The Mighty Quynh

You know how you have those pieces of clothing you never wear but keep around “just in case”? In case you lose weight and fit into it again, in case some obscure event ever happens, in case you ever take it to the tailor to have it altered, whatever.

I mostly got rid of those pieces in my Great Decluttering of Winter 2011/2012, but I was reading through my Facebook the other day and realized I had way too many of those “just in case” people on my friends list. In case they post something I am qualified to comment on, in case we ever get together again, in case I can help them or they can help me. But like those pieces of clothes I ended up donating, the chances of me ever really interacting with them is pretty much nil.

Unlike those pieces of clothing, though, which just sat there and took up space, a lot of those people on my list actively annoyed me when I saw their posts. I don’t need a play by play of the fucking Grammys or the Superbowl. If I cared I would be watching it myself. I’m also not going to play into your ploys for attention when you post cryptic messages that just beg for someone to ask “What’s wrong?” or “What happened?” and the like. Either say what’s going on or STFU.

So I got rid of them in the same way I got rid of my clothes. If I hadn’t worn a piece of clothes in, say, a year, it got donated; if I hadn’t interacted with someone at all in a year, even just to ‘Like’ a post of theirs, I deleted them. If they were a real friend but I couldn’t stand their constant barrage of stupid updates, I unsubscribed from their posts (okay, that one has no wardrobe-cleansing equivalent). Easy peasy.

I realize this post makes me one of those people complaining about Facebook bullshit, but this is really the beginning and end of it. I don’t think I’ve bitched about it here before and I most certainly won’t in the future. I’m just saying there’s an obvious solution to all the whining people have about what happens on Facebook and it’s not bloody rocket science. Sometimes you need a reminder that it’s okay to let things go.

Since it’s now official, Rich and I both got promotions at work effective March. This makes us officers and entitles us to some nice things, including five extra vacation days per year. There are other perks, but the vacation days are the most important to me, personally. You can always find a way to travel/relax on the cheap, but you can’t pull vacation days out of your ass.

In other good news, I am well on the way to having the last of my student loans paid off in March, which would make me 100% debt free. I am gunning really hard for March because my birthday is in April and it would make me feel better to say I paid off everything by age 26. :p

I re-prioritized a lot of things in my life to be more in line with my long term goals and I’ve been able to check off a lot of goals. I am:
- Living in Manhattan
- Traveling regularly
- Being “taxed” more – i.e. giving monthly to charity
- Being taxed more – i.e. making higher salary
- Partying harder than I work

Goals for the near future (1-5 years):
- Save money
- Get rid of more stuff

Goals for the far future (5+ years):
- I’m not telling you
- But I can assure you it will not involve marriage, children, car ownership, or mortgage ‘cuz I’m so CuuhhRaZy!!!

Amex has a year end summary of your spending, which is both awesome and groan-worthy. I spent over $1200 on clothes last year. Unfortunately the majority of my clothes shopping was on a different card, so the reality is I really spent more than double that. The killer thing is, I ended up giving away probably over half my purchases. What a colossal waste!

To think I spent $2400+ only to keep maybe ten of the items I purchased. I could have just bought ten high quality long-lasting pieces instead of buying 40 pieces of junk and tossing three quarters of it. At least now I know how things should fit and I’ve narrowed down what styles and colors I’m likeliest to wear, so that cuts down on the willy nilly spending on pie-in-the-sky things I merely wish I could pull off. Simply buying cool pieces doesn’t mean I’ll miraculously learn how to style myself, and realizing that has made me more careful about buying clothes. Too bad it took several years and thousands of dollars to figure this out.

The good news is my dismal net worth has been slowly increasing the past couple months, so I know I’m on the right track. The Year of the Dragon started off with a great bang (good things at work) and both Rich and I are making big strides in ridding our home of junk and being more conscious about bringing junk in. Hopefully I can keep it up for the sake of my wallet as well as my sanity.

There seems to be no end in sight.

Over the past couple months, I’ve purged quite a lot of things from the apartment, including a 42″ LCD, a whole dinnerware set, a crap-ton of other kitchen stuff, several big bags of clothes, a zillion little “memories” (ticket stubs, postcards, even receipts), all my DVDs, most of my books, and I don’t even remember what else. The apartment still feels cluttered. I want to get to the part where the place looks like it jumped out of a furniture catalog already.

By the way, since pretty much every single person I’ve talked to in recent months has expressed a desire to get rid of things but harbors an inability to let go of sentimental items, here is a little tip I picked up somewhere (if I remembered where I’d definitely tell you, because this is the best idea ever): Take a photo of the item, then get rid of it. That way the memory of it still lives on but it doesn’t take up space in your house.

Such a simple but astonishingly awesome idea, no? I wish I could remember where I read it so I could give credit accordingly. It’s the best decluttering method I’ve found so far, because I have way too much attachment to a lot of things. I’ve been passing the tip on to as many people as possible because the overwhelming feeling I’m getting lately is that absolutely everyone is tired of having so much stuff.

I looked back on what I wore to work last week and it turns out I wore a black top with grey slacks four out of five days. It made me realize no matter how much I’ve tried to jazz up my wardrobe, I always stick to plain, solid tops, and simple pants. My only accessory is a watch. The livelier pieces tend to stay in the closet and never get worn until I go through my weekly/monthly wardrobe cleansing and throw them in the donation bag. When I try to wrap my head around putting together a whole outfit that makes me look polished and poised, my brain explodes.

I’ve forever been jealous of how much “easier” men have it in terms of wardrobe (if you stick to western social norms); they don’t have to worry so much about coordinating all these things if they don’t want to. But now I wonder why I was ever jealous. Who says I have to worry about it either? There’s nothing wrong with my usual turtleneck-slacks combo. Why am I wasting so much time and money shopping for things I end up never wearing anyway? Why am I tearing my hair out over how to coordinate stuff when I know I’m clueless about fashion? Eff it!

Some time ago I wrote about not wanting to look too “Steve Jobs”. Well, I’ve changed my mind. The man had the right idea. There is nothing wrong with my plain, boring wardrobe. I don’t need to wear my personality(ies) on my sleeve. Literally. Just like I don’t need all this “stuff” in my home to tell you who I am.

Minimalism! I wish I’d embraced it sooner!

Please stop raising the pitch of your voice at the end of every phrase or sentence as if you are asking a question when you are really making a statement. It makes you sound insecure, vapid, and immature, and it makes it hard for people to take you seriously because it sounds like you don’t know what you’re talking about. And since it has become so frighteningly prevalent, I believe it is having a detrimental affect on how all women our age are perceived. You are making us all look incapable and unprofessional. Stop it. This is not Clueless.

Thank you,
Q

I’ve never had an issue with lost mail until I moved to the city. A number of things I expected to receive in the mail never arrived. A wedding invitation (twice), a package or two… Who knows what else has been “lost” that I didn’t know should have arrived.

Taxes. Living and working in different states is par for the course in the tri-state area. Yet somehow the NY tax office is too dumb to understand my not-so-unique and rather simple situation (I’m talking 1040EZ simple). Despite calling and mailing it in multiple times, they continually “lose” the form that declares what NJ is already collecting from me. This month they levied the amount from my checking account, along with a $125 fee for paying late. Now I’m out $1200 for their stupidity and Rich is once again trying to correct the situation for me. Even if I get my money back, I now owe Rich extra sexytime for straightening this out. :p THANKS, NY.

And last (for today), my biggest pet peeve: umbrellas. NYC has made me absolutely abhor umbrellas. And many NYers for that matter. If so much as one misty spec of precipitation falls on the head of a NYer, s/he pops open the umbrella. And even if it has stopped raining, she still keeps it out. Not only is it the ultimate weak sauce, I find it rather thoughtless and, frankly, pretty rude. It unnecessarily causes extra congestion and poking of eyes on the narrow, busy sidewalks of Manhattan. And I’m not even tall enough to get the brunt of the eye-poking. Besides, (when it is actually raining) EVERYONE in the city should know proper umbrella etiquette because we all have to deal with it sooner or later.

I often wish the people who pull out umbrellas when it’s barely drizzling would cross paths and smash the offending instruments into each other, causing much snappage and/or rippage as the owners hurry along in opposing directions. I wish they would all lose their umbrellas like they lose my mail and tax forms.

Other than that stuff, living here is okay.

I officially moved in with Rich at the end of May this year. Until about 4 weeks ago, I still had a bunch of my stuff lying around in boxes and bags. I’ve changed apartments about 5 times in as many years and I’ve come to realize this happens every single time I move. Obviously all this stuff can’t be that important if I’m leaving it in a box for half a year over and over again.

It made me really self conscious when we started having people over. First it was just having one or two people over after already being out all night, so I could only hope they were too preoccupied (read: drunk) to notice what a cluttered apartment we had. Then one night I was feeling a bit, uh, overly friendly, and invited way too many people over and they couldn’t all fit in the apartment. Embarrassing.

That was the night that made me realize it’s time to downsize my stuff (that and watching an episode of Hoarders). I’ve been saying that forever and making tiny efforts here and there, but this time I was serious. I took an hour or two each day for a week, went through all my stuff, and divided it into donate, toss, or keep piles. By the time our Friday party night rolled around, our apartment was free of major clutter.

It felt good. Really good. So much so that every single day I am looking around the apartment and thinking about what else I can get rid of. I am even cleaning every week. I hate cleaning. In fact, I had a ridiculously high tolerance for grossness before. But now something about having all these uncluttered surfaces makes me want to make sure they are completely spic and span.

Something just clicked in me. Not only am I getting my physical house in order, but I am getting my financial house in order as well. It’s like all at once I got tired of being an irresponsible dumbass and got right down to fixing my problems. I am striving towards minimalism and it feels really good.

I am still an irresponsible dumbass on select nights of the week, but at least I am an irresponsible dumbass with a clean apartment and a whole lot less credit card debt.

Vietnamese gangs are moving into Dutch marijuana

…So does that mean I can find finally find (good) pho in the Netherlands?

Oddly enough, this article gave me an idea for a slant I could take on traveling. It would be interesting to seek out Vietnamese communities in various parts of the world and see the differences and similarities and examine how they adapted to their surroundings. Maybe it’s already been done in some sociological study or something, but this is something that has been piquing my interest more and more since I moved away from my parents.

I always felt a bit removed from the Viet community, primarily because I never really knew one, and secondarily because I had a complex about my heritage growing up (when people in 1st, 2nd, 3rd grade ask you, “Are you Chinese?” and when you say, “No,” they stretch out the corners of their eyes and ask, “Then why are your eyes like this?” you might internalize some stupid ideas too). I got over the complex, but I still feel uncomfortable around (older) Vietnamese people because I feel like I’m being judged on a tougher metric than when I’m with mixed company. Also, there are things you can say in Vietnamese culture that wouldn’t fly in typical American culture and I’m too Americanized not to be a little bothered by it.

I should note that it was slightly different with Vietnamese people in Vietnam because I believe they largely regarded me as American once they heard how awful my Vietnamese was. I think my problem is Vietnamese people in America expect me to be more Vietnamese than I am. Or maybe it’s just my messed up perception and they really don’t. I dunno. In any case, I’d like to see my American bias in contrast to different subsets of Vietnamese culture all over the world. It could be a fun, potentially eye-opening experiment for me.

I like all sorts*, but I’m most fond of capybaras, pacas (GIS them—they are adorable!), and Gambian pouched rats (our friends in the detection of landmines). The bigger the better.

I also harbor very deep affection for a certain breed of rat from the highlands of Ikea, the GOSIG RÅTTA.

Mischief of rats

_
I’m just letting you all know that on top of our apartment being horrendously cluttered, I have stuffed rats lying around, so don’t be too weirded out because I totally warned you.

(This is why we avoid having guests over.)

*There are two rodent/rodent-like species I don’t really care for: the naked mole rat, and the star-nosed mole (not a rodent, but y’know). Sorry, little guys. You’re just too gnarly.

Because I do. Or at least I like the idea of it. It’s just that I’m too boring and unimaginative and lazy to come up with an awesome costume, so rather than go buy one from the store or cobble together a completely crappy one with stuff I already have, I’d rather just not try at all.

On top of that, I usually have no idea what anyone is. I’m not well-versed in pop culture. I don’t care or know anything about movies, I don’t watch anything on TV aside from Food Network and nature programs and some other assorted garbage (plus Top Shot, which is not garbage :p), and I have no idea what most musical artists look like (I thought Ke$ha was a black chick for the longest time). So I am always that girl who needs to have every costume explained to her.

So I pretty much spend Halloween in my apartment playing solo video games or something equally non-social.

Hammy suffered a stroke a few weeks back. Last Friday I said farewell to her for the last time before Rich took her to the vet. She’s running in the great hamster ball in the sky now. Here are a few pics of her I had been saving up for a rainy day.

Hammy?

Hammy!

Sophie and Hammy