Recurring haunted houses

Last night I had another one of those haunted house ride dreams where I got on a haunted house ride where the car took you up a big lift and then dropped you off on the second floor and you had to go the rest of the way on foot. There were many dark and terrifying Victorian rooms and everywhere there were people (other guests) sleeping for some reason, in the beds and closets and on the floor.

Vana and I came back from our weekend in Miami yesterday and I couldn't sleep the whole night eyes wide open for all the hours of the eve and then I spent all morning today walking into things at work

bearika

Next level

I've been doing yoga for 6 years and today I did a handstand (with some help from a wall) for the first time on the first try

magazine chef

what do you do when you feel like you've just experienced some kind of real-life magic/serendipity/magic and you're astounded but you have no one to tell who will really understand?

i used to subscribe to bon appetit magazine when i lived in new york because i loved looking at the pictures of food. stunning. when i moved out of new york, i grudgingly tossed the whole collection. however, i for some reason still own one orphan issue, issue October 2014, which has now survived two states and three moves, and it has lived with me at 4 separate addresses total.

today i decided to flip through the issue and i stopped on a page about a young, up-and-coming italian-danish chef and i realized it was the same Christian whose pizza restaurant i ate at in Nørrebro on my last night in copenhagen this past july. i'd had dinner alone at the bar and ended up befriending the staff and drinking with this man in the magazine and one of the waitresses. he told me about how he just bought a farm and showed me pictures on his cell phone of the dairy cows he'd purchased and was going to start producing his own milk for the cheese for the pizza in the restaurant. after i forked over some extravagant sum for my lavish treat-yourself last-meal, i'd jumped into the basket in front of his bike and gone with him to a cocktail bar in the neighborhood to have repeated shots of mezcal with the same waitress from before, her boyfriend (the sous chef from the restaurant), and a handful of random internationals in the copenhagen fancy food industry (one was the nerdy American boy personal assistant to the owner of Noma, the current 5th best restaurant in the world). 

words feel so astronomically inadequate and any attempt at description fails to capture the lightning bolt shock of seeing his face in this magazine that i've been hoarding for the past almost exactly two years. when this issue was mailed to me, i had no idea that i would still be living in florida in two years' time, or that i would step foot back in copenhagen anywhere in the near-to-far future. i would never say that i feel like i inexplicably carried this magazine with me for two years because anything was meant to be, but this event provides concrete evidence for the spiritual enlightenment that i stumbled upon on that solo journey, where i came to the suspicion that there is far more serendipity in the world than i will ever know.

messages texts e-mails

early in the morning or late at night i fire off missives in all directions, some responses overdue, others unexpected and unasked for, one after another all around the world, and then i sit back and collect the answers that sparkle and rain down. 

mcmaster

i've been experiencing a very strong vacation withdrawal, which is most prominently characterized by an overwhelming disgust with every aspect of my current surroundings. i didn't expect to feel as heartbroken as i did when i was on the plane leaving copenhagen to return to the states and i've been haunted by a desire to abandon everything and move to scandinavia ever since. it's not fair to compare your real life to your vacation life, but i can't shake the suspicion that life there is more fulfilling in all arenas.

on my saturday in copenhagen i had the good fortune of seeing mcmaster, who moved to stockholm a year ago, and who happened to be changing trains in copenhagen on her way back to sweden from a festival. serendipity. i met her at central station and we lunched at bankeråt, the cafe where she, erik, and i had beers 7 years ago. then we had equivalent-to-7-euro iced coffees at a fancy coffee stand called the coffee collective. we sat in the grass at dronnings louise bro all the way up until we had to head back to central station, passing tivoli, to put mcmaster back on her train to stockholm. it's been 7 years and she's still one of those mythical beings, with unchanging magical vocal intonations and whose thoughts on life and humanity are a revelation.

kh

danish language forum, on the use of "KH" as a shortened form of the valediction "kærlig hilsen," ("love")

journey beginning

as of this morning i have returned from a grand adventure to europe, where i first went on a road trip with a carful of my high school girlfriends, and then on my first ever trip by myself, on a gran return to copenhagen 7 years post-study abroad. i consider no trip complete until i've irresponsibly lost my neck pillow somewhere on the planet, so, farewell pirrow (the one pa bought me for christmas to replace the one i lost) - i'm back in orlando. i'm going to write about my adventure snippets as they come.

in the week prior to my departure, my last grandparent, my ah-gong in ilan, passed away unexpectedly. though he no longer recognized most people he had known, we expected to have a few more years with him because his physical health was good. the funeral was already set for the 19th, which would be my last night in ireland before flying to denmark. i immediately thought to cancel the trip to attend the funeral, but decided with ma and pa to go on with the adventure and then go back to california in a few weeks to be with the family. it was a difficult decision but i think it was the right one.

because of perpetual geographical distance (america, taiwan) and perpetual language barrier (english, japanese/taiwanese), my grandfather and i were never close in the way that i think other people are with their grandparents. my strongest and warmest memories are of when he would take me out to the harbor when i was little to look at the fishing boats, when we would play mah-jong during chinese new year, and our shared love of his orchids, his stamp collection, and of photographs - family photos in particular. in chinese belief, after death, a person's spirit roams the earth for (7?) days, visiting family members and familiar places. i don't know what i feel about that, but i couldn't stop imagining that my grandpa, for the first time, might finally be seeing my life and understanding my personality and i felt good about what he would see.

on my last visit, feb 2015

 drinking beers

watsky

remind me how magnificent my life is

doppelganger

there is a girl in this cafe named valerie and i feel like i'm having a full-blown identity crisis

zika

my parents cancelled their cruise in the fall and subsequently their trip to see me because of zika?

don't worry

this is what dads are for 

reflections

i have learned an immensely great deal over the past two years

summer plague

i've been waking myself up in the night scratching my bug bites