| I am a flower quickly fading... Here today and gone tomorrow. still You...
easier for a camel...
I'm usually not keen on writing long, drawn-out thoughts on my xanga, but I feel somewhat inspired....taha, naw....I'm just strangely itching to do so this time. This week is installation week for our team (Arthur, the design director + Billy, his junior assistant + me, the floating assistant) for a project that we've been working on for the past half year. Our clients, the DeMare's, are constructing a brand-new small to medium-sized (6000-7000 sq. feet by their standards) house out in the Hamptons (out on the far east side of Long Island, for all my west-coaster friends =), and they've selected our firm (and Arthur in particular) to do their interiors. The budget for just the interior furnishings is coming out to something close to $1.5 million. Yeah, I know... Sign #1--NO, make that sign #1,392--that I've been working at Jed Johnson Associates for too long: crazy montary figures like that don't even phase me anymore >:P Early Monday morning, I took the Long Island Railroad from the city and went on a 3-hour train ride bound for East Hampton, where Arthur's cottage is located. It was probably the most pleasant and beautiful ride I've had since I left Japan; seeing all the trees and wide open spaces was unimaginably refreshing, especially after being enclosed in the urban mass of the city for the past 9 months. Billy picked me up from the station, and we were off to the DeMare job site where our job was to oversee all the unpacking/uncrating, furniture moving, measuring, etc. that was going on. Well, none of that happened until Tuesday, so we were basically standing around watching the construction guys paint the walls, glue the tiles, install the carpet, and lay out the grass =P Fast-forward to Tuesday--non-stop unpacking and moving from 9-6 straight (ohh my aching back~). I was dead tired when I finally got home to New Jersey on Tuesday night at TEN THIRTY... Arthur our delightfully PSYCHOMANIAC OF A BOSS chose to drive out of East Hampton past 6:30, AND stopped by a TARGET to shop for his client's miscellaneous bath accessories at EIGHT FIFTEEN. His BMW stationwagon was already filled to the brim with antiques he bought back in the Hamptons, so I was literally thinking where the heck is this interior decorating lunatic thinking to fit all this stuff in his car. A: (browsing through all the home-decorating aisles and grabbing things in a frenzy) J: Uhh… Arthur..? You might actually want to try limiting how much you buy, cuz there really is not much space left in your car. A: …… (pretending not to hear me) ::five minutes later:: A: (picks up a pillow and starts squishing it) Things like this are soft… we can always make room for stuff like this. And he was NOT kidding about making room. Once he finished purchasing a near-cartload of stuff, we went back to his car to load the stuff into the trunk. Arthur then proceeded to take all the items out of their bags ONE BY ONE and fitted them into every single nook and cranny that he could possibly find in his car. I was honestly staring at him like he came from one of Pluto's moons, and kind of had to choke my breath to not let myself laugh out loud. And of course, Arthur had to have the last say in this: A: And you were skeptical about fitting this stuff in. (btw, all this is much funnier and eye-rolling if you've heard all my previous rants, and have an idea of what kind of person Arthur really is) By the time we finally set-off on our way back home, it was past 8:30... I was way past irked. But meh, what can you do. At 8:45, we stopped by a BURGER KING, and Arthur ordered a double Whopper meal for himself (again, unthinkably appalling if you know Arthur). And so I wanted to make a little tease of it and said: J: So Arthur, I thought you only chose to eat wheat..! (pronouncing it like normal human beings do: “weet”) A: ….? Parrrdon…? “weet”…?? J: Yes, wheat. I thought you only ate wheat. A: ……………..OH. You mean “HWEET” (emphatically pronouncing the H-sound with an extra puff of air) OKAY THAT'S IT. Someone puleeeease kick the stick that's stuck up A's @$$. Who the h-e-doubletoothpicks says HOOWEEEET when they wanna say "wheat"??!??!!? We are NOT IN A SPELLING BEE FOR GOODNESS SAKES. If there's just one good thing that'll come out of my working at this firm, hands-down, it's that i'll never meet a more pompous, arrogant, inconsiderate, uncompassionate elitist, ever for the rest of my life. (just for the record so that it won't seem like i'm just being biased, all my close colleagues would unanimously agree) Having said that, this week has been a bit of an eye-opener for me. No big revelations, nothing particularly new, but just a firm affirmation of what I should and want to value in life. Monday evening, after we left the construction site, Arthur took me and Billy out for an hour-long drive through the Hamptons. Which was nice. At first. He drove us by all the houses/mansions/estates he knew about and pointed out who lived where and how. Granted, the houses were absolutely stunning--what else would you expect from estates that belong to people like Calvin Klein, Renee Zellweger, and Steven Spielberg (among the many many others Arthur listed off). But after the 50th house we saw, I became genuinely uninterested. We even stopped and pulled into the driveway of one mansion (it happened to be one of Arthur's projects in the past) and looked at their backyard that faced out into the lakeside. 7:30, the sun was almost down and was casting warm, golden rays onto the face of the house, the pool, the chairs, the trees. Very surreal, pastoral, intense beauty. I took a good look at the sight before me, thought "How amazingly beautiful..!" And I turned around and walked away. No bitterness, no sarcasm, no jealousy, no yearning. All the majesty and beauty that was before me was so pleasing to the eye...but meant absolutely nothing to me. It all simply felt excessive, frivolous, unreal, and ultimately, unimpressive. Seeing all the excessiveness first-hand in all it glitz and glory really made me realize how ridiculous money can make people. I mean, come on: One table lamp (about $3000-5000) from their Guest Bedroom would be enough to pay for 3 years of my (hopefully) future graduate education. One writing desk (up to $13,000+) can afford a new car. One freakin' area rug (half a million for a hand-woven) can feed a village in Africa, for an entire year plus some...!! ...........here's where I really have to pipe down on my judgemental attitude. I know it's only innate human frailty that makes us desire more than what we actually need; who knows if I myself would fall into the same trap if I were a multi-billionaire. Or who knows what amazing things God can do through a faithful follower who happens to be filthy rich. But point is (Sharon said it best)--money blinds people. Even the best, most genuine of people is proned to rely on the security and material comfort that money can offer. And money in & of itself is awesome, and we obviously need it to survive. Only, it becomes ugly when a good thing like money, or a beautiful living room, or a nice house, becomes (what Tim Keller, our pastor would say) an "ultimate" thing and begins to define who you are. And here's where I'll admit that the main reason why I find that New York City is not a place I can thrive in, is exactly that--too many people here are so caught up with building success, making more money, finding the right business connections (and I'll reiterate that these are all good things in and of themselves, and in the glory they can bring to God) that those are the ultimate things that define who they are. Not always, of course. But the city reeks of it, and it can sometimes be really suffocating to a more simple and laid-back personality like mine.....
Having said that and to wrap things up, I won't be working at Jed Johnson Associates for too much longer. I've also decided not to pursue interior design as a career--and I can genuinely say that I'm happy and very at-peace with that decision =) This industry is definitely not for me, and wow, I'm so tremendously glad that I tried it out, cuz I wouldn't have ever known if I didn't. In the past, when I met people who said "I'm an interior designer," I always felt a tinge of envy in my heart and thought "what if..." But I'll now be able to look at them in the eye and say "That's wonderful!" without any sort of regret. Hehe, I might even point and make fun of them =P muaha, jk~ On a brighter note! There IS a light at the end of this long tunnel of a week--BAHAMA MAMA HERE I COME!!! I simply cannot wait to get under the water, breathe that deliciously compressed air, and flyyy awayyyyyyy~ A mere 8 days to go....YES! And hopefully by the next time you hear from me, I will officially be a proud & certified open water diver =D
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