Today’s Thunk Posts

Ah Insomnia. How are you old friend?

It’s been too long since I’ve written and my fingers and brain feel a little cranky for being out of practice.

Let me take a moment to crack these mental and physical knuckles a moment to get warmed up.

First off, the apologies:
Dear blog, and readers who still come along here for an amuse bouche (I watch too much FoodTV) of whimsy or mischief, or spontaneous poetry, or photos of whatnot, I apologize. I could say that I’ve been overwhelmed with new motherhood and that’d be mostly true.

I’ve felt a real restriction of freedom of late that is multi-part.

  1. Freedom of Time :  There hasn’t felt like much time that I have to myself to clear my head, collect and articulate my thoughts.
  2. Freedom of Physical Movement:  While I might feel somewhat less productive than I’ve been in the past, I’m usually handling the baby with at least one arm which makes typing pretty tedious and slow.
  3. Freedom of Energy: When I have my hands free and some time to myself I’m usually trying to manage sleep deficit which is not unlike the current national debt, from what it feels like.

Which makes the entire exercise of trying to write at 5:45 AM (at this moment) even more amusing.  Because I am tired, but for whatever reason restless.  The baby is at my left in the crib, gurgling and occasionally sharting in her sleep.   My husband is snoring while diagonally splayed across the bed.  I’m in the middle feeling absolutely disheveled – wearing my highschool PE shirt, silently scolding myself for having chewed, haggard fingernails and knowing I need to pluck my eyebrows while my legs and ankles weep and cry for proper lotion massage treatment.  I can’t be bothered right now to wake the baby to change her diaper or punch/rollover the husband to his side of the bed.

Second: The Pedantics.

And so here I am writing again.

I used to write more frequently.  Exhaustedly involved narratives on my musings of miso soup, on my adventures of the day.  I’d write as if my interaction with the produce staff regarding the invention of the nectarine in southern california by a Korean farmer was somehow extraordinarily important and required sharing.  On things that were so small and yet felt so significant.

These days, of late, I’ve lost a bit of that gusto.

Part of it might be blog fatigue.  Afterall, I’ve been blogging for 10+ years now.

Part of it might be real fatigue.  Afterall, I’m a new mother.

Part of it may be that I just feel like nothing that I could say could really be that significant.

Personal navel-gazing and extrapolated meditations on the minutia of myself seem so — well, pretty puerile and unimportant these days.  At least when compared with taking care of my daughter.

She’s become my sole focus and it stuns me that I’m her world – meals, educator, caretaker, protector, chauffeur, entertainment, stylist, custodian, and occasional mattress.

And I haven’t quite sunk into my skin and felt confident about being a mommyblogger as yet.

I suppose that confessing that here falls into the navelgazing/minutia category again.

There’s blogposts that I’ve been meaning to write:

  • On breastfeeding
  • On working on Amelia’s Baek-Il (100 day festivities)
  • On post-modern feminism and being a stay-at-home mom.
  • On NomNomMom.com a blog project that I want to start up about parenting and food. (And yes, the URL NomNomMom.com was reserved and purchased for this specific purpose a while back and has yet to be started)
  • On how twitter is driving the death of blogposts => making the statement TLDNR all the more frequent an experience whether it’s articulate or not.

And yet I haven’t.

And maybe I won’t get to it but I want to.

I miss writing.

There. I’ve said it.  At least writing it out in public makes me feel a teeeeeny bit better and maybe that simple act will free me from whatever self-doubt I’ve had about putting thoughts to pixel.

Have you missed reading?

Posted by Min Jung in Just Me, Today's Thunk

The Annual Breakup Post

(In the tradition of past breakup posts – See 2006 2005, 2004, 2003)

Dear 2007,

Well. We both knew this was coming. It’s our thing.

This was your year. The year of the pig. The year of wealth and prosperity and good things. There’s been a lot of that together that we’ve shared. Particularly in memories and in laughter.

To do things together to the fullest and to know at the end of it all that we have lots of ridiculously rich memories to share with each other and to say goodbye to each other without regrets and without hesitation.

We’re both old and mature enough now to know that about both ourselves and each other.

And really, my what a year we’ve had.

We’ve traveled to Texas, Michigan, Seattle, Berlin, Heidelberg, and Paris.

We’ve said hello and farewell to good friends and family. It’s been a year where I’ve felt fury and frustration, whimsy and delight. Snarky giggles and sometimes whimpery nights of needing simple comforts.

We’ve maintained love and seen it grow and bloom into something gorgeous that has outshone any doubt that’s managed to burrow itself into a corner of self doubt or worry in my psyche.

Dear 2007, you’ve even been there for me for some of the happiest days of my life. I mean, getting engaged, getting married(Flashmob version in the livingroom). Getting married again. (In the church and all that good stuff.)

And you’ve given me the opportunity for tremendous hope and joy when Jason and I found out that we were pregnant. And then to lose that pregnancy so soon after we’d grown to glow with the idea of having a physical manifestation of our joy and love for each other come into our lives. It’s been rough, losing that hope, though we both know that it’s only temporary and that hope, well, like our spirits, it too will rise. And that in grief, there is still the opportunity to see and to know true love and to understand its greatest significance in providing strength and comfort during those moments of weakness and tenderness.

To learn that so early in a marriage is, at the very least, an important blessing to recognize and stay focused on.

Dearest 2007, I want to thank you for being such an important year in my life. It’s been a year full of challenges and growth, beauty and some grief, tenderness and laughter, song and heart written personal scripture. You’ve been a year that I’ve learned to love in jagged and sharp moments as well as those glowy and full of firecrackers under my skin.

So thank you, 2007. You’ve been as good to me as you could. And I hope I’ve done right by you as well.

Wish me well with 2008,

Min Jung

Today’s Thunk

Robert Frost

“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”

Last night, while my lovely boyfriend was successfully avoiding being slightly annoyed with me for being a little snookered after returning home from a PR party where i inhaled a couple of vodka tonics, I lolled on my bed and pulled out a seemingly endless series of personal diaries and journals from my past.  Printed out emails. Confessions of having phone sex with near strangers. Guilty bemusings about crushes and lust.  Restrained notations on the archeological excavation of heart bruises and breaks.  Tear stained sheets.  Plane tickets to see a boyfriend.  Rose petals pressed carefully betwen pages. Sketches. Doodles.
I read him excerpts of my past romantic bemoanings and he giggled at me.

And I thought to myself, wow. I’m still the biggest megadork ever. STILL!

But wow. It’s all worth it when I think about where I am now and who I have in my heart these days.

Squish. Mega dork.

Posted by Min Jung in General, Today's Thunk

Travel Update

Location: Casa Huff & Cooper
Chicago,IL

I’m currently sitting on the couch with a lovely silver grey cat who is napping with her fat butt facing me.

Cinnamon & Andrew are geeking out seperatly on their own respective laptops, reviewing blogs, logs, and pictures online.

I am delighted by spending chill “regular time” with people that I don’t get to see or spend time with often enough. Simple things like listening to jazz, making fun of goofy emails, and sharing various silly blog content. We talk about scotch. And cats. And people we know. And bond films. And wikipedia. And etc.

This after an evening with Cinnamon and her lady pals playing “poker” where no shirts or panties were lost, but much wine was had, and many more giggles than that. My stomach is still full and happy from having some Surl Long Tang with my friend JB earlier today (waves hi to jb!) after he was kind enough to pick me up from the train station.

Thunks today:
Any stigma associated with train travel should be abolished. I was pleased to discover the convenience of the transportation did not exceedingly diminish or destroy the romance associated with this mode of travel that I’ve had from movies while growing up.

There’s a lovely leisure to it. Fairly relaxing. Tons of space to spread out. And a fairly reasonable a la carte selection of foodstuffs in the dining car including heinekin or coronas, hebrew national hotdogs, gardenburgers, and other sundries. A more diverse or healthy selection of food stuffs than available on planes including yogurt and fruit, juice, and milk. And did I mention how cheap the tickets were? $26 one way from Detroit to Chicago. With loads of flexibility re: changing the dates of departure or cancelling tickets with nominal penalties. Not a bad way to go when you have more time than dollars, and no manic schedule to be bound to. No wifi or powerplugs though. But that’s ok. I had enough media between naps with the ipod, and episodes of battlestar galactica.

I’m a little sleepy and it’s snowy outside. Chilly, but reasonably calm.
Snow blankets the ground making all things sparkle and clean, quiet, and still.
It’s real weather. Something that I’ve missed from spending too much time in SF where the weather goes from rainy to non rainy during the winter months.

Other things?
I think I’ve been predjudiced or unreasonably terrified to some degree of what those “next stages” in life might mean for me. Something that’s been resonated to some degree by conversations I’ve had with USG and other friends. I guess I’m not the only one who considers with some trepidation, going into that “great fade” once a person does adult things like … getting married, buying a house, having kids, etc. I’d like to believe that adulthood development does not include a lobotomy. I’m always delighted when i meet or read folks who encourage that vibe still as well.

Smoocheritos

Um – Kay…

Hey!

Listen to some dudes in Chicago who are drunk/stoned audio & video blog!

With several horrendous mispronunciations of my name!

For those who only read my text and have never heard my name spoken, here’s a few notes for you.


Min -
as in miniscule … like some guys penises that i know

Jung – Not like the fucked up psychologist quack pot but with the actual J sound. Still, it does rhyme with young. Soft g at the end. The second part of my first name should not sound like a Cantonese war yelp before butcher knives and swords (along with random instances of cherry blossoms and/or snow) get thrown through the air and Zhang Zi Yi pretends to not be pouty for once in a film.

Kim - as in Kimberly. That girl in highschool that you had the hots for so badly that you let her copy off of your physics test.

Other ways my name has been mispronounced in the most recent past?
Minja – as in Ninja.
For which I felt obliged to post the Pink Ninja pix.

*shaking head and clucking tongue in dismay*

In other news:
Latest mathematical/socialogical truisms

The liklihood of wifi being present is inversely proportional to the number of doilies on a premisis. Real Doilies. Paper Doilies apparently only mean that there are wifi networks present but locked off.
Tested and true.

Also: The propensity for doily making increases as the frequency of a woman’s menstruation cycle declines.

Also: The size of one’s purse is directly proportional to the number of people that a woman cares for. Those chicks with those tiny little hand clutches? Bitches. They’ll expect to be taken care of. Those women with epic sized bag larger than a mini-cooper are likely trying to take care of a small village in south america. And/or 2 children and a significant other who frequently acts like one. Add additional bags for diapers, yoga gear, and valium. Lots and lots of valium.

Also: The frequency with which one makes drunk dialing calls is inversely proportional to your acceptable level of attractiveness to anyone. ANYONE. And even your friends will feel less likely to try & pimp you out.

Also: The liklihood of trying to run on gas fumes towards the gas station is not indicative of idiocy so much as a chance to experience an opportunity for humility and recognition of a very heartbreaking human condition. (Oblique I know.. I’ll write more about this later)

Also: On a monday, one really does *not* need to hear a friend speak about purchasing a strap-on to spice up one’s sex life. Seriously. Ever. Unclean. Unclean. Unclean.

Thunk on Politics

Harriet Miers has every right to change her mind.

But she has no right to change my rights to my own vagina and uterus.

That is all.

Posted by Min Jung in General, Today's Thunk

You know…

You know your day isn’t going so well when you’re thinking all morning that there just HAS to be a

Ctrl-Alt-Del function for your life.

Then again, this is coming from a girl who’s actually screamed out “Control-Z!!!” in the middle of a heated debate.

I am so. gawddamn.pathetic. sometimes.

Posted by Min Jung in GeekGirlCollisions, General, Today's Thunk

Words or Phrases that Should Exist but Don’t Yet.

Slacker-Savant:

Pronunciation: ‘sla-k&r sa-’vänt, s&-, -’vän; s&-’vant, ‘sa-v&nt
Function: noun

Etymology: Urban America 1980s post Baby Boom Era combined with French, from Middle French, from present participle of savoir to know, from Latin sapere to be wise — more at SAGE : a person of learning; especially : one with detailed knowledge in some specialized field (as of science or literature) who chooses not to appear as if they are capable of or interested in any actual work. Also referring to a person wwho persistantly looks as if they are slacking off but somehow manage extraordinary productivity by leveraging technology or exploiting areas of gross inefficiency within an organization.

Is typically highly resistant or abhorant to conventual management or provintial ideology. One that manages to get “promoted” inspite of themselves when they “save the day” while wearing flipflops and hung over.

Not to be confused with Idiot Savant.
Pronunciation: ‘E-”dyO-sä-’vän, or same as IDIOT and SAVANT for respective sing and pl forms
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural idiots savants /-”dyO-sä-’vän(z) /; or idiot savants /-’vän(z)/
Etymology: French, literally, learned idiot
1 : a person affected with a mental disability (as autism or mental retardation) who exhibits exceptional skill or brilliance in some limited field (as mathematics or music) — called also savant
2 : a person who is highly knowledgeable about one subject but knows little about anything else

Things that Break My Head

* Buddhists buying mercedes. Worst.Buddhist.Ever.
* Crazy homeless lady with hissing cat on her cart blocking traffic
* Will I ever get a Chihuahua? Can I name it Kitty?
* I’ve gained weight and the only item I own that still fits the same are my shoes
* I’ve really gotta stop looking at Wikipedia for information on Impeachment procedures.

I’ve gotta really busy fall ahead of me too.

09/16 * I’m getting excited for my trip to vegas this weekend to celebrate my silver anniversary of friendship with my best friend.
Somewhere around 1982

09/24 * Webzine2005. I’m excited to say that I got my company Comcast to be a Media Sponsor for the event. I’ll also be playing Vanna White for Ted’s Most Excellent Panel on Community Matters. There is an extraordinary liklihood that I will kiss people.

10/7-9th * I have to pull together my plans for michigan for my Sorority’s 10 year anniversary.

10/20 * I will be MCing & guest curating a fun apa arts/blogging event for LocusArts. It’s called Lap-POP! Confirmed Artists/Performers showcasing include Glenda Bautista, Ernie Hsiung, Courtney Patubo, Robynn Takayama. Musical guest and blog nerd too Annie Lin. It will be Dope. OMFG IRL STFU LOL

* November my great galpal from NYC is visiting

* And then there’s the possibility that my brother is going to fly me out to NYC so they can finally register their apple care.
Now, while being non too-techy by the bay area terms, my brother and sister-in-law think I’m a god. Yes, the irony. It is to laugh. Especially in light of what I put down for my bio at SXSW

Posted by Min Jung in General, Today's Thunk

Randum Thunks

#1. Is it a reflection of my age, sense of sentiment, or personal disposition that I’ve taken to focusing on listening to music that have only been highly recommended to me by friends or evoke a particular level of affection or trigger a strong emotional memory associate with people that I care about.

I.am.a.sap.

#2. When in a crowd of people where you might feel remotely awkard, tell the cutest boys in the crowd that you doubt that they can count to 21 with their shorts on. Trust me. you’ll feel better.

Posted by Min Jung in General, Today's Thunk

Dear Gawd.

Dear Lord on High,

If it would be ok with you, I’d really like to ask for a minor boon.

In the last day or so, I’ve had my brain implode.

Not with pain or anxiety or anuirism (how the fuck do I spell that by the way>) but with concern and an extraordinary stretch of my capacities for empathy, optimisim, concern, affection, cognitive dissonance, and acceptance.

Dear Lord,

Would it please be ok, (and forgive me goodness for asking this) if I could just summer through my own fricking drama then be complicit and burdened with the knowledge of the episodes of all whom I love?

It would be so much easier to be that selfish, I know.

*sigh*

Yesu Cristo,

Amen.

MJ

Posted by Min Jung in General, Today's Thunk

Connect The Dots

The most common gap with communication and the frustration resulting from this in the expanse of human experience and social interaction is this:

Everyone, and I mean everyone, foolishly anticipates that people behave in a manner that is within the scope of their paradigms of familiarity.

Except that everyone has their own paradigm of familiarity.

And none of them, nada nada single one, is exactly the same.

Take a good long potty sitting thunk on that.

Posted by Min Jung in General, Today's Thunk

Quote Du Jour

Henry David Thoreau

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

Posted by Min Jung in General, Life Lessons, Today's Thunk

Additional thoughts on Work Styles & Leadership by Women

I’ve been meditating more re: my most recent DISC profile analysis and some thoughts that popped out over the Where are the Women in Web design panel during SXSW.

Just some personal thoughts.
Being a professional navel gazer with regards to self actualization and personal development as a blogger, writer, shit talker, amateur sociologist, and pop culture synesthesziast do help with this:

I display the following characteristics in these appropriate environments:

D: Dominance:
Recognized by: High Self-Confidence
Pace: Faster
Gains Security: Being in Control
Measures Progress by: Results
Major Fear: Being taken advantage of, loss of control.
Irritated by: Inefficiency, indecision, slowness
Major Limitations: Selective Listening and Impatience

When planning trips or events, I can be particularly aggressive.
I am more likely to display an aggressive/efficiency focused behavior when I’m under pressure to create a good time/good experience for my friends. My value system directs me to ensure optimal results in terms of mischief; personal documentation; and timeliness. I’m not a dragon lady, per se, but I’m really driven to get things done so that all can have a great time. It’s not that the environment is unfavorable so much as the parameters or constraints by which I work under these circumstances. Examples: Planning the Coachella Trip. Or my most recent planning forays and organization insanity for SXSW.
Rawk.

I: Influence
Recognized by: Talkativeness, enthusiasm, optimism, energy
Pace: Fast
Gains Security: Flexibility/Variety
Measures Progress by: Applause,praise
Major Fear: Social Rejection
Irritated by: Routine, formality
Major Limitations: Lack of follow through

This is an area where I definitely consider my environment to be “favorable.” It’s safe, comforting, and amenable to both my communication style and my penchant for whimsy. This is definitely a behavior pattern I exhibit on my blog or frequently in blogging circles. Any other reason why I have over a dozen different types of post categories out there? And confession: I check my referrer stats and technorati tracks far more than I really should. I’ve often referred to myself as being both lazy and vain. I think this blog probably exemplifies both characteristics to some degree. I’ve refrained more now than in the past from total “persona projection” cam girl-esque behaviors.

But then again, I also flaunt kissing bloggers. Go figure.

S: Steadiness
Recognized by: Friendliness, co-operation, persistence, patience
Pace: Slower
Gains Security: Close relationships
Measures Progress by: Appreciation
Major Fear: Personal rejection, loss of stability, sudden change.
Irritated by: Insensitivity, impatience
Major Limitations: Overly modest, resist change.

Uh. Favorable environment but frequently feeling less powerful than the environment.
That pretty much covers my lack of love life there, now wouldn’t it.
This is why I generally consider myself a safe distance crushaholic but have a general sense of terror when it comes to real commitments and potential changes in my life. Plus I’ve been burned badly in the past. But then again, haven’t we all? I feel most stable when I’m single and not as emotionally invested. Toeing the brink of something as huge as love with a capital L that could really change who I am, how I am, and how I live my life is a very scary situation. I say too often that I’m a fabulous flirt but lousy at dating. This pretty much punches the noggin on why.

C: Conscientiousness
Recognized by: Accuracy, may be cautious, concern for high standards.
Pace: Slower
Gains Security: Preparation
Measures Progress by: Getting it right
Major Fear: Criticism of what they do
Irritated by: Surprises, unpredictability
Major Limitations: Overly critical of self and others

This would definitely be how I approach my writing and art. With regards to my humor pieces, poetry, attempts and chap books, and photography projects. I get so overwhelmed in the minutia of things that I wind my procrastinating my way into failure. I get easily psyched out. I automatically fail by putting unreasonable standards on my ideal product vs my skill set and knowledge to get there. Same goes for anything technical having to do with the web. At this point, I’m terrified of the notion of learning HTML and CSS on my own because I’d want to get it absolutely right and I don’t have the confidence to do this myself. Complete fear of failure or substandard deployment.

Things to note for myself:
The environments are only favorable/unfavorable based on my perception of them.
So I can work on a) modifying or adjusting my perception of them and b) if they are in fact unfavorable; pull together the resources or cajones to make them less so.

Also: I have more control over my environment than I give myself credit for.

Today’s Thunk

Have you ever looked at someone and thought to yourself,

“You. Yes you. I want to break your heart.”

Posted by Min Jung in General, Today's Thunk