"Oh! That man makes my Ovaltine boil!"

Said by the character Rose in the sitcom The Golden Girls. Season 3, Episode 16.

After too many years apart, it was SO GREAT to hang out with my old college bud again!

Magali, spending time with you on your visit to NYC was such a treat. I hope the rest of your time here is fantastic, and hopefully I'll be able to visit you in Texas one of these days.

Until then, I'll miss you!

Rest in peace, Maya Angelou.

Dear friends,

If you have the time, please check out my latest story for VICE's new food channel MUNCHIES: CHARGING YOUR CELL PHONE AT A RESTAURANT IS RUDE.

Thank you.

Sometimes, there's nothing like a cool afternoon rain storm to clear your head and wake you up.

Happy Memorial Day weekend, America!

As we take the time to remember all of the brave soldiers who gave their lives for this great country, I hope everyone is out enjoying the holiday with friends and family. Get some sun, scarf down BBQ, kick back a few beers, and let's finally start this summer off right.

I feel fortunate that I actually have the entire weekend off. It's been a few months since I've had 2 days off in a row, so I'm trying to figure out what sort of fun I can get into. My friend Junho arrived at our new apartment a few days ago, so I've actually been spending the morning just organizing and cleaning up. But now I'm all washed up and ready to head out the door.

Yeah for the weekend!

Just like a sitcom, in actual life, a baby always enters the picture somehow.

"Despite all my rage,
I am still just a rat in a cage."

From the song Bullet With Butterfly Wings by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Dear friends,

If you have the time, please check out my latest story for VICE's MUNCHIES: SEXISM IN THE KITCHEN GOES BOTH WAYS.

Thanks.

Tonight is very special.

I'm currently spending my first night ever in the new apartment I'm moving into with my best friend. 

Today is the first day of our lease and I'm here alone until Junho moves in in a week. After couch surfing and wandering around since I arrived back in NYC last July, I finally have my own space. 

It's nice to feel like I'm home again and can relax for some time. 

The past few weeks or so.

Sometimes, it's so much easier to think in absolutes. But in life, there is nothing absolute when it comes to people.

A few days ago, I was working my weekend gig waiting tables in Brooklyn. During my shift, there was a table of four customers who casually asked what my name was after I had helped them with something when they first arrived at the restaurant.

Now, when they initially asked for my name, I didn't really think anything of it because they were nice and customers sometimes ask for a variety of reasons. However, what made this group of diners different was that anytime they needed something throughout their meal, instead of getting my attention by locking eye contact, motioning physically somehow or even by saying a simple "excuse me" when I was nearby, I would hear them calling out for me by my first name instead.

As someone who works in the service industry, I have to admit that yes, sometimes it can be nice when customers take the time to learn my name and address me by it. But that's only if they use it once or twice and in a discreet manner. What annoyed me about this group was one particular girl who continually would beckon me by name. After the first handful of times she did it, I got really irritated because I started to feel like I was their personal butler of some sort.

"You've used up all your coupons,
and all you've got left is me..."

From the song Underneath It All by No Doubt.

I just realized that my problem of overthinking things is more serious than I thought.

Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Consumed. Exhaustion.

"Butter is elemental, just churned cream, but the very best ones hold flavors so sophisticated and elusive that they dazzle your palate while comforting you like a child."

From the article, Solid Gold, written by Oliver Strand in the May 2014 issue of American Vogue.

Don't let other people's experiences and opinions become your own. You should always see for yourself.

The past few weeks or so.

Winter in NYC is officially over, and it feels so invigorating to be able to enjoy the city and just walk around again. This past winter was pretty damn brutal, so not having to step out of the house into frigid and tortuous temperatures anymore is a real treat. I can't even bear to look at my peacoat another day until it gets cold again, and so I therefore happily bid it its long overdue farewell.

And with a new season comes some new changes in life. A little more than a month ago, I started a side weekend gig waiting tables in Williamsburg. I'm still working my regular office job in TriBeCa from Monday-Friday. Not having any days off in the week can be grueling at times, but eh, I'll live. The transition of working this new weekend job has been pretty smooth though, luckily because I'm working with some old coworkers and acquaintances from an East Village restaurant I used to work at years ago. This new restaurant I'm working at is cozy and pretty low-key, which I really like and appreciate. I've also never worked in the neighborhood before, so it's been nice seeing all the locals and folks who chill around the area. For the most part, the majority of customers are friendly and easygoing, but then of course there will always be those certain guests that are just a pain in the ass. I haven't waited tables since I was working at a restaurant in Venice Beach last year, but it really is like riding a bike. The unfamiliar newness of any job can be daunting, but having been able to get used to things in the past month has helped me finally find my own rhythm and pace of work. And then of course I can remember all my old methods on how to deal with specific types of annoying customers. Most of the restaurant's diners are really nice though, so striving to provide them with good efficient service and a quality experience is something that I'm more than happy to do. In a weird way, I usually have moments where waiting tables can feel extremely fulfilling when I know people leave the restaurant feeling merry and satisfied after having an awesome time. However, if I never in my life had to explain gluten-free options from a menu again or bust my ass for some dickhead who will just always be an asshole when they dine out, well I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Something else that I'm really excited about right now is that in a few weeks, my friend Junho and I will be moving into a new apartment together! Since returning to NYC last July, I've basically been couch surfing and living in somewhat unconventional living arrangements. That's why I'm beyond happy to finally have a place to call home, and have those simple things like a bed and my own room. Our new apartment is downtown in the Financial District and close to City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge. I've never lived in that area before, so getting to know the neighborhood really well is going to be great. And one of the best parts of the new apartment will be the fact that I can walk to work within 10 minutes.

Alright, well it's passed 2am and I've got work tomorrow morning. The adrenaline from working a shift earlier tonight is slowly waning, and it's probably time that I try and hit the sack.

Good night, and happy Monday to you all.

"Enough about you,
Let's talk about life for a while."

From the song All I Really Want by Alanis Morissette. 

"Just once, it would be pleasant to live in a place where you felt safe and secure and permanent."

From the book The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner. Page 122.

"Being gay in hip-hop is still really stigmatized. There are so many people in this world that are closet homosexuals. I guess I'm 'out,' but people ask me what my sexuality is all the time and I always tell them that it doesn't matter, we're not in a sexual situation so you don't need to know. If we were in a sexual situation you would know exactly who I am sexually. But if we're just having a conversation you don't need to know what I do in private. Sexuality is not the most interesting detail about a person. It's like me saying my favorite color is red all the time. After a while you'd kindly tell to me to shut the fuck up about it."

From the MUNCHIES Vice article, SOME RAPPERS ARE GAY. GET OVER IT., written by rapper Angel Haze.

"And life is like a song."

From the song At Last by Etta James.

The past few weeks or so.

 

What do you know to be absolutely true?

Looking for adventure in the streets of New York?

The answer is simple.

The first step in achieving this would be to get stoned out of your mind. Next, choose any Philip Glass album to blast in your headphones (any will work, but you can't go wrong with Glassworks). And then the final step would be to put on some comfortable walking shoes, and just wander the streets of New York City for hour upon hour.

That, my friends, is adventure.

"Well I found you out,
Discovered your secret.
Well honey it ain't a sin,
That you,
You need someone to love you,
You need someone to hold you,
Tonight."

From the song Need Someone by Mary J. Blige.

"This here is the best cherry Coke in the history of the world."

Said by the character Sammy in the movie, Steel Magnolias.

Dear friends

VICE has just launched their new food channel titled MUNCHIES.

Please check out this awesome site, and read my latest VICE write-up as well: THIS IVY LEAGUE DEGREE BARTENDER IS PROBABLY SMARTER THAN YOU.

Thanks.

It's been a few days since I finished dog/house-sitting for friends in Brooklyn. I'm back in the city now, but will be heading out to New Jersey after work tomorrow to stay for the rest of the week. My sister and brother-in-law are currently on a business trip overseas, and I'm going to be helping them out with some stuff in their office while they're gone. Besides that, I don't really feel like I have much going on with me right now. I haven't been updating this much lately. Sometimes the topics I want to write about seem to be about things that I've already mentioned, which isn't a big deal. But I'd like to think that I'm constantly growing, learning, and evolving---so bringing up thoughts and emotions I've already said would seem like I'm taking a step backwards. I've also recently come to think about what exactly I should and shouldn't be writing about here. While I don't really have my name written much on this blog, and keep it as unsearchable as possible on Google, I have to accept that people might stumble onto it somehow. And what makes me reflect on that is I don't want to wait tables for the rest of my life, and therefore don't want any future employers at big companies not hiring me because of anything that I've written about here. I mean I guess it might be a bit too late for that, because I know I already do have some colorful entries written here, so why stop with all of it now? I would say the fact that I'm currently 31 is a reason, and that perhaps I've moved on from a lot of the bullshit in my life that used to consume me. I recently told all of this to one of my best friends, and she disagreed. She said that I was creative by nature, and that it's not only good for me to continue writing here, but that I should continue to do it as honestly and openly as possible. That really made sense to me... so I here I am sitting alone in the dark after 3am at night---it doesn't get any more honest than this. Monday morning is literally hours away, and yet I just can't seem to fall asleep. I guess some of the old bullshit in my life just isn't ready to leave me yet.

It's nice to see ice cream trucks back out on the streets.

Relax!

Dear friends,

If you have the time, please read my latest story for VICE: I'M FUGLY, AND I WON'T BE YOUR WAITER TONIGHT.

Thank you very much.

best,
Thwany

Um, no thank you.

"A central puzzle is why anyone would hijack a jetliner and then fly it for hours over the open ocean, as seems to be the most likely case. On Saturday, the Malaysian authorities opened a criminal inquiry after learning that two tracking devices aboard the aircraft has been turned off several minutes apart, indicating deliberate action, and that the plane appeared to have flown for as long as seven hours more."

From the March 16, 2014 New York Time Article, As U.S. Looks for Terror Links in Plane Case, Malaysia Rejects Extensive Help, written by Michael S. Schmidt and Scott Shane.

It's 3am and I still can't sleep. 

Waking up and getting ready for work tomorrow morning should be awesome.

"I think I'm ugly, 
and nobody wants to love me."

From the song Ugly by 2NE1.

"하지만, 

I don't care."

From the song Baby I Miss You by 2NE1.

It's been almost three hours since I sat down to work, and I've barely churned out one paragraph.

Is it time for a drink yet?

"It's difficult to understand change when you are right in the middle of it. I wonder what people thought during the industrial revolution when they rode a train for the very first time, drove a car, or saw electric lights on the streets of Paris suddenly go on as if magic. Did they feel the same mixture of skepticism and enthusiasm that we did when we held our first cellphone, figured out how to use a laptop, or learned how to Skype with our loved ones? Probably. But I bet that they, like us, got used to these inventions very quickly, without paying too much attention to just how significant the moments they were experiencing were."

From the Editor's Letter of W magazine, written by Stefano Tonchi. W magazine, March 2014 issue.

Extremes can make a point.

Dear Carbs,

Why are you so good to me?

sincerely,
thwany

The past few weeks or so.

"How beautiful is this life?
How painful is this life?"

From the song 멘붕 by CL of 2NE1.

Whatever happened to just treating people with respect and kindness?

Every night I try to fall asleep by a decent hour, but things just don't ever seem to work out that way.

I'm currently house-sitting/cat-sitting for a friend in Jersey City right now. I've only been here a few days, and have just been commuting back-and-forth to work from here. It's been an enjoyable couple of days to just break out of my usual routine and try something new, and I'm a little bummed that I'll be leaving here tomorrow morning for good. Even riding the Path Train here to Jersey City seemed like a nice change, which I think is a good indicator showing that I'm in desperate need to get away from NYC for a little. I can't really afford to travel anywhere right now, so I think even a day trip on a weekend would be extremely helpful to keep me going.

It's been a bit too cold out the past few days to explore much, but from what I've seen, Jersey City is pretty nice. There's seems to be a diverse range of people who live here, and there's tons of bars and restaurants near my friend's place as well. My friend Dessie lives off the Grove Street stop, so getting to the World Trade Center and walking to work is literally two stops away. It's great that the Path Train isn't too crazy packed during rush hour either, which has been a pleasant surprise.

But for everyone who's recently endured way too many snow days and cold nights---can we talk about this crazy ass winter? I know that Spring is only a few months away, but I'm just not sure how much more snow and freezing temperatures I can take. The inability to walk anywhere (because it's just too damn cold out!) is what's really driving me nuts the most, and I long for warmer weather where I can pop in my headphones and stroll in whatever hell direction I please.

It's during times like these where I miss Bangkok and Thailand the most. I especially miss sitting on the balcony of my old studio apartment, just listening to the constant traffic on Petchaburi Road and staring at the beautiful view (pictured below) with a joint in my hand. Man, that sure is nice to reminisce about right about now.

Until next time, I wish you warm and sunny dreams. Good night.

Isn't arrogance just masked insecurity?

I can't stand these types of fools.

"I sat down to write this piece fifty-two minutes ago. I named the blank file, gathered all the material I'd need to complete it, and cued up a Spotify playlist of songs I don't know well enough to sing a sing along to. Since then, I've read three New York Times stories, a blog about West Virginia University football, and my Twitter feed (three times). I always wasted time when working---especially when I am trying my hardest to focus. In that way I'm no different from everyone else.

According to a study done by Gloria Mark, Ph.D, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, information workers switch activities every three minutes. Millennials---like the students at her school---jump around twice as often. Technology has made us more productive as a society, yet it's also great at tricking our brains into thinking they're doing real work. E-mail, social media, Candy Crush---they all provide that "job done!" satiation our brains crave without actually accomplishing anything. 

Thing is, some of what we think of as procrastination, our brains consider recess. Sandra Bond Chapman, Ph.D, a cognitive neuroscientist and director of the Center for BrainHealth in Dallas, explains that our neurons want to work hard, then chill for a bit. Periods of productivity come and go, and that's okay.

For some people, focus peaks in mid-afternoon; for others it happens in the early morning. Once you know when you work best, build some walls around it. 'The most productive people spend their brains' 'prime time' on one or two higher-order tasks, rather than let lower-level tasks gobble the day,' says Chapman.

The most important thing you can do to finish a job? Start it. Humans are wired to seek completion. Psychologists call it the Zeigarnik effect, after an early-twentieth-century Russian psychologist who discovered that once people began an assigned task, they would almost always see it through, even if interrupted. The trick is setting yourself up to get there. And with the advice from the hyperproductive heavyweights that follows, you'll be able to get shit done. Just like I did now."

From the articled, How I Get $#!t Done: 21 Productivity Secrets from Successful People Who've Figured It Out, written by Josh Dean in the March 2014 issue of GQ.

What a herb...

Gaining 15lbs is so much easier than I remembered.

I think we all go through waves of different periods in life. And right now, I'm eating pasta.

"He hit me,

and it felt like a kiss.

He hit me,

but it didn't hurt me."

From the cover version by Hole titled, He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss).

There's always something to be grateful for.

"I have let you go,
And everything I went through was beautiful."

From the song When I Wake Up by Jill Scott.

"Shafts of sunlight pierce clouds of smoke and steam as I plunge into the heat and noise of the kitchen at Bundo Sati, a small restaurant in Jakarta."

From the article Spice World by Christopher Tan in the March 2014 issue of Saveur.

Sadly, there aren't really any holidays in the NYC restaurant industry.

Happy President's Day though to everyone who has off!

The past few weeks or so.