i am rather lethargic this morning, for no good reason of which to speak.

i went to bed at 11, which is early by my standards on a normal work evening. and i'm on my second cup of tea.

perhaps it is the tea that is making my morning feel surreal. my tea drinking began in earnest yesterday morning. the entire 7 ounces of nescafe that i've voraciously consumed in the past month has taken its toll.

i feel jet lagged. everything smells differently with 2 mugs of oolong in your system. in the break room, i smelled incense, even though i'm sure it was just some strange spicy syrup pancake smell. maybe.

and just now i could have sworn i smelled siu mai, or some other such dim sum treats.

maybe it was the yellow bean (?) chinese breakfast pastry bun i had for breakfast as well.
-_-

• a summer wasting - belle & sebastian, the boy w/ the arab strap
• we should have never lived like skyscrapers - chin up chin up, we should have never lived like we were skyscrapers
• the girl is mine - michael jackson ("yep she's mine" ... haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa)
• streamside - the album leaf, in a safe place ♥
• benway - tortoise, standards
• last humans - seaweed, spanaway
• diazepam - karate, the is in the ocean
• sometimes i still feel the bruise - trembling blue stars, broken by whispers
• winter - audio learning center, friendships often fade away
• here comes your man - samiam, where is my mind (pixies tribute)
• arretu i sbarri - la musica de la mafia, omerta, onuri e sangu
• academic festival overture, op.80 - the london philharmonic/abrosian singers/wolfgang sawallisch, brahms symphony no.4 - shicksaslied
• the way you say good-night - the magnetic fields, 69 love songs vol 2
• shelly belly - pedro the lion, the new songs ep
• ferocious love - aloha, that's your fire
• you love to fall - the magnetic fields, distant plastic trees
• md11 - the swords project, entertainment is over if you want it
• otak - tristeza, 2005 japan tour cdr
• i'm tongue-tied - the magnetic fields, i
• dionysus burning - elliott, us songs
  
• ♥ anthony's band, red room cinema was asked to open for the album leaf! except we'll be in chicago - me at the museum and he at the studio mixing their cd. oops!
  

madge's posts prod my sleepy brain

i have an exceedingly limited memory.

maybe it's because i'm selfish, because i live in the now. either way, it can cause ample frustration.

my childhood is a blur. and by childhood, i mean birth to 6th or 7th grade. zero to twelve or thirteen.

let's see how much i can remember:

• earliest memory is of my mother. we are in china and i am on the floor; she is getting her palms read. i am really really young, maybe 2. i remember the color red.
• the smell of the kindergarden mats my class would nap on. the sound of the room as i would try to fall asleep. trying to fall asleep w/o a pillow, which made my body seem to fall in weird angled ways.
• that pink flouride mouthwash! ugh! and we would all fake swishing it in our mouths by pretending to pour it into our mouths, then smooshing paper towels into the little cup to quickly soak that crap up.
• when they would do lice searches, those little sticks would feel so soothing on my scalp. and i liked the way they crunched when broken.
• i'm pretty sure i stole a book from the book fair by putting it in my pants. and i remember the thin feel of the colored newsprint they would print the book fair catalog on.
• russell in elementary school. i'm pretty sure he had a mullet. he used to tease me so i would whip him w/ my hair which was often braided in a ponytail down my back.
• calvin had a last name at the end of the alphabet, like mine. how i hated to square dance with him in music class!
• my mom used to pack little notes for me in my lunchbox, folded like little pinwheels. also, pickles in a bag. i freaking loved pickles. still do.
• one of our babysitters used to lock us up if we didn't eat her split pea soup, which was NASTY. to this day, i have a really hard time eating peas. she would make us take naps on a down mattress, which sounds lovely, but was actually super itchy. i would feel with my fingers for the little feather nubs and pull out as many feathers as i was surreptitiously able and hide them under the mattress in pea-hating spite.
  

some songs from the ipod and not last.fm (username: gimchi)

• she's always there - trembling blue stars, her handwriting
• i slept w/ bonhomme at the cbc - broken social scene, feel good lost
• thermostat - aloha, here comes everyone
• sugar water - her space holiday, home is where you hang yourself
• toy gun anthem - boy sets fire, the day the sun went out SKIPPED
• panic - the smiths, louder than bombs
• blacking out the friction - death cab for cutie, the photo album
• all the umbrellas in london - the magnetic fields, get lost
• the bagman's gambit - the decemberists, picaresque
• perfect on paper - her space holiday, manic expressive
• a fate delivered - the appleseed cast, perregrine
• the-lived-but-yet-named - karate, unsolved
• colossus - red room cinema, new ep
• nel blu dipinto di blu - domenico modugno
• instr 1 - seven storey mountain, dividing by zero
• the last days of a tragic allegory - saxon shore, be a bright blue
• phone call - yann tiersen, amelie
• his sailing days are over but he can't forget the sea - the timeout drawer, a difficult future
• until we meet again - seldom, romance
• magic dance - david bowie
• superheroes of bmx - mogwai, government comissions
• bicycle - queen
• 16.12 - mono, walking cloud and deep red sky, flag fluttered and the sun shined
• decorate the spine - knapsack, day three of my new life
• hanging on a thread - pop unknown, if arsenic fails, try algebra

i can see clearly now... i can see all obstacles in my way...

obstacles such as the bottom step of the stairs.

i've worn glasses since the 5th grade when it was realized that i couldn't see the board from the first row. "i don't need glasses mom, i can see the board if i squint really hard." (hello astigmatism!)

and it's definitely genetic. my mom needed glasses when she was young as well. although her parents didn't believe her at first; they thought she was lying. they realized that she really needed lenses and wasn't just trying to get attention when she was outside with her dad one night and said, "oh, look at the beautiful moon!" and he had to tell her that she was actually looking at a streetlight.

so it's a really weirdly big deal that i just got contacts yesterday! they feel super wacky. and my eyelids keep pushing them around and my eyes feel drier. and sunlight seems brighter.

and i can see my naked face clearly for the first time since the 5th grade.

man, i am asian!

it's kind of weird, i know, but i've never thought i looked asian. i have problems. glasses seemed to make my face seem less asian; they were easy to hide behind. in any case, i am totally ready to embrace my asian-ness. because having kids call me chink or make "chinese-sounding" gobble-dy gook (no pun intended) noises didn't tip me off in grade school. who wanted to be asian because it was so uncool? we had dirty knees.

i'm hoping i can take a mandarin class at usf in the fall. because lord knows i'm not going to teach myself.

in the meantime, though, i'm driving anthony crazy with my question of, "is this normal? what about when this happens? is that common-place? is it supposed to be like this?" *laugh*