One Year Married

Today is my one year wedding anniversary! I'm not sure if it's at all related to my urge to start blogging again. Is blogging still cool? Probably not. But it feels great to be here. The decision to have a formal wedding was not an immediate one. After we got engaged, we took more than a month to discuss. I knew this was not a decision to be made lightly. Even though we kept everything relatively lowkey with an intimate guest count, it was still a huge endeavor to embark on. Being introverted and easily anxious around big parties, I…
View PostNYC Summer

"Have fun in New York!", said every one of our friends and family knowing full well that Boston was the first leg of our summer trip. New York really is one of a kind. Every time I visit, I feel a magnetic draw to it that casts doubt on my increasingly entrenched west-coast-ness. But that pull usually subsides almost as soon as I board the flight back to LA, the land of never having to walk home carrying your groceries. For now, a visit every couple of years to soak in the NYC magic is enough for me. There is…
View PostSeattle Revisited

First flight in 16 months! I think this must be the longest I've not flown in my life since I first started flying. Packing, planning, and traveling efficiently are definitely skills that require brushing up, but I was grateful and thrilled once the trip was in progress. Seattle is green as ever. Last time I visited was with my friend Michelle about five years ago (posted here and here!). I was just about to start my first big adult job and she was waiting to get into medical school. Now she's matured into a medical resident living in Seattle. Compared…
View PostOut in the Desert

More than five months... that is by far the longest hiatus I've had on this blog in the five and half years I've had it! Life is looking pretty different now compared to the last time I posted. My trip to SLO was an attempt to escape from the various stresses I was feeling. I tried my best but it was hard not to feeling bogged down by responsibilities and emotions that followed me from LA. One thing I was more than happy not to escape from was messages from an enthusiastic and charming boy named Marc. Flashforward three months,…
View PostSlow in SLO

Recently I went on a very solo, very socially distanced retreat to San Luis Obispo for a couple days, hoping to feel a semblance of normality and escape. My hotel had a disposable camera in the room so I opened it without thinking twice. I like the idea of having a limited number of shots when traveling, but I wasn't confident enough in my untested film camera skills to abandon my DSLR altogether. I took photos with both. As soon as I returned to LA, I eagerly got the disposable camera developed and within a day, received the scanned version…
View Post