i'm not sure when this started, but i've pretty much always hated halloween. dressing up never really intrigued me, i think i would just not feel like myself if i did, i'm lame. i know some people really love it and have a great time so no offense to others though. but honestly, the name of the holiday should be changed to "themed-skank" day. don't get me wrong, i was born normal and dressed up as a kid (mostly just for the candy) a few times but i was too lame so i just wore my judo uniform out---it's hard being such a stereotype.

anyway, i usually try not to leave the house on halloween. i remember pretty much throughout my whole life, on halloween my family liked to turn of all the lights and we would just watch tv with the sound on low---oh yes, we were those people. kids really never came to our house in flushing, queens but when they did and rang the doorbell, we'd just get paranoid and put the tv on mute as we listened until we knew they had left. i'm very sad because this year i won't be able to continue on with that tradition since i have to work. thinking about dealing with drunks in power-charged costume mode is making my hair itch.

for some good news, i moved today. yay. i'm living in the uws and i can truly say that this is probably the first apartment that i've ever given a shit about. i have lived in some disgusting shitholes through the past few years so it feels so nice to have not just an apt, but a home. and central park is 1/2 a block away, fuck yeah. ah i love the smell of new paint.

if i had an opportunity to buy a one way ticket to tropical (and safe) country where i can work on the beach and live as an american expat for a few years, i would jump at the offer in a second.

i need change.

i really need to make some more gay friends.

i run into the most random people in this city.

i got off of work pretty late and since i live farther into brooklyn at the moment in bed-stuy, i try not to ride cabs home because they're more expensive. also, sometimes i feel bad for the cab drivers because i'm sure they won't be able to find a fare back into the city and i dont want them to lose money. tonight there was all this random track work at night and the subways were all fucked up and slow so i had to transfer a few times, and each time the train took a long ass goddamn time to come. the funny that happened though was when i got onto the f at west 4th street, i sat down and saw this guy that i used to work with at my old job at the magazine---how random. it's past 2 in the morning, there's not too many people out, and he's sitting in the exact same subway cart as me in all of nyc. i have to say that i'm a true believer in fate, and while we're not going to become best friends, i really felt that this very moment was just meant to be. so i walked up and sat down right next to him and we started talking. we just talked about the people who we worked with because he and most of those people are still there---thank fucking goodness i don't have to work with some of those people anymore. we happened to be going in the same direction, while his commute was wayy longer than mine, so we got off the f together and waited at jay street for the a, and then i got off at utica and he kept going to get to canarsie. i love nyc moments like these because i think, where else in the country can this happen at this hour under circumstances like these? can i say though that i absolutely hate riding the subway home that late. i just hate the fact that it takes forever, i just want to get home after a day of working on my feet and not deal with any of that. up until a few years ago, i never rode the subway past 11 because i hated waiting and thought it could be dangerous. i guess i grew up sometime after that, and now i ride it at 2 am to get home. shit, people can change.

anyway, i started serving at work. and now when i go out to eat, i always take a good look at our server and the other people who work in the restaurant and wonder, is this how i look like to people at work?

i wanted to wish a happy birthday to my friend and future roommate, daniel.

it's been great getting to know you the past couples of years---thank you for everything that you've done and for always welcoming me into your warm home. you and jenn make me believe that love and happiness is out there for everyone because i've never met a more supporting and happy couple. the two of you guys and madden have such a strong foundation, one day i hope to have something like you guys have. thanks to all three of you for taking on a straggler like me and letting me into your lives.

here are some pictures from this year's the new yorker festival that took place in various locations all over the city this past weekend. along with my friend susy, jenn, daniel, and myself attended a special screening and q&a of an upcoming movie called precious. the nyt magazine just did a great story about the movie and its cast members that you can find here. the movie was good and i definitely recommend it to everyone when it comes out. time sure flies, i can't believe it's been a year since i saw haruki murakami at last year's festival.

since the seventh grade, i've always had terrible insomnia. there's something magical about the night time that beckoned me and wouldn't let me go to bed---like a force that i naturally gravitated towards and i had no control on stopping it.

i guess that's just a glamorized way of summing up all the night time fucking hell i've been going through since i was twelve. not being able to sleep when you desperately want to and need to makes life challenging sometimes. i can't count the number of days that i had to go without sleep because i wouldn't be able to fall asleep until 5 am, and i knew that if i went to sleep then, i would never wake up anytime before 11 am. tossing and turning in bed as you stare at the ceiling and trying not to get pissed off about the fucking fact that you've been attempting to go to sleep in your own bed for the past 3 hours can really irk you. i've tried sleeping pills, exercise, praying, counting, etc, and none of them ever worked. i went to a doctor and he told me to just relax when i'm trying to go to bed---anxiety is a bitch.

at this point in my life, i know how my body is when it comes to sleep and if i know i'm not going to be able to fall asleep until hours later, i'd rather just plant myself in front of the tv and fall asleep to it.

thank goodness my friends/new roommates have this huge hd flat screen tv---holy shit i'm in insomnia's paradise.

off i go. i hope nick at nite plays old episodes of roseanne, that's my favorite sitcom ever.

i think i need to correct the way i walk because for as long as i can remember, i've always gotten holes in the exact same spots of my sneakers' soles after only months of wearing them---every pair of old sneakers of mine that had to be tossed away was for this reason only. the weather today in nyc is absolute shit with cold rain and wind, and my feet are soaked because of the damn holes in the soles of my sneakers. wet socks/sneakers can make anyone cranky.

some good news is i found an apartment and will be living with 3 of my good friends in the UWS. fucking yay.

i purposely came home tonight after getting off of work to somehow make a meal with all the food in my cabinets since i'm moving out tomorrow. i got home about an hour ago and thought long and hard about what sort of meal i could make with all the random shit in my cupboards. i was proud of the recipe i had concocted and was starving---i couldn't wait to eat and get rid of all the leftover stuff in my kitchen instead of throwing it all away.

my roommate moved most of his stuff out already and has gone to his new place so i was more than happy to cook a meal alone in my underwear on my last night at my apartment. i started chopping up veggies and went to go turn on my stove, but then realized and completely forgot that my gas was turned off this morning...fuck.

without the basic necessity of something like a working burners in my apartment---i will never ever in my life take having a working stove for granted again.

now it's 1 am, i'm hungry as hell and wondering where i can get some food. shit.

i don't have anything in particular to write about, so i'm just going to talk about anything that comes into mind. i made a big life/career decision today and while i have a little pang of regret, i have to stick by my decision and be done with it. i don't know what to do anymore---i feel like i have no control over my life, or if i do i'm about to drive into the side of a mountain because of my stupidity and bad judgement. i like to scrape the resin off my bong and smoke it when i'm desperately out of goods. i need to stop procrastinating my life by smoking weed, but i just love it too damn much. it's the only instant pleasure provider i have left. drinking is too much work and being drunk is physically exhausting the next day. other drugs just leave me too brain dead and feeling like absolute shit the day after. i remember when i was 18 and partying every week at clubs with house music and trance in my lame raver/party gear like exit (a nyc club where i rarely missed a friday for 2-3 years), i was rolling my face off and started talking to the person next to me who was this random dude who was also very fucked up. we were both rolling and happy, so of course a whole bunch of e-talk comes with that, and at one point he told me he was 23. after hearing that, the only thought that ran through my head was, "wow, this dude is so old, wtf is he doing here? if i'm 23 and doing this shit at a club like exit, kill me," or somewhere along the lines of that. when i think back to that period of my life, i had so much fun and don't regret any of it. i was so in the closet and confused back then that whenever i was partying, i strictly focused on getting fucked up and just tried to dance for hours. i was never on the hunt for girls or ass, but instead i really appreciated the music and loved dancing to it. i used to order bags of raver beads online and make candy bracelets for hours with the intentions of distributing and trading them at my next party the following friday. and to create a stretchable bracelet, i went to duane reade and bought those 20 packs of women's hair tying things and took two, tied them together and looped them through the beads. i loved trading the bracelets with other kids at parties. i wonder what happened to all my old bracelets, i should have at least a few left somewhere. i missed out on being sexual while rolling and being fucked up---people always got laid except for me. i know it's bad, but i want to go party and roll one last time at a gay place where i can be comfortable, meet other people and slut it out---i think it's only fair after all those years of being asexual at parties. my roommate moved out of the apartment, and i only have a few days left here. i'm really going to miss this place. holy shit it's past 5am and i'm too tired to read and edit this so goodnight.

what the fuck am i going to do with my life?

i feel like doing something drastic and stupid in life---bored with everything.

am i delusional??

why do i get so surprised when i hear that people i've met assume i'm gay? i guess i'd like to think that i'm pretty low-key and seem somewhat straight, but i guess not. i've met many people who say they knew the moment they talked to me, yet there are also people who have said they had no idea.

regardless, i really need to get over it and just accept myself for who i am.

yo no sé.

there are so many god damn crazy people in this city.

today's a sad day for magazines---conde nast announced that it's closing four of its titles.

interestingly enough, the editor-in-chief of one of the shuttering magazines came into my work place last night for dinner. i feel like the eic had to have known about the news that was going to be announced this monday morning, and wonder if what i witnessed was their last meal before the start of the predictable yet inevitable media frenzy.

i threw a moving-out party last night to celebrate my last few weeks in prospect heights. i'm really going to miss this apartment and having people over, it's been a lot of fun and i've had some great memories here.

it's funny looking at my empty apartment the next morning and trying to remember how it felt the night before, filled with friends and noise. now all i see is just stale food, empty bottles and a big mess to clean up. thankfully my sister hung around and helped me this morning.

i never trust sites like yelp because people like to bitch and moan about the dumbest things. i learned this when i started purchasing stuff through amazon. i would buy something and then read the reviews that people gave it, and it would make me want to shake them violently and say please shut the hell up. some people just complained about the most minute things that i thought was so unnecessary.

anyway, because of my philosophy that people are crazy and from my previous experience with user generated reviews, i do not like sites such as yelp. well, it's about 4:20 am right now and i'm bored as hell with nothing to do, so i did a yelp search of my work place and i found this gem below:

"One curiousity I have is the idea of having the wait staff dressed like 20 year old college students. No apron, no sign that they work for the restaurant. It wasn't a big deal and for the most part they were cool and attentive. Although the little hipster Asian guy with the black rim glassed was pretty rude to me when I walked back in after going out to flag down my Fiance. Dude, I was already inside sitting with a full table of friends. A stern "Hello? Can I help you??" as if we were somehow trying to sneak in and steal something was not necessary"

haha. and what does she mean by hipster? i just have my own bummy style.

but all joking aside, i'm usually never rude.

i've blogged about it before, but i fucking LOVE mcdonald's and it will always hold a special place in my childhood and memories. i don't want no damn birthday cake anymore in my life, just big-macs with candles, please.

with that being said, i wish i could be as happy as the day i was in the following photo---i mean, i'm smiling (yes, and sincerely) for goodness sakes. i have absolutely no memory of this day but it's prob somewhere in the late 80's in my family's nearby jackson heights apartment in queens.

if i could relive one day out of my life continually for the rest of my life, i would choose this day because i probably was happy as hell and didn't have to give a shit about anything. .

i am a kid of the 90's.

i absolutely love 90's music (mostly everything before 1997) and i've always listened to korean pop music my whole life and enjoy korean music even now, which means i fucking love 90's korean music.

my favorite all time korean group for the rest of my life will always be Roo'Ra (룰라). growing up, i was fucking obsessed with them and their music, especially their second, third and fourth albums. they had some stylistic and member changes after that, but none of it compared to their 2nd (1995), 3rd (1995) and 4th (1006) albums---for real, THEY'RE THE SHIT. listening to them now, sure, i admit that a lot of their songs sound like rip-offs of american songs, but i don't care they're still the shit. i will never change my opinion about roo'ra, their music really means a lot to me.

each one of their albums that i love brings back happy memories of where i was living and how my life was at that time. i moved around a lot as a kid and had a million other weird issues but listening to roo'ra always made me feel very happy.

the following roo'ra albums will ALWAYS be classics to me.

*i am aware and saw their recent comeback, but refuse to acknowledge that it happened due to the fact that it was really bad.

i have to admit that i've been really bad with taking cabs home for the past month or so. i usually end work late and just don't feel like dealing with the subways all the way back to brooklyn so i just ride a yellow cab home.

i got home about an hour or so and because i ended work late and wound up having a few drinks with my coworkers, i rode a cab home. the interesting part is, as i was exiting my cab at the stoplight near my apt in brooklyn, i totally saw this chick alone in another cab that's stopped at the same light---and she was leaning her head out the window of the back right-side seat and very slowly and surreptitiously vomiting out the window. the window was half-way down and her mouth is barely reaching the top, yet she's still quietly dripping her vomit down the glass and side of the car. the cab driver had no idea she was doing this, and by the look on the girl's face, i don't think she realized what she was doing either---i looked at her face and man, she was fucked up.

holy shit, that gave me a good laugh.

only in nyc does your grass supplier tell you that they can't come meet you somewhere like usual and instead asks you to drop by their apartment because they're not able to leave since "it's monday night and gossip girl is on."

one day, my insomnia is going to make me do something crazy.

less talk, more action.

to support one of my best friends, judy---me and all of my close friends usually go to anna sui's show at fashion week every season.

all the spring 2010 shows marks the end of an era because this is the last time nyc fashion week will be at bryant park, so sad---it's moving to lincoln center starting with the fall 2010 shows.

anyhoo, here's some pictures from last night. fun fun funn.

i hate to admit it, but i think i'm going to be an insomniac for life. it's always been a problem and i don't know how to fix it.

if i had one superpower, it would be the ability to fall asleep whenever i wanted. yes---i would be that loser superhero and i'm sure my costume would be as lame as hell.

wow, you know things are bad when the lady at burger king behind the register says, "damn, you hungry!" after placing your order at 4:30 in the morning. somehow i wandered alone from 58 and madison to the burger king that's 24 hours on the weekend at 32nd and fifth.

ny fashion week is looming. models have overtaken downtown, they're everywhere.

i've been through a lot of stuff while i've been at my current apartment, and i was extremely grateful to have somewhere i could call home to have as a solid foundation. it's spacious and quiet here, and i love the fact that i have no furniture. i love that it's almost completely empty. most people come over and think it's sad but it's just what i prefer---less is always more.

anyway, i was cooking some dinner (even though it's two in the morning) before and for the first time ever, reading a book while doing so. it was actually nice and i was able to focus on the book. the pathetic part is that it's probably the first book i've read in 6 months. the last one i tried was The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. i love how it won the pulitzer but i'm sorry, i couldn't even make it to the 1/2 way point. it just jumped around too much for me and there were so many terms on every page that i didn't know and at one point i had no idea what was going and i got too lazy to look them up. that's when i put it down. well anyhow, i was standing there reading and watching the pan when i realized that i'm really going to miss this apartment when i leave. i'm sort of sad that i only have a month and a half left.

oh, and i also plan to go out with a bang. i've thrown many parties and dinners here and plan to have a bash before i leave. woohoo.

i need to be more social, i should try new things.

instead of wandering alone all over downtown for hours at 2am after work, maybe i should just get a tv so i'd have something to do when i got home. oh yes, and a couch would be nice. furniture is always a plus.

dating is fun.

i just hung out with this dude that i recently reconnected with last week after two years of not seeing each other. we randomly ran into each other at a bar and have been in contact since. i'm not sure how long or far this will go, but at this point it's nice to go out and meet people and have a good time.  i realized that ever since i became single a month or so ago, i've been going on a steady and healthy pace of dates and am doing whatever the fuck i want. i'm not attaching any emotions or promises to anything by choice---i just don't want anything serious. while i am technically dating, it's been a very long time where i've had what feels like a true date with someone---just having dinner/drinks with someone and truly getting to know each other for the first time.

i guess we'll see how things go. i'm happy to say that i'm doing well in the dating department and am just having as much fun as possible. i haven't found anyone i want to go into a serious relationship with yet and not only is that 110% okay, but it's what i'll probably prefer for a while.

here's to being young in nyc and thinking anything in life and love is possible.

i just got paid, it's friday night,  my hair's done and i spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what i want to wear for the evening. i can't get dressed and ready to leave the house without music so i'm blasting one of my favorite albums from one of my favorite movies, reality bites. just another friday night i guess. what are my plans for the night you ask? well, i'm going to work. fun fun fun.

sometimes, i really suck at life.

the lease to my apartment is over in early october and i don't know what to do. my roommate wants to move out and at first i was thinking of staying and just finding a new roommate, but i'm not so sure anymore. this place just has some annoying leaks that my landlord hasn't fixed since last november---i don't know if i can deal with them for another year. plus, my roommate and ex-boyfriend are best friends (that's how we met) and while i feel like i've had a lot of memories here with them, it might be time to just move on. however, on the other hand, i absolutely hate moving and am not sure if i can afford it. plus my neighborhood is getting so much better, its even changed tremendously since i moved in last year. there's lots more young people and restaurants popping up everywhere and plus i have friends who live nearby as well.

and one of my favorite things about my neighborhood is that it always smells like fresh baked breads. as soon as you get off the subway, there's this pastry smell lingering in the air and it's so uplifting---i smell it and just instantly feel good. my roommate and i always wondered where the smell came from and then one day i walked one block away from the street i always walk on and discovered a bread making factory.

part of me thinks i'll probably move out, but i guess i'll just have to see.

does anyone else miss the winter?

note to any z-list reality stars---please don't come into busy nyc restaurants and think anyone gives a fuck and will seat you faster than other patrons.

z-lister: "do you watch x show on x channel? "
me: "nope."
z-lister's friend: "this is x and he's on that show!"
me: "great. the wait is still 50 minutes."

i've never heard of this dude or seen the show and am pretty sure no one else watches it either. i wish i could've made him wait longer than normal for trying to pull that bs.

my beloved ibook (from 2005) is currently sitting alone on a shelf somewhere at techserve on 23rd street. techserve is one of the largest mac repair and service centers in the city and I had to bring mine in to get my harddrive wiped out and a new one installed. basically i lost all my files because being the idiot that i am, i didn't back up any of my stuff in over a year. the saddest part is, my comp was acting all crazy last week and i told myself that now would be a good time to back up all my files onto my external drive, but did i listen to my first instincts when i should have? nope---and it's all my fault.

i just got home from work an hour ago and with no laptop, tv, ac and little else to do in my apartment on a hot summer night, i'm bored out of my mind and scraping the built up resin off my bong because i just ran out of supplies. plus, i don't feel like doing anything else.

yay for iphones and technology.

having the ability to ride a nyc taxi home at anytime of day or night is a huge convenience in life for someone with no car.

i ride cabs home on days where i just don't feel like dealing with all the bullshit of the subways, such as a night like tonight. it was raining like crazy today and i got off work past 1am and i was already wet and annoyed so i opted to not take the subway. i thought about a few things tonight in the cab ride home with the first being, i enjoy the new lcd tvs and stuff in the back-seats of all yellow taxis because it's entertaining and tells you the weather and time and all that shit, but i also think it's bad. for generations, people going home in nyc taxis had to stare out the window, listen to the radio, ponder about life or engage with the driver or other people in the car. i'm sure because of that, many crazy and interesting things have happened. however now, people get in a cab, stare at the screen filled random content and pointless advertising and bam---next thing they know, they've arrived at their destination. i love staring out windows and what better city is there to stare at than nyc? i enjoy going down flatbush avenue after getting off the manhattan bridge in brooklyn---the simple fact that junior's and BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) are part of my commute home is something i completely appreciate.

the dude lived in a 6-story walk up... that was a long ass walk-of-shame.

i think everyone in nyc is connected to each other by two people, three at most. it really is a small world here.

one of my first (on the books) jobs was at a staples in queens, nyc. i think i was seventeen and i decided to take a summer job because i was a loser and had nothing else to do. that was probably one of the worst jobs i ever had because i didn't know shit about electronics, and i was seventeen for goodness sakes. my uniform was a red staples shirt and khakis and i remember hating riding the bus to work everyday.

there's a lot of things i learned from that job and that i'll always remember, but one thing in particular is something my manager said. he wasn't talking to me and i was totally eavesdropping, but i remember him talking to one of the other coworkers and saying he had was going out that night so he was going to go home and "SHIT, SHOWER & SHAVE."

i always remembered him saying that, and while it meant nothing to me as a young teenager, right now it makes so much sense to me---it's the perfect combo.

after getting off of work at 12:30am, a friend and i decided to walk around downtown for hours and just smoke and talk. we sat on a bench on chrystie near rivington and talked away about life as we watched all the hip and drunk-downtowners stumbling by us, many of whom were leggy looking models. we eventually ended up at a park in chinatown off the manhattan bridge and ended up talking some more and watching the rats scurry by our feet at 4am.

i think working these late hours and having the schedule i do, this is the time where i get to truly fall in love with new york. i know daytime new york, and now i'm getting to know what new york is at night---it's amazing.

happy birthday to my best friend, dr. junho.

to celebrate the occasion, some friends and i took him to dinner at momofuku ssam bar in the east village. then we headed over to the momfuku milk bar & bakery next door for some yummy desserts.

the four of us have such different schedules and careers, so getting together like this is always such a treat.