私も恋愛とかできない

Wow, that was the most realistic ending I've ever seen in a drama.

Spoiler alert for Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu:
This whole time, you assume the girls are going to end up with their guys, despite all the troubles, because this is a drama, so the girl always ends up with the guy.

Yet that's exactly what didn't happen.
-Saki was in love with a married man. That's the shittiest situation to be in because it's kind of terrible to force him into a situation where he would have to cheat on or leave his wife. She thought about it and decided in the end that it was best that he stayed with his wife, since the wife really wanted to make it work, so she broke it off. She was probably the character with the worst luck with guys, but even though she didn't have anyone at the end, she finally got a job that she wanted and things aren't so bad after all.

-Mako started to realize that she liked the chef, but she doesn't jump into it suddenly. It ends with her finally accepting the fact and continuing to live on to see what happens. You don't know if the chef likes her back or not because guys don't always like you back anyway, but there's hope in this new possibility for her.

-And finally, Emi had to decide whether or not to go off to America with Yuu, her best friend whom she's been in love with this whole time. Normally, any show or movie would have the girl/guy run after her/his love because ~*love conquers all*~, but Emi in the end decides to stay in Japan because she doesn't want to get rid of her life just for love when she still doesn't know exactly what she wants to do in life. Granted, she said that she wanted to be close to her loved ones, but I felt that that was kind of a bold move on a TV drama's part because they always have the heroine make the sweeping life-changing decision, no matter how risky and unrealistic it seems in real life. It was kind of great that they made Emi choose to stay even though she loved Yuu because not anyone can just drop everything and follow their love wherever they go if they haven't figured out their life yet. And that's not really the sensible thing to do either.

I love how in the end, the drama smartly revolved around a great theme: Love really isn't all that simple and can't really take over your life because there's so much more to life than love. However, it can be a really wonderful piece of life, so you shouldn't cut it out of your life altogether either.

It was adorable how the last bit of the finale was shot live. I really love that the Japanese drama genre is starting to embrace some live shooting because I think live television is one of the most magical things ever.
/end drama talk.

Then I feel like I'm so adamant on pursuing love right now because I don't even have the other parts of my life, so I'm trying so hard to get this piece in play.

My four quadrants of life:
1. Family
2. Friends
3. Work
4. Love

I'm 1 out of 4, the one which is family, which you're born with, so it's an automatic fill. I'm not having the best rate, guys.

much better than I thought

I'm gradually getting my life back together.

-I just had my first dentist appointment in a year today and have picked up flossing again. Bad habits are hard to break, and good ones are just as hard to pick up. Let's hope this one lasts.

-Because of the appointment, I had to wake up before my usual 2pm, so today's the first day that I've had three full meals since... months ago. It feels pretty great to eat food at regular intervals, although I did sneak a munching of Pop Chips just now at midnight.

-I have a hair appointment tomorrow AND an interview (fingers-crossed for that). It's a Skype interview, so boo having to wear real clothes, but yay for no pants! After all that, I have a bunch of errands I have to run.

-For the big day I have ahead of me tomorrow, I compiled the need-to-do's into a to-do list. I haven't written to-do lists to help me get my life straight for years now, so organizing my life again was so refreshing via el to-do list japones above. Side note, when did my handwriting become so neat all of a sudden?

-The other day I cleaned the whole apartment, and I had never felt so satisfied in my life. I've still managed to keep the apartment clean since then, putting things back where I got them, washing dishes immediately after I use them.

-I've successfully worked out for an hour every day since a week and a half ago. My thighs have never felt so tight.

-Almost caught up with my shows! 2 more episodes of Mad Men and 2 more episodes of Veep. Then perhaps I shall get started with Homeland?

-I splurged yesterday and went out of my way to buy Popeyes for lunch/dinner/the meal of the day. To my luck, the Popeyes I went to in Chinatown was having a deal where you show your Popeyes receipt to the new bubble tea store next door for a free milk tea. Juicy fried chicken + milk tea = won at life last night.

I'm kind of doing a terrific job trucking along on my own these days.

Flamingo Dream

Sometimes she wants to tell people that she’s a psychic because that’s what it feels like. The colors they choose generally reflect their personalities, their moods. Red is a classic bold color, so just from a glance at their wardrobe can she tell whether they are classy or just trying to seem that way. She’s a big fan of the neons because they always have the most fascinating conversations. Black scares her, but luckily, they aren’t the types who would come to a shop anyway.

Today, it is a royal blue. The cool, calm, and collected hue. The woman sets her fingers on the table and immediately begins speaking. She has a gig tonight. At the jazz bar in the hotel downtown. Her manager got it for her. This is her first big gig. She thinks she was able to get it because her album sales are phenomenal, even in this digital economy. The local post calls her voice “a puree of Corinne Bailey Rae and Regina Spektor.” It feels so great to be appreciated.

As she paints, she gets lost in the azure. The faint pink is the color of shrimp, but with a graceful stroke, it is devoured by the sea of dark blue. No trace to be seen. One coat is the color of a tweeting blue jay, but with another, it becomes the color of the beautiful night sky. The night sky under which she used to look upon the passersby, stamping the sand off their feet. They laugh, they hold hands, but is this because they hear her, or because they don’t? The clasps glisten at the moon. Her melody mingles with the sounds of the crashing waves. One of them stops and looks. She looks but doesn’t stop. A dollar bill plops onto the plush, creating a shelter from the salty air for the old quarters. It feels so great to be appreciated.

The woman doesn’t need conversation. She just needs approval, so occasional nods and smiles are enough. But maybe she doesn’t even have to be there. Maybe she can just sit there and the woman will still be talking. Maybe she can just get up and leave and everything will still be the same. And then maybe she can return to the sea and be a part of the music.

Suddenly, instead of the sounds of the ebbs and the tides, she hears the roars of the others. No money. No living. No job. She’s always wanted to prove them wrong, but everyone stopped supporting her when she couldn’t support herself any longer.

Eight o’clock. She cleans her station and picks up her purse. The door rings as she steps out, as if signaling a cheery good bye. Happy you’re gone. Happy to be gone. The tides are calling her, and she lets them take her closer and closer, until she reaches a new sign. An unfamiliar sign.

Walking in is like being smothered by a huge wave of chatter and laughter. This place of uncouth noise and people couldn’t possibly have been what was calling her away. They laugh, they hold hands. She finds an area away from them and takes a seat. One vodka cocktail please.

The man sets a napkin down and gently places the drink on top. He adds a plastic garnish, a flamingo, on a stick. How kitschy. But she peers at the pink gaudy piece of plastic, and the creature it has taken the form of. A flamingo isn’t always pink. It just eats so much shrimp that it turns pink. But it can’t become white again. Doesn’t it miss being white? Do you think it dreams of what it’d be like to be white again?

He picks up the stick and frowns at it. He looks at both sides and plops it right back into the glass. Even if it does, it’s so beautiful when pink. If it was white, it wouldn’t look like a flamingo anymore. Maybe it’s just meant to be pink.

She sips the drink, looking outside at the sea. When she finishes, she leaves a tip and takes the flamingo.

Supine, she reflects on the days on the shore. How she waited all day for crowds to enjoy her music. How she worried when each day only ended in nine dollars. How she painted her nails to keep her from biting. How her pick kept her cuticles intact. How her little form of luxury caught his eye. How he stopped and looked and dropped the dollar and asked her to come along.

Ten o’clock. The sunlight dances on the chimes as they ring, gracing her entrance. Good morning, he greets her, with the same warmth of that summer night he brought her here, sheltered her, and helped her back to her feet, and back to her hands.

Today, it is a neon yellow. The bright, cheery, and powerful hue. She can’t help but smile at the fantastical tales. She laughs and asks for more, sitting in her stylish orange swivel, against a wall of rainbow. The glint from the door chimes reflects the glass full of nail files on her table, and protruding out of it in her line of sight is a flamingo, strutting eternally in a bright pink and grateful for where it is and what it has become.

such a fucking existentialist

"We're all slaves to this place that doesn't really want us."

--Girls, episode 6

Today, I trucked ahead and continued to apply for jobs.

I need a haircut because my hair is just the messiest it's ever been.
I need a dentist's appointment because I haven't gotten my teeth cleaned in a year.
I need a strapless bra because it's a staple in a girl's wardrobe.

I realized that maybe TV writing isn't for me.
It's such a big decision for me to come to, since this was what I was going to dedicate this summer to.
It's just so hard for me to stick to and manipulate someone else's voice because my own voice always, always seeps through and takes over, even in formal reports, even in business papers. Why do I always feel the need to snark out everything?

Maybe the bigger problem is that I don't have a grasp on the basics of storytelling yet. Every time I write anything, there's no inciting event, there's no resolution because there's no conflict, there's no bigger problem. When I write, nothing happens, like in Mad Men.

Things just occur, but nothing happens.

Maybe it's because my life is currently going through this kind of stagnancy, and I can only relate what I know.

Simply

It's close to 3am and I'm kind of buzzed.

I've microwaved a bowl of Easy Mac, washed up a bowl of strawberries, got my jar full of water, and 30 Minutes or Less on HD on my TV. This is the life, in spite of the fact that my hardcore night fell through.

the "what-the-fuck"

Let's call it the "what-the-fuck."

I had showered and changed into my PJs and snuggled up on my beanbag watching Freaks and Geeks when I suddenly decided that I should just go out. It was only 12:30am.

So I just got up and changed back into nice clothes and put my contacts back in and was ready to go out. I didn't care if I didn't have anyone else because I don't ever have anyone else anymore. I hadn't gone out in NYC at all even though I've been 21 for a while, so it was about damn time that I got off my lazy ass and aimed to have the fun that I had every fucking night in Seoul.

I headed over to Lower East Side to a bar that Childish Gambino was spinning at for the night, but by the time I got there, there was a line. I waited 20 minutes and never got in because they just closed.

So I decided to go up to K-town and hit this new lounge that opened a month ago. I waited for the subway for about 10 minutes, but when I realized that it was already past 2am and I wouldn't make it up there until probably close to 3am when everyone's probably done, I just decided that I should just head home.

So home it was. I waited close to another 20 minutes until the train finally came. And now I am snuggled back up on my bean bag and kind of in the mood to watch American Wedding, but should I care more about my health and just go to bed instead of staying up for another 2 hours until 5am to watch a movie?

Maybe I just deserve to do something today after this completely failed night and life.

unwanted cannolis

Do you have to stick to what you don't believe in in order to get to what you do believe in?

There are gorges of jobs in NYC, but I can't believe I already have to deal with the dam of the job-hunt difficulty. I can't seem to get any job that I want. I apply and apply and no one seems to want me. But when I try to figure out what would make me a unique, must-have candidate, I'm out of ideas.

If I can't get a job aka a motherfucking UNPAID internship, then do I just apply for internships for things I don't give a damn about, just to have a job? I hate hate HATE how this world is dictated by networking because it's not that I don't know how to meet people, it's that I don't know WHERE to meet people. Everyone just thinks you're fucking creepy if you talk to them out of nowhere. Fuck you, stranger danger.

The only jobs I seem to have connections to are things that I don't care to do, that I don't really even want to do. If I don't have the discipline to do well in school because I hate it, then there is no way I'll be able to put in good effort in an UNPAID job that I don't give a shit about. But do I just deal with it because I have no other choice? How do I get from here to where I want to be? Why can't these vectors exist?

I was thinking about just applying for some fun-seeming internships, since I wasn't having luck in the television department, but I'm in the summer before graduation. This isn't the time for me to fuck around anymore. I have to get a job close to what I want to do or else I won't have a job there when I graduate.

Goal: Meet new people this summer.