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.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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