9 stories.

There's something about the number nine that I like. It's a single digit away from the threshold of double digits. Just one step away from being a 10, and treading into entirely new territory. But despite the fact that 9 is kind of like a crossing into the bigger numbers, there's something safe about it. Maybe because it's still a single digit that there's just this feeling of safety. It isn't as intimidating as a ten, yet surmounts all other single digits. If heaven's a 10, then 9 is heaven on earth, something completely in our grasp, on impossible scales nine's a distinct possibility. We aren't afraid to strive for nines, right? I mean, who's intimidated by a 9? Hasn't seven eight nine be(four)? OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

What was I getting on about. So I know I've been neglecting you as of late blog. Sorry. It's just that... the 365 project fell apart once school started getting harder, and after that I just didn't really feel like writing as of late. But I'll make it up to you. Ready? You'll be excited.

So I'm going to write 9 love stories, and utilize the tag system for the first time in forever. So see here, that little "labels for this post" thing? It's going to have "9 stories" for any posts I put down for this little project, and after I write these 9 stories about love then...

...Then?

I don't know, let's see what happens.

blah blah blah

So I had this weird dream, where I imagined Love to look like the guy from the Johnnie Walker whiskey brand, with the top hat and the cane and all that. He stands next to a girl standing on the top of this chair, who has a noose around her neck. I come in, the steps of my shoes squeaking against the wood floor. Johnnie Walker has this blank look on his face when I walk in like he's done this a million times before, and when we make eye contact, this huge grin spreads across his face, really slow and menacing. He twirls his finger around his handlebar mustache, screams at me that I'm too late, and kicks the chair out from under this girl. I run over to try to catch her, but I end up sinking into the floor, like it's become quicksand or something. So as I'm struggling against the quicksand, I can see her struggle too, thrashing around, kicking the air like something out of a bad kung-fu movie. The whole time this is happening, Johnnie Walker's just cackling away. The last thing I see before I sink into the floor, quicksand just reaching my eyelids, is her body go limp, swinging in the air like a pendulum. Johnnie Walker beats her back and forth like a teatherball, and I think to myself that Love's a fucking bastard.

Messed up, right?

I keep thinking that love is a matter of expediency. I mean, dealing with metaphors, the symbols that are used to describe love: it's a flame that consumes you, it's a melody that embraces you, it's the wind beneath your wings. But guess what: flames smoulder out, melodies end, and the wind has to die down sometime. So what you think is carrying you one minute drops you from the sky the next, crippled on the ground. Love is fleeting, frail, and never bound to one place. It's a kiss that lingers upon your cheek until you wake up and realize that the girl that left it is already walking away from you. Or so I think.

It's just one of many things that in our pursuit to realize, so as to substantiate our lives, actually wastes it away. It's like a noose around our necks. We struggle to get it off so we can live, but our struggling can make us suffocate that much faster. Okay, okay, enough with the grim imagery. What I'm trying to get at, is that we pursue love to bring meaning to our lives and in this pursuit we're wasting already too precious bits of life if it's unsubstantiated.

I tend to rush things a lot. I guess I want the head resting on your shoulder, finishing your sentences, spoon-feeding you, adorable gushiness that I associate with the feeling. But furthermore, I want to attain that sense of completeness that so many people seem to get out of it. I mean, that's why you do it right? Struggling through a sea of people, falling on your face over so many of them, so you can find that one special someone amidst that huge crowd who can fulfill any and all relationships you could ever want? Your counterpart, your leg to stand on, your other half.

I'm always in doubt concerning myself. I look back at a bunch of things I've done and think to myself, "what the heck was I thinking?" It's the same with my writing. I'm always embarrassed to read stuff I've written in the past; in fact, I'm never really satisfied with anything I've written in the present. So love is something I try to bulldoze through; I go through the motions of everyone else, rush myself when I see an opening, and see futures where I shouldn't be looking towards, at least during those particular moments.

Recently I've just been taking it a lot slower. I don't really try to make relationships out of the friendships I've made with girls. I used to think it was giving up but at the same time I don't feel anxious anymore, no more struggling with the noose around my neck. If it happens, it happens, right? I was always afraid that I'd be impeded if I didn't rush towards what I think is love: I'd be blind before I'd see you, I'd be deaf before I could hear you. But hey, there's a reason why that one Bible quote is always repeated at weddings. Love is blind and all that. I just have to be patient, because if I'm not, I might just rush past it.

fiction idea 2

Someone smart once told me, if you're trying to avoid being productive then do something else that's productive. This realization hit me while I was on facebook. Whatever. :|
But I'll just start writing this idea I have inside my head, and see how it goes.

There's this beautiful woman who wears this sad smile on her face every single day. It's plastered on like a rushed paint job on a house. It could mean anything: a placeholder for whatever expression is supposed to be on there, a sad attempt to hide what's inside the interior, a plea for help, whatever it is you want. It's like when light is filtered through clouds, and all you're left with is grey sunshine. It shines the brightest it can but you can't help but feel sorry for it.

She lives in a happy home, but she can't help it. She works in a nice law firm, she's married to a hard-working man, and still she can't help but post this fake smile. It's because her husband has to work these excruciating hours, waking up when the sun hasn't risen and coming home when the hours of the night are slowly winding down, where there's no traffic in the streets and the only sound is your own engine. Sometimes she feels that their home is merely a place of transition for him, a place where he can go to in order to change his suit and go back to work. The nights are long for her too, as she sees the space next to her in bed, a space which isn't used to the shape of her husband's body, a space which yearns for someone to sleep in.

They are debt-ridden. And even though they can carve a comfortable middle-class existence for themselves, it is because they are slowly destroying themselves to live in comfort. He is a presence in the household that isolates himself from it in order for it to exist. And she is someone whose vision is slowly deteriorating as she processes legal requests for hours on end. She walks home every single night alone, with her suitcase to her side, passing glittering stores and people on the street. She goes home and pops open a beer, cooking a modest meal and eating half, while sticking the other half in a tupperware for her husband to eat as she sleeps, missing him.

and so she goes on, the same sad smile, the same sad song, the same sad routine every single day.

There's this pianist who works in a cafe that sees her pass his window everyday, and every single time she passes he always wants to slam his hands on the window, saying to her, "you'll be okay, you'll be okay!" He doesn't love her, no no. The girl is more of a daughter to him. He has a love of his own, who sits in bed everyday because of a disease which is eating the marrow inside of her bones. But through their own love and tenderness for each other she conquered the disease and now sits at home, slowly recovering. The pianist is taking up the piano as a second job. He works as a bartender in the late nights, and plays the piano during the day/evening. So whenever he sees this sad-smiled girl, who is 35 years his junior, he is reminded of his wife who smiled the same way because she wanted him to be strong. She wanted him to be happy. He thinks to himself that young people shouldn't have to feel this way, ever. He drinks a cocktail and is reminded of his lovely wife who waits for him at home with hands like the frail branches of trees, and grows happier at the thought of holding them.

So one day he's sitting at his piano and sees this lady with her head hung down, like her burdens have finally caught up with her, weighing her down. He stops mid-song, a cover of a Frank Sinatra song, and stares at her face, and he sees it, he sees the same smile, despite the fact that her bangs are covering everything, she still sees those same lips curled in the same painful happiness. He stands up and watches her disappear in the window, only to reappear in the bar. Tiny droplets of water fall from her face but it's a beautiful spring day, not a single cloud in the sky. And so with tiny steps she approaches the piano and the pianist and in a tremulous voice she starts to tell her story to him.

She tells of everything, of how her and her husband had to elope because of the objections of their respective families. She wasn't the right race, and his family vehemently rejected her at various dinner tables in their own cruel mother tongue. He wasn't of the right pedigree, and her family made that apparent by serving him various delicacies and chardonnays he'd never be able to afford. And despite all of that they knew that as long as they'd be together, they'd be okay. Without a second thought, a day after their graduation they drove to a different state, leaving behind their problems as tiny dots in the horizon disappearing as they blinked, and they tried to set themselves anew in their life together. Except they didn't. Student loans and expensive real estate ate away at their newfound happiness, and they found a new set of challenges. The most painful thing, she said, was that even though they were together they weren't actually. In their attempt to close off the distance between each other they only managed to separate themselves even farther away.

And so with the story reaching its conclusion she has one request of the pianist, and that is to play a song about her life. She wants him to play a piece the most appropriate to her situation.

Silently he places his finger over a single note, and taps it. Then taps it again. Taps it again and again and again, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and... She asks what he's doing.

"Well, it'd be unfair for me to write a song when the composition isn't even done. I have no idea how the ending will go. If someone can make you feel so sad when they aren't even in your life, think about how happy you'll be once he can re-enter. It's only a matter of time, after all. No matter what eats away at you, if you keep going eventually you'll leave it behind. So that's why it's just this one note. I'm waiting for the next one to happen. You'll be fine."

She just stares at him, waiting.

fiction note 1

In the broader scheme of things everything is tinged in suspicion, shades of distrust turning what looks black and white into hints of gray. When that great river belched out of the earth and shot into the sky, its course traced silhouettes on that great black inky parchment. Cursive amongst the stars, looping its signature around the moon. I should have went back inside the house. Took some tea off the counter, made a cup or two and pondered at what I had just seen. That would have been the logical thing to do. The words you spoke to me yesterday began to echo like church bells inside of my head: "what are you most afraid of, Joseph?" I closed my eyes and was entwined in a cathedral of sadness.

I rushed back into the house without thinking, grabbing all of my tools: the welding kit, the hammers, the nails and boards and giant canvases. I told you that I was going to build you something amazing for our anniversary, and I finally found the time to fulfill that promise in the longest night of my life. I worked frenetically, the moon shining down on our lawn, making everything blue. The touch of dew in the air tickled my nostrils, and soothed my blistering hands. I was building a sailboat the fastest I could. I blinked and I saw it done, a patchwork of mindless work standing before me.

Running water angled at ninety degrees into the sky, like a paused wave, urging me forward. It was there in the night, my sweat-soaked shirt and its cold soaking into my skin, that I decided upon the very first adventure of my life. For your sake, I thought. I went back into the house, threw everything that I would need for a very long trip into a leather suitcase my father had given me when I told him I'd become a lawyer. I threw it onto the boat, sending sawdust to drift in the sky, the smell of new wood suffusing the air. Virgins, the both of us, to this feeling of departure.

I took one big breath, and pushed my humble boat into the river before me, and jumped in. The boat shot into the sky. I was sailing amongst stars, along the river Styx, ready to get you back, ready to render those last words absolutely useless.

meaning?

I do not know at what point in my life that I became so disinterested with things around me, but it's happened, it's here right now, and I am just starting to note this ambivalence.

Not to say that I was the most outgoing person in the past, but I definitely made more of an effort to be outgoing. I guess you could attribute this to my high school record. I would have to go be proactive, simply because I was working towards getting into an elite college. But even if I had gotten into the places I wanted to, I think I'd be in the same position of stagnating wherever I'd end up.

I like to keep my head up and believe that once I truly pierce the subject matter of my study, that I will be truly, deeply engaged in my learning. The classes I'm taking so far for my major, I do enjoy. At times, my English classes do feel like high school again, in that I'm arguing subjectivity. The better dressed I can make my argument, with words and metaphors and what have you, the better I'll do. I do like to explore themes within the novel, or the reason why this person is using this particular form of poetry, but I would also like to learn how this is important to anyone besides me.

Doctors read books on how to save lives, and I'm reading books to analyze imaginary people. Huh?

I've been listening to a lot of underground hip-hop lately. Time for a name drop!
Freddie Joachim!


Kero One!


Choice37!


Green Tea!


I bump these all the time when I work at zot zone, our university's local arcade... rest area. Thing. What was I going on about though. Right, underground hip-hop! In the same sense that commercialized music is bad for people, I think that underground music ia absolutely awful for my mental health. Every time I bump it I notice the passion laced in the beats, this artistic integrity embedded in the lines of these emcees. They are acknowledging that they will probably never be a hip-hop headliner, a candidate for G.O.A.T, and yet they still strive forward, believing in the power of their lyrics. They're happy. They're making meaning out of their lives.

So I think that definitely exacerbates this feeling of stagnation that I've been feeling lately. I don't really know what I want to do. Before I came into college I thought I wanted to become a writer. Don't get me wrong, I still do. I want to create stories that touch people. Nothing more than that. I don't want to be a Tolstoy or a Kafka, inspiring social revolution. I understand that I do not possess the literary genius for that kind of writing. Nor do I want to be a Hemingway or a Dickens, reshaping the literary landscape as we know it. I don't think I can do anything that great. It seems that the breadth of my talent is simply to tell of the stories that I conjure in my head.

Planes that fall out of the sky like raindrops. The pursuit of childhood heroes after they disappear from the face of the Earth. Spoken word smiths hooking up with a beat technician, a daughter of bigwig Korean business titans. These are three scenarios I have written so far for my beginning fiction class. The ideas themselves are novel and entertaining. But I recognize that these are far from perfect stories, and I know that there are people that can write far, far better than I can. I've read two stories from other people in this class so far and I know that they haven't written before. But as I climb higher and higher, instead of feeling somewhat superior I will start to recognize an inherent inability to turn a phrase better or pace an event better than an actual genius.

I know that everyone has their own special story to tell, but I also recognize the fact that some stories are meant to turn pages, while other stories are meant to upheave entire societal standards.

If anything though, at least my classes have taught me one thing: to stop erasing words that I think are potentially embarrassing. I have to be able to write how I feel, and if I keep looking back at everything I'm writing, editing out snippets to sound prettier, taking out whole chunks to sound like a nice guy, then I'm essentially lying to myself. This stream of conscience thing, this committal of my mind to the page, is the realest writing that I've done in a while, and I'm happy with it.

But just because I'm happy with it doesn't mean I'm satisfied with it. I'm still looking for a way to substantiate these words, make them meaningful somehow. Is it enough that they mean something for me? I don't think so. I don't know if it's because I'm too empathetic, or if it's because I have an overwhelming inferiority complex (signs point to the latter though). I have a driving need to prove myself to everyone around me. To say that hey, everything I'm doing right now IS worth my time. One of the only reasons that I've been able to pursue a career in English for so long, despite the fact that I recognize its fallacies in reality, is because it's helpful to other people. I'm serious. In pursuit of my passion, I inspired other people to follow theirs' as well.

Where do we find meaning in our lives, that thing that makes us want to wake up in the day, that pushes us forward? I keep trying to find it in other people. I think a large part of me wants to discover what love is because I want a sense of usefulness in my life. Sometimes I lie awake at night, wondering what would happen if I suddenly died. I realize that people will be sad, sure. But will they be at a loss? With me gone, will their lives suddenly stop as well? No, they won't. And sure, you can attribute that adjustment to loss to the resiliency of the human soul, but I am much more of a pessimist. I believe that the role I serve in other peoples' lives can easily be fulfilled by whoever's next in line.

So for that reason, I want to discover love. To have someone depend on me would give me some sort of direction, and I know that's really messed up and really, really twisted. In fact, it's an awful way to approach a relationship. But a naive part of me still holds onto this sentiment, a part of me that refuses to grow up. The same little kid that tries to justify his ambivalence to a lack of interest in things that are meaningless to him. It's a very, very selfish thing.

I need to prioritize and try again, for real this time. But sometimes I find myself asking, "where the heck do I even start?"

I keep trying to look ahead. That answer will be saved for next quarter, when I enroll in intermediate fiction and a tutoring program.

(here's hoping, keep your head up to the future)

Soulution ft El Gambina.

Just live a new life everyday. Try to smile like you just got paid. When it gets hard close your eyes and pray.

yep.

365 days isn't going to work, because of too much work.
I don't have time for stuff. Bah.

so.

uhhh midterm PHAIL.

We had to write odes about pets in english class. here's mine:
Hip-hop was my dog, my Sparky
Back when I was fat kid lonely
On my cousin's counter first CD met,
I'd play with Sparky until the sun set
We barked at each other
And became like brothers
We ate from the same bowl of life
Shared our tribulations and strife
Pretty soon you couldn't tell which was which
Cause me and Sparky were sewed to the hip


At some point Sparky got too ugly
Flea-ridden, mangy, way too dirty
I'd get sad looks from the girls in the hall
Made me ashamed to rock Sparky at all.
Dog of mine had no tact,
Dog of mine held me back.
I didn't kick it with him no more
Cause his constant barking left me sore.
My dog Sparky was too old anyway
Too tired and worn out for any play.


Now I'm a little bit older
And also a lot less colder
When I see Sparky curled sad on the stoop
This weather-ridden mutt thrown for a loop
Our once great friendship
An irreparable rift
Me, who left him to struggle alone
Picks up this malnourished bag of bones
Petting Sparky like I was dropping beats
Saying sorry like I was spitting heat.

eighth day

oh man oh no oh man.

got hiragana down. now I need katakana. Yeah I'm not sleeping tonight

lol.

I like to think that if I write well enough, these words will somehow bridge the chasm between you and me.

With a pencil I'm omnipotent. I can make our mistakes fade into the past tense, I can clear the fog that covers our future. Time is meaningless here. I can rewrite everything until I get my point across clear like neon signs on a new moon night.

I can take you anywhere you want to go. Just say the words and I can turn this barren, lifeless terrain into the veranda overlooking the Napa Valley you always wanted to go to, where you bite into grapes fresh from the vine and look at the sky through the patchworks of trees older than both of us.

I can erase and rebuild, until there's something there we can both smile upon.

I write with the verve of madmen, scratching frenetically at the walls to make sense of what is happening to them, their own tantric ritual. The desperate clawing their attempt to make sense of what's happening. To know what's going on, to get you to understand.

seventh day

Got so bored studying that I tried to log onto my old myspace. I have forgotten the password though.

I'm glad I didn't, that thing was straight up embarrassing.

Sixth day

Made something for the first time that almost made me vomit.

I left the meat in the fridge too long so it went bad.

I is eating microwaveables tonight. Waaaaaaaah.

On the plus side, I did get a 97 on a midterm. And, I'm getting the hang of this hiragana business.

Fifth day

Didn't really study yesterday.

Powering through hiragana/katakana practice and an essay due tomorrow.

This week is going to SUCK

Fourth day

Haven't studied yet. Been playing Restaurant City.

Whoops.

third day

I hate my slow-ass computer that makes me wait like the most patient parent, hot naps, and this grogginess that is making my head feel weighted in its orbit.

Paati de ikimasu.

Let me sleep please.

second day.

Day 2

Studying while working at the courtyard study lounge

I dreamed in Japanese characters last night.

Hai, soo desu ne.

First day

Midterm for a class I'm failing next Friday, having to write a composition in a language I cannot read, an essay on Monday and I need to finish Frankenstein by Friday. I'm on page 50. Way too much work.

So I have a week and 2 days to get my shit together, so these posts will be short, sporadic, and a case study on a student with way too much shit on his plate.

So today, I'm going to sear squiggly lines into my brain. The beauty of hiragana.

tuesday

And this is today's the thing that's been inside my head.

Yo, so. We only keep up through facebook feeds,
This computer replacing you in your stead.
Status updates replacing our interactions conversationally.
And the only time I see your smile, sated
Is in other people's pictures.

There was a point in our lives
When you ceased to be in my life.
I only ever see you electronically.
Pixels on screens that illuminate
books I'm reading too late at night.

Shoes

I missed a day. Shoot.

So I'm going to cheat again, and post some shoes I was looking at online.


http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?itemdescription=true&itemCount=60&id=14261671&parentid=M_SHOES_CASUAL&sortProperties=+subCategoryPosition,price&navCount=207&navAction=poppushpush&color=01&popId=MENS_SHOES&pushId=M_SHOES_CASUAL&prepushId=


(I want them)

YO

Yo, I change my mind, fuck your shit, those girls with those smoky voices sounding like canaries who have never flown out of their cages.

I want to propose to this girl's flow, man. I heard her first on this track:


Check your conceptions of what hip-hop is at the door, because this is what the game ought to be. El Gambina, google her. She's amazing.

bah.

Customer service is hard. I hate the way they look at me. You know what I'm talking about. Like I'm too fucking dumb to do my job. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah too tired to write, back to studying. bleh.

Books talking to me: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I guess I don't have a lot to say, so sometimes I cop out with a youtube video or something. But, I feel that creative exercises allow me to write really fast, and I have fun doing it too. So I'm going to utilize the tag system for the first time ever, in my creation of a series that I really want to do.

Ready for it? It's really exciting.

It's BOOKS FROM MY SHELF THAT TALK TO ME!

...What? I make my books talk to me through personification. Come on, it's BOOKS FROM MY SHELF THAT TALK TO ME! Fine, I thought it was clever. See, I'm not really that talkative of a guy, but I do like to talk about books. I've bought a lot of them too, and I think that the way I feel about a book is something akin to recounting stories of traveling. They're experiences, and I want to see what they'll say to me back. It does feel pretentious though, something you might see in Mcsweenys or something else hipster-y. I guess you have to see it happen. The first book, one of my favorites, Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle."

AH! TIME FOR WRITING YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHYUH

*ahem*

First Segment.

"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" talks to me.

--------

Hey Rante. It's me. Remember when you bought me in junior year? It was after you resigned yourself to majoring in business in college. You just stopped reading! After your dad made you read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad (which, by the way, was a pretty lame book. I mean, come on, the guy thinks he's so cool but when you're bankrupt, what's he going to say then? Business adages are nice, but they don't help you when your company is corrupt. But anyway.)," you just stopped enjoying reading. You'd look at each book as useless. How the heck is someone supposed to raise a family only writing words? So you just kind of scrapped them off to the side, and resigned yourself to funds and what have you.

I know it's vain of me to say that I'm proud that I was the one that brought you back into reading. I mean, any number of books you met after me could have done that. In fact, reading "Life of Pi" and "A Confederacy of Dunces" the summer before probably had a more resounding effect on you. But I'm glad to say that you started to seriously delve into more literary fiction after meeting me. Murakami was a love letter that you gushed over, and you read my other counterparts voraciously, then you started reading the authors Murakami liked, then your foray into the classics, until suddenly you entered college declaring English. That I was the foundation that would bring you back to English, needless to say, makes me all warm and fuzzy all over.

You were obsessed with me. I mean, you've never reread me completely. You know that I'll always make the time for you! But I'm a commitment, and I know that you're way too busy for me at the moment. I'm happy that you wouldn't want me to slim down on any of my five hundred something pages. You do, though, frequently reread the parts that resound with you, Kumiko's letter in particular. Have you ever read anything so perfect? I know you like to quote that one a lot. Or that bit about how the loneliness gleamed like a razor blade, the pages taking on the shines of knives. Not in those words, but the general feeling. You love that.

You passed me on to so many people. You gave me to Kellan after that memorable summer at Harvard, you hounded Matt to read it after school on the bus, and you gave the book to you know, that one girl. She ditched her classes to go to the bookstore with you and on your suggestion I was given to her. She loved it. You hoped she would love you in the same way but she never did. You can't expect her to love you for the experience that I alone have given her, you can't do that. You just have to expose yourself, and if she doesn't want that, then by God you don't need her. You'll find someone yourself, don't worry.

But anyway, we have grown significantly together. Remember in high school, when you were so proud busting me out during silent sustained reading? Look at that complicated work, look at that young kid reading it! He must be so smart! I didn't want to mention it at the time, but using me to look good wasn't right, but I was patient with you and you came around. The first couple of pages or so might have been used to mitigate an image of you (after all, you did read about how I was the darling of literary critics everywhere), but a hundred pages in you were engrossed for real, and started to find meaning in every single sentence you could. I really, really liked that, that I as a story could help you mature, see the world in a much more productive light. Help you grow up a little.

You carried me to Boston, Massachusetts. I'm taken to trips everywhere. I'm surprised I haven't fallen apart. I mean, I am WRECKED. My pages are so soft from wear, there are stains from food, highlight marks, torn covers and a broken spine. But I've outlasted a lot of books you had before, and I think that it's because I'm so important to you that you refuse to let anything wreck me. And if they did, you wouldn't hesitate to buy me the next day. My philosophies had a big effect on you, but we know that there are depths to me that you haven't even scratched at yet. But in essence, I'm a simple love story, and the fact that I could make you want to be a better guy for the girls you meet make me feel special. Thanks.

********

I now want to reread this book... Ah man, I tried last year but couldn't because of school, and a prior commitment to Bukowski.

*sigh*

I am always deeply disturbed by stories that tell of the human capacity for evil, the ones featuring some apocalyptic situation wherein people struggle to stay alive through any means possible. I mean, I shouldn't believe in it. These stories utilize character tropes: the typical airhead, the naive optimistic, the altruistic hero, the one that stoops to whatever means to survive. These are blueprints of personalities, scripted characters that do not exist; realistically, it's impossible to quantify someone's personality into specific, one word answers. Jock. Genius. Thief. Altruist. These single-word statements cannot describe the intricacies of the human mind. Rationally speaking, I can't imagine these kinds of situations playing out so neatly in its own anarchy. I would like to think that in an earthquake, I wouldn't hoard all of the food for myself, in a tsunami, I would dive after the woman that fell overboard, and if blindness suddenly struck everyone I wouldn't go about raping someone. But see, the thought strikes me, that in the same way that I can believe that this couldn't happen, someone else could believe with all their heart and soul that this can ensue. I mean, the guy writing it nurtured the thought, cultured the notion of committing these unspeakable evils to his fellow man. What's to prevent him from actually acting them out?

I think that there's a certain responsibility in writing. People that write deal with the views and minds of so many characters that sometimes I wonder if their personalities are blurred because of it. Like, did J.R.R Tolkein get lost in the expansive world he created? Did he slip up sometimes and talk to his wife in Elven? Do those creeping suspicions, those rising urges, all of the actions boiling over ever find their way into the author's life? Sometimes I fear that when a story is sympathetic to a monster of a character, it's simply the author trying to redeem himself. He puts that monstrosity through a living hell to baptize himself, punishing him and then having us mourn it simply to go through a process of self-salvation.

I really need to stop reading depressing stuff.

I think that's what makes me write so safely. I don't know what to make of it. I definitely recognize an immaturity in my writing, and I'm not too sure how I go about fixing it. It's like... a painter, when he finishes his painting. Of course, it matches the picture inside of his head, and he keeps telling himself it's fine. He looks closer at strokes he can only see, those that were made too fast, or too sloppily, or in a color that slightly not the shade intended. There's this weird sense of disappointment whenever I finish writing now. I cannot match the stronger tones of people better than me.

Good writing, I feel, definitely explores the innermost depths of the soul. The author looks inward to tell the thing that he can best. It could be a lovely elegy, a heartfelt poem, or the end of the world and established society. See, there's this bit from a lot of writers, to "write fearlessly." I still don't really know how I can do that. I feel that if I unravel my innermost thoughts, my mind will follow, and I'll expose something that I cannot take back. It's kind of scary when I think about it. But if I am going to write, it's something I have to do, or else the words that I write won't mean much, if anything.

another cop out

I like girls with soft, hazy voices that sing to bouncy accompaniments and make me want to fold laundry.


please marry me.

mang.

No tutoring high schools until next quarter.

It's a shame because I was looking forward to it too. Waaaaaaaaah.

So much love.

Just listen to it. So much love for this track.



A good song is like a faithful lover.

Facebook feed

I'm saddened that we only keep up through feeds on facebook, status updates and newsfeed posts, face to face is through thumbnails and tagged photos. And I can't even stick this on a twitter so you can see how I feel: 217 characters to tell how messed up this is.

Ideaaaaa

I had a pretty good idea to write but I forgot it. It's a really crappy feeling too, losing something that you thought was pretty solid in my head. I'm trying to retrace my steps to see if I can catch it again. As soon as I trace it I'm pinning it down. I was at work. I was eating breakfast, which consisted of ovaltine and pop-tarts. Then I... was eating this crappy candy from my childhood. Hey! That's what it was! I was going to write about how things from my childhood don't enthrall me as much anymore.

Well, now that I have THIS, I might as well save that concept for another day. It's not technically cheating, I think...

*ahem*

I hate it when I lose ideas. Sometimes I'll see a certain person on-campus, and I'll think "hey, they'd make a nice story." Or I'll be daydreaming and stumble on something interesting. I find random tidbits in books that could be used for conversation pieces, and I discover deep, philosophical quotes I can base a post on. And just like that they're gone, lost in the inability to retain most anything within my short-term memory. Not to say, however, that I always forget great, or even good ideas. I forget about things that suddenly sprout up in the back of my mind that I'm glad I didn't do (tribal tattoo, eighteenth birthday for one). I remember how at one point I wanted to own a snuggie (I refuse to buy one now because they made these "designer" prints, which are basically leopard-spotted, meaning that they have more or less affirmed that their audience are tacky moms who wear stiletto heels to the grocery store. DAMN YOU PRODUCT MARKETING!). I also groan at how I tried to be emo or indie or whatever in high school, wishing that idea had left my head at the time (More on that later. Actually no, never). But, no matter how I try to see the silver lining, an idea lost is an idea wasted, regardless if it's good or not.

David Sedaris is one of my favorite memoir writers. He notes that he keeps a little notebook around with him, jots down notes, and elaborates on them later. I actually tried this for a day. I was really nervous about looking pretentious, busting out some random notepad and just writing in the middle of nowhere, so whenever a thought or observation struck me, I would run off to a secluded corner and write it down. Eventually, I would start annotating anything interesting, and every couple minutes I would run off to some shady corner, then reenter society, looking over my shoulders, writing in a notebook furtively. If anyone was watching me, they'd probably think that I was engaging in multiple drug deals. It got so bad that I pretty much only use that little notebook to compose my grocery list now.

If I find something I HAVE to write about, I think about it constantly. I try to sear it into my brain, hide the idea in the wrinkles of my lobe to pluck out later. But if I go with this method, it consumes my conscious. The concept will strike me at inopportune times: during classes and conversations, it's all white noise as my thoughts begin to blossom. I'll find myself unable to sleep, and then wake up to only be thinking again about the same thing. I'll have to write it, and then find myself unsatisfied because it doesn't match the words in my mind, and then keep writing over and over and over, knowing that there's just too much of a boundary between the words I write and the mental images within my head. I need to accept that these are two separate realities, and no matter how much I want the thing in my head to exist on the page, it can never be. The best I can have is a doppelganger, a somewhat accurate facsimile. It's PRACTICALLY the same, but there's just this one unspeakable quality that prevents it from being one and the same.

Lately I've just been kind of freestylin' on it. I read this novella, "Ron Carlson Writes A Story." It's about how the director of the UCI creative writing program goes about writing a story. I always figured, it was through detailed planning, meticulous editing and constant revising that a story finds it's way into existence but it's NOT. So Carlson thinks that he wants to write a story about a mattress that falls out of a truck. Great. Except he kind of word-vomits everything else. Characters, places, scenarios, all of it just comes out of his head and onto the paper haphazardly, but the thing is that it all WORKS, and that's because he's not just throwing crap together. He creates a character, and then lets them live their own lives. I've found that in my spontanaetiy I made some pretty good stuff (this blog, for example). So I think I'm going to use this approach a lot more.

The creative process is something that still befuddles me. Is there a certain approach to create certain things, or are our brains just wired to do something a certain way? I still don't really know what works for me. I plan intensely on papers only to realize I had TOO much; I write papers in mere hours and realize just how much another hour or two could have helped if I had only planned ahead. I guess I need to strike a fine balance, but in the meantime I guess writing casually is the best thing for me. No mental thoughts of a guilliotine above my head to keep my head down and write. If anything, casuality justifies my habit of putting things off until the very last minute, and I do indeed like that.

Cooking.

So I think that writing is a lot like cooking.

I'm starting to cook for myself nowadays, and it's a great, refreshing feeling. I don't think I've started anything new in a while. I've been doing more of things that I find important, but I haven't really done anything outside of my niche. The only experiences I've had with cooking were sparse dalliances with toasters, microwaves, and rice cookers. I've used the stove maybe a couple times in my life, but nothing so extensive as cooking a whole meal for myself; maybe just a grilled cheese sandwich to munch on, or some spam.

So I'm now becoming more involved with the kitchen. No longer do I keep my back turned to the stove and oven when I make my mad-dash to the refrigerator for food. In fact, I no longer approach the fridge briskly; knowing that cooking my meal will be more than throwing a tray into a microwave, I take my time. I wash and dice the vegetables, set the wok and frying pan on the stove to heat up, season my meat in spices and marinades, and recount the steps I'll have to take to conjure up the recipe in my mind. To make one's food is a labor of love, and for that one must take it slow.If anything, at least cooking has made me much more patient.

It's a lot like writing, when I think about it, and it's the very same feeling that I had when I started to write that I have right now with cooking. Look! I'm creating things! I'm experimenting! As of right now, the dishes I create are far from perfect, but I can eat them just fine one way or another, and I'm happy. Yet, little by little, my inadequacies are starting to show up in my food and I want to erase them. I would add too much soy sauce like so many words, ruining the flavor of a story. Or, I would add a wrong spice to the mixture like a bizarre phrase or paragraph, changing the very flavor of the concoction. I don't feel for the consistency of the recipe, or I overcook it until its natural flavors are lost. I edit my creations into oblivion until I lose the meaning I want to convey.

I don't know why I am attracted to things that demand a delicate touch. Either with cooking or writing, with one mistake you can make a catastrophe. If you're too attentive, then you can be so muddled in technique and precision that the overall picture is ruined. If you're too inattentive, then you can under-cook something so it doesn't fulfill its potential, or even worse, not even make the thing you intended to in the first place. Sure, you can salvage a bad meal with sauces and sides, or you can salvage a bad story with a good character or two, but in the end, when you're downing it, there's still that indelible feeling of disappointment on your heart or tongue.

I've been reading a lot of recipes and books on the subject of cooking in order to better myself. I have a gigantic cookbook of Martha Stewart's right next to my copy of Fitzgerald's short story collection. I go blind trying to solve the puzzle hiding the techniques of the great. I hunch over computer screens and stoves. I watch my concoctions boil, fry, and simmer, hoping everything will go alright. I am walking in the presence of giants, attempting to match their humongous steps by making every effort to match their pace.

I really shouldn't be looking at it that way though. Like everything else I care about, I stick my nose in too deeply in the subject and try to rush its stages. I need to learn to revel in glacial paces. I always feel like I'm stagnating if I'm still, just waiting, and I tend to rush things to get to the next point. I think that the best things about both cooking and writing is that I can try again a near-infinite amount of times. It's not like race car driving or snowboarding, wherein if I meet a fatal accident while attempting to be the best, it's a career ender. The worst accidents that could befall me writing is carpal tunnel; with cooking it's um... burning my house down. But barring the worse, the great capacity of both of these activities, to be able to try again in order to strike that fine balance, to be able to change something because there is no finality to it, I think that's what I like best about it. In my quest to attain a near-perfection, it excuses my imperfections.

That, and I find it a lot of fun. A LOT. There aren't too many things that make me really excited. And of course, not everyone is going to share my enthusiasm. I won't ever hear from my roommate, "boy howdy writing! What are we waiting for?" nor will I hear, "hey, spending hours trying to make a cake? Sounds like a weekend!" But these are the things I like, and I guess that I make so much of an effort towards them because I want to enjoy them to my fullest.

That's not to say I'm anywhere near-good in the kitchen. Honestly, I'm pretty awful. Or if not awful, nearing adequate. I can't say that much about my writing either. I keep hearing that we need to approach our works with confident strides and strokes, but I'm sure that's not an approach that works out for me. I guess that I constantly demean myself so I never get too full of myself, and due to that I never stop to strive towards bettering myself. I'm realizing the flaws in this though. Because I stop myself so constantly, I miss so many paths due to me dwelling on a point. Like making a steak too well-done. Or never finishing the story you want to write.

All I can do is steadily improve, and try to take the steps that I should be making.

sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Friday's.

So I knocked the fuck out as soon as I got back from work. I was feeling okay too; I figured that I wasn't sleepy. My muscles weren't sore, my thoughts weren't murky. Everything was really clear to me, it felt like a normal day. Then I closed my eyes around 4 PM, and woke up at 2 AM clearly confused. Where the heck did the sun go?! Why is on the clock in single digits again? And for that matter, why do I feel so freaking hungry?

It's a really interesting concept to me: sleeping the world away. Don't like the present that you're in now? Sleep for a couple years and wake up in a brand new world. Want the love of your life to come by? Maybe she'll stumble on your sleeping husk. Sleep as the grand protector of things, that great mover that allows you to transition into a new epoch, as your shield, your sword against the sorrows of this world. I would like to sleep away my responsibilities and see them gone.

If only this could be true, but it isn't. In a perfect world, sleeping away everything would be conducive to reality, but it's not. Sleep is the guiltiest pleasure to me. It's my biggest waste of time, it causes me to stagnate and not do anything. Hours passed that could be used fulfilling obligations that I keep putting off, and sleep prevents me from doing that. I wish that sleep could be something of more value in this life. I mean, SURE it's like a responsibility to your body, but it's not like you need that much of it. 4 hours is enough to function.

I think I've been conditioned to think in this sense. I really need to sleep more.

uwah.

Being taught by graduate students has humbled me recently. They're probably within 4-10 years within me, yet the sheer scope of their learning shows. When we analyze the same piece, we come up with startlingly different observations. I'm proud in analyzing something I perceive as "deep," and then they present their take on the thing that absolutely blows mine out of the water. They're using obscure literary techniques, cleverer things than me, and can truly find the meaning of a work. In comparison, it's like I'm hammering away at something and am happy when one layer is peeled. I need to be more thorough. It makes me jealous too, because I have to become just like them within the next three years, and it just feels like there's this enormous chasm between us.

I'll still try to tread across it though.

YES

Hey how much does a polar bear weigh? ENOUGH TO BREAK THE ICE OHHHHHHHHHHH this will be the first thing my wife will remember me saying to her.

AHHH

Took a nine hour shift. Fucked for class. Worst idea ever.

As my bank account goes up, any joy I could obtain from said money is only eclipsed by mounting responsibilities. Hoh shit. Tuesday's post.

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh...

I am really, really glad that I'm not in high school anymore.

I know it's a sad thing to think about, especially since I'm starting to get along in my years. But I really, really want to emphasize that point. I am fucking ecstatic to not be in high school.

The people here seem friendlier.

(More later)

20.

Thurs 8:28 PM

I turned twenty today. The big two-oh. Whoo, congratulations. Wait, no, what the heck am I talking about? Being twenty isn't a celebratory affair! I mean, 18 years under my parents' roof, another year in a paid dorm, and this year, a paid apartment. It feels like I'm still in my mother's womb.

Well, not exactly. I mean, I definitely have more independence now than at say, age 16. And, I'm not exactly spiteful, so to say, about turning 20. It's just a weird age. Turning twenty. No longer a teenager, yet not really an adult. I'm still within the domain of school, but I'm already being exposed to the realities of this world. I'm sort of stagnating in my youth, yet I am also transitioning into my adult self. It's somewhere between a cocoon and it's metamorphosis, a half-blossomed flower, a fermenting wine. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm growing older, and yet I still feel young. It's like certain parts of my life are ending, and other parts of it are beginning.

Being twenty is weird. Things that were so huge to me before are really insignificant to me now. Like, friends I had in high school, that I vowed I would always care for, these people are just nice mementos of a past that I can never reclaim. We can't help it. I mean, after a certain point things stagnate: people move away, go to different schools, whatever. And you find yourself being pushed to the side, taken out every now and then so you don't collect dust, so you don't grow completely meaningless. But that's not a completely sad thing. I mean, it's just re-prioritization. Different environments dictate different needs, and different things to satisfy those needs.

This was just a thought I had when I tried to reminisce about stuff. If it's your birthday, naturally, you should reflect on your life, right? Another year has gone by; time to take inventory of all your memories. But when I do look back, everything just feels hazy to me, as if they weren't really fulfilling. They seem a lot smaller now. That's not to say, however, that I am filled with regrets within the last 20 years of my life. I did everything that I wanted to. Not necessarily everything I COULD do, but I acted in such a way that I wanted, whether it was at the crux of my potential or not.

To elaborate on this point, what I'm getting at is that although I am disappointed in certain past decisions, I don't necessarily regret them. So I was a sadsack in high school. Big deal, that made you just a little bit cheerier in high school. So you weren't able to stay on a sports team. Whoop-de-doo, all that time was spent studying and you're in UCI now, not some shitty community college. You fight with your sister all the time, and you don't have a normal relationship with your sibling. It's that struggle that made you too empathetic, and more understanding of emotional turmoil.

However, I cannot say I am fully without regrets. I regret not asking out one chick simply because my friend had dated her. I regret saying certain things that ruined an otherwise fine friendship. I regret not reading and writing sooner, waiting for appropriate schooling instead of taking the initiative to learn by myself. All in all, these regrets are simply so because I feel that they are wasted efforts, things that I dwelled on for far too long in such a way as to make me stagnate in my growth.

Again, back to my point, that 20 is a really weird age for me. I definitely recognize that I've matured in a way, but I also feel that I'm behind a lot of people. I can talk to people, but I still suck socially. It's a whole age of contradictions, little things that have been hammered out only to give way to things that still need to be worked on. I've concentrated in things that have improved me, but also held me back. Staring at sights along the road, pondering at the use of it all while everyone continued on the tour. I'll know THAT particular segment very well, but everyone else knows so much more of the road ahead of me.

It's been a good trip so far, but I need to catch up. But, I still have a lot of time on my hands, and I'm happy to have lived this long.

Sleeeeeeeeep.

I went to sleep at 11 PM, and woke up at 10 AM. It was one of those deep, dreamless sleeps that I haven't experienced in a long time. I blinked in the dead of night, and in the next second I saw sunshine. All the fatigue in my body was washed off my body, and my eyelids weren't heavy anymore.

This week was a pretty bad week. I averaged out about 4 hours of sleep a day. I really need to get this schedule on track. I'll wander around campus feeling like a ghost, just because everything that is usually so vibrant and alive is dull and muddy to me, like watching a television that's been dropped down a flight of stairs. Everything is washed out: blue skies are fading, sunsets are gray, sorority girls all look the same to me.

It seems that right now, I'm not technically living a life, but rather living a process. Wake up early, class, work, study, sleep. My day to day can be summarized in 5 words. Five! Oh, how could I let this happen.

I should really get out more.

You are what you read.

English 28A is a poetry analysis class. Thus, it is ruining my life. But anyway:
These verses committed to paper
Wreathed in academia and genius
Echoing the deepest sentiments of mankind
Expressing the fortitude of its thought.

I am so tired. This class is making me think too differently. AND I DON'T LIKE THAT

Because I'm-

Thu 8:22

Japanese on the brain.

Hajimemashite. Doozo yoroshiku.

Hi!

Wed, 3:30 PM

I have a late night shift today! Tons of time to do my homework, so as soon as I get back from work I can head straight to bed instead of doing my homework, because afternoon shifts don't let me do that and-

Oh, wait. Oh yeah. I'm really sorry for neglecting you, it's just that I've just been so BUSY and-

Huh? What? You're mad that I've pretty much been writing sentences and calling it a day?

Come on, you know it's not like that, I mean, there's just been no time and-

Okay look, here. The reason that I became so committed to school these days is because the work is nourishing. Does that make sense? It's not like last quarter, where I had to take boring GEs and my teachers were especially lame. I mean, sure, of course the classes are exhausting me. But the subject matter is so interesting, I don't really mind it.

Since I'm finally delving in my humanities curriculum, I get to take classes much more suited to my interests. My classes are: Beginning Japanese, Distinguishing Romance and Realism within the Novel, Poetry analysis, and beginning fiction. Can you believe that line-up? I might come back from class exhausted, my eyelids heavy, but I feel satisfied. The subject matter interests me in a way that I haven't felt since middle school.

Like first off, beginning Japanese. Learning a new language is difficult. You have to adjust your tongue to the language, and so far I can't nail the dialect very well. It feels like I'm marring the language, like a hillbilly attempting to read Shakespeare in a Victorian style. When I write the hiragana of the language, I can hardly imitate the strokes and loops of the characters. They look like the drawings of demented children. I am so out of my element, plucked from my nice, safe world of English, and thrust into the mysterious jungles of new languages. But there's a fervor bubbling in my body, that makes me excited to tread into new territories. I want to really get the basics down so I can start writing elaborately; it's a great feeling. It's kind of like I'm rediscovering why I liked school before: not in the pursuit of some stupid letter, but just to say, hey, I can do something I couldn't before. Nifty.

And even if the subject matter isn't necessarily interesting to me, I can make an interest out of it somehow. Does it look like I want to spend my free time debating realism and romance in fiction narratives? Do I REALLY want to analyze poetry, iambic pentameter, seeing the stress on beats, spondees, trochees, enjambments, and what have you? Hell no! But I'm learning techniques that I can use to make me a better reader. I can explore books in a way I couldn't before, redefine prose and stories in ways that will open up new layers. I can look back at texts I thought I knew so intimately and rediscover something that will make me see them in an entirely new light, and I appreciate that.

I'm going to see if I'm cut out for teaching. I'll take the teaching tests this year, and I'm participating in the humanities out there program this quarter. I go to local high schools in the area, and assist graduate students as they teach these kids about humanities stuff. The only time I could make is 10th grade US literature. It'll be interesting to see what I have to teach, and whether I get to retread novels that I had to read during that time as well. To rediscover The Great Gatsby, or The Catcher in the Rye, and so many others who I haven't seen so long... I feel that books change as its readers change. Before I couldn't handle Charles Dickens, and now I'm trying to read a bunch of his novels; maybe I gained an acquired taste. I want to see how things have changed from the me then to the me now.

Of course I'm no longer taught by professors, so that might make things difficult for grad school but... we're looking way too far ahead! Let's just sit back, let the breeze run through our hair, let the present overtake us. We'll reach the horizon eventually, so we might as well enjoy ourselves for now.


So many things can happen to us that can cause us to shift our perceptions so wholly. The nature of our temperaments is that of fickleness. We find ourselves in the constant pursuit of something intangible, that one unsubstantiated truth that can give our lives meaning and definition, sense to senselessness. We are satisfied by something for so long, and we can lose all interest in them in a single second. Every tomorrow, every possible future, can storm across the plains of our lives and uproot everything, throwing things awry, making what we were so sure of completely unrecognizable. But, I think that's where the fun lies. If we didn't have that much, our lives would stagnate, until there was nothing left. There would be no reason to pursue meaning simply because there IS no meaning! So even if it is an endless rat race, even if we can't escape struggle and despair, the futility of etching value when it can be so easily distorted, at least it gives us something to do.

Wow, that was really anticlimactic wasn't it. But look, look! I mean, I'm so excited, you haven't seen me like this since I met you and-

Hmm? Yeah? Sorry, sorry, I'll be sure to write more. I'm just so busy these days. It's nice though.

jhdj

11:40 PM, Tues.
The most exciting thing I did today was forming a ground beef patty around a thing of cheese to create this heart-stopping combo of melted cheese hamburger patty.

I need to start doing more exciting things. I studied today when I could have napped. Goooooooooooooooo Rante.

(I am tired of school hafsjhbfasj)

I suck.

1:13 am, Tuesday, accounting for Monday.

I admit, I just got done with homework, I need to sleep. Class from 8-12, work from 3-7, and precious little time between moments is making me tired. I'll give some kernels of knowledge I learned recently for writers:

Let your stories have lives of their own.
Care for your characters.
Don't use dialogue simply to pad; it can be the meat of your story.
Learning about characters through their actions instead of through adjectives is more interesting.
Write slow.

Good night.

BAHN

Sunday 11:14 pm

I saw some old friends from my dorm last year. A three-month difference can change the way you interact around people; we ended up reminiscing about this and that, so and such. It reminds me of the way my dad is around old friends from college. They sit around the table, surrounding a plate of food and a beer in hand, laughter emanating to the ceiling. It's a nice feeling, this comfort. It's only been a year since I met these guys, but I guess suddenly not seeing them every single day made it seem a lot longer. It's a great feeling.

I really need to work on my homework. 40 pages of Austen, one 60 verse poem to analyze, Japanese homework. Time is a much more precious commodity. Bye.

Sleep.

Sunday, 1:19 AM

I want to count this as Saturday's, because it's getting harder to define my sense of time to societal standards. I mean, if I sleep at 6 am, wake up for work at 1 pm, and spend a night catching up with someone in my hall, it's like I'm going through the motions of a "standard" day: school, work, etc. So in reality, right now it's like I'm kicking back after my 9 to 5, you know?

I screwed up my sleeping habits a long time ago. I want to emphasize that, because it feels like the last time I slept normally was in another life ago. When I was a kid, I'd sleep the normal 8 hours, from 10 pm to 6 am. I'd always be jealous of everyone else, because they'd sleep so much later. I felt like I was missing out on life, since television became much more risque after a certain time. In middle school, I'd spend my weekends sleeping at 1 am until 10 am. It was there that I discovered cheesy sci-fi flicks, comedy that centered around scatology, and censored advertisements for Girls Gone Wild videos. It was during high school, however, when I truly started to value sleep.

It was during high school in which I started to sleep irregularly. My workload had increased exponentially since middle school. School took on such an importance, in that it became much less an activity in which I could enjoy learning, and much more an avenue to a prestigious college and subsequently, the determinant towards my future. I would start my homework late due to a reluctance to confront my academics; it seemed too soon for a career to start creeping up, and I wanted to enjoy my responsibilities for just a little bit longer. I'd finish my homework at 1 am, but when I would lay down in bed I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes vestiges of my potential future would drift across the planes of my mind, keeping me from sleep. I was so anxious about whatever could possibly go wrong the next day, that something that could cause me to miss an opportunity to get into a excellent college, that I'd spend whole nights obsessed with ensuring a comfortable future. I didn't want to be proven a loser.

And so high school came and left, with me living through sleepless nights and mundane dreams in the day. When I went through school, it was like I was outside my own body, watching a little lifeless me bubble in answers, scribble down words, and commit notes into his brain. College came, and for a little bit I slept well. At that point, I had been falling asleep so awfully, that I would sleep through classes to try to make up for my deficit of rest. I felt that I deserved it. My grades, however, went one point down of what it was in high school, and they were met with the frustration and disappointment of my family. Whole nights screaming at me for squandering my potential, for being unable to perform to my fullest, for my inevitable descent into unemployment attributed to a low GPA and worse, a major in the humanities.

There are times in which I question my self-worth, when a filthy specter dwells inches above my face every time I rest my head on my pillow. He breathes heavily, his hot gasps blanketing my face, being inhaled by my nostrils. His whispers keep reminding me of the nature of life, of how it is anything but provisional. Every single second not committed to something is wasted. You can sacrifice your present for a better future. But when you're living every single day with thoughts of destitution nipping at your heels, it makes you very unenthusiastic for tomorrow to come. Sometimes you just want to curl up into a ball and sleep. I know that I shouldn't let these thoughts drag me down. And I'm starting not to. At the very least, that whisper, that horrible voice, can be drowned out in the white noise of our dreams. Those ethereal moments, falling like snow on our perception of reality, until tomorrow is covered in white, becoming a blank canvas to try again on. Tomorrow is a new day, and I need to realize that, so I can fall asleep peacefully, instead of dreading what the next day can bring.

I'm on?

Fri, 8:41 PM

I'm going to get my butt kicked by work next week. 5 days in a row! Can you believe it? Jeez, man!

A blog a day. It's harder to fit this in than I thought. Today, I went to class from 8 am to 11 am. Then I got some food, watched some 30 Rock, and fell asleep from 1 pm to 6 pm. Then I watched 30 Rock some more. And I think I'm going to a party tonight. Whoo. I think I'm apathetic towards parties. I go because I like to hang out with people from work when we're not at work, but it seems like the only time I see them out of work is during parties. Maybe I should make more of an effort to go to places with them, so that they'll cease to be coworkers in my mind, and I can start calling them friends, like normal people do.

Speaking of parties, I'm finding myself becoming resolutely apathetic about them. I get drunk off cheap beer, talk to some people, and then fall asleep. Awesome. Which is why if I did it every single day I'd probably get straight up sick of it! Small dosages are nice because they allow us to enjoy things much more deeply. With partying I should keep it in super-low doses. It's cathartic to allow myself that release but I still can't shake off that vague, guilty feeling I have the next morning.

I attended both of my English classes today. The first instructor, for the novel-concentrated class, is this pretty cool grad-school student who did his undergrad at some hippie commune college. In his words, he "didn't have a major, but I guess it was literary analysis." The second class, which concentrates on poetry, is taught by a grad-school student who stresses her syllables on every last word of her sentences. She lets those last words roll, as if she's unreeling them to entrance her students. I think she's trying too hard to keep our attention. If you get her into a more conversational mood she's quite perky. She kind of looks/acts like Liz Lemon from... 30 Rock.

I marathoned two seasons of 30 Rock in one week! Sheesh, what's wrong with me. It's a really good show though, and wikipedia and just about every google search could tell you what it's about. What, you want to hear it from me? Fine, jeez. It's about Liz Lemon, this writer for this live-television show and her misadventures with the CEO of NBC, her boss Jack Donaghy. She eats too much, is nerdy, quirky, and absolutely adorable. I've been watching it way too much, and I need to stop watching it soon so I have enough minutes in the day to do homework and stuff. I got a buttload of reading to do! And, my classes are paper-heavy, but no finals mean win.

I keep forgetting about this as a daily obligation. I'll be sitting on my butt in front of this computer staring at the monitor, and suddenly I hear a whisper in my ear: "blog post!" And then I write something frantically just to get it done. When it becomes a job for me to do, I guess I put down any old thing. That's bad, isn't it? It's quite insincere.

That's about it for now. With the upcoming weekend I'll probably roll a good one or two in.

GOMENASAI.

Thurs. 2:27 PM

My first day of class was today. It was Japanese 1A and Beginning Fiction. Beginning fiction was cool, and I like the reading list, despite the fact that I've read a good portion of the short stories for the class already (but hey, at least I have an excuse to read Flannery O'Conner's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" again). I really wish they included the Haruki Murakami story in the giant textbook though. But I really want to talk about the Japanese class foremost.

I'm taking an introduction the Japanese language, and yes, it is filled with wapanese people who digest Japanese culture through anime, manga, and pocky. But they seem nice so far, so I don't really mind. The teacher-excuse me, sensei (I groan on the inside when call her that)- is absolutely adorable. A native-born Japanese, she moved to Australia, and then moved to California to teach at UCI. She stands at 5 ft and is somewhere between her 40s-50s, and talks in a frenzied, cheery tone, filled with staccatos of English and Japanese, hellos and haijimashites. She's cute, in a motherly way. It's really cool to be in her class.

Why Japanese though... hmm. I'm looking into translation work, or teaching English abroad, but really it just seems pretty interesting because if I master it, I can read Haruki Murakami books before they're translated into English, and maybe help bootleg manga and anime. I'm still highly embarrassed when I practice it though. I make it a point to finish one project before I start another; I mean, I haven't even scratched the surface of the English language, and now I'm studying Japanese? Irresponsible. But anyway, so far the year has gotten off to a great start, even if I do have to drag my butt up at 7 AM everyday.

Running out of things to say?

Wed, 8:56

The daily minutiae of our daily lives isn't very interesting. I mean, if I write something here every single day, it's not like I'll have some startling revelation or insightful thought at every single instance. The deeper thoughts are merely comprised of our daily activities I guess. Can you imagine, though, if every single post on here was something distressing? If my life was like that daily I'd have a heart attack! I think I'm saying this more to myself than to you though. I mean, seeing this blog everyday has caused me to browse it a little bit more. I'm a pretty boring guy, to say the least. But boring isn't that bad, right?

But, what I think I'm trying to get at is inspiration. It comes and goes, it never sits still. It'll burst and bloom in the middle of the night, but it never comes when I stare a blank page down. I think the great thing about blogging is that I can freewrite. I'll say whatever's in my head until something comes out. Read it back a little, edit a couple things there, but most of the things committed on the screen are going up for the whole internet to see. Well, I mean, not the *whole* internet. Factoring in the number of people who log on simply to watch porn, it's more like... 0.01%, if I'm lucky.

Inspiration's kind of weird though. I never seem to be able to write with a story in mind; usually I have this image followed with a phrase that I build something around. Like, recently there's this story that I want to write. I'm also posting the idea here so I don't forget it but anyway, it goes like this: there's this interracial couple. I guess. One Asian, the other something else. I actually wanted someone Chinese and someone Filipino (oh gee, that's not a self-insert right there). The thing is, they steal a pickup truck and run away from this suburban area. They go up to the mountains, and enter a quiet commune of sorts. It's pretty folky. The guy gets hired by a blacksmith or something. I don't know, the whole premise is built around this one thing I thought of. Two people sleeping in the bed of a pickup truck, "with their bodies curled up against each other like fireflies."

Does that even make sense? I don't know. I know that fireflies are only attracted to the lights of the opposite sex, and that's what appealed to me. I also like the image of fireflies. I will expand it into some kind of grand metaphor in which the lights of the fireflies zoom around in the dark, burning bright in this chaotic night, or something equally pretentious. Yeah, it does kind of sound like I'm up my ass about this. I just want to write a simple love story. After all, there are three things you should keep simple in your life, I feel: family, work, and love. And doing this everyday is work son!

Cooking.

I should put timestamps on this thing. I have no idea how the whole, blog publishing thing works on blogger but it'll say I wrote something on Saturday even though I hit publish post on 12 AM Sunday. I don't know.

Tuesday 8:02 PM

Today I ate a grilled cheese sandwich with a bowl of microwaved ramen. I cannot enjoy food in my apartment for the following reasons:

A) An inability to cook.
Howdy. I can broil, pan-fry, bake, and roast meat. I make a good steak, a decent chicken, and a pretty alright burger. And in any other instance it'd be okay. But for me it's not. I want to make restaurant food, things rich in flavor. I attempt to make marinades that are passable, but it wouldn't wow the socks off anyone I serve it to. They'll eat my food, politely telling me that "it's good." But I want someone to pause, and exclaim about how "that's good!" Not only that, I don't even have a concentration to cook in! I don't pertain to a specific region, or style. I just grab at any recipe that tickles my fancy, so one day I'll be eating pancit and the next day, a hamburger. I need to get my flavors straight.

B) A lack of money to buy good ingredients.
Spices are expensive. The best cuts of meat are expensive. The best kinds of cheese? Too much for me. I would love to shop at Trader Joe's, go to my local butcher, get the good stuff. But the good stuff puts dents in my wallet, and when you're making $9.00 an hour you really can't afford to be eating freshly imported anything. So here I am, eating store-brought bread, cheese, cereal... when I fry meat there's no flavor, and I'm practically dumping scoops of salt, pepper, and seasoning on it. I am getting sick of this bullshit manufactured ground beef. I'd grind my own beef and have it soak in a nicely prepared marinade if not for...

C) A lack of time.
After work I'm tired. After school I'm tired. I don't want to come home and spend another hour preparing something I'll enjoy for 20 minutes! I want instant gratification! I don't know how anyone pertains to schedules. It's way too hard to say to yourself, "I'm going to do this at the end of the day" and actually do it! But then that comes to my next point.

D) I'm pretty lazy.
Whoops.

I like the idea of the renaissance man. You know, the guy that can do anything. It's a movement forward. I like to envision scenarios with me in a nice collared shirt, sleeves rolled up, serving something great. Instead I'm balancing a grilled cheese sandwich on a spatula and cursing when I drop it on the floor. I want to get better at cooking though, because I keep thinking it'll help me become less dependent on others. I mean, I have no assured food source this year, and I can't keep eating fast food all the time, I'll get chubs. And keeping with the trends of the times, considering that I'm a humanities major, I probably won't be the breadmaker of the house, so I figure... at least I can bake bread, yeah?

(Yeah.)

Twofer.

This counts as Monday's. Come on, give me a break. I worked my butt off from 2:30 PM to 12 AM today! It's hard shit! I like the feeling of coming home to a hard day of work. Actually scratch that, only when the work is meaningful. I walked around the whole student center sweeping up trash, bussing every table, taking out huge bags of trash, and sanitizing doors. Repeat ad hominem. YES. After that I did all of the basic stuff: lifting tables, cleaning rooms, traveling around campus and polishing the newspaper dispensers. Whatever, it's strenuous work but easy work.

I really need to raise up my GPA so I can tutor. But then, you can only tutor in one subject, and I specialize in English, so... I don't think I'll get very good hours. I mean, it's manual labor but I got 22 hours alone this week! It's really easy to get a pretty good schedule at the Student Center.

I keep thinking I should be doing more. I don't know. I just have this weird feeling rumbling in the pit of my stomach that hey, remember all of that stuff you did in high school? Increase the workload in college. I need to train myself to focus better. The body can lift crazy heavy things, but if you try to get the mind to study a book? Shut down.

The plan for next quarter is to participate in the Humanities Tutoring Program. This quarter first and foremost, it's raising my GPA.

And that's about it. Pretty boring day, eh?

Day one!

Topic of the day: back posture.

I have really bad posture. I hunch a lot. In middle school I freaked out because of the scoliosis tests. My family taped a ruler to the back of my spine one summer to attempt to fix the problem. And years later here I am, the same old hunchback that I was when I was thirteen. You know how the spine is S-shaped in order to absorb impacts? I have this mental image in my head of me compacting it even more. I've done a lot of manual labor in my life, for my mom, for my church, for my school, and most recently for my job. I'm just used to lifting heavy things, I guess. So every time I lift something over my head, I picture my spine scrunching up, all the way, until one day it just cracks and I turn into a pile of jelly.

Of course, that's not rational. Realistically speaking, heavy lifting will only cause a horrible strain on your joints/muscles which will worsen as you get older. I think I'm going through that process right now. My back hurts. It's nothing debilitating, and it's sort of like an itch that you can't scratch, but it doesn't really bother you. It's just there. I should get that checked out. Right now, I hunch over to lift things off the ground at work, and when I get home I sit crooked in front of my computer screen, browsing the internet. I moved my computer on the floor where my mattress lies, and am now typing this on my stomach. I should fix this before school starts. They have safety training videos that teach you how to sit ergonomically but I think that's such bullshit. But anyway.

With my wide frame and my hunched shoulders, I guess I'd come off as pretty menacing to new people. My coworker was telling me that at first when he saw me, I reminded him of thugs you wouldn't want to mess with in a dark alley. And then I opened my mouth. I guess there's this conflict between the image I project and my personality. I would rather not want to come off as particularly terrifying. I would like to think I'm a pretty approachable guy. I try to be friendly, even though I really don't have that much to talk about at first. But because of the way that I was perceived, I was too used to being alone as well. I didn't mind it. So I'd always be outside, on the border of things, not giving a thought to the world.

But now is not the time for that. First and foremost, sore back. I really should do something about that. I've been doing these exercises in the morning, the ones that old people do. "Reach towards the skies, and now bend down and thank the Earth." It's really good for the back, and I'm glad that my roommate isn't around to see it because it's so embarrassing. But another thing that bothers me in the day is my sore knee, and I can't really find an exercise to fix that. My sore knee is a hereditary thing, stemming from my dad's side of the family. Usually if you don't get it checked out it'll put you out of commission until you get surgery for it, one that my dad, my aunt, and my cousin have gotten in recent years. It's like my body's a ticking time bomb, and when it goes off I'll find myself being held up by a cane for the rest of my life. I find myself more tired these days, and am in no need for unnecessary stress. I get my work done, and I go off to chill in my room and read quietly.

Why the hell are you breaking your back for?

I didn't really feel like I needed my own money until I met you. Sad, isn't it? I learned to live on a budget a long time ago, so it's not like went out to eat often. I bought secondhand books and pirated everything else off the internet for my own entertainment. I got all of my money through tutoring, which I saved for my pocket money in college. I was given an allowance by my parents, $30 for two weeks, and I made that last. As far as I could see I was living the good life.

When you first met me, I was surprised, because you did it with such ease. You were a good conversationalist. You brought me out of my shell. If there was an instance where an awkward silence might come up, you worked your magic and turned it around, or even harder to do, you just made it seem natural until there was something else we could bring up. I found myself taking the initiative to talk to you. We went out a lot, and I began to realize how expensive things were. I began to feel really guilty about the money I was spending that I hadn't even earned myself, and when college rolled around I ended up getting my first real job to feel more financially independent.

I really wanted to use the money to visit you. It's kind of crazy now when I think back on it. But when it came time to choose which college to attend, when you were stuck between staying in-state or going out of state, you asked me what I'd do. And I said that "my choice isn't yours, just go with what you feel like. Think about where you'd want to be." I wanted to convince you so badly to stay in California, but I knew that'd be wrong. It's your choice where you want to go. And so even though I hoped so hard for you to stay here you ended up an the opposite coast. When the thought that that distance could easily be rectified through plane tickets and reserved hotels, I was enlivened to the point where I began applying randomly for jobs on-campus.

It's really bad, isn't it. I accepted the very first job I could get and during that first month I went back to my dorm sore every single night.

I mean, the whole visiting thing didn't work out. When I became financially independent, I really did become independent. Everything I spent money on came from my own pocket. And the same words that you spoke that propelled me into society, into a job, into the world, guided me to friends. I was a much more reserved person before I met you. I'm not so secluded anymore.

So why the heck are you still breaking your back?

I like the me that you brought out. The me that talks to people, the one that doesn't spend all of his time alone. The one that finds meaning in little things, because he could so easily grasp meaning when he was with you. Even though you're not here, I still want that feeling to stay. So I make due with a little ache in my back, because you had held up my whole world and never complained once.

365 days. Let's do it.

I'm pretty lazy on updating this thing. I write when I feel like it, and preoccupy myself with other things when I don't. So see, this blog has some heavy competition concerning my precious time: books, video games, CDs, work, the internet.

There's just never enough time in the day. *sigh*

But really though, school is starting this week and I feel extra-lazy. I picked up Haruki Murakami's "What I Talk about When I Talk about Running" and I feel even lazier, to the point of uselessness. Here's a novelist who's a marathon runner, and he runs everyday! And the only thing I do daily is check my facebook. Oh, Rante. There's this girl from my high school that has this project where she takes a picture every single day! Can you believe it? Something to photograph, before you sleep every night.

I know there are a lot of things I need to work on. I need to run more. I find myself getting tired at times when before I wouldn't; I used to run a pretty decent mile, and now I can hardly jog! I need to work on my social skills. I'm getting better, but I'm hardly debonair. I need to work on my cooking, my study skills, my focus, my writing, my... life. GAH.

I'm going to try to concentrate on one thing at a time, and hope that everything else follows behind it. First I'm going to concentrate on writing better. So that's where this comes in. I'm going to write a post every single day. Some days I might write about what I had for dinner, or something cool I saw that day. Or other days I might just copy-paste stories or something I had to write for a class. Or even finish the posts I had been working on but still can't find the need to finish. I might just post any old blurb without the usually meticulous editing I've been trying to force myself to go through. But I'm going to write, and that's all that matters. It's training. Small, insignificant steps to make that one giant leap.

And like this post, a lot of it will be an attempt to sort through my mental baggage. Whoopee, let's go.

The darker the berry the sweeter its juice?

You're Voluptuous
Sweet caramel brown honeydew
Satin skin smooth to the touch, what a niggah do
-Nujabes ft Cise Starr, "Lady Brown"

Yo girl, what're you doing trying to bleach your skin? This is an open love letter to all those dark-skinned Pinoy girls, you hear me?

*ahem*

The prevalent notion of beauty amongst women in Asian cultures is that having a white skin complexion ensures health, wealth, and success. White skin is the mark of an aristocrat; tan skin is associated with those that slave in the sun, particularly farmers. Also, a fairer complexion is associated with youth and vitality. When asked which skin tone is more attractive, most of the time a Filipino would prefer a lighter-skinned partner than a darker-skinned one.

This notion of beauty is further reinforced by the media. Let's take a look at Filipino television. When you watch soap operas, all of the pretty girls involved with men are white, and the maids that are aiding them? Tan. Go to commercial, there's an advertisement for skin creams that bleach your skin. Wowowee, one of the most popular game shows nationally, comes on and you're greeted by a dance team of pretty Pinoy girls, all with translucent skin. The hosts are pale, while the participants playing for pesos are usually not. Then comes Adobo nation, and the newscasters are white. Confronted with an incessant stream of beautifully pale people, it's only natural that the viewer's mind would be inundated with the concept that bleach is beautiful.

That's where an emerging skin-whitening industry comes in. Beauty creams are marketed to women, advertising "luscious white skin." Unfortunately, this beauty comes at a heavy cost. There are skin-whitening creams sold that contain steroids, mercury, and hydroquinone, which act as the components for whitening skin. However, these chemicals have a detrimental effect when in contact with skin. Exposure to mercury can lead to the deterioration of the nervous system, along with a faster heartbeat, damaged kidneys, irrationality, and other debilitating effects. Hydroquinone can cause deadly diseases such as thyroid disorder, leukemia and liver damage. Lastly, these creams are known to mar the skin, despite advertising otherwise; effects to the skin include pale blotches intermixed with dark ones, acne, stretch marks, and other irreparable physical deformities.

But yo, I'm not here to expound on the usage of skin creams. The saddest part of this is that the usage of harmful products will still continue on. The main objective of a corporation is to make money, regardless of what happens. An executive for a skin cream company in China has been quoted as saying, "What is wrong with a little mercury in the cream, as long as it can make ladies beautiful." And despite a wide-spread report of its effects, consumers are still going to continue buying them, due to a cultural perception that has been ingrained in their mindsets.

So what do we do? We attempt to change our perception of beauty. Yo, I know it's hard for you. All of these light-skinned girls are constantly vaulted by society while you're getting passed up, and it just seems that the media validates this particular notion. It's hard. But you can't compromise yourself to a societal norm if you want to change it.

Is it really worth it at the end of the day to sequester yourself inside simply because you don't want to get tanner? To make the effort to wear layers of clothing to cover yourself up, carry around an umbrella simply to block out the sun? Especially in Southeast Asia, on an island country, the sun is constantly shining; our natural skin tone isn't white, it's brown.

Physical beauty is nice because it allows us to surmise a person's personality before we encounter them. Someone dresses well, and you think that guy is concerned with taking care of himself, and he could take care of you. You see someone with a pretty smile and you think that she'll be really nice, and be mindful to your problems. And most of the time you'd be right. But there are instances in which you can be wrong. The problem with physical beauty is that it's a double-edged sword: what can be used to accentuate one's positive features can also be used to mask one's demonic qualities. A pretty face can mask a horrible demeanor; a sharp dresser can whisper tinges of vanity.

Another problem with physical beauty is its fragility. I don't know, it seems to me that we appreciate physical beauty so much because it is held by the grasp of time. One day that fist will clench, age will catch up with you, and suddenly your features are marred by stretch marks, sags, and wrinkles. Beauty is fleeting, sure. So it makes since that people would attempt to try to extend that beauty for all it's worth.

But rather than combat the nature of our physical self, we must accept it. Our bodies change with time. We lose the luster of youth. However, the beauty of our personalities, of our souls, is something that doesn't falter with age. Brown-skinned lady, please stop concerning yourself with what you perceive as idealized forms of beauty. The nature of our faces is constantly shifting. We cannot smile or frown forever; likewise, we cannot retain a certain look forever.

So what I'm trying to get at is that you're beautiful already, tan or not. Come on, learn to accept yourself. At the end of the day, wouldn't you rather be outside and soak in the sun of this world, instead of sitting in a bathtub of bleach staring at the ceiling? Your personality is so bright, others would naturally bask in it, dark-skinned or not.

When I can I dream dreams away

Last night I had a dream. We were walking around this mall, side by side. I looked over and you smiled, and I stuck out my arm and you wrapped yourself around it. There we were, walking around, your head rested on me so romantically. It felt so heavy that I felt that my heart could give in at any moment. We walked along an endless corridor, amongst indistinguishable storefronts. I can recall feeling so proud, so happy, and then I woke up. And I felt horribly guilty.

We went through something tumultuous, and I ruined a long friendship by letting out my infatuation for you. It was unrequited. And so it goes, after an awkward silence we went about our daily lives. I tried to go through the motions of friendship all over again, but it felt so weird that we just... stopped. Stopped interacting, stopped talking, and finally stopped seeing each other. Except in this one dream.

These are what my dreams amount to whenever I dream about girls I knew. We hold hands, we peck each others lips, we hug each other tightly, we sleep on each others' shoulders. They're innocent to the point of being wholesome. In them, the days are always nice, the sun is always shining. They grin at me and I feel that my soul is going to implode because of all that... beauty. When the dream ends and I wake up, I stare at the ceiling, and smack myself upside the head for having another dumb dream.

It's not like they're not wet dreams. I definitely don't dream about us making sweaty love like rabbits. You're usually about as far away from a sex object as can be. But after them I always wake up feeling like I made a huge mistake, because I definitely can't look at you the same way during the rest of the day. We brush shoulders and that near-inaudible crack you heard was my voice attempting to convey a hello. When we make eye-contact I can feel my heart contract, and I can't think of a single thing to say, just because I feel awful that I dreamed about you. Where's the guilt from if it was just slight hugs, held hands, or innocuous kisses?

If there's one thing I know about me, it's this: I never dream about girls I think I have a chance with. At least my subconscious isn't messed up to do that, right? So the opposite must hold true, in that I dream about girls I know I've lost. They're the stars in my fantasy's landscape because they can never exist in reality. I'll find myself talking to girls I could never find the right words around. Or, I'll be hugging girls whom I couldn't do anything about simply because there are so many miles between us. Distance, incompatibility, reproachfulness... all of these things are conquered through dreams.

And it's because of this infallibility, this dauntlessness, that my stomach churns at the sight of you. Because I am imagining something that simply cannot be. I am defying the laws of nature, I am spitting in the face of God, by even conceiving this. Her decision was made because of so many factors rendering relationships impossible. And if you can't change the way she feels, then you can't keep continuing to feel that way about her.

Despite my acceptance of the reality of this world, it seems my subconscious refuses to believe in it. I acknowledge it, but no matter how many times I say outwardly "it's okay, it's okay," no matter how many times I can say that I'm happy just to be friends, there's a tinge of doubt resting on the penumbra of my waking mind. I can be walking right beside you and be as happy as a clam, but all of that can be shattered by one fantastic reverie. Every time I think I've worked it out, affirmed this rationalization in my waking mind, feelings of affection will sprout in my subconscious and destroy this notion of acquiescence to the way you feel. I find myself doubting myself. What was truth yesterday is conjecture today when you're betrayed by your own thoughts.

Looking through things that I've tried to write, I find the exact same sentiments expressed in my dreams have seeped into my pieces. My protagonists are saying the things I couldn't, doing the things I refused to, and expressing themselves to their loves in the ways I wished I could. They are melancholic things composed by loneliness, evoking feelings that shouldn't be, creating apparitions that will never be substantiated.

Seeing all of this the only conclusion that can be made is that I'm living in a dream world. Reality is blurred by the machinations of my sleeping thoughts. It's further distorted with every word I write. It's come to a point where I'm questioning every day as I know it. It's detrimental to my day to day, to my temporal life. I dwell on subjects I shouldn't, I keep feeling emotions that I need to discard somehow. If I keep it in my mind it's only going to make me worse off, but when I try to cast it away and forget about it completely, my mind won't let me.

But maybe it's better that way. We need to take heed to the voice of our hearts, we need to listen to our souls. The reason that my mind keeps bringing up memories of her like so much dirty laundry is because I never confronted those feelings, but only complied by them. I submitted myself to feeling a certain way simply because I wanted things to be normal, before I professed whatever affections I had and failed to have reciprocated. I need to work out my feelings instead of stuffing them down into an abyss only my sleeping hands can reach.

Looking at this I can say that when I write it's not to act out some masturbatory, self-satisfying fantasy but as a means to sort out my mental baggage. Because when I look back at things I had written before I cringe. I'm embarrassed to see myself acting a certain way for someone that I know now I had no reason to be that way around. I would read about a me ingratiating himself to anyone nice to him, or see him infatuated with someone who he barely talks to anymore. He's living in the supernatural, a world that cannot exist, saying hello to ghosts on a daily basis. I'm confronting myself, and trying to write away my dreams so I can live unhindered in reality. So that instead of saying "hello ghosts," I can say "hello friends" instead, and things can go back to being the way they were before.