in august i get strong again.

new content

i start a chasing calories substack

i upload a sri lanka vlog, 13 months tardy

Monthly Mood: Strong

in anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.
― yvon chouinard, let my people go surfing

by 7am i am kicking off the blankets because i can’t wait to start my day. i need to run to starbucks and order some iteration of decaf with oat milk (yes, decaf is a crime, but i’m tapering off caffeine this month). i have to bake a new or used and loved recipe. i must buy that bikini or frozen salmon or kilo-bag of raspberries.

on the treadmill at my local california fitness gym (free trial obvs), i feel my veins pulsing with adrenaline. the more i cardio, the more energy i have.

(such is the principle of born to run.)

i have the energy to surf in the late afternoons on small dumpy waves and weak crumbly waves.

(i don’t go to the gym and the surf break on the same day.)

thanks to some reflection and good books (see the bottom of this post), i am better committed to advocating for myself and using my voice.

i am so different from just months ago. i shudder at the lack of standards i once had. i would never accept the treatment from others that i used to just go along with while suppressing the anger i actually felt.

at least i’d like to think so.

but i give myself a couple decades for any lasting changes.

“at least you didn’t sleep with him” or “at least he told you he had a girlfriend” is a motherfucking SHITTY standard to have.

these were responses from older girlfriends, when i was still trying to laugh off yet another incident of sexual assault (not the first, not the last, for any of us—my definition of sexual assault = unwanted kissing or unwanted sexual touching), clutching onto the land of denial. it’s time for all of us to get some self-respect.

it is NOT about not saying no.

it’s about the absence of consent.

my commitment to speaking up has led me to have spats with

shopee vietnam
california fitness gym nha trang management
mega market
amazon usa
my mom
my dad
a boy
another boy

i also emailed the customer service departments of

hawkins cookers
rittersport
and garden of life

to make sure my cookware, chocolate, and probiotics align with my values and quality standards.

when i have a spat, i zinc up, grab a board, and paddle out. i don’t frankly give a fuck what the off-season conditions are. i do it for my soul.

it could be swimming-pool-flat and i’d still have hours of things to work on. i amp up the youtube education.

i mostly eat crazy clean and crave clean foods because i can do so much more with my body when i respect it starting at the mouth.

i never identified as one to have self-esteem issues but upon further reflection, while there’s nothing wrong with where i was and where i’m at, i could do something in this department.

so in august when it seems like all my students went on vacation at once, and i’d have liked to meet a few new faces, i lowered my hourly rate before realizing what the hell am i doing, and i raised my rate to a new high.

i value my time. i know i am really fucking good.

in august i learn that the antibiotics in the meat we eat impacts our gut’s microbiome. of course it does. i just never put it together.

i sell hemp beauty bars and cookies to koreans and made it into a google maps review within hours. i pump out paleo banana breads.

i sit across from someone and ask,

“did you know what you did was sexual assault and illegal in many countries?”

i sit across from someone else and ask,

“i don’t like you because i don’t like how you told me to stop talking how we had sex how you reacted when i needed comfort and how your diet looked but it’s over my feelings change every day i’m biased what every woman likes is so different and if you change yourself for someone else you won’t be you so how does my opinion possibly matter?”

i go to my seventh gynecologist and test negative for all the pathogens.

i get a new bikini because i just want one of everything really good.

i go to my eighth gynecologist and test negative for all the pathogens.

i spend quality time with some girlfriends and their children.

i order cà phê muối at four different cafes on weekends, but switch to decaf for my daily cup.

the starbucks staff knows to always give me a glass of water with my order.

my city is nothing but cafe after cafe, all crammed side by side. uncle style, uncle and auntie style, millennial style, gen z style. but only one place has sweet staff and non-dairy milk and aircon and soft music of more than five songs.

asians can’t even digest milk. how strong is western marketing that it makes its way into a vietnamese civilian’s drink several times a day?

i resprain the ankle that i busted in nepal on the penultimate day of the three passes trek and descended 2,000m in elevation on it. it had taken half a year to be able to get into child’s pose.

i work on my pop-up on weak dumpy waves and later, crumbly waves.

i discover the glory of off-grid, sidewalk chè trái cây.

i start vietnamese lessons and gloat the fuck outta my ego when my teacher tells me my pronunciation is the best that she’s ever seen in a student.

that’s what years of speaking different accents and learning thank you in different languages will do to your ears and mouth.

my meals get weirder as i make khichdi and eat it atop squares of gimbap seaweed sheets.

a cop sees me hitchhiking in the dark and shines his light on a taxi and tells the driver to take me home for free and i spend the ride chatting with the chinese passengers in the back.

i buy salmon for the first time in years and od on it.

and

i buy myself flowers.

obsessions

starbucks short hot oat milk capp
popcorn
starbucks iced decaf oat milk latte
tapering off caffeine
replacing plastic with cast iron, stainless steel, and glass
dry brushing
double cleansing
cold blasts at the end of showers
substack
dr. alan desmond
the brain-gut-vagina axis
9’ single fins
8’6 beginner hardboards
jojoba oil
reply 1988
buying myself flowers
rachlmansfield’s paleo banana bread
salmon steaks
chelsea’s messy apron healthy chocolate chip cookies
grab mart
cà phê muối
calico cats
tofu kimchee
a
ă
â

currently reading:

i want to die but i want to eat tteokbokki by baek se-he

let my people go surfing by yvon chouinard

love yourself well by lo bosworth

Previous Monthly Mood: Heal

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