Lovely things...

I want to go see this oh sooo badly:
http://www.pnb.org/season/dc2008.html

I've seen this guy dance once w/ ayako at Bumbershoot and I was thoroughly in love afterwards....

Sexy Sexy

So last night Steve and I finally rented and watched Lust, Caution- the Ang Lee movie which has the reputation of an NC17 rating for violence and lots of naked Tony Leung.

Highly recommended. Maybe not at the level of In The Mood For Love, which caused me to forever fall in love with Tony Leung, but it was so intense and lovely that I keep thinking of it all day at work. It also makes me want to go back and watch In the Mood for Love again because he is much younger and far less creepy :)

I felt that Ang Lee's lengthy use of subtly in this movie worked much more powerfully for me than his approach in Brokeback Mountain. It's still a fairly lengthy movie, but it moves much much faster. Also, very importantly, the chemistry between Tony Leung and Wai Tang is intense. INTENSE!

Aside from all of that, it really really made me want to do my hair up in pin curls and wear hats that slant over one side of my face. Wei Tang's wardrobe in this movie is absolutely delightful. Carefully detailed blue trench coats and black velvet hats, red lipstick, and many many skin tight silk mandarin collared dresses which oh so boobed white girl me could never ever wear. I wish I could pull something like that off.

Anywho, I try to make my 'movie reviews' fairly vague. Living with Steve has caused me to be overly sensitive to the fact that many people don't want to know anything about the plot of a movie before they see it. So, I guess what I can say is this movie is powerful, sad, beautiful to look at... And there is a ton of "doin it" as Steve would say.

Weekend delights

So life has been in full swing. This weekend was pretty low-key, yet fulfilling. Friday evening Steve and I met up at the Stumbling Monk, which was ever so gym-sock smelling as per usual, with Tracy Lin, Elena and Daron. After perusing the selection of various board games that are tossed around this old man’s basement of a bar, we settled on Scatergories, which is probably my all time favorite game. This is a family favorite, because unlike Monopoly, this game didn’t lead to WWIII levels of family fighting. My second all time favorite game would be Apples to Apples, similar reasons. So after many rounds of scattergories, quite a few heavy Belgian beers, Elena making inappropriate suggestive selections, while my mind went for the four year old humor (yes, I put down “poop” for “something sticky”), we walked across the street to the B&O Café. After not being seated for quite some time, whilst staring at four open tables in the bar, we finally spoke up and said “You know, we’re all 21….” I am by far the youngest at 22, while the rest of the group is in the 24-25 range. Sad. After hours of desserts (best bread pudding in the city), we all stumbled home. Or, that is, Steve and I stumbled home and the rest of the gang drove back to the east side. Suckers!

Saturday was stunning. Pure blue sky, kinda chilly still, but I went for a walk without a coat. Went home, pulled down the shades and Watched Graveyard of the Fireflies, which of course, after watching, made it necessary for me to go outside and take another walk… Then after grabbing some Jai Thai take out, went back home to watch Thirteen on tv. Woah intensely depressing movie day. Overall it was pretty nice though. I went on a third walk, stopped off at Café Vita to do some reading, then walked through Cal Anderson Park (many puppies and bums running about). It was a good day, because it forced me to get back to that place where I enjoyed slow paced days spent alone. I took a quick stab a cleaning, but didn’t get too far.

Sunday morning went out to Dim Sum with Beth and Matt at Purple Dot in the ID. They had never been, so it was especially exciting. Steve usually has to cut me off, but this time Beth and Matt both wanted to try as many delightful little dishes as possible, hoorah! Various dumplings of the pork and shrimp variety were enjoyed by all. I really wanted to undo the top button on my jeans after that meal. We briefly walked around the ID in the same stunning sun/cool breeze weather that I had enjoyed the day before. After parting ways, Steve and I drove over to Fremont to visit Yako-monster at the music shop. We brought her some bbq pork humbao (is that how you spell it?) some calpico, and a little custard treat. After distracting her from various customers, making a rukus on the various keyboards and bizarre sound machines, we headed to Queen Anne to go see the Opera. Steve’s mom has been taking vocal lessons for quite some time now and went to go see Tosca the night before. She enjoyed it quite a bit and wanted us to check it out so she generously bought us tickets for Sunday’s matinee. I’d never been to the Opera (tending to be more of a ballet or symphony person), so I did feel a little underdressed in my jeans. I left my coat on the whole time because it was quite a bit more formal than what I had on underneath. Glad I wore heels. Steve of course ridiculed me for caring, but such is life as a girl. Aside from the Opera being really enjoyable (sadly, the tenor, who I thought was the strongest singer, had to be swapped out for the understudy half way through the show due to ‘upper respiratory issues’), I found it quite delightful to people watch. All the old ladies in their purples and feathers and shiny bejeweled handbags, several bean poll blonds wearing barely cooch covering dresses hanging off the arms of clearly rich men, then the tourist who look as underdressed as I do…. I’d gladly go again, I thought it was a pretty fun way to spend an afternoon.

We decided to thank Steve’s parents for the tickets by cooking them dinner. I just made sugar cookies for dessert, so while Steve cooked dinner Steve’s mom and I watched the Oscars. It was pretty fun because she just wanted to look at the dresses too…

Overall pretty delightful. A great way to cap off a super stressful work week. Next weekend it’s off to the cabin!

just like the inspirational posters at the professional development office.

Right now I want nothing more than to go sit in a postcard-beautiful place, like the middle of the woods, while slightly raining and just breath for a half hour... I think maybe I should take up a yoga class.

Congrats Dude!

A tribute to the future Mrs. Raley

One more thing....

A very odd part of me really wants one of these.....


http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/01/fishtank-habitrail.html

How ridiculously difficult would it be to clean?

The Rant- Revisited

Since my major rant of social frustration I’ve noticed several positive turn arounds in my life. One, I’ve made significant effort over the last two weeks to see as many friends as possible, even if just for coffee or lunch. I’ve let frustrations with others go and have said ‘yes’ to every invitation even if I was feeling like being a bum. My overall mood has been elevated by this, I feel connected and I feel like I’m letting go of petty things. I’m also not allowing my devotion to my job take over my weeknights. I’ve also found myself able to be more outgoing and have made a few new friends just within the past week. I like this. I’ve always admire my friends (like Ayako) who are able to reach out to strangers and just befriend them on the spot. I’m finding that in balance, I can really care about my job and my future while also being young.

Another outcome of my little rant is that I think I’ve found a new sense of appreciation for all of the people in my life. I’m a cheeseball, I know, but I’ve had minor conflicts with a lot of friends within the past year, and most have had to do with life changes, growing up, etc. At some point with many important people I’ve considered giving up and not putting forth the effort to keep up with them. I think now I’m deciding that the effort is worth it, even if it feels one sided at times, I know that having those people in my life is going to be better overall than letting my pride overcome our friendship.

This whole life evaluation of course is compounded by the timing of a substantial change in my career life. I’ve basically been offered a huge career shift, which is perfect for what I’m looking to do in the future. They’ve offered to train me into a financial grants manager position and are discussing having me manage the new person hired into my current position. Needless to say when they presented this to me on Monday I was shocked and mildly terrified. I’m highly under qualified as far as paperwork goes, but they believe in me and that feels pretty damn amazing. One potential draw back to all of this is that I will have to spend a lot of time and energy taking courses, reading and studying all of our subcontracts with our other universities. Sometimes I step back and question if I’m missing out of life by diving head first into my career. Should I be poor and wandering some foreign country right now? That seems to me what most of my recently graduated peers are doing. I hope I won’t regret marrying myself to my career so early in life, but I think that the rant I had a few weeks ago also prompted me to look at what makes me happy in my own situation right now. Amongst friends, family, Steve, and food my job ranks in the top things that excite me. So I guess that answers it.

I’m excited right now at the crazy challenges I’m going to have to deal with, I also know that there are going to be days where I feel like I know nothing. I’m really glad that I dealt with any frustrations I was having over a potentially dying social life (oh so melodramatic am I). I’m grossly effusive on this blog.

On another note, I would like to say R.I.P. squishy wrist rest at my office desk. Today its side split and now its gel guts are slowly seeping onto my desk. It’s pretty gross. I’m pretty upset by this loss.