le mal du pays

Yesterday night I woke up at around 3am.  My sleep pattern has been the craps lately.  I would fall asleep early while watching tv and then wake up in the middle of the night.  I also have been sweating profusely in the night and waking up with my shirt soaked.  This is pretty abnormal for me, or at least abnormal in the past.  Then I spend the remaining hours trying to fall back asleep before my alarm sounds and I have to drag myself up to go to work.  I am not sure what's going on.  But the result is, I am pretty much a zombie throughout the day.  Listless, detached, agitated with the world.  Well maybe my bad sleep habit has nothing to do with my being any of those things, but it doesn't help.  

Well yesterday night, my trying to fall back asleep was interrupted by what turned out to be the biggest earthquake we had in the Bay Area since Loma Prieta in 1989.  It was a 6.0 near Napa.  More than anything, it felt long, as if it would go on forever.  That's the worst part of going through an earthquake.  Every fraction of a second feels like forever, and your mind and heart are racing.  You just keep thinking, are the jolts going to get more violent or subside?  Yesterday night, I immediately leaped out of bed and stood in my bedroom doorway.  I still have no idea if that's what I am supposed to do.  (Actually I just looked it up; it's not the right thing to do.)

The 6.0 quake looks to have caused pretty significant damages to buildings in Napa and sent 120 people to the hospital with mostly minor injuries.

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Yesterday was also the debut of Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor.  I was disappointed in the episode Deep Breath.  I was confused and actually bored.  It was partly due to my missing Matt Smith but more due to the writing.  I really didn't follow most of what was going on.  Sometimes that happens and I just go with the ride, but with Deep Breath, I was instead tuned out and became disinterested.  Even the appearance of Vastra, Jenny, and Strax (I love those three) didn't help.  As for Capaldi, I don't know - I will hold out judgment.  I love Matt Smith's Doctor because he was both an old man and a young child.  I love the quirkiness.  Capaldi will be completely different obviously.  But good different or bad different?

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I've been complaining about my iPhone battery life.  On Friday Apple finally did the right thing and acknowledged that it's a widespread problem and is offering a battery replacement program for phones bought during a particular timeframe.  I immediately made an appt at the Genius Bar (I hate that name), and handed over my phone for repair.  I should have my regular phone in about 10 days.  Right now I am using a loaner phone.

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So happy that Guardians Of The Galaxy is back up at number one this weekend.  It's a great movie.  


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Robin Williams aka Mork from Ork has committed suicide.  He apparently suffered from depression and was in the early stage of Parkinson's.  Life is full of demons, ain't it?  Incidents like this always remind me of John Irving's quote from Hotel New Hampshire:  "Keep passing the open windows." 

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Lauren Bacall also passed a few days after - of a stroke.  Interesting trivia - with her passing, all 16 of the icons name-checked in Madonna's Vogue have now died.

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I finished Haruki Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years Of Pilgrimage a few days ago.  I think it took me about six days, which is record time for me because I am an extremely slow reader.  (I really think I have ADD.)  It's a breezy read, unlike 1Q84 which took me close to a year to get through.  (1Q84 had its magical moments, but then it was looong.) There are a lot of things about Tsukuru that I could relate to - being abandoned abruptly by people whom you feel close to and need, those feelings of not knowing what you offer to other people.  My favorite part is probably the story told by Tsukuru's friend Haida, of his father and his encounter with a pianist with death tokens.  Central to Tsukuru's story is a classical piano composition by Franz Liszt - Le mal du pays.  Haida describes le mal du pays as "homesickness, or melancholy, or a groundless sadness called forth in a person's heart by a pastoral landscape."  I think I suffer from le mal du pays even when I am home.

hooked on a feeling

I want to declare my love for Guardians of the Galaxy.  It's just pure joy and weirdness - a comic book movie packed with a rocket-toting raccoon, a talking tree who repeatedly says "I am Groot," a giant brute who takes things too literally and has no use for metaphors, awesome mixtapes, Kirk AND Mitchum Huntzberger from Gilmore Girls, Amelia Pond, Uhura from Star Trek aka Neytiri from Avatar, and a Footloose reference.  It's the Marvel movie I wished Joss Whedon's Avengers was.  It's funny, action-packed, and yeah even touching at parts.  And who wouldn't love Chris Pratt after this?  He came to play with his charisma and charm on full throttle.  Star-Lord had me from his first scene, making like Indiana Jones and stealing a mystic orb but with dancing.  I think all superheroes should dance from now on.  Chris Pratt deserves all the success and the attention he's been getting.  I am so ready to see him onscreen again, whether it is GOTG 2 or Jurassic World.  Plus he has a pretty awesome wife in Anna Faris too.

Guardians of the Galaxy - it's my favorite of the summer.  All summer movies should make you this happy.  A

          

colorless tsukuru

This is a trailer for the upcoming release of Haruki Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. It's beautiful.



I preordered both the US version and the UK version. I got the UK version just for the sticker sheets. Marketing scheme gets me everytime.

seasons

People change, even though some people never do
You know when people change
They gain a piece but they lose one too

yesterday is two days before tomorrow

Random thoughts this Sunday -

-  I am unhappy with the way the stairs dry rot repair went.  Contractors are just awful.
-  Snowpiercer is the best movie I've seen so far this year.
-  My orange mushroom shower BT speaker died when I dropped it in the shower.  I bought a different model off eBay.  Hope it works.
-  I love the grilled vegetable Vietnamese Banh Mi sandwich from Cafe Bunn Mi.
-  The new Marc Jacob glasses I got from my optometrist are actually pretty cheaply made, worse than the free glasses I got from Coastal.com.
-  I hope the fog goes away by September when I am scheduled to have the house painted.
-  I made cheesecake cupcakes again, but instead of vanilla wafers as the bottom, I used pecan shortbread cookies.  Yum.
-  I love the new Tardis toy I got.  The top lights up, except I took the battery out cuz I don't want it to corrode over time.
-  The batteries in my Apple BT keyboard corroded, and I cannot open the battery compartment.  There goes $60.
-  I honestly am not sure how I can continue to work in my office.  It's so painful to go to work everyday and deal with those people.  So fake.
-  The oats & honey & toasted coconut Kind granola bars are delicious.
-  Japanese washi tapes are cool.  I declare.
-  I think I need at least $2M in assets before I retire.  So short of winning the lottery, how do I make that happen?
-  Chris Pratt is awesome.  So happy for his success.
-  I wish Sandra Bullock and Chris Evans were really dating.  She should be dating a good guy, and he is Captain America for god's sake.
-  Not sure how I feel about Ryan Gosling/Eva Mendez baby, not that they are asking.
-  Future Islands' Seasons is a really good song.
-  So how awesome would it be if Madonna's upcoming album becomes a major comeback?  I need this to happen.  I keep waiting for this to happen. 
-  I really am not liking my hair lately.  Why does hair behave so moodily?
-  Avocado makes everything better.
-  I want a tiny house.
-  I should wash my cars.
-  I love Haruki Murakami's New Yorker short story - Yesterday.  It made me all melancholy and nostalgic.  The way people come in your life and then just disappear.

my summer list

Movies I am looking forward to seeing:

-  Richard Linklater's Boyhood (Linklater, coming of age story - I am so on board)
-  Snowpiercer
-  Guardians of the Galaxy (Chris Pratt!)
-  Begin Again (why did they change the title from the much superior Can A Song Save Your Life? - damn studio marketing!)

Tv shows I am enjoying this summer:
-  Almost Royal (it's like Borat but with two fake British royal siblings)
-  SYTYCD (still my favorite reality competition show aside from Amazing Race)

Books I am hoping to read:
-  The Gold Finch
-  Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Year of Pilgrimage
-  Neil Gaiman's The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains

Music that are doing it for me right now:
-  Sam Smith's In The Lonely Hour
-  Chromeo's White Women
-  Keira Knightley's songs from Begin Again soundtrack
-  Future Islands' "Seasons"
-  Robyn & Royksopp's Do It Again ep
-  Coldplay & Cat Power's song Wish I Was Here

wish i was here

I am so obsessed with this song right now. I wish Coldplay had kept the song for themselves and included it on Ghost Stories.