They're all bastards

Two days after Alexander McQueen killed himself, the Sartorialist was talking about McQueen's growing retail business and how Gucci group has spent millions of dollars on the line.

We are all fucked.

Alexander McQueen committed suicide this morning.

When I was really green, I thought that one day I would be able to own an Alexander McQueen creation. He didn't just make clothes. He made art. He was the most creative designer in the last decade- better than Martin Margiela, Rodarte, Balmain, Balenciaga, Dries Van Noten, Gareth Pugh combined. While these designers made me want to wear their clothes, it was Alexander McQueen who made me want to express myself through clothing.

This isn't the only place thats cold

Lately I have been very angry. I hate driving in Connecticut. Driving here is like playing tennis with a really really really bad opponent. Today, a lady was literally driving 20 mph on the highway. I thought to myself, you must be kidding.

Tomorrow morning, my stupid apartment will be turning off the hot water until Friday. They had to do this during a snow storm.

Yesterday, I read a really great article about how we mourn. It largely centers on the diagnosis and centralization of grief and how over time, mourning has become a personal pursuit instead of a group activity. "To lose someone was once to be swept into a flurry of rituals. In many nations -among them China and Greece- death was met with wailing and lamentation among family and neighbors. Some kind of viewing followed the cleaning of the body." At some point in our society, grief has become a disease rather than a natural reaction to the feeling of loss. I found this article especially interesting considering the many medical retractions and revisions that have been published in the past week- last week a British medical journal, The Lancet, retracted a 1998 paper that stated vaccines may be unsafe. This week, the psychiatry's encyclopedia of mental disorder was revised. We are a nation of disorder. Every emotion, ailment has a title, a syndrome, and a treatment. It is so strange that even mourning has become a psychological disorder. I think the privatization of grief has come from the population shift. We used to be a country of communities instead of individuals. In China, I always had a community, a body of family members close by but prosperity, while great, has caused us to separate. Individuals have lost the community and this shift has made us believe that our grief is at once singular and exclusive.

I wonder what anybody has to say about pre-grief. What do we do when we begin mourning the death of someone before it has happened? What do we do when we know for certain that someone will die in the immediate future?

Things are okay

When I was in college, all I wanted was to have Saturday's and Sunday's to myself. I wanted to wake up in the morning and read the newspaper and have a nice and calm breakfast. I wanted to take walks in the park and take strolls at night. I didn't want to do homework all weekend and hurry from place to place.

Now that I am out of college, I have the time to do these things. Greg bought me a subscription to the New Yorker and so now I get to wake up, make breakfast and read. I also get to listen to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and I am happy because of this.

Things are okay. They're not great, but I can be thankful for what I have. I am not always grateful or happy. In fact, I am pitiful and depressed most of the time, but at certain moments, I realize that I am very lucky.

Shoes

I don't have any money, but I really want these

New Restaurant to Year Goal

Add: Clinton St. Baking Co. & Restaurant

In addition, I cannot wait to watch Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on ABC. I wish he came to my town and cooked for us. That would be AWESOME.

Quick Dinner

Greg has been gone for the past week and being the lazy person that I am, I've only made three meals, which has lasted me until today.

On Monday I made Chinese cabbage and ate that for two days with rice. I then took the chili that Greg made a week ago and remade it into a soup with celery, potato, carrots, mushrooms, and corn. It was pretty good and watered down the vast amounts of garlic that was in the chili.

Yesterday I went out for sushi and sat at the bar by myself. It's kind of Greg and mine's neighborhood hang out now so I feel pretty comfortable going there and having a meal by myself. Actually, I felt like pretty cool eating by myself. While there, I read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. I had tuna tartar and a spicy scallop roll and a tuna, apple, mango, avocado roll. I really like it there b/c they'll make whatever we ask for. (Side note, does anybody know who you are supposed to tip when you are sitting at the bar? It was weird b/c the waitress would bring me water and sometimes my food, but it was the sushi chef who took my order and made my sushi. I tipped him $4 and the waitress $2. I was embarrassed so I ran out of the restaurant. It wasn't the usual waitress anyway.)

Tonight was my quickest meal. I threw in leftover lettuce, mushrooms, celery, chopped up half an apple and threw in a really old piece of ciabatta bread (I munched on it as a snack like a week ago and didn't throw out the leftovers, I know its gross, but frugal don't you think?) as croutons. For the dressing I used the Thai peanut sauce Greg and I made a few weeks ago. So Voila, I got rid of all of my leftovers and it was rather delicious. It probably tasted better than it was because I was reading the Buttermilk Channel menu when I was eating. I miss all the restaurants in NY. If I lived in NY, I probably could have had every meal out since Greg has been gone.

Tomorrow for lunch I will have the leftover soup. I saved it so I didn't have to cook over the weekend. I'll have to make another batch of soup with the other half of the chili tomorrow.

There is still a squash and chives from when Greg went grocery shopping. Don't you just hate it when other people buy the stuff and they don't cook it? Not that he had time to make it. I love squash, but I don't want to cook it b/c I'd have to chop it all up and throw it in the oven -I know, simple enough, but growing up in a Chinese household, we never used the oven much so I am not so used to cooking that way. Also, I can't just make a squash, I'd have to make other stuff to eat with it, and that's just too much work for me. It be pretty strange just to have a slice of squash for dinner, although I wouldn't put it past me.

For my sake, I hope Greg comes home on Tuesday. Before he left, he joked that I was going to eat cabbage all week, which was close enough. I tend to cook vegetarian when I am by myself because it is the most simple. I don't like to only eat meat so I'd have to cook meat and veggies. I also do not like cooking meat in general so I cook veggies.