"My feel for you is decaying in front of me / Like the carrion of a murdered prey"

- carrion, fiona apple

I guess you're supposed to get these after Thanksgiving, but I had a free evening, so I drove down to Chula Vista and picked up a tree:

Will post after pictures in a couple of days after I'm done decorating! (I love the smell of pine needles!)

A picture of the coffee table I got this past weekend (Thank goodness for the Citi Forward card with its insane points for eating out to make this affordable):

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Ano nga ba ang nagtutulak sa tao para pumatay? Poot? Salapi? Prinsipyo? Politika?

Doon din sa Maguindanao naging "landslide" ang pagkakapanalo ni Gloria Arroyo. Sa ilang presinto roon, wala ni isa mang boto si Fernando Poe Jr. Isipin mo: kahit isa, wala siyang nakuhang boto. Ang kapal ng mukha talaga nitong si Arroyo. Malaki ang utang na loob niya kay Ampatuan. Hello Garci?!

Ngayon naalala ko ang Jabidah massacre kung saan pinatay ng mga elemento ng Armed Forces of the Philippines ang 60 kataong Moro na kanilang nirekluta. Naalala ko ang Balangiga massacre kung saan pinatay ng mga tropang Amerikano ang halos tatlong libong sibilyan sa Balangiga, Samar dahil sa paghihiganti.

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After posting that last video, I loaded up my Mariah Carey playlist, and that got me reminiscing back a couple of years ago.

For kicks, I loaded up my LiveJournal account to see who was active. Back before I started working on Tabulas, I spent a lot of time on LiveJournal, kicking it with some random people.

I felt a pang of disappointment when I realized I could never reach out again to most of these people (some had completely deleted their accounts, while others had just stopped posting).

People move on with their lives - I just wish I knew they were doing alright.

One of the biggest downsides to the growth of sites like Twitter & Facebook is that they've destroyed the ability for people to share their stories. I'm of the belief that all of us have a story to share, and we do a disservice to ourselves and others by keeping these stories to ourselves. The human condition is shared, and we should make the most of our ability to reason and communicate.

I used to spend hours just clicking through on LiveJournal accounts and reading on the joys and sorrows of random people. You can't do that with Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr. I don't know if I simply grew older, or if people just don't do that anymore. I ran across a Tabulas account recently which reminded me of why I grew to cherish Tabulas so much in the early days. Unlike the false truths we throw up on sites like Facebook and Twitter to brand ourselves (even subconsciously), there's a fresh truth in reading anonymous personal entries. I read that stuff and go, "Wow, that was me. I'm not alone."

This journal used to be like that, but I've found it much harder to write like that lately. The truth is that I simply can't go into that level of detail, since most of it is work-related (or is tangentially related to work). With my position at the company, I simply can't share that, even if I'm simply being brutally honest. C'est la vie.

I'm not sure what it is, but I've been on a huge sentimental kick over the past few weeks (ever since my NC trip). For the past few years, I've really grown to appreciate my parents and the sacrifices they made for me, and seeing my NC friends again this time reminded me of all the good times I had with them. It also reminded me how well I had it to kick it with them.

But there's a huge sadness in coming to grips with the reality that as we grow up, we drift apart as friends. I guess that's why I've been getting more sentimental lately, and why I've been getting so worked up about traditional holiday activities like cooking Thanksgiving dinner with good company and putting up a Christmas tree. Every time I do these activities, it takes me back to the memories associated with those activities in the past.

Even if they were just from last year, it's amazing how much I've felt like I've grown over the past year. It's not that there were situations that drove these changes - my position inside MindTouch hasn't changed, and there haven't been anything that's changed in my personal life. I look at life a lot differently than I used to, and that's all that matters.

I know I have my job to thank for that - in a lot of ways, it forced me to grow up a lot faster. I don't know how I ended up here, but I know that it was a series of long struggles and a lot of soul-searching.

My family is healthy, I have an appreciation for those people in my life who've shaped it, I have a wonderful job, and I'm happy. I no longer struggle with insomnia on a regular basis, and I no longer question who I am or what it is I'm to do. I've found direction in my life, and I'm thankful that I have the will, the drive, the people, and smarts to push forward in that direction.

And for that, I'm thankful.

I can't believe it's been a year since my trip to Big Sur:

Check this Korean girl belting Mariah Carey's "My All":

Holy smokes! She doesn't have the fullness of Mariah - she reminds me far more of a younger Christina Aguilera... but still, incredibly impressive.

(I almost busted out laughing at 1:28, cause she lets that Korean accent slip in with that "imagining..." line)

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I got a copy of How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food - I can't believe I hadn't heard of this book before. It's a pretty massive book (I got it used on Amazon for $8, including shipping) and it covers not only recipes, but some "theory" behind cooking - the first chapter covers when to use certain equipment and such. From a cursory glance, I'm not sure about a lot of the recipes - they seem pretty simplistic, but I definitely get the feeling that the recipes here will be something to build upon later.

I highly recommend you go out and get a copy (get it used); I'll definitely be trying out some of the recipes in this book for the next few weeks!

"The only thing that matters is just following your heart, and eventually you'll finally get it right:"

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