i'm finally reading the time traveler's wife. i'd started it years ago but didn't get very far--just wasn't into it. but now is probably the right time, and even though it makes me uncomfortable that the things she's writing about are similar to the stuff i write about (i hate being accused of stealing, even though anything that is a truth comes from our collective unconscious), it's definitely interesting. one of the biggest points of interest to me is that it's a story about 2 gemini's and it deals with very gemini themes. i strongly believe the writer has to be a gemini.

okay, i just looked it up. Audrey Niffenegger. Born June 13, 1963. that explains why her thoughts and style resonate with mine.

i was convinced she was either a gemini or lived closely with gemini's when i read this line, spoken by the father of henry to his fiance:

"He isn't calibrated to bring peace to anyone's life. In fact, he is in many ways the opposite of his mother: unreliable, volatile, and not even especially concerned with anyone but himself. Tell me, Clare: why on earth would a lovely girl like you want to marry Henry?"

you have to know a gemini intimately or be a gemini to have such an acute observation. especially since her character's response was that it's because he's really, really good in bed...

we inherently run a wider spectrum of personality than other people. the most disciplined and nice gemini's can not change their inherent nature, but will do their best to control their volatility, outputting the need for change and variety in what they do while trying to maintain a more consistent personality. but the truth is, the core of our being is constantly changing. so sensitive to time, space, environment, and our own constantly changing reactions to a constantly changing world on a person who is not consistent enough to be the same person from moment to moment.

i often ask myself, why would anyone want to be with me. and the answer is, why would anyone not want to be with me. we are easy to love. we make you feel alive. we are everything and yet we are nothing that you can hold on to. paradoxical, contradicting, real. we're sand through your fingers...you either appreciate the experience as a whole, or live a frustrating life of trying to catch and understand each grain when it's inherently impossible. we're like seasons. they come and go and to love one season means having to accept them all to get back to the one you love. and that is not easy or desirable for everyone.

sometimes i don't think i would wish a relationship with me on anyone i truly cared about, because it's not easy. i know that i'm a really great person and really interesting and the positives of being around me weigh pretty heavily. i'm a good person to know, a good person to be around. if you've ever been scared of the prospect of boredom from spending the rest of your life with one person, then you should spend the rest of your life with someone who is rarely the same person. but it is not easy, because you have to be willing to let things flow, and let the me you love disappear and return, sometimes in front of your very eyes. when i have positive to give, i'm pretty selfless. but then there's that other side that can't be controlled, like a werewolf's other side that is changed by invisible forces. day to day and moment to moment, i can become a completely different person, not that the person is better or worse, but just a completely different person. that can be unsettling for some people who like things the way they like them.

we were not built for stability. we were not built for consistency. we were built for a multitude of life experiences within a single lifetime. we're often deemed the most human sign, because we will embody and reflect the entire range of human emotion and experience.

the key is expectation. i guess if someone were comfortable with the paradox of the person next to them being a different person from day to day, sometimes moment to moment, yet see that despite the switches they are still the same person, if they can see that it is in fact the constant change and evolution, the movement from liquid to solid and back again that is in fact cyclical and consistent and makes the greater, consistent person, they would find it less unsettling. they would see that the gemini is often consistent in his or her inconsistency, and often possesses a singular aim within a given moment. the gemini is a consistent person built on frames in motion, the same way an organic, dimensional world appears consistent on a projected film strip when it is in fact a series of fluttering still images. we are inherently self-centered because we are always aware of our environment and trying to project a consistent being (it takes awareness + discipline, thus our attention to ourselves, the outer world, and the relationship between), but at our best, we are not selfish. we are unstable by nature, but take a few steps back and we are an entire spectrum radiating simultaneously. we are wise, infinite souls inside little children, we are angels inside demons. heaven and hell, we've touched both. in fact, we have a knack for being in both simultaneously. there is no one more aware of the present than a gemini, and no one worse at adhering to linear time. we are as much here as we are not, and we have an uncanny way of surrounding you, and talking to you as though you are caught in the middle of a conversation between ourselves.

our purpose is to learn, understand, make connections, communicate, store. accept our nature to understand the person. if we disappear, wait in the same place and sooner or later, we return, not realizing we were ever gone.

do you want an interesting life, or a stable one?

we will give you the former, but you will gamble for the latter.

i'm currently reviewing the posts from the middle of october. the way i operate sometimes is i notice things in the present and they become integral to how i store that present as a memory, and these signifiers later serve as triggers in the future to go back into that past in my mind to gather the overall meaning. it's the juxtaposition of the past with the present that allows new thoughts, realizations or breakthroughs, a way to come back and understand something when you are at the exact position to have a certain perspective. music is often a trigger. arcade fire in particular, seems to trigger a line that originated from the alaska cruise through seattle, a specific line that i haven't been able to grasp yet, but it's slowly being painted.

the song, wake up, was on the radio twice this weekend. the first was on our way to the warriors game on saturday, a pretty energetic day where i was tangibly affecting people and had a particularly active magnetic field. the 2nd was last night, on my way to the store.

i've only consciously heard this song 3 times on the radio. the first was mid-october, another highly energetic time when i was meeting a lot of strangers, having connections and doing a lot of "work." i remember hearing the song on the radio and feeling the song was magnetizing my current life experience, then looking up the lyrics and discovering it was arcade fire. not long after, all that energy channeled into that 2nd story about meeting death at 3am in a diner.

i find it interesting that this song preceded a very energetic night on saturday (that ended in me at a diner at 3am feeling a weird thinness of reality being in a place i had imagined in my head but that now surrounded me in real life), concluded an energetic weekend on sunday, and was originally planted during an energetic and particularly magnetic time in october. arcade fire songs are also linked to high energy times in september and august.

remember how i said that sometimes life circles back to the past in the future? these signifiers provide the portals.

i don't believe this is coincidence. i take the appearance of this song as a point of reference and a sign post that i'm on the right path and to be particularly vigilant right now...something important is nearby, either in time or space.

random weekend thoughts:

-my theory: the middle of 3 children are usually difficult personalities. first born and youngest gravitate towards each other, but if you are oldest of 2 with the younger being of the opposite sex, your best match is the oldest of 2 with an opposite sex sibling. i'm first born big sister to a younger brother, so i find a lot of youngest born guys gravitate towards me because they know that i will naturally be protective of them and take care of them. but unless they're strong themselves, it doesn't really make me grow. the best partner for me is probably a big brother who has taken care of a little sister. then we would take care of each other while also challenging each other, because first borns tend to be very responsible but also very ambitious.

-i met bohr's friend rick who has a theory that any family with 2 or more girls, at least one of the girls will be crazy, a bitch, or a crazy bitch. he also said that having a daughter is very different from having a son. you don't worry as much with a son, but with a daughter, you feel like you have to protect her at all times, knowing how vulnerable she is to all the forces in the world which want to take things away from her. even things you never would have thought of or been aware of before, you become very paranoid once you have a daughter, but on the flipside, you are also aware you can only do so much to protect her. it's very humbling, he said. he and his wife have a one year old daughter, and they're talking about having another kid. they're hoping for a son. i asked him if part of the desire is that they're hoping that by having a son, he'll protect her. definitely, he said. there's definitely a comfort in knowing that even if anything happens to us, there will at least be another man who will look out for her.

-assholicism runs in my family. but we're like werewolves. we're really, really nice, charming, fun, happy people, and then full moon and bam! we're complete assholes. and then we're angels again. it's a temporary state, but it happens.

-my mom says sometimes she wonders if she was a wolf in a past life, because she has these moments where she wants to bite a person's throat. on my side, unless i know you and trust you, i'm very protective of my throat. i don't like people touching it, or even waving their hands too close to it. i wonder if my mom and i have some predator/prey past life history.

-bohr was over for dinner last night and on his way out. he was waiting to say goodbye to my mom, but she and my brother were heading out as well to buy christmas lights, so we followed them into the bathroom and watched them squabble over something inconsequential. i said to bohr, "i guarantee you they were a married couple in a past life." bohr bursts out laughing and says, "i wouldn't doubt it. they have a very interesting dynamic." we stand in the doorway and watch them and my mom suddenly becomes aware of us. "what are you two doing here?" "it's like watching a play," i said.

-i am most often mistaken for: 1. a swimmer; 2. a police officer; 3. a poet; 4. a mirror

i'd bought a prime rib that i didn't have time to make on thanksgiving, so we invited family over to eat it last night. my aunt helped me out in the kitchen and we were talking. she's married to my dad's cousin and has two really cool daughters in college, but they have dropped hints that the women in the family (my aunt and my two cousins) don't get along with my uncle. from the clues i've gotten over the years, they say he's very pessimistic and controlling and my aunt has mentioned that when it comes to his daughters, "there's a very negative male force in the house." but it's hard for me to have clear perspective on the bigger picture because when he's around the rest of us, he's very mild. he used to babysit me when i was really young, and he would bring over video games for us to play. i know he's always been a big fan of mine, but i've always instinctually kept a distance from him as well, so i really don't know him that well.

so when i mention to her that the warriors have a lot of scorpios on the team this year (i said it to her knowing her husband is a scorpio), she scoffed and said, "scorpios and all their little secrets..." i took this as an opening and asked her if her husband keeps a lot of secrets. she said, "it's like if he holds some secret over you, he wins." i asked her if she knows what secrets he holds over her, and she said, "nope. he just reminds you it's there but who knows." later, i asked my cousin, his daughter, why she and her sister had originally not wanted to come home for thanksgiving (one is in la and i had offered her a ride back to fremont but she said she had to work, and the other is in berkeley which is 40 minutes away from fremont. she had originally not planned to come home but relented when her mom asked her to and when her sister told her i was cooking). she shrugged and i asked her if it was because of her dad and she said, "Yes..."

so last night, i'm chatting with my aunt. out of the blue, she mentions, "marriage shouldn't be for life. it should have a limited time frame like athlete contracts or work contracts. like after 10 years, you have the option of renewing the contract, or opting out. because for the rest of your life, it can be too long."

"and if you're young and you realize early on that you're unhappy, it's hard to think you're stuck in an unhappy life for the next 50 years..." i said, and she replied, "yes!" very strongly.

"they should change the laws," she said. "i've often thought about that. we're always fighting about gay marriage laws, but the laws should change anyway. maybe start a website and get people behind it--limited contracts for marriages. so instead of having to go through the mess of divorce, all you do is opt out when your contract's up for renewal."

"the people in california are so liberal. they would probably be open to it," i said. i don't know if any of this would really fly, but what i was finding more interesting was the story behind this idea, what i was reading between the lines from my aunt.

"we could have a website," she said. "get people excited about the idea." she pauses, then says more quietly, "maybe have chat rooms for men and women who have been abused in their marriages so they can support each other."

whoa. a red flag down. does my uncle abuse her? his daughters? what kind of abuse? my mind is working furiously, mapping out what i know about this household, and i choose my response carefully.

"i think there are places online now that provide support for people who have been abused or are currently in abusive relationships," i said, not to shoot down her idea, but to let her know that there are places. i used to volunteer for a legal advocacy group to raise awareness to teens regarding the different types of abuse, particularly those that are harder to pin down but equally damaging--emotional and verbal. and i've done a lot of research on this topic when i was considering grad school in psychology. there are a lot of resources and support forums available for people in abusive situations, but the problem is, those in bad situations don't often seek them. abuse can be quicksand, a hostage situation with invisible chains. hard to live, impossible to go.

"yeah," my aunt said, and trailed off in thought. i didn't know what to say to her, because i've known she's been unhappy for years, but i don't know the situation and don't know if it's really my place to ask. chinese culture has many formalities that you have to be careful with.

but it disturbed me. to know that a wife is unhappy is one thing, but if there's abuse...

i want to spend some time with my cousins and find out what their home life is like.

this is my destiny so come with me...

when the head chases the tail, you are going in circles.
when the head chases the tail and the tail chases the head, you are manifesting infinity.

last night i was talking to bohr, dropping knowledge on him, and i drew a crowd of listeners. it was flowing really strongly and even though the things i said were for and about him, there were multiple levels working and the words had simultaneous deeper meaning for all the other people in that circle listening. the flow comes from within me but not of me...when it comes through, i am learning as well. this is something that comes through when others are wanting/needing a message and open to accepting it. what i've been learning, is how to channel that energy while keeping myself out of its way. it is a power surge. the more that comes through, the more i have to relax my identity around it, focus the stream, give it the clearest path to those connected, keep the door open, and allow myself to go with it without being afraid. disciplined commitment. like playing a musical instrument of things that are hidden in plain sight but very real. last night was powerful. successful. new level. the words really fell into place and something else was there with us. positive flow, powerful opportunity for awakenings. an almost tangible presence of truth and deep connection.

memorable.

it takes great discipline to study with a master. the truth is, most people lack the faith for it. but those who do, achieve.

walking into a denny's after not having been in one for almost 10 years and having just written a story set in one...felt like walking into my own imaginary place. moving around externally in a place i created internally. while we were at the table, furious drops of water splashed the window.

"that's some heavy rain," my cousin said.

the diner in my mind had snow outside, but the rain felt very quentin-tarantino-esque. 3 in the morning and we're discussing parellel universes and how to get along with the in-law's. it all felt too bright around the edges, too dull around the middle, but exactly as it should be--real.

"no wait...it's just the sprinklers," he said. "but it really does look like rain."

for a few minutes we were out of time, out of place. we were in a diner in the middle of the night in a place where rain pelted sidewalks and windows, existing in a self-contained universe unto itself. it felt like a movie set. i looked around for suspicious looking characters. if this were a true tarantino set, then it's always wise to expect surprises.

tonight was a huge success.

laura - "what's uncanny is that everything that's being said here can be applied to every one of our lives."

we talked about how when we control our dreams, we are more empowered in our waking lives.

tonight --prominent orion, fluctuating moon.

unusually high winds and a power outtage

for one night, i controlled it.

i looked at mikki moore's face, its curves and structure, the perfect symmetry, like a tribal mask. one the warrior, one the shaman. i wished i could paint him. in my mind, my fingers traced the angles and lines of his face, his eyebrows, the drop from his cheek to the rise of his lips, trying to commit everything to memory. suddenly, he breaks out into a smile, his eyes meeting mine, exposing me, an artist caught by the muse who was aware of her all along. we smile at each other as though sharing a private joke.

i do believe we must evolve beyond our human bodies to survive. as well as maintain a more continuous individual database of information and understanding to build consciousness upon. basically, how can we make that which stores our perceptions and information more durable and long-lasting so we can increase and expand our data-collecting abilities to create larger and more dimensional networks of understanding?

each time you die, your database gets wiped and at birth you have to rebuild, though some people are better at recovering data than others. but overall, as biological organisms, we are inefficient.

i believe that even if ai achieves becoming more human than human, it will not be a threat to humanness itself but an evolution--both our collective and individual consciousness will migrate into the structures that house ai. or perhaps ai will manifest in a manner which does not require a tangible structure.

a different kind of human

when my cousin edison was really young, he would see creatures that no one else in the room could see. he would point into the air and burst into tears and it used to scare the shit out of the adults. they used to whisper about this "problem" like bad things would happen to talk about it too loudly. his parents took him to a buddhist temple and had monks chant for him, and there hasn't been any incidents over the last year or so. or maybe he learned to live with them quietly when he realized how freaked out the adults were getting.

edison is incredibly smart. i've been around a lot of smart kids, but he's a different kind of smart. it's almost like he's had more life experience than just the 5 years he's spent on earth, so he has a kind of wisdom. it's almost creepy, like being around a really perceptive, tiny adult, but amazing as well. the other day, his mom was at our house watching the taiwanese version of american idol, and she kept wanting to stay a few more minutes to catch the next singer. finally, he walked up to her and said, "everything in life has an ending. you have to choose when you want that ending to be." i wasn't there, but when i heard the story, it started me thinking about something i've been pondering a lot lately.

since i was a child, i've always felt "watched."  there were moments where i could be in a room alone, and then suddenly feel a presence. or walk into an empty room and feel like there are people there who suddenly stopped talking when i walked in. when i was young, i had problems with sleepwalking because my dreams were so real that my body would go through the motions of the me in my dream because it couldn't tell the difference. i distinctly remember one time when i dreamt i was giving a tour of the white house, and when i opened the door to show the group "lincoln's bedroom," the door in real life banged against another door and i woke up in the guest room's bathroom. often i would try to go outside...to be close to the moon, i assume. but the worst times, i would be talking to someone in my dream and would slowly wake up to realize i was sitting on the couch in the living room, talking to thin air, yet feel like someone was there. waking up in these moments to a dark empty-but-not-empty room was terrifying. in high school, i would have these occurrences where i would wake up in the middle of the night with my body paralyzed, but what felt like moonlight shining onto my face while what sounded like electronic machine sounds whispering inside my head. except the blinds were closed so there couldn't be moonlight shining on me, and i was sure it was aliens talking to me in a language that i couldn't intellectually understand. i was terrified i was being programmed. this only happened maybe 5 or 6 times, but i remember the episodes vividly. i told someone at school once and they reacted with such contempt, i didn't bring it up again. but there were nights when i had to sleep with the lights on because i was scared. going away to college was really helpful because i had roommates so i rarely slept alone, or there were always people around. i think that's why i prefer living in a condo/apartment to a house. there's a safety being around other people.

one explanation is that our town used to be populated by native americans and you hear lots of indian burial ground type ghost stories. so maybe fremont's just a little more haunted. but the truth is, i've always been different. i'm always picking up on things i shouldn't logically perceive or know.

this morning, my mom was watching a chinese talk show and they were talking about other life forms. about how in world war II, there would be electro-magnetic disturbances between american and japanese fighter jets, but they each thought it was the other side's technology, but they now believe it was some other unexplainable force that had come between them. i couldn't understand everything they were saying, but one thing i caught was one guy who said that there are other life forms but they are more advanced than us so we haven't communicated with them because we don't have the means yet. and that back in the day, scientists thought we could use radio signals to communicate, when really, it will come down to psychic/mental forces, how we learn to channel our electro-magnetic fields. and that other beings don't have malevolent intentions.

my heart jumped with hope when i heard this. this reminded me of the story of columbus's boats which i'd been thinking about, how the indians couldn't recognize them. maybe the problem isn't us finding other life forms. maybe we just don't recognize them yet. you can't see what you don't recognize. i turned to my mom and said, i really think that we're so busy looking out there when there are already different kinds of humans that live amongst us. 

i'm not willing to put it all into words yet, but when they found evidence of water on the moon, it was comforting to me. intuitively, i feel we're getting closer to a widening in what is accepted as our collective reality. there are people in this world who have greater electro-magnetic fields. and i always associate electro-magnetic influence with the moon. i'm not saying that there are people here who came from the moon. but there might be an intelligence here that is descendent from it. 

edison has more wisdom and perception than is logical for a 5 year-old. he is also being groomed for a mathematical mind. i secretly believe he will be someone who will be integral in bridging the communication of a future evolution with those born of the past. of every child i've ever met, i feel a special kinship with him, that we're a different kind of human, one more sensitive to energies and energy fields, one that uses the mind to interact with reality in a different way. my whole life i've been met with hostility and jealousy when i've never had malevolent intent, yet was treated in a way that showed that some people (usually those who were fearful beings in the first place) feared me. but in recent years, people have been more open and accepting. i don't attribute that to just my own growth into who i am and what that means, but also to other people having a wider understanding of the change in the world that is about to take place. 

later today, i brought up again that the fact that both edison and i are sensitive to things that other people can't see and precocious in certain ways could mean that we're more consciously connected to something beyond us. my mom panicked and said it was past life stuff that we picked up on and that she didn't believe in other life forms. but then she paused and quietly said, "but i remember that email you sent when we were about to sell the company, and that made a difference for me." her eyes welled up with tears and she reaches over and patted my hand. "thank you for that."

a few years ago, i'd gone to sleep and woke up to find a man standing by my bed. he asked me to get up and write my mother an email because she needed me. i tried to shake it off because i was sleepy and figuring it was a dream, but he was really insistent. finally i said i would and slowly began to wake up, realizing that it had been a "dream," yet i was sitting up in bed and looking in the direction of where he'd been standing. it was like those moments as a kid of waking up from dreaming of talking to someone to find myself in the living room talking to a person who wasn't there, but whose presence i could still feel. so i got up and groggily wrote an email to my mom, totally stream of consciousness about how everything was going to be okay and that sometimes life gives you challenges so that you can find out who and what you really are as well as what's important to you, but that i loved her and was thinking about her. i hadn't talked to her in a while and had no idea why then or why i wrote exactly that, but she called me in tears the next day asking, "how did you know?" (i didn't).  to this day she thinks an angel spoke to her through me. 

sometimes, i think that we can be used as a tool for greater forces if we're willing to trust them. sometimes, i don't think we have a choice, but i notice that when i trust what's happening and do things with the cleanest of intentions, my life is more fortunate. sometimes i think that people are like cells of the body, and we just work for different systems. maybe we are those cells that create that elusive entity which is the soul. i don't know. all i know is that there is something not logical about how edison is operating beyond his human years of life experience, and why i pick up on the things i pick up.

i haven't been on the this is why you're fat site since the summer, but after my internet browsing the other day discovered the Parmo, i had to visit. amazing. so many new submissions. like watching a gruesome car crash. or felony-level food porn.

like this:

The Big Fat Ugly

A sandwich filled with four cheeseburgers, a double cheesesteak, a chicken cheesesteak, gyro meat, grilled chicken, bacon, sausage, mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, chicken nuggets, mac n’ cheese bites, fried mushrooms, jalapeño poppers, pizza bites, onion rings, hash browns, American cheese, mayo, and ketchup on two rolls.

how does something like that not instantly kill a person?

and this monstrosity, inspired by the Saturday Night Live Taco-Town Taco:

where's the commemorative tote bag?

last night's thanksgiving dinner menu:

baby portabello mushrooms stuffed with crab

sweet green-chile cornbread

roast turkey

garlic-parmesan mashed potatoes

white wine gravy

cornbread stuffing w/basil-garlic sausage

green bean casserole

three cheese and truffle oil mac and cheese

bacon and white cheddar mac and cheese

candied yams

ginger-orange cranberry sauce

pumpkin pie & pecan pie from costco (didn't want to deal with desserts this year)

not making the desserts from scratch this year made a huge difference, making it one day of cooking instead of 2. the key to a tender turkey is longer cooking time at a lower heat (i go with 325 for 5-6 hours, basting with drippings and homemade broth every 20 minutes). usually i "healthify" all the recipes, making healthier substitutions where i can, but this year i splurged a little with 2% instead of whole milk, and heavy cream and real butter in a few of the recipes. i don't really feel there was a big difference since i'm pretty good at making substitutions that still maintain the integrity of the dish, though the three-cheese mac and cheese was probably the sluttiest thing i've ever made...

it took me from about noon until 8 to get everything ready, and it went smoothly because my aunt came over to help with the chopping and dish rotation, which was huge. after dinner, i was playing with my cousin jonathan and rie's baby, and i kept finding my butt gravitating towards any seating apparatus or the ground. i thought, now you've done it...you've gotten so fat you can't even support your own body. but then my mom pointed out that she hadn't seen me sit down at all since noon, and the only break i took was to take a shower which was also standing up, so i must be exhausted. i suddenly realized i was incredibly exhausted. sometimes i get so task-oriented that i can't read my own internal signals. it was a huge relief to know that standing all day was the reason i kept feeling this urge to sit or lay down, not that i'm on my way to becoming one of those women who stays in bed for 30 years because they're too heavy to get out. 

*****

the day before when we were in the supermarket shopping, i noticed a lot of people, men and women, would look at me. nothing i can read one way or another, but just really long looks. and it wasn't checking me out or anything--i was just wearing an old sweatshirt over gym clothes since i'd come from the gym. i told my mom to watch for it...how in the last year, it's been really noticeable. there was an old lady...i saw her and i got the feeling she was sick...a long illness. later, i was waiting outside, and she walked up to me and i smiled at her, so she approached me and talked to me. something about the wheels of the carts. a joke. it was a small conversation, i actually didn't understand what she was saying but i think what was more important was some kind of warm human connection. there was another guy who was near the door when i walked in--i smiled at a woman with two young children, and he walked by me and said, "hello, nice person." i said hello back. later, i was leaving and he caught up to me and said, "thank you, nice person." i told my mom that i think that the greatest human fear is that of disappearing, and that sometimes people just want to feel like they are seen and that they exist. i think sometimes they just want to connect, even with a stranger, even if for a fleeting moment, because it somehow makes them feel more real...more here. 

one weekday, i was walking around old seattle, and there was a woman with a copper colored mullet holding a laptop with attached webcam, pointing it at the sidewalk. she looked like she was doing a geological study. i was really curious about what she was doing, but i tend to be non-intrusive about approaching people, so i watched her from a few feet away. a black homeless guy in his 50's walked up to her and asked her what she was doing, so i got closer to hear her explanation. 

she said she was making a documentary about the street cracks, about how the sidewalks were scored and that people were coming out to break up the sidewalks. she said that there was something going on, that there were people living underground, because at nights, if you looked through the grates, you could see lights from the tunnels. i remember walking home one rainy night, and there was a red light emanating from one of them, and i figured it was city workers or something. i asked her if it was just the city and she said no, because they don't do work at night. she said there was a whole underground city. i asked her if maybe it was homeless people camped down there, and she said she's been homeless 3 times in seattle, but there's no way to get down there...she'd tried. she said that years ago, there were a lot of people on the street, lots of birds, but that's gotten scarce. that she thinks they're planning to move obama and the cabinet to downtown seattle in case anything goes down, because the only way to access that area is through some canadian pass. she talked about 3 years ago, in 2006, the police suddenly raided the whole area, took all the homeless people away, and no one knows why or where, that we're closer to a police state than most people think.

the guy and i listened to her attentively, because she seemed articulate enough, she seemed intelligent, but the things she was saying were pretty out there. she said that there were entire underground cities in san francisco, los angeles, philadelphia, new york. that there was some major stuff about to go down in the world. but when she said that the reason there weren't as many birds was because the government took them all and threw them in the ocean to cause tsunamis, that's when the guy and i looked at each other like, oooh-kay. 

she said she had to run to a meeting but gave me her website to check out (sadly, i lost that slip of paper in my wanderings that day). she hurried away, but then stopped and turned around, saying, "thank you for listening." it was really sincere and surprising. that's when i realized that one of our deepest fears is of disappearing.

*****

i stopped near this park where people were loitering. some of the people wandering through were clearly crackheads from their gait and eyes. i was just standing there writing what the woman had said in her notebook when the guy who had also been listening walked up.

do you believe all that stuff she was saying?, he asked me. he had intelligent eyes behind wire-framed glasses.

well...i think what was most interesting was her level of conviction. whether or not it's true, what seemed to matter was that she believed it, i said.

what are you?, he asked. are you a student?

i'm just traveling through, i said.

so you're a tourist, he said. have you been up to vancouver and those parts?

i was there a couple of months ago, i said. but i didn't really get a chance to explore it. i'm saving it for later.

he looks me deep in the eyes, sizing me up.

are you really rich or something? so you can just travel the world?

i choose my words carefully. in my spirituality, i have been very lucky, i tell him.

he nods. i can respect that, he says. he asks me how long i'm going to be in seattle.

as long as i need to be, i say.

he tells me that it's going to be a really harsh winter, that all the signs are pointing at it, but he's going to be okay because he's got insulated jacket and pants, and a new heavy-duty blanket. he opens up his backpack to show me. i tell him to keep warm and to take good care of himself. 

he asks me what my name is and i tell him, shaking his hand. his fingers are long and graceful, indicating a creative thinker, and his grip is firm. in the back of my mind, i know my parents would be freaking out if they knew that at this moment, i'm standing in a park filled with addicts and shady characters, shaking hands with a homeless person. but they are not here right now, and he is. for whatever reason, i've suddenly found myself in this exact place and time, and i have to believe that where i am right now is  exactly where i'm meant to be, however unorthodox it is, or whatever my own fears or feelings about it may be. when i push all judgments and assessments out of my mind, i'm aware of how before this moment, we were two people traveling two separate and distinct paths, and after this moment, we will again be two separate people traveling two separate and distinct paths. but within the electricity of this current moment, we are suddenly looking each other in the eyes, connected and completely present. for a breathless moment, it wasn't time that was real, but the life flowing within us and the life flowing outside us. and within the eyes of another person, i recognized it all as one and the same.

i walked away with my head filled with questions.

Today I learned about the Parmo:



2600 calories and 150 grams of fat?

This is why you're fat.

this visualizes how i feel about the things in life i care about.

watched rudy fernandez in person for the first time at the blazers/warriors game last week. rudy moves like a cross between a bird, a gazelle and a big cat, all springs and grace. with big brown eyes. and curly hair. and legs. ... that man can get in my face anytime. he made my eyes salivate.

i'm not a girl who gushes, but...this guy is poetry in motion.

shoulder dislocated twice during a basketball game yesterday. the second time, it took me over a minute to pop it back in, which was excruciatingly painful, and the crunch when it finally went in was loud enough for people around me to hear. it was gross. i went on to make the game-winning shot, then played another game. later, josh (it was his office lunchtime game i joined) told me he couldn't believe i played through it. he said he wouldn't have played through it. i told him women have a higher pain threshhold than men...we eventually have to deal with the pain of giving birth. but the truth is, it's incredibly painful when it pops out, and every second that it's out of socket is excruciating. your entire perception narrows to one sensation, and it's like all you can feel, see, hear is this screaming, searing pain as you try to will everything back into it's right place. your arm is useless, dangling by loose muscle and skin like it's no longer a part of you but rather, something foreign and defiant. but once it slips back in, numbness and relief. yesterday was particularly bad because it was the first time it completely dislocated twice in a row, and that second time was the longest it's ever been out of socket. i was actually starting to panic. but then it popped back in and, i kept playing because i didn't want to make a big deal out of it. when i was leaving, this big cuban guy told me i must be a scorpio, because i'm strong and don't quit (he's a scorpio himself). i told him i'm a gemini but often mistaken for a scorpio. he said he guaranteed one of my twins was a scorpio.

i went home but by nighttime, i felt like i'd been drugged...my body probably went into shock and shut me down, so i kept nodding off. i could barely lift my arm or turn my neck.

i can't keep doing this. long-term, i don't want to end up with limited mobility. i've gotta get the surgery.

catching snowflakes with bare hands
an exercise in ephemerality
futility
beauty
an intriguing lesson

presence catches but holds nothing

as does prescience, in other worlds

time is interpretation.

i think my ultimate peak experience in life would be, floating a paper boat down a forest river, and after some time, years if it has to be, when i least expect it, it floats right back to me from the opposite direction. and it's brought someone familiar with it.

11

you reveal your ace
if you've been bluffing, you don't know what it is either
but this becomes the only card that counts
is it red or black?
will you find that your sight can change the course of consciousness
or are you revealed to be completely insane?

the river asks you to jump into the river
but when you get to that place where you're perfectly lost in every direction
you find that it was not what you expected at all.

the question is, what kind of story is this?

life is like a train station on more levels than one.

trained in blackened arts
the savant waits

wow

today, in one of my favorite spots in la, i smiled at the guy who played the nazi sniper in inglourious basterds, and he smiled back. that was a nice moment.

maybe you've already met the right person, just at the wrong time?

you always move forward, you never go back, but you recognize sometimes life circles back in the future, and that's always quietly given you hope for things let go. right now, you're terrified of letting go of the strongest energy spot you have, but you have to believe that if you let go, you can still come back to it later and it will still be here for you. maybe you're not ready for it yet. or there's something else you have to do first, before you can claim it the way you want to claim it.

what if i'm completely wrong? and everything that's up is down, and left is right. what if everything i'm sure of is exactly what i was never sure of at all?

wow, twice now facebook has crashed when i tried to reply to the same person. the attempts were almost 3 weeks apart. it makes me think i'm not supposed to reply. or, either not with what i'm saying, or not at this time.

genre: comedy
location: pawn shop
object: bulletproof vest

A Lesson Before Dying

EXT. CITY STREET - NIGHT

Police cars and SWAT vans haphazardly parked in the middle of
the street, a crowd of gawkers held back by yellow tape.
Policemen evacuate stores as SWAT members in full gear--helmets,
bulletproof vests, automatic rifles--move into
position. The center of attention appears to be MAURY’S PAWN
SHOP, a tiny glass-front affair sandwiched between an A-OK
BAIL BONDS and a LAUNDROMAT.

INT. MAURY’S PAWN SHOP - NIGHT

INSERT TITLE: ONE HOUR EARLIER

The bells above the door jingle as a haggard-looking MAN
steps through the door. Old man MAURY is behind the counter.

MAURY
Back so soon, Mr. Tolberg? How’s
your wife?

MAN
I’d like to see your guns...

INT. MANAGER’S OFFICE/QUICKIE CAR WASH - DAY

INSERT TITLE: ONE DAY EARLIER

The phone on a cluttered desk rings incessantly. A flustered
middle-aged man with his arms full of dirty rags bursts
though the door, lunging towards the phone. This is the same
guy from the pawn shop--TOM TOLBERG.

TOM
Quickie Car Wash, manager speaking.

INT. MINIVAN - DAY

The woman on the phone is CAROL, Tom’s frazzled wife. She’s
driving and talking on the phone while two 7 year-old
identical twins battle each other noisily in the backseat.

CROSSCUT between Tom and Carol.

CAROL
Your sons’ principal called to say
they’ve been suspended for putting
a “kick me” sign on a classmate.
(to kids)
Stop hitting your brother, Eric! A
stapler is not a toy!

TOM
Sounds harsh for just a prank.

CAROL
They attached the sign with a tack.

TOM
Oh.

CAROL
They’re terrorists, Tom. Devil
spawn.
(to kids)
Do you want me to turn this car
around? Because I will. I’ll turn
this car around and drop you two
right off a cliff you don’t start
behaving.

A shoe comes flying from the back, hitting her on the head.

CAROL
WHO THREW THAT SHOE?

They each point to each other.

TOM
Calm down, Carol. They just need a
lesson in respecting authority.
Kick ‘em out of the car and tell
them to walk home. Pick them up in
half an hour. That should scare
some sense into them.

CAROL
No way. That’s abusive.

TOM
It worked on me. A kid only has to
walk 6 miles home in a blizzard
once to know where the line is.

Another shoe bounces off the windshield followed by giggles.

CAROL
Fine. But anything goes wrong, I’m
holding you responsible.

EXT. RESIDENTIAL STREET - DAY

Carol is struggling to forcibly pull the boys out of the
minivan.

CAROL
This is for your own good.
Having...parents...is a privilege.

She slides the door closed, gets in the driver’s seat and
takes off, the boys running behind the car, wailing.

Half a block away hidden in the bushes, a MOTORCYCLE COP
watches, arms crossed. He’s quite unamused.

EXT. QUICKIE CAR WASH - DAY

Tom is drying off a black Mercedes as the OWNER points out
spots he’s missed. A FEMALE EMPLOYEE hurries up.

FEMALE EMPLOYEE
Tom, your wife’s on the phone.

TOM
Tell her I’ll call her back.

FEMALE EMPLOYEE
She says she’s calling from...jail.

Tom looks up as the customer eyes him, totally judging.

INT. BAIL BONDS OFFICE - NIGHT

A blubbery bondsman with a combover reviews the paperwork.

BONDSMAN
Reckless endangerment of minors.
Problem is, she pulled a new judge
who wants to make an example of
her. Bail’s set at $20,000. I’ll
get her out for 10%.

TOM
We’re barely scraping by! I don’t
have that kind of money.

BONDSMAN
As they say in my trade, be in jail
til dawn or you’ve got to pawn.

INT. MAURY’S PAWN SHOP - DAY

The bells above the door jingle and Tom enters with a
cardboard box, placing it on the counter in front of Maury.

TOM
I need $2000 or my wife’s gonna
kill me.

Maury looks him over kindly, a man who’s heard it all.

MAURY
Cup of tea?

INT. VISITING ROOM/JAIL - DAY

Tom sits at a table as Carol, wearing an orange prison
jumpsuit, is led into the room by a GUARD. Her hair is in
thuggish cornrows and she's got FISH written across her
forehead in lipstick.

CAROL
(brink of tears)
You need to get me out of here. I’m
not strong enough for this.

TOM
Bail is being processed and they
said you should be out by tonight.

CAROL
Oh thank God!

TOM
But you should probably know, I had
to pawn some things.

CAROL
What things?

TOM
Like...the good china.

CAROL
Okay.

TOM
Some jewelry. Actually, all of it.

CAROL
What else?

TOM
Um...your Coach purses, laptop,
breadmaker, and that ugly
collection of porcelain clowns you
never liked anyway.

CAROL
You mean that antique collection of
porcelain collectibles my dead
mother left me that you never
liked? Didn’t you pawn any of your
own stuff?

TOM
Sure...uh, my wedding band.

Carol looks at him like she could kill him. Instead, she
gives him a terrifyingly cold smile, pats him on the hand.

CAROL
We’ll talk about this when I get
home.

Tom is terrorized. Every married man knows what this means.

INT. MAURY’S PAWN SHOP - NIGHT

Same scene as earlier--Tom, looking haggard, walks in.

MAURY
Back so soon, Mr. Tolberg? How’s
your wife?

TOM
I’d like to see your guns...

MAURY
Oh? Anything in particular?

TOM
Doesn’t matter.

Maury takes out a small snub-nosed revolver and puts it on
the counter. Tom immediately picks it up and points it at
Maury.

MAURY
Mr. Tolberg, it’s not even loaded.

TOM
I’m really sorry about this but
please...call the police and tell
them you’re being held up. My wife
is angrier than I’ve ever seen her
and I’m too scared to go home. I’m
just hoping that maybe in 10 to 12
years, she’ll have cooled off by
then.

Okay, here's the story I wrote for the 2nd assignment that won 1st place, even though i liked the complexity of the first piece better.

genre: fantasy
location: diner
object: a stretcher

No Man's Land

logline: A young waiter drifting through life meets a mysterious stranger in the middle of the night.

INT. DINER - NIGHT

A stout, exhausted COOK tosses two plates of burgers with
fries up on the kitchen ledge and bangs a nearby bell.
Seconds later, RAHUL, a frazzled young man in his 20’s,
sweeps in and picks up the plates, putting them down in front
of a couple, moving quickly to another booth to take an
order. His eyes are exhausted and his shoulders hunched from
the weight of life, but he has the natural graceful movements
of a dreamer--someone who gets things done quietly and
efficiently without actually being present.

A bell DINGS.

Rahul returns and picks up more food.

TIME SPEEDS UP. Hours fly by as CUSTOMERS come and go, RAHUL
canvassing the room, bringing food, taking orders, bussing
tables, the hands of the clock on the wall above the cashier
register swinging around and around, marking the passage of
time. 11...12...1...2...

RAHUL (V.O.)
The graveyard shift. The underbelly
of time. But there’s a method to
the madness. After 1, you get
people coming off night shifts.
After 2, you get drunk crowds
stumbling in after the bars close.
But 3am to the break of
dawn...that’s No Man’s Land. That’s
when the rock of society lifts up,
and something...different crawls out.

The crowds thin as the hours pass. When the clocks hands
swing into position marking 3 o’clock, time returns to normal
speed. The bells above the front door chime behind a
departing group. The only customer left is an OVERWEIGHT MAN
in a green fishing hat reading a worn paperback romance novel
at the counter. In the kitchen, the cook is frying something.

Rahul takes out his notepad and doodles, drawing the man. His
drawing is detailed and well-done. He has talent. He looks
away and suddenly notices a man sitting in a booth right in
front of him shuffling playing cards.

The man is black with smooth skin, a slight frame, wearing a
neat black suit, white shirt and thin, red tie. Sneakers.
Next to him is a shiny vinyl backpack. His unlined face, the
sparkle in his eye and his unusual attire make it hard to
tell his age--he could be anywhere from a 17 year-old kid
coming from a school dance, to an eccentric 40 year-old.
We’ll call him DEE. Rahul approaches with a menu.

RAHUL
I’m sorry, I didn’t even hear you
come in.

DEE
No worries, I’ve got nothing but
time.

RAHUL
Can I bring you anything to drink?

DEE
Just coffee since I’m working.

Rahul returns to his station--pours the coffee just as the
cook puts down a plate of a giant brown mass swimming under a
lake of gravy. Rahul brings the plate to the guy at the
counter and brings Dee the coffee. Dee closes his eyes, flips
a card face up, opens his eyes, then puts the card in one of
two piles. Repeats.

RAHUL
If you don’t mind me asking, what
are you doing?

DEE
Just a little game to pass the
time. Testing my psychic abilities.

He flips one face up so that Rahul can see it but he can’t.

DEE
9 of Diamonds?

Rahul is looking at the 6 of Hearts.

RAHUL
Nope.

Dee’s face breaks into a devilish grin.

DEE
Guess I’m not psychic.

RAHUL
(amused)
Well, maybe it’s for the better.
It’s probably a burden to be able
to see the future.

DEE
That’s true. For most people, it
probably wouldn’t even make a
difference.

RAHUL
What do you mean?

Dee points to the guy at the counter wolfing down his chicken
fried steak.

DEE
Take that guy. If I walked up to
him and said, “Hey bud, in a few
minutes you’re gonna have a heart
attack and land face first in that
gravy so you should make the most
of the time you have left,” do you
think he’s going to stand up and
call his kids to tell them he loves
them, forgive his wife for leaving
him, and make peace with the world?

RAHUL
He’ll probably just think you’re
nuts.

DEE
Yes, probably. And your cook there.

He points at the cook half hanging out the back door of the
kitchen, smoking a cigarette.

DEE
If you told him that he’s going to
die in a fire at the age of 54
after falling asleep with a
cigarette in his mouth, do you
think he’s going to quit smoking
and start making each day count?

RAHUL
(uncomfortable)
You said you’re not a psychic.

DEE
I’m not. You don’t have to be to
know that each and every person in
this world is going to die. And
that’s the point. Every single
person knows they’re going to die
someday, and yet, it doesn’t seem
to motivate them to start living.

RAHUL
How do you know those guys aren’t
living their lives?

Dee laughs. His teeth are perfect and straight. He leans in
looking deep into Rahul.

DEE
Rahul...are you living your life?

Rahul looks flustered.

RAHUL
How do you know my name?

Dee points at Rahul’s nametag. Rahul self-consciously covers it with his hand.

DEE
You seem smart, talented, young.
You still have promise. So what are
you doing waiting tables in the
middle of the night?

RAHUL
I--I dropped out of law school. I
hated it, wasn’t doing that well so
I left to figure out what to do
with my life.

DEE
And how long ago was that?

Rahul stares hard at Dee.

RAHUL
Why do I get the feeling you
already know?

DEE
We’re just two strangers meeting in
the middle of the night and having
a conversation.

RAHUL
Two years ago.

DEE
Uh huh. And what have you figured
about your life since?

RAHUL
I have to get back to work. It was
nice talking to you...

He pauses, doesn’t know the guy’s name. Dee smiles broadly,
openly.

DEE
Death.

Rahul turns, rolling his eyes.

RAHUL
(under his breath)
Of course it is, you morbid fuck.

Rahul goes back to the cash register. He stares at Dee who’s
engrossed in his cards.

COOK
You alright, Ra?

RAHUL
Yeah, couldn’t be better.
(beat)
And you should quit smoking.

Suddenly, there’s a CRASH. The man in the fishing hat at the
counter has face-planted into his plate of food. Rahul rushes
over and lifts the guy’s head up, but his eyes are rolled
into the back of his head.

RAHUL
Call 9-1-1!

The cook rushes towards the phone. Rahul looks around
desperately. In the back booth where Dee had been, there is
only a full cup of coffee, but no other trace of him.

INT. DINER - LATER

The paramedics roll the body of the man out on a stretcher in
a body bag. Rahul, looking weary, approaches Dee’s booth and
picks up the coffee cup. There are two dollar bills and a
small piece of paper under the saucer. He picks up the paper.

On it is written: RAHUL SOMASETTY OCTOBER 29, 1982 -

Rahul stares at the piece of paper for a long time. Finally,
he takes a deep breath and turns it over.

Written in large block letters: MAKE EVERY MOMENT COUNT

today's date: 11 22 29

good numbers

6 hours left.

genre: comedy
location: pawn shop
object: bulletproof vest

la.

i'm looking out at my temple right now.

working on my script.

waiting for brian to come home.

waiting for what comes next.

this is my home. the only place i've called home and felt it. and i'm going to pack it up and give it to strangers for a few years.

maybe. i keep waiting for another option to open at the last minute. this feels like a test.

my body has been transforming. i think body composition is determined by the mind sometimes. or maybe something bigger working through the mind. my weight went up 10 lbs despite same level of exercise and eating healthier in seattle. the last year my body was lean and angular. and now i'm still strong but with all these curves. sometimes i look in the mirror and my body surprises me, it's so new. like, brian has given me a hard time for as long as he's known me about not having an ass. how asian people don't have asses. that's how i know for a fact this booty is new booty. i keep thinking that whoever is coming up in the future must like a girl with an ass. maybe my body is preparing me to be recognized.

reality does seem more stratified. i can feel so many possible interpretations and paths, but it's harder to tell which ones can be agreed upon by both myself and those outside myself. it's getting easier to see people, but harder to interpret what it means in this plane of living. like when things like this happen:

i was waiting in the line outside of the women's room at the warriors game. i must have been deep in thought because at some point, i realized there had been a little girl wailing behind me for a really long time. i turned around and it's a hispanic girl about 4 years old--long brown hair and big doe-eyes, tugging at her mother's arm and wailing in spanish. her sobs came from deep inside her, unadulterated sorrow, vibrating beyond what a child should know. these cries were real.

the mother was a beautiful woman, make-up and outfit crafted carefully, a strong, seductive creature. cold. in this moment, she stared at the wall as an exercise in discipline, a rock with no ears.

i looked away, and the girl continued wailing the same line over and over.

you nunca dame me nada! you nunca dame me nada!

she had her mother's coat clutched in her fists and she pulled as she cried. she had the devastation of a woman begging for her lover not to leave. i suddenly realized i understood what she was saying.

i turned and asked her mother, "is she okay?" at the same time, i wrapped my arm around the little girl's bird-like shoulder, rubbing her arm gently, soothingly.

her mother looked surprised that i had said anything, then said, "you know kids. they're so spoiled. they see everything, they want you to buy it. they see a candy they want you to buy. they see a giant finger they want you to buy. just ignore her." she waved her hands in front of her face the whole time, the way people do when they want your attention to go away. the way they do when they're lying.

"that's not it!" the girl wailed. now her eyes were pleading me. she was saying something in a panic i couldn't understand.

"well, is there anything you can give her that will make her feel better? sometimes with children it's a negotiation."

"she's just being a drama queen," the mother said, again waving the issue away with her hand.

the girl wails louder, saying something really fast. i look to the mother and she says, "just ignore her."

but the girl is tugging at my hand with a desperation and all i want to do is pick her up and hug her and spend the rest of the night listening to her if i have to.

i bend down so i'm at her level and ask her what it is.

"she never let's me talk to my dad when he calls. i want only one thing and she never lets me talk to my dad."

she is heaving up her soul in these sobs, every word something red and beating, and i suddenly realize i'm an active witness to a girl who is in this moment, losing, and will one day have lost her faith in this world. and as she looks up with those eyes aging from the inside out, she's not screaming just for the love and mercy of an impenetrable mother, but for an echoing world of god, universe and angels to acknowledge her existence.

but i also realize the real world situation. father moves on leaving a bitter mother with a child she resents as a burden. child is used as a means of punishing him. a bitter life for all involved.

the mother pulled her away and into a bathroom stall. i worried she would beat her. the girl's sorrow reverberated around me like the ringing after an explosion. i felt great sadness for her. i felt great sadness for the conundrum of human experience, that we must be born out of pain so that we may learn why we live.

i couldn't touch the situation. but i wish i'd had more space to give that girl something to remember. that she is heard and does exist. that it won't always be like this. that people who want to give her all the warmth and love she needs will be there if she can just hold on and not believe this pain to be the world.

i have a feeling i know what the middle of the night is like for her.

i have a feeling that past or future, we have shared the same dream.

in the echoes, i can still hear her cries.

Occupational Hazard

round 2 results of the writing contest came in last night. 1st place finish. which was surprising because i didn't like that second story as much (i felt it was too similar to the first. a waiter working the graveyard shift at a diner waits on Death). i should have gotten 1st place for the first script, so i guess this balances out. round 3 assignment will be announced tonight. i'm going up against the top scorers of the first two rounds. will have 48 hours to write this script...on top of having to drive down and back from la to pack up my stuff and talk with brian about moving out.

challenging weekend. i look at it as a test.

dear reader. where would you like me to come from?

personally, i would like to come through the early morning window, slip under your covers to touch you in the realm between waking and sleep, all moonlight and skin and something much darker and richer.

i need a motivation.

you are hiding again.

is it more important that people dont know where you are?

or should they know, but despite that, respect it?

it's like this. think about a wolf pack. you're either an alpha female or beta, the equivalent of a 2nd wife. some women are aware of their position and accept it. others are aware and do not, so they challenge the alphas. two alphas can not exist in the same pack, though two alphas can forge a balance and kinship, joining two packs. once a young woman emerges as an alpha, she either has to challenge the pack's alpha, submit as a beta, or leave the pack. in a way, this initiation makes the alpha, and depending on how she leaves (if this was a moralizing experience giving her optimism, or a demoralizing experience giving her cynism), she'll either stay aloof, or start her own pack. but her only match is another strong, male alpha.

the lone operator
the ultimate team player
but totally self-sufficient

this description is your mark. you both bear this mark. it's these matching marks that bring you together.

a little bit of bitch inside the nice
a little bit of nice inside the bitch

that's the perfect balance.

i'm a rear-wheel drive. no need to flaunt the power. smoother ride. but i'm starting to think it's time to frontload. walk into the room balls first.

discourage cowards before they start.

it's the only way to keep it real.

n.e.r.d. = nothing ever really dies

it just happened...

So what?

but they're all laughing...what's up?

Why the tears, have no fear, we are here for you

I know how you feel, I know how you feel

when no one cares.....

If you feel just like I feel (push people)
Everything's plastic, nothing's real (push people)
Put your normal face not steal (push people)
You just dance and no big deal (push people)
You just let the bullshit pass (push people)
So we'll stake for your ass (push people)
Got my balls, my will, you just dance and no big deal (push people)

breakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakout

(push people)

All you can be is just you cuz you're real not the plastic type
But reality sets and you're stuck in this plastic life
Why the tears? We're all here for you
But I know how you feel, I know how you feel,
and I do care...

If you feel just like I feel (push people)
Everything's plastic, nothing's real (push people)
Put your normal face not steal (push people)
You just dance and no big deal (push people)
You just let the bullshit pass (push people)
So we'll stake for your ass (push people)
Got my bones, my will, you just dance and no big deal (push people)

breakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakoutbreakout

(push people)

hey
Shit happens
Hey
Just blow it off...........

(man. but don't it make you feel raaaaage, raaaaage, yeah)

hey
Shit happens, just blow it off...........

yeah. but don't it make you feel raaaaage, raaaaage, yeah

Just as long as we got the same thing in our veins,
You and I, we are both the same.
I'll bail you out, show you what you should see

one love, N.E.R.D.

Peace

-n.e.r.d.

i accept it.

i'm ready.

give me the initiating incident.

the eyes don't lie.

don't marry her.

All you can be is just you, cause your real not the plastic type
But reality sets, and you're stuck in this plastic life

-n.e.r.d.

insomnia. it's a fucking bitch, isn't it?

good is the enemy of great
self-doubt is the seed of mediocrity
fear is a terrible excuse.

going back to cali!

dude, this is small stuff. you're letting it worm into you. let people be wrong, or think whatever they want to think, or do whatever they want to do. your realm only extends as far as you and your own reactions. drop it. if you want to shoot every time you touch the ball, do it if it feels right. but you're not going to sit here and look over your shoulder wondering what other people are up to. not when you have work to do on things that are more important and have more potential towards your own life. this is about letting go. the lesson has been about letting go for a month now. if people believe they're right, let them. even if you think they're wrong, let them. everyone is as much entitled to their wrong opinion as their right one. if people misunderstand you, let them. if people don't like you, let them. if people want to compete with you, let them. not important. work only on the things and people that matter between where you are now and where you're trying to go.

everything else is distraction.

i know what it is. treating me like i'm an idiot as a way of making me believe i'm not "as smart." usually it happens when people are actually threatened. i'm irritated for a few reasons, but one of them is two conversations with the same person.

1. she asked me to keep the scoreboard score and i didn't know how because i've never used the master box, and i don't think she did either. i suspected that's why she asked me to do it. the score was home 6, visitors 7. our team scores another basket. she says, "just add two points." so i asked her, "are we home or visitors?" she says, "does it matter?" like i'm asking a really ridiculous question. and for a second i was confused because...it does matter. that information tells me which side to add the 2 points to, and which side to add subsequent points to. i had no idea where she was coming from.

2. we called a 3 down 2 up defense. that means 1-guard and 2-guard play up, the 3 and 4 and 5 play low. same girl usually plays low as the 3 and I play the 2. so when we called the defense she went to the 2-guard position, which is usually mine. i asked if she was going to play the 2 or 3 (shooting guard or small forward because it determines where your physical position is in the defense). and AGAIN, she says, "does it matter?" and it confused the hell out of me because which position you're playing determines where you are in the defense, your actual physical location and role on the defensive (and offensive) end.

i think she's fucking with me.

the other night, i had this guy try to tell me that i looked familiar, and i knew he was just spitting (idiotic) game. so i just looked at him like i wasn't having it. then he tries to convince me that he knows me because "we dated last year." like he actually thought he could plant enough doubt in my head that i might believe him.

it's a power game. to see if you can get into someone's head by planting something untrue. because if you can, this person is not sure of themselves and can be manipulated. it's unethical and shows your own weakness if you're resorting to it.

see, my mom is a good person to bounce this off of for clarity, to ask her for objective eyes because she's the queen of interpersonal strategy. she makes sure she's clear of any potential motive in a given situation. and i have trouble with clarity when it comes with the subtlety of power struggles with women. but my mom is the root of my issues with power struggles with women, in that when i was young, she established a baseline of normalcy that allowed for her to manipulate me if she needed, so while my instincts pick up on it and something ambiguous will bother me on an instinctive level, i have trouble seeing it/unraveling it as i would something with which i have more distance. my goal is to lead if i'm suited, allow others to lead if they are better suited, but never to dominate for the sake of dominating. i'm actually a good team player as i tend to put anything greater that i'm a part of first and i take care of my teammates, especially ones younger or weaker than me, but i also compete with myself to be the best i can be. but i seem to have trouble with women on my own team trying to dominate me or sabotage me.

i know i bring it up a lot, but it's to remind me of an area of my blindness. when i was the captain of my high school basketball team, i took that seriously. loyalty and protectiveness are core facets of my personality. one of the girls on my team got in a fight with a girl on another team after a game, and i went to break it up and took a hard backhand for her. and i didn't care because it's part of standing by someone who's on your team. but then a few months later, she knew that all i cared about was playing for the varsity softball team and while i had a good chance of making it, she probably wouldn't...so she told everyone on the varsity team that during the basketball season, i'd been bragging about how i was the best player to ever come out of the school. yes, the problem was that i was very good and knew it. but she did blow it out of proportion and her goal was to cause a negative reaction towards me, and sure enough, i was physically confronted by the team, then banned from the team by the coach because, as he told my dad, "she doesn't seem to get along with the other girls." in hindsight, i see that girl clearly--her jealousy, her malevolence...she hated the way she felt about herself around me so she tried to make me believe a version of myself and reality that wasn't true. and up until then, i never thought anything negative of her, and in fact, had been loyal to her because she was my teammate. i got hit from my blindside.

these days, i can't always tell what it is exactly, but i get a feeling when something's not right, when a reality someone's presenting doesn't jive. a lot of times, i defer, like i've been deferring to this "does it matter?' girl. and then i realize, i'm losing my own ground. i'm allowing someone to shake my foundation, making me question myself.

yes, it does matter which team is guest or visitor when you're running a scoreboard that's already in play. yes, it matters what position you're playing when you're running an organized defense. i'm not an unintelligent person. but for someone to try to make me feel that way, especially when we're supposed to be on the same side...makes me very suspicious of their character.

i'm letting the little things get to me. i think i'm being asked to learn how to deal with women, how to work with them, how to deal with the competition that arises, and what to do when they are passive aggressive. it's always the queen bees or the wannabe queen bees that i have conflict with, even though it's weird because i tend to defer unless they get too ridiculous. but i think they take that as a sign of weakness, because if they get increasingly bolder, rather than go head-to-head, i usually leave. but i think that leaving shouldn't always be the answer, even if i believe that closing one door opens another so i don't cling to things like they're the last good thing to ever happen to me. but i think sometimes, it's about establishing dominion, that i don't necessarily care to dominate others, but while my intentions are usually to put a team first, i can't let other people establishing domination for the sake of dominating push me away from my own dominion, where my strengths lay.

i'm probably irritated tonight because i think someone's been playing a sneaky passive-aggressive game, and while i'm aware of them, i can't really do anything about them because it's hard for me to believe anyone would mess with me to mess with me even if the evidence is there, and it's harder to put a name to it when it's hidden under a smile and the context of comraderie. but my instincts are good. someone's messing with me. and half of the problem is i'm letting them.

you know, i could never play under an organized system. it engages the thinking part of my brain when my instinctive part is the strongest. i always needed a lot of a freedom to be my best. and it was usually systems that trusted me that were rewarded. i can't get discouraged. just know that this is not my best scenario to succeed, make the most of it, have fun, but don't take it personally.

here's what i'm going through now. i've definitely been feeling a little down and like my psychic antennae has been broken off and replaced with a carrot. i've been approaching it as hard work that needs to be done in my emotional life.

Saturn conjunction Moon: Self-criticism

Beginning of November 2009 until mid August 2010: During this time you will need to engage in deep introspection, self-examination and self-criticism. Quite possibly you will feel lonely and depressed. The way in which you handle this influence will have important consequences later for your physical and psychological well-being.

This is a good time for self-searching, so long as you are not judgmental. It doesn't matter whether you are good or bad according to your ideals. The real question is what you are. This influence can help you find out. If you proceed from this point of view, it can be a very constructive time, even though it may be experienced as painful.

During this time you may withdraw from others, have difficulty in relationships - especially with women - experience depression and feel quite inferior to life's demands. The best way to deal with this is not to take it all so seriously. Your perspective is warped, so that small matters seem too important. Do not make final decisions about your emotional life now. Wait until you can see more clearly what you have learned from this time.

If you have recently broken off a relationship it may be best to leave it that way. Do not make a real effort to put it back together until this time is over.

okay. here's the plan.

my dad is on vacation in china.

his seats are right behind the warriors bench, so when he's not there, i get his seat. he's always on tv. a good staging point for a voice.

when we had that miraculous play-off run, that was fueled by the fans. we willed that into reality on the shoulders of baron davis and stephen jackson who became men amongst boys because of that faith. and fittingly, the movement was powered by two words-- WE BELIEVE.

we even had t-shirts made, and the entire stadium was a sea of yellow with the words, WE BELIEVE.



our opponents were disconcerted. the w's pull out an unprecedented defeat of a number one seed.

management has since gone back to its destructive proclivities, destroying the very heroes who carried us on our shoulders. they just shipped out stephen jackson to the junkyard of the league with a media dishonorable discharge. we do not treat our heroes this way.

i've got a new t-shirt. i'm thinking about gifting it to our whole section. stirring the seeds of revolution.

going back to fremont tomorrow for 10 days. may swing by LA, pack up some stuff. i think it's funny that i spent my life trying to escape fremont, only to find the town i love most in seattle and where i spend most of my days, is also called fremont. but here, the natives have proclaimed their fremont, "the center of the universe." it seems too strange to be coincidence that i took off for seattle and found myself another, more idyllic fremont, but hey, i'll go with it. at the very least, i've found the center of the universe.

next, i'm looking for atlantis. i hear i'm a child of it.

they've got a lenin statue...

a giant rocket

and a giant troll living under the bridge

i waited outside for hours but didn't see any meteors from the shower tonight. it's overcast and raining here though. hope others had better luck.

i like good ambient artists like plaid or bonobo, who can take sounds or noise and give them rhythm and a sort of mathematical order. and somehow within that order, something greater with more continuity than the sum of parts comes to life. a living, breathing emotional depth.

bonobo's dial "m" for monkey album is a great nighttime album. lyrical and eclectic. complementary to mental travels while the rest of the world sleeps below:



i highly recommend the album spokes by plaid. i didn't know anything about them, except a few years ago, i saw a listing for an industrial-urban performance art series at the disney music hall, and the plaid show looked interesting. so i went having no idea what to expect. the music was accompanied by incredible visualizations. i distinctly remember being convinced that this was a mass brainwashing. this album is a great one to listen to at night. it's hypnotic.

this video kind of scares the shit outta me (zeal by plaid):

always loved walking in the rain.

took a beautiful walk home from tonight's show (audion). i love watching blanketing drops fall against sodium vapor, wet pavement reflecting city lights, a good steaming pothole. sirens in the distance but here, the silence a song. i love how clean the air smells, how the world feels so counted and collected, everything with eyes existing right here in the breathelessness of this moment. the tabula rasa of rain.

electric...through my fingertips.

i wasn't able to enjoy the office the last few seasons because michael scott was too close an impersonation of my boss, and it made going to work slightly more miserable knowing that i worked for a parody. but with distance, i've been catching up through netflix. here's his life philosophy as quoted to his boss:

Don't ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone...for any reason ever no matter what. No matter where or who or who you were with or where you are going or...where you've been. Ever. For any reason whatsoever.

that's pretty good writing.

i remember when my friend sarah met the guy i was dating at the time. sarah knew me when we were 12 to 14, before she and her family moved to florida our sophomore year of high school. she loves to embarrass me by telling people about how i was in junior high. that night, she asked him how he and i got together. he told her it wasn't easy, that i made him work for it. she told him not to worry, that i'm always mean to the boys i like. that in junior high, if i liked someone, the way i would show it was by ignoring him and swearing to the death that i didn't like him. even though i did.

so if she's got you confused, you're probably in good standing, she said.

i would like to think i've grown a lot as a person since my pre-teen years. but let's be real. i still have trouble having appropriate reactions when i'm interested in someone.

this guy kind of ran away yesterday. the majority of me doesn't care, but i know there's a part that's been feeling bad. i was at a music show i read about in the weekly that sounded interesting. i watched this guy with dark brown hair and a warm smile talking to a shorter, feisty guy, and i wondered if they were gay guys on a date or just friends. i was hoping to talk to him, and i smiled at him when our eyes met. his smile back made me dizzy with giddiness. he asked if he could join me and we talked, but i was feeling really shy because i'd been wanting him to come over, but now that he was here, i hadn't thought anything else through. the music started so i stopped talking or looking at him and just focused on the stage. we sat there in silence for a few songs and then he suddenly gives me this little wave and walks right out of the building, giving me a sidelong glance before he disappears out the door. he seemed kind of offended.

it's a shame. it was a good opportunity for two people with certain similarities to get to know each other. people so rarely give me the benefit of the doubt that i might be someone who needs a little coaxing to get out of her shell.

i thought i'd clicked to play today's song and it somehow led me to this link. i have no idea what i clicked.

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note of my dark sobbing.
Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need?
Not angels, not humans, and already the knowing animals are aware
that we are not really at home in our interpreted world.
Perhaps there remains for us some tree on a hillside, which every day we can take into our vision;
there remains for us yesterday's street and the loyalty of a habit so much at ease
when it stayed with us that it moved in and never left.
Oh and night: there is night, when a wind full of infinite space gnaws at our faces.
Whom would it not remain for--that longed-after, mildly disillusioning presence,
which the solitary heart so painfully meets.
Is it any less difficult for lovers?
But they keep on using each other to hide their own fate.
Don't you know yet?
Fling the emptiness out of your arms into the spaces we breathe;
perhaps the birds will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying.

-rainer maria rilke, duino elegies

this is what i imagine god looks like. except his light is blue, not red.

read this when i'm smarter.

i understand that my weakness is often that i can't see what's right in front of me, or what is most obvious. i have blindspots. sometimes i need trustworthy people to help me out by telling me what i'm not seeing.

There's an urban legend that when the Indians first saw Columbus's ships, they weren't able to perceive the ships because they were nothing they'd ever encountered in their world. The validity of the story is often debated, but i think what the story really opens a discussion for is the idea of perception. a guy posting as silas sparkhammer on the snopes boards had some good comments:

Again, go into a forest (if you have never been in one) and you will have a great deal of difficulty finding your way around. This confusion won't last for mere seconds, but for hours and hours. It takes time for the brain to figure out entirely new patterns.

Take someone who doesn't know how to play chess. Take another person who is a master of the game. They both see exactly the same light patterns reflecting off of the pieces on the board...but they perceive *very* different things.

There's also this experiment in visual cognition. Check it out. Did you see it? I saw it.

And that's the thing. Perceiving people on multiple levels. Keeping an eye out for the WTF.

Last night, when I was out people watching, I was thinking about those Indians not recognizing the boats. Maybe there are certain people who are around in your world, but you can't see them because you haven't enough perspective to recognize them. So you recognize they're people, but you don't really "see" them. But when you get into a different place, different eyes, different frames of reference, you can suddenly recognize them. Through your connection with them, they suddenly bring your life to a different level.