In the city of Houston, living “inside the loop” affords itself a number of opportunities: exposure to a diverse culture of social phenomenons and customs (read: different types of scotch), easier access to social functions (read: places in which to drink scotch), as well as closer proximity to friends and acquaintances in my age group (read: friends with which to drink scotch).  After living in the loop for a few years, I finally wanted to take full advantage of the closeness of everything, and I soon realized getting a bike would be the best means of achieving this.

So I set out to procure a bike that would suit my needs: relatively easy maintenance, fit for the weathered Houston streets, and lending itself to a variable gauge of customizability.  As many of my friends and close folks will attest to, I am incredibly wont to obsess over the most minute detail when buying a new toy.  That said, I will spare you the exhaustive details of my search for the ‘perfect’ bike.  Suffice to say, I eventually found a bike that satisfied my needs:

For the few of you interested (and that couldn’t tell just by looking), the bike is the ‘Roll 1’ model by Globe Bicycles.  Pretty standard specs for the type of bike: Cr-Mo track frame, flip-flop hub for fixed gear or single speed riding, 700c wheels and tires, and of course, adorable yellow accents so I’m always looking stylish wherever my travels may take me.

To that end, I thought I was done.  I found a bike that suits my needs.  It takes me from point A to point B, saves me gas, as well as the hassle of finding parking, and provides some good exercise.  But the universe began to reveal itself to me in the most unsuspecting way through my bike.  More than just a mere means of travel, riding my bike became a destination unto itself.  Rather than taking the ride to the grocery store only two blocks away, I opted to go to the grocery store a couple of miles down the road in order to “make the most” out of the ride (the gorgeous Houston spring weather also played a huge part in this).

Soon enough, I wasn’t riding just to save gas, or to avoid the hassle of parking, or to get a good bit of exercise in.  I was riding out of the pure joy of riding: meandering through quiet neighborhoods, weaving in and out of crowded asphalt arteries, zipping through puddles, and having an almost unnerving sense of control over my direction with barely a second’s thought to the destination.  I was intentionally riding and splashing through puddles with abandon just for the sheer joy of doing so!  For the longest time, I had so much trouble understanding where this feeling came from.

Reflecting back on it, I realized that all of this–this re-descovery of some lost part of myself–is really predicated on one simple, four-letter word I’ve known my entire life, but have never given much thought to: ‘play.’  Take a second and think about it.  The definition of this word changes so dramatically as we get older.  After 27 years, I have now come to recognize ‘play’ as a task.  We play games.  We play sports.  Sure, we derive enjoyment from most of these activities, but we set out with a definite goal (essentially, advance some object or idea forward in progress, score a point, repeat until victory), dedicating resources to the completion of that goal.  And once the goal is attained, the task is complete.  Play is done.

But by observing something my two-year old nephew knows innately, I’ve learned (or more aptly, re-learned) that riding, for the pure joy of riding–without a pre-defined destination or any semblance of direction–is play.  It’s my form of play.  Just like my nephew stacks wooden blocks taller than him only to knock them over, and tosses toys on the ground just to hear the noise they make, I found myself riding up and down the same neighborhood streets in endless loops and paths, not worried about paying bills, not what work I needed to finish for the week, not even where I was going to ride in the next five minutes.  I was riding because riding is fun.

That’s the beauty of play.  You can do something–anything, really–without worrying what the outcome will be.  There’s no need to worry about the result as long as some modicum of enjoyment is derived.  It’s a concept we discovered before we could walk, and became blurry as soon as someone told us there were “no tag-backs.”  So much more of this idea was muddled as more rules and boundaries were placed around our play, that the definition was lost.  But as adults, we can now play–conscious of what impending rules and regulations restrict our simple enjoyment of any activity–and regain that part of our existence that was so easily lost so many years ago.

So now what?  Here’s my advice:  Get up, get out, get going, and play!  Jump as high as you can for no reason!  Run as fast as you can just because you can!  Do some awesome air kicks because it’s fun!  Use an unnecessary amount of exclamation points in your blog!

Besides, it’s not really fun until someone gets hurt.

This is the portion of my blog where I take a chunk out of a song I’m particularly fond of and share it with you.  Hence, the title.  What I offer up for your consumption could be something as simple as a few strikes of a chord, a percussive cue, a clever line or verse, or even an entire song.  The bottom line is that I’ve heard something I find aurally novel and interesting enough for me to share with you.

The brain-child of former Blur frontman Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett of Tank Girl fame, The Gorillaz has been called many things.  Whether it’s performance art at its most meta, a musical collective, a band, an experiment in design, or just an example of the far reaches of the creative mind, it’s clear The Gorillaz is damn brilliant.  This shines brightly as each musical endeavor offered seamlessly blends various elements of hip-hop, rock, alternative, electronica, and pop into an experience unlike any other.

The seventh track from the band’s third studio album, Plastic Beach, “Empire Ants” exemplifies the sheer breadth of range music is capable of, if simply given the time to mature.  Joined by Swedish electronic band Little Dragon, The Gorillaz have crafted a piece of music that is easily digested but brings an immense amount of gravity with it upon further samplings.

What starts innocently enough as a calm, ethereal meditation soon flourishes into what can only be described as a shimmering, expansive swell of phonic brilliance.  The crooning nature of Damon Albarn’s voice wafts over guitar riffs that seem more like musings than actual musical expressions.  Albarn’s piano lilts above this all, almost imperceivable.  This near-celestial mood is further purported by the long line structure of Albarn’s verses.  And just as the listener becomes comfortable in this airiness, the drums in the background become more urgent, the synthesizers become more pronounced, overpowering the piano and guitar, and a chorus of strings come as a distressed wave, pushing the listener to the next movement.  A nimble bass line essentially harmonizes with the synth (which took over the piano’s duties at the top of the range) to provide a full, robust flavor to the last act of this piece.

Filling out the upper half of that range, Little Dragon’s vocalist Yukimi Nagano delicately weaves her verses throughout the last movement of this track with what I can only describe as a charmingly impish tone.  The beauty of her voice wavering, almost cracking on each high note adds a great amount of texture to the audio palette of the piece and compliments the distressed wave of orchestral strings quite nicely.

If this song could lend itself to imagery, I think the path of the sun in the sky would be the most apropos.  Damon Albarn’s verses in the first act serve as the pre-dawn hours, when deep violet hues begin to give way to more vivid tones brought about by pulsing synths and Nagano’s streaking vocals in the afternoon, when the sun is at its most brilliant.  Finally, as day becomes night, a smart space-synth echoing earlier melodies and riffs draws out those same deep violets and pinks as the sun dips below the horizon.

The complexity and texture of this track is so beautiful, it stands as a shining example of how far musical expression has come.

In any case, the bottom line here is that I feel my creative juices flowing and I’m ready to start writing again.  So, dear reader, be on the look out for something resembling creativity in the not too distant future.

In my never-ending zeal to over analyze myself and my actions, I wondered why I was so bewildered about the act of replacing socks.  What I’ve found is that a great deal of this has to do with my living situation.  A large reason that so many socks get misplaced or lost over the years is due to moving and constant relocating.  I was born in Houston, TX, my family moved up to Massachusetts, in a town just south of Boston, and we moved back to Houston in the mid-90s.  Combine a kid that loved running around outside barefoot, growth spurts, and some extreme changes in climate with a family constantly on the move, and the chances of sock retention drop drastically.  I would place the number in the 60th percentile.

After coming back to Houston, my life was somewhat stable, except for the fact that my two older sisters were constantly moving in and out of our house.  And as a considerate young lad, who was I to waste a perfectly good spare bedroom?  Sure, it was a considerable amount larger than my previous living quarters, but we all have to make sacrifices every now and then.  I’m just that considerate.  So I moved from one room to the next, one dresser to the next, socks getting lost by the wayside.  My sisters would move in and out over the next few years, going to and from college, moving in and out with boyfriends, leaving me ever nomadic in my own home.  Fortunately for me, it was socially acceptable to wear flip flops to almost any occasion, save those requiring neck wear of some sort.  Weddings, funerals, and eventually job interviews required socks, and to a high schooler, those were few and far between.  As such, the need to have a ready supply in my drawer wasn’t too grave.  And in a pinch, a quick shuffle through my dad’s sock drawer brought a fresh pair of argyles into my repertoire.

It was the same song, different verse in college.  With no discernible dress code for 4 years of class, a steady diet of beer, parties, sports, and waking up in strange places every weekend, it’s safe to say I was batting about a .308 for sock retention.  Not bad for a baseball, but quite frustrating when you show up to a bar with one ankle sock and one tube sock on.  Throw in the fact that I was now responsible for my own laundry, and you have a veritable recipe for disaster.  But time marches on, and as I transitioned into the next phase of my life, I learned and adapted to my environment like any sentient being.  I moved less, I settled down (at least comparably), and got a job.  And with this newfound stability, it was easier (somewhat) to keep track of my life, and my socks.

So 4 years into my new life as a semi-stable adult, I find myself face-to-face with the inevitable plight of the average: Gold Toe or Hanes.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Gold Toe socks.  They’re reliable, comfortable, and cost effective.  But Hanes is a brand I trust.  Great quality, very comfortable, and the socks leave behind minimal indentations in my calves and fuzz between my toes–a highly desirable trait among sock aficionados, so I’m told.  Looking back on what many will agree is a rather mundane necessity, I realize my need for new socks is a sure sign of a shift in my life.  To me, it marks a form of stability–something that is sorely overlooked nowadays.  In an age where choices and chaos are almost symbiotic, where parents have to ration food for their children, struggling couples have to choose to keep the lights or the water on each month, and others have to decide whether or not it’s worth it to keep a loved one on life support for a few more days, having only to worry about the stability that needing new socks represents is a welcome dilemma.

And while it was clear she had discovered this brilliant strength through her pain, I seriously doubted if I had grown at all.  Did I still fall victim to the same pitfalls?  Was that furrow in my brow deepening from the same ruminations I tossed over and over?  And looking at this old friend of mine, I couldn’t help but wonder about change.  Do people ever really change?

As my mind sifted through 2009 to divine some sense of a theme, I found that when I attempted to weave some form of a narrative from it all, the story just seemed so sparse.  Sure there were some memorable things about last year–both good and bad–but there just seemed to be a disconnect from one to the next.  My initial thought was that there was nothing to be gained from the past year.  There was no proverbial life lesson for me to take away from the year to carry on through the rest of my life.  Upon closer inspection, however, I found that it wasn’t that all of these events were disjointed, or that there was no sensible narrative in my life from 2009.  It was just that there were two majors events that occurred in my life that caused pretty much everything else to pale in comparison.  And as I tied these two occassions together–and ultimately, to the rest of year’s happenings–I found the life lesson I was supposed to learn from this past year.  So without further ado, my 2009 wrap-up in two moments or less (and in no particular order):

My sister got married. I made a post about my sister’s wedding earlier, and while that entry did a good enough job of expounding on my observations revolving around the whole event, it offered nothing in the way of what the marriage actually meant to me and to my family.  It’s no great secret that my sister was the focus of some family tensions growing up.  Whether you call it ‘middle child syndrome’ or just labeled her as the ‘black sheep’ of the family, Lian found herself at odds with one of my family members a good amount of the time.

All I know is that one way or another, Mark and Lian make perfect sense of one another, and in turn, that balance has made my family stronger.

Then there’s this guy. Just look at him.  What more is there to say?  Mason Alexander Chua was born February 25, 2009, and has brought nothing but joy (and a whoooole lot of poo) to our lives.  Anyone that knows me personally knows that I can’t have a single conversation without talking about him.  All I can add is that his latest trick of roaring to imitate monster sounds.  Oh, and he’s quite fond of biting nearly everything he can get his teeth near.

And that was the story of my two thousand nine.  Those two momentous occasions summed up my year.  Sure I had a number of ups and downs throughout the year in both my professional and personal life, but none of them shaped my life or had as profound an effect on its direction than meeting my nephew for the first time, and witnessing my sister find happiness.

Keeping my ‘creative process’ in mind, I went through the past couple of days wondering what would inspire me to write my next post about the holidays.  I knew I didn’t want to produce something overly cheesy or laboriously hackneyed.  In short, I wanted it to be me.  If you’ve read some of my past entries, you’ll see what I mean.  To say ‘random’ is the flavor du jour would be a severe understatement.  But I digress (yet again).

While lost in my reverie, trying to squeeze some semblance of a coherent entry out of my subconscious, I noticed that the frame on the front license plate of my car was cracked.  Let me just say, that it never dawned on me until this very moment, but I don’t really know the purpose of a license plate frame, other than to promote whatever dealership you purchased your automobile from.  I have some theories, but for the life of me can’t seem to synthesize something resembling a logical one.  Maybe it’s the appendix of the car:  Some perfunctory artifact from the days of yore.  Back to the crack.  The renegade fracture in my license plate frame caused a portion of the frame to protrude out from my car’s front bumper, resulting in quite the unsightly disturbance to my car’s overall appearance.  This injustice cannot stand, I said to myself and resolved to right this wrong.

I returned to my apartment in search for a screwdriver to rectify (read: remove with extreme prejudice) the rogue frame.  As I rummaged through my coat closet, I stumbled upon a bag on the upper shelf.  The bag seemed innocuous enough–nondescript but clearly filled with something.  Maybe it’s my roommate’s tool set, I pondered to myself as I reached up to inspect the bag.  I brought the bag to my couch, and as I opened it, I was surprised to find this:

That’s correct–I found a Christmas tree.  A fake, miniature Christmas tree, to be precise.  Replete with miniature ornaments and faux miniature Christmas lights.  After the initial shock of my discovery wore off, I inquired to my roommate if the tree belonged to him.  He denied any involvement in the event, and I’m certain I didn’t pack a fake miniature Christmas tree with miniature ornaments when I first moved in.  After a good deal of pontificating, we figured it was either a Christmas Miracle, or the work of Gremlins.  In any case, water consumption was subsequently reduced, as was eating after midnight.  Sure, Occam’s Razor would probably tell us that it was left behind by the apartment’s previous resident.  But the whole Christmas Gremlin thing is so much more interesting.

In all actuality, however, I’d like to think that someone left it there on purpose.  I’d like to think that when they packed it into that bag with the matching miniature ornaments, they looked forward to taking it out and setting it up the following holiday season.  Or maybe they moved out of this apartment into a real house, and upgraded both their life and their tree to something with more substance.  And when they packed up this miniature tree–its polyurethane leaves bristling with the hope of the season to come–they envisioned passing that same fortune and hope on to the next resident of this apartment.  Call me a hopeless romantic or naive, but isn’t that what the holiday season is about?  Taking some leap of faith to believe beyond belief and to hope beyond hope that there is something out there greater than all of us?

There are small miracles waiting for us to discover them.  We only have to be willing to believe in them and to reach out and grasp them.  Whether it’s Christmas Gremlins, thoughtful former residents, or a screwdriver that knew its destiny, my sincere hope is for more of us to remember the wonder of the small miracles.

I never did find that screwdriver.

From the moment I landed in Baltimore Washington International, the entire “wedding process” was a complete blur.  If it weren’t for the photographers (who were—to put it plainly—superb), I sincerely doubt I’d remember much of the whole experience, save for a few standout happenings scattered throughout the weekend.  True, I was considerably inebriated during the festivities, but I believe my confusion lent itself more to the notion that time truly does fly when you’re having fun.  

But now, after a few days’ time has given me the chance to fully digest the weekend’s goings-on, I feel that my thoughts and feelings about everything can begin to at least crystallize, if nothing else.  While my thoughts are clear and coherent, they will never be organized, and as such, that’s how I shall present them:  

• The streets in the D.C. area suck.  According to my brand-spanking-new brother-in-law, the streets of Washington, D.C. were designed in such a precarious fashion so as to confuse invading armies.  As a result, said armies burned down the city.  I find this particular nugget of knowledge fascinating, seeing as how after roughly 5 days of driving around the D.C. area, I too, have the sincerest of desires to raze our nation’s capital to the ground.  What sense is there in intersecting a perfectly organized grid of roads and streets with diagonal avenues?  And to make matters worse, there are what seem like randomly placed roundabouts thrown into the mix.  Of all the civic blunders I’ve encountered in my existence, I find the roundabout to be the most useless.  Pierre Charles L’Enfant, you, dear sir, are a jerk.
• I would say that “Pretty Wings” by Maxwell was the theme song for the weekend, given that it played every time I started the car.  But every time I was behind the wheel of that car, driving around D.C., I was thinking of nothing pretty.  Only torturing Mr. L’Enfant for subjecting Jill (the kind lady in my GPS) to such inhumane punishment.  
• People in the Maryland, D.C., Virginia area are surprisingly polite.  I was at first surprised at this.  I’m from the South.  And as hackneyed as it may seem, I do buy into the concepts of Southern Hospitality and Southern Gentlemen.  I suppose it’s just the way we’re raised.  But when I’ve been out to the West Coast, the general demeanor of people out there is somewhere less than sunny.  The same could be said for the Northeast, but they seem to take offense to my Southern Civilities.  A prime example: opening the door for others.  Here in the beautiful, comfortable South, I’ve opened doors for a plethora of people, and the results have usually been some permutation of the following three:  A notion of appreciation; someone simply walking through, as though they expected me to open the door for them (as they should… it’s the South); or the other person standing in the doorway motioning for me to walk through first in an attempt to “out gentleman” me (as if I would let that happen).  On the West Coast, however, I’ve received some surprised looks that border on shock.  Perhaps these people thought I would try to strangle them from behind or accost them in some manner if they walked through the door before me.  My experiences in the Northeast were even worse.  People’s reactions made me feel as if I had offended them somehow.  Really?  You don’t think I’m capable of opening the door for myself?  How dare you!  I distinctly recall one young whippersnapper looking at me briefly with his eyes bugged out, then scoffing as he strode through the entryway in front of me.  Such a sad state of affairs.  In the D.C., MD, VA area I expected more of the same, but was pleasantly surprised.  Not only were folks over there appreciative of my simple gesture, I was extended the same courtesy on many occasions.  And it wasn’t just from the hotel doormen!  I was startled by this discovery at first, but after some research, it turns out the D.C., MD, VA area is south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Go figure.  
• A short skirt is a dangerous thing.  Especially if you don’t know whether the party next door is a high school homecoming or a university’s winter banquet.  Not that I don’t appreciate the effort.  Further, did they really wear those to the wedding?  Didn’t anyone tell them it was in a church?  Speaking of which…  
• The credo, ‘all things in moderation’ never holds more true than during a wedding, save for a few exceptions.  You can eat too much filet mignon, no matter how well-prepared it may be.  You can never take too many pictures.  You can, however, make the same ‘funny face’ in pictures too many times.  You can say too many things during a speech, but you can never express too much love and emotion during that speech.  You can play the same type of song too much.  Switching back and forth between Lil Wayne and the Black Eyed Peas is a lateral move.  But you can never have too many line dances.  Ever.  But above all else, regardless of what you may think of your own constitution, you can have too much to drink.  Especially when there are two open bars.   
• A sense of family is the one constant in life.  I say a sense of family because some people I know were never close to their families.  But as they put it, “friends are the family you choose.”  This past weekend, I’ve seen the concept of family persevere over and over again, without fail.  Familial love is what helps one sister support another through the biggest day of her life.  It pulls together distant relatives like old friends who get into the same patter of conversation, antics, and general tomfoolery.  It validates your crazy.  That sense of family cuts through apathy and pointless bickering and differences of opinion.  It makes up those last few inches necessary to bridge the gap between parents and their children.  And I have seen more so than anything, that family is what can save you at the end of the day.  If you invest in your family (they’re the ones that have to love you regardless of how angry you make them) the return on that investment is incomprehensible–it makes you more human.  

And that was D.C. for me.  There were millions more memories than what I’ve been able to transcribe here.  But to try and capture the sheer exuberance of the weekend and condense that into words would only dilute the happiness those memories brought me.  Even sharing the above random thoughts with you was a painstaking effort.  But in the end, the highs (which were abundant) and the lows (which were pleasingly scant, if they even occurred) coalesced into what I can only describe as one of those beautiful moments in life that you etch into your heart and recall many years later with a deep fondness.   

So many things go wrong.  So many plans fall through.  So many people take our faith and end up failing us.  It’s nice that some things live up to the hype.