a history of me

With a big party tonight, I thought I'd share a few thoughts this afternoon regarding my workout experience. After about a week of minimal change, the scale finally yielded another pound yesterday. Hopefully it won't be another week before I see more results.

The club where I work out is kind of odd. Nearly everyone in there is middle aged or beyond, with quite a few elderly folks. Yesterday I saw the strangest sight: two old women, one of them particularly older than the other. Possibly a mother/daughter combo. Both were dressed for an evening out, the "younger" one in heels. She was trying to get the "older" lady to do some light exercise but neither one seemed particularly interested in any physical activity. It almost felt like they were there waiting for someone and just trying to do something to pass the time.

I rarely see anyone remotely young in there. Today there was a welcome surprise; a very attractive and fit young lady who was exercising and stretching by the elliptical trainers which I use twice every day. I considered trying to approach her but it seemed awfully shady. I suppose the last thing she wants is some strange guy (especially one who looks like me) approaching her.

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As you already know, I've been spending a lot of time on Craigslist this summer. What you might not realize is that it can be used for much more than personals or classifieds. A few weeks ago I started searching for the word "Japanese" and I found some very interesting advertisements. One led to a party down in Alphabet City last week, but there have also been assorted individual ads where Japanese-speaking people (some students, some professionals) are looking for native English speakers to practice speaking with. Some of these people never respond to my inquiries (much like my personals experience) but a few have gotten back to me and I have occasionally met up with these folks. Tonight was one of those occasions.

After a quick e-mail exchange that verified that neither one of us was busy tonight, I walked over to the Starbucks next to the Empire State Building to meet Hiro. It wasn't easy to spot him because the place was packed with young Asian folks, more so than most of the other Starbucks locations I have seen. Thankfully the first person I approached turned out to be him. We spend about an hour chatting politely, mostly in English. As we spoke we realized that neither of us had eaten dinner and both of us were hungry. Hiro suggested a nearby restaurant in Koreatown which he enjoys; being ignorant of most Korean cuisine I was happy to try some.

Barely two blocks away we walked into Mandoo Bar. As soon as we were seated we were given dishes of pickled veggies: one plain and one a little spicy, like kimchi. It may have been kimchi although there was no cabbage, just some kind of radish. I checked the menu for anything without carbs but everything had dumplings, noodles or rice. I quickly decided the new experience would be worth a little bending of my diet. I ordered an assortment of mandoo (steamed round dumplings) and Hiro ordered bibimbap (rice, veggies and meat with a spicy sauce). We each shared both dishes and they were delicious! Not nearly as spicy as last night's mapotofu either, which was a little extreme. I also find that plain pickles are very handy at killing burning spicy tastes in my mouth, so that helped a lot.

So another potentially lonely night was transformed into a new experience, thanks to CL. Is there anything it can't do?

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Compared to yesterday, today was mighty sleepy. My main errand was a job interview at some DVD store down on West 14th St. Despite clearly outlining my impending return to school in my e-mail, the interviewer didn't realize I was only in New York for another month. The conversation was over before it began so it was a huge waste of time for everyone involved.

Since I was already out, I walked to the East Village in order to get more tea down at the Sunrise Mart. The weather lately has been so hot, humid and unpleasant that I gave in to a craving: I stopped on 3rd Ave for some Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream. Good lord, I needed it! No regrets! While eating it I even helped a staff member with his crossword puzzle. The clue was: Capital of Shôgun (3 letters). For the answer, read this.

I ate out with Dad tonight for the first time in a while. We hit a nearby Sichuan restaurant for actual Chinese cuisine. In case you don't know, what we call "Chinese Food" in this country is actually unique to North America. Sichuan (a.k.a. Szechuan) cuisine is actually from and is commonly eaten in China. Indeed, the menu featured "Mao's Home Cooking," a list of dishes which were favorites of Mao Zedong and are apparently still popular today. Dad had one of those, a dish with cured pork and garlic shoots. I had 麻婆豆腐 which was very spicy and delicious.

Looks like tomorrow will be very quiet. Plans for Saturday are afoot though.

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Today was pretty goddamn great. I woke up early to take care of my workout routine right away. For some reason my weight loss has stalled after losing a quick twelve pounds. Everyone's telling me not to worry and it's apparently very normal. I'm definitely making a difference whether I can see it or not: today I wore a pair of shorts that was too tight earlier in the summer. Now they fit much better.

The workout came early because I had plans this afternoon with Hyde. Because every previous meeting had involved drinking (and more), I thought it would be nice to spend some time together without any intoxicants. We met for lunch at Ariyoshi. Their lunch menu is totally different than their dinner menu. Frankly, it's a much better deal; our meals were huge and they came with free tea!

We spent the bulk of the afternoon over at the MoMA and we had a great time. We began in the new sculpture garden then went up to the fifth floor and worked our way down. Hyde knows a lot about art and artists, certainly much more than I do. It made for lots of insightful conversation. I found some works by Vasily Kandinsky particularly fascinating and nightmarish despite their vibrant colors. As usual, there were some odd finds in the museum. The "design" section featured some very average household objects like Post-it notes and an iPod. Not surprisingly, most of these objects were "gifts of the manufacturer." I can just picture that phone-call:

MoMA: Can we feature your product for free in our exhibit space, providing you with years of free advertising to our paying customers?
Corporate Douchebag: Umm, sure, I think we can make that happen.

We had planned on splitting around dinnertime because Hyde had plans with her sister. When her sister bailed, I was invited to join Hyde for her evening plans downtown. We went down to the Village, had a nice Italian dinner (no, I didn't eat pasta), and caught a double-feature at the Film Forum. They're featuring a series of classic Paramount motion pictures this month that pre-dated the Hays Code. We saw A Farewell to Arms and Morocco, both starring Gary Cooper. He was goddamn huge, man! I don't know if they intentionally filmed him next to short actors or what, but he towered over every other character in those films (especially the women).

I've kinda got something else on my mind right now, but I need to think about it a lot more before I blurt it out here. Let's just say that today ruled and I was sorry to see the evening end. Hyde is awesome!

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Sorry for not updating recently, things have been a little bit complicated. I'd love to tell you what's going on right now, but various factors make this story impossible to post on the Internet for the entire world to read. Let's just say that I feel a little sick right now, mentally and physically, and it's entirely my own fault. I have the utmost confidence that everything will resolve itself eventually so don't worry.

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This afternoon I dramatically increased my workout efforts. It started yesterday when I spoke to Ben and Mike separately about exercising. Their advice made me realize that I am not working out hard enough. Indeed, I haven't been sore at all since I began and that's a sign that I'm probably not building any muscles which will help me burn fat.

The kicker was this afternoon's daily weigh-in in the locker room. I've weighed myself every day and it's shown me that I am definitely losing weight even though I don't see the slightest difference in my appearance. Normally I am a little lighter each day but for the past three days the scale has barely moved. I know that I've bent a few dietary rules recently but given my efforts I was very disappointed to see no movement on the scale for so long. The scale may not be super reliable but with my friends' advice fresh in my mind I knew it was time to step up.

I used the "elliptical" machine first, then I did a bunch of weight machine stuff (including some leg work that I had been neglecting) before using the elliptical machine again. It felt really good when it was over. Unless I come up overly sore, I can do this everyday. That'll make a difference. I don't have all summer here.

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After two straight evenings of meetings strangers over the Internet, I managed to have some fun with actual friends last night. I called Mike around dinnertime and he invited me over to his place in Brooklyn after nine o'clock. The plan was to gather a bunch of people there and do something. Friends were even driving in for this so it sounded pretty exciting.

I showed up around 9:30 and no other friends were there, just Mike with two of his roommates and some of their friends. It was very humid in Mike's home so I started guzzling water to try and compensate. I was telling him about the previous two nights when the phone calls started to come in from various people in various places. A new plan came about: we would go into Manhattan and meet a friend of Mike's at her aunt's apartment. Then we will gather there instead of in Brooklyn. After calling everyone a few times the plan was put in place so Mike and I left and went to Houston St.

The meeting point was in front of the apartment building which was right on East Houston. Mike and I walked there together although Mike spent a lot of time on the phone trying to find the other people. In the middle of this we ran into a friend from our hometown, Sarah. She was friends with my sister so she used to come over to our house all the time. I can't believe I didn't recognize her; Mike did, and called out to her. We invited her to join us but she was already bound for some other destination. I can't believe how often I run into people here.

The initial group turned out to be myself, Mike, his friend Amy (the niece in question whom I've never met before, I think), his friend Aiko whom I've met many times now, a guy we both know through Dylan named Dennis and his friend Milan (sp?). Dylan was allegedly on the way with a young lady although he was already drinking so we knew he would be awhile.

The apartment was on the top floor and it was incredible. It had a spiral staircase leading up to a private rooftop deck, complete with outdoor furniture and a hammock! We immediately gathered on the deck and starting drinking - Amy was kind enough to offer us some genuine Russian vodka that she got from a friend. We all noticed that a nearby building had a strange statue on the roof. It looked suspiciously like Lenin but we couldn't figure out why he would be looking over Houston St. in New York City.

A quick Internet search confirms the statue is indeed Lenin. See the photo

We chilled there for a long time. Amy had some of her friends come over but they split after a few drinks. The fog/haze was so thick over the city that we couldn't see any skyscrapers to the north of the south. It started to gently drizzle, almost like a mist, which was very refreshing. A couple of people decided it was time to eat something so a small food party was formed. This is right about the exact time that Dylan shows up with a young lady whose name I suddenly can't remember. Damn it, I'm sorry. They weren't hungry so we went out to eat.

I'll never get used to how busy Houston St. is at all hours of the night. It was well-past 1 AM at this point but most places were still open and bustling, even Katz's Deli! Several people opted for pizza but I didn't want to do that two nights in a row. Instead, I had some doner kebab at Mike's suggestion. I had no idea what it was at the time but it was kind of like a gyro although I didn't eat the pita they gave me. Hooray for mild restraint.

We took the food back to the apartment and spent the rest of the evening inside. We had a colorful discussion of many different topics, many of which were inspired by the large bookshelf in the apartment. Dylan began complaining about the scarcity of certain philosophers from the selection and we all chuckled at that. Then, just as we were about to leave, I found The Wu-Tang Manual. It's a book written by The RZA about the philosophy and interests of The Wu-Tang Clan. It was fascinating to find it sitting in this stranger's apartment. We saw no other evidence that this woman listened to any hip-hop. I can only assume she was interested in the philosophical aspects of the book, although there's also a huge section of lyrics along with notes explaining some of the metaphors they use. Here's a quick hint: any noun in a Wu-Tang song probably refers to guns, drugs, or "pussy."

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