Happy birthday, Junho!

Dinner tonight at Root & Bone was really good. And it's so great to have Judy crash tonight afterwards, too! The cab ride home was so much fun. 

"Is this happiness?"

From the song Is The Happiness by Lana Del Rey.

"No need to ask,
I got you."

From the song I Got You by Leona Lewis. 

Sometimes, it's okay to just take a deep breath and chill out a little.

Reluctance.

"An ambitious ethnic-studies major could stand outside the gay bar Metropolitan on a Saturday night and gather enough material for a thesis project."

From the July 15, 2014 nymag.com essay titled "Let's Talk About Gays 'Stealing Black Female Culture'" by Daniel D'addario.

"These are the contents of my head."

From the song Why by Annie Lennox.

Sometimes, when it comes to having a nightcap, the real question is: why the hell not?

"Go get two cheesecakes and wait up for me. I have a feeling the four of us will be talking until dawn!"

Said by the character Sophia in the sitcom, The Golden Girls. Season 4, Episode 7.

Learning to not take things personally was a life lesson that took way too long to learn.

The weekend so far has been really nice.

My roommate went out of town for the weekend, and my bro-in-law also had a business trip, so my sister has been staying at my place with their dog since Friday evening. It feels like our childhood in Flushing again whenever we're alone together on weekends. This is something that we sort of grew up doing---and staying in for days and just ordering food while vegging in front of the television is our version of a real good time. At night booze is definitely had, so whatever we're eating ends up tasting even better!

It's kind of funny when I think about all the weekends we've spent together as shut-ins, hiding away from the world in the comfort of stretchy pants. Now that we've both become adults with our own lives, it's not like we're able to plan ahead for weekends like these. In some weird way, they just end up happening every once in a while, and I've come to really appreciate that. All of this has helped me realize how much I treasure time off where I'm able to spend it with the people I love, and that I need gatherings like these on a regular basis to feel normal and connected.

My brother-in-law just returned from his trip and has come over my place now, and the 3 of us plan to watch the World Cup finale at my place together. The Argentina vs. Germany game will be starting in about 15 minutes, and we're all excited. Unfortunately though, I have to be at work later today by 6:30pm so it'll be hard for me to get truly into it, but it should be a fun time nonetheless.

Live and grow everyday.

The past few weeks or so.

It's pretty late at night right now, but I still just can't seem to fall asleep.

I keep obsessing about this one thing in my head and I'm trying to think of other stuff to keep my thoughts occupied, but it's no use.

Happy Independence Day, America!

U-S-A! U-S-A!

Having to take the subway home after finishing a shift at the restaurant can be a trip sometimes.

I forgot how it is to ride it so late at night while the majority of New York is getting some shuteye. On some nights, I'll get lucky and not have to wait long for either of the two trains I need to take. Then there are other nights where in general the wait is really long since it's usually past 1am, but then I'll keep missing the train with just plain and simple bad timing. It's always sort of funny though on the rare occasion I'll see customers I had just waited on also waiting at the same subway platform. For my commute home, the other people on the train are normally fairly young and sometimes a little drunk, or also restaurant industry employees who just got off work like me. One thing that I've really become aware of after taking the subway home late at night lately is NYC's homeless situation. The visibly large amount of people sleeping on the subway carts, waiting benches, or even station stairwells become really noticeable, and it's pretty sad.

Then there can be other days where a really great thing could happen late at night on the subway. Last week, I was sitting on a practically empty subway back home past 1:30 in the morning. The train pulled into a stop and as it sat there with its doors open for a few minutes, a train heading into the opposite direction pulled up on the other side of the platform. And that's when I saw an old coworker from an East Village restaurant years ago standing on the train with his bike. I noticed him immediately and got up a little from my seat to see if he would notice me staring at him. The good news is that as the doors on his train closed up, we did make eye contact and waved hi to each other with a laugh because we never run into each other ever---let alone late at night on the subway like that.

Now I'm at home, trying to unwind after a very long day. I just wish it wasn't 3am.