she was a water sign

I keep meaning to write and keep getting bogged down with boredom, malaise, lack of motivation, and lack of meaningful free time. I work part-time, I don’t have kids yet, and I still don’t have time to do everything I want to. Clearly I am doing something wrong.

But changes are finally on the way. Next Friday is my last day of work and two days after that we’re taking off for a long trip up the coast. We’re taking a train to Santa Barbara and then taking our sweet time driving up the coast with stops in San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and Santa Cruz and ending with four days in San Francisco. Two of our favorite people in the world will be coming in for two of those days, I am so looking forward to seeing them.

And in six weeks from tomorrow, we are leaving for North Carolina. It’s all I can think about. I know there will be plenty of things I’ll miss and that it’s impossible to predict what our new lives will be like, and from the book I’m reading, I know that people are terrible at predicting future happiness, but I still believe all the way down in my gut that good things are coming. That we will be in a place where we fit.

Slowly but surely the fingers on my left hand are starting to callus from playing the guitar. I know seven chords and am well on my way to learning how to play Spoon’s “I Summon You.” Not well, but I can bang out the chords.

I don’t know why the rough skin on my fingertips makes me so happy or how in the world I could spin that into a metaphor for change and better times ahead, but hey, it does and somehow, it is.

Not that I was surprised, but the Old 97’s show at HOB last week rocked my face off. I’ve never seen them put on a bad show but they were on fire that night. I started listening to them my freshman year of college and they remind me of home, Texas, and being young and in love. We missed the first opener, but were there for Hayes Carll, who was pretty good. Murray sang “Valentine” during the first encore, as he often does. It’s such a heartbreakingly lovely song and every time I hear him sing it live, it gets me right in the gut. They played a really good mix of old and new, Jay was giddy that their second song was “Barrier Reef” and they played almost everything I could have wanted to hear. They ended with “Timebomb”, a perennial favorite, and they were joined by all the guys in the opening bands, so there were over a dozen guys stomping all over the stage. It was bitchin’.

A year ago today I married Jay on a gorgeous beach on St. Thomas. The months of planning leading up the wedding were more painful and stressful than I could have imagined but they all led up to one heavenly day. There were some noticeable absences among the guests, but in the end, the people we mattered the most to were there and for us, getting married by the ocean in an exotic location with a tiny group of friends and family could not have been any more our style.

This remains one of my favorite of our wedding pictures. The first time we walked up the aisle, people were too dazed to think to throw the rose petals, so they insisted we come back and start over, which we did, laughing all the way. I love how this picture captures the topsy-turvy joy of that moment.

And because of the joy we both get from laughing together every day, even in the most stressful of times, it was so perfect to start married life that way and perfect that there was so much laughter throughout the ceremony.

The past year has not been wine and roses. It has been filled with moves and huge changes and rough transitions and this next year promises to be more of the same. Those first several months here were so hard. And the loss of our robust support system of friend only made it worse. The lack of friends brought us closer together and we had to be everything to each other. When one of us was too overwhelmed with stress and needed to break down, there was only one person to turn to, and sometimes we felt the weight of that responsibility keenly and sometimes it was hard not keep bringing each other down.

But it’s also made us an incredibly strong team and it’s comforting to know that we can spend so much time together and not go crazy. We’re learning more about where the edges and the rough spots are and how to sand them down.

For as different as our backgrounds are, it is amazing how well we fit and how terrifically we get along. Sometimes I drive him crazy with my pickiness and sometimes he wears me out with his hyperness, but most of the time we can appreciate each other’s quirks. He brings out all the best in me and being with him makes me feel stronger, calmer, saner, and happier. That I can feel as good about myself as I do with Jay is made all the more amazing because of all the pain in my past that made me doubt I could ever build a foundation for a happy family with someone.

He’s the most loving and patient person I’ve ever known, but beyond that, he’s just so damn awesome. Smart, sensitive, passionate, hilarious, complicated, and just plain weird. Life with Jay is never boring. He says odd things, makes up nonsense words, likes to sing and dance at random moments, and I call him a dork about 5 times a day. I wouldn’t have him any other way.

One year down, and so many more good ones ahead, babe.

I remember reading a story in Guideposts when I was a kid about a woman who had a very difficult relationship with her mom and when it came time to buy a card for Mother’s Day, she had a hard time finding a card that wasn’t ridiculously inappropriate to their relationship, what with so many cards talking about a mom as a best friend and all the good times shared together. I am in the same boat. My dad isn’t my best friend and he wasn’t always kind and understanding and there for me, so super flowery and effusive cards are right out. I stick with very simple ones.

And every year, I wish that I could write one of those Father’s Day posts about how awesome my dad is and how close we are, but that wouldn’t be the truth. I can say that I love him and that he’s a good man who did the best he could considering that he’s gotten dealt so many lousy hands in life. I can say that.

And I can say that he has taught me so much about what it really means to be strong. I hate how the battle with cancer is wearing him down. He’s lost his hair, his appetite, and his speaking, thinking, and motor skills have all been impaired, which is a huge blow to someone who’s always been the strong, domineering patriarch of our family. But I have to believe that he will bounce back from this, as he’s always bounced back. He’s a fighter and the strongest person I know. There are so many things I would have liked him to do differently when I was growing up, but he’s given me the gift of strength and just as importantly, belief in my own strength.

So all I can do is try and be strong until he’s better. I need him to be better. Our relationship is such that he’s never met Jay and Jay has never seen where I grew up. It’s a big piece of the picture that needs to be filled in. And I need my dad to be around to be a grandpa someday, to teach my kids to speak Korean and to love books and good music and being outdoors. And to teach them what it means to be strong.

I started writing a post a few days ago about my impatience and feelings of being stuck and stymied, but at the moment my worries are very petty. I’ve been following the news coverage of the Iowa floods and the pictures of Iowa City and Coralville under water have been breaking my heart. Selfishly, I am grateful that we’re no longer living there, but I worry about our friends there, one who is likely going to lose the house he, his wife, and two sons live in, and I just hate to see the damage being wreaked on a place I am so very fond of and have been appreciating even more since we left. Jay keeps reassuring me that they’ll bounce back and I know that’s true. Midwesterners are tough, they have to be. But I hate to see a piece of the Midwest so near and dear to my heart being put to the test.

Not surprisingly, The National put on an awesome show. Rocked my face clean off.

On Saturday, Jay and I did part one of our Veronica Mars tour. We have a lot more places to find. If you’re a V Mar nerd, go see our pix here. I am really bummed that we moved to SD after the show was canceled. Show quality started going downhill, but Season One is really stellar entertainment. I found it crazy how many of these places we’d walked or driven right by without realizing. I totally squeed about seeing the motel where Logan and Veronica had their first kiss and seeing the Mars apartment.

In other news, thank God Spike finally got PYKAG’d on Top Chef. I found him and his hats insufferable.

I watched the first episode of Next Food Network Star, the homely little sister of Top Chef, and it was entertaining, in a totally cringe-inducing way. You could not pay me to serve my humble cooking to Chef Morimoto.

My fingers are starting to hurt from playing the guitar. I can’t believe how impatiently I’m waiting for my fingers to get callused. My guitar teacher told me at first I’ll get soft calluses that will shred all over the strings, before the skin really hardens up. Sexy!

Jay called me this afternoon from work just to say “You’re awesome” and “I love you”. I feel bad that my first reaction was “Do you need me to do something? No seriously, why are you calling?” Heh. That’s marriage for you.

We opened up our new Wii Fit last night and went through the set-up and I’m not going to tell you what Fit Age it spit out at me, but it was not good. Apparently my sense of balance sucks. Jay’s Fit Age was exactly the same as his real age of 32. We don’t like him.

But I’m feeling a little elderly today. I have a headache that I’m chalking up to the one beer I had at work today (Beer at work is one of the cool things about the job. I may hate my job but it has nothing to do with the company or the people, who are great, and it’s a laid-back environment). ONE beer! And it was a Corona, for crying out loud (I didn’t get one, but I was totally craving a Corona when we were sitting on the beach in Mexico. Damn those commercials.). Alcohol on an empty stomach messes with me, but this one was accompanied by two slices of pizza, salad, and a huge cupcake. Like many Asians, I can’t hold my liquor, but this is just ridiculous. These days all it takes is one glass of wine to give me a wicked headache the next morning.

So in lieu of writing anything substantive (and to give this place a break from all the sad sack stuff) but at least to get something up here (I really hate it when days go by without me writing. I’ve got to break myself of that bad habit), let’s talk about what shows are on my DVR. Lazy blogging, yes, but I like getting the scoop on what shows/books/movies/music the bloggers I read are into. It’s a convenient way to see what we have in common.

Daily Show and Colbert Report. We’re old and go to bed before these are on, but we always watch ‘em the next day when we eat dinner.

Lost. Sometimes the show drives me bonkers and Jay and I have completely different levels of faith in the writers to pull it all off (he thinks they can do no wrong), but damn the show sucks you in.

BSG. Yes, I’m a nerd, I’m a big fan of ST:TNG, but you don’t have to be into sci-fi at all to be a BSG fan. It’s just a damn fine show.

Heroes. I didn’t read comic books as a kid, but I’ve always felt like there was a comic book geek inside of me waiting to come out. Stories about super heroes have always appealed to me.

Good Eats. Alton is a badass. ‘Nuff said.

Jamie at Home. I won’t say I love this show as much as I love Good Eats, but it’s close. I love them for entirely different reasons. One of the things I love most about Jamie’s show is how quiet it is. Simple and classy. No annoying background music, no mindless chatter, no gimmicks. And yes, I would love to grow all my own vegetables somewhere in the English countryside and eat everything that he cooks. And his British-isms crack me the hell up.

No Reservations. I’m a fan of the Bourdain and I’ve never really thought he was as much of an ass as everyone likes to say he is. He’s entertaining and I love travel shows.

Top Chef. Addictive, albeit occasionally frustrating. Having a douchebag like Ilan win two seasons ago really hurt the show’s credibility for me.

Project Runway. This one took me by surprise, but I did want to be a fashion designer when I was really young and just as I love to watch Top Chef because of the yummy food, I watch PR for the pretty.

What Not to Wear. I don’t have much time to watch this, but I’m a sucker for makeover shows.

The Office and 30 Rock. Best two comedies that have been on in a long time.

And just to add something we’ve been watching thanks to Netflix – Coupling. The original, of course, not the ridiculous American version that apparently used nearly identical dialogue. How lazy can you be? Why not just air the original here? Anyway, I recommend it, it’s brilliantly funny, relationship humor at its best.

I didn’t mean to disappear but it’s been one thing after another since getting back from Mexico. First I was tired, itchy, and with a perpetually upset stomach and once that faded I came down with a cold and a wicked, persistent cough. I’d drag my sick self to work and then crash once I got home. But I did manage to see Iron Man (entertaining) and the latest Indiana Jones (disappointing), cut off a lot of my hair, and start taking guitar lessons (whee!). Starting to feel even more restless about getting out of here and getting to North Carolina, although I’m also tired just thinking about packing, the long drive (driving across the entire southern United States in August will not be the smartest thing we’ve ever done), and having to start from scratch again. I miss our friends. I miss having friends.

I worry about my parents. Chemo has been tough on my dad and I worry about how many times he’ll have to go through this. I know that taking care of him and worrying about him is wearing my mom down and on top of everything else, doctors found a benign polyp in her stomach that has to be removed through surgery. I think the sooner she has it removed, the better, but she has to wait for my dad to be doing better. Who’s going to take care of both of them? It’s just a shitty situation and I will never understand why life never seems to let up on my parents.

I’m just trying to hang in there, hope for the best, and enjoy the little things. Lazy weekends with Jay and the cats we adore, lobster tacos at the beach, learning to make music again and actually looking forward to getting calluses on my fingers, making travel plans for the time between when we quit our jobs and leave for NC (we want to spend some time in San Francisco and either drive or take a train up the coast), and going to see The National at HOB tomorrow night. Boxer is such a stellar album and perfectly suits the mood I’m in these days.

I am back after a fantastic week in Mexico, complete with a deep tan, bug bites, and an unhappy stomach. We got back Tuesday afternoon and are still recovering. I wanted to blog before we left, but we were so busy right up until the last minute. The weekend before we left, we hit the Roots Festival (I love a good street fest and am glad it’s that time of year. A couple of weekends ago we were going to explore Cardiff-by-the-Sea but took a wrong turn and ended up at a huge festival in Encinitias. Serendipitous.) and saw Britt Daniel play at the Belly Up (good show, cool venue) and finally got to the zoo, which totally rocked.

Playa Del Carmen was beautiful and our room at the Shangri-La was just steps from the beach. We enjoyed eating tons of tropical fruit for breakfast and enjoyed the amazing breeze as we looked out over the pool and the ocean. We spent the first two days just laying on the beach and hardly moving. I think we relaxed even more than we did on our honeymoon, where there was always another great beach to get to. The beach in Playa is amazing, all the guidebook clichés apply. The softest sand I’ve ever walked on, powder white, and cool even during the hottest part of the day, thanks to calcium carbonate (every once in a blue moon, it’s actually useful to be married to a geologist!).

Even though a guidebook mentioned that topless bathing in accepted on many beaches, the boobies everywhere were still a bit of a shock. As I always remind Jay, it’s not just the hot young things that strip down at beaches, it’s also the older, heavyset ladies. I totally got the short end of the stick on this one - Jay got topless women and I got scads and scads of men in Speedos and thongs. Sweet Jesus. Even the most fit guy looks dumb in a Speedo and there were plenty of the heavy, hairy-chested, gold chain-wearing types there. Shudder. Our first morning there, I looked out the window while we were eating breakfast and saw a large man take his thong off to towel himself off better. I really could have done without ever seeing that!

We ate so much Mexican and Yucatecan food and I enjoyed a mojito almost every day and the sound of mariachi bands every night. Most nights we walked down to Quinta Avenida, which was just around the corner from the resort, a long stretch of shops and hip bars and open-air restaurants.

We saw Mayan ruins at Tulum, went snorkeling off Cozumel and saw shipwrecks, dolphins, and gorgeously colored fish, but the highlight of our trip was snorkeling in cenotes, these underground caverns with freshwater rivers running through. To get to them, we went racing through the jungle on these rickety jungle buggies, holding on for dear life as our guide navigated the bumps on the path. The first ride was white-knuckle but the subsequent ones were actually pretty fun, once my adrenaline was up. We climbed down into the first cave, which was one large room and I wondered where the rest of the cave was. Once we got into the cold, clear water and put our faces down, I could see that everything of interest was underwater. It was unbelievable. Insane rock formations, deep canyons, just this whole otherworldly realm. Goes down as one of the top most amazing things I’ve ever seen.

This was our fourth tropical vacation in three years and even though it just seemed natural to celebrate the first anniversary of our beach wedding at the beach, we’re ready for a different kind of vacation next time. We have our sights set on Italy.

It was a wonderful week but we’re happy to be home. The first thing I did once I had the tiniest bit of energy was run out and get the new Old 97s album. Four years is a long time to wait! I am jumping up and down with joy that they’re playing the House of Blues in June. I’ll be there in the front row.