in the last 30 days, these countries have visited my blog (listed starting with most hits). sup ya’ll. thanks for visiting. looooove!
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Australia
Singapore
Japan
Taiwan
Germany
Malaysia
Hong Kong
New Zealand
Norway
Sweden
Ireland
South Korea
France
Algeria
Poland
Phillippines
Switzerland
Spain
Turkey
Austria
Russia
Indonesia
Brazil
Italy
Chile
Grenada
Lithuania
Qatar
Mexico
Denmark
Tunisia
China
India
United Arab Emirates
Netherlands
Latvia
Czech Republic
once upon a time (or few), i visited Tokyo, Japan. two of those times i had the pleasure of staying at the famed Park Hyatt. fantastic.
everything about the park hyatt seemed perfect. the rooms were understated but luxurious and attractive. from the moment you step in you feel like royalty. when you dial the front desk they answer, “hello miss yu.” i felt special staying there. it was an ideal vacation in a world far away from this place. even the skin and hair products they offered in the rooms were awesome. so of course, i tucked a few away to bring back home. to use and pretend like i’m somewhere else. pretend i’m far away again in a foreign land and that i could just step outside and quickly lose myself in the most wonderful way.
the last time i was there was over two years ago. two days ago, i brought the shampoo and conditioner to the the ymca. to my chagrin, the conditioner had turned. i mean…how could i have been surprised??? two years later i use those tiny little cute bottles and expect them to miraculously stay fresh for me? how could i be so foolish? why didn’t i just use them sooner? they smelled so good, i loved them so much, and so i waited and waited and waited in an attempt to savor the moment.
it was surely a lesson to be learned. i’ve always had the tendency to save things. ever since i was young. i mean, i wasn’t some super privileged kid. we didn’t own expensive things. i wore generic keds and converse wannabes. we wore taiwanese night market hand-me-downs my mother collected from older cousins when we went to visit. so when i would get something nice in my hands, i couldn’t bear to use it.
i remember during my elementary school years, having this amazing set of crayola crayons with its own plastic carrying case, displaying a spectrum of waxy goodness in all it’s glory. i remember carrying that thing around the house. arranging, and rearranging. making sure i most accurately aligned them to honor Roy G Biv. i used them so sparingly — god forbid i had to sharpen one and fuck up the original shape. and why? so that i could be a kid who loved to color, but restrained myself so that i could tote this plastic case of crayolas around forever??? that is the saddest thing ever.
in recent years i’ve begun to simplify my life. throw things away, or even better, donate them when i don’t use it. hell, i’m bringing those little shampoo bottles i’ve collected from fancy hotels and using them at the gym. ALL of them. i didn’t listen to all those chinese fables teaching me philosophies of waste not want not and living in the moment, just to become an amateur hoarder. seriously.
let go. live. stop holding on to meaningless objects. these aren’t the most important things in life. i know this. i’m living this. i have so much that doesn’t come in a tiny little bottle. i’m filled with so much love every day for the people and experiences around me. you can’t bottle that shit and you sure as hell can’t save it for later. every single moment is a new reality to be relished.
enjoy things now, people.
enjoy the hell out of it. slurp it up. use stuff that is meant to used.
but something in me sure was, and i’m enjoying every moment of it. in fact, i bought rain boots yesterday because there were four more days of rain forecasted. and then i probably won’t wear them again all year, but who friggin cares!
anyhow, that isn’t what i really wanted to talk about here today. what do i want to talk about, you might ask?
relationships.
no. not those kind of relationships. i’m talking professional ones.
see, i was driving in the rain today after dropping off a submission to an agency that i am very interested in, and while blissing out to the millions of rain splatters being wiped over and over from the windshield, i started to draw comparisons between professional relationships between an agent and actor, to a more personal, intimate relationship.
what i concluded to myself was that previously, in my own experience, i was not in the right relationship. and what i’ve learned about being in a wrong relationship — professional or personal — is that i end up losing myself. slowly. pieces of me. little by little. when i’m in the wrong relationship, i start to forget how to just be me. and i start thinking i have to be what other people expect me to be. not so much in a conscious way, but subconsciously over time.
it was horrible for me creatively. i was so blocked. i became so unsure about what i was doing and THAT is actor suicide.
let me be clear that i didn’t think these relationships were BAD relationships. they just weren’t right. for me. the last year was such a blessing for me. being freed from my old rep was the most inspiring thing they’ve ever done for me. it allowed myself to come back. to be me again. it gave me the motivation to make my silly, fun video, and even start this website. and the crazy thing is, this return-to-my-true-self seems to just beget more and more work. people started coming to me with work this past year and i didn’t even have an agent. i’m not sure when the last time was that i was so happy and productive.
to be fair to the people before, i wasn’t so happy or enlighted when i met them, so they didn’t get to see the real me then either. so it’s nobody’s fault that it didn’t work out. we all just needed to find ourselves, yes?
i guess THAT is a sign that i’m ready for a new relationship. professional, that is. and i’m very excited to find the right people who will fit. just. right.
i’ve been feeling incredibly inspired the last few weeks, and particularly after the new year. see, i went to vegas to ring in 2010. now, normally i’m sort of disgusted by vegas. but something happened this trip. i saw life in a whole new way. let me explain…
we had been treated to a nye party at the playboy club in palms casino. admission, drinks, our room, everything was taken care of. fantastic.
but no more than 30 minutes after we got to the party, my friend anahi and i couldn’t take the energy of the place. to describe in one word: DARK. maybe because it was the playboy club, but it was like this regurgitation of what sexy should be, but in reality the place lacked any sensuality whatsoever. instead it just felt icky. there were shifty eyes all around us, trying to see who to look at, to see who was looking at them.
so three of us decided to journey back and found ourselves pouring out into the main casino. maybe it was the sound of all the machines, or the cocktail waitresses bustling around with drinks. maybe it was seeing people from all ends of the country — the world. or maybe it was mind altering substances, i dunno, but i suddenly saw everything as an exchange. i saw the exchange of energy between everything and everyone right before my eyes. transfers between people and people, people and machine, us and the earth. the food, the money, the hope, even the despair. batteries, bodies, spirits that continuously need charging.
it was all so amazing. so beautiful.
you might just think i’m out of my mind, and maybe i am a little, but it was incredibly inspiring. it’s making me see things in a fresh new light. and now i just want to keep creating and working with other people. exhange thoughts. ideas. vision. share. share. share.
i took a lot of photos because of this urge to share, and here are a few of my favorites. hope you enjoy them.
2010 is going to be amazing. keep exchanging, folks…
i have to remind myself constantly to change those thought patterns when they start to creep up — pessimistic, self defeating, highly personalized, isolating kind of thoughts [shudders].
some of you asked why i got my tattoos. on one side it says, “pain is inevitable” and on the other, “suffering is optional.” i wanted them to be a reminder to myself about releasing negative thought patterns, but i didn’t realize to what extent the ink’s power held…haha. today on my commercial shoot for american family insurance, i was asked three times what my tattoos meant before i covered them. over the last two weeks many other people have also asked. these two little strings of pretty letters are opening up all kinds of positive discussion amongst strangers. i love that.
today we talked about how important it is to live in the moment and appreciate what we do have in our lives. there are so many people who are much less fortunate, and yet we get caught up feeling sorry for ourselves because of a breakup, or a car breaking down, not getting that gig we wanted, or someone being an asshole BLAH BLAH BLAH…jesus, sometimes i can’t understand how people can even say they’re having a “bad day.” what? are you starving? do you have a roof over your head? clothes on your back? is that a freaking iphone in your pocket? of your designer jeans? sheeesh.
we should all be SO happy. we should all be SO grateful.
i have my health. i have my family. i have my friends. i have food to eat and clean water to drink. i have more than i could ever need. i am so grateful. i am so so grateful. thank you thank you thank you so much. i promise not to take anything for granted.
F U toxic thoughts. you gotta leave my brain. i know that sometimes you’re gonna slip in, and i get that — there is no light without dark yada yada — i can respect you. but guess what? you’re only here to remind me how great i’ve really got it.
yesterday, on what was a perfectly crisp fall night, the subject of pee dreams came up. and when i say it “came up,” i mean i drank a big glass of water to save myself from the death thirst right before bed and thought, “shit, i’m gonna have to pee in the middle of the night,” which was immediately followed by, “OooOOooo, but maybe i’ll have a pee dream!”
have you ever had one of those? i don’t know about you, but mine are kind of fun. they weren’t fun when i was four because i’d actually pee, but luckily i’ve grown out of that. i think.
so my pee dreams as they’ve evolved over the years:
i’m dreaming. i don’t know i’m dreaming. i have to pee. i have to pee really really really bad.
sometimes it’s normal — toilet. sit. pee. maybe it’s a hotel room, or a restaurant…i dunno, but it’s fairly normal.
otherwise — and here’s where my psyche is fucked up — there’s some obstacle. and when i say obstacle it’s something like all i have is a urinal, or it’s some gnarly toilet out of trainspotting, or worse: a sink. yes, a sink. MY PSYCHE forces me to PEE IN A SINK in my dreams.
THANKS, subconscious. thanks a whole flippin’ lot.
then here’s the other torturous part. regardless of the venue, without fail i will pee and pee and pee and pee, and it’s kind of satisfying, but i’m always in a rush to finish, and there is just a neverending supply of piss. somehow i’ll finish, zip up, and try to go back to doing something, and then I HAVE TO PEE AGAIN! i have had up to FOUR PEES in one dream. FINALLY i’ll wake the fuck up and stumble in the dark to go pee for real. and it’ll be one of the best half asleep pees EVER.
as torturous as these dreams are, i’ve grown to love and appreciate them. it’s like the ‘life’ my [sub]consciousness creates while my physical self is in storage mode. my dream life you could say (disturbing). or maybe it’s the complicated way my brain tells itself to wake up my body. an experiential reminder [or illustration] of how to relieve my bursting bladder maybe?
i dunno. but it’ll be fun until i become incontinent. livin it up while i still can…OH YES.
My friend mick sent me this animated video of Super Baozi on Facebook today. You can find the mastermind, Haipeng Sun’s, blog here, although it’s written completely in Chinese, which i can’t read because i was a really bad Chinese school student. But he has more images and GIFs of his Super Baozi animations. They’re pretty cute! Skilled animator…i like the nunchuck action at the end..
found this via a friend on AnD (thanks, Unikorn!) and i love it so much i thought i’d share. this band called SOUR got their own network of fans to shoot all the footage via webcam/chat from all over the world. this must have taken so much planning and coordinating…whoever thought of and visualized it before shooting/editing did an amazing job making it come together. so GREAT.
(not to mention the singer/guitarist is kinda adorable and yummy. meow.)
i made a new friend today. Phidippus Johnsoni, otherwise known as the red backed jumping spider (at least that’s my best guess), appeared out of nowhere. just doing a little sweepy sweepy and all of a sudden he’s hanging from my broom handle and i’m shrieking like a little girl. tough as i try to be in my ordinary life, my reaction to surprise spiders is quite involuntary and très wussy. once i had finished my ineffectual dolphin mating calls from the front stoop, i grabbed the camera…
could he be a sexier spider? i mean seriously…he’s so handsome. and fashionable. and he was STARING at me…like really looking into my eyes.
i wanted to get a good shot of his gorgeous red back so i kept walking around the broom handle, but he kept his face toward me…seriously watching me. it was like we were dancing. so amazing. but i realized he was feeling threatened…he kept posturing aggressively, tensing and pushing himself up on his legs, which i snapped a blurry one of…
very suddenly and quite unexpectedly, he jumped at my camera (which was about 3 inches from my face mind you) with my neighbor bearing witness. i wish there was a photo of this mad little guy charging my camera…i mean…he jumped RIGHT AT THE LENS! he had a little bungee from his butt to the handle, which snapped him right back. god that would have been a cream inducing shot. not to mention, my reaction shot would’ve probably been good blackmail material.
after unsuccessfully trying to chase the annoying asian giant (me) away, little phidippus here got phid up and let the wind carry his ass lasso to a point on the building. i didn’t realize at the time this was happening. but as soon as his silk attached he quickly scrambled up the wire. i was so mesmerized by what just happened that i forgot i had a camera in my hands. but here’s one last shot of this noble little fucker:
i think i need a cigarette after my tango with this beloved jumping johnson.
i’ll always remember you, phidippus!
(i recommend right clicking and viewing the photos larger)
EDIT: upon further research, i found out this is a phidippus adumbratus, not the johnsoni, although they are in the same family of jumping spiders. very cool.
baxter in a sink. instead of pee.
