Happiness is only...

Learning is fun!

2006-04-04T21:23:00.000-07:00

I learned a few things this past weekend.

1) An hour north of Santa Barbara, following highway 1 off of 101, where it's pitch dark while driving and you can't help but almost expect some crazed man to jump on your windshield lies the city/town of Lompoc. Lompoc. It looks just like any old middle-class suburb, except its probaby 10x10 blocks and again, middle of nowhere. Surrounding the city is black, pitchless mountains. No idea why it exists, but it's there. And they have japanese, chinese, and thai food.

2) If you want to visit a California Mission,don't underestimate Mission Purisma. What other mission has bulls, goats, horses, donkeys, chicken and roosters? Oh yeah..horses too.

3) Anderson Pea Soup is in the city of Buellton. Boy, how this run-of-mill diner is a marketing genius. The pea soup was good, not spetacular. The food is just ok. Yet everyone wants to go at least once to see what that big billboard sign on the I-5 is about. They did have some fun toys in the gift shop. There was this plastic bottle with a piece of paper you write a note on. Then you can actually mail off this bottle. Note in a bottle! Too bad it had a tourist price on it otherewise some of you would be receiving this novelty in the mail.

4) Solvang is rather uninteresting with lots of bakeries.

5) Hiking is kicking my ass. Actually, my calves. I need a big old straw hat for the sun as well.

6) Finally, this last one, my favorite new thing I learned....ostriches!
Between pea soup and dutch-wannabe-towns lies a field of ostriches (Ostrichland is it's name). Imagine my surprise as I'm driving through a 2-lane highway and I see ostriches running around to my right. I had to pull over and pay the $3 to feed ostriches. Emus too. Let me tell you, an ostrich is one big MEAN bird with no table manners.

Ah, what a knowledge-filled weekend.

Letting go

2006-02-01T22:50:00.000-08:00

Good-Bye, Farewell
Only for the moment
I will be back
Just don't know when

My path still weaves
Around and in between
Really I'm lost
But let's pretend

I'll let you know when I arrive

A Clean Slate?

2006-01-24T10:07:00.000-08:00

I'm at my apartment right now suppposedly cleaning out all the random remaining things. This will be the - one, two, three - the 12th time I'm moving since I was 16. That's about 1.5 moves a year. Even I find that insane, but it is what it is. This time will be the farthest I move...all the way to sunny San Diego.

Besides my mom, everyone is happy for me. I hear a lot of "it'll be a new beginning" and "its good, you'll have a clean slate to start with". I have mostly nodded, and agreed. Part of me really agreed, but the more I think about it the more I disagree.

A clean slate means I will be able to create an entirely new life for myself - no baggage right? At 25, it is impossible for me to not have baggage; afterall I have a past. We are all shaped by our past. I am also cursed/blessed with an above-average memory. Not memory as in remembering where so-and-so place is located- everyone knows I'm navigationally challenged - or new vocab words. A good memory of events and people I have interacted with, of the people I care about. I can remember my best friend coming up to me one day on the playground and asking me if my name was Karen. We were six. As far as she's concerned I've just been part of her life forever. I remember giving another friend headlocks because she teased be about a boy I liked. Thankfully she doesn't remember that. I remember my first kiss, where it occurred, what he was wearing and how it felt and why it happened right then. I recall words that were said and these things replay in my mind over and over like someone forgot they left the CD track on repeat.

No, moving to San Diego is not a clean slate but instead different. All it does is create a physical divide from where I used to live to where I currently live. My relationships with people do not end, but will continue on with whole set of new standards. It will be different. And realistically, those differences may cause the end of a imperfectly good relationship.

That CD player will continue to play in my head.

Life's Update II

2005-12-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since the first life's update. I mostly waited because despite the fact it was confirmed long ago she does not have cancer (whew!), there is a large psychological component that has not been solved.

My mom is fine, although her symptoms have not gone away. She's down to 100lbs, and constantly tired. Mentally, she has anxiety and fear issues. I suppose that doesn't exactly make her fine, but she is improving. We finally found a doctor she trusts. Which is VERY important.. The last one was, if anything, frustrated and impatient with my mom's fear. Granted, they were rather extreme but the doctor should have been better at handling that fear. Plus, we found out from the other doctors that my mom was unecessarily sent in for surgery. Dr. Lee you suck! So do you Dr. Yeh. Seriously, makes me doubt asian doctors (sorry to sound rascist).

For all you future doctors out there, actually learn to take time with your patients. Makes a huge difference on the perception of their own health.

Sleepy thought

2005-10-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

At what point does courage cross over to foolishness and vice-versa? There's too many what-ifs to ever say for sure. I could be a brave soul or I could be a fool. Are they mutually exclusive?

What dreams these thoughts may bring...

Gay Day!

2005-10-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

So on a whim last weekend (not the weekend that just passed) I decided it would fun to tag along with Mason and his new bf to Gay Day at Disneyland.

I can imagine what you're probably thinking. GayDay at Disney?! It's the "Unofficial Gay Day". And it's nothing like gay pride in the Castro. There are no naked men making out in front of Cinderella's castle. The only requirement for Gay Day is to wear a red shirt and enjoy Disney like you would any other day. And I did! First of all, the drive down was surprisingly fast. Well, for me it was. Mason might have a different opinion since he was doing the driving. I can't recall what exactly we talked about but there was a lot of chatting and laughing and more laughing. Road trips are fun with the right people.

We arrive at our hotel at around 11:30, proceeded to check-in, and then get ready for bed. Afterall, we did have a full day of Disneyland ahead of us.

The next day, we arrive at Disneyland right at opening time. First thought of the day, "I need coffee". So while Mason dashed off to get the tickets for us, Lorrin and I stood in line to get our caffeine fix. I observed the crowds around us and begin to see the red shirts filing into the Disneyland. I also noted the big-breasted girls pushing stollers with "MILF" wife-beaters on. How classy...

Then we enter Disneyland. And Lorrin spies the shops. Btw, Lorrin admits he loves to shop too much. Naturally, Disney caters all too well for his types. One of the first thing he sees are these RED Mickey t-shirts in the window (I'm sure they'll deny it, but Disney must have planned it). Mason and Lorrin buy matching tees to wear for the rest of the day. Too cute! I found an adorable grumpy looking tinkerbell shirt as well, but honestly when would I wear that shirt? I left the shirt hanging on the rack.

The rest of the day went by more or less like this.

1) Lorrin and I walk towards a ride.
2) Mason has dashed on ahead to get fast pass tickets for another ride.
3) Lorrin and I arrive at the ride.
4) Mason arrives with tickets to the next ride as we head into the fast pass line for the current ride.
5) We observe the sea of red shirts whereever we go. Gay people are so friendly. All the red shirts would smile and wave at each other.

6) We finish the ride. Slowly amble towards the next ride Mason has planned out while maybe browsing the shops setup for each ride.

It amazes how much energy Mason has. He dashed all over the park that day, and still had energy at the end of the day. Amazing.

I had a wonderful time at Disney. Honestly, it was more fun than I thought it would be. I expected a good time mostly due to nostalgia, but Disney is so over the top you can't help but get pulled into all of it. Mason and Lorrin were great company too. There were so many "moments" during the weekend, too many to list. Here's a couple moments I enjoyed in no particular order(chronogically or by preference).

- While walking through the park sometime in the mid afternoon I spy a middle aged lying woman on the bench fast asleep, sucking her thumb. I wanted to take a picture so badly, but my camera ran out of power.

-I pretended to be a bitch - as in a female dog. Look at the picture below. =)

- Lots and lots of red shirts. Some of them had amusing antedotes such as "Must be this tall to ride" and "Spitters are quitters". I'll let you ponder the latter for a bit.

- Fantasmic. Disney's amazing water show. They don't advertise in their brochures for this show, but veterans of the show begin lining the lagoon at least 3 hours before it begins. Mason's a pro at this, so yes we were there and waiting 3 hours before the show. And we weren't the first ones there.

That's the short of my GayDay experience at Disneyland. We drove back up to the bay area the day after (thanks again, Mason) dreading the Monday that inevitably came.

Friends

2005-09-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

I get sad sometimes that I spend most of my evenings by myself and that there's more or less noone around me to call up for dinner, to cook, to watch tv, etc... Then in moments of clarity I realize how blessed I am with the friends I have. Not many people can claim knowing their closest friends since high school nevertheless middle school. Even less can brag knowing their best friend since the naive age of six. Not to say good friends have to go back that far; there are more than one friend I made in the past few years that have become important to me as well. These people in my life care about me because of me. They accept all my worst faults, and appreciate all my best traits. It's true love in its platonic form.

I know I will continue to have moments where I'm sad. I will feel alone and be bitter I have no friends around me. In those moments I have to apologize to everyone for forgetting you. Maybe you aren't accessible to me within 5 minutes, but you are my constants through the years and that means very much to me. Thank you.

Life's update

2005-08-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

So it just ocurred to me...there are people who read my blog. More specifically, my friends read my blog. (Hi!) I figure, this would be a good place as any to reveal life's updates for good or bad. Not the ideal place, but since I'm bad with the phone and I hardly see all of you here it is...

So here's the bad:
My mom has a 4.5 cm "growth" on her thyroid. She went in for tests yesterday to determine if the growth is cancerous.

The silver lining:
80% of abnormal growths are non-cancerous and treatable. 80% of the cancer cases are also completely treatable with a 20 year survival rate well up there. About 2-5% of the time the cancer is uber-aggressive and the prognosis is "not as good", aka BAD.

Am I worried? Yes. Am I freaking out? No. I did my research and relatively speaking I don't think there's anything to worry about yet. And honestly, there's nothing to be done until we know the test results. I'll keep you all updated.

Taking a break

2005-07-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

I'm at work and writing this blog. Now I know this isn't allowed. It's probably an even bigger disregard for work than say chatting on AIM. But here I am, typing away on my blog. Sure, I have bugs to fix, user manuals to write, training to prepare, etc...I just don't feel like doing it. Does this mean I have work burnout or am I just plain lazy? At some point I also started blaming temperature in this office; it's cold!! The maintenance guy claims its a nice 70 degrees but I (sort of) respectfully disagree. I'll sound like an old lady here, but my finger joints hurt in the cold. How can I work in front of the computer when I'm in pain.

I love how I can rationalize my own faults and I know I'm not alone...

Gnome!

2005-06-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks to travelocity, its suddenly cool to take a picture with a gnome garden statue. So being the sucker I am for trends (half sarcastic, half truth) I found myself thrilled to have this picture. How great is that?

As for as I know, the "travelling gnome" concept was created by the movie Amelie. In it Amelie takes picture of her father's gnome with all kinds of touristy icons found throughout the world. Since then travelocity has picked up on this idea and did what any company would do with a catchy idea: promote, promote, promote!

And promote they did at the SF Gay Pride Parade 20005. Right next to Delta airlines booth, not too far away from the gay porn star autographing booth (trust me, they don't need any big cars to compensate..) was the travelocity booth. They were offering free poloraid pictures with the gnome. FREE! Honsetly, I have no idea what else they may have been promoting. I assume it had someting to do with plane tickest and travel deals. My focus was only on that statuette. There he was with a twinkle in his eye, his cap all properly set on his head, and his belt buckled on straight.. Sadly or not, he made my day. Yay for the little gnomes in our lives.

2005-06-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

I took a linguistic class in college about how people used words and under what category they get grouped in. The homework in that class revolved around taking a word (e.g. heart) and finding different use of the word in sentences. Going with the heart example, we will have the sentences "The buses all go to the heart of the city","My heart is broken", and "His heart is in good health". Each usage of the word heart meaning different things. In this case, the center of the city, a figure of speech for one's emotion, and a vital blood-pumping organ.

Anyways, all these thought came about today when I thought to myself "I want to be touched", and I had to go back and reanalyze what I meant when I thought that. "touch". There's so many definitions that simple word. 16 as a verb, 17 as a noun according to dictionary.com.

Touch can mean physical contact. I definately miss affection. I don't mean sex. I mean affection, a tender gesture. A simple hug, the act of someone putting their arms around me is comforting. So I wasn't surprise to find out that the physical act of touching has therapeutic impacts on people.

" Research demonstrates that touch has a powerful impact on physical and mental health throughout the lifespan. In the form of massage, it "...helps asthmatics breathe easier, boosts immune function in HIV-positive patients, improves autistic children's ability to concentrate, and lowers anxiety in depressed adolescents..." (Colt, 1997, p. 58). " - read more here.

So maybe I meant I want physical affection. But then I thought about it some more.

Touch can mean an emotional contact. I miss that too. I miss the emotional intimacy two people can have with one another. The ability to be open and vulnerable but at the same time comfortable. Humans are pack animals. We rely on relationships to keep us going. Contrary to "letting oneself go" when married, married couples are actually healthier. Chances are you'll live longer if you're married than not, assuming the marriage is happy of course.

In all liklihood I meant both physical and emotional. Or maybe I'm just thinking too much. In any case, when was the last time you were touched?

"The Blower's Daughter" - Damien Rice

2005-06-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...

'Til I find somebody new

Love=Oxytocin

2005-06-16T22:32:00.000-07:00

Love is a funny thing. Even funnier is that scientists can now reduce love to chemical interactions in the body. The equation above is actually inaccurate. Love is more like "Dopamine + Oxytocin - Serotonin". I'm going to be lazy and just focus on oxytocin, since it is the key hormone to long lasting love.

Oxytocin recently has been dubbed the "trust in a bottle"( here ). Experiments have shown that oxytocin increases people's ability to trust one another. And as we all know, trust is the foundation of love. What's more, intercourse, especially ones that result in orgasm, releases oxytocin in both men and women. That's where that sense of emotional intimacy after physical intimacy comes from. Hence, happy marriages include happy sex lives.

Another study shows that oxytocin is key to monogamy. There are two species of voles that are in almost all ways identical except one species is monogamous and the other promiscuous. The cause? The promiscuous species lack the gene to produce oxytocin. Does that make humans genetically disposed to having one mate? Well no, not quite...we do have a healthy dose of testosterone that may sway a person from the "one mate" idea (we meaning men and women).

I always knew physical intimacy and emotional intimacy were closely tied together (duh!), but now I have an explanation why. Damn those hormones.

Always, Kasi

2005-06-13T19:10:00.000-07:00

So here's my first post. It'll be a quick and sweet description on why I chose the url "always-kasi". "Always" is how I usually sign off emails and letters. Why always? It stands for a lot of things: "love always", "always me", "always your friend","always your daughter", "always here", etc... To me it encompasses concisely in one word my relationship with others and myself. It seems an appropriate address for a blog of mine, even at a risk of sounding "mooshy" as my friend puts it. Anyone know the exact meaning of mooshy?

Always,
Kasi