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Update 4/6/11: Cleaned up some dirt. =]

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EDIT: It then occurred to me that I never actually explained what I'm doing here. Or, in Nelson's words: Since when did Jing become a girl?

It's not so much I'm any "girlier" inside, but rather that a glum acceptance happened over the shape and state of my body. These B cups and butt I now sport are not even close to "curvy" by general female standards, but I can most definitely no longer get away with dressing like a dude OR wearing whatever the heck like back in high school and still maintain at least a decent scrape of the self's bodily respect. Of course, the whole experience of packing on 45 pounds and losing almost 40 so far had a big role in Jing noticing/taking more proper care of my body in the first place, too. From when I first started buying clothes to hide my fatness to now buying clothes suitable for a smaller body, and (of course) taking that prereq class for fashion design, and keeping in mind childhoodflames's Camille, I slowly came to realize what I want for my own wardrobe. See partial log with Rez below:

yuuzora (12:02:30 AM): I think I've mentioned it to you before, but I've begun to strive for a fully functional closet, a la Camille.
yuuzora (12:03:33 AM): Maybe not as minimalistic as her wardrobe, but I definitely want to own something in which every piece I have I'd gladly wear EVERY DAY if it were possible/acceptable.
yuuzora (12:04:17 AM): And it wouldn't matter if I have to pay a little bit more for a particular piece, if I know it's something I'd want to wear everyday, in addition to having other pieces to match it that I'd ALSO want to wear every day.
yuuzora (12:04:48 AM): By the end of this process I want a fully functional wardrobe I'm so happy with that I can keep for years without the need to add new things or owning anything extra.
yuuzora (12:04:53 AM): Something I've never had before, but the efficiency of which is extremely attractive to me.

yuuzora (12:28:57 AM): At the beginning, I've tried on a lot of things, liked what I saw, and done my decent share of impulse-buying.
yuuzora (12:29:32 AM): But once I go home, the realization hits that I have nothing else in my closet that goes with what I just bought, so the thing just sits in a corner and remains forever untouched.
yuuzora (12:30:22 AM): Through weeding out items like that in my current wardrobe, I'm actually learning which pieces suit or flatter me the best, and that is what my "style" ultimately boils down to: not necessarily what is "hottest" right now, but definitely which looks flatter or complement my particular body.
yuuzora (12:31:29 AM): I now am better at recognizing some piece of clothing as "not Jing" just through the simple exercise of seeing in my mind whether I have other things in my closet to go with it.
yuuzora (12:32:27 AM): Re: my huge pile of clothes, I actually divide them in two halves. I have one that I'll try to sell, and another that I'll donate or sell to people who don't care for style.
yuuzora (12:32:58 AM): The "fashionable" pile is full of stuff I thought was "cool" and "must-have" when I first bought them, but ended up never wearing because they ultimately weren't "me."
yuuzora (12:33:06 AM): The other pile is stuff that's truly outdated.
yuuzora (12:33:46 AM): For example, a pair of good-quality but basic jeans in a bigger size that no longer fit me, but a buyback store would probably not take it because it's so basic.

yuuzora (12:39:41 AM): I don't follow blogs so much...
yuuzora (12:39:59 AM): Just Camille (very occasionally), and mostly that Stockholm street style page.
yuuzora (12:41:56 AM): Once you've seen one or two...they're all the same. >_>
yuuzora (12:42:40 AM): And I don't have a need to see exactly what specific pieces people are owning.
yuuzora (12:42:58 AM): Rather, I'm just there to get an overall impression.
yuuzora (12:43:17 AM): It's stupid when people wear only a single expensive "statement" piece and nothing else and make a blog post of that, because to me, that is NOT style.
yuuzora (12:43:29 AM): That is the person showing off what they have money to buy.
yuuzora (12:43:52 AM): I'm more about how pieces should be worn together to create style.
yuuzora (12:44:07 AM): And definitely, definitely, fluidity and interchangeability.
yuuzora (12:44:35 AM): How one piece in my future functional closet must be able to be worn with almost anything else in my closet, yet still each combination is unique and have a different flavor.


This is largely why my previous posts sobre this entire topic have been titled, On the ridiculousness of. There is a fine line and big difference between "fashion" for materialism and "style" for effective personal packaging.

16. On the staying power of Deg

If I could do a live dissection of my own brain and see exactly how this happens, I would. What, in the voice of this one little man, caused Jing to push all male singers thereafter out of her ears in rejection, unable to ever consistently enjoy another lyrical voice regardless of sex in all the years since? There is mysterious chemistry at work here.

Too little is known on how a voice is picked up amongst background noises of all sorts and singularly focused upon. Too little is known on how a voice makes such an impression that its mere presence, when detected, is felt and processed as a physiological massage. Too little is known on how a voice can have such an impact on one person and yet totally fail to cause attention in another. There is too little that psychology or speech and hearing science can offer us, too much that remains (or, rather, is left behind) unanswered. Pitch and frequency provide us not enough tools to even correlate a unique person to voice, let along to further uncover what effects the perception of one incurs in another.

All we seem to know is that, consistent with Jing's 'character,' it apparently makes sense that I would like the 'first' thing I contact, and resist all future exposures at all costs like a fertilized egg concretely walling off all sperm past the first. Maybe I'm stubborn; maybe I'm close-minded. Maybe I just have that much loyal faith, or maybe that is my expression of resistance to change, holding on to the last remnant of my first expression and realization of self at thirteen. All that is fine and dandy speculation, but none can explain why, irrevocably, Kyo and only Kyo's voice has the effect it does on my ears, in my brain, in my resonating gut and pulse and sharp tender rasping diaphragm.


Today, Itoshisa was the it. After one play from random shuffle, it got stuck on single repeat like so many other Deg songs have, at one point or another. As always, the lyrics or even the story are moot; all that stings/pricks/carves out into me is his, his voice. There is tender exposed raw meat, there, that I feel I can eternally feed off. Stuff I would dearly miss if deprived.

For some reason I suspect most people (if any at all) have not experienced anything even remotely comparable to what I try to describe here, even once.

I play my zither amongst a cattle herd.

On the ridiculousness of 'fashion,' part II

Painting from the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907 AD), not shoop'd. We only THINK we've come so far in women's purses.

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Also holy crap, I found a way easier way to take semi-full-body pictures ZOMG. Limited by crappy resolution and wireless mouse detection range, though. =|

I'm finally at a stage where it's fully necessary to give my entire wardrobe a revamp, because 1) I had no idea how to shop efficiently three (or even one) years ago, and a large portion of what I saved are...erm, unwearable, and kept only for comparative fitting purposes. I also have a shit-ton of clothes I compulsively bought but then never would actually wear.

2) I have a decent reserve of hueg clothes (mostly bottoms that could slip off my ass even as I stand still) that are too wasteful to simply chuck in the garbage. =/ I could probably take one of these pictures for fun and that's about all the use they still have.

The result = that mountain of junk on the back of my couch there, even after picking out the more precious ones I want to get tailored. I'm pretty perplexed over what to do with them. Since most of them are in remarkably good condition, I can probably try to sell them...except I don't want weird people attracted from, say, Craigslist, to randomly know where I live. I also refuse to carry that amount of clothes (we're talking about suitcase-full here) with me to a public meeting spot to show them off to strangers, because...I mean, come on. I could probably donate to Goodwill and be done with them that way. I could also get a sewing machine *gasp* and play around with them myself, except I know that won't happen just like how I know I won't draw or knit and come up with anything fruitful in the near future. Or, I can find a friend who wants a mountain of fabric for maybe 20-30 bucks. 8D

What say you guys?

Illustrations for Science

At Rezu's sort of request, here are some pictars of Jing's FABLED SUPER SECRET SPECIAL RECIPE MAGIC WEIGHT-LOSS NOODLE SOUP111

Not. -_- This is pretty much just the same stuff I've eaten every single day for the past year or so out of sheer lazydom, no exaggerations. Not enough people believe me when I say I honestly don't care about the taste/variety of what I eat (as opposed to the actual act of eating, which I've always found most satisfying in itself). I used to bother with the whole rice cooker thing with various stir-fried dishes, but I seriously can't remember the last time I've done that other than to cook for parents/siblings at home. (The half bag of 20-lb rice currently sitting in my kitchen was bought maybe as long as an entire year ago for all I know, srsly.) I've reduced to just boiling half a pot of water and throwing items of daily essential nutrition into it at intervals and simmering the entire thing for under 10 minutes - everyday. That is seriously what all this is. On the off-chance that someone actually wants more details than that, here's a list of stuff I dunk in that pot, in order:

1. Water, brought to a boil.

2. Two kinds of pasta: (usually thin) spaghetti and bowties/elbows or some other non-filamentous type. Reduce flame.

3. Meat, if any. (I'm pretty sure I mentioned this somewhere or other earlier: I don't try to be a vegetarian on purpose, but I simply don't fancy meat very much. I don't hate it either, but if any part of my diet has to be cut out, I'd gladly choose meat. It's the most non-consequential for me.) For the past 5-ish months it's been pretty consistently 6 thin slices of skinless kielbasa.

4. Add condiments. Nothing fancy, just a tiny bit of salt/pepper, and a generous dash of Sriracha. I'm too cheap to buy nicer sources of spicy. =/

5. EGG. Regardless of what I actually cook, noodle soup or not, this is something I absolutely must have, and my fridge is NEVER out of eggs. Usually I break the yolk up just a little so it cooks a lot faster - see yellow blob near the two slices of kielbasa.

6. Non-leafy veggies. Highly dependent on what's on sale at Kroghetto. This can be broccoli/cauliflower/asparagus (preferred), sometimes with tomato to boot (like today). If Campbell's or Progresso soups were on sale, sometimes I'd add a tablespoon or two of that to give a slightly alternative taste. Not for today.

7. Leafy veggies. Since I'm a cheapo and haven't bothered to go to a Chink store in ages, this is usually 1/3 of a romaine lettuce in one of those bags that comes with three. This is added at the very end, and flame is turned off as I'm adding. Overcooked lettuce is bleh.

As I eat nowadays, the above amount fills three of my flowery bowls. Two are breakfast, and the last is saved for lunch. Dinner is usually a banana or two. Back in January, though... not only did I make larger portions (so it comes out to more like 4 bowls), I ate an entire pot for a single meal, 2-3 times a day. This was my appetite throughout Stuy and the subsequent years after quitting track. This was more than what Jarek (6' 5", 230+ lb) could eat. I didn't think of it as a problem for the longest time and just kind of wondered why my clothes kept getting smaller since college. >__>

But yeah. I hope this is enough to illustrate that maybe dropping a pound a day from simply eating normally perhaps isn't all THAT surprising. Anyway, today:

weight - 139.4 (morning)
armpits - 34 1/4
boobs - 35 3/4
under boobs - 30 1/4
waist - 28
flab - 33
hips - 36 3/4
calves - 14 1/2, 14 5/8

Whee, broke 140. As expected, I began to plateau. 1) I'm not as strict about dinner around half the time, so on those days, weight stays the same. 2) Even on 'good' days when I'd used to lose an entire pound before, now it's more likely a 0.8 lb drop. I think that initial 130-135 goal range I gave myself was quite accurate, in that case. I'll stop either when I break 130 or when I completely plateau, whichever happens first.

15. Trees and flying insects

...have the most breathtakingly beautiful anatomies nature has graced any organism. The latter, with the exception of Nikki, I'll have to satiate my eyes with Google images and diagrams. The former, howerver...

I Vinushka-swear I will one day take pictures of every tree on campus I feel attracted to, and do what I have so often not done in the past for beauties that moved me so very, very deeply down.


Did you know? All I ever wanted was to draw you, to own you in a way only artists can, to hold a shadow of a split second of you suspended still in infinite time. I wanted to possess that close knowledge of your exact shape and form to be saved and savored for all of eternity, to have that connection no photographer can ever know or experience with you. I wanted my eyes and hand to be the organic camera that never touched but yet knew you more intimately than mirrors ever could. I wanted to learn it, safekeep it, come back to it until I could see you and trace you and mold you out of thin air with my eyes closed.

I had never felt beauty as an emotion before you. I missed the chance to know; I would never now know.

You have probably forgotten by now. Four years ago. That seems to be when my permanent block more or less settled in, when I submitted to a fate of never hardly having the ability to draw comfortably again despite the occasional inspiration and frustration.

I am left with this insane paranoia (and this I swear) of never letting another beauty, no matter how common or insignificant, to ever escape me again. Even if I have to resort to cameras. Even if I lose coherence over language every time I try to think or to phrase this out loud. I still suffer periods of relapse where I feel I can tear my hair out by the fistful, by the incredulous disbelief of how I could have messed up that one chance of the only time we ever talked. Do you remember?

My right brain was yours the first time my eyes ever beheld you. Why did I not realize this then, even to myself?

Is it coincidence?
Is it coincidence? Is two months really the average of how often that gets checked? ...

I become so inarticulate over you, still. It shames me.

Daylight

we cut the legs off of our pants
threw our shoes into the ocean
sit back and wave through the daylight
sit back and wave through the daylight

slip and slide on subway grates
these shoes are poor man's ice skates
fall through like change in the daylight
fall through like change in the daylight

i miss yellow lines in my roads
some color on monochrome
maybe i’ll paint them in myself
maybe i’ll paint them in myself

these sidewalks liquid then stone
building walls and an old pay phone
it rings like all through the daylight
it rings like all through the daylight

chorus
and in the daylight we can hitchhike to maine
i hope that someday i’ll see without these frames
and in the daylight i don’t pick up my phone
cause in the daylight anywhere feels like home

I have five clocks in my life
and only one has the time right
i’ll just unplug it for today
i'll just unplug it for today

open hydrant rolled down windows
this car might make a good old boat
and float down grand street in daylight
and float down grand street in daylight

and with just half of a sunburn
new yellow lines that i earned
step back and here comes the night time
step back and here comes the night time

chorus
and in the daylight we can hitchhike to maine
i hope that someday i’ll see without these frames
and in the daylight i don’t pick up my phone
cause in the daylight anywhere feels like home

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I think what yesterday's entry is officially called is a post-adrenaline-rush low. Here's an awesome song for today (which I've been playing on loop like I haven't done for any other song in quite a while now).

And I will now proceed to knit something extremely hippie.

14. All memories are created equal.

...Unlike what we'd like to say or believe of humans, or of any other members of a uniform species.


Halfway through today that giant hole/feeling of emptiness finally caught up with me, and, as I was dozing off on the bus to work, I mulled over some qualities of the nature of long-term remembrance.

[The end of last night was so sudden, so chilling, and so rather reminiscent of certain other fresh wounds and clean breaks from once upon a time. If this were a bone it would have been a greenstick fracture; the jagged edges and sharp projections screamed hurt, pain, and lonesome abrupt premature demise. The parents of my look had run off, and awaiting me on that then-empty second floor corner room on Neil was only one or two leftover hands who didn't go at all, who remained only to clean up. It was desolation at its very best; it was the untreasured postclimax. It was the cold stink of aftermath as I wrapped myself inside the detached train of my skirt.]

There is no discrimination between memory of just one second ago and memory of fifteen, eight, or four years back. On that bus, I attested to this. Regardless of its linearity or circularity in the grander scheme, time remains cruelly unidirectional for us objects traversing space. What is memory?

The best I can pinpoint is a class of dual-action that occurs simultaneously: a vision of things as I saw them then behind what my eyes currently input, and a feeling, a contraction, a reaction of some kind from that familiar place at the diaphragm pushing into and lifting from my stomach. There, regardless of age, quality, or quantity, the playback system tells me it is fair and just, as I see them all clear as clear can be. The brain is capable of playing tricks on the cache, but the system for retrieval is undeniably cleanly functional. There, on that bus, the quality of image with which I remember my studio takes on a same texture as I do that townhouse in Forest Hills. As I stare at passerby whirling back, one with the land, they, too, become memory irrevocably. The moment is permanently lost no matter how much I strain to hold their snapshot imagery in that frozen stance against my occipital. It joins the library of all others in a selectively limitless base. From hence on, all flavor of reality it once held is lost; all texture that remains is one artificial, web-like scale series that feels identical to all the rest. The chair on which I sit and type now is entirely different from the chair in my mind as I unnecessarily unfeelingly reminisced on a moving bus. I am returned to it, unlike I have never returned to so many other moments in space and time, and already, even so, it is a different chair. This hasn't even anything to do with all of our nanoscopic erosions and sheddings and denaturations. This is no termite pseudergate.

Because time only propagates one way for us, and brains can only do so much.