Yesterday I drove to Eastmont mall to drop off my cable bill. As I walked past the unending panels of boarded up windows, I wondered if what I saw there was a measure of how bad things have become or how things have always been in that part of Oakland. Shops devoid of customers, wide passageways without shoppers, the people mulling about either drunk or high or just a little crazy. The escalators there forming a sort of grand dilapidated staircase, unmoving for who knows how long, people camped out on the steps. And finally, the throngs of people mulling about the self-sufficiency center, their only source of hope during the day. How different this is from my life. It makes me thankful for what I have. Damn, there I go again, turning other people's lives in to an anecdote.
6 degrees of seperation later.
Go to the Asian Art Museum in SF. It rocks. Spend some time with the Chinese Jade (as if you could help yourself). My favorites were the Japanese baskets, which I have no words that can describe. And if you have the time, sit in the comtemplative alcove, a soft gray room with a bowl shaped rock in the middle filled with water that moves so slowly that it is imperceptable to the naked eye, which seemed to me a lover asleep, whose beauty I would not disturb for the world.
Sometimes I sit here staring at the blinking cursor looking for inspiration. I wonder if it's because I have too little to say at that moment or that my thoughts are so incoherent that if I were to put them down in words they would end up a literary train wreck. Here in the early morning light I think it's more the former than the latter.
I was driving around the Port of Oakland last night with a friend. Along brightly lit streets, wide and empty, past rows and rows of containers stacked in the darkness, with silent giants white and resting on the wharf decks, I am in awe of the place that I work at. And here admist all this industry, a park, a wetland, a compromise between them and us. Sometimes when you don't get outside, you forget what effect you have on the world.
Happiness creeps around the corner, waiting to pounce.
Random thought: Dream not of what could happen tomorrow, but of what will happen when you finally get around to doing the things you always said you would do.
Somehow my life has again become immensely laden with activities ... it really just sneaks up on you. Oh well, you know, idle hands, devil's work, and me here, happy not doing the devil's work. Sorry to all my avid readers (I am really full of myself aren't I?) for the short or incomprehensible posts, I really need to find some time outside of work to update.
Day 1: Work, SFO, Alioto's, Ghirardelli's, Karaoke place next to Ranch 99, Home.
Day 2: 9th St. Cafe, Ikea, A's game, Enrico's, Beach Blanket Babylon, Home.
Day 3: SF, Healdsburg, Preston Vineyards, Quivira Vineyards, Dry Creek Vineyard, Pezzi-King, Lambert Bridge Winery, SF, Home.
Day 4: Restaurant Peony's, BBQ Galore, Coit Tower, Eric's House, Karaoke place in J-town in SF, Home.
Tired. Happy tired, but tired. House of Prime Rib and Popscene! last night. And so the crazy weekend begins. Hope for blue skies and sunshine.
Random life lesson taken from Bridge: Taking all 13 tricks is one thing. Bidding slam and making it is quite another. Thanks Dad, I think i finally get it.
A good friend of mine was telling me how her co-workers and her parents and her friends were telling her that her boyfriend wasn't good for her. I told her that it sounded like most of the bad things that they heard about him were from her. She said that this was true, but that when she said those things that things between them were really bad. I asked her if they were better now. She said that they were. I told her that she needed to defend her boyfriend since she was the one feeding them only the negative stuff. A warning then, good friends are a great thing to have, but their advice is only as good as what you tell them. If you really don't know which path to take and you ask someone to point the way, make sure they know as much as you.
It's warm now. Spring. Even so, evening falls too fast, casting deep shadows through the house, barren of much needed furniture. I don't know why I write this, why almost everything I think beautiful seems tingled with traces of meloncholy. But I think them beautiful, and I it makes me happy. I've always perfered the cooler times of day, cooler times of the year. Summer nights and late Autumn afternoons. The traces of lack making the world more real, making me happy. We're all different that way I suppose. But I feel more content in the recent years, having experienced summer and sun through other's eyes. And now I find myself lost in my own musings, sated and restless, at all times now, having learned how to read the bittersweet in so many moments. And just as soon as it began, the moment has yield to the next, and this thread severed. Making way for another and another. Like fireflies, beautiful yet brief.
I've received a few comments about my last post, to which my response is, TOUGH! :P I'd give out hints, but I consider those that I know who read this, way too smart for that.
It's been a gorgeous weekend. Which, on your average year, is the norm for Cali, but this year, it's one of the first to really feel like spring. Well, thanks to all of you who have made this weekend memorable.
I've been unusually cheerful this weekend (and no, it has nothing to do with the secret) for no reason I can really think of. I think that I can sum up my experience for the last three weeks like this: Sometimes life pulls you up, sometimes it pulls you down. Let it, let it.
I have a secret!
That is all.
Rich and I went out to drink club last night in hopes of bumping in to Vienna Teng. Rich spent the entire night calling her by her real name and I got all confused. Around 11:45 we finally saw her. Her and Rich spent the next few minutes catching up and stuff (they went to the same high school) and I sat there like a dumbass thinking, I'm sitting next to Vienna Teng, THE VIENNA TENG! The funny thing is that I know a lot of friends who are friends of minor celebrities. Mostly either connected to Vienna or someone in the cast of Better Luck Tomorrow. Anyway, Vienna was really cool and despite the fact that the music at SnoDrift was so frickin loud (but it's supposed to be that way right?) that I couldn't really participate in their conversation, I had a pretty good time.
I wasn't going to write anything this morning but then I found out that one of my friends got screwed over by someone that she's going have to live with. Grrrr. If y'all didn't know, I'm kinda protective of my friends. If ya fuck wit them, you're fuckin wit me. Step in them, same as steppin into me. Capisce? Some people in this world just need to be put down and if it's gotta be me laying the smackdown, then that's just the way it's gotta be. Am I over-reacting? Probably, but I got a lot of bottled up anger and I'm not afraid to use it on some poor unsuspecting ass dumpling that thinks it's okay to screw with my friends.
10:30pm
OMG, three posts in one day? Does anybody even check back that often? Probably not. I just had to write and say, despite all that it does to my masculinity, I LOVE DAWSON'S CREEK! Series finale, me crying like a baby. (Actually, according to my mom I didn't cry much as a baby.) Anyway, that's beside the point. Best scene, when Jack says to Jen, "Jen, I want her. I want her, but I don't know what you and Grams have discussed." And then later, "Jen, you belong. You belong to me. Don't you get it? You're MY soulmate." Good stuff. I can't even begin to do it justice here.
Speaking of soulmates, my good friend Becca sent me this. I then sent it to my friend Richard who quite appropriately quoted, "Never tell me the odds." Works if you're a hot shot pilot flying the fastest ship in the galaxy and have a bit of rougish charm. :P
12:30pm
I didn't get into work this morning until 11:30 because the tire shop was a little slow in replacing the tires and because Caltrans shut down 2 lanes of 880 because of some bridge damage. Normally I'd be pissed, but this has been such a bad 24hrs that it's quite comical ... even to me. Of course I still have 6 hrs before I hit the point yesterday when I got a flat, so we'll have to see if I'm still laughing then.
Anyway, being late to work today got me to thinking. I was thinking that I'd have to work really hard today to make up for the lost time. "Make up for lost time." Hmm. You really can't do that can you? I know that I carry around alot of baggage, both at professionally and socially. And it always gets me to wondering, exactly how fucked up am I? 'Cause I got lots of regrets ... and I often find myself talking to people who say they have none. And so I wonder. I think there are lots of thing I want to fix about myself ... and I see people around me who seem to think being who they are is just fine. And so I think. Is baggage really so bad? Is wanting to change yourself being untrue to yourself?
I think about the events in my life that influence my choices, the good stuff as well as the bad, and I think about how all of this shapes the goals I have in life. Well, when I look at it that way, I gotta say, I'm pretty cool with where I'm going. I figure right now, I'm going to go change some tires and sit in traffic until I get there.
6:45am
Yesterday I ran over a pothole and popped a tire on my brother's C70 cabriolet. Luckily I knew how to change a tire ... odd as it may seem, that's not a given, that a guy knows how to change a tire. I suppose most guys might, but in this age of "paying someone else to do it," I think it's not too uncommon. Anyway, I was, needless to say, a little upset and I ended up driving home, at the speed limit, on a spare. Life passes you by quite differently at the speed limit. I didn't really feel like I needed to get home faster. I didn't feel like the person in front of me was excessively slow. I changed lanes once, pushing it up to seventy, and this guy who was pushing ninety and about 1000 ft behind me changes lanes and as he flies by me, gives me several obscene gestures ... and I wonder, am I like that when I'm in a hurry? That's just it then isn't it? I feel like I'm always in a hurry. It's like a drug, it's my caffine. When I don't feel like I'm pressured, I crash. I go practically catatonic. Oh well, it's gonna be a long day, and miles to go before I sleep.
My mom's going to be kickin it with me for the next week. Well, since my mom isn't really that hip, I don't suppose we'll really be kickin it. Then again, maybe I'm not that hip either. Heck, I'll bet I'm dating myself just by using the word hip. Hip, cool, wicked, sweet, tight, sick. Sick? Well, that's what the youngins today use. Anyway, my mom's here so that'll be cool. She's gonna help me make my place look presentable. LOL. She's good ... but I don't think even my mom's Martha Stewart-ness can salvage my bachelor pad of a place. (Envision empty rooms and beer in the refrigerator.)
I was in Costco the other day, standing in line, people watching. I was watching this couple buy their stuff and walk off. Nice, normal couple. Normal stuff in their cart. Totally uninteresting. Then I started to think, these are background people. They don't really stand out. Certain people stand out. The cashiers, the runners, the people making a fuss, the people carrying way more than could possibly fit in a normal sized SUV, the people waiting for an hour to pick up their film. I start to wonder, am I just a background person? I don't want to be a background person.
I've been playing with my new digital camera, Minolta F100. It has a function to record 30 mins of sound. So I started thinking ... wouldn't it be cool to add audio files for some of my poetry? Then I heard my voice on the wave file. *cringe* I gotta ask, do I always sound like I have a cold? Do I really have that bad a sibilance to my voice? Are my hard consonants really that harsh ... why doesn't somebody just shut me up?
Dear Dad,
It's been a long time since I last spoke to you. Then, as now, you were unable to respond to me verbally. Now, as then, I have some hope that you’ll be able to hear me. I’m writing you because I finally figured out that double dummy problem you gave me. It’s taken me nearly three years, but I finally thought it through. I know that you thought I would get it eventually; little did you know it would take me quite so long. I wanted to tell someone that I had finally solved this problem, and I knew you would have to be first.
I hope I’ve made you proud in this; I know I haven’t always. I realize that we never spoke much while you were alive. In fact, I think that we spoke more that last year than in the 23 years proceeding. That is perhaps the silver lining in this. I never knew how much I loved you, how much we all did; never knew how much you had taught me, how much you taught us all.
I think about those lessons, given only in example. I think about the way you made us love the games you played, the ones that exemplified you own philosophies on life. You taught us simply by showing us how much you enjoyed them. And though we may have been slow to understand, we eventually caught on. I hope that one day I can learn to live simply and be true to myself, as you did; I feel I have so far to go. I think about how carelessly contemptuous tones and attitudes I toss about; I think how someday I hope to be more comfortable with myself so that I won’t always mistake my arrogance for self-confidence.
I hope that I’ve made you a little prouder today. It fills me with immeasurable joy to think of all that you’ve given me … all that you continue to give.
Love, Tony
I had dinner with my old high school buddy Phil last night. I can't believe it's been almost 9 years since we graduated from high school. To think, I was so dorky in high school. (You see how little has changed) I think back to all the events of my high school life, how important they seemed then, how distant they seem now. Oh well, I guess c'est la vie, eh?
I've been stressing lately because I need to buy an extra bed and I can't seem to find one that doesn't cost $600 or more. Does anyone know of a cheap place? Well, unfortunately I can't wait for a great sale. I need to get one before my mom gets here on Monday. On top of that, when I was furniture shopping, my brother told me that some places you might be able to get a mattress with the purchase of a bedroom set. Now I'm thinking ... well I can find a cheap bedroom set for maybe $1200, and wouldn't that be so much more worth it? Sigh. I'm complaining because I have options ... I should be shot.
"We now return you to your normal programming." Yes, just like that. I'm now tired of pouring my every last thought out here. Emotionally tired. Tired enough to sleep through the night.
I finally got my digital camera! Hopefully that will mean that there will be pictures on this site sometimes soon. (Don't hold your breath) So check back often! (I'm shameless aren't I?) Probably the first thing I should take pictures of is my new place, since everyone is asking me what it looks like. Well, all I can say is that it is smaller on the inside than on the outside and that there are no five and a half minute hallways. (Inside joke) Anyway, I hope to have it all spiffied up by my birthday so that I can host of kick-ass housewarming party. Hope to see you all there!
We all fear love. Powerful, wild, uncontrollable, inexplicable. We seek to cage it in logic, chain it in chemicals, define it in psychological terms, right and wrong. This is how we protect ourselves, shield our own hearts from their worst enemies, themsleves. Be careful, especially in love. In Chinese, be careful, is composed of two words, "small" "heart". In love, have a small heart.
All my life, I've been uncertain. And those small moments that I was certain, I have later doubted. They say that true courage is something only people who are afraid can know. Then true conviction is the posession of the uncertain. In all these most dangerous things we do, we all need a little faith that what we do is right. Love comes and goes. Even the most committed couples are continuously falling in and out of love. Oh if you fall out of love with someone a million times, so what, if you get to fall in love a million and one?
We are always pushing ourselves to find that perfect love when strangely enough the things that we freely love are so imperfect. And artist reworking her work again and again. All the passion poured out on paper, is it wasted? A poet who cries as he reads a line he just wrote because he's found himself in his own work. And then, a moment later, so frustrated, and changes a word, never satisfied. Were the tears wasted?
There is something beautiful, something to love in every corner. The perfect love, that comes at first sight and survives death. The uncertain love that risks and fights and mends. Many may call me a fool, a hopeless romantic. I'll smile and nod. Go pursue your perfect loves, your certainties. I'll take my chances on the pass line. Because I'd rather have built this home of dreams out of the stolen moments, scraped together from fights forgiven, hammered together by passions undeniable, weathered by tears, and tested by uncertainty; than to move into a house of love that I'll never fully know the depth and breadth and heights of.
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has lent ear or eye to my problems and offered their advise and support. For whatever reason, my mind is much quieter today and I hope it will stay that way for at least a couple of days, if only so I can make it look like I did some work this week. :) Strangely, I've started to feel some hesitancy to posting my every thought on this blog. Two reasons: first, I dislike the thought that I'm fishing for pity; second, this is more than just my story and many of my good friends have already expressed their staunch support of me by placing blame where I never intended it to be placed. Ah well, I suppose we protect the ones we love.
10:00am
Do you ever feel paralyzed? And you don't know whether it's because there's too much going on in your head or if it's just that there's not enough going on in your heart. I've woken up the past year mornings, early. Like I'm afraid my heart's stopped beating. I gasp and gasp for air. And no matter what I do I can't get enough.
Last night I was chatting on line with a good friend who was both tough and compassionate. (I have others that are one or the other and both are appreciated.) And I told her what I really wanted. That I just wanted to call Carol. And she replied, "And what would you say?" I'd tell her that I miss her and that's really all I'd have to say. Because for all that I write down in this journal, I know there are no words for this. That this plethora of self-indulgence is really just for me and not directed anywhere, and doesn't lead to a solution.
Time. People tell me it heals. People tell me that it wasn't a very long relationship. People tell me that it wasn't long enough. But after all the sympathy thrown my way, all the points of view that people lend me, this is what I see. It's not time ... it's timing. Because I believe wholeheartedly that I've been privleged enough to have relationships with two people that I could imagine spending the rest of my life with. If only I'd acted on my feelings a little earlier ... but's the curse and blessing of life, you never have to know if you chose right or wrong, if it could have turned out better if only....
7:15 am
Mornings. As if they weren't bad enough. Then there's the hangover. Yeah, if you haven't guessed from yesterday's entry, I was doing a little drinking all day yesterday. No worries though, as one of my Aussie travelmates on my trip to Spain used to say, they'll be no dramas. At least not today. BTW, for those of you who like my poetry, I've posted a few more: One of my earliest works and perhaps the most aural, Storm; a companion sonnet to Only January, Now December; and of course my latest, The Morning After. Enjoy.
I want to give a shout out to some of my friends who have birthdays today. Jim and Anita, thanks for being there for me through all the tough times. Anyway, if you don't want to read any of my ranting about love and topics related, please stop reading now. I promise to return you to your normal programming in a few days.
Yeah, so I cry myself to sleep every night. You think I'm a wuss? Bite me. You know, I don't always like the way I handle things. And try as I might to change things, it just won't. I can choke back tears at sappy tearjerkers, but I know that some people just gag. Guess what, I empathize with these made up characters. Yeah it's contrived, yeah it's just made to sell movie tickets ... but on some level it means something ... or else it wouldn't work. And if you don't get it. If it just makes you gag? Well, kudos to you for not crying. It don't make a lick of difference to me.
I'm not often angry. It come and it goes. I just wonder what I should do better. And then I wonder if this is doing better. Cause maybe we were all mean to be tested. Maybe time and time again, this is my test. I just FEEL like I'm failing it. Whatever. I pick myself up again in time. And if the experience changes me, well then, that's what experiences do. For better or for worse, we are who we are. And there's always someone else out there who gets that.
I almost thought I had it. I almost saved one undestined thing from the shears of fate. Had someone change their mind about me. But things fall apart so fast in the aftermath. All the joys of the past several months the vacancies of the next several days or weeks, all come rushing in. And writing this is so hard, but at this late hour, everyone asleep or out on a Friday night, this tiny scrawl in an unknown corner of infinity is all the solace I have.
And I hope she never reads this, all this that I tried to spare her as she welded those shears a final time. I hope she never knows how much I hate myself ... seems like all bad news starts with my name -- how much power those two syllables weild over me. I think about all the things I should have done, someone else I should have been. Something else I should have wanted. And what is love? And do I feel it? Did I feel it then? So many times? Where is the one great love of my life and will it really be so much better than all this? If it isn't, if it wasn't, why do I have let it jade me so?
And why is it so fucking cold in this house of mine? How pointless it would be to turn on the heat. This house is too empty to heat. I wonder if in the coming days, I'll turn around to fast and catch in the darkened corners, the ghost of dreams that still linger here. That's the problem with houses, they attract permanence.
I fight myself, have to try so hard not to erase this entire entry. No one should have to read this, but I know people will. Or maybe they won't. And I don't know if it make me feel better or if it just makes me feel silly. But I've moved past the point of caring ... about anything. So if this seems sappy to you and you gag at the sadness of a fool, then do. Choke on my tears if you will. I'll give you that.
Do you know how deep the self-loathing goes? I hate myself for writing this, for feeling it. Both the giving into the need to spill my guts to the world and the fact that I have it to spill. Again and again I'm the tool, I'm the fool, and I thought I stopped believing in this. Again and again I come back to the fact that I can't escape myself. And even now ... I can't seem to escape these unreasonable hopes. Somehow after all these relationships, after thinking that I've become so jaded, I still cry like a teenager, I still cry like it's my first time.
Better Luck Tomorrow, unrealistic? I think not. The following link should be enough to disprove that. I've heard a lot said about the believablity of the film, how it is a asian american wanna be gansta fantasy. It's not. I read one critic's opinion that the movie just proves that minorities can't make a good movie without drugs and violence. Well, I guess we can't all be John Singleton now can we? Whatever else, I think the fact that the movie's loose basis in reality is rarely promoted goes to show that drugs and violence aren't the heart of the movie. It is however, in part what gets us to go see movies, so who's fault is that?
Check this. That's better than my having to evacuate from the Port building because of the threat of protesters. I mean, how do you install goats?!? In other news, I finally got around to starting to clean my backyard. Most of my efforts we concentrated on the drop-in grill that's in my backyard. There were some freaky ass spiders making their home in the grill. I tried to sweep them away and they ran back into the grill. Ewwww.... (As you might be able to tell, I am arachniphobic.) The grill, I am sad to say, is practically a total loss, so I am going to go shopping for a new one ... hopefully it won't cost me an arm and a leg. :P