I dislike red-eye flights for the wrong reason

Things a person should do when flying a red-eye flight:

1. Wear pj pants
2. Bring a big, fuzzy blanket
3. Wear a sleep mask and ear plugs/earphones

Things a person should not do when flying a red-eye flight:

1. Watch three hours of “House” on the plane if one has hypochondriac tendencies and a vivid imagination

Loud Nostalgia

So far on this trip to LA, I’ve…

1. Eaten at Daikokuya (I have been craving their tonkotsu (pork bone) ramen since May of last year)
2. Accidentally wandered down to Irvine
3. Spent most of my time fervently pointing at things and mock-angrily screaming, “Y’all changed! Y’ALL CHANGED!!” at the top of my lungs while contorting my face into odd positions as if attempting face yoga (don’t think there actually is such a thing…)

Ten things that make me surprisingly happy

1. The sweet chef who gave us complimentary appetizers for having to wait a little while for our table
2. My impulse purchase of my golden tassel necklace– it is now my favorite piece of jewelry; I love how just having the tiny chains tied together in a simple knot can create a lovely statement piece.
3. That clear nail polish seems to always be the answer to all my clothing problems, freezing the delicate threads in their place and suspending them in time (I still think it’s magic)
4. Wandering into a used bookstore with a “Buy 2, get 1 free” deal (And what made it just a bit better than other used bookstores? It also sold used clothes!… But none were in my size)

5. After being heart-broken that Wei-Chuan Turnip Strips buns are impossible to find in Northern Virginia, I suddenly found them in a small Chinese grocery store in Maryland, just twenty minutes away from home
6. When I accidentally hurt myself by bumping into something, Wayne will try to kiss the pain away, even (or especially) if it is the back of my head.
7. Feeling that summer has truly arrived while eating a popsicle (…okay, a few popsicles)
8. A gift in the form of cupcakes
9. Finally getting Wayne to watch Doctor Who with me and having him be even more addicted than I am
10. Playing around with Poloroin, a free website that transforms pictures into Polaroids! Go here (!): http://www.polaroin.com/

Ten things that make me delightfully happy

1. Wearing red lipstick for no special occasion
2. Dry shampoo; that extra day of not having to wash my hair is priceless, and I am lazy
3. Purple tights
4. The words: “kerfuffle”, “befuddled”, and “wibbly-wobbly-timey-whimey”
5. My vase of flower headbands
6. The bow-tie that the Eleventh Doctor of Doctor Who wears
7. Pretending that my walks home from work are actually through a rainforest
8. Petunia, neighbor pug, who happily snorts at me and stands as close as she can to my legs as her way to tell me to pet her
9. Weeknight movie dates
10. Listening to heavy rainfall while inside the car

Ten things that make me incredibly happy

Please notice that I didn’t include Trader Joe’s or macarons, because I’ve written about my love for them and how happy they make me many, many times that I thought maybe I should stop writing about them for a while. Or at least for the rest of this entry. So perhaps this entry should actually be titled: 10 things that make me incredibly happy (that aren’t Trader Joe’s or macarons).

1. Yellow roses in repurposed glass jars, wine bottles, and drinking glasses (such as wine or champagne glasses) as unorthodox vases
2. Reading used books that have been dog-eared and marked up with highlighter and little notes on the side
3. Brightly colored old  townhouses, especially the ones in San Francisco and Georgetown
4. Walking down the small corridor that connects the gate at an airport and the airplane
5. Walking into Daikokuya (Little Tokyo, LA) or Café Bonaparte (Georgetown, DC) and being immediately seated
6. Wearing two different nail polish colors at the same time; the left hand has one color and the right hand has a different but matching color
7. Walking up and down the aisles of Asian supermarkets and buying all the ingredients and foods I thought were really strange when I was young and accompanying my mom
8. My unique way of eating ice cream, sorbets, and gelatos, which is to shave off thin layers with my spoon while keeping the surface level as I eat—I love starting off along the edges and moving in a spiral path inward
9. Weekly dinners with my family (and seeing Wayne get along really well with my younger brother)
10. Getting to be the little spoon

This post was inspired by the very lovely, smile-inducing here’s-to-happiness section of one of my favorite blogs, the RockStar Diaries.

Spring

How I know it’s Spring:

1. The weather has been showing growing pains of being 70F with sunny skies on one day and regressing to 40F with dreary skies the next day. There was that little incident with snowfall, but everyone trips and falls as they change.
2. What would have been disastrous snowfall has turned into torrential rainfall.
3. I smell the pungent, sour smell of fertilizer on the walk to the grocery store.
4. My boyfriend’s sports of choice have changed from snowboarding and bowling to golf and bowling– golf may be the love of his life, sports-wise, but bowling is the ugly mistress he keeps on the side because, while she’s not the prettiest to look at, she lets him do the weird stuff.
5. I wake up at 6:30 AM on a weekday, naturally (ie. before my alarm clock– my body is not opportunistic, but I guess I was already well aware when my body decides to wake up at 6:30 AM on the weekends, even during winter).

Advice to my younger self

Dear 18 Year Old Jenny,

I could say that you shouldn’t be dating that boy since all he does is make you cry or that you should be using your time more wisely and not procrastinating when you really should be studying– when you’re accidentally watching a marathon of Dr. 91210, a show you can’t stand, because you can’t reach the remote, I really think that’s a sign that you should be doing something more productive, just saying– or to be yourself– okay, let’s face it, you’re going to be yourself whether you try hide your quirky self or let it shine because your personality is like a durian fruit– or that mom and dad are pretty much right about everything. But you probably won’t listen very well and take the advice. Plus the advice is pretty broad and general, so here are some tips that aren’t wibbly, wobbly, time-y, wime-y, convoluted life changing advice but they are very convenient if I were to know about them earlier in my life.

1. If you burn yourself, wet the burn with cold water and then dump, not sprinkle, a mountain of salt on it. How will you know if it’s enough salt? It should look like a miniature Mount Kilimanjaro. Wait around ten minutes and then wash it off. You know it’s working because you should feel the heat disappearing.

2. Buy the international version of your textbooks. The content is the same; usually the version is paperback so it’s lighter and more portable; the book is new so no messy, ugly handwritten notes that probably won’t be of much help; and it’s a fraction of the cost, like one-tenth of the bookstore price, which really is the main reason and the rest are just the rainbow sprinkles, caramel syrup, and the maraschino cherry on top. And let’s face the truth, besides the fact that you’ll only end up getting around $40 for the $210 textbook, you’re not actually going to get around to standing in line, are you?

3. If you have a run in your tights– stop that, stop, you scrunch your nose in disgust and disbelief, but, yes, you will love tights and your legs will look amazing in them–, brush clear nail polish on top of it. The run stops running and is frozen in time. It’s kind of magical.

4. Use eyeshadow primer, even if you’re just wearing eyeliner because you know that halfway through the day the eyeliner line will smudge and fade. There’s a reason why Urban Decay names their primer, “Potion”. There’s no smudging of eyeliner or creasing or fading of eyeshadow color. And it lasts for hours.

5. Put the bread in the freezer, it’ll last for months. Don’t put cakes, cupcakes, or muffins in the refrigerator because it will quickly dry out the crumb even if it’s just overnight. Leave them out on the counter, lightly covered.

6. When playing Apples to Apples, the winning cards are “Helen Keller” and “Plumber’s Crack”.

Love,

24 Year Old Jenny

Chaque jour, je voudrais que tous ces…

I used to love writing lists of random things on post-it notes because I love the combination my girly, swirly handwriting and 0.5 mm black ink pens. Except I always lose my post-it notes. I’ve even lost my pack of post-it notes currently. Oops. This is why I just write them here.

Current Obsessions (most of it food):
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series
- Roasted asparagus
- Roasted sweet potatoes
- KinderBueno (SO SO VERY Bueno!)
- Whole grain bread, toasted, with creamy peanut butter and then lines of honey drawn to resemble my pudgy bunny before I smear the honey across the peanut butter
- Urban Decay’s Naked palette
- My leaning Christmas tree that is still up
- Vanilla lattes

Ongoing love affair with:
- Trader Joe’s
- Macarons
- Crepes
- Tights
- Tastespotting.com and Foodgawker.com
- Jasmin green tea
- Spanish food

New Year’s Resolutions

I’m not late to the game for making new year resolutions now; my timing is nicely squished between the New Years where there is a lot of drinking and kissing at midnight and the New Years where there is a lot of eating and distribution of red envelopes. I brought in the New Year with an actually pretty fitting combination of cosmic bowling, Dunkin Donuts munkins, and some 90′s throwback Crash Bandicoot, because we spent the holiday with Wayne’s family in New Jersey, a land where instead of there being Starbucks on every corner, there is a Dunkin Donuts, and my darling boy who loves a good beer and a good time unfortunately fell in love with a girl who loves any type of chocolate over a alcoholic drink and has an internal bedtime of 10:30 PM. Most Friday evenings when my favorite honeybear isn’t in town because she’s slaving away in dental school, Wayne covers me with a blanket and turns on the Food Network before he goes out drinking with his friends and I fall asleep to “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives”. Someone somewhere is chuckling.

New Years Resolutions:
Year-long:
1. Cook good, wholesome food — It’s not necessarily that Wayne and I were unhealthy eaters before, but we did go out to eat much more often, and there were nights when there were no vegetables on the table and we forgot to eat our fruits. There were also nights when we were especially lazy and called for Pizza Hut, Wayne’s current favorite because it is literally down the street from us so he get so amused at the thought of being able to order the pizza online and having it show up just minutes later. The goal here is to have a moderate serving of one type of protein, incorporate large servings of vegetables in to lunches and dinners and fruit after dinner. I realize that white rice is usually the most unhealthy thing of our home-cooked meals, which I guess is actually a good thing to say, so in addition, I’ve cut out white rice from the meals since Wayne was raised eating only a small amount rice while eating a lot of dishes instead anyways. Though I guess I should point out that even with all this new mindful eating, we still have a Santa-box filled with Ghirardelli chocolate squares so that I can get my chocolate fix.
2. Exercise four times a week — I used to have a good combination of being active and lazy during college since I went to the gym every day and walked everywhere while also spending my free time lounging in bed watching Burn Notice and Doctor Who; occasionally I would have two weeks of furious drawing and painting that took the place of lounging. Now with living in a place that actually has discernible seasons– and being very afraid of the cold–, the idea of being active has been shoved into a closet, door closed and locked with a sumo wrestler sitting on top of a heavy trunk in front. Meanwhile, it is being reminisced about fondly and with that feeling of something vaguely important being misplaced.  This is my attempt at trying to be more active during the winter months since the spring, summer, and fall months will be easy.
3. Visit each of my favorite girls in the city she is spending the most time in — This one should have been the easiest of the resolutions except Shabad threw me a curveball and now resides in Knoxville, TN, a place with very good barbecue, fried butter, and bad sushi. Last year, I nearly visited each girl in her city: while I did get to see Momo during my LA trip, I wasn’t able to visit her in Las Vegas, where she works. Visiting Shabad was a breeze since she lived in Philadelphia, but even though she lives in Knoxville, I still need to visit Philadelphia because now Wynee goes there for dental school.
4. Call Simon — He’s the only guy friend whom I’ve given a nickname and the first person I have to tell if I ever get engaged. I will never stop being amazed that he survived high school with me calling him my best friend. I should call him a lot more. Or text, because I’m starting to wonder who calls people any more.

Scavenger Hunt! (One-time goals):
1. Go hiking in Great Falls (Maryland side) without getting schooled by a black and white Maltese.
2. Go to Disneyland and get the couple’s picture in front of Cinderella’s castle
3. Go to Paulette in Beverly Hills to buy macarons
4. Attempt making macarons properly
5. Make use of the actual reason I joined Twitter in the first place and go food truck hunting in LA
6. Find a place in the States where I can get Sakura Matcha Kit Kats without having to call in a favor from my aunt who lives in Japan. While calling my aunt would probably be the easiest, I want a source where I can walk in, buy a year’s worth, and walk out without any shame. I’m hoping to find them the next time I visit Marukai or Mitsuwa, which unfortunately won’t be any time soon.
7. Sign up for a cooking class at Sur La Table

Final Stretch– watch me stumble, fall, and play dead

23. I am like a bored computer: left alone for ten minutes and I will hibernate. And like my own computer, I will beep very loudly and sharply if poked during hibernation. I can count the number of sleepless nights I’ve had in my life on one hand– and only then was it because of severe emotional distress. I fall asleep so easily that it’s surprising I’m not narcoleptic. I’ve fallen asleep in a bathroom sink and slept quite soundly until my mom woke me up the next morning, first, angry when she thought her daughter had snuck out during the middle of the night, and, then, confused why her daughter had chosen to fall asleep in a hard, porcelain, tiny bathroom sink when her daughter had a perfectly comfortable bed, designed for sleeping.

24. Maybe it’s because I really adore certain movies, or maybe it’s because I have the attention span of a peanut, but I love watching the same movie over and over and over…and over and over. The movies that I have re-watched so many times that the numbers are in the 50′s are: “Miracle on 34th St”, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, “Wall-e”, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, “When Harry Met Sally”, and “Bridget Jones’s Diary”. It is very easily gleaned that these movies are not thought-provoking or incredibly moving; in fact, most of these movies move so little that they would probably drown if thrown into a lake because they barely know how to swim. These movies are the cinematic equivalent to chicken noodle soup…Well, chicken noodle soup eaten by a 5 year old who explodes into a fit of giggles when he is able to fit a piece of noodle up his nose– these movies are comedies. These movies are sweet, funny, and, most of all, reliably comforting in their familiarity.

25. For four years, I lived in the city that was gloriously sprawling and its tentacles of lights in the night-time extended to the ocean. It rains twice a year because the thunderclouds are in a courtship with Seattle and the sun has fallen under the same spell that beguiles and beckons thousands of hopeful actors to the city. The beaches were only minutes away and the farmer’s markets were a foodie’s wet dream. I loved the city because for four years it was home and my roommates were my family. I cried at the thought of leaving and I fought so hard to stay. However, when I moved back to the East Coast, I realized it was the best decision that I ever made because I met my soulmate. He is someone who makes me smile so widely that my cheeks hurt; someone who is gifted with infinite patience and a very good sense of humor; someone who tries so hard to make me happy that his efforts alone make me dizzy with euphoria; someone who understands my idiosyncrasies and embraces them wholeheartedly. Because of him, I don’t care where I live and I gladly gave up the second chance to live in my former home. For him, I would be happily move anywhere as long as we are still able hold hands when we fall asleep at night. He is my everything.