Mounting fear.

I keep thinking that I'll run out of ideas to write about, and that this blog will stagnate and expire.

I'm running out of words to write about you, and this is terrifying, because it says that maybe the relationship wasn't really what I thought it was, that maybe I valued it more than what it was worth.

This both excites and depresses me, because it opens up new roads while closing off the single path I have failed to tread.

Dreaming of the Coast of Carolina, dreaming all the ways that you will smile.

So I've been listening to a lot of Ne-yo as of late.

I mean like. He lays down so many sweet tracks, and I'm impressed, jealous even, of just the charm this guy exudes. He is a sweet suit wearing muhfucka hitting on depressed chicks like oh snap, you know? "Because of You," "I know this much is true, baby you, have become my addiction." "Ain't Got to Tell You," "It ain't a secret baby girl-you-fine." "Crazy," "So You Can Say," "Closer," they just scream at you, "fiiiiiiiiiiiine." This guy personifies the word "debonair."

Recently, I've been putting "Single" on repeat when I'm listening to music. Devoted for independent chicks everywhere, it's about how Ne-Yo sweeps this girl off her feet after her boyfriend fails to meet up with her at a club: "Pretty mama if you're single, single (You don't gotta be alone tonight)/ So while the DJ play that single, single (Just pretend that I'm your man tonight)." Then I sing along, SEE YOU DON'T GOT TO BE ALONE, I'LL BE YOUR BOYFRIEND, SEE YOU DON'T GOT TO BE ALONE GIRL I'LL BE YOUR BOYFRIEND, SEE YOU DON'T GOT TO BE ALONE BABY I'LL BE YOUR BOYFRIEND, BE YOUR BOYFRIEND TILL THIS SONG GOES OFF.

This is why sappy songs appeal to me; they help me act out this self-indulgent habit I have, where I set myself as the protagonist in this romantic storyline, the Romeo to your Juliet (duh). To sweep in on some lonely girl, acting as the sensitive charmer, and act as her crutch, as her support. Or to rescue some girl from an overly abusive relationship, shining brighter than the moon that we elope under. She sleeps soundly on my shoulder, more comfortable there than in any bed she's ever been in. I daydream about these kinds of scenarios during lectures, church, random places usually. I wittle time away by thinking of the perfect phrase to stop those tears from flowing out of those diamond-like eyes.

The ostentatiousness of it all!

So I'm especially embarrassed to say I did that with you. I should become a music video director. Every single song I listened to could be about you, regardless of the subject matter. Biggie's "Juicy" would see us in roach infested apartments, me coming home from work with fatigue etched into my muscles after spending the entire day lifting heavy things for money. You would take my coat, feeling the pockets only to find a lease for a new home. Or, "Voyager" by Daft Punk would see us in some kind of robotic dance floor, edging closer together like clockwork. Genre didn't matter, and neither did language barriers. I would see you running towards me to the beat of Epik High, I would see rainbows in your eyes towards ART-SCHOOL. When the song was gear towards something moreso romantic made it that much more easier to see myself with you. It didn't matter what I was listening to, I saw you everywhere.

I wanted you to be like a scene from a romantic movie. But the whole point of fiction is to present an idealized reality, in which immediate gratification is granted; just because you broke up with that guy doesn't suddenly mean that you're going to run into my arms, and I'm not going to be talking to you on the phone only to open my window and see you soaked in the rain, cell phone to your ear, ready to say I love you in person without being encumbered by a telephone line. When I see you I hear violins and pianos and whole orchestras playing, and they swell up in sound only to climax to... nothing. I ought to stop imagining that it could happen, because I can't change the way you feel. And unlike the songs I listen to, I can't part mountains to get to you, and I certainly can't wait for you to come home. But realizing this doesn't bring a sense of sadness like I think it should, but rather relief. Life isn't one song, one scenario, a single situation set to a single melody. It's a number of things, sweltering horns and dazzling trumpets and riotous drums and cellos and basses and sweet, sweet cacophony, it's chaotic in the number of things that can happen, and it's lovely because of it. Just because you're not the person I set "Single' to doesn't mean that the song's suddenly over, and we have to turn it off; it's a setback, it's a slight pause.

In the meantime I'll try to listen to something else. It's getting tired anyway.

(But DAMN if Single isn't catchy)

changes, huh?

:(

Sorry self. I don't care about grades as much as I used to.

You know, when I sift through old belongings, finding things from my past, I like to treat it as if it's kind of a memento that my past self sends me. A letter of sorts that make me remember again. When I look at pictures of me as a child, throwing up a peace sign and looking ECSTATIC because I got Pokemon Gold, it's kind of like I'm saying to myself, "remember to enjoy the simple things!" I start to indulge in nostalgia when I see dust-covered toys, old yearbooks, and CDs that I am embarrassed to have listened to (Linkin Park, Yellowcard, etc. Just saying). I engorge upon my memories as I find the past swallowing me whole.

So what brought about this sudden bout of nostalgia? I was cleaning out my wallet when an index card dropped out. I've had this wallet since high school and it was my first time cleaning it out in a while. On an index card was a neatly written schedule for the entirety of my junior year:

7:45-2:45 (School)
On tutoring days: Come home at 3:30-4:30
4:00-5:00-Leisure reading
5-6 Homework
6-9- Study, devote at least two hours a week to every subject
9-10- leisure reading/sleep
Quota: 5 hours a week of tutoring!
GET INTO USC! GET INTO NORTHWESTERN!

*le sigh*
You know what the me of back then is screaming at me now? "NUMBERS MATTER! GET A GOOD GPA SO YOU CAN GET INTO A HIGH RANKING COLLEGE! NUMBERS NUMBERS NUMBERS!" Everything would pertain towards a schedule, everything would go exactly as planned. My life would be divided into neat segments into which I would annotate every single second to be the most efficient me that I could be. If only I could go back in time and tell me that I should find a college that suits my personality, instead of something that was prestigious. There are a lot of things that I look back on that I would want to change but hey, it's stupid to dwell on it. We just move past it and go on with our lives.

But damn if it isn't hard to get past it.

There was this super selective writing program at USC, and in order to get into the creative writing program there you had to have a 3.7 GPA, you had to be *stellar*. The University of Iowa, which is the most accredited of graduate workshops in fiction writing, was extremely selective. The great pantheon of writers tends to showcase sheer genius: Fiztgerald recounts his days at Princeton, Toole attained a master's from Columbia, and all of this creative talent stems from elite institutions. I mean, there's only so much one can go through their own ability, afterall. A good chunk of successful writing is based on marketability, and hey anyone can cook up a pretty sentence, right? So when you have an even playing field, what's the basis behind success? When you only see a certain chunk of the world, you're going to have a very small worldview, and when you're someone that studies for the sake of getting an A, all you're going to associate with school is an eternal ratrace to climb up some ranking or another.

Why did I go to Harvard Summer School? Why would I spend $10,000 dollars on a two month program for college credits? Was it because I wanted to study at one of the best universities in the world? To experience a world that I would never be able to get into? Was it to expand my own worldview, to meet people from countries I've never set foot in, breathe in the foreign smells they brought with them?

Nope. It was simply because my parents didn't think that I could get into the most basic of universities in California and out of desperation sunk their money as a last ditch effort to "at least get me into UCI." UCR. Not even Riverside. My parents were simply afraid that the best that I could do was FJC, a community college that would be the end of one's future. All this doubt because I didn't do enough clubs. Because I wasn't "active." But I submitted to this plan because I wasn't confident in me either, and I wanted the future to be safe. Isn't that why we spend so many hours toiling away in the present? Why do we subject ourselves to miseries and work our backs sore and our eyes blind? It's in the hopes that there's a brighter future ahead. If we break our ourselves in the now, we are setting the foundation for a better tomorrow. It is the driving force behind ideologies, philosophies, and religions.

As I write this now I sigh, because I know what comes next. It's an easily predictable story and the next step can be seen as clear as day, the disruption to my structured future, the crack that would bring my plans on their figurative knees.

(You)

I would cheat on the open arms of the kennels of libaries on-campus to sip coffee with you in sun-soaked cafes. Books would be neglected in favor of long walks along city streets. Study sessions would center on each other, discussing our selves instead of our textbooks. I'm pretty sure I typed out more text messages than essays, more intent on memorizing you than any thing else. I was directly disobeying my parents' and my own intentions and I was the happiest I could be.

What is it exactly that attracts you to her?

I get that question frequently. I always use phrases that could be used to describe anyone else: your best friend, a renowned teacher, your mother. "She's nice, she's smart, she's funny." As someone who aspires to be a writer, it's embarrassing to say but I can't even conceptualize why I care so much about you. A million words, an infinite number of ways to construct them, and none of them are substantial enough to begin to define what you mean to me.

There's a nagging doubt in my mind, that maybe it was me that substantiated you, simply because you were something I never encountered before. The first time you experience something will always distort your perceptions. It's like the first time I had microwaveable meals when I was 11. It was out of the ordinary! Food I could nuke in a microwave and eat? AMAZING! The first time I had it I foodgasmed; now I can't stomach the smell of the stuff. You were my first escape, my first step out of my comfort zone, my first expansion of my small, small world, and maybe I'm confusing that with love. Whenever I try to imagine a future with you I always draw a blank. I'm happy when I'm around you in the here and now, to the point where I forget my future; but if I can't even imagine what it'd be like with you, then what's it really mean?

And that's what the future is, a question without an answer. A muddled view of things to come, and once it clears up it could be something you weren't even expecting. It's directionless, it's aimless, it's like this post I'm making.

So I got a letter addressed from myself in the past. Creepy, right? Before the end of high school we wrote these letters to ourselves, something our teacher would send to us after high school ended. And here's mine:

"I know you're hung up on [lolher?]. If you're still obsessed with her, accept her in your heart as your friend. Like [so and so] said, there really is nothing you can do if she only wants to be friends. But that's no reason to avoid her or whatever; she's really important to you, and I really think that she helps bring out the best in you. She gets you, and that's good. Be sure to be more open, so you can meet more people like her."

This hit me hard, just because right now I'm trying to distance myself from you. Instead of being impossible to define, I want you to be meaningless to me. Originally I thought you would solve all my problems and suddenly I start thinking that you're the crux of them? I don't know. Life is confusing. I don't know if I'm maturing, or thinking differently, or thinking immaturely. It's impossible to tell. But I'm doing all of these things because I want to be able to talk to you again, I'm doing this so I can hold you as a friend instead of pushing you away because I want you as a lover.

Value the past, so it can help you shape the future.

(for once I am speechless)

lolwut

So we're kind of on a break. Um, not from blogging per se; from seeing you. 

*siiiiiiiigh* 

I initiated how I still felt about you and you were surprised. "Huh? You like me? I had no idea!" But the thing is, I think you did know. I think. The rationalization behind this being that you're so perceptive, and you know me pretty well, how could you NOT know? It's so obvious. I could write it on my forehead in sharpie, make myself a walking billboard advertising "I less than three you," and it wouldn't even matter!

But then there's the issue that maybe I'm too emotionally guarded, that I don't let people in? So maybe that's why she doesn't perceive me that well?

But there's no way! She's so smart, she gets me, how could she NOT know? 

But THEN it's like, maybe I just wasn't being as open with her as she was to me? Maybe I'm too surreptitious myself and it's my fault? 

But then if you can't open up to her-

GAH. FUCK THIS. 

Seriously though, you see? This is what happens when you're around me. My thoughts just go on these directionless tangents. I'm constantly in the dark about how you feel, so it doesn't matter if I'm an open book to you or not. I can be as simple or as complicated as can be, Clifford the Big Red Dog or James Joyces' Finnegan's Wake, it doesn't matter if I'm open if you're not. I don't know you as well as you know me and it's scary. I try to dive into murky waters where I can't see the bottom, and common sense dictates that well, I shouldn't. I should do it when the pool's crystal clear, yeah? We should be going with someone that erases our doubts, that we can see clearly. And the reason that they allow us to see so much into their selves is because they trust us completely. 

I don't know if I know you, I don't know if you trust me, and that terrifies me. 

Maybe I'm just looking too closely, to the point where I can't see the big picture. Or maybe I'm just trying to see something which isn't really there. But the point is, I need to take a step back and re-evaluate this whole thing over again, and in order to do that I need to stop seeing you for a while. Living with doubt is hard, yo. Sorry.

*ahem* 

So what does this mean for this blog? Maybe it'll depart from centering around you so much; I might choose to write about my day, or um, ADVENTURES, or girls that I like that AREN'T you! Or something. I don't know. It'll probably be the same stuff as before. Or something. I dunno. 

*sigh*

It's hard to see where we'll be a couple months from now, and it's hard to see where this whole, "writing" thing will go a couple years from now. But I think one of my fatal flaws would be looking too far into the future, when the only thing I should be focused on is the temporal, the present, the here and now. 

Chasing after ghosts is dumb, after-all.

Getting on with it.

Today I was looking for a short story I had written (inspired by gee who, you of course) when I realized that the folder holding it was gone from my desktop. Then I realized that the shit CD I was going to research (disparage) for a paper was still on my computer (Elephant Business, by the Black Eyed Peas. Goddamn it sucks.) I had deleted my archival of writing in place of this CD. Every single story I had written, was writing, and in the process of editing was gone. Lost to the annals of time. I felt disappointed, but it wasn't the world-ending process I thought it would be. I accepted that it was gone from my life forever, and that I could just write better things. After all, the things I had written I now read and recognize as embarrassingly sloppy.

(I backed it up on the internet. On a protagonize account, whooooo. Only the complete stories though; drafts are completely gone. So out of let's say 80 things written, only 20 were salvaged)

Why was it so easy for me to accept the fact that all of these stories that I had written were gone? That all of these ideas that had racked my brain since senior year, all of these sentences that I had typed out were now simply ghosts on my computer? I mean, conceivably I should be mad. Even though these ideas weren't finished, they were still ideas; things that could be developed into a good story. Now they're all gone, gone, gone.

So what? Who cares?

I've realized that as a writer I've grown, so it's okay to leave these stories behind, since I can write even better than I could before. And just like the muse that inspired them, I should feel the same way about you. It shouldn't hurt to move on with my life, it shouldn't hurt to stop trying to make you mine. As a person I've grown too, and as such I should accept the fact that I've lost you and move past you, re-prioritize and try again. We can write much better love stories with different people anyway.

(Hooray for writing this at work)

The second play-through should be better.

He will disappoint you 

If you see through, his perfect smile 

- "Books Written for Girls," by Camera Obscura

Yo.

That single greeting is the only indication that I listen to hip-hop. I throw it out so casually that it's become apart of me conversationally. But anyway, just look at me. I dress up in collared t-shirts and polos all of the time. I look like your typical, Asian cubicle worker, not a hardcore hip-hop head. The way that I perceived music was just another gauge to my personality, and that determined whether I was dateable or not. So whenever we rode in the car together, you would only listen to music drenched in the acoustic lullabies of guitars and twinges of violins, with the quivering, smoky voices of men singing about girls they had loved. Indie rock, with an air of refinement. I was terrified of potentially scaring you off by bombastic beats and rhymes that would rip apart suckah-emcees blaring from my speakers. I didn't want to disappoint you. I mean, I am a big fan of indie too. But hip-hop tends to scare people at its first listen; it's more complicated than that, it requires patience and understanding. The subject matter is harsh, broken glass strewn along sidewalks; the speakers are broken, men walking barefooted on said glass. It's not like indie rock or pop rock or what have you, where you just take it as it is and accept it; you really have to go through a process to understand it. And I think we were the same way. Around you, I would constantly snip apart parts of my personality I thought you'd find abhorrent; I only gave you the prettiest parts  of the truth, the glittering parts of me, to work off of. And I think you did the same. 

When I look back at a lot of my writing during our period of time together, a lot of my stories would  consist of not really knowing what constitutes an identity. The concurrent theme would be about not truly knowing who the other person is. You can imagine how maddening that feeling is. The person you so absolutely want to know, this person that you would like to introduce into the ongoing opera that is your life, you want to fit them in somehow, yeah? You were that world-renowned cellist from some foreign land that would really add something to this performance, and I'm the maestro who needed you to make my opera work. I mean, you have high expectations; as a musician of the highest caliber, you'd want to perform with someone who'd follow suit. So here I am, hiding my developing cello section, putting mutes on mediocre violins, dulling my brass, muffling my percussion, sticking metronomes near basses to try to make them suit your rhythm. My incompleteness, my imperfections, were something to be hidden around you; I wanted to suit you perfectly, or at least seem like I could.

*Le sigh.* It's not technically "lying" if you're only showing certain truths right? But it's still wrong. If we're to accept each other for who we truly are, we need to show everything and anything. It's not all sun-soaked lullabies and pretty girls serenading you. It's embittered men with the voices of broken bottles screaming at you as well. We can have the orchestras and the guitar accompaniments and all that but we need to understand that outside of that there are sad men reciting their frustrations like scripture to so many people too. I really wish that I had understood this so much sooner before, but it's too late now, we're too far into the song. The end of it will be messy and contrived and predictable; we are plummeting straight into a train wreck. But life isn't necessarily consisting of endings; at the end of this horrifying piece we're playing together there's a repeat sign. We can go back to the beginning and try again from note one, and you know what? If we play it like we want to we might just get the correct ending. It won't sound as pretty I guess, but it'll be perfect. I won't end up with you as a girlfriend but rather a much better friend. We won't force an ending upon ourselves that we think would be better, but rather produce something that is absolutely quintessential for who, what we are.

To summarize: 

Thinking you're the Belle to my Sebastian, I tried to force myself to make it happen, as Bless would say (God bless 'em), making moves on you At the Drive-in, with the confidence and wit of the Wu-tang Clan, with my Jupiter Rising I tried to Hold Steady, get my act ready, I got your Love Signed Sealed Delivered by my Postal Service and my Death Cab for you, Cutie, Somebody's Baby as Jackson Brown would say, Anyone Else but You like Michael Cera and Ella Page. You Pretty Young Thing, P.Y.T haunting my dreams, Summer Breeze bringing with it simple melodies, Sunday Mornings spent thinking we could be, just like love songs from Sondre Lerche whenever I see you I hear piano keys clattering, it was you that I had Chain Me Free. But to speed up this Rhymefest we didn't get it right, Reggie without the Full Effect, like Kanye West with his mental defects, we were too overconfident, and look where we are, People under Stairs unable to see stars. Realizing that Nothing Lasts Forever, I realize that I Used to (still?) Love Her. So let's try again we're not some one-hit wonder, like Jay-Z or Nas we'll bring that hot fiyah. 

...oh yeah I like spoken-word too.

Goddamn, John Lennon.

My stupid imagination is what makes my mind unstable; when it careens out of control, it takes my sense of judgment with it. When I was in elementary school, I looked at video games as less of a way to relax and more of a world to be immersed in. It was like the environments in the books I was reading, except I was a character in that world. And I wasn't just a character, I was *the* character; the one who in the end saves the world or becomes a champion or whatever. So I was really into role-playing games. Watching my sister play Final Fantasy, I would imagine myself fighting alongside Squall or Cloud or Zidane. During classes I would think to myself, how great it would be to ride along the back of my Charizard and travel the country trying to be the very best, that no one ever was. 

As I grew older, I kept imagining random things in my head, but my imagination shifted from dreaming about riding the backs of Pokemon to dreaming about riding certain... other... people. *ahem* Middle school was a time in which my shoulders broadened, my legs grew, and I began to re-prioritize certain things on my agenda. Previously loved toys would be swept to the side by girls who were awkwardly trying to become women. I noticed things that I didn't see before: legs, chests, curves. Like everyone else, that tiny flame of sexual attraction, my libido, was doused in gasoline and that single spark, that single girl, suddenly ignited an uncontrollable inferno that suffused across my body, changing me completely. I would be finding myself looking across the room at people that previously didn't even pique my interest, creating stories inside of my head of us engaging in exotic actions amidst covers drenched in moonlight and rooms that reeked of perfume and fornication. I imagined sex with every pretty girl that walked my way, and I would proceed to become the typical, horny, 13-year old, red-blooded American male. 

Reaching the end of my teenage phase my libido dulled, and with it my imagination was no longer marred by sexual dalliances and escapades. Instead of looking out for what could possibly come my way in a matter of minutes, I looked outward towards the horizon. I began to imagine what my future could be, and I'd always draw blanks. Or if not blanks, unrealistic, delusional futures in which like the video games I'd play I would always end up the winner, overcoming every single hardship, challenge, and trial that came my way. I would become an AWARD WINNING AUTHOR, pen the NEXT GREAT AMERICAN CLASSIC, and fall in love with someone I would describe as STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL and AMAZINGLY INSIGHTFUL. 

(And then I met you) 

My imagination was a house of cards and you were the gust that knocked it down. Can you believe it? This whole time I was getting through life by using my imagination to prop myself up in my mind. In elementary school I would imagine having friends that would follow me to the end just because of my own self-wrought loneliness. Middle school I imagined myself in all of these sexual fantasies due to my own inability to connect with women I was lusting over. And in high school I imagined success in whatever interest I had merely because I had no idea what I wanted in my life. In that sense, my imagination was a pathetic fallback that I would use to reassure myself that I was doing alright, and I didn't even realize to what extent I had let my imagination control me until you made me realize just how pathetic I was. 

When we met the theater in my head went into overtime, the movie-reel burning images across my mind of us together in a million different circumstances faster than I could even process them. I was so excited about us being together that I never took initiative, expecting us to just *click* like I thought we would and replicating the scenes playing out inside that stupid, overactive brain of mine. And so when it didn't work out like I thought it would, I was shaken. The reel stopped, the image froze on the canvas, and we had to step back and reexamine for technical difficulties. I was hoping that the scene in my head would substantiate itself and become the reality that I would live, and that was dumb. 

I kept expecting you to come back to me. To clutch each other in some sort of dramatic way and embrace, closer than anyone else. 

Fiction is simple. Fiction is meant to appease. Fiction is the thoughts and whimsies of a person's imagination playing out exactly as the author intended. Fiction is simple, and people are not. People are not the kinds of things that can be regulated to any one scenario or any which way, and to think that you can define someone in your own skewed interpretation of events is foolish and dumb and quite selfish, really. It's a crutch that we use to make us feel better, and that's exactly what happened when I was with you. Never have I been with someone that made me regret both taking no initiative and taking the initiative. I hated myself for not acting upon my own emotions, to attempt to make what I imagined into a reality. And I regretted taking the initiative and spilling out to you how I felt, and realizing that it wasn't going to play out as it had in my head. That you weren't about to come running to me after I exposed what it was about you that made me like you. 

 

Again, that house of cards thing, concerning my imagination. It was something I built to try to protect me from being hurt by life, when in reality it was what ended up torturing me the most. I used it to cope with loneliness, when it actually accentuated it; I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I left no domain for anyone to enter. It's like a party, and everyone is so familiar with each other that when  a new person comes in, no matter how well-intentioned or friendly they are, they're just out of place due to the sheer fact that they haven't known you as long as everyone else. And when you've been living with your imagination your whole life, how else is anyone supposed to compete with that? 

It's funny, right.

The things we think help us the most end up hurting us the most. 

My imagination was being used as a coping mechanism for life when in reality it was shielding me from it.

Whereas things that hurt us the most end up helping us the most. 

When you said no I was left with an appalling feeling of self-loathing that made me want to become stronger.

When you said no I was left with a terrible disappointment that ended up making me strive for more. 

When you said no I was left with a crippling sense of self-doubt that made me unafraid of other failures in life.

When you said no I was left with a crushing loneliness. But exposing myself to you gave me a friend that I could depend upon forever.

When you said no I had no idea that this would be one of the best answers I would receive in my life. 

Imagine that.