Even Artichokes Have Hearts

2010-05-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

I stopped writing in this blog because I switched to paper journals. I wanted to keep my life in paper and be able to tote them around in boxes for the rest of my life. I wanted to be able to read my life, bled black and blue on the parchment skin. I wanted to remember everything in a space that I just for me (even though no one ever read this space and it too was just for me).

I need a place to feel that seems real. I need a way that makes everything in my life seem real. I stopped writing this when I needed things to be private and now I feel like I am rapped in my mind and trapped in my past.

The People All Call Her Alaska

2009-08-09T23:20:00.000-07:00

For the last three days, I've heard the song "Stephanie Says" by Velvet Underground more times than I have previously in my entire life. I think I heard it twice before, and on Friday it came on my MGMT/Magnetic Fields station on Pandora. Since then, I've heard it at least three in stores, on a friend's mixed CD and once more on my pandora. I think it was trying to tell me something.

Stephanie says that she wants to know
Why she's given half her life, to people she hates now
Stephanie says when answering the phone
What country shall I say is calling from across the world

I never understood the song the first time I heard it. In fact, I don't think I understood it the first couple times I heard it. With lines like "The people all call her Alaska" what is it supposed to mean other than the obvious cold, frigid bitch meaning (because we're all a little more creative than that).

But then later you have the lines:
"Stephanie says that she wants to know
Why it is though she's the door She can't be the room"

It made me realize that song I'd never thought about before (but always been intrigued by due to the mention of my name) was really about someone who was in the "in between" stage in her life. She is connected to her old life, but never part of it nor part of her new life. She is constantly the mediator, the middle and the in between.

This brings me to the Alaska reference. It's not only the cold of Alaska, but how distant it is from it's connections. Alaska has so much more in common based on culture, climate, lifestyle etc with Canada and Russia, yet it holds those same threads of connection with the United States based on tradition, comfort and the fact that life is just easier that way. Alaska is just taken and cold because of that purposeful distancing.

Perhaps I just need to find someone a little bit more like Canada: someone with the same lifestyle, same ambitions and same desires. But more than that, Canada was originally part of the British Commonwealth. It knows how difficult it is to feel so separated from everyone, how difficult it is to be the doorway and how necessary it is to sometimes break away. Perhaps I just need to find someone a little bit more like Canada.

And maybe then it won't be so cold in Alaska

Stephanie Says...

2009-08-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

Stephanie says
that she wants to know
Why she's given half her life
to people she hates now

Stephanie says (Stephanie says)
when answering the phone (answering the phone)
What country shall I say is calling
from across the world

But she's not afraid to die
the people all call her Alaska
Between worlds so the people ask her
'Cause it's all in her mind
it's all in her mind

Stephanie says (Stephanie says)
that she wants to know (she wants to know)
Why it is though she's the door
she can't leave the room

Stephanie says (Stephanie says)
but doesn't hang up the phone (hang up the phone)
What sea shell say is calling
from across the world

But she's not afraid to die
the people all call her Alaska
Between worlds so the people ask her
'Cause it's all in her mind
it's all in her mind

They're asking is it good or bad
It's such an icy feeling

It's so cold in Alaska (Stephanie says)
it's so cold in Alaska (Stephanie says)
It's so cold in Alaska (Stephanie says)

-Velvet Underground

On Advertising, Personal Lives, and Style

2009-07-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

In this industry, you never make it home in time for dinner. You live with a multitude of broken promises and a personal life that frequently seems to come second. We check our emotional bags at the door when we get into the office and we pick them up when we leave (as well as any other unfinished work from the day).

Last night, in the wee hours of the morning, I spoke with a friend who had recently broken up with his girlfriend (or, rather, she broke up with him) for the reasons I just described. We shared a pot of tea while I edited site maps and he did some engineering computations that my tiny brain cannot fathom. “You’d better find an understanding woman,” I joked.

“Or at least one with my same level of ambition,” he responded.

(Insert sideways glance, coy smile and “what if”s here before both parties awkwardly say goodnight and shuffle off to bed in their respective rooms)

~~~~~~

I wrote this post on the 9th of this month in the "anti blog" at our company, an antique typewriter that is supposed to hold the secrets within our minds--the subtle creativity that occasionally needs to come screaming out.

When i write in the anti blog, it's an amalgamation of every day. No entry is fully truthful in its details and they occurred, but each is fully truthful insomuch as they are of utmost importance to me. I wear my heart on my sleeve, I write with sheer meaning and I am slowly learning how to let myself feel with every fiber of my being.

It sucks sometimes, in short.

Today is Today

2009-07-18T21:51:00.001-07:00

Today is Today
Yesterday is Today
Tomorrow is Today

This was a poem that sensei Matsumoto, visiting from Berkeley Buddhist Church, read this afternoon at our Hatsubon ceremony, the starting ceremony of the Obon festival to celebrate the souls of those who have died in the past year. Immediately after gassho and oshoko, the sensei began telling the story of how he came across this poem, how simple it sounds and how complicated it is to actually live life in this fashion.

Today is today, but who really lives each day for itself. Who doesn't think "god this service is taking so long, I'm hungry and want lunch" or "I can't believe how much work i have left on my desk"

Yesterday is today, meaning that every yesterday has shaped every moment of every day.

Tomorrow is today, meaning that every instant today and every decision will shape every tomorrow.

We must remember our ancestors and our history. We must remember our traditions and how heavily each day influences our lives. We must keep in mind that every day is today.

2009-07-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

I have come to the conclusion that the "Iron and Wine" station on Pandora is possibly the most depressing thing ever.

That is all.

Sad and fascinating--tragic and rejuvenating...

2009-06-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

Every day I sit down with the intention of writing a blog post about life and loss and sheer meaning. I've had "meaningful blog post" on my to do list for the last three days, and I have yet to write anything. I want to find the inspiration to write something meaningful.

Last week, one of my good friends ended up in the hospital after a seizure and complications from other medications. He's fine now and will be returning home shortly. I returned home to visit my family because I needed to get away from the fast pace of my life in Berkeley.

For the last 5 years, I always remember my grandmother telling me she wanted me to look through her jewelry and pick out what I wanted after she died. This weekend I discovered why she has always said that. Turns out she has had breast cancer for the last 10 years (at least) and has never told anyone until now because she has never wanted treatment. She only started chemo 4 days ago because the cancer has become ulcerated and she is no longer able to move her right arm without serious pain. I learned this Thursday evening after I had been a pain in the ass all day for having to spend the day with my family after an entire day of work and about 2.5 hours of travel time.

Apparently the only people who knew were my grandfather and her sister. My grandfather always thought he'd outlive her (funny now, in retrospect) and my grandmother only told my father after he noticed blood on her shirt the day of my grandfather's memorial service at the end of March. She asked him not to tell anyone as well and not to make her get treatment. He agreed, and only told me when she said it was okay and after she had agreed to get chemo.

More than sadness or worry or any other emotions one would expect me to feel, I have a greater sense of astonishment. I am amazed that the human body can produce a mutant cell that dominates everything else to effectively, but more than that, I am amazed it can resist that mutation for 10-12 years through largely willpower and self imposed feelings of guilt/unimportance/not wanting to burden your family with your problems.

It's sad and fascinating. It's tragic and awe inspiring. It's rejuvenating and soul-crushing at the same time...

Late Night Adventures

2009-06-11T00:46:00.000-07:00

I just got back from some late night adventuring (not too late as I have work tomorrow).

Me: "I want to go"
Nicole: "Where do you want to go?"
Me: "I don't know. I just want to go."

So 5 of us hopped in the car and started driving. Later, we found ourselves in Pacifica walking along the beach with a bottle of two buck chuck. Ah, classy.

We climbed rocks and waded in the surf. We watched the tide come in and got tangled in the kelp. We hid among the rocks from police search lights. We adventured, listened to the surf, smelled the salt air and got away for a little while.

But from now on, I think an emergency preparedness kit for all late night adventures in the future should include:

-Firewood
-Whiskey
-Clean socks/underwear
-Native Spanish speaker
-Designated driver
-$20 canadian (though now I suppose you need a passport to go with that...)

In the future, we'll see where late night adventuring takes us.

London Calling (or There and Back Again)

2009-06-07T23:44:00.000-07:00

I went to London for 2 weeks. I came home on June 1st and realized how different life is in the US than in the UK.

For two weeks I ate, drank, relaxed near the river and went to museums during my time in London. I rested in the park and had extensive conversations with my best friend. I had an interesting time, to say the least.

I think the most interesting part of seeing my best friend was that we agreed to become "just friends" after this trip. He was sorting out some issues--in all honesty I have my fair share of issues to sort out as well. So we agreed that we should just be friends and not have our odd "when we're together we're together" relationship we seem to have had for the last two years.

And of course, "just friends" still involves kissing, touching, talking about one's feelings and sleeping together in a completely non-euphemistic fashion. Don't all friends act like this?

Just being friends still allowed us to talk about a lot of things we never would have discussed previously. While lying in bed one morning, I actually said the phrase "I was really crazy about you. I would have followed you to the end of the earth if you asked." I never would have said those things before. He responded with "And though it feels so amazing to hear you say that and know that you cared that much, I loved you--still do love you--too much to ever let you do that without serious consideration."

He wants to go into consulting. We discussed starting things in the future when we have our lives sorted out. We discussed having a trial run in a few years to see whether I could deal with only seeing him a couple days every other week. I don't know if I can deal with that, but it's the perfect way to find out eventually. But now I know he's serious, which is both good and bad simultaneously. Either way, it's left me with a lot to think about ever since I came back.

And Dance and Drink and Screw Because There's Nothing Else to do.

2009-06-05T00:35:00.000-07:00

Today I took the bus to work in the city instead of BART.

Not the FS commuter bus with free wifi that takes half an hour. I mean I took the regular F bus that goes through Oakland and Emeryville and takes close to an hour.

You may ask why I would do this to myself but sometimes I enjoy taking the bus for a multitude of reasons.

1. It's free with my student ID.
2. It allows me to see an above-ground view of a city I often take for granted.
3. It gives me exposure to the different walks of life that inhabit my area
4. It's free.

I spent the entire time looking out the window toward the world around me. I watched as students flooded in and out and as more--ethnic individuals entered the bus at the Oakland boarder. I saw students in A&F clothing and coach bags in front of me while a woman who wore garbage bags for shoes sat directly across from me. It's always interesting to see the differences.

The bus passed the Here and There signs at the corner of Adeline and MLK. It meandered through the streets of Oakland and over the Bay Bridge. It broke through the fog bank over Treasure Island to show the brilliant sunshine over San Francisco. I made this journey dressed in a business suit, looking out of place but from a background that's completely appropriate for this form of transportation. I felt like a fraud both inside and out--like the William Shatner version of "Common People"

The Same Day Twice

2009-05-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

Today was not a good day.

Today I took one of my great friends to the hospital. I heard the words "I hate you" uttered to our entire group about a half dozen times amidst kicking, screaming and door slamming. To this I replied, "And I love you too, which is why you're going to hate us for a very long time"

We woke up at 4:30am. We arrived home at 6. We went to bed at 9. Woke up again at 11 in the hopes of starting a new day. We paid our friend a visit at 1 and she said "you'll take me home in a day, right?" to which we responded "We can pick you up in 72 hours..."

And then my best friend called to tell me he was going through much the same thing, only about 10 times worse.

"No, it wasn't your fault," I had to say over and over again. "You couldn't have known. It would have happened anyway. No one could have known."

I relieved the same day twice in a 12 hour time span.

And then I bought a plane ticket to go to the UK next week to be with the best friend in his time of need.

Because sometimes that's what friends do for each other.

FML

Just a Box

2009-05-11T22:41:00.000-07:00

Today I broke my memory box

It was one of those shadow boxes with lots of overlapping layers of glass in which to put things that were important. I have an old shoebox in which I keep a bunch of other memories, but the memory box had all the important things. It had all the things I wanted to see regularly when working at my desk. I'd rotate things in and out as I saw fit, but the memory box was full of my most important things, and I broke it.

I was cleaning my desk and my room and had placed my box on the ground. While cleaning, I dropped on of my heavy cookbooks and it crashed right through the center of the glass door on the box containing my past.

I sat at my desk after that with my shoebox on one side and a pair of tweezers in one hand, picking out photos and ticket stubs from the infinitesimal shards of glass. The card from the first bouquet of flowers I'd ever received, a letter written to me by my first serious boyfriend, a photo of the two of us at graduation, a kandi bracelet from my first rave and a brass ring from the carousel at Santa Cruz when I was 8 years old.

I had a photo of my best friend and me in Golden Gate Park 2 years ago and a matchbook from our first date that evening. That was the first day we'd ever kissed and when I first admitted to him that I loved him, that I was fucking crazy about him and that I wished more than anything that our circumstances could be different (since he lives across a country and an ocean...) And he felt similarly--and we kissed and touched and fucked, making that week the most perfect and most painful week of my entire life.

And most important, I had the music box my father gave to me when I was 8 years old, when he was really sick and thought he was dying (I didn't understand that at the time--the realization didn't hit me until I was about 14 and being retrospective). It's a floral printed box that plays "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and has a little poem on the front.

I give you this gift because you are treasured
The value of which can never be measured
No need to unwrap it or untie the bow
The jewel within it is found in my soul.
Just give it a squeeze when we are apart.
The tune you hear is the song in my heart.

Luckily it still works. I would have hated myself if I'd broken it.

But I still have the memories. I still have the objects but I have these moments in my head as well. I music box cannot capture my father and a photo and matchbook cannot encapsulate the feelings of that weekend. Nothing has changed--it was just a box.

I just need to be a bit more careful

A Home at the Top of the World

2009-05-04T23:35:00.000-07:00

I had a job interview this morning in a corner window office on the 27th floor of the US Bank building.

Sitting in front of that vast desk in front of a vast window was like sitting on the top of the world. I realized in that instant that that's exactly where I wanted to be in my life. I want the security of full health insurance that will cover vision for my shitty eyesight. I want paid vacation. I want to not have to worry about how I'll pay my rent or send my kids through college (although I'm sure everyone worries about that). I want to be happy with everything I do in my life, but it would be nice if I could make a living doing so. I want the corner window office with a view at the top of the world.

And I don't ever want to come down.

Like the Tin Man

2009-05-03T00:51:00.000-07:00

Today I looked around at the environment in which I live and was, for the first time in quite a while, very disgusted with my surroundings.

Or, not my surroundings per say, but the people surrounding me.

I will not go into details, but some incidents involved theft, some vandalism, and some adultery. I am sickened by the fact that there will be no repercussions to these actions. But more than that, I find it sickening that the thought process enters one's mind to engage in such actions. Not even because they fear getting caught, but simply because it is morally wrong.

But I guess I have too much faith in society. Overall, I like to think of people as good. And though I admit that I have done my fair share of morally wrong things, it still leaves me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I am not about morally reprehensible things as I have lied and cheated in the past. But I know how guilty I feel about those actions in retrospect and I cannot comprehend how they can do such unfeeling shit and not have it bother them just a little bit.

I will say that I do not consider any of the people involved in these situations "friends." I am very selective about the people I let into my life and I can safely say that at present, I have only 2 friends that I trust completely, heart and soul, with my life. And in total, I say that I cohort of about 6 very good friends. But do I trust them the same way as the other two, of course not. Perhaps that's because I see them every day and know a different side to them (the 2 best friends live on the other side of the country and the other side of an ocean and country, which blows).

Sometimes I think of myself as like the tin man: just a hollow chest. No heart, no soul. But then I see things like this happening all around me and I realize that no matter how heartless I want to pretend I am, the universe as a whole still bothers me.

The Goodyear Graveyard

2009-04-25T00:14:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was on Amtrak heading back to my parent's home in Sacramento in the early evening as the sun began to set and the sky dusked in golden hues. While riding the train, my window seat look out onto the north bank of the bay and the shores of the delta. The tide was out at the time, and I looked out on what I dubbed "The Goodyear Graveyard" when I first laid eyes on it years ago. An entire strip of shore studded with washed up tires and old posts jutting from the water. They looked like the supports of an ancient pier. But more than that, they looked like hands of ancient ghosts reaching from beneath the water.

As the sun set, the colors of the sky reflected in the water like the color of a blood orange. The hands of those ancient ghosts bled crimson into the water around them as the Goodyear graveyard became stained the days end.

And the ghosts continued to reach into infinity, even as our train passed and high tide wallowed them beneath its surface.

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman--family memories of food.

2009-04-14T23:33:00.000-07:00

I started a food blog recently to catalog my recipes and adventures in the kitchen. I only have two entries so far, but it's slowly getting there. The site is http://culinary-chronicles.blogspot.com.

I started it shortly after watching "Eat Drink Man Woman" one of Ang Lee's great films before he turned to crap and made Brokeback Mountain. His direction is beautiful and the the use of food for communication really made me think about my family. It's the sort of thing we do. Both of my grandmothers taught me how to cook. My parents didn't and although my grandmother's didn't speak English well, we communicated through shared seasonings.

From my maternal grandmother, I learned how to make amazing sweetbread (not sweetbreads, but pao doce...). I learned kale stews and an orange red pepper marinade that kicks ass against any carnitas. I make donuts and favas and salt cod, all served in large dishes around my grandmother's kitchen table for families of 8 or 10.

From my paternal grandmother, I learned the art of a properly rolled sushi. I make teriyaki sauce, katsu, curry, mochi, ozoni and a slew of other traditional foods. I remember my ogichan always used to say I would never find a husband because I wasn't feminine enough (even though he'd say those things after I'd been cooking with my grandmother all morning). But I will always remember cooking with my grandmother for special occasions, which would always be for 8 or 10 people, also around the large round table.

My father was the wizard of canned pantry goods. My mother would say we have nothing for dinner and my dad would whip something up. Nothing fancy, but something nevertheless. In the mornings, he would occasionally make me fried rice with over easy eggs and kim chi, just like his mother used to make for him when he was younger. It's still a comfort food for me, even now.

Food and drink bring back so many emotions for me. I guess I started my food blog to capture all those things, and do have a catalogue of recipes I actually will use in the future.

The only problem is so much of my cooking isn't specified measurments. So much is a handfull of this or a pinch of that, but it's difficult to find actual measurements to tell people. Trial and error I suppose.

Once again, to Anonymous

2009-04-08T23:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Anonymous,

It's funny how much you know about me from the chronicle of the last two years of my life. At the same time, it's odd how little I know about you. I know your words and I know how familiar all of them seem. I like your style.

I implore that in your next comment, you tell me one thing about today that made life beautiful. I'll share one of mine. Today, I drank champagne with breakfast and awoke to the sound of rain on the pavement. It wasn't a thunderstorm, but the slightly sounds of a melancholy, wishful rain.

I ask that you use your own words, not the words of someone else. Though it takes talent to reflect one's own feelings through the words of another (be they Eliot, Browning, etc) it is truly spectacular to see body and soul spoken in one's own tongue. I could speak every important sentiment in the known universe with the use of Shelley's Indian Serenade, anything by Rilke or "somewhere i have never traveled" but it takes my own words to express the unnecessary, yet fully reflective sentiments within me.

Do not remain some phantom in the mist, but show me your true existence.

And next time, sign your note with a first name, or an least initials.

Cocked Head, Body Cant, Alluring Look and Bitten Lower Lip

2009-04-07T17:33:00.000-07:00

In my cultural implications of advertising class, we looked at contemporary ads and their sexualized nature. Women in ads often show the ritualization of submission or the licensing of withdrawal. By licensing of withdrawal, I mean the removal of self from the outside world. This is often reflected through closed eyes (the woman cannot see) or hands covering the woman's mouth (her inability to speak). Often times, a bitten or sucked finger can connote those same meanings.

For ritualization of submission, we see an array of images. We see the knee bend; the head or full body cant; the lowering of self to the floor, bed, chair etc; the ineffectual, nonthreatening smile and the relative size compared to males. We can also see this through a feminine or fashionable (not utilitarian) touch to show the product as delicate. Self touch serves these same ends, showing that the woman is delicate and a product in and of itself.

Advertisements act as both the shadow of and substance for authority. These full body cants, seuxal poses and closed eyes show the power structures of society and reinforce them simultaneously. Yet never before today did I realize how much I and every other woman emulates these same poses.
Can't you remember or imagine a situation like that? Am I the only one who can think of an occasion when I was wearing my white and blue floral dress--a knee length, slightly off shoulder scoop neck that fit perfectly in all the right places. Imagine that you're doing something simple like preparing lunch mid-afternoon. You lean lazily on your elbows on the marble counter, one knee bent slightly, creating a full body cant to accentuate all the lines and curves of your figure. You cock your head to the side slightly, your hair covering the left side of your face, and gingerly let your fingers graze an orange or nectarine or something in the fruit bowl on the counter.

You are the subject of the male gaze and when he looks down at your from his elevated position, he smiles and you in turn smirk and bite the corner of your lower lip. (It's an involuntary reaction that is alluring for some reason or another).

And at that he kisses you passionately and tells you how damn stunning you look in that instant.

Thinking about the way we posture ourselves gives new meaning to occurances like that. Something you found so sincere at the time seems profaned when accompanied by an academic analysis. It feels tarnished, in a way. It feels unpleasant to know that every man (most certainly in bed, perhaps at other times) has seen me in such a compromising position. Every man has seen the head cant, the bent knees, the contorted body, the closed eyes and lips bitten to keep from screaming on the verge of orgasm.

I never held any pretense of being a model and I never pretended to be a feminist. Part of the beauty of being female is that possibility of attracting a man with a flick of one's hair, the accentuation of waist or hips and the lick of the lower lip. It's beautiful but at the same time feels unclean when thinking of an emotional connection in such physically explicity terms.

But who am I to disect a kiss or undream a dream?

~~~~
Dear Anonymous,
I liked your last comment. You should write me another. Do I know you? Give me another clue.

Dear Anonymous

2009-04-04T22:34:00.000-07:00

I have been receiving several comments from an anonymous person as of late. The most recent commented on my copy of You Shall Know Our Velocity. There was one that quoted Wastelands, one that quoted from Roman Holiday. "If I were dead and buried and I heard your voice beneath the sod my heart of dust would still rejoice."

There was one comment in french that essentially reads

"I cried my tears
But that was gentle/soft/sweet for me
Oh that was gentil
Your first smile
And for one tear
That came from you
I cried for love
Do you remember?"

These sorts of comments--the french and the words and the TS Elliot and the sentiments in the quote from Roman Holiday--those all make me think it could only be one person. But I am probably wrong.

Dear Mr. Anonymous, you should reveal your identity. If you are who I think you are, then I would greatly like to know and would appreciate your consideration. If you are not, then I would like to know who you are anyway for your kind words and consideration.

On Love and Loss and Death and Dying

2009-04-03T11:47:00.001-07:00

So the last week has been interesting, to say the least.

On March 19th, I hopped on a plane to Atlanta to visit my best friend. My best friend, the man I realized I loved a little over a year and a half ago and have loved since then in a back burner sort of way. I went to see him and we had the most amazing 6 days. I stepped off the escalator at the airport and saw him waiting at baggage claim. Eyes locked, long hug, odd silence before walking out to the car and having another long hug, odd silence and locked eyes when putting my suitcase in the trunk.

And then there was the kiss. A most amazing kiss that I didn't want to initiate for fear that he would not reciprocate. I found out he felt the same, but it seems we both kissed simultaneously and sank into the warmth and the passion.

Through the course of my stay, I met the family. I met his parents. I wore pretty dresses and made a good impression and acted as though we were just friends. I thought they liked me--at least it seemed like it. We played cards and sat on the back veranda and prevented the cherry blossoms from falling into our wine glasses. We kissed and touched and fucked and said "I love you" on our last night together. We meant every word of it.

When I left, I came back to Sacramento for my grandfather's funeral. It was such a horrible 180: to go from no stress to a very high stress environment in less than 12 hours. Everything seemed so damn important at the time. The lack of chrysanthemums at the florist seemed important. My father's insistence on wearing his herringbone coat and chili pepper tie instead of a normal black suit seemed important. My uncle's desire to have his trashy girlfriend and her children in the first row with the family seemed important. Everything seemed so damn important.

And then the sensei began chanting and everyone made an offering of incense. Then everyone began hugging me, which was the thing that got to me most. That was the one part of the day that made tears prickle at the corners of my eyes.

After lunch, we went to the to my grandmothers house and poured half of my grandfather's ashes into a tin and placed that in an international priority mail box. We took it to the post office and the woman behind the counter looked at us quite strangely with our suits and our customs form sending a large box to Kumamoto--to a prefecture that I can't even remember the name of.

Everything seemed so unimportant after all was said and done.

~~~~~

The only thing that really brought these two events together (the most hedonistic, passionate and reckless beginning of a week combined with the most pensive, introspective and reposed end) was my mother's comment about the events that occurred the day my grandfather died. Apparently my mother was the only one who cried--not my father, my uncles, my grandmother, etc. She apparently asked my grandmother why she didn't cry and my grandmother said "I spent all my tears 30 years ago."

The was the most depressing thing I've heard in a while. My grandfather was a very generous, pragmatic man; however, he could become a pedantic, emotionally abusive bastard within an instant. He and my grandmother loved each other, but after 55 years of an arranged marriage, they most certainly did not like each other.

It made me wonder about what it would be like when I died. I don't want people to cry at my funeral. I want them to laugh and dance and tell vibrant, passionate stories. I don't want them to say they spent all their tears 30 years ago. I don't want to marry someone I love, but dislike.

I want my life to be passionate in every moment. I want the man I spend my life with to invoke those feelings. I want to touch and kiss and fuck with the same power and heat and sheer meaning 30 years from now as I did last week.

I want someone to tell me they love me and actually mean every word.

Exactly What We Need

2009-02-24T17:48:00.000-08:00

I always find it interesting when people are supposed to give you bad news. Often times they dread the experience in the pit of their stomach because they fear how you will react. They project their own emotions onto you with the assumptions that you will feel exactly how they believe they will feel. But they have no idea whether or not they would feel that way unless they were actually part of the situation.

The other day, Justin told me that he had a conversation with Colin during which they shared their feelings. It may have been other substances involved, but he told me Colin seemed happy and that he had recently realized just how much he loved Jen, his long distance girlfriend.

He thought I would be upset by this fact but I wasn't. I was actually quite happy when he told me this. All I wanted was for him to be happy and now that I know he is happy and wishes me the greatest happiness as well, then I can stop wondering if he would come back. Now I know he won't, and I can move on to be happy.

It's one of those statements that you think will be bad before you experience it. But once it happens, you realize it's exactly what you needed.

Splashing Lugubriously Among the Puddles

2009-02-17T20:58:00.001-08:00

Today I splashed lugubriously among the puddles on my way to class.

Upon existing the house I forgot my umbrella and forgot to wear rain boots. Almost immediately, I stepped in a slightly too deep puddle with my too old chucks and had waterlogged shoes the rest of the day.

Walking to class and listening to the campanile in the background was like listening to the score of my life. It was like the beginning of a horror movie--the scene was dark and gray, the notes dissonant as a perfect complement.

And on the way to class, I continued to splash lugubriously among the puddles.

That is all.

Of Love Letters and Late Night Reveries

2009-02-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

So today I did the most masochistic I have done in a very long time.

I remembered that today was February 9th and that it was his birthday. He would have been 23 today.

I opened my gmail archive. I poured over my shoebox of old letters. I looked through all the shitty poems I wrote when I was in high school and naive and stupid. I found a few I still like, and they were all dedicated to him. Everything was dedicated to him.

I read the first line of the last email he sent me "I know you don't blame me for everything I've done (and I love you for that...thought not only for that) but I do, and that's probably not a good thing, or maybe it is, but I do it anyway." And then I read the last line of the last email he sent me. "You will be my friend until I in every form cease to exist. And even then, I will be as resilient as I can be!"

And then I read the date and realized that that fucking letter was dated 8/22/07. And then he fell off the face of the earth and I have not heard from him since then.

And even now, a year and a half later--already into 2009, I still think about that stupid last line of that stupid last letter. I think about ripping all the pages out of my first edition copy of "You Shall Know Our Velocity" by Dave Eggers because I bought that fucking book for him at the beginning of August 07 for his Christmas gift and never had a chance to give it to him. It sits on my bookshelf to this day, waiting for me to let it go (to regift or to burn it in the fire).

Ideally, I like to imagine he died shortly after that letter, because then at least he would have a good reason for no longer being part of my life. It would excuse this behavior. It wouldn't just be someone falling off the face of the planet for me to never hear from again and me being stupid enough to believe all his fucking lines. He was the tortured poet/philosopher/artist type (you know, the type I normally go for even to this day) and he spun some damn good lines. Even now, with my life experiences and my emotionally jaded crap, I would still fall for those damn lines all over again.

I like to pretend he had no impact on my life whatsoever, but if I'm still thinking of him with so much rage 2 years after we stopped talking, that must mean he impacted me more than I would ever like to admit.

Fucking Brett. Fuck you Brett. Happy fucking birthday.

So this is the New Year?

2009-01-02T23:30:00.000-08:00

So this is the New Year?
And I don't feel any different.
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance (in the distance)

Ever since the year began, I've had that Death Cab for Cutie song stuck in my head on loop. When the fireworks exploded on the other side of the river, I thought of this song while watching it with old friends. Nothing felt renewed, rejuvenated or different. Everything felt so much the same as it always has.

So this is the New Year?
And I have no resolutions
For self assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions.

Maybe that's all New Years resolutions are? Maybe they're just a form of penance for our previous sins. Everything we didn't do, every missed opportunity, every road not taken is just one more regret for which we serve a self imposed penance. All hell is self imposed, I suppose, and it seems resolutions just unearth everything that upsets us. They tear open old wounds and make us realize that "New Years" really aren't that new.

So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Lets make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
Lighting fire crackers off on the front lawn
As thirty dialogues bleed into one.

I wish the world was flat like the old days
And we could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes or speed trains or freeways
There'd be no distance that could hold us back.

Yeah.... no distance that can hold us back.

Thank you for offering part of yourself.

2008-12-30T18:28:00.000-08:00

Today I walked around downtown, back to my hometown and the place in which I grew up. I could feel the chill in my bones as I walked all the way down K street, past the ice skating rink, through the mall and into old Sac. I stopped at the waters edge, right by the railing to the Tower Bridge and the Delta King river ferry. I looked out across the river--to the pyramid in West Sac and the park on the other side. I looked through the weathered boards of the pier to the river below. I remembered sneaking under that pier in high school to do adult/childish things (however you want to look at it). I remembered a lot of things.

While walking over there, I passed by so many familiar faces whose names I never knew. I passed by the young African American gentlemen who always hang outside Toppingz--the ones who would would always ask for my for my phone number and try to pull a knife on whatever male friends accompanied me.

As I passed through the shopping mall, I sat at a table on which there was a journal. The front cover read "My Journal Buddies" and the inside was completely blank. I do not know who left that journal on the table, but I opened to the first page and wrote the following:

"I do not know who you are, your story or where you come from--but whoever you are--the person who left this journal for me to find, you are loved. Today I came to see my home town, to reflect and to remember the past. I shall not bore you with my story, but I offer you many thanks for helping me remember and offering this part of yourself (still pure, blank, with endless possibilities) as part of my life. Forever, Stephanie"

When I returned from old Sac, the journal was gone. I can only hope its rightful owner found it and appreciated my message.

As I was leaving, I ran across the old homeless man in the wheelchair--the one who never asks for money but simply wants someone to talk to. He used to tell my fortune when I would take the time to actually talk to him.

He smiled at me. "I'm sorry that he's dying" he said to me.

"Well, aren't we all?" I asked while laughing. I paused momentarily, not yet walking away. He always gave these really vague psychic readings and was a very memorable part of my life while growing, aging and becoming a necessary part of life.

I began to walk away and he shouted after me "He doesn't love you, you know"

"Is this a different he?" I asked.

"Yes, a different he. But he doesn't love you."

"Well I knew that already," I responded. "I have known that for a very long time."

And then I gave him three quarters and hopped on the train, sandwiched shoulder to shoulder with the rush-hour crowd to be carried home in the fog and dark. And every life I saw today became part of mine as well.

2008 Best Of

2008-12-23T23:07:00.000-08:00

As 2008 draws to a close, it's time for me to re-cap my best ofs for the year.

Best Book:
Granted it wasn't released this year, but the best book I read this year was "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Foer (same guy who did Everything is Illuminated). And I say that because I feel like it would be a cop-out to list something I've read so recently (aka Watchmen)

Best Class/Prof:
Anthro 189 "Cities and Citizenship" with Holston (offered in spring semester). Do take it.

Best Film
I can't let myself say Dark Knight... so I will say "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," "Milk," and "Wall-E". I will also say that "City of Men" though not great, was necessary and a nice sequel to "City of God"

Best Album
Fleet Foxes self titled album or "Third" by Portishead

Best Restaurant:
Best newly discovered restaurant either Kokkari in the SF FiDi or La Bonne Soupe in Sacramento. One is an upscale Mediterranean restaurant and the other is a french soup/sandwich shop no larger than a closet, but both are charming in their own way. And for some reason, I never manage to catch hip new restaurant openings the same year. I guess I'm just not cool enough.

Best new recipe:
My bleu cheese pecan puff pastries or my chocolate mousse

Best Cultural Venue/showcase:
Academy of Sciences is awesome, and the female impressionists exhibit at the Legion of Honor quite possibly rivaled the Friday exhibit at the MoMA

Best First Date:
Dinner along the Embarcadero, sundaes at Ghirradeli square and missing the ferry back to Mill Valley. :-)

Best Day Out:
random afternoon on the town with Jay and Sonni over this summer (or looking at fishies with Nicole and Scooter)

Best Night Out:
Popsicle... (but I suppose that's a night in as well...)

Best Night In:
Election Night (this also wins for "Most Berkeley Moment Ever")

Best Laugh:
Xmas shopping with Dad at Target the other day when stumbling across the raygun vibrator thing (ages 3 and up) in the toy section (see last blog entry)

And since no one reads this, I'll say my more personal categories.

Best Kiss was Colin, despite the cigarette smell.

Best Fuck was Josh. Dear God I miss that man sometimes... ^_^

Hope you too had a great 2007

Chrsitmas Related Conversations

2008-12-20T23:02:00.001-08:00

Conversations at various places today:

Best Buy
Me: "Where is your trance selection?"
Salesguy: *scratches head* "What's that?"
Me: "Your electronica section"
Him: "Oh, right here" *points to two tiny shelves in the CD section"
Me: "That's it?"
Him: *Laughs*

Loehmanns
Me: "This is such a sad excuse for a Loehmanns... I think Ross might even have a greater selection"
Dad: "It's like every other Loehmanns in the country threw all their crap into this store. And then this store had a closeout sale and this is what is left."

Toys R Us:

Me: "Where can I find the Batman Dark Knight Stealth Launch Batmobile and a *looks at shopping list* something in the Hannah Montana section..."
Salesgirl: *looks at me disparagingly, as if she's heard this question a thousand times and no longer has the will to live*
Me: "Hello...?"
Salesgirl: "Continues to stare blankly. Perhaps she is merely stoned (not that I begrudge her that under these circumstances* "Around the corner for the Hannah Montana. Directly across the store near the front registers for the Batman..."

later...

Mom: "What the hell is a Bratz doll?"
Me: "It's these things... the ones that look like prostitutes"
Mom: "Are there any that don't look like prostitutes?"
Me: "I don't think so... do they really need any of this stuff? What's wrong with clothes, or savings bonds?"
Mom: "Remember how much you hated getting clothes at that age?"
Me: "I always liked money though."
Mom: "Why savings bonds and not cash?"
Me: "Because I don't know if I trust Paul enough to actually save the money for his kids and/or give it to them."

Target

Dad: "Steph! Steph! Look at this"*hands me a raygun while laughing*
Me: "It's a raygun..."
Dad: "Press the trigger"
Me: *presses trigger and it begins to vibrate with lots of blinky lights and sounds. I then chuckle* "Oh god, it's like the Harry Potter vibrating broomstick that came out a few years ago"
Dad: "It's actually a Nano Blaster, and do you think it would make a good gag gift for anyone?"
Me: (jokingly) "I dunno, the lights and sounds are a bit distracting..."
Dad: "I suppose they'd have to be a screamer, right?"
Me: "Eeew... Neither the time nor place for this type of conversation..."

later...

Dad: "Ann. Look at this!"
Mom: "It's a raygun..."
Me: *Presses trigger and laughs hysterically*
Mom: "I think they have specialty stores where you can buy toys like that and the box doesn't say Ages 3 and up"
Me: *Presses trigger and laughs*
Random child in same isle: "Mommy, what's that?"
Mother: "Nothing sweetheart" *takes her child away and scowls at our family disapprovingly*

Dad and I collapse laughing while Mom looks embarrassed.

More exploits to come later, I'm sure

Hang Ups/Screw Ups/Fuck Yous

2008-12-08T00:55:00.000-08:00

So at this time last year I was:

-Madly in love with a man without a future (or certainly, not one with me).
-Becoming vaguely interested in a man who was fun in the short term, but also had no long term future.
-Living in CZ and feeling distant...
-Fighting with Mum on a regular basis.
-Bitching my dad out for his lack of concern for his health and that his family loves him.
-Fearing that my father would die.
-Enjoying school/my major.
-Looking for an internship/business opportunities.
-Thinking people were honest, as a whole.
-Thought I already had life figured out.

Right now... at this time (December 8 2008) this year, I am:

-Still love that same man without a future. I deeply truly care about him, but things are different and I have learned. Perhaps I love the nostalgia or the memory, but either way it's different.
-Also interested in someone who was fun for the short term, but again, no long term foreseeable future.
-Living at CZ and feeling like part of a community.
-Fighting with Mum on a less frequent basis
-No longer bitching out my father, because even though he still lacks concern for his health I respect that it's his life.
-Realizing that my father is resilient and will persist (in some form or another) until the end of time. Also, waiting for my grandfather to die.
-Enjoying school less than before. Enjoying my major more.
-Have a job that I love to death even though it doesn't pay well.
-Thinking most people are very dishonest, especially in business and relationships
-Realizing that I will never have life figured out.

So essentially, not much has changed. I've learned less than one would think and nothing substantial has changed. Only small stuff.

But I guess in the greater scheme, it's all small stuff anyway.

Pathetic Xmas List

2008-11-14T01:56:00.000-08:00

So my mother and aunts do their christmas shopping insanely early. This evening they called me to ask what I wanted when they went shopping the day afterward.

I realize my list is pathetic, but this is what I said.

1. Cash
2. French Press
3. Williams Sonoma gift card
4. My best friend to be in the same state
5. A real man
6. A bottle of Stoli Gold or Johnny Walker green
7. Space for all my useless crap
8. Time to use said crap

Mom: "So you want money, booze, kitchen appliances or a boyfriend?"
Steph: "No, I did not say that. I said I wanted a man. No one in college has time for that anyway"
Mom: "Right, I'm going to pretend we didn't talk about that... so we don't have a Williams Sonoma nearby..."
Steph: "Online store Mom"
Mom: "Okay. Let me know if you want anything else."

I hope I get my Stoli Gold. That woudl be the best christmas gift ever. And Williams Sonoma is great for impractical things like monogramed waffle irons...

Change?

2008-11-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama is the new president. I ran in the streets last night with crowds of people, reveling in the idea of change that will be slow in coming. As throngs of people flooded Telegraph Ave, praising Obama with almost evangelical reverence, it occured to me that this is the greatest thing that could happen to the Republican party. Not only are they forced to restructure the GOP, but no man can accomplish everything Obama has promised.

One would have to be a combination of Jesus, Santa Clause and Superman to bring about all this "change"

But perhaps the times, they are a-changin'

Each Kiss a Kiss of Immediacy

2008-10-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

This morning, i was re-reading a chapter in a book titled "Einstein's Dreams" by Alan Lightman. The chapter titled "3 May 1905" begins the reader for my MC 102 class about Media Effects. Ever since the beginning of the semester, I have always wondered why this should be the first reading for the course that seems unrelated.

"Consider a world in which cause and effect are erratic. Sometimes the first precedes the second, sometimes the second the first. Or perhaps cause lies forever in the past while effect in the future, but future and past are entwined...

...In this acausal world scientists are helpless. Their predictions become postdictions. Their equations become justifications, their logic, illlogic. Scientists turn reckless and mutter like gamblers who cannot stop bettering. Scientists are buffoons not because they are rational but because the cosmos is irrational. Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world.

In this world, artists are joyous. Unpredictability is the life of their paintings, their music, their novels. They delight in events not forecasted, happenings without explanation, retrospective.

Most people have learned how to live in the moment. The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present there is no need to dwell on the past. And if the present has little effect on the future, present actions need not be weighted for their present consequences. Rather, each act is an island in time, to be judged on its own. Families comfort a dying uncle not because of a likely inheritance, but because he is loved at that moment. Employees are hired not because of their resumes, but because of their good sense in interviews. Clerks trampled by their bosses fight back at each insult, with no fear for their future. It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning, each touch has no past or no future, each kiss is a kiss of immediacy."

It occurs to me now that this passage starts the class to ask the question "what is cause and effect?" But the language of this passage is what I find so striking and so moving. If only it were possible to live in a world where past, present and future were all anachronistic anomalies that had no bearing on each other. But too often, we over-analyze our actions, think too much, and give too much weight to things that shouldn't matter.

Who actually lives in the moment? Who allows themselves to give into hedonistic pleasures of that instant because the future holds no consequences. Who allows themselves to be happy with their current situation because they manage not to dwell on an old lover, a lost friend, a dying father, and things that could have been different in the past. Who doesn't think too much about the message behind a smile, the meaning of an accidental touch, or what someone actually means when they say "I love you."

But perhaps only through incorporating past and future with present can we create something deeper than the actions. Only than can every word spoken encompass all future hopes and past regrets. Only then can every touch be ephemeral. Only with our fear of the future and feeble attempts to recapture the past can every kiss simultaneously encompass all beginnings and endings. Only then can one kiss--and touch--and speak as if the world should cease.

And each kiss shall be one of immediacy.

Of Light and Dark--Man and Woman--and Constant Separation

2008-08-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

The other night, we were driving home from the Clay Theatre and a midnight movie. As we drove back across the Bay Bridge, I looked to the left and right of our car to see the sodium luminescence of the Port of Oakland out one window and the black nothingness of the bay and El Cerrito/Richmond/Berkeley out the other. It was startling at first to see the stark contrast. The sky out one car window was enveloped in black nothingness as the sky at 2 am should be. The other side was the cloudy color of sulfur, mulled with the fog and salt air. The bay bridge appeared to be the dividing line between the two, keeping them almost completely separate.

This separation was a very poignant sentiment after watching Hedwig and the Angry Inch (the midnight movie we had seen that evening). I remembered the song "Origin of Love" and the point of the movie that humanity did not need its "other half" to feel complete or whole. In all, the point was that everyone should be at ease with oneself and be happy in that respect--that no one could complete us.

But driving across the bridge, I thought of the futility of that statement. Yes, man and woman and each individual is beautiful, and whole and complete and perfect in and of itself, but it is only with respect to its compliment that one recognizes the beauty and how fittingly they go together. Without the darkness as contrast, the muted yellow light of industrialization would have been lost and unappreciated. Without that light, one would not be able to see the beauty of the darkness, occasionally speckled by the lone lighted house in the evening dark.

I thought of this as the glow splashed through the car windows in stripes of light and dark caused by the shadows of the thick girders. I sat in repose as the alternating patterns of light and dark washed over my face-- different and complimentary--so close yet always completely separate.

Nostalgia of last summer.

2008-08-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I take the bus in the morning to work, I'm always astounded as we cross the bay bridge. I can never see the city as I'm walking down the hill from my house to the stop, but as we cross the bridge and go through the tunnel at treasure island, everything comes into clarity. It's clear in the East Bay and clear in the city, and almost as if the fog just sits on top of treasure island dividing the two very separate enviornments, keeping two very close cities from seeing each other.

My summer internship is almost over and it's time to go back to school. Everything feels different, but the same. I feel older, a little more mature, but not really wiser.

At this time in my life, I'm remembering a lot of the things that happened last summer. I've spoken with Simon many times this last week and all the memories and nostalgia keep flooding back. There were so many memories and so much time that had passed in between last summer and now. We talk, we remember, and miss each other more than either of us thought possible.

"I remember the first night we spent together," I told him. "I woke up the next morning and you weren't next to me because you'd gone downstairs to get water or something." But when you came back in the room and crawled back into bed with me, I pretended to be asleep just to see if you would wake me up."

"You looked too cute to wake up," he responded.

"Yes, you told me that the night before. I asked whether you'd wake me up and you said 'not if you look too cute' so I pretended to be asleep, just to see if you would."

"I think part of me was afraid that the last night would disappear if I woke you up... that you'd fade away and we wouldn't pick up where we had left off."

"But we did," I responded.

"I know... and now I would have no qualms about waking you up, even if you look too terribly beautiful."

And then he'd say he missed me, and we would sit in silence on the phone, each of us trapped in our memories.

Ah, memories.

Thoughts of Brett

2008-07-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

Jay and I talked the other day about our "what ifs" and the people we still thought about from time to time, wondering in a way that is most certainly unhealthy whether one can go back and retrace the past. She talked about her first love, her regrets and thoughts of contacting him again. She asked whether I had anyone like that... whether I'd ever thought about contacting Coby again and starting things afresh. I told her no. This is true.

She asked if there was anyone else like that in my life. Anyone who still invaded my thoughts from time to time. I told her yes, there were two people. One is Simon. He is current. We have never had a relationship, but it has never ended per se.

The other is Brett. Terrible stupid horrible Brett.

I wonder how he is and I hope for the best in his life whenever I think of him. I wonder whether he ever made anything of his music or his writing. I wonder whether he still works at that fish market for crap pay. I wonder if he's still optimistic about life-- whether he still believes in love and the universe holding you up when the world rests heavy upon your shoulders. I wonder whether he still remembers saying he would paint a picture of beauty that I should one day taste upon his lips.

I hadn't thought of him in a very long time until we discussed this, and now it's the only thing I can think about. I can't get him out of my head but at the same time, I don't want to. I want to talk to him again, if only for him to say that this is the last time we will ever talk. I think if I knew last November that we would not talk after that, then I would be able to move on and regain control of my life without these thoughts coming back to invade everything. I just want some fucking closure.

I want to see him but I know that's not smart. I don't know what I want.

Brett, I know you don't read this anymore, but if you do...

Another trip around the sun.

2008-07-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

My birthday passed about one week ago, on the 11th. It was the end of my teenage years and my emergence into supposedly real adulthood (though I couldn't feel less like an adult). In reality though, my teenage years ended last year, on my 19th birthday. For on that birthday, I was really entering my 20th year of life. I have now entered my 21st year of life and the thought is still just as frightening. What have I done to change myself or the world for the better? What contributions have my made to society? Has this been just another wasted trip around the sun?

I went to dinner with the people who have had the greatest impact on my life this last year. I look Josh, Jay, Sonni and Danielle to dinner at an amazing restaurant called Kokkari. My girls have been with me for the last year, though thick and thin. They listened with the Simon issues and have been there through good and bad. All my life I've never easily made female friends. I was always one of the guys. But though I do still think that guys are easier to talk to in general and make faster friends when they're not primarily concerned with sex, your girlfriends are indispensable when you actually find them. Whenever I watched shows like Sex and the City, I always wondered how female friendships could be that deep, trusting and important. I suppose until now I've never had those deep, amazing important female friendships.

And Josh, he changed my life enormously. We might not have had a real relationship and what we did have may have only lasted a short while, being involved with him let me realize that Simon and Brett aren't the only men in my life, aren't my only chance at love or happiness. I didn't love Josh, though I'm sure I could have given time and a willingness to do so. But I did like him a great deal, and that proved to me that there are many fish in the sea, there are many opportunities, and it is possible to be happy with someone else. He was also a very welcome change from the horrible brooding artist types I'd been with before. What a welcome change to date a manly man who was fun and where things were simple.

I guess life has changed a lot in the last year. I guess it wasn't just another trip around the sun.

On Bittersweet Mixes

2008-07-03T00:48:00.001-07:00

Everyone who is truly important in my life will, at some point, receive a mixed CD. Everyone who has encountered hardships with me will receive a CD with the subtitle "The Bittersweet Mix with a Happy Ending". The titles will be different, as will the songs. But everyone will receive a bittersweet mix if we have been through both good and bad times together.

I first received The Bittersweet Mix about three years ago from my first boyfriend in high school. It began with "Highwayman" as sung by Loreena McKennitt and ended with "Medication" by Queens of the Stone Age. I have since then compiled bittersweet mixes for various people in my life. Some remain lodged in the recesses of my computer, yet to be given away. Others reside in my head. The first, and only bittersweet mix that has ever found its way into the hands of its rightful owner was titled "Like Smoke and Mirrors" and began with "House of Smoke and Mirrors" by Matthew Good (as it was his favorite song). That title epitomized our relationship: ethereal and in essence, something illusory. It came into its transitory being quite quickly and without explanation, and ended just as quickly... It ended as a stain of breath fades from a mirror, or the dew dissipates at mid morning.

We no longer speak for many reasons that I do not want to get into at the moment... but I am presently in the process of creating a new Bittersweet Mix.

I realized that every time I create a bittersweet mix, I instinctively put the same 7 songs on my iTunes playlist in the same order, ever time. I usually delete most of the songs afterward when it occurs to me "Beatles are overdone" or "They fucking hate Tool" but these are always the initial songs. These songs are:

1. "The Highwayman" -Loreena McKennitt
2. "The Trapeze Swinger" -Iron and Wine
3. "Eleanor Rigby" -The Beatles
4. "10000 Days" -Tool
5. "Change of Seasons" -Matthew Good
6. "Mad World" -Gary Jules (the version from Donnie Darko)
7. "Such Great Heights" -The Postal Service

1. Have you ever read the poem by Alfred Noyes? It's fucking depressing as anything. It was also my first bittersweet mix song, so it holds a special place.

2. I used to put "Love and Some Verses" by Iron and Wine instead because that was "our song" no matter how cheesy that sounds. It was one of the songs on the first Bittersweet mix I made... It has since been replaced by "Trapeze Swinger" because I now associate the song with the film "Wings of Desire" and the saline rivers flooding down my cheeks when listening to this song performed in concert. The last verse especially...
Please, remember me
Finally
And all my uphill clawing
My dear
But if i make
The pearly gates
Do my best to make a drawing
Of G-d and Lucifer
A boy and girl
An angel kissin on a sinner
A monkey and a man
A marching band
All around the frightened trapeze swingers

3. It's Eleanor Rigby. It's sad. It was also on my first Bittersweet Mix. It has always been one of my favorite songs.

4. 10000 Days was always Phil's song. I was never that close to him... I have specific memories of him (one in particular was him telling me that I could do so much better than the guy I was currently dating, who happened to be one of his best friends). I suppose this song resonates because I remember how much his death impacted everyone around me. I think of how most people didn't really give a shit until he died, and then everyone pretended like they cared the entire time. But isn't that always the case?

5. "Change of Seasons" was the closing song for the first Bittersweet mix I made. Again, it encompassed the relationship with that specific person and how much shit he'd put me through.
I feel like I'm losing for money
I feel like I'm losing for free
I feel older than the dead angel on my shoulder claims to be

I feel like we're drinking and driving
I feel like we're running into walls
I feel like swimming in your apathy as a kind of parody
For miles and miles, miles

I feel like somebody's missing
I feel like somebody's missing
I think somebody's missing
Feel like we're drinking and driving and running into walls and feeling old... Fucking Brett...

6. I remember the first time I ever watched Donnie Darko was sophomore year of high school when I was going through an exceptionally difficult time. I know it sounds angsty and emo and shit, but the line "The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had" really resonated with me at the time. They still hold some place for me... some power and truth. Is that strange?

7. Such Great Heights was "our song" again, but with a different person this time. It's both happy and sad. it brings back wonderful and terrible memories at the same time.

But most of these songs never make it onto a bittersweet mix... They hold too much power, they are too true, and they expose too much of myself.

On John Cusack Films and my Future Career as an Anecdotal Essay-ist

2008-06-28T21:50:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I had a career as an Anecdotal Essay-ist, like David Sedaris or something. Write books about what I know best (my life) and get paid for it and have lots of fans. The only problem is, my life isn't nearly interesting enough for that. In order to be a David Sedaris or Chuck Klosterman or someone, some really fucked up shit has to happen to you so that people want to read about it? Do I want to go through all that shit before I can become rich and famous for anecdotal essays? I think not?

But I thought this one was pretty good, so I'll share with you. I wrote this one a couple weeks ago, after having a day where I watched High Fidelity, Say Anything and Grosse Point Blank all in one sitting.

On Other John Cusack Films

"Where are all the good men dead?" Minnie Driver asked from her DJ booth upon seeing John Cusack for the first time in 10 years. "Where are all the good men dead? In the heart, or in the head?" Until today, I have never thought about this line from Grosse Point Blank with any real analytical reasoning. But when I watched this film it made me think about all the men in my life and whether any of them have ever been completely whole. Where have all my men been dead, in the heart or in the head?

I like to think of myself as somewhat of an intellectual person, so I can only ever be with intelligent men. It doesn't have to be scholastic intelligence, but still intelligence nevertheless. For the most part, they have to be smarter than me to allow me to play the part of the brainless housewife. We have to be able to talk about books or economics or philosophy or music or any number of things and I appreciate it when they are more knowledgeable and always have something to teach me about those different subjects. I know my inner feminist should hate the idea of being below any man, but I like to let myself play into those pretty dresses, pearl necklaces and subservient fantasies. I want to be treated equally and with respect, but I want to feel like I need a man to stimulate my intellectual curiosity, otherwise they will never make it more than 10 minutes into a first date before I mentally peace the hell out. I need someone to challenge my wit. I need an inspiration to constantly improve myself so they can't be anywhere near dead in the head.

Now as for the later choice, are the good men dead in the heart instead? I can deal with people who are dead in the heart, who are emotionless hollow shells that are insensitive and incapable of caring for other human beings. In all honesty, I probably am one of those people who are closer to dead in the heart, who can't feel or pretend they can't because it's easier that way. Being cold allows me to be more productive, more focused on my goals and not as easily hurt, but I would never want to be romantically involved with someone who was dead in the heart (though I have, and most likely will again). I want the best of both worlds: the intellectually challenging person who can still feel and talk about their emotional lives while having a caring, connected relationship. I want someone to love me in the "holding a boom box over your head from Say Anything" sort of way (and if you haven't seen that movie, I highly recommend it). I want a lot of things.

So is there such a thing as a person who is completely whole? Can there be someone who is live and vibrant in both heart and head?

Yes, but then they are probably impotent.

More essays to come in the future, most likely.

Telescoping Memories.

2008-06-22T10:49:00.001-07:00

Last night was the Death Cab concert. I went, I listened, I reveled, I remembered.

The last song they played before the encore was "Sound of Settling" which caused me to dance a bit as it is a more upbeat song. Toward the end of the song, the spotlights came on me in such way that they illuminated my right forearm with the big nasty burn from cooking on memorial day weekend. But more than that, I noticed one tiny, minuscule freckle on my forearm. And then in that instant I started to remember, and I would have given anything for Walla to play "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service, since that is his band too.

"I am thinking it's a sign that the freckles
In our eyes are mirror images and when
We kiss they're perfectly aligned"

And in their encore they played "Title and Registration" and I remembered the first time I ever heard that song: on a melancholy mixed CD from I guy I barely knew at the time and know even less of now. It was called "Infinity at Sunset." Sometimes I wonder how he is. Sometimes I muse "what if" too but never with any real ambition

And sometimes I associate the song so strongly with the music video, the surgery video where his heart is black and everything is broken, but then they replace his heart with a new one and everything goes all twinkly.

Anyway, everything sort of hit home with Transatlanticism. All my memories started collapsing in on each other, telescoping into simultaneity as one remembers a drug trip. There was no chronology, but the last 4 years of my life seemed to happen in the same instant. I remembered the men I'd loved, the men who loved me, the men I cared for but not to that extent, and the men who I pretend I care nothing for, but who must still mean so much to me otherwise I wouldn't be thinking of them in this fashion.

And I remembered I loved them all as best as I knew how or as best as I was emotionally capable at the time, even if it wasn't love or anything similar to it in retrospect.

I thought about fireworks, Boston, freckles and the Postal Service, Naked As We Came by Iron and Wine, salsa dancing, Seattle, heavy days, Matthew Good, crepes, Cape Cod, picnics by the river, time zones, 3 Libras by APC (this is associated with 2 people surprisingly), Garden State, Winnipeg, High Fidelity, impromptu duets of "Nothing Better" by the Postal Service on windowsills, London, Golden Gate Park, the feeling of "home", slam poetry, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Sacramento second Saturdays, making love, rain, the rose garden, pure ecstasy, brunch and Tiesto.

I thought about the line "I shall paint a picture of beauty that you shall, one day, taste upon my lips." I thought about how I knew it was a line the moment I heard it, but it was a damn good line and I fell for it anyway.

I thought about looking into the sunset to "feel our full white optimistic dread, and each other"

I thought about old Smith's singles and singing oneself to sleep.

I thought of "Tarry not twice and think not thrice, But seize the day before it decay," and how it was too late for that to begin with anyway when that line was written.

I thought about the feeling of the world rippling around me in awesome waves of light, sound, energy as I "remember the words we used to speak" and I "fly to fight the force of gravity"

I thought about the fucking transatlantic.

"The Atlantic was born today and I'll tell you how...
The clouds above opened up and let it out.

I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
When the water filled every hole.
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
Making islands where no island should go.
Oh no.

Those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door have been silenced forever more.
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before
Oh no."

And all of these men, these memories telescoped in on each other. There was no differentiation between them, no chronology and no individual memories. They all became one nameless person who encompassed all my memories (the good, the bad, but memories nevertheless)

And I thought how I need you (that unspecific, generalized, all encompassing you) so much closer.

Josh and endings.

2008-06-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

It's funny how I only find myself writing in this in times of distress. When things are good, there's no need to pour your heart and soul onto an emotionless computer screen. There are other people who care. There are others you can talk to. There's no need for any of this anonymous bullshit. But when things are bad, ah they snowball and you end up with 3 or 4 weekly posts (see August 2007) because you have no other idea how to deal with it.

Josh ended things last night. I went home at 3am to sleep but couldn't go to bed. I just watched the sky get progressively lighter out my window. I have been up almost 36 hours now. I want to sleep. I want my eyes to stop hurting.

I've been writing my thoughts throughout the day in a yellow legal pad pilfered from the supply closet at work. I"ll recap them at some point.

I seem composed, but I'm really not. That's the great thing about computers. No one knows when you're about to fall to pieces.

ETD Pop

2008-05-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend I had the best day of my life and quite possibly the worst day of my life too.

No. I take that back. I have had far worse days than last night.

I went to Popsicle on Saturday evening and it was absolutely perfect. The lights, the sounds, the company, everything was utterly euphoric. I felt like I was floating. I felt like the world was spinning. I felt like nothing could possibly slow me down. And it all felt so fantastic.

I have no way to describe it other than it was intense, memorable and utterly fantastic.

Inequalities in Infatuation

2008-05-21T23:47:00.001-07:00

“It’s always better to marry someone who loves you more than you love them.” That is the line that strikes me from Sex and the City Season 1 Episode 9 even though that is the episode with the rabbit vibe and I should remember THAT fact more than one silly little line that amounts to nothing more than fickle little bitch romance.

It made me start thinking about settling and what it really means to be with someone. I’ve been in that position before, being with someone who obviously cared more for me than I did for them. Truth is, it’s easier than anything. You always know you have someone to count on and if you fuck up worse than anything, chances are they’ll likely take you back. I’ve been on both sides of this equation. I’ve taken back lying, cheating assholes from halfway around the fucking globe and I’ve been taken back. I’ve had my heart ripped out, thrown in a blender and smeared against the bathroom wall. Ashamedly, I know I have probably done the same thing.

So that brings me back to the initial question… “Is it actually better to be with someone who loves you more than you love them?” Is it better to know that you can never care as deeply about someone as they do about you? It’s easier, but I always feel like I’m cheating them when I do that. More than feeling like I’m settling, I feel like I’m not being fair, that they deserve better, and then I feel worse about myself because of it.

But then how does it feel when you’re on the other side of the equation? How does it feel to be the person who isn’t loved as equally? It hurts when the breakup arrives and hits you like a truck when you have no idea what’s happening, but perhaps it hurts more when you know it’s coming and you can’t make yourself get out fast enough. In this case, it’s not like being hit by a train, but like sinking in quicksand or having a terminal illness. You see it creeping up on you but you just can’t get out.

Time to forget about it. Time to watch a new episode. Time to sleep and start work and not have time to sit and think about little things like this. This is what happens when the semester ends. My mind wanders because it lacks anything to keep it occupied.

Time to go to work. Time to watch TV. Time to read, and time to stop fucking thinking.

Good Days

2008-05-14T23:43:00.000-07:00

I really hate spring semester finals. In the winter, I see no problem being inside the library all day studying. It feels normal or acceptable. But in the spring time, you want to be outside. The sun is warm, the sky is blue, and being inside with the heat and humidity makes you drowsy anyway.

Really, spring semester finals are no fun.

And even though I should be worried about finals, I'm not. I feel the warms of the sun or the warmth of the person next to me when I wake up in the morning and it really makes my day all the more wonderful because of it.

Today was a good day. tomorrow will be too.

Something to Believe In

2008-04-30T02:48:00.001-07:00

So as some of you may know (aka Jay) I've developed a rather bad habit of religiously reading craigslist missed connections. Sometimes, like today while I'm at work, I look at the casual romance, the strictly platonic, and sometimes the real personals seeking long term relationships, just to waste time. Most of the time, they provide quite a few laughs too

And today I became extremely sad after finding this post.

A Secret and Passionate Affair to Remember (berkeley)
I’ve been married long enough to know that I want to stay married and that I’ve got a pretty good thing. I’ve also been married long enough that we’ve become good roommates and stopped being lovers. I’d like a little more than a pretty good thing.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but I would love it if there were some woman out there who was in the same situation. Do you want to stay with your husband, but the sex is gone? Is your husband completely on autopilot and doesn’t care? You don’t want to leave, but you want more physically and/or emotionally?

I’m looking for someone to accept what I can provide and to provide what I desire. Physically, I miss kissing a woman. Not just kissing, but making out like a teenager. I’m very oral and would love to find a woman who also misses this. I miss kissing the mouth of a woman, feeling the warmth and softness of your lips, continuing down your neck and stomach, inhaling your scent, tasting the wetness between your thighs, and feeling you writhe and push yourself into my mouth.

I’m completely open on age and race. If you’ve been married long enough to be interested in my post, you probably no longer look like a Hollywood sex symbol. That’s OK. You may have had a kid or gained a little weight. There isn’t any such thing as perfection. I love real women’s bodies, not airbrushed fantasies. Tall, short, slender, full-figured, younger, older, there’s something I love about them all. I go to the gym a few times a week, but I don’t live there. I’ve been told I’m good looking, but I don’t expect to be on the cover of GQ any time soon.

As I say, maybe my desire is just wishful thinking and forever resigned to remain a fantasy. But if there are any women in the area who feel the same way, I’d love to hear from you. Given the discretion required by our situations, you don’t have to send me a picture. Besides, I’d rather you tell me about yourself and what you miss. If you read this far, why were you interested in my post?

I told a friend after reading it how sad it made me and he said, "Why is that sad? Isn't that how all marriages are?"

I think that probably made me more sad.

I may be cynical and jaded, but not to the point where I feel that all love has gone out of the world. I feel it is possible to be madly, passionately crazy for the same person after years of marriage. I want to be one of those disgusting old couples that still smooches on park benches at 60 years old and are still so madly in love after all that time. I want to actually have sex when I'm that age (though at 20 years old, the prospect of old people actually having sex is utterly repulsive in anything other than a theoretical sense)

I want to have hope in the world. I want to believe in the goodness of mankind. I want to believe in love that lasts forever.

Comfort in the Collective Isolation of Sinking Ships

2008-04-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

So today I watched the movie Once, which I haven't seen since it was released at the Crest Theatre last July.

I remember when I first watched that film, it was one of those life changing experiences. Moreso than Garden State or Everything is Illuminated or High Fidelity or any of those films correlate with life altering experiences.

This was nothing profound. It was a romance film, simply put. But it was a different kind of romance. There were these two people who had an instant connection. There was a spark of life. The instant knowledge of compatibility with an awkward almost physical occasion that degenerates into a somewhat painful friendship. Ah yes, I'm sure you all know that spark. I know that spark quite well.

The man in the movie is in love with another woman who screwed him over ten years prior. The woman has a husband back in the Czech Republic. Nothing gets crazy between the two of them. Kisses are never exchanged. Clothing is never removed. Yet you watch the film and hear the songs sung to one another and realize that this is so much more than some platonic friendship. This is the quintessence of life and the sort of person you have been searching for your entire life, but due to poor timing or circumstances or any other number of things, they forever remain some spurious starlight.

Of course, when you're going through that situation (as I was in July) you look way too much into that film. I remember there was a line in the song "Falling Slowly" (winner of this years Academy Award for best original song) that went like this:

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time

At the time, I could comprehend two potential meanings for this line. The first meaning was one in which the man was in a sinking relationship that they had to steer back to dry land so they could bail out before both people went under. The second interpretation was that loneliness was a sinking ship, and he had to take his boat home back to that one particular person who felt like home and a feeling of wholeness before it was too late.

I thought those things at the time because I was going through both simultaneously. I was in a relationship with one person while loving someone else. It's wrong, I know. I didn't want to love them, but I did. It happens sometimes.

Anyway, I listened to the soundtrack about ten times on repeat today and those songs brought back so many damn memories.

Are you really here or am I dreaming
I can’t tell dreams from truth
For it’s been so long since I have seen you
I can hardly remember your face anymore
When I get really lonely and the distance calls its only silence
I think of you smiling with pride in your eyes a lover that sighs

But mostly I listened to "Falling Slowly" several times and I realized how my interpretation of the song had changed over the last year.

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice
You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing along

In my mind, the first two lines no longer matter. The third and fourth lines says "You had a choice, you made it now." It doesn't matter if your relationship was a sinking ship and it doesn't matter if it was your loneliness. Hell, it doesn't matter whether you are singing this song from dry land or from the depths of the sea. You made the choice and what's done is done.

What really struck me was the "I'll sing along" part of the song. No matter what, there's always someone falling slowly with you. Whether you're on dry land and have fallen from your dreams of breaking away, or whether you're falling beneath the surface, we all fall down together. There's always someone falling with you in a collective isolation of sinking ships.

And for the first time, I feel there are no leaks in my life raft. I no longer fear distance from the shore. Whether there is someone else in my boat or I take this journey alone, I now go with the current towards open waters, no longer borne back ceaselessly into the past.

And we all fall slowly.

Running After Your Rights

2008-04-27T12:39:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I like to complain about my life, everyone does. But so often, I try and then think to myself, "What have I ever done that was at all difficult or challenging?" I haven't had any close family members die. I haven't suffered the strains of abject poverty. I always had food and shelter and the love of my parents. And right now, I'm going to an amazing school.

I think about this while writing a term paper about my family economic history. I think about one set of grandparents who picked peaches with migrant workers while they raised two infant children and learned English at night school, all the while saving up money to buy a house and start their American dream. I think about the other set to came here looking for the land of milk and honey, and found exactly that because even their very poor conditions here are about a hundred times better than their lives in the old country. Here they have a car. They have grocery stores. They have electricity and running water. Their children have families and jobs and opportunity. I suppose that's the American dream.

I think about their lives. I think about their stories and I think to myself "I will never have this type of story. I hope I never have these sort of stories."

The reason I hope to never have these stories: I don't think i would have the energy to chase after my rights and dreams if it really came down to it. The world has made me lazy. And sometimes life just makes me so tired.

Cinderella Stories Fuck Everyone Up

2008-04-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

One of my first memories from when I was five years old was finding a shoe box of yellow legal paper in my mom's closet. It was a mix of that, photographs, ticket stubs, dried flowers (or the remains of them) and a few other things. A box of memories I suppose, like I tend to keep now.

When I was older, I asked about that shoe box and she pulled everything out. All the yellow legal sheets were poems my father had written for her, good poems at that. There were pictures from picnics in the park, from family gatherings, from when they were young and my mother was thin and everyone was young in the late 70s. There was a yellow legal sheet with folds still in it of a paper airplane, and she told me he threw it to her on a group date with mutual friends, which was their seventh date-date and their first date with other people.

I'd always heard these stories all through my youth, of chivalry and crap that doesn't exist in real life. I remember when I was seven, for my birthday, my dad got me a bouquet of blue roses like he always used to give on first dates, like a real gentleman. They were white roses with the tips painted blue by the florist, with a card and pretty handwriting. I remember, even then, thinking, "This is what all men are like, right?"

Now I know it's weird and Freudian and fucked up to think those sort of things, but I still wonder, "Men are supposed to be gentlemen and take you on dates and do creative, inspired, meaningful things. They really are, at their core, those knights in shining armor. That's what all men are like, right?"

Right...?

...

And I heard these stories and watched disney movies and realized that Cinderella stories really fucked me up for the rest of my life. Not just Cinderella, but all Disney films... like in Beauty and the Beast when she stays with this beastly horrible man who mistreats her because she thinks she can "change him." Yeah... those sort of messages fuck you up... But c'est la vie I suppose. Real life isn't like that. Most men aren't chivalrous and honest and decent like that. At least, I haven't met any.

Well, 1 or 2, but they're so far away they don't do me any good. One doesn't even speak to me anymore because of his psychotic girlfriend who is convinced he still loves me (despite the fact that he lives 2000 miles away) and the other lives across the fucking ocean. Yeah, fat lot of good they both do me.

This slightly tipsy rant has been brought to you by Sky Vodka

Relationships, Allergies, Family, and parts of uncomfortable conversations

2008-03-23T23:14:00.000-07:00

A summation of Easter afternoon at Tie Jose's house.

Cat: "Steph! How are you? How's college?"
Me: "Pretty good. Working hard. Having fun... all that good stuff."
Cat: "Have you declared yet."
Tia Dulcina: "Declared what?"
Me: "Communications"
Tia Dulcina: "Ah so your pointless career path is finally set in stone."
Tia Clotild: "I'm sure it's not too late to change and go into something useful."
Me: "I'm just joking, I'd never major in something that pointless. I'm studying Astrophysics. Shall I tell you about it?"
3 Tias: "Um... *scatters to check on lunch and attend to guests*"

Crisis 1 averted. Why astrophysics is a scare tactic may be found in a blog post from last easter, or will be explained at a later date.

Tia Maria: "Did you see Christina's boyfriend, with the glasses and the green shirt."
Me: "Yeah, he was at Christmas too, right."
Tia Alcitia: "Speaking of boyfriends..."
Me *thinking* "God give me strength..."
Tia Maria: "Why don't we ever get to meet your boyfriends at these gatherings."
Me: "Because they're non-existent"
Tia Maria: "You've gained weight since last year."
Me: "Yeah... it happens. I'm working on it."
Tia Maria: "Maybe that's why they're non-existent."
Me: "...quite tactful of you..."
*pause*
Mom: "Steph, do you want anything to drink? Water? Soda?"
Me: "Scotch and soda please."
Mom: *disapproving face*
Me: "Mom, seriously. please."

Crisis 2 averted.

Rose: "So I'm moving in with John in a month. I've mostly been living there the last 6 months, but now it's finally official"
Julie: "That's great. I've also let Daniel back into the house. We're really going to try working things out this time."
Millie: "How did Tia Clotild take it when John told her you were moving in."
Rose: "Well, when he got her on the phone he said, "Guess what Mom, Rose is pregnant!" And she nearly had a heart attack, so when he said I was moving in, she was quite relieved and happy."
Me: "Walks into the room with a box of tissues as my allergies have just gotten quite bad."
Julie: "Speaking of relationships, Steph, why haven't we met any of your boyfriends?"
Me: "I am a large phlegmy ball of pollen-filled grossness. I'm going to take a nap."

Crisis 3 averted.

Tia Maria: "Are you a lesbian?"
Mom: "Who wants cake?"
Me: *eats*
Tia Maria: "I thought you said you were trying to lose weight to get a man... woman... whatever"
Me: *continues eating*

Crisis 4 averted.

In the car as we're going home.

Dad: "That was pretty smart...telling them that your boyfriend or whoever was non-existent."
Me: "But he really is non-existent"
Dad: "Please, I know you better than that. Might not have the title of 'boyfriend' but guy your fucking or guy you're emotionally attached to more than you should be or guy who is oh so much more than a friend... whatever you want to call him.. it's probably best you didn't mention him. Would have just brought up a lot more questions."
Me: "You're smart. You know that?"
Dad: "Unlike most adults, I never grew out of my teenage phase..."
Me: *laughs*
Dad: "Whoever this guy is... he treats you well, right?:
Me: "Yeah... he's a nice guy. Right now I'm happy."
Dad: "Good. Would some some Benadryl, lots of rest, and vitamin C make you happier?"
Me: "Gods yes."

"Great... You're picturing me naked...."

2008-03-08T20:33:00.000-08:00

In Mass Comm 101 we are discussing Freudian psychoanalysis as applied to film. In doing this, we must discuss sex! Lots and lots of sex!

"We take our most primal sexual or violent desires and passions and suppress them," Professor Levina stated in explanation of our Id. As she said this, she pushed on the air toward the floor, symbolic of pushing down our sexual desires. "We suppress them and they emerge in our conscious life in a more socially acceptable way. That's what happens when you eat a pint of ice cream for no apparent reason, or go to the gym excessively, chew on your pens, bite your nails, twirl your hair, et cetera."

As she says, this, everyone in the rows in front of me or to the sides of me who have been displaying these habits (nail biting and pen chewing mostly) instantly stops. They all realize what they've been doing, and for the rest of class, I watch them struggle with their little habits that are symbols of sexual tension. Every time they start, it happens for five seconds or so before they remember what it means and they consciously make an effort to cease.

"It's rather amusing actually, the way these things manifest. You, for instance," she says pointing to a girl eating a bowl of soup, "you could want to scoop his eyes out with a spoon. Or you," she says, pointing to me and the guy sitting next to me, "you could want to jump each others' bones in the middle of class, but you don't because that's not the socially acceptable thing to do in public."

I put my head in my hands as everyone giggles. How embarrassing. I sideways glance toward the guy sitting next to me, and I catch him staring at me after this sort of comment. "Great," I think to myself, "you're picturing me naked. That's just great."

Class continues with less activity and embarrassing anecdotes. At the end of it, the guy sitting next to me tries to strike up conversation and ask me out for a cup of coffee.

"I'm sorry, I can't," I respond. "You're attractive and are probably a very nice guy, but I simply can't after that sort of comment."

Right to Social Welfare (Or Lack Thereof)

2008-03-04T16:51:00.001-08:00

Today I was volunteered by the professor in my Anthro 189.3 class to share a short, one page reading response paper to views presented in an article we had read the night before regarding the rights of all individuals to social citizenship (a basic minimum standard of living).

"Do you want to share?"' Prof Holston asked.

"No..." I responded meekly, but began to read my paper anyway.

In one short page, I launch into a well written tirade criticizing one line in the article in which the author gave an anecdote about how, in the 1970s, access to welfare was justified as a "new form of property" and restriction to welfare was constituted as in violations of one's CIVIL RIGHTS (those being the right to life, liberty, and property). This means, in short, that unemployment benefits, food stamps, etc were now considered a PROTECTED source of income to which all individuals were entitled even if their reason for not having a real job was simply laziness or lack of ambition.

If you can't tell by now, this viewpoint really irked me.

So I share my views. I realize the views I hold are dogmatic, but I find it much more beneficial for the well being of individuals that parents inculcate in their children not values of equality and rights to specific social programs, but the values of hard work, frugality, and appreciation for PRIVILEGES that are NEVER guaranteed.

I am not saying, however, that there should be no programs of social aid. I feel that such programs should exist for times of extreme hardship or unexpected circumstance, but they should not be justified rights that compel individuals to sink into a lifestyle befitting social leeches. In this, social services should be available in such a way that is both humiliating and motivating--to inspire ambitious individuals from their present lifestyles into ones of respectability. And those who are unable to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" in accordance with the Horatio Alger myth (I am, for this purpose, allowing for TEMPORARY public assistance) then those individuals were never meant to succeed in the first place.

"What about the right to education?" you may ask."Shouldn't all individuals have a chance to succeed in schools and go onto college despite the institutionalized racism in higher education?"

I may be cynical, but the world needs mechanics, janitors, and McDonalds workers. If EVERYONE went to university, we would inflate the worth of a Bachelors degree even more than it currently is (because you really shouldn't need a BA to be a fucking secretary).

That being said, I know you all probably hate my guts right now (just like all those damn Public Policy/Social Welfare majors in my class did) but I will leave you with one last comment. Anyone who believes that it is possible for all individuals to start out with the same resources in life--the same basic starting line-- is delusional. The United States possesses the scant skeletal structure of social citizenship, and if that is unsatisfactory for how most desire to live (which it should be) then that should inspire the individual surpass expectation of gender, race or creed to attain tools of personal and material betterment. Yes, some individuals have more disadvantages than others, but this does not mean one should expect charity in retribution for the life one has simply been dealt. Simply put, life isn't fair, and to accept charity of social citizenship for retribution of prior wrongs on the basis of race, creed or gender solidifies one into that social stratification as individuals willingly interpolate themselves into the ideology that they are, in fact, inferior based on those criteria.

I must close by stating that in the end, starting with severe disadvantages and ending in a respectable middle is all the more satisfying than being perpetually aided to that position without personal effort.

Just a Frightened Trapeze Swinger...

2008-02-22T12:05:00.000-08:00

After watching Wings of Desire the other day, the song "Trapeze Swinger" has so much more meaning. Watch Wings of Desire. Revel in a film that is in German, French and English. Love the fact that it's monochromatic and technicolor when we see the "real world"... being the one not viewed by the angels, but the one actually lived. Listen to that song ten times over.

Please, remember me
Finally
And all my uphill clawing
My dear
But if i make
The pearly gates
Do my best to make a drawing
Of God and Lucifer
A boy and girl
An angel kissin on a sinner
A monkey and a man
A marching band
All around the frightened trapeze swingers

Tarry Not Twice, And Think Not Thrice

2008-02-13T19:56:00.000-08:00

"Who here knows that the upcoming Valentines Day is nothing but a ploy by corporate America and greeting card companies to make money on worthless crap?" Professor Levina asked in MC 101 Lecture on Tuesday.

Everyone in class raises his or her hand.

"Now who here, knowing that it's just the lie we've been fed and the ideology of corporate America, still wants flowers or chocolates or long winded love monologues like on Grey's Anatomy?"

All the girls, and some of the guys, raise their hands.

"See children, we know it's nothing more than an ideology, a false consciousness as Marx would have said, and a lie as most of us would bluntly state. But oh, it is a very pretty lie."

...

I received a bouquet of roses today as an early valentines day gift (first time in my life I've ever gotten flowers) from a relationship I thought was long over. It made me smile, and flush, and open and close my mouth several times without words. And I must admit, it sort of made me mentally vomit a little... but I suppose that mental vomit is a good marker of sentiment associated with a corporate holiday. But then, the card read:

A tiny, transitory moment,
A maxim in the flesh
For all which is, is but bound to fade
So tarry not twice, and think not thrice
But seize the day before it decay.

And though my mind would normally race in circles after something like this, I decided to think not trice and simply enjoy the looks I got while I embarrassingly searched the kitchen for a vase.

And there is always time to think more tomorrow

Baking Problems.

2008-02-09T13:24:00.000-08:00

I'm so mad that Hobart killed my bread this morning. The bowl fell out of the mixing stand and about half the liquid ingredients spilled on the floor. I then had to eyeball the entire thing and hope i got the ratio at least somewhat correct. Fucking pissed me off so much. you have no idea. Then I find out from my mother, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you it was half powdered sugar and half regular sugar, otherwise if you use only regular sugar, it will be too dense and not rise properly."

Thanks Mom. Thanks.

Had to make a whole tray of shortbread cookies later to make myself feel better about the situation, and even those didn't come out how I wanted because we only had brown sugar, not regular sugar to go along with it.

Fuckin' A.

On the plus side, I found a great recipe for chocolate gingernut cookies, so if I'm still upset later I may make those.

Oh Alcohol I Still Drink to Your Health

2008-02-01T20:22:00.000-08:00

I am still missing a 20 minute segment of my life from last night. I know there was alcohol. I know I was bar tending, and I know there was a point when I'd lost motor coordination and taste, so I ended up making myself a triple vodka cranberry by accident, after shots and margaritas and other such things. There was a point when I called my ex, may or may not have kissed a different ex, saw Dwight naked, and argued with my best friend about the necessity of wearing pants.

Ah the joys of life's little vices.

Alcohol, my permanent accessory
Alcohol, a party-time necessity
Alchool, alternative to feeling like yourself
O alcohol, I still drink to your health

I love you more than I did the week before
I discovered alcohol

Forget the caffe latte, screw the raspberry iced tea
A malibu and coke for you, a g&t for me
Alcohol, your songs resolve like
My life never will
When someone else is picking up the bill

I love you more than I did the week before
I discovered alcohol
O alcohol, would you please forgive me?
For while I cannot love myself
Ill use something else

I thought that alcohol was just for those with
Nothing else to do
I thought that drinking just to get drunk
Was a waste of precious booze
But now I know that theres a time
And theres a place where I can choose
To walk the fine line between
Self-control and self-abuse

I love you more than I did the week before
I discovered alcohol
Would you please ignore that you
Found me on the floor
Trying on your camisole?
O alcohol, would you please forgive me?
For while I cannot love myself
Ill use something else.
-Barenaked Ladies

"Bathed in Blood and Oil" (a film review of There Will Be Blood)

2008-01-30T01:04:00.000-08:00

Excavated from Upton Sinclair's novel, Oil, Paul Thomas Anderson's new film, There Will Be Blood, recounts an epic tale of self-indulgence set against the backdrop of the Southern California oil boom in the early 20th century. It begins in the bleak, wordless setting of unknown location in 1898 when we encounter Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) mining fruitlessly in the desert before his slow descent into greed, corruption, and the business of oil.

Over the following two and a half hours, Plainview strikes oil, strikes it rich, and falls to the clutches of greed and envy in a plot that is outlines secular joys juxtaposed against the evangelical nature of biblical proportions. Much of the film takes place in 1911, after Plainview has already made a name for himself as a rich prospector of petroleum. When he enters the town of Little Boston, where much of the film takes place, he is sought for his compassion and willingness to lease land from individuals who possess so little (not even enough water to grow corn or wheat). Yet this benevolent disguise camouflages the greedy capitalism within and Plainview’s singular desire to deceive this unknowing town into selling him the rich ocean of oil upon which they stand.

Plainview’s intentions, however, do not go uncontested. The town preacher, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) acts as obviously evangelical opposition to Plainview’s worldly sins, thereby expertly concealing his own selfish intentions and his identity as another serpent in the desert. What should be the obvious interplay between worldly and spiritual, sin and righteousness, and ultimately good and evil, remains in perpetual flux due to both the heartfelt sentiments of Day-Lewis’ characters with his son and Dano’s horrific actions conducted in the name of God and Christian salvation. The breadth of similarities between these two distinct, supposedly antithetical characters adequately displays the depth and complexity that mines the central morality and malevolence of all humanity.

In most cases, this dichotomy alone would not be enough to produce fully fleshed-out characters all too relatable to one’s own life. In this case, it is the tangle of intertwining relationships (fathers and sons, sets of brothers) and the interactions between them that ultimately produce a jarring image of trust, deception and sheer realism. Plainview’s son gives a semblance of heart and respectability to an otherwise soulless character (for a time being) and although the bonds of kinship and brotherhood exist, we understand with stark clarity that the bonds of blood are, in fact, not thicker than oil or self-interest.

As a whole, There Will Be Blood evokes a restless feeling of unease through the use of grandiose spectacle with thematic realism that could easily have be plucked from the forgotten (or silently ignored) dark decades of American History. More than once, Plainview bathes his hands in oil, christening his son with the liquid gold and symbolism of his greed. That same oil later erupts from the ground as an inexhaustible geyser of fire that billows into the sky as boundless black smoke. With this display of cinematic brilliance, Plainview purposefully observes the awesome destruction over which he believes he has control. The ever-present force of oil reflects and distorts the image of reality through the entire film, yet permanent black stains of greed fail to wash the literal and figurative blood from Plainview’s hands.

Although brilliantly acted and eerily beautiful, I must warn you not to bring children or the squeamish to this film (for, as the title warns, there will be blood).

Like This Mist Resembles Rain

2008-01-25T23:18:00.000-08:00

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain...
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tonight I spent several moments on the roof my house, feeling the rain wash over me in waves as it reached through my skin and moved me from within. Felt the cold water through hair, over my bare arms, and on my lips and eyelids pale. Knew how poetic it would sound describing the rain mixing with my crystalline tears as I splashed mournfully among the puddles...if I'd been able to cry at the time. And I felt the rain in my cells and thought of home.

"How often have I lain beneath the rain on this strange roof, thinking of home" -William Faulkner from As I Lay Dying

Standing on the strange roof of a place I call home, thinking of a home I've never been, and a life I've never led. I thought of mights and maybes, of every unvoiced inhibition I currently possessed as my cells filled with the rain, and the toxicity of this week expelled itself from my body by sheer osmosis. And yet I still knew those pains were comparable to mist and rain as catharsis encompassed in the stillness of remembering what I had. And I saw a lightning flash, a heard a thunder crash, and realized that thunder only happens when it's raining--that players only love you when they're playing--and that even when the rain washes clean your soul, you're still left standing in the cold.

But then, once again, you think of Longfellow.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

And when the rain washes you clean, you know.

Blog-iversary

2008-01-16T00:16:00.000-08:00

It is the one year anniversary of starting this blog. In that time, the following labels have appeared at the conclusion of my various posts the given number of times

Sex: 5
Memories: 5
Loneliness: 5

Nostalgia: 6
Home: 6
Family: 6
Friends: 6
Pain: 6
College: 7
Past: 7
Life: 8
Relationships: 11

and last of all....

Love: 13.

13 emo-tastic posts about love and the different ways individuals relate to one another. I hope that in this year, I can indulge in less of that self pity bullshit.

But before I do that, I came across a post entitled, "Defining Nostalgia" from October. In this post, I look at all sorts of quotes that have impacted my life in the past, but couldn't find one from a book titled "Killing Yourself to Live". Well, I finally bought that book and found that quote.

I hug her for the next seven hours on a very small bed, each of us facing the same wall. I kiss her neck for maybe 15 minutes, and she falls asleep halfway through. Clothing is never removed. Nobody gets crazy. Tomorrow, I will take a shower and leave before her digital clock reads 9:05 A.M. We will exchange cordial good-byes. Later that day, Lenore will send me the nicest e-mail I've ever received from anyone, and reading it will make me want to hide in a cave for 10,000 years. It will make me feel like I am reading Lenore's obituary in the newspaper. I will send her an e-mail in return, and I will pray that she finds endless happiness in life, and I will always secretly hope that she never likes another man as much as she likes me, even if she ultimately loves that man more. And we will never see each other again.

It doesn't sound like how I remembered. It doesn't have as much of a startling impact as it did when I first read the book, but now that sentiment resounds with permanence. I have experienced that sort of feeling now, in the four years since I first read this book. It seemed so unbelievable in the past, but now it echoes with pathetic clarity.

But, if anything, that's life. Just crawling in a cave for 10,000 years and never seeing each other again despite assurances that people will.

Free Love, Free Markets

2008-01-06T18:51:00.002-08:00

Last night, I had a dream that I fucked a man on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly before the day closed. I was wearing nothing more than a black blazer, pearl necklace and high heels. We were engaged in insider trading, as he was whispering stock tips in one ear, and I had my blackberry against the other, shouting instructions to my broker in between orgasmic screams. It was the most kinky, weird, exciting sexual fantasy I've ever had. Very high energy.

But I don't trade stocks. I don't even own a blackberry. But this makes me think I should.

Or I should at least date a stockbroker/financial consultant.

Adam Smith was probably a sexy sexy beast back in the day.

~~~

Still on the topic of free markets, Romney et al did not spend nearly enough time discussing the economy in the NH Republican debate. I expected more on that topic from the Republicans since that's really all they can talk about a large portion of the time. Instead, much of the debate was spent bashing McCain for his absolution immigration policies (though he did get in his fair share of rather amusing jabs at Romney's expense).

I know I shouldn't think so since I'm from California and am supposed to be a Democrat and support Obama or something, but Mitt Romney is extremely sexy. He doesn't come close to JFK, but he definately rivals Bill Clinton... and he was a consultant. More than that, his policies make the most sense and are the most grounded of all candidates (in terms of immigration, creating affordably yet still privatized health coverage for all, and the elimination of the death tax; however, his ideas about troop surge, increasing military spending to 4% of the GDP, overturning Roe v Wade and his opposition to both gay marriage AND civil unions will prevent me from voting for him come November).

Some may criticize him for having "no solid principles and flip flopping" but he learned what the public wanted after the Iowa debates when voters supported Obama's message of change, and Romney changed in suit... just like a good businessman should.

Oh the joys of capitalism: encompassing every aspect of life.

The New Year

2008-01-04T01:08:00.000-08:00

In 2006 I wrote a poem pretaining to the New Year (2007) and my hopes for it. Seeing as it is now 2008, I looked back on that poem on New Years Day and laughed at how much I'd changed. Why was this person in the poem so important to me at that time? Who has entered and left my life in the course of a year? What the hell really matters.

As each year passes, you really get some fucking perspective. But perhaps next year, I'll look back on this post and laugh. I'll laugh at the men with whom I will be involved. I'll laugh at the love and lies and boyfriends and boytoys and mistakes and completely right things that will tear my soul apart. I've experienced them all, and all of them are 100% worth it when they happen and make quite amusing stories after the fact.

So I don't really laugh at my poem of 2006. I look at what once was, and I smile to have moved on from that stage.

The New Year

Last year, as the ball dropped
And the lights from the Christmas tree
(Already out of date) twinkled in the corner,
I told you:
“I don’t want to start the year with you
Unless I can end it with you.”
But you did not hear me.
The deafening sound of laugher
And champagne corks twisted through the air
In an updraft of euphoria.

Within seconds, every life began anew:
Assured that this year, things would be different
(No more mistakes. No more regrets.
No more missed opportunities)
In our procession ‘round the sun.
With confetti falling like snow
And our comrades’ drunken rendition
Of “Auld Lang Syne”, you kissed me. And,
With lips upon lips, (hips against hips)

You begged the world to cease
(If only for a moment)
To ease this feeling of vertigo
Caused by the champagne and bullshit
Of the old year, now behind us.
But our velocity was terminal
(As we should have known)
For nothing so good persists so long.

This year is different, as we knew it would be.
There is still champagne, still a Christmas tree,
And still our friends of ages past.
And we are both still here,
Though not in the same state as before.
We still talk, still laugh,
Still reminisce about times gone by

In accordance with tradition.
And soon, people are counting down the seconds
To another set of second chances.
And you kiss her. And I kiss him.
(Which means nothing to anyone concerned)
And then they kiss each other, (with feeling!)

Expecting us to do the same.
Only smiles linger
And instead of a kiss, you pull me close
In an embrace that encompasses
The apex of a maelstrom.

You held me there, your hands upon my waist,
My head upon your chest,
And your face buried in my hair-
Drinking in the intoxicating scent of strawberries

Like you always did before.
And within this familiarity--this comfort
That weighs upon us as a heavy tome,

We are paralyzed with indecision.
For things were so much easier with

Lips upon lips (hips against hips)

December 23rd 2006

2007 Best Of

2007-12-29T23:40:00.000-08:00

That's right! With the year drawing to a close, it's time for my 2007 Best of List. Everything from pop culture to relationships as it relates to my life (because I'm conceited like that).

Best Book:
Honestly, I don't read books the year they're released. I go for the old used paperbacks that obviously need a home. Therefore, the only new book I read this year that was actually published in 2007 was Dave Eggers' "What is the What" (which, though I love Eggers wasn't even that good seeing as it dragged horribly for the first 250 pages). Best book I read of 2007 (though it wasn't published in 2007) was probably "Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro or Faulkner's "Light in August" and those are by far, not at all current.

Best Film
In my mind, this category is a close tie between "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", "Wind that Shakes the Barley" and of course "Grindhouse". All are amazing, though for different reasons. See them all, for their amazing use of camera techniques, historical content, and gratuitous violence

Best Song
"Teardrop" by Jose Gonzalez was the song of 2007 that affected me most off the album "Veneer"

Best Album
Iron and Wine "Shepherd's Dog" because it excels in instrumentation, lyrics, and an overarching concept. I feel the other best albums of 2007 were the Daft Punk Alive album (for obvious reasons), or Sunset Rubdown's "Random Spirit Lover" (mostly because Wolf Parade hasn't released anything in ages)

Best New Television Series
No contest. "Flight of the Conchords"

I would normally have a "Best Restaurant to Open" section, but the only thing I can remember from 2007 was the opening of the attrocious "Tex Wasabi" as a Texas-Japanese fusion restaurant that opened in Sacramento California. BBQ sauce on your sashimi? Oh yeah yum yum....

Best New Nightclub/Lounge
Features a winner from the Lounge category this time. "Parlare" at 1009 10th Street in Sacramento CA wins. http://www.parlarelounge.com/

Best First Date:
Golden Gate Park on July 29th with individual who won't be named. Though, if that does not count as a date, then a close second in the Berkeley rose garden in mid May (also, names are on a need to know basis).

Best Day Out:
SF with Daniel, Shane, Andy, Bob and Allison in September 2007

Best Night Out:
Smashing Pumpkins Concert...

Best Night In:
CZ Underground Rave Dec 10th

Best Laugh:
That would be strip Never Have I Ever at the bonfire...

Best Lie Told:
"Don't worry Mum... he's like a brother to me."

I'll mention my "private categories" here because honestly, I don't think anyone really reads this blog that would judge, or know the people concerned.

Best Kiss:
No doubt my first kiss with Simon, about two hours after seeing him on his visit to SF this summer. It was our first kiss ever... soft yet intensely passionate after 2 years of somewhat wondering "what if" and a month of intensely wondering "what if". And what makes this better... my best lie relates to him.

Best Fuck:
Chris. Certainly, but probably for the fact that he was the most experienced out of the total of... 3 individuals (only 2 of whom were during 2007). But, perhaps i'll experience someone better in 2008.

And anything more personal than this is just too personal...

Hope you too had a great 2007

Skeletons and Family Coat Closets

2007-12-27T20:37:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmas is over as of Tuesday evening. Having had two days of reflection, I can safely say that after 7 years of hating my parents, hanging out with my family has suddenly become cool and fun again. This is quite fascinating.

And then I visit my extended family and drink until standing is no longer an option. We gossip, I ward off questions about my love life, I eat cheesecake, we discuss Julie's potential divorce, the fight between Paul and Cathy at thanksgiving, Tina's move to Houston TX, Carlos' lung cancer, and a slew of other things.

And I drink more.

But this year, we also learned about a ton of skeletons in the closet on my Dad's side of the family, the boring side that doesn't discuss personal issues with anyone. One of the most interesting things was about my Uncle John and his wife Maria (not actually married, but they've been living together for 20 years and she's 12 years older than him). Well, they always told everyone they met as co-workers, but she was actually his boss and had him doing chores around her house like a houseboy/boytoy sort of thing. Also, my other uncle is having his fiancee's family over for New Years, thereby inflicting bastard/indigent children, imprisoned siblings, and gold diggers upon our otherwise quite family, thereby removing himself from my grandparents' will (at least, he will be after that day). I love that my family is so much more interesting now.

Ah the joys of the holiday season. I'm glad for this horrible holiday to finally be over and done.

All my love to you and your kin, and best health in the coming year.

A Fucking Montage

2007-12-22T11:30:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last night that was out with people or in with people or on a date or something (not exactly sure which) and I had a seizure. I must have been epileptic in my dream because I knew exactly what was happening when it was happening instead of being scared and confused before my eyes rolled to the back of my head in darkness, like what would have happened in real life. And when I woke up (in my dream) I was in the hospital and no one was there... not even the people that brought me in. And I waited with the heavy panic attack feeling sitting on my chest as I heard the sounds of crash carts and machines and all sorts of other things in hospitals. And then I felt my eyes roll back as another one hit, and then I really woke up to feel my mother shaking me awake and to "Not be so lazy... it's already 10:30."

In the foggy area between sleep and waking that only exists for about five seconds, there was a montage of so many things I'd forgotten. I saw a scene from 8th grade, when my english teacher had a seizure in class and the blood began to pool beneath her head after she fell to the tile floor. And I couldn't move or do anything except watch. I remembered the convalescent home when my grandmother was there 4 years ago, and I head the cries of pain from a woman with alzheimers down the hall. And as I walked through the hall, the old people reached out for my wrist with their cold, bony hands asking for help and trying to suck out my youth. And finally, I remembered when my father was in the hospital 2 years ago, and the most terrifying experience was listening to the ventilator breath for his roommate. I had panic attack that forced me into the hallway, but the bright lights and the smell of death covered in lysol forced me into the parking lot for the only cigarette I've smoked in my entire life.

And worst of all, my brain was not creative enough to think of anything other than a fucking montage. What a fantastic way to start the day

Tool Concert

2007-12-12T11:07:00.000-08:00

It was the most visceral, raw, human connection I've ever felt at a concert. Like, the videos in the background and the lights and the music and the stage show and everything just washing over me in powerful waves. And with so many of the songs, I wasn't seeing the concert, but seeing home movies played in my head of coby and scott and so many other people. At the bass line of schism, I had this image burrow into my head of Scott trying to play it at Phil's memorial thing during senior year, so that was interesting.

They started with Jambi, ended with Vicariously, and in the middle played both parts of Wings, Schism (like a 10 minute version given the epic bridge), Stinkfist, Grudge, 46 & 2, Aenema... can't really remember the others at the moment, but i know there weren't more than like, 5 more songs because each song was 10 minutes or longer. I would see them again and again and again (only sober next time) because even though it was amazing feeling every chord ripple through my body in true connection to the music and having all those memories flood back in bright flashes of moving green light, I really would like to be able to concentrate on the show next time.

Oh, and the other cool thing. Jello Biafra (former lead singer of Dead Kennedys) was in the audience and they pulled him on stage to sing Holiday in Cambodia. That is the only time in the history of the universe I will ever see that.

And all of these sensations hit me like a truck after eating a cookie no larger than a half dollar

Special Dinner Menu

2007-12-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

Special Dinner Menu (all so fucking amazing):

Appetizer:
Pancetta wrapped scallops
Sage and blue cheese stuffed crimini mushrooms
Cherry and Apricot braised baby back ribs

Soup:
Chipotle-butternut bisque

Salad:
Roasted ruby beet salad with watercress, mache, ricotta and verjus

Assorted Cheeses

Refresher:
Meyer Lemon Sorbet

Seafood:
Truffled Ahi Tuna Tartar

Entrees: (all served with roasted root vegetables
Duck Confit with foie gras lentils
Shitake Crusted rack of lamb with mushroom pilaf

Dessert:
Satsuma tarts
Assorted truffles
Pecan brittle
Panna cotta
Hazelnut gelato

$75 for a bottle of the green fairy at your local liquor store

2007-12-08T09:55:00.000-08:00

Alameda Distiller Helps Make Absinthe Legal

How fucking cool is that?

2 weeks getting wasted and fucking.

2007-12-06T09:16:00.001-08:00

When I was 14, my grandmother had a stroke and my mother cried for days and days. I remember she would never tell anyone what was wrong, and for the three days my grandmother was in the hospital, my mother was non-existent in our household. I realized how important it was for her to see my grandmother, but death was still not a real thing at that time. Even now, death is not a real thing because the only close person to die has been my cat 2 years ago. Prior to that, the only death I'd ever experienced was a tiny sparrow in the backyard when I was five. I didn't understand what was happening, and my parents tried to keep me from seeing the mystery of death and destruction.

Point is, until my grandmother's stroke, I never realized that death could be a real, tangible thing that changed lives. It always seemed like something that only happened on TV, even though I know that people have loved ones who die every fucking day. But even this wasn't really "real"... you know?

When my dad got sick when I was 18, that's when everything seemed real for the first time. The day after my high school graduation, he went into the hospital for a full day of tests only to discover that he only had 10% kidney function and all the marks on his legs that he thought were insect bite marks and scars were actually black toxin scars coming to the surface of his skin. The first day I went to visit him in the hospital, he had all these tubes in him and told me he didn't want me there if I was going to fucking cry. So after that first day, I didn't come back and had the house completely to myself for about 2 weeks because my father was in the hospital and my mother was with him or at work 10 hours per day.

Which means that I spent 2 weeks getting wasted and fucking. I never told him this and I regret it every day. I feel guilty because my father could have died while I was having sex in their house and the prospect that that would have happened still fucking scares me. It's one of my greatest fears.

what the fuck?

Do Kites Also Have These Realizations?

2007-11-30T17:05:00.000-08:00

There are a list of things I should be thinking about right now. This list should include the uncertainty of my schedule for next year. I should be thinking about the sense of revulsion I should feel after hearing Zach and Alexa have sex next door, yet it somehow didn't bother me because it was drowned out by the rest of my thoughts. I should be thinking about finals or the misinterpretation of individuals in a global society that facilitates the ease of communication. I should be thinking about ways to help the fucking planet or be the next Mother Thing heresa or something.

Do you know what I'm thinking instead?

I'm thinking that I just spent all day watching episode after episode of Six Feet Under (season two) and I remembered there was this one stupid part where the mother was at a seminar that talked about being the architect of one's own life. It talked about taking control and making decisions and living for oneself instead of living for everyone else.

I don't remember much of last night. I remember sitting in the bar upstairs and feeling light. It felt like the evening stretched into fucking infinity and lasted forever, though I know it wasn't more than two or three hours. I remember feeling disassociated from every limb in my body and a euphoric sensation with every muscle movement. I remember having this intense moment of clarity and not being able to speak. I remember wanting to break things or scream or cry or some shit like that because for the first time in my life, everything made fucking sense. Everything that I've waisted my time dreaming or worrying about became clear and I wanted to cry BECAUSE I realized how much of my life I've wasted on people, on things, on being what's expected or whatever. in that moment of clarity, I realized how misguided... (why am I still sugar coating this...) how WRONG I've been about so many things.

I made list after list of things today to put everything in my mind in order. A list of things to do before I die, a list of Xmas gifts for this year, a list of things to do tomorrow, a list of backup classes to take in case I don't get into History 159, a list of the men I've fucked (not a lengthy list I assure you) and after all was said in done, I didn't feel any better because I'd just wasted 2 hours of my life making all these fucking lists.

Last year, I wasted a cumulative total of 10 hours on first dates that never went anywhere because the individual bored me after 10 minutes. I wasted 60 hours in Philosophy 25A when that's what I thought I wanted to do with my life (and I fucking hate Aristotle). Yesterday, I wasted 2 hours at a meeting in business slack and uncomfortable shoes to mix and gain internship opportunities for this summer only to realize I'm not qualified for shit. I realized that I'm currently hung up on someone who can't possible do anything but hurt me, and that really fucking sucked. Then I realized that I wasted 3 years on someone yet I'm still not completely past that because the word "waste" is sickening to me and I can't bear to think of all those years as waste even though that would be the normal thing to do. I call it a "learning experience" but we know that's just what people say when they don't want to face reality. And I guess it's just easier to think of it as a learning experience than to face the facts... because it's so much easier to believe a kind lie than a harsh reality.

That's the long of it, I suppose. It doesn't make much sense when I'm typing it out after the fact, but it did at the time.

Iron and Wine concert tonight. Perhaps that will make me feel better.

Oh Give Thanks (For What?)

2007-11-22T18:57:00.000-08:00

For what is right. I guess it's family or friends or something like that, but I haven't gotten to see the people I really care about this thanksgiving, and most of today was spent yelling at my parents about the location of silverware and whose fault it was that we didn't have enough butter for everything we needed to make. Thanksgiving is supposed to be a time of thanks, but from now until Christmas it's a time of pointless materialism and really not enjoying another person's company. That's why I ask, "Oh give thanks, for what?"

Anyway, inventory of food I prepared this morning:

2 18lb turkeys (that's about 8 kg)
1 15 lb ham
1 6 lb prime rib
2 large catering trays of stuffing
1 catering tray of mashed potatoes
5 large sweet potatoes, candied
1 large green bean casserole
3 cups of cranberry sauce
2 pumpkins pies
1 chocolate pecan pie
1 banoffee pie
1 large tray of mandarin orange ambrosia jello salad thing.

We have so much left over it's not funny...

After going into the food induced coma of dinner, I gave my condolences to Uncle George that his family couldn't be there. He then said, "Please don't call them that. That's scary."

I ask him why and he tells me about how the girl was hurt when he didn't introduce her as his stepdaughter at a family gathering (he and diane aren't married, so technically she's not a step daughter). Diane has a son that's 17 and a girl that 12. Uncle George's family consists of my grandparents, my dad, John, Bob, and his cat and dog.

So apparently he's been very freaked out laterly because Diane said, "You have your family, and I have my family, but we need an OUR family..."

George: "Like another cat or a puppy?"

Diane: "That's not really what I had in mind..."

Apparently she's been wanting to adopt a little chinese child with him, and he's trying to figure out a way for "adopt a child" to become "adopt a 60-inch plasma TV and a kitten"

Lots of drama involved with thanksgiving. Lots of drama involved with christmas gifts too. I'm trying to think of gifts for the specific, most important people in my life, and it's difficult at times.

Real post to come later, when I have something insightful to say.

Life in a Nutshell

2007-11-13T22:56:00.000-08:00

The other day, Jay made a list on her blog of her life in a rather large nutshell (essentially her likes and dislikes). I noticed that I have a good many more than my profile would lead you to believe, so I think I shall list them in their entirety here. (In no particular order)

Stephanie Likes:
Kittens, hugs, relationships, fresh laundry, soup, movies under big blankets, photography, cooking, comic books, DJing, old jazz records that make the crackly noise, the smell of baking bread, artichokes, fuzzy things, nonfat cappuccinos from independent coffee shops, essentially all John Cusack films, reading the New York Times during breakfast, thrift stores, lamb curries, concerts, the ability to have friends in all sorts of far away places via increasing globalization, used book stores, slam poetry, E.E. Cummings, the sorrowful sound of the cello, gin and tonic, blackberry shisha, blue/green/gray eyes, cashmere sweaters, Guitar Hero, brewing beer, shiny things...

Stephanie Dislikes:
Scratchy things, being partially damp, stupidity, organized religion, waterlogged shoes. rocky road ice cream, beets, small children, wool clothing, most country music, wedge heels, the fact that I say "hella", television, the weakness of the American dollar, 8am classes, family reunions, sweet salad dressing, chocolate chip muffins, the word "moist", SUVs, political apathy, Socialists and Libertarians equally, humidity, People magazine, celebrity gossip, Windows Vista, having bronchitis...

There may be more. I will list them later if I think of them.

Do you have similar likes and dislikes? If you have blue/green/gray eyes, then that's an added bonus. Perhaps we'll be fated to meet in a used bookstore while drinking cappuccino from our favorite local coffee shop...

Regarding the Debate on Affirmative Action This Evening

2007-11-07T22:44:00.000-08:00

Those individuals who I consider "friends" know my political leanings and know my thoughts on affirmative action, therefore it is unnecessary for me to cloud this commentary with my personal beliefs.

That being said, I felt there was no clear winner in tonight's debate. Representing the Republicans, Ms. Parker was too curt with her speech and a poor orator, serving to alienate a large portion of the audience by utilizing biting, albeit quite witty rebuttals. Ms. Driver, on the other hand, relied on circular argumentation and the utilization of unnecessary, unrelated subject matter to further her point. (The advocacy for passage of the California DREAM act and abolition of standardized testing, just to name a couple). However, I felt both parties severely suffered due to inflexible division down party lines and use of ideological political dogma as primary support for their arguments, without quantitative evidence.

Yes, we all think the Civil Rights movement is good. Yes, most individuals try to exemplify the Horatio Alger myth, and that too is good. But the fact that our Republican speaker prefaced each segment of the debate with a message of "individuality" and the Democratic speaker used "equality" as her word of choice made both words completely lose meaning.

---

I must close by saying that what struck me most about the evening was not the debate itself, but the severe intolerance at UC Berkeley. I do not mean in terms of race relations, though I'm sure that exists too. I mean simply the adamant opposition and the unwillingness to even listen to Ms. Parker's argument. Her statements were met with hisses and jeers from the audiences, which usually reserves such staunch displays of disapproval for Standford. The primarily Democratic audience who supposedly believes in tolerance and the benefits of diversity forcibly silenced Ms. Parker's beliefs with uncivilized emotional outbursts that do not belong in political debates. That is not to say the Republican supporters did not do the same things, but after several emotional outburst by the Democratic supporters did they follow suit. HOWEVER, their emotionally charged interruptions only appeared in praise of their own candidate, not in defamation of the opposition.

It simply saddens me that a place that considers itself so liberal can be this fucking intolerant.

Why Remember the 5th of November?

2007-11-05T21:22:00.001-08:00

The gunpowder? The treason? The plot?

I suppose it's different if you're British, but my knowledge of Guy Fawkes Day may be solely attributed to Nathalie Portman and V for Vendetta.

But honestly, there isn't much to remember anyway. Guy severely dislikes/loathes/detests government. Guy tries to subvert/renew/blow up said government, and guy is subsequently caught and brought to justice/burned/silenced with totalitarian cruelty.

But what's to remember? It happens every day. Right?

It happens every fucking day.

Of Colbert and Midterms

2007-11-02T11:31:00.000-07:00

In the next week, I will be writing two papers and studying for two midterms. This is not a happy experience. I promise I"ll write a real blog post about l life, love, the universe and everything in between at that time.

In other news, Stephen T Colbert Not Allowed as Candidate in South Carolina Presidential Primary. Makes me very sad... I guess some people just don't have a sense of humor.

Commentary on Islamo-Fascism Week

2007-10-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

So this afternoon, I saw a man on Sproul plaza holding a sign that boasted, "Islam Abuses Women" to kick off Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. On the opposing side of the sign it read, "Islam promotes Pedophilia, Polygamy and Wife Abuse." Surrounding this man were students holding signs which read, "I am a Muslim Woman. ASK ME" and "This Man is Ignorant" and "Holding Signs is a Waste of Everyone's Time." (Pictures will be posted once I figure out how to upload from my cell phone...)

Hosted by the Berkeley College Republicans, Islamo Fascism week takes place on our campus from Monday October 22 to October 26, supposedly to counter the "Two Great Lies of the Radical Left". Apparently, the first lie is that George Bush started the War on Terror, and the second is that Global Warming is a greater threat to Americans than Jihadist threats. This week, the Republicans will host films, debates, and rallies to promote awareness about the plight of Muslim women in the Middle East.

...

First, let me say that "Awareness" is a misleading word. Unlike other "Awareness" weeks on college campuses (such as Breast Cancer Awareness Week or Mental Health Awareness Week) Islamo-Fascism week does not promote knowledge nor understanding, but provides a breeding ground for prejudice and racial bias. To say that Islam promotes abuse against women is completely unfounded because the Qur'an advocates peace and kindness (I admit, I have not read the qur'an, but I listened to a short debate between this man and a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies). Additionally, his arguments were taken completely out of context. To say wife beating is strictly a property of Islam is to ignore the problems plaguing our own country and nations around the world on issues of both racial and gender stratification. He was not advocating the end to abuse against women, but the end to Islam because it is the sole progenitor of abuse against women, which is an invalid argument.

Let me counter this by saying that the arguments against this man were just as biased and lacking in context as his. Multiple students brought up the pedophilia of Catholic priests and the passage in Corinthians (I forget which one) which states that women should remain silent and unnoticeable in church, and have no right to speak with anyone outside the home (and may associate with no other male save their husband). I may not approve of all beliefs associated with Catholicism or any given religion, but when anyone takes a passage, an anecdote, or a fringe belief out of context of the whole, it is equally dangerous, no matter who you're discussing.

Defining "Nostalgia"

2007-10-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

The other day, I engaged in a conversation of nostalgic enormity. It made me think of a book I read around this time last year titled "Nothing Feels Good: The Evolution of Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo." It's actually quite an excellent book and it quoted the lyrics of a really terrible emo band of the 80s called Rites of Spring. In on of their songs, the innitial lyrics read:

Caught in time so far away from where our hearts really wanted to be - Reaching out to find a way to get back to where we'd been.

The book said this was the definition of "Nostalgia" and after reading it over and over again, it forcibly burrowed in my heart until I understood. You are one of the few people who can still bring about this nostalgia... this longing for where we've been (though in this case, it's a longing for a place we've never been).

Life is so fleeting. All experiences, all joys, all sorrows only last for a fraction of an instant. And after that, they exist only as memories. And anyway, our memories are nothing but vagrant thought in the empty expanse of whatever lays before us. There is no real tangibility and no solidity to anything in our lives, but perhaps I am being as depressing and emo as that stupid song.

It's amazing, the amount of books and passages that have strongly affected my life. There was one from a book called "Killing Yourself to Live" (which I highly recommend) but I don't remember it anymore since I didn't write it down). Another is called "The Reluctant Metrosexual" from which I derive the following passage.

"The initial manifestation of a broken heart is physical. Your heart literally hurts. The mouth gets dry, the gut goes hallow, and it feels as though you've had the wind knocked out of you. Your eyes cannot focus long enough to read or watch television. Sleep brings no relief either, particularly if the person you are thinking of is still present in your bedroom--her sent, her hair bands, the imprint of her body on the mattress. The best you can manage is to lie there, on sweat-soaked sheets, imprisoned by your past.

But there is also perverse, self-absorbed pleasure that comes with heartbreak. It's what Kurt Cobain meant when he sang, "I miss the comfort of being sad." Heartbreak gave me an excuse to indulge in behavior that the world generally deems mildly antisocial-- retreating into my head; listening to Bob Dylan songs over and over, in search of hidden meanings; sitting in front of a computer screen, bandaging the frayed pieces of my life under the misguided premise that I could actually fuse them back together again..."

I suppose that's one thing nostalgia does to you... But remind me again... what was the point of this post?

A Rant Regarding Affirmative Action and the California DREAM Act

2007-10-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

Let me make one thing perfectly clear before I begin-- I do not in any way consider myself Republican. Politically and socially, I identify with the liberal leaning side of moderate. I feel that gay individuals should have the right to marry, yet similarly, I feel the word "marriage" is unnecessary and the debate over gay marriage verses civil unions is a moot point. Although I would never personally have an abortion except in cases of rape or other serious situations, I am still pro-choice and believe that option should always be available to all women.

Yes, I am on the liberal leaning side of moderate.

That being said, Gilbert Cedillo's California DREAM Act is the fucking stupidest piece of legislation in a very very long time.

For those of you not from my wonderful state and not privy to the persistent protests IN FAVOR of this act outside California Hall EVERY DAY on the way to class, it basically says that undocumented immigrants will have the same access and right to financial aid for higher education as legal immigrants and American citizens. Now I am all for helping children get an education, but aiding illegal immigrants in college education only rewards these groups for illegal behavior and perpetuates our state's already persistent problem with illegal immigrants flooding in from Mexico. I feel that even though everyone deserves a right to education, we should not make exceptions for those individuals illegally in the United States and the state of California.

I hate to pull the "my family came here legally" argument, but they did. My paternal grandparents came to the United States in 1955 after the ban on Asian immigration was lifted and my mother's side of the family came to the US in 1969. They were legal immigrants who all went through the trouble to become naturalized United States citizens, and I respect their rights to vote, have an education, and receive government aid for that education. Anyone who wants the same rights and benefits as I or legal immigrants possess can damn well move here legally and become naturalized citizens.

What irritates me more is that the protesters in support of this stupid act tried to garner support by saying this was akin to a renewal of affirmative action. How the hell is that a selling point? Affirmative action was enforced for the first time in September 1965 through Executive Order 11246 as a reverse racism and retribution for past grievances against blacks and other minorities. In 1997, Proposition 209 forbid the use of quota systems and affirmative action in jobs and college admissions in the state of California (and thank God!) but this DREAM act is being sold as "Affirmative Action, version 2.0". UC Regents v. Bakke told us that affirmative action violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, and the US Supreme court agreed, though that seems to have gone to hell and back due to 2003 Grutter v Bollinger.

I also hate to pull the racially minority card here, but I will. I am half Japanese and absolutely detest the idea of preferential treatment for being a racial minority. Accepting this reverse racism is just like capitulating to the majority and saying, "Yes, I know I am of inferior ethnicity, therefore I deserve your generosity because I could never hope to succeed of my own accord. Handouts PLEASE!!!"

If you want to succeed badly enough, find a way. If you need money for college, get a job and take out loans like everyone else. Don't use affirmative action to justify why you can't succeed and why the system is against you. If you want something badly enough, then you go after it and work your ass off to get it, because only then will I think you deserve that success.

But perhaps all those minorities are right in justifying their inferiority. Perhaps if you're not willing to work for something, then you just weren't meant to succeed in the first place.

Butter "Pot:-can Ice Cream

2007-10-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

Marijuana ice cream.

Butter pecan flavored marijuana ice cream.

Eating a single scoop is as potent as smoking half a bowl.... marijuana ice cream.

Marijuana....IN ICE CREAM.

I hella <3 Matt.

"Hangovers Suck" (Insert More Creative Title Later)

2007-10-05T15:36:00.000-07:00

This morning was the most hungover I have ever been, ever.
Really sucked, as you'd expect.
Double gin & tonic, followed by five shots of jagermeister in half an hour is not a good thing...
However, drunkenly making curly fries and chocolate chip pancakes at 2am is a very good thing.
More great weekend updates soon to follow.

The Monoculture of Multiculturalism

2007-09-26T18:32:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, I was late for my mass communications discussion and was forced to run helter skelter from my room to Evans hall. I arrive five minutes late to class (because I decided that a Starbucks run was absolutely imperative) and they have already begun the lesson for the day. For some reason, everyone keep staring at me for most of the class while we are discussing advertising and consumer branding. At the end of class, our GSI asks which brands appear to have a loyal following based on the population of the room.

This causes me to look at myself and what I happen to be wearing that day. Se7ev jeans, Esprit t-shirt, Nike track jacket, converse sneakers, fake Fendi sunglasses, and a Starbucks mocha frappuccino. I look like a walking talking billboard amongst the avant garde hippies of Berkeley, and it hadn't even occured to me to TRY to dress this way. I pulled out whatever was clean from my wardrobe, that's all. No attempts at trendiness.

It made me think about the monoculture of multiculturalism: the fact that companies will sell the idea of diversity to everyone simultaneously, thereby making diversity homogeneous. I thought about the politically correct Gap commercials six years ago when everyone was singing at Christmas time and the politically correct nature of Captain Planet (not sure how many of you remember that show from your youth). I even thought of the homogenized "indie" look of Berkeley, the Bay Area, and of much of the teen population in general. In the class of twenty students, my "Bougie" looks were atypical and received furtive glances because of my non-conformity.

I find that idea quite fascinating, being a non-conformist while wearing Fendi, Nike, and drinking Starbucks.

I then pointed out there every other person in the room was wearing Vans or Rainbows, so we were equal in our hypocrisy.

This was, overall, an unimportant post.

Why Can't We Live in Verbs?

2007-09-19T22:46:00.000-07:00

I went to a slam poetry session this evening. On the way home, I had a brief conversation with someone else that was tabled until a later date when we had more time. In my mind, I was writing this slam poetry style lyric. Enjoy...

You asked "What is this?"
As in "What is this 'Us'?"
As in "Do we want the same things?"
As in "Where are we going?"
As in "Where the fuck are we going
Before I waste any more time?"
More than that, it's asking,
"Is this a serious relationship"
As a dictionary--or encyclopedia--
Or emotionally abusive family gathering--
Would describe it.

For some reason, you need
A relationship with all these words
And why can't we be exclusive
With only verbs?
Like eat, and sleep, and walk.
The most basic human needs
And functions
And desires.
Like kiss--and touch--and fuck.
And--talk--
And talk and talk and talk
And you talk way to much
But thank God we don't talk nearly enough
Because if we did, you'd bring up
All these damned intangibles.
Like pain--and truth--and beauty--
And life and death and sheer meaning
And tie these all back to the most intangible of all:
Love

But Love doesn't belong in this realm.
It doesn't belong while engaged in simultaneous verbs
Like eat--and walk--and kiss--and fuck.
Because I can feel your lips against me
Or feel you inside me
And I know exactly how those feel.
But I have no inclination
If what you feel when you say "Love"
Is the same as what I feel
When I say "Love"
(Or when I've said "Love" in the past
With people I have actually loved

Deeply
Tragically
Completely)

Because "Love" does not conjure
The same memories
Because, to you, love does not equate
To fireworks--to songs in D--
To long-winded monologues that crescendo
As nothing but a whisper
Muffled by the dense night
And gentle breeze across miles.

When I asked you why you asked such things
You said "I guess I'm getting old."
I never new how great a difference four years made
Until now.
Because I guess you're at the age
Where you want--something real
Where you want--something serious
Where you want to feel like all relationships
Be they family, friends or whatever
Have some semblance of destination.
'Cause as these hands move round and round
You see there's so little time
If you want kids by 30 and married by 26
Engaged a year prior, and dating for a couple years.
That means you need to meet someone by 23.

You're twenty-three and looking towards the future
Looking for intangibles like truth or love
When I want simply verbs.
(I want--kiss. I want--eat. I want--fu--fun)
And even though you grow old
And shall one day wear your trousers rolled,
You are youthful in your optimism
And belief that intangibles like truth or love
Are still attainable.
Because I once wanted these intangibles
When I thought they could encompass
Any version of reality.
Instead, they are perfect Forms
That shape the marred, imperfect
Shadows of things to come
Like every unsatisfactory occurrence
In my life, in your life, in our lives
Of truth--of meaning--of love.

And I feel old.

This Sounded Smart at the Time

2007-09-14T02:45:00.000-07:00

I must preface this post by saying that the ideas presented seemed thought-provoking and intelligent when Alia and I were discussing them at 3 o'clock in the morning while waiting for the server at work to come back online.

It all started when the server at the newspaper crashed and we couldn't get in touch with Steve, our tech guy, to come fix it. This caused everyone to start freaking out because his cell phone is never turned off and our chief editor, Stephen Chen, had already exhausted his knowledge of the system and everything that he could do to fix it. It still wasn't fixable.

At that point he runs off with Annie, the managing editor, to drive to Steve's apartment to find out if he's asleep or having sex, or any number of reasons he may not be picking up his phone. During that time, Alia and I are trying to study but she brings up the question, "What was life like without cell phones? It seems so archaic, but cell phones didn't become popular until recently." She's very right about this. I got my first cell phone about 5 years ago and everyone thought it was super weird and cool that I had one at the start of high school.

"When did our society suddenly develope this need for instant gratification?" she asked as we once more tried desperately to reach Steve. "I mean, what did people do before you could contact them at any time? What did you do if a friend got stuck in traffic and you were waiting someplace for them? You'd have no idea they were going to be late, and perhaps you'd wait there longer than you currently will because with cell phones, there is no excuse to be more than five minutes late without calling ahead first."

This later degenerates into the topic of: "We'll be the first generation to die on facebook..."

She asked how people treated the dead and their facebook or myspace still existed. I told her about Phil and how people still write comments on his myspace page as if he's still alive to read them. It's a fascinating dynamic really...writing to a dead person through this terribly public display that is the internet. It turns private emotions into something for all the world to see, and that is unsettling. The idea of presenting oneself so overtly is very unsettling.

And then we went on an adventure to Soda Hall to see if Steve was in lab and not getting reception. After the ordeal of attempted breaking and entering, we got doughnuts.

Yes, very profound

And Love Her When Your Love Goes Unrequited

2007-09-07T19:51:00.000-07:00

When my anthropology class in Dwinelle ends at noon, I usually don't walk back to my house via Memorial Glade and Northgate because it's steep and there are tons of people. Even though the walk is slightly longer, I usually go around the west side of Moffitt and take the shaded, not at all steep path near the Chancellor's house and Haviland Hall to get back home.

Well for some reason I ended up walking through memorial glade today, and all the way around it on the sidewalk surrounding was a message written in pink and green sidewalk chalk. It was an assortment of phrases like "Her birthmark" and "Because she's affectionate" and "Because she gets hot links at Top Dog" and "Because she has the cutest happy dance" and my personal favorite, "Because she has an irrational fear of concentric circles"

I never found the end of this message or any place stating who it was for/from and the reason. Well, the meaning and the reason behind the message is quite obvious. In my mind, it can only be one thing.

Reasons Why I Love Her

"and love her when your love goes unrequited..." -Smashing Pumpkins "Rotten Apples"

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes about love and the subject. Though I really don't prefer the writing style of Kate Chopin, I have still always liked this quote.

"Why?" asked her companion. "Why do you love him when you ought not to?"
...
"Why? Because his hair is brown and grows away from his temples; because he opens and shuts his eyes, and his nose is a little out of drawing; because he has two lips and a square chin, and a little finger which he can't straighten from having played baseball too energetically in his youth. Because-"
"Because you do, in short."
-The Awakening

I'm glad I took the steep, crowded way home today

A Room With a View

2007-09-05T00:03:00.000-07:00

This is the view from my sofa at the top of the world. If you enlarge the image, you can clearly see the San Francisco skyline and the Bay Bridge in all its glory.

I call this the sofa at the top of the world because there is a wedge of roof above the stairwell only large enough to fit a love seat on top. To get there, one must scramble about 15 feet up at 30 degree (or so) incline and jump on the rather gross green paisley sofa.

But once you are there, it is calm, peaceful, and absolutely gorgeous on warm summer/autumn days or evenings. It is gorgeous then too, but I am not a good enough photographer to capture the beauty of this view with all the city lights illuminated.

This is the view of the Campanile and a sizable part of campus (though much of it is obscured by trees). I could take a picture of campus from the top of the Campanile, but everyone has those sort of pictures.

I truly hope these photos have made everyone want to come visit me and sit on my sofa at the top of the world.

This concludes our informational post.

If I was a lonely man and I walked upon your growing land
Would you hear my call in hunger
Would you keep me from going under
I wait for you beside myself
captured at the window
Faded like a photograph
Crooked like a last laugh

And I would love a room
I'd love a room
I'd love a room with a view

-Matthew Good Band "Euphony"

Acceptable Instances for Intercourse

2007-09-04T13:10:00.001-07:00

Dear female resident of some indiscernible (yet audible) distance from the West window in my room (most likely across the courtyard):

I realize that we are all human beings and we all have wants and needs. I too have those same wants and needs for love and companionship (emotionally, intellectually, and sexually). It is perfectly alright to exercise those wants and needs when the time is appropriate.

The middle of the day with your window open... is not appropriate.

When you have sex with the window open and you are across the courtyard from me, your orgasmic screams echo and reverberate in the courtyard and in my room. Even with my window closed, I can still hear you on a consistent basis. I would be perfectly okay with closing my windows if it actually blocked out the sound, but currently I still hear your muted gasps while roasting in the heat of afternoon sun and poor ventilation. This is the 4th time in less than two weeks of living here that I have heard you having sex in the middle of the day (around 1 or 2 pm). I would rather not complain because I understand and would want the same thing if it was a possibility, but it makes writing French compositions or reading Kinsey for anthropology much more difficult (though exceedingly more relevant in the later).

At least you have the courtesy to close your curtains, but please, in the future, close your window also or take a note from your partner (assuming there is one...) and please be respectful of everyone else who lives in this house during weeknights and mid-day. You can be as loud as the hell you want on weekends, but expect that I shall do the same.

Thanks you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Stephanie

An Excerpt from a Story I am Currently Writing

2007-09-02T22:08:00.000-07:00

...On the night he proposed, Jennifer told him that she was not sure whether she was ready to be married, even though the thought had crossed her mind more than once when she was still with Robert. Even so, he told her to wear the ring anyway, just to see how it felt and whether she, perhaps, liked the idea of marriage after some time had passed. She wore the ring like he asked, every day seeing their future together reflected in the imperfections of the stone and, every day, growing more and more disdainful towards the idea. Yet even so, she gladly accepted his proposal, for her thirtieth birthday had just passed not two weeks earlier and her fear of loneliness appeared more prevalent than her lack of emotional connection.

When she somberly said yes, he kissed her with intensity and acted as though she had just proclaimed adoration equal to the passion of a thousand suns. Jennifer kissed him back equally, but thought all the while of her ring’s defects and the imperfections in her own life. Later, when they made love upon the freshly laundered sheets in the encompassing darkness of their bedroom, she acted with quite reserve though her fiancé seemed so enthralled with his own amusement that he did not perceive the contempt behind her eyes nor the hatred in her head. She mimicked his rudimentary motions and moaned in time with his thrusts (as she should) but when he began kissing her neck and her face was no longer visible, she concentrated heavily on a small corner of the ceiling where the peach paint was beginning to chip. It was not that he bored her physically, for tonight would have been one of their best nights together had she been the least bit interested or at all able to think of him. As it was, she could only think of Robert and stare quietly at the peeling paint on the ceiling, knowing that if he caught sight of her face, an expression of sheer boredom would be better than one of utter disdain and longing for another man.

“What are you thinking?” he asked in a quite, post-coital repose as he ran his hands languidly through her long, black hair.

“Nothing,” she responded. “I’m just enjoying being here with you.”

He kissed her softly and she curled against him, his arm around her shoulder and her right hand against his chest. In reality, she was remembering the way Robert’s skin felt, the way he smelled, and the way their bodies seemed to fit so perfectly together when they made love or slept. There was no awkwardness at the beginning of her and Robert’s relationship—no uncomfortable time to figure out how the other person liked to be held or kissed or touched. The intricacies of the other person’s body seemed engrained in each individual’s consciousness, as if they were once the same person or had already been lovers in a former life. They slept nestled like spoons beneath the covers and both parties were always comfortable with that arrangement.

“What are you smiling about?” he asked, interrupting Jennifer’s thoughts of Robert and what they used to have.

“Just thinking about how wonderful it feels lying here next to you,” she whispered rather mechanically, knowing that such an answer was the proper response in this situation. He smiled, turned her chin towards him to stare lovingly into her eyes, and kissed her forehead. Jennifer shut her eyes softly, feigning sleep so she would not have to meet his stare and reveal her most hidden, pervasive thoughts. She turned away from him towards the east wall and edge of the bed, but he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to feel her entire body against him. She did not try to pry herself away from his grip, but simply lay there feeling his hot, even breathing at the nape of her neck. He whispered that he loved her as he drifted off to sleep, and she replied similarly without emotion nor sincerity. Instead, she stared forlornly at their reflection in the full-length mirror before her: his hand draped over her naked breast and her eyes like threatening storm clouds behind a tangle of dark hair. ‘How terrible a person I must be,” she thought to herself as she closed her eyes for the encircling reprieve of sleep, “to long ceaselessly for a man I cannot have while despairingly lying next to a man who clearly loves me.”

The next morning she awoke before him, made a pot a coffee, and ate a slice of wheat toast with raspberry jam while reading the newspaper. He emerged from their room ten minutes later, showered, and while buttoning his shirt for work, commented on the paint peeling from the southeast corner of the ceiling. “Have you noticed it and do we have any paint to do a touch up?”

“I think we have about a quarter of a can in the storage closet,” she muttered from behind her newspaper. “And yes, I had noticed.”

Kindred Spirits, or Just Combustable Hydrogen?

2007-08-28T21:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I stare at the stars and wonder what the hell else could be out there. What if all those pinpricks of light in the vast blanket of night are not actually giant balls of burning gas millions or billions of light-years away, but souls departed from this earth. What if those stars are members of the angelic chorus calling down from heaven and watching over our lives? What if every hole in the blanket of the sky is where 1/3 of the angelic order fell from grace and the glorious brilliance of the heavenly kingdom. (Yes, I know it's not characteristic of me to bring in all this religious imagery). What if every star is a wish granted to someone or something in our history, and each wish and dream achieved is memorialized in that star, thereby always giving us something for which to strive.

What if every pinprick of light on the night sky is a kindred spirit from across the universe shining through the darkness into our lives like a beacon of hope in the vast nothingness of space.

I thought this tonight when I was on the roof of my new house, sitting in a reclining chair that looks like it was upholstered in mauve golf pants. I was on the phone at the time, looking at a slow moving satellite in the darkness above and wondering whether or not it was that exact satellite transmitting my phone calls across the country and connecting the both of us in that instant when we were so far apart. The satellite flickered and died behind the clouds as our call ended due to the inconvenience of different time zones, as if it said to me, "Yes, I am a beacon for kindred spirits and yours has now vanished from existence for the time being. I am the symbol of realized hopes and dreams, and yours too are hidden behind cloud cover. I am a member of the angelic order who is obscured by vapor and shadow, unable to watch over your lives and over everything you do."

And when I looked up at that instant, I realized not a single star was visible. I saw a glimmer of hopeful light, but I realized half a second later that it was nothing more than a damned airplane that too disappeared in the fog.

No kindred spirits, no guardian angels, no hopes and dreams for the future. Just black nothingness in the void of space.

Things I Love (and Really Hate) About My New House

2007-08-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

Things I Love About Living in Case Zimbabwe:
1. Industrial Size Kitchen!
2. 360 degree rooftop view of Oakland, the Berkeley Hills, San Francisco, and the Golden Gate Bridge (on clear days)
3. Well lit 4th floor study room.
5. Only 3 blocks away from Jay, Cindy and Michael.
6. Room-mate is does not shoot up heroin, huff turpentine, nor rape people.
7. Copious amounts of fresh produce

Things I Hate About Living in Casa Zimbabwe
1. Industrial size kitchen means industrial size pots and pans, which are a bitch to wash when you have dish duty.
2. People do not seem to understand that beer is NOT breakfast!
3. They also don't understand that bong hits are NOT breakfast!
4. There are people in the house who shoot up heroin, huff turpentine, and any other number of hard drugs.
5. I must buy my own shredded coconut for my anzac biscuits.
6. The state of the bathrooms... enough said.

All in all, I will live. Just remember that breakfast is cereal or fruit or toast, but not beer nor bong hits.

Back in the Bay

2007-08-24T14:10:00.001-07:00

I'm back in Berkeley and two days away from starting classes.

My house is.... interesting.

Life is.... interesting.

Dealing with everything going on in my life at the moment in terms of family, friendships, romance, and sex... well that is most certainly interesting too.

Sorry this isn't a personal revelation or new ideas about life like most of my posts have been lately, but I had to say this today.

Four Untouched Water Glasses and Another That is Certainly Half-Empty

2007-08-22T02:14:00.000-07:00

Last night (and by that, I mean midnight of the morning of Tuesday August 21st) I was watching reruns of Sex in the City. On that episode, it was Carrie's 35th birthday and all of her friends decided to throw her this big fancy dinner/party at this nice restaurant. (Believe me, this applies to my life, so stick with me for a little bit longer). She is the first to arrive and ends up waiting at an empty table set for 10 for like, over half an hour because everyone else is stuck in traffic or at work or has bad directions or something. At the end, she leaves the "party", goes home, ends up having coffee with the girlfriends and has a conversation about the existence of soul mates that somehow brings Big back into the picture as a "guy who can be fun from time to time"

Anyway, this evening I went out for a late meal with friends at a local diner, just like in high school. It was so very comfortable in the fact that it was like Junior/Senior year all over again. Well, they were going to meet up at 10 pm, but I told them I had theatre tickets with the parents and would have to meet up with them afterward. The show ends around 10:30 or so, and I give them call and they say "We'll be there in 10 minutes." I think nothing of it and start driving to the place because it's going to take me 15 minutes to get there anyway. Originally, I thought I was being discourteous for being like, half an hour late, but since I was only going to be five or ten minutes late, i didn't see any harm..

I get there, and I still happen to have arrived first. I get a table for five and sit down, thinking that I'll have to wait no more than a couple minutes until they show up.

Ten minutes later, I'm still at an empty booth with five glasses of water while I text people on my cell phone. Keep in mind, this would look much pathetic if I had been dressed for the place (sweatpants and sneakers would have been more than appropriate) but seeing as I came from the theatre, I did not have that luxury. I just had about 15 minutes of sitting by myself in my red dress with black polka dots (the 1950s style one with the black tool lining and the black strappy shoes). I liked the idea of this evening because for the first time, I would get to be fashionably late by half an hour, yet I still ended up having to wait 15 minutes for everyone.

I started thinking about how sad it must have looked to be alone at a table for five, especially when you're dressed up to begin with. You're with people who, really, always did this sort of thing, but you expected they would have changed in the last year.

And this relates to Sex in the City because while I was sitting there, I kept thinking how nice it would be to forget about my friends, and have a man sitting at the table across from me. I kept thinking how wonderful it would be to, not necessarily forget about them completely, but to have someone with whom you came and went. How amazing would it be to have that person so you would never have to wait at a table alone because you came and went with them? Something like that would mean you were like an item. You would be at that status where you get joint invitations to weddings instead of "and guest." Alas, I have never had that. Even the men in my life have always kept me waiting (literally and metaphorically).

But instead, I had to contemplate this desire over a lone glass of water until everyone arrived, and we smiled and hugged and pretended as if I'd only been waiting about 30 seconds.

A Very Insightful Fortune Cookie.

2007-08-20T23:05:00.000-07:00

"So what do you do?" Stephanie asked over very greasy, fattening, americanized Chinese food from Panda Express at the mall Friday afternoon. She had already brought food to Danielle at work and was, at the time, enjoying a plate of orange chicken with Sonni and Daniel. "What do you do," she asked again, "if you're currently hung up on someone you shouldn't be?"

"Why shouldn't you be?" they asked while haphazzardly fencing each other with chopsticks. It occured to all concerned that, as college students, they really should have grown out of such childish behavior, but no one cared enough to change it and embrace real life just yet.

"Because you know that even though he'd be perfect for you, he's not practical and not part of your life. And what do you do," she asked again, "if there is someone else who likes you, but you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you really aren't good for them because you're far too fucked up at the moment to really be good for anyone. You really don't want to hurt this other person, but right now you want sex. You want to feel something other than your emotional pain at the moment, which is why you find this decission so fucking difficult."

They all nodded in understanding, having all been in that exact position at one point or another. "All you really want right now is someone to hold you, cuddle with you, and someone to fall asleep with," she added, "but you can't have that without thinking of this impossible person and wishing it were them. You just--" she paused, searching for the proper words. "You just need something physical and not completely masochistic to make you forget for a while, even though you sort of hate yourself for doing this." Stephanie knew that she could fulfill this need by engaging in her former habits, but she had promised herself years ago that she would never indulge in those again.

"What are the odds of ever getting to be with this person?" Sonni asked upon commandearing a fork-full of string beans and chicken. "I mean, are there any odds?"

"About one in a zillion," Stephanie muttered through a sip of Diet Coke.

"Then I'd suggest you try to move on and see if there's anything you like about this other person who seems to be infatuated with you," Sonni sighed as she placed her small, well manicured hand over Stephanie's and interlaced their fingers. "I mean, you can't let this other person ruin your life in the meantime."

"Don't we approve of this person?" Daniel asked.

"Shut up. You're not helping."

Stephanie sighed again, putting on her new, faux, Fendi sunglasses to block the afternoon glare that insisted on assaulting their table through the terrace windows. "We do approve," she clarified, closing her takout box and checking the time on her cell phone. "We approve, and I won't let this keep me from enjoying my life. If something happens eventually, then perhaps it's serendipity."

"I hate that word."

"I know you do, darling," Stephanie commented to Daniel in a rather condescending tone. She continued, "I realize it's going to be difficult, but life works out the way it's supposed to in the end, even if it's slightly difficult for the time being."

"Slightly?"

"Okay, a little more than slightly."

As the meal came an end, and all felt better about the problems that had been discussed, Sonni opened her fortune cookie. "You will have fun tonight." it said.

"...In bed" she added, and everyone laughed dispite the fact that such a fortune was too obvious to be truly amusing.

"Mine says something stupid about a spouse," Daniel mentioned as he crumpled the small slip of paper that no one had deamed worth saving.

At last, Stephanie held the individually wrapped fortune cookie at eye level, facing the sun through her fake Fendi glasses. "Oh great Fortune Cookie Gods!" she summoned in an all too serious voice that caused her table to chuckle lightly. "Send me some sign for my life through this, most likely stale, dessert and mass-produced proverb. Please, don't make me ask the Magic 8 Ball..."

She gently broke open the cookie and let the pieces fall into the palm of her hand, carefully removing the slip of paper to see what it said. Before she could read it aloud, a smile crept to the corner of Stephanie's face that turned to a grin, and finally, a soulful laugh that her friends had not heard in quite some time.

"What does it say?" they asked quickly.

She placed the fortune on the table, the upturned red letters read, "Enjoy what you have. Hope for what you want."

"Stupid fucking cookie" Stephanie choked through a fit of laughter, placing the fortune for safe keeping in her wallet as the sound of true, joyous laughter from all three of them continued.

"Insightful--fucking--cookie," Daniel emphasized.

"Ick, stale as hell fucking cookie," Stephanie asserted while continuing to eat the cookie anyway as their laughter diffused the formerly tense atmosphere and all headed off to face whatever the rest of the day had in store.

Indulgence in Hypothetical Situations

2007-08-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

Let's indulge in hypotheticals for a moment.

Hypothetically, lets say you were interested in this person when you first met them about 4 months ago. We will call this person "X". They seemed funny, intelligent, cute, and any other number of things. You thought X was the sort of person you could grow to like and form a real realtionship with.

However, in light of recent events, you have discovered that you really don't feel as strongly about X as you first thought. Another person (we will call them "Y") has entered the picture. In fact, this new person is someone who, you have recently discovered, has been in the background of every picture. They have always been there and you didn't realize how prevalent a part of your life they were until only recently. You want nothing more than to hold, love, and simply be with Y, yet at this present time, this is impossible for multiple reasons.

This would not be a difficult decission if X did not appear to actually like you, but X does. With each passing day, you catch the different tone of voice, the looks, the body language, and any number of other things that suggest that X does not simply think of this as sex. To X, perhaps this has the potential to be something real. And even though you don't want to hurt anyone, you know without a shadow of a doubt that you would drop X in an instant if Y could ever be a tangible part of your life for extended periods of time. (You might still do the same for your first love, Z, but you really choose not to think of them at the moment, if ever, because it is simply too painful and you realize, not worth your time).

To make matters worse, your ex that we shall call "N" has also decided to voice opinions on this subject. Although you are still friends with N, their childish actions really get on your nerves sometimes (probably a contributing factor to the end of the relationship). N has decided to engage in self-righteous indignation about X, Y and Z. You loved Z before N, and this was known, but N always decided to throw it back in your face and make you feel like a horrible person because of it.

As of late, N has said something along the lines of "I like just being friends like we are right now, and I'm okay if you sleep with random people like X because then it's just sex. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. But I can't stand the idea of you having real feelings for someone, like Y, because I'm still not completely over you yet."

"So you mean you dont' want me to actually be happy until you've moved on emotionally and physically as well, right?"

"Um, kind of, yes"

"How fucking selfish can you be?!?!"

-----------------------------------------

So what do you do, hypothetically speaking? Do you continue to sleep with X because they're nice and the sex is good, though not as creative as you'd expect given the number of people X has slept with? Even though you hate to admit that you were stupid enough to give your heart and soul to Y, you did, even though you promised yourself you'd never do that again after the problems with Z. Now that your heart no longer belongs to you, do you continue to fuck X (because you need sex. You want it, and you want desperately to feel something other than the dull ache in your chest where you pulled your heart out to give to another person...) Do you push Y from your mind because that's easier, in the long run, and do you confront N about everything that's going on between the two of you because you need him to actually let you go? Do you just stay silent with N because you're pretty sure that a confrontation like this would ruin whatever friendship you currently have with him.

And should you be honest with all 4 about how you feel?

Hypothetically speaking only, of course....

Not a Cure; Merely Another Treatment

2007-08-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

"You understand this is not a cure, merely another type of treatment," the man in the white coat stated matter-of-factly. We nodded that we understood even though we didn't in reality. At least, I didn't fully understand.

"You have two options," he continued, "the first being dialysis, which is your current method of treatment. Typically, that method lasts for about five to ten years. The life of your access is usually less, depending on how well you take care of it." At this, my mother shoots my father a deathly glance because we know all too well how he does not take proper care of the access in his left arm. The man in the white coat continues by saying, "The second method of treatment is a transplant. This is not a permanent solution. It may make some problems worse, and the life of an organ in your body could be anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 years, depending on if and when your body rejects it."

"What sort of problems does it make worse?" my father asks, feigning concern.

"It will make your diabetes worse. Because you are diabetic to begin with, you will be at greater risk for infection during the healing process and you must make sure to keep pressure off your stomach. We do not take out your kidneys and replace them, but add the new kidney to the front of your body near the pelvic bone. Any blow to the general region is then like being hit in the kidney. We also have the cost."

"What exactly are those costs?" my mother asks.

"The anti-rejection pills are $5,000 per month," the man in the white coat simply states.

We all stoop to retreive our jaws from the floor as our mouths hang stupidly agape at the mere mention of such a price. 'Sixty thousand dollars per year,' I think to myself as I watch the doctor's mouth move to form words I cannot hear. 'Sixty thousand dollars per year is more than our gross family income. How can we afford something like this?'

I hear the doctor mention the word "Medi-Cal" and I begin listening again. California's version of Medicaid helps the poor, elderly, and permanently disabled long term care patients (this is where my father fits into the picture). Private insurance only pays for 30 months of dialysis before medicaid takes over. Medi-Cal will be the method we will use for long term dialysis, or paying for the transplant if need be.

"Medi-Cal will pay for 80% of the anti-rejection pills" the doctor quickly commented after seeing our shocked faces, "and private insurance will pay about another 10 or 15%...."

Now, although my jaw does not hit the floor this time, my mind reels at the thought of still paying $250-$500 per month for pills to keep my father alive. If you break it down, that's still anywhere from $3000 to $6000 per year for drugs that won't even keep my father from dying. If his body begins to reject the organ after a few years, or even ten years, then it's back to dialysis anyway.

What use if having more freedom when you have no money to use it? We still can't go to many restaurants because he will be on a very restrictive diet. Even though we could vacation because he will no longer be tied to a machine three days per week, we have no way to afford it with the extra $6000 per year for drugs. How is this more freedom?

My father breaks the tension by saying, "Or we could go with option three and just let me pass from this plain of existance into the next, right?"

"That's not funny," I tell him. "And if you must go, at least wait until I'm out of grad school"

That Life holds you in its hand and will not let you fall.

2007-08-13T23:47:00.000-07:00

three wealthy sisters swore they'd never part:
Soul was (i understand)
seduced by Life; whose brother married Heart
now Mrs. Death. Poor Mind
-e.e. Cummings

The above is one of my favorite poems. Just think of how depressing the idea behind it is. You lose your soul to life. Everything about life kills the free wonderful beautiful creature of your soul that resides inside you. You lose your heart to death. And you simply lose your mind. I have been contemplating such thoughts as of late, wondering what they have to do with me, if anything.

But the following always makes me happy, even if it is indeed contratry to my prior sentiments.

"How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the alst moment turn into princesses; perhaps all dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
So you must not be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall."
-Rainer Maria Rilke August 12, 1904

"and girls with boys to bed will go,"

2007-08-10T23:21:00.000-07:00

Today, my father explained to me the different ways men and women fall in love. I had one of those stunning "light bulb" moments as he was explaining it to me because my life seemed to become so much more clear because of it.

He said that when a woman falls in love, she falls in love almost immediately. Within two weeks, she knows if a man is worth it and if so, will then put all her trust and faith in him. By this point, all the threads and bonds are in place for falling in love. Every pathway of connection if open. Everything is intact, whole, and full of endless potential.

Apparently this is not how men fall in love. When men fall in love, the connections have to grow gradually. It takes them time (sometimes lots of time, like months or years) to realize they love a girl. Usually with every mistake or stupid, thoughtless thing they do that the girl later forgives, he ultimately thinks she is that much more cool and awesome. This creates a thread of connection the guy feels for the girl, but each of these thoughtless actions simultaneously dissolve a thread of trust she feels towards him.

This continues with mistake upon mistake until all the bonds are in place for a guy to realize he loves the girl. But by this time, it's usually too late. The bonds she feels towards him are gone, and neither party knows where they went wrong, or why the timing of the relationship was so off... Sometimes the rolls are reversed, but usually there is one of each person in the relationship...

When he told me this during lunch today, everything sort of clicked into place. There have been a few people who, in the past, have asked me on dates and I said no, but was really thinking, "Jesus, why couldn't you have asked me this two months ago?" There have been especially painful times (okay, there was a single time) when I fell head over heals for someone, they crushed my soul into millions of little pieces, and somehow they told me they loved me several months later. At the time, I thought "Why the fuck have you been doing such stupid shit this entire time if you love me like you say you do???"

His actions the entire time killed whatever trust, connection, and bond I felt for him, all the while wounding me in the process and turning me into a sad pathetic wreck of a human being who has not been able to love someone with the same wreckless spontenaity since then. I have loved since then, but it has always been calculated, well thought out, and with the risks carefully weighed against all other things.

And recently, I have allowed myself to fall quite quickly for someone else, and I fear how it may turn out. I find myself with this looming sense of dread that I will come out of this affair as a broken, totally fucked up individual just like last time. That first person broke my heart three years ago, and sometimes I still feel twinges of pain and anxiety because of them. I just fear needing three years to heal the wounds from this more recent person (although in all honesty, I know it would take longer than those three years. The love I feel goes deeper, and the instant I realized I didn't want to be "just friends" was like a terminal velocity free fall...)

I love that this feels new, exciting and careless. I love that he's the sort of person for whom I was willing to move past all my stupid fears. I hate that I have no idea what's going on and have no control over the situation, but I feel the exhilaration of letting love and life and the universe take me into its arms and hopefully never let me fall. I love that I could fully trust him, even before this "relationship" of sorts developed...

And I hate that I have this sinking feeling my father is right. I hate the idea that every bond he creates is one that will dissolve for me... I hate having a sinking feeling of dread about someone who is more real than anyone I have experienced in my entire life. I hate that this person knows the real me because I really would love nothing better than to put up several layers of armor and masks to keep myself form being hurt all over again. I hate that this new person has seen me when I am an emotional trainwreck and has been there through the worse times because with him, I really have no defenses and am much more vulnerable than I ever was before.

And yet I am so happy that he has made me feel this way again... So vulnerable, spontaneous, and utterly utterly stupid.

Stunning, pathetic, depressing clarity.

"Love isn't suppposed to hurt this fucking much" (aka listening to other people's conversations while on the way to work)

2007-08-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

Below is what I recall of a one-sided phone conversation on the 9am train going to work this morning.

Scene: Man sitting in front of me dressed casually with a briefcase talks on his Nokia cell phone.

Man: "I'm just on the train going downtown. I have some job interviews today because I want to get the store opened as soon as possible, but I might have to reschedule everything after 2 o'clock today."
*pause*
Man: "Because my marriage basically fell to pieces last night."

(OF course, this catches my interest)

Man: "We've been having some problems lately and I asked him, point blank whether HE wanted to take a break from us"

(the fact that they're gay also caught my interest)

Man: "And of course he said no, but I got a text message from him about an hour later saying 'If I wanted to take a break, would I have to move all my stuff out of the house?' and we've been talking since then about it. In my mind, there's no such thing as going on a break. If you want to do that, we may as well just file for divorce right now."
*another pause in which the other person talks*
Man: "Well last night I was in the hospital for an asthma attack so I told my idiot nephew to call him, but his phone was turned off so he called his cousin instead. And she called me back right away and said 'What wrong? Is it the asthma? Is it Elias?' and I just told her everything that was going on between the two of us... about the potential of getting divorced or having a break. She said she would try to talk some sense into him, but I don't know."

later...

Man: "I just don't know if I can do this with the store opening and me trying to juggle my personal life while all this shit is happening. And I told him that being in love with someone isn't supposed to hurt so fucking much. "

After hearing this, I wondered "Since when?!?!"

The Simultaneous Nature of Laughter and Strife

2007-08-06T23:22:00.000-07:00

This past week blurred into what felt like no more than four hours. A time period like that and an opening sentence like the one I just makes me think of the song "Seasons of Love" no matter how much I despise that song and all of Rent. How do you measure a year, it asks.

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, laughter and strife...

It was overcast nearly every day in San Francisco, so daylight is perhaps not the best way to measure the week?

Sunsets? perhaps that works though it moved so quickly that we never had time to appreciate something as simple as a sunset.

Midnights? Most certainly that. We never slept before 2 each morning.

Cups of coffee isn't the most accurate one because I am a coffee fiend and a year would move rather quickly if measured that way.

Inches/miles work, but that brings another song to mind, and I really don't need "500 miles" by the Proclaimers stuck in my head at nearly midnight.

This week I measured in laughter and strife, for it emcompassed both opposite feelings simultaneously. A perfect mix of weak and strong, happy and sad, hope and utter dread knowing that the odds are against you and you really don't have much to be hopeful about. It made time slow down and appear to last forever at certain moments, but made those five days, as a whole, go by much faster than I would have liked.

Our whole lives can be measured in the simultaneous nature of happy and sad... of laughter and stife and to the varying degrees we feel each one in a given instant. Think of the insanity of it all--that our happiest moments are those that end up tearing our souls to pieces. The moments we feel most alive are those in which pain, fear, and loss will immediately follow.

And even though we realize this with stark clarity, after countless times getting hurt, we do it anyway. Why is that? Why do we insist on living for those highest highs even though we know very well that the lowest lows will soon follow. Why do we live each day for this rush of happiness or sorrow, even though we know things would be easier if we were indifferent or appathetic?

Because love is masochism. Because in order to love life, you have to be willing to let it beat you down, rip you apart, and haphazardly put you back together again. We have to gamble it all because even though we know the odds are not in our favor. there's at least the slightest possibility we may break even.

Do not mistake this for optimism. There is no way to win this game. You do not arise from the ashes rebuilt as a better, stronger, faster verion of your former self. If anything, you're more frail and more broken than before. Life scatters the pieces of who you once were and it's up to you or God or other people or the universe to help put yourself back together. Often times, you're forced to use pieces that don't quite match nor fit, sewn together in a poor patchwork resembling Frankenstein's monster.

With every daylight, sunset, cup of coffee, etc, we further encompass that patchwork in the fabric of our being. Scars fade, sutures heal, and all the edges that didn't quite match eventually wear away and find a way of fitting together until something else dashes you to pieces again, and you, once more, have to rebuild.

But as I said before, life isn't about winning. You don't have to roll 7's every time, as long as you don't crap out.

An argument against both family gatherings and alcoholism.

2007-08-04T23:54:00.000-07:00

As of ten minutes ago, I awoke from a food and alcohol induced coma. The afternoon/evening was about five hours of interrogation regarding college, majors, relationships, etc. (Insert other inappropriate and uncomfortable topics of conversation here).

The second I walk in the door:
Me: "Hey everyone. Sorry I haven't been by all summer"
Them: "I know. We heard about the friend of yours who came to visit last week. Why didn't you ever bring him over? We'd love to interrogate him and criticize your choice of boyfriend."
Me: "Well he's not actually my boyfriend. He's just a friend."
Them: "Don't be stupid. No one is just friends if they travel from halfway around the world to see you."
Me: "Well... there's really..."
Them: "Who wants Pina Coladas?"
Me: "God yes"

This is drink one... a rather strong mix finished off in about twenty seconds. The night continues from there.

Them: "so have you declared a major for next year?"
Me: "I'm thinking communications. I'll declare in the fall?"
Them: "What the hell are you planning to do with that? You can't even teach with such a phoney major..."
Me: "I think I hear the blender again. Who wants more drinks?"

This is drinks two and three...

Them: "So you like it at Berkeley, right?"
Me: "Of course, it's a great fit for me."
Them: "You couldn't find any guys you're interested in who live... at least a little closer"
Me: *cuts a slice of peach cobbler and begins eating.*
Them: "Where does this guy live exactly?"
Me: "Atlanta"
Them: "He's not black is he?"
*Everyone laughs but they have a pause in their laugher to let me know they are actually serious and would disapprove greatly if he was black and a bit more than slightly if he were mexican*
Me: "No he's not. He's actually australian.... So who wants more pie?"

The binge eating and sugar induced part of the coma starts here.

Ah, the joy of family gatherings.

Closure

2007-07-23T23:46:00.000-07:00

I had a blast from the past moment today. I had lunch with someone I hadn't seen in easily 4 years and someone who's heart I smeared against a wall when we parted ways four years ago. He wasn't an ex. He never had time to be an ex.

We got crepes and talked about the past. We reconciled, gained closure, and moved past everything that had never been.

I will probably never see him again, but it was nice to finally end things on proper good terms, even if it was about 4 years late.

He got his closure. I have yet to receive closure with one person I loved, but that will come in tiime, I'm sure

Smashing Pumpkins Concert

2007-07-17T12:14:00.001-07:00

Best sex of your life, mulitpled by like 100. That's how amazing it was.
Three hour sets, free posters, and only $25 for tickets.
Cherub Rock.
"Rotten Apples" during the acoustic set.
Billy forgetting the words to Doomsday Clock during the chorus (even for only a moment)
New guitarist.

Amazing.

My quarter-life crisis.

2007-07-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

I have been away from this blog for quite some time, as the motherboard on my computer at home has gone out and I must type this during the time I am at work.

I was born 19 years ago today. How quickly time passes. I am already at my quarter life crisis and I still have no idea what I want out of my life. Still more depressing, knowing my inherrited genetic illnesses, this may actually be my third-life or mid-life crisis instead of my quarter life crisis.

There a part of me that wants a job and the life for myself, a part that wants to do nothing but cook for a husband (in the heels and pearl necklace) and another part still that just wants to disappear.

Really, no one should ever celebrate birthdays.

Page Catalogue for 2007

2007-07-10T00:07:00.000-07:00

So last year I tried keeping a log of all the books I read and how many pages. I sort of fell off in August when I starte school, but let's see if I can keep it going longer now that I am in school. Last time I did not include books read for classes; however, I will now include literature read for classes (fiction and non fiction both, but not textbooks) because I don't think I'll have very much time for fun reading.

Books for classes will be in green and books for fun will be in um...red is too christmasy....how 'bout purple!

January 20th "Souls of Black Folk" -WEB Du Bois (276 pages)
January 24th "Crazy Horse-A Life" -Larry McMurtry (141 pages)
January 29th "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" -Dave Eggers (437 pages)
February 5th "Out of this Furnace" -Thomas Bell (418 pages)
February 13th "Black Boy" -Richard Wright (384 pages).
February 16th "Shopgirl" -Steve Martin (130 pages)
March 19th "1919" -John Dos Passos (380 pages)
March 26th "Theatre of the Oppressed" -Augusto Boal (190 pages)
April 4th "The Good War: An Oral History of World War 2" -Studs Terkel (590 pages)
April 5th "About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution" -Paul Davies (284 pages)
April 8th "Twilight: Los Angeles 1992" -Anna Deavere Smith (171 pages)
April 10th "A Briefer History of Time" -Stephen Hawking (148 pages)
April 19th "The Coming Of Age In Mississippi" -Anne Moodey (387 pages)
April 23rd "La Cantatrice Chauve suivi de La Lecon" -Eugene Ionesco (190 pages)
April 30th "The Things They Carried" -Tim O'Brien (246 pages)
May 12th "Big Sur" -Jack Kerouac (172 pages)
May 20th "Me Talk Pretty One Day" -David Sedaris (272 pages)
June 1st "How We Are Hungry" -Dave Eggers (218 pages)
June 28th "Glamorama" -Brett Easton Ellis (546 pages)
July 5th "The Alchemist" -Paulo Coelho (176 pages)

Total Page Count: 5751 pages

Woody Guthrie, Independence Day, and Blowing Shit Up

2007-07-04T23:32:00.000-07:00

It's Independence Day for about 27 more minutes.

A few things entered my mind today. I thought fondly of July 4th from two years ago, when I was at Harvard for the summer and watched the fireworks with Jed, Lizzie, Emily, Simon, etc from the MIT side of the Charles River. I remember that none of us in the group really knew each other, but we all became very close in the month and a half that followed. This was an innitial turning point for us. It was the first time Simon and myself had a real conversation. We realized that we can talk for hours and never be bored of each other. We watched the fireworks together and I don't think anything could have been more perfect.

One this side of the country, no one gives a shit about 4th of July. The wonderful state of California wasn't even a state until 1850... that's almost 74 years after the declaration of independence... We don't really care because we didn't even have copious amounts of people in this state until 1848 and 49 during the gold rush. Our fate and lives really have nothing to do with the Revolutionary War (not directly at least)

In Boston, they care because that's where the war was fought. In the New England area, they care. Perhaps the West Coast in just too liberal to care. Perhaps the sunshine and oranges really do cure all that ails you. Perhaps a lot of things.

While watching the Sacramento fireworks displace (and being very unimpressed by our display of pyrotechnics) the loudspeaker was playing a mix of patriotic songs. Star Spangled Banner, God Bless America, America The Beautiful, among others. But then it started playing "This Land is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie. That just irked me because it wasn't a patriotic song when he wrote it. He wrote it in response to the simplistic, saccharine Irving Berlin song, "God Bless America". It was suppposed to be cynical. It wasn't supposed to be patriotic.

Of course, we all know the first verse:

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land is made for you and me.

But I bet we don't know how the song progresses. It goes on like that for about 4 more verses, but then the last verses of the song hold a much more negative tone. Supposedly, those verses were omitted in every printed version of the song after 1945, but Arlo Guthrie (the son) claims these last two verses are authentic, and not simply a fabrication.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I'd seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

As I went walking, I saw a sign there;

And on the sign there, it said, 'No Trespassing.'

But on the other side; it didn't say nothing!

That side was made for you and me.

Interesting, the way time changes the meaning of all things, including a simple song.,