MONDAY

I’m trying to remember now to take a picture of this view every day (ish). I think it will be fun at the end of the year to put them all together and show how nature changes a little bit every single day. It’s not always beautiful, but that’s how life is.

TUESDAY

Really not much going on this week. Working, listening to music, looking at the pile of dirty dishes outgrow the sink…and counters. Someone should really do something about that.

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday is the day I meet with Katherine to work on bloggy stuff and I get All The Homework. She always has great insights and I’m really excited about the things we’re working on.

THURSDAY things

  • Starting the day with a wonderful laughcry from your oldest friend.
  • That little bit of haze on the windshield becoming blinding when the sun hits it and you just KNOW there is an old man crossing the street with a little dog right in front of you.
  • Realizing you have just enough extra minutes on your way to work to go through the Starbucks drive-through for a hot tea.
  • Reaching out the car window to pay and the Starbucks barista points out the Velcro hair roller stuck to the sleeve of your coat 🤣
  • Pulling into the parking lot at work and reaching down for the tea you just got and realizing the cup is laying on the floor, lid off, entire contents soaked into your carpet. I don’t give a sh*t about the car or the carpet I’m just bemoaning the loss of my much looked forward to tea

FRIDAY

Yay. Friday.

SATURDAY

Went into Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I think the days of traveling much outside my Small World Box are numbered so I’m enjoying what I can while I still can. Things are starting to go south here again as covid numbers are going back up again.

There’ll be more pictures in an upcoming post.

Those yellow leaves are gingko leaves. Fun fact: the tree referenced in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a gingko tree. It’s a popular street tree that thrives in difficult situations, like  essentially growing in concrete. I love their delicate fan-shaped leaves. It’s where gingko biloba comes from that people take for its anti-inflammation, antioxidant, circulatory (and more) properties.

We ate at a little place right around the block from where I used to live in Bushwick. I had TO. DIE. FOR. cheddar and chive biscuits. Like GOOD BISCUITS. Biscuit sounds simple. They’re not simple. Not good ones. And then this amazing boozy iced coffee. It’s my new best friend.

SUNDAY

Your girl stayed up til SIX-THIRTY AM watching ALL THE THINGS. Oh my. That’s ridiculous.

Once my friend from work (this was like 6 years ago) took one of her students out to the dollar store to pick out something as a reinforcer. He was maybe 11, 12 years old. He picked out a plastic party hat that said “Girls Night Out” on it and wore it all afternoon. Okay. I (for some now unknown reason), colored eyeballs in felt pen and taped them to the front of my glasses like googly eyes. Girls Night Out Boy walks into the office, sees ME, and says THAT’S RIDICULOUS. My friend and I were rolling and that is now one of our catch-phrases.

After sleeping half the day I did manage to make the apartment low-level landlord-friendly so he could come in and take the air conditioner out of the window. It was getting pretty cold sitting in front of it to watch tv at night. That’s the good news. The bad news is that then he went out and blew all my lovely leaves away 🙁

K-DISCLAIMER: 

If you don’t want to read about kdramas or kpop, stop here. I’m seriously gonna move this type of content to either hidden pages or to a new blog and then there will just be a link “if you’re interested, go here,” and if not then you won’t have to scroll over 6 pages of kcontent to get to whatever else there might be. 

WHAT I’M WATCHING

I rewatched one of my favorites, One Spring Night, which was also my original introduction to Jung Hae-In (girl obsessed). Most of his newer series and movies are on Netflix and I’m so afraid they’re going to take them away someday and then what am I going to do? I may or may not be videoing my favorite clips off the tv. Cuz ub. Sessed.

I haven’t fan-girled this hard over an actor since David Cassidy when I was TEN. Fifty-year dry spell OVUH!

Tip: many foreign language YT videos have English subtitles by clicking on the little “CC” box on the bottom right toolbar and selecting English. Sometimes it’s just “on/off” and English is the default.

Dance Tutorials. Oh boy. Joan asked in the comments Saturday if I would share the link to the dance tutorial I’m working on. As embarrassing as it is to do so, of course I will. Oh and I’m not embarrassed that I’m doing this, I’m embarrassed for y’all to see that after several days focusing on this one specifically, I’m only up to like the 3rd movement (I think it’s called a scoop).

I’m still overcoming technological challenges so I can see this is as LARGE as possible, as SLOW as possible. You can’t control video speed on YouTube: The TV App, only from the computer. So I’m watching it on my (teeny tiny) laptop. I bought the wrong HDMI cable to stream the laptop to the large tv monitor, so…ugh.

The Moral of the Story is: NOTHING IS SIMPLE. “Oh, just watch a tutorial” is a complex process of trial and error, purchase malfunction, flooring issues…and that’s just the external stuff. Then there’s ME. Old fat slow awkward with a terrible memory. Not a recipe for dance success.

BUT. I’m powering through.

This is the actual tutorial:

The song is “ON” by BTS and it’s my new Just Got Outta Work energy-power anthem to recharge myself after being in the building all day. I knew I’d need a powerful song to keep me going, which is why I chose it. I’m sure there are easier options but.

PS: read the comments, they’re hysterical. I’m certainly not the only one struggling.

This is the actual music video:

It’s hard to watch the tutorial and then watch the actual video, and see how the one is the same as the other, ha ha. Plus, I’m gonna need the chiro soon as there are a lot of whiplash neck moves ahead and my neck is already bothering me from too much TikTok in bed. But I’m excited to get (in about 37 weeks) to the kick part…cuz I can kick!

PS: Jimin’s hair. He’s the lovely human in the white outfit with the pale blue/grey hair. I’m considering this color. I’ve dreamed of blueish hair for years, attempted it myself several times but have never gotten it right. This shade is lovely. Have to talk to my hair guy next time I go and see what his thoughts are.

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO

In addition to all the new things I’m hearing right now, I have (as I mentioned above) a short Getting Through the Day playset that combines music and video.

I start my morning (in the car w earbuds) with The Truth Untold by BTS because it’s strong yet soulful and sad and a good song to ease into the day. I shared this one last week but it’s still up there.

At some point almost every day I watch this video. Again. To remind myself of the strength and sensitivity and beauty in the world. Works every time.

THEN, and this one is a little more obscure – but this clip brings me ALL THE JOY in the middle of my day. Lunchtime these days is me sitting in my car in the parking lot of the building next to work, laugh-crying at all the wonderful things on TikTok.

The back-story to this clip is – Asian entertainers (actors, singers) do a lot of press activities- fan meets, game shows, etc. A lot of it is pretty silly but it certainly helps us mere mortals feel like we’re seeing a glimpse into these stars and idols’ personalities, which makes us feel more engaged with their singing/acting, whatever. It’s genius (though sometimes a little cringe-worthy).

Anyway, BTS was on this game show and I guess they took turns spinning this big wheel and had to do whatever the challenge was. Further back-story: this young man, RM, is really one of BTS’s rappers, not a singer. Who knew? I thought they were all singers and dancers. They’re not. They all have pretty specialized roles.

Anyway,  he spun “sing Butterfly” which is really one of the “singers” (not rappers) songs. But I think he did the most charming job…you can tell he feels a little silly, but really he has a lovely voice when he’s not giggle-singing. But he just seems so genuinely…joyful shy trying his best embarrassed…and the giggle-singing just wrecks me. LAUGH-CRYING ALL THE LIVELONG DAY. I Can’t. And the end is adorable when he turns the delicate song into harder rap and the other guys all start hip-hopping around him. But my favorite part is the beginning. Anyway. It’s short, like a minute-and-a-half. It might just be me but I just love the charming energy here.

This is the original song if you’re interested.

And another new song obsession that is also a back-up dance to learn (it’s shorter than ON and seems a little less…aerobic 🙂  is this one by Park Ji Yoon, called Coming of Age Ceremony. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing (it’s a little long cuz it shows three different phases of learning/practicing the routine), start at 2:28 (I might have set the embed code to do that automatically, but I’m never sure if that actually works).

So I’m currently listening to this last song (below) right after ON in the afternoon. And THEN (ha ha) 시작 ) (Start Over) by Gaho from a drama series called Itaewon Class. It’s another powerful, driving, energizing song that gets me ready DO SH*T when I get home!

OKAY. That’s a LOT of videos! Ha. Pick and choose or do all of it or not any of it…I don’t expect anyone else to be following me along on this crazy ride, but…this is what is occupying my mind and heart (and quadriceps) these days!

And NOW I have to wrap this up cuz my boys are gonna be on the American Music Awards in just a bit and I don’t want to miss a second!

Peace!