very clearly this pair of hand made pajamas I wore all the time. They were white with navy blue stripes made by my mom's hands. I liked the tough cotton feeling of them. I wore them with my red shoes. Sometimes my gold shoes. And if I couldn't find another pair I would wear one gold shoe and one red shoe.

"why she wearin' two different color shoes?" said the neighborhood girl.
"my mom couldn't find the other one" I said.

I would make things up. I really wanted to play with them. I followed them until they all dashed into a house I was scared to go into or maybe they wouldn't let me in, I don't really remember. I do remember a boy who use to bully me a bit but I think I had a crush on him. My two color shoes. He played ding dong ditch and I told him to stop it. That we would get in trouble. I remember falling once from my bike when I was with him. My dad told me to stop playing with him and I never knew where he went.

And so that is what my memory wants to recall today. I am still in Vietnam. My aunt and cousin from America are coming tomorrow to Long Xuyen and I'm excited. Time to bike ride.

Mekong stories stream through me.

And for the most part I forget to transport them onto paper or another medium where I can remember them. But sometimes by happenstance they come across my mind and I am forced to reflect on them. For work today I have to find quotes from our program, from what people have said to me under their tin roofs as the sweat drips down our faces, as children swim in the muddy rivers of the Mekong, and as life moves on unaffected by my presence in their homes.

This reminds me of a grandma who sat in her home when I walked in. She welcomed us. Everything we saw was probably everything she had. Her eyes were not teary because she was crying but they were teary because of her declining health condition. Her grandchild was a scholarship recipient of my organization. We were visiting in one of our bi annual house visits we make to check up on the family and the recipient. A young boy who seemed to be her grandson lingered in the background going about his business. The young girl was skinny, enough to squeeze between me and the driver on the motorbike. She listened to her grandma, and she went to help us get gas for our motorbike without a complaint. The sun was scorching but I suppose she was used to it. Everything I saw was everything they had. She rented out the other half of the house and lived in one half. Tin lined the walls and roof. Rust draped where it could. There was a tv to my right, near the pots and pans. The grandmother sat on her bed. And as the girl went away for a bit, she told us that the girl was not really her grand daughter, but she didn't have parents, so she took care of her.

This must of slipped my mind as I recall it sitting in my air conditioned office with my wireless keyboard and mouse. Necessities that suddenly seem unnecessary. What a small fact that I let register in the back of my mind. Secrets kept from someone just to let them live an unknowing life. Her tears were real regardless of what caused them.

One headphone down, one more left to go.

 As a person with strange shaped ears my dreams of sharing headphones with a potential lover are far reached. There is something strangely romantic about sharing music with another person, even if it never amounts to anything. Strangely romantic. Strangely friendly. Sometimes I can fall for someone just by seeing what they listen to. Just by the sounds they introduce me to.  It doesn't help that you like music too. Moments encapsulated through lyrics, memories surface through melodies.

However since my ears cannot hold onto earphones I remain in bittersweet lonesomeness. I brought two pairs of my favorite headphones with me, simple and light. Although augmenting my awkwardness, my trusty Sony (MDR W08) headphones have amazing sound volume keeping me company for many years now. I once found someone who totally agreed with me that these were amazing headphones too! I forgot who this person was, but when I found him I was happy.

I live by them. I first found them when I was wandering somewhere in a basement store in Berkeley. I bought them for about 10 dollars. Last month an old pair broke. I knew one was bound to break and out of precaution I had a back up. The left side is blown out and I am left with just one pair.

And to think of the time that passed by as those headphones filled my mind with the ability to forget. And as time passed the wires grew strained and somewhere too many snapped. But while those wires were strained maybe I felt nervous, anxious, or sad. Nestled between notes, its scary to think that I only have this one left. That if this one pair breaks I must go search for another one. Another that will make me just as happy as the previous.