soulmates

how important is it to find yours? are you holding out...or settling with the comfortable and easy choice?

sigh. sherry is my soulmate. too bad we're both female (but not lesbians)...

sometimes i think a little too hard about things, and it all becomes slightly insane.

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camaraderie

and in a truly cliche manner, the corridor was eerily quiet, and i realized i was completely alone.

not that the ny subway is anything to fear exactly; unlike boston, there usually are people milling around even in the wee hours of the night; baked eurotrash, college students reeking of drugstore vodka, something of a mix of the destitute elderly and the inebriated youth. if one were to let the senses have free reign the subway becomes almost trance-like, that night-world of fluorescent lights flickering on plastic painted in flat, unreal hues.

but tonight, my senses were reigned in, in a hypervigilance that subconsciously toggles when one realizes that they are alone in a bad place. i heard the click-click of my foolish heels on the cement floor bouncing hollowly through the hallway and metallically tumbling over stairs, where a bum sat with his head between his hands, sniffing god-knows-what out of a soiled McDonalds bag. along the side of the metal bars were two Mexicans, fiddling with an ambiguously shaped plastic bag, leering slightly as i walked past (as much of a leer as can come from men standing a full three inches shorter than me). a couple sat at the far end of the platform, the girl dressed in three different coloured tights, the guy with shaggy, long, hair, head lolling back from too much of something i couldn't have named. but i had done this before, i was ready - a mask had descended on my face, half unapproachable austerity, half distracted disdain.

but then she came, and i couldn't say no. her face was ruddy through the dark, wind-bruised skin, her limbs thick with a lifetime of cheap foods fried in cheap oils that sustain but do not nourish. wrapped around her neck was an atrocious multicolored yarn creation that smelled suspiciously of vegetables gone long to the wayside. her hair was fastened in a hasty, messy knot, but unkempt wisps kept nagging at a wide, squinting face. her jeans were flared, an almost comically trendy touch. this was obviously not a midtown neighbor of mine.

all the same, her eyes carried that forlorn questing look, the imploring look of someone in a foreign world who is terribly lost.

hui jiang pu tong hua ma? - i nodded. D train zai...? lady, forget the D train - this is your direct route home.

turns out she needed to catch a bus from Grand Central - easy. i told her i'd stay on the train with her until we got there. i was getting off at the next stop, anyway.

and she sat next to me, puffy off-white coat and all, nestled intimately close in the way completely lost to the crusty upper-middle-classes, who, i think, value personal space at a premium, far above personal connectivity. there were no other people sitting in our row, so for a moment i contemplated shifting to the right, where i could maintain my sterile midtown existence, my sterile midtown smell.

but then i saw her her hands, folded in her lap, calloused and dark. their darkness hit me first, because it made them at once so weathered and so earthly. i could not stop looking at them. they were the image that my mother repeatedly drummed into me as the ultimate epidermal armageddon, leading to years and years of religiously applying forty-dollar suntan lotions and panicking when an afternoon in the sun left them one shade darker than the imaginary past. all i could think at the moment, however, was how much those hands had done. my own were folded in my lap, a few inches away, small, useless, nearly translucently pale, ridiculous.

hai hao wo zhao dao ni le (thank god i found you, i was lost.) ye hai hao ni you ge ban, pei ni hui jia (and thank god for you, to have a companion on the journey home.)

and she was right. i had thought there was a world of difference between us, but at the end, i wasn't all too sure. we were simply two scared, discomfited women, just a little vulnerable at midnight in this city of leering men, who, having momentarily found each other...were just a little glad not to be alone.

lifestyles of the not-so-rich but very lucky...

tuesday: went to bryant park and were wow'ed by the array of picture-perfect shops and skating rink, and got there in time to witness the lighting of the tree there (though the emphasis on canadian pride was a little iffy. i quote: "you look at this perfect tree, a very perfect tree in every way. for four years this tree has been cultivated in our tree farm in quebec...")

...then captured one full roommate photo (just one) at a thai restaurant that truly "hit the spot"...

saturday, night of hangovers. showed up at Google company formal with deej at Gustavino's right below the bridge. was pretty cool! I'm smiling in this picture because this margarita was made from petron. yes i know, blasphemy, but what can you do, it's google...

dinner at ribot was fun (the green tea martini is divine, though the food was less to par) 

excursion to The Park where we discovered the best Free Drink Secret of them all - tell every group of guys at the club it's your birfday. it actually was mer's birfday, so there were lots of much-deserved rounds. not that i needed more rounds.

sunday sarah, mer, yuki and i took a food tour (what else do we do) in to flushing, where the itinerary included a homage to the hole-in-the-wall Lucia's, which i do agree is one of the best pizza places i've encountered in the city, pho32 (where the waiter look at us with that "@$(%*@ anorexic girls" look as the four of us shared one bowl of pho and one order of summer rolls), and tai pan bakery, in time to discover the most lovely raisin and lemon bread straight from the oven.

the evening was finished off by wonderful soup a la derek's mom, which was much-needed consolation after the harrowing experience of watching Braveheart with torture scene not edited. strange how being in an actual house can comfort you in strange ways...after the hustle bustle of manhattan, suburbia is a delightful respite...

thursday was the pharmaceutical practice holiday party at Table XII, which i will admit was more an excuse to get drunk than anything else. dragged along two party-happy BAs, but something in the drinks made me slightly offend my boss's boss (never a good idea, note to self...) i suspect the alcohol.

the week has gotten more surreal as i continued to be amazed at the sheer money that is thrown around this place...after figuring out that my $500 vision coverage expires on the 31st, i waltzed into saks fifth and asked the store manager in a flurry do you have last season's YSL square-frames?? he looked at me trying to figure out what the heck i was about before he figured i looked dressed and corporate enough to try one of them hallowed frames. anyway, they didn't have them, so i went onward to the next conquest:

the Lenscrafters on 45th and 5th, i found, caters exclusively to delicate trophy wives who can't so much as stand the notion that their lives are not perfect. the supremely cute and tiny russian woman-doctor assured me as she measured my prescription, "yes, your right eye is near-sighted, but that's not bad at all! millions of people get lasik every year just to get your prescription. see, you have a natural reading eye."

geez, what a spin.

$500 and one pair of disappointing chanel glasses later, i retired to a night of drunken revelry with harvard 06 (proved kind of lame, though, so sarah and i trekked to Whiskey Bar at the W Hotel instead, where we proceeded to people-watch for a full hour.)

friday lunch on the rooftop of the gansevoort hotel was a prelude for the fantastic bain & company holiday party at the lovely Boston Harbor Hotel. amongst the highlights...

seeing the fantabulous ted and lusi...

a bain gingerbread house!

bain coasters...

a chance to wear my poofy bubble-dress...

and of course, WINE...

this is how parties start and end.

haha, how slick..

short black duane reade cashier hit on me as i was buying my special k this morning. how did he make this not sleazy, you wonder?

downturned eyes, subdued voice: "by the way, in the street vernacular, we would call you fine."

wow, man! what are you doing at a duane reade?

***

i love this line! it is so delectably cruel.

"You would think you'd understand, after being for many years sexually active...well, at least sexually cognizant."

all that was left of him - a pack of dentyne ice and four erased voicemails. after that night, they could not have seen each other again. gone was the pretense of two young statueseques perfectly matched by age, height, and racial stereotype- they had come too close to realizing that they were both human, and therefore vulnerable to bothersome things like weakness and fleeting emotion.

***

btw, is it bad that i'm sort of unhealthily attracted to scary alpha male types? for now...namely, orthopedic surgeons and the bad boys at the private equity shops.

i've finally figured out that the perfect life is a state of mind. you will never have full control over external forces, but you do have full control of your own feelings of happiness and fulfillment. and at the end of the day, isn't that what really matters?

***

in other news, remind me never to do this to my kids.

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***

oooh don't hate me (us), but this is sooo funny...

me: yea so at the end of the day she found this hot asian guy
me: but she's not gonna go for it cuz there's a hot white girl after him
me: it just made me kinda sad in general...for asian girls
lisa: yeah
lisa: but just think about how much worse it would be if u were an asian guy!

because merr and i are crazy, the two of us ended up randomly having a cocktail night (and running up an impressive tab!) because we were feelin like we needed it. yes, you guessed it - another crazy wednesday night.

the great thing about wednesday nights is that you always have zero expectations for things, and therefore it's bound to be a pleasant surprise. the bad thing is...oh right, thursday.

so this morning, after 1.5 hrs of sleep i half-mumbled half-slept through a conference call during which i couldn't actually formulate complete thoughts. rather, complete thoughts would come out so that the words are in random order and my colleagues were like "ehhh?"

example: "J, what do you think is the future growth of product X in comparison to new entrant Y? did the experts think they may take over?"
"Uhh...the experts think seem to there isn't enough data clinical support trial in Y, so we should be decline seeing, you know, market share, about 3-5 years future...uh, looks like."

ahhh we've become such alkies...

***

in other news, i've recently become obsessed with papaya enzyme pills. you can get them at whole foods for like 8 bucks a bottle, and it totally cures my lactose intolerance magically. (yes, it doesn't seem clinically sound to me either, but at this point i'm just going by the actual results, though n=1...)

so basically, the rumour begins.

anonymous coworker A: you look tired J
me: yea, current study is crazy, get 2 hrs of sleep on average factoring in random nocturnal wednesday outings
anonymous coworker A: but you have the nervous energy of an attention deficit 4 year old
anonymous coworker B: that's what the coke is for. 

same anonymous coworker popped into my office unannounced right after i wolfed down a powdered sugar donut this morning and was sniffling because of a cold, plus i was poppin my papaya enzyme pills surreptitiously as he came in. the look of disbelief on his face was somewhat depressing...but priceless.

The "Rules" (in the real world)

of late, I've been trying to give my brother some sound advice on this mysterious process known as Dating in the Real World. It's actually quite a bit more difficult despite the 6 year age gap, because I've been in the debilitating disease known as Long Term Relationship for long enough that my love muscles have atrophied. Ew, gross imagery.

anyway, I suddenly came up with a shuddering thought...I know nothing about dating in the mid-twenties world! it's as if i've emerged bleary-eyed from a 4-year hibernation and am witnessing a new world of completely different foliage. 9 questions I was curious about:

The First Date

1. How many days after this First Date do you call? Consensus seems to be at 2-3 days, with 4 being a clear signal either that you're really not interested, or just trying too hard to follow The Rules.
2. To that end, what's appropriate: call, text, or email? Since I'm chained to a Crackberry like the rest of this corporate bubble, emailing me is like calling me. Calling is open to much misinterpretation and devastating overanalyzing because someone might not pick up not because you're actually a jellyfish clown*, but because he/she is actually standing next to the boss when the fateful call happens.
3. No Sex on The First Date seems to be a universal, but what's okay? Good night kiss? Good night making out? Making out in room followed by random play (but no sex?) Or hell, just have sex as long as you make sure you don't stay the night?

The Second Date (lucky you!)

4. read something about how you should decline at least one date before agreeing on the second one, just so you don't seem desperate. sad...but makes some twisted sense.
5. what's good for a second date?
6. Should the girl pay? Offer to pay? I kind of like the idea of paying, but if you accept her offer to pay are you horribly tacky?

The Third Date (wow, are we on a roll or what?)

7. Men in the audience seem to be chanting "sex! sex! sex" as I type but come on, grow up. Call me old-fashioned but I'd say not just yet.
8. But yes you may make out. IMHO.

The DTR (aka. Judgement Day)

10. Here comes the crux of it. When is it official? (please don't say Facebook.) Things as straightforward as asking are obvi, but I've heard also random things like when you first buy each other christmas/birthday presents, when you first turn down another dude asking you out, when your friends deem that you're dating, etc. Hence the popular girl-rant, "Yea...actually not really sure if we're going out."

*** in other news... ***

wyndaengel: am i an alcoholic? i feel kinda depressed from work and just kinda want to go get a drink
shellsjs1218: well, alcoholism is when u feel like u can't control ur drinking
shellsjs1218: but there's nothing wrong with just going to get a drunk
wyndaengel: lol
wyndaengel: great typo
shellsjs1218: lol lol
shellsjs1218: u can get a drunk too
wyndaengel: i don't want a drunk
wyndaengel: i want a drink and a hunk

*i don't know where this term comes from. i just made it up. i was thining "clown in bed" when i realized my next point was No Sex, so then i ditched the "in bed" part and replaced it with "jellyfish." yeah.

it's official...

i'm allergic to men.