OakMonster's Den

We’ve seen how I did last year.  Let’s see how many I can accomplish this year.

1.  Lacto-vegetarian Tuesdays

Vegetarian or vegan diet is nothing new to this Buddhist. However, the most I’ve ever done was 2 days a week of loosely vegan diet during Catholic lent of back in high school.  That was tough too since there was no soy milk or tofu available in nearby grocery stores like there are today.  In college, I started back on vegetarian on Tuesdays, the day of my birth.  You know, one day a week of not taking any lives.  My mom encouraged me to do that as herself had altogether given up eating beef (aka killing of large animals) many years before.  But then, I found myself eating mostly fries, mac and cheese, cheese pizza, and cheese sandwiches–grilled or otherwise, on those days.  Eventually, I gave up.

I still don’t have the will power to give up beef like my mom did, and now my oldest brother does (I think…?).  But lacto vegetarian (vegetarian with dairy product but no eggs) on Tuesdays (and even vegan if I’m mindful enough) can totally come back now that I have more resources to get healthy vegetarian foods and motivation/discipline to do it.  Mommy, this one’s for you.

2.   One hour of piano/guitar/singing, twice a month

Once a week of music shouldn’t be too hard.  I mean, I tried last year.  But realistically, with all of my obligations and TV habit, twice a month is a good point to start. Heh.

3.   Keep up with Italian

I started it. I’d better keep it up!

4.  Work out at least once a week

I have come to realize that my fitness goal wasn’t aligned with my life’s goal.  I was pushing working out on myself to “get in shape”. What’s the point of getting in shape if my eating habit still involves Del Taco?  However, working out so that my metabolism is high so that I am able to consume more calories, now THAT aligns with my culinary exploration.  I came to this little epiphany as I discussed my fitness habit with a colleague, walking up the hill from a big lunch at Bottega Louie.

Exercise so I can eat more.  Now that’s a goal I can get behind.

5.  Read at least one book a month

Last year I got to 10 out of 12.  This year, 12 and up is to aim for!

6.  Finish reading the magazines as they arrive

The only magazine I finish in a timely manner is Entertainment Weekly, being a pop culture fiend that I am.  SELF gets relocated to the bathroom the day it arrives and it does get well read.  Food & Wine and WIRED tend to get backlogged.  I mean, I still have at least 5 of 2008-2009 F&W in the cabinet I have to sift through! This is why I recently canceled my subscriptions to Rachael Ray and Real Simple.

7.  Do my household paperwork on early day from the office

I have put it on the calendar every month that I come home early from those board meeting days.  Last year, after 3 months, I haven’t followed through with that at all.  Oh god, that reminds me…ARRRRGH PAPER WORK AVALANCHE!!!!

8. Eat breakfast everyday

Another realization about how my body works came very clearly to me during my week in Bangkok over Thanksgiving.  I had proper breakfast everyday.  As in Thai style breakfast of, well, rice and whatever was left from dinner the night before.  I felt great all day and even with all the food I stuffed myself with during the trip, I actually might have lost a couple of pounds.  I guess my spoiled little self has been programmed to have proper breakfast since, well, birth.  I mean, when you grew up with a nanny and then a maid, neither one would let you out the door without at least an egg or a scoop of rice in you.

Here in the US, I don’t always eat breakfast.  First of all, I’m never hungry the moment I wake up.  So if I don’t eat before I leave the house, I usually try to find something to eat at the office…which turned out to be either a cup of coffee or tea and some Goldfish crackers, and not much else.  Not any more.  I’m going to do better with packing breakfast as well as lunch from now on.  Well, I’ll try at least.

9.  Take a crack at NaNoWriMo

November is usually the crazy month for me.  But I would like to participate in the National Novel Writing Month this year anyway!  I mean, I think maybe I could cheat and started the ground works in August. Or something.

10. Keep up with What’s Working

I’m doing brilliantly with saving on little things I started last year.  A weekly Starbucks latte and non-brownbag lunch work out very well.  Then again, most of my lunch-out would make for 2 lunches anyway.

Now, share yours.

2009 in pictures

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2009 Awards

Drinking Buddy of the Year: Brandon, actually. Surprise!  The mister doesn’t usually party down, but he has taken up a beer here and there this past year, a stressful one for his work.  So we had gone out for a beer together more than the year before.  Cheers to you, honey bunny!

Bar of the Year: Hennessey’s Tavern and Beachwood BBQ in Seal Beach. These two places never fail to deliver cold pints and some great eats.  They’re our go-to places when we want to run away from the daily life for a little while.

Sorry to disappoint y’all with the lack of Downtown LA’s bar feature this time around.  I haven’t partied in town much at all.  Climate change around the office will affect your happy hour weather, I tell ya.

Newcomer Award: Twitter Gang. I have grown to love folks I met at Tweet Ups especially @dananner, @anaperiodista, @fstop23, @davidmoyle, @sendchocolate, @joncruz, @vbesack, and the disappearing @phraktyl.  We went shooting pictures.  We played Rock Band.  We got drunk.  We had overall great times on and off line.  Great year to make new friends!

High Point of the Year: Watch Thrill the World Los Angeles became the awesome success. From mere 100 last year grown into the thousands. It still blows my mind.

Low Point of the Year: The Christmas Flu and USC Football Rebuilding Year. Yep. Suckage.

Best Holiday: Halloween…again. I mean, prancing through Pine Street as Zombie Princess Leia, rocked that stage with my awesome crew of zombies?  Best. Halloween. EVER!

Song of 2009: Glee soundtracks. I mean, I can barely pin it down to just ONE song!  Almost everything from Glee I totally dig.  I’m especially partial to Somebody to Love, Don’t Rain on My Parade, Defying Gravity (the duet), No Air, Sweet Caroline (Can I get a hell-yeah from Team Puck?), and this one I can’t stop singing.  Lea Michele.  What a revelation!

Movie of 2009: Avatar. I’m sorry, Star Trek and District 9!  You came sooo close!

Surprise Movie of 2009: Bangkok Traffic (Love) Story – Rod Faifa Ma Ha Na Tuh – รถไฟฟ้า..มาหานะเธอ.  I’m soooo in love.

Restaurant of the Year: Bottega Louie. Great food and ambiance.  Totally a favorite place to run away from work to for a long lunch.  Okay it’s a little loud, but what an awesome place to be!  Affordable awesomeness.

Book of the Year: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Seriously. Go read that.

TV Show of the Year: Glee. Duh.

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2009 Goals Tally:  6 out of 10…kind of.

1. FAIL – Explore Kung-fu.  HAH!  I did not.

2. FAIL – Drink more water.  Did okay for a couple of months before waking up to pee in the middle of the night got old.

3. FAIL -More guitar/piano/singing – at least twice a week.  I did try for once a month, but that didn’t happen since my office got so messy I can’t even get to the piano.

4. PARTIAL SUCCESS -Read more books – One book a month at least.  Actually did 10 out of 12.  Not too bad!

• Water for Elephants, Sarah Gruen – Love it.
• Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, Lynne Truss – Learned all sorts of new things.
• Watchmen, Alan Moore – The movie ending makes a hell of a lot more sense than the book I tell ya.
• Turn Coat: The Dresden Files Book 11, Jim Butcher – Always love Jim.  This is no exception.
• Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert – Definitely love the Eat/Pray part. I could do without the Bali experience.
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith – Best. Book. EVER!
• Bad Things, Michael Marshall – I’m still scratching my head at that one. Whuh…?
• The Foodie Handbook, Pim Techamuanvivit – Totally enjoyable and awesome.  She takes gorgeous pictures.
• Heat Wave, “Richard Castle” – Totally a fun read for us Castle fans.

5. FAIL – Add yoga to the routine – at least once a week.  Not so much.  However, I ended up losing 6 lbs. from September through November with the Thriller work out and stress diet.  Haven’t gotten any of it back…yet.

6. SUCCESS – Take a language class.  Buongiorno! 

7. PARTIAL SUCCESS – Cook one new recipe a month.  I went with a few new ones in a month and then go without cooking for weeks.  But we did try new recipes.

8. SUCCESS – Fix them teeth.  5 more months!!!

9. SUCCESS – Fix them eyes. Well, I *did* decide on not getting LASIK done after extensive reserach and serious discussion with my optometrist.  There’s a 50/50 chance I would come out normal or my dry eyes are going to get more severe to a level that’ll become problematic.  I’ll stick with the glasses with that kind of odds, thanks.

10. SUCCESS – Keep up with whatever is working well.  Still a latte a week here.

Zombieland. Who knew that movie would give you some great life lessons.  Well, you know, aside of the Zombieland Survival Rules.

Enjoy the little things, Talahassee said.

My life has been kind of a whirlwind these past few months.  There are many little things I totally appreciate and enjoy.

Like a bouquet of flowers Brandon bought for me. Very unexpected.

Like getting a ride home from a bus buddy who drove in in the morning.

Like getting my Italian homework explained to me by the Italian Coworker.

Like watching Dresden react to “big people’s food” we offer him.  On Tuesday, James, Aurora and Dresden were over for beef pot roast.  Carrots were a hit.  Tonight at a burrito place, the boy who, according to mom, doesn’t like eggs, asked for more chorizo and eggs from my plate, and later on for more of his first Dippin’ Dots experience.

And by asking, I meant he would reach out his hand toward whatever it is he likes and say, “Nom?” Yes, with a question mark.  It was the most adorable thing.

Like receiving the pictures from our Thrill the World LA shoot this weekend that look FANTASTIC.

Breakthrough zombies

Or…one of the goofy ones like these.

Zombie no like trees...

Like everything GLEE.  It doesn’t matter how my day was, music from the cast of GLEE cheers me up.  I frickin’ love this show.  The gem of this clip at about 2:22…

What are your little things?

Undeniably, especially with my involvement with Thrill the World this past year, Michael Jackson has somehow ALWAYS been a part of my life.

My knowledge of MJ is backward than from most people.  I was growing up in an era in Thailand where trends and pop cultures arrived months, if not years, later than in America/UK.

It was my brothers who introduced me to MJ after his famous moonwalk on MTV.  I remembered the MTV video we bought and watched, and watched and watched.  At some point, I remember my brother Onk had learned the theory of the moonwalk from somewhere and was teaching me.  We quickly realized that we couldn’t moonwalk on carpet.  And/or barefooted.

I never quite connected Billy Jean video with MJ back in the days. All I knew was either the song by itself, or that video where the sidewalk lit up.

Then came Thriller video.  My mom bought us the special video with the making off documentary.  After having seen it through the first time, the many times that followed, I would stop the video after the dancing was done.  The zombies attacking the house scared the beejesus out of me.  And I didn’t even know what that Vincent Price–obviously didn’t know who he was either–was saying but his voice scared me.

And of course, just like anyone else, I tried to learn the dance.

Then it was time of Bad. Back then, I absolutely adored MJ’s new face.  He was beautiful to me.  And Smooth Criminal video, and subsequently, Moonwalker became my favorite movie.  I even remembered playing Moonwalker Nintendo game at my friend’s’ house.

I’ve ALWAYS wanted to visit Neverland when I was growing up, and wanted to HAVE my own Neverland when I grow up.

I haven’t followed MJ much after that until my brothers came home one summer with Dangerous CD and all the buzz about Black or White video.  Again, watched bajillion times on video.   I coudln’t stop listening to that CD or stop going over all the tiniest little details on that cover art.  The obsession bled into my choice of performance for a talent show at school.  Me being an environmental nut at the moment,  choreographed and rehearsed over a weekend with another friend to Heal the World. It was a message piece nobody got and obviously written off as boring.  Probably my worse school performance ever.  LOL.

It wasn’t until I got to the U.S., I found out about MJ as a part of the Jackson 5.

After Dangerous, I haven’t gone back to Michael for musical inpiration.  Okay, maybe for a moment there with Scream. He seemed to going off the rail right about then and I stopped paying attention. Until he announced a performance in Bangkok.

I wasn’t home in time that summer to go to the concert with a huge gaggle of my school friends.  But dammit, I WANTED TO GO!  (Consolation prize? My dad took me to see Whitney Houston later on.)  As we all know, that was his last before THE trial.

As much as I wanted to not pay attention, I still gravitated toward MJ somehow.  My first trip to the U.S. and visit to Disneyland, I wanted to keep going back to Captain EO.  As a matter of fact, until it was closed down, two things I never missed were the Captain and Star Tour.

My freshman year in the dorm, I dug around my closet for a Halloween costume and turned up as Michael Jackson circa Black or White video.  I had a white tank top underneath a white button down, black pants, white socks and black loafers. I wrapped one arm with gauze for that one glove/bracer thing he had going.  My suite mates helped  braided my hair the night before to get that lovely MJ curls.  And, the final touch, our Caucasian suite mate loaned me her foundation to make me “white”. My friend Katie probably has a picture of us around somewhere still…

Not until Thrill the World was I reconnected with Michael again as an adult.

He might have been a total wack job and an alleged pedophile.  But there’s no denying his musical genius and dance prowess.  There’s also no denying he has always been a part of my life.

Good night, Michael. You finally have your Neverland.

But first, a shout out.

Gregg, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

Now. The coverage.

David brought wings from Hooters. I brought pasty pies from Pasty Kitchen. Gregg provided alcohol.

This past Friday, the Hooters & Pasties was born.

(Thank GOD, nobody taped me channeling Thom Yorke and Eddy Veddar…)

Proceed at your own risk of hearing loss.

The second session contains some truly frightening vocal performance. However, hilarity factor is REALLY high.

There she was, staring at me when I entered the room.  A vision of beauty in red.

Well, reddish brown.

A baby grand piano at my friend Tony’s house was calling my name the moment I stepped through the door.

I was at a potluck at a bus buddy’s house on Saturday.  Tony’s wife Irene is taking lessons now but she’s been practicing mostly on her little keyboard in the other room.  Their daughter who has moved away to the east coast used to play the piano.  So nobody has really played it for quite sometime.

I surprised everyone there when I sat down and started playing when were having dessert and coffee.

The baby grand sounded wonderful.  She felt wonderful.

For a moment, I was transported back to my playing piano when I was at home in Bangkok.  The evenings where I would sit down and played a medley of just about everything I knew.  All the Disney’s transitioned into Andrew Lloyd Weber transitioned into the standards and end with perhaps Hey Jude, Can’t Help Falling In Love, Somewhere in Time, or Desperado.

My mom would be nearby,  sitting in the dark in the living room or doing her “evening walk” around the house, humming to the tunes she knew.  My dad would pop in through the door from the office for dinner any time now.  He would either come over to watch, or go upstairs to wash up and pause at the mezzanine to watch for a while.

A little later on that evening at Tony’s, the host sat down in a chair to the right of the piano and watched me play.

Their daughter who played is no longer in the house.  The same way my parents have felt without me at home.

I have to say that at one point I thought I might have teared up a little bit.

It felt so familiar.

For a moment, I was home.

Hi there.

I haven’t been home in the evening since Monday. And the trend is not stopping.  Sorry for the pauses in posting.

Monday night I was at Face2Face: Elton John and Billy Joel concert.  I treated James, my fellow piano man, to this as his belated birthday and early Christmas presents.  We enjoyed ourselves tremendously.  Billy Joel rocked my socks off and Elton John wowed me silly.  I got a few horrible cell phone video clips I’ll post later.

Yesterday, our former colleague Erin returned to the office to temp for a week while she’s on break from school.  I talked her into joining me for dinner with my social media friend Jeff (@jeff419) at Shiki (Dear GOD the sashimi plates were HUGE!), and then to learn about social media and branding at the Social Media Club LA event.  We had a great time with Jeff and at the SMCLA.  Much fun to watch the debate between the traditional branding ideas and the new social media way of thinking.

Seriously, I thought we were going to have a full out cage match out there at some point with between Rob Frankel (@brandingexpert) the Branding Expert and Babette Pepaj of BakeSpace (@bakespace).  Good points from both side though.  Read all about #smcla here.

Tonight, I have yoga.

Tomorrow, Brandon and I had something to do.

Friday, it’s Tweet Up Long Beach at Roscoe’s.  (At least the whole day is being taken off for various medical appointment.)

Saturday, more appointment and a birthday party.

Yeah. I’m busy.

This weekend has been one of the longer ones I had in a while.

Don’t get me wrong, I still had just 2 days like everyone else, but it felt like a week.

I guess when you helped others, pampered yourself, and did things you love, it was just as rewarding as a weekend away on a vacation.

It’s hard to belief that I voluntarily rolled out of bed at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning, but I did.  I was up to bake chocolate croissants to take over to my friend Greg’s garage sale fundraiser for his very first AIDS Ride. I met up with James and Dresden around 7:15 and we headed over.

The sale was HUGE! And we had TONS of people showed up.  I’m waiting to hear from Greg as to how much money his group raised that day. We had all sorts of stuff up for sale and whatever leftover would be donated.  Except for this one .  Although a few people made us offers. 

Someone actually picked up this wood cabinet that nobody seemed to want for a good amount of money.  When they were loading up, apparently he told the boys that this was a real 1950s era antique. Just a little touching up and he could sell it for a whole lot more!  We were quite amazed.

After spending the morning helping out and chasing Dresden around, James and I joined his wife, his friend Bob, and Brandon for late breakfast.

Oh and then Dresden did this on the ride over.

Later that afternoon, I had my first facial, crashed out until we walked to our corner restaurant to pick up dinner.

Because my face still felt sensitive on Sunday morning, our plans to go out riding bikes or hiking had to be canceled.  I mean, I wasn’t about to put this brand new skin out in the sun.  So we stayed home and geeked out.  Brandon on his new Star Ocean game and me re-organizing my closet, learning some new songs, and fixing up this blog.  You like?

Two songs have been stuck in my head for days.  I know they’re not the regular earworms because I still have them in my head even after I listened to them.  It’s usually a sign for me to learn the damn thing and give myself a real reason to have the song stuck in my head!

Now that I’ve got rolling on two new songs for my repertoire, I’d better practice.  Besides, my fingers have lost the agility for piano and the calluses to withstand guitar strings.  Thank god my breathing might actually be better now that I’ve been doing yoga.  One out of three ain’t bad!

Let me get a little better on this and I might, MIGHT, just record a bit of it for you guys. 

Oh, the two new songs? These are them.

I can’t really do the lovely guitar work he does here. I’m learning the basic chords for now and will be watching some tutorials and practice, practice, practice!  However, I hope my piano rendition might be okay for now.

There’s a bajillion versions of this song out there (including Sad Kermit and K.D. Lang), but since we’re talking Damien Rice here, I’ll just give you guys his version too.

Spamalot preview at the Music Center was a lot of fun. Oh, look. There’s a giant can of SPAM!

As the group ticket coordinator, I was invited to preview the show coming to LA in July. I brought Nhien along. Poor girl has not the knowledge of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail or anything Pythonesque. Her and a few others were wondering why there were mylar balloon cows everywhere.

John O’Hurley is hilarious. We can hardly wait!

The usual grainy movlog video here:

I have been staying up passed my bed time this week.  Case in point, see time stamp.

It seems I just have a lot I want to do and I’m excited about all of them.  I’ve been busy updating my experiences at the Temple and at the food blog with my cooking binge.

I can’t tell you enough how much joy cooking give me.  Now even more joyous that Brandon has the monopoly on dishes.  It was like a runner’s high for me.  I feel awesome having cooked something we can both enjoy.  So I’ve been indulging in that little slice of quality kitchen time.

(Aside: Oh yeah, after almost 7 years of marriage, we finally figured out one of the reasons we occasionally resent each other is because I left the dishes piled up and he kept postponing the laundry.  Somedays I took on both duties, even.  It turns out he’d rather do dishes and I rather do laundry. Big. Obnoxious. DUH!)

And that little cooking high launched me into this creative spurt.  The blogging.  The girls movie day out on Saturday was great, and so was meeting new people at Tweet Up on Sunday.  I’ve signed us up for yoga which we missed last night (damn bus was late).  Flamenco class at Moondance is next Thursday.  I’m thinking of joining another Twitter friend for Capoiera sometime after that.

The more new things I started to do, the more things I want to do.  I barely want to sit down and watch TV any more.  But hell, there’s a LOT there I want to watch too.

And all the while trying to ignore the piles and piles of paperwork building up in my office, the looming tax lady appointment which is all about these files being organized.  Small stacks of clutters threaten to take over my office again.  And my commute clutter collector is getting out of control.

Like Sheryl Crow said, “It’s such a thin line between the things you want and the things you have to do.”  And I’m straddling it.

I’m doing what I want to do and here I am guilty about things I have to do not getting done.

Work has been super busy and stressful.  But I decompressed…and napped…on the bus on my way home.  By the time I walked through the door, I’m an Energizer Bunny all over again.

But my energy is not for the cluttered office or housework.  It’s for this new found joy in doing new things.

Some of that bounce in my steps hit a containment wall here and there.

For one, Brandon’s grandmother passed away late last week, following her husband who passed away in September.  He’s dealing with that in his own way.  And bouncing through the door wanting to do all sorts of crazy things probably is not what he needs.

But then I got a little frustrated with all the energy trapped inside.  Some evening, I just let that drained out through mind numbing goodness of television.

Today wasn’t a good TV day. (Well, not counting Gil Grissom’s goodbye episode…which I will watch tomorrow.)  So I finally got to the piano.

Brandon–or my neighbors…or any human being–didn’t need to hear my goat-being-slaughtered impression as I wailed through a handful of broken balads and clumsy banging of the piano.  I was nice and warmed up by the time I got to my rendition of Avril Levigne’s “When you’re gone.”

However, being as rusty as I am with the piano currently, I slammed on the wrong keys and lost my concentration, and therefore lost my breathing as I just coming off a belted D and gearing up for the E.

Hence, I squeaked in the middle of the E.

And proceeded to choke on that missed breath.

He got such a good laugh out of that one.  And so did I.

We got through another day.

Tomorrow, a new adventure.