there i was on the sidewalk, having a conversation with a guy i started by yelling across the street. it was one of those flashes, where i'm driving by and we notice each other so quickly in the moment when time doesn't know it's merely passing, and we smiled and both said hi, despite the fact that he was on foot and i was in my car. i saw ahead and knew without a doubt that i would park my car, and he and i would have a conversation. sure enough, when i got out of the car, his dog stopped and stared at me, and thus began a conversation standing on opposite sides of the street.

somewhere in the middle, as the sun was setting and he had walked across the street to talk in normal voices, we touched on the topic of fate. we spoke of it intellectually, never addressing the fact that this was one of those meetings in life that felt fated. he told me if i'm ever back in the neighborhood to find him. i knew he wasn't sure what was happening, that he was open to seeing me again, but that he wasn't available, thus the veiled suggestion. i told him realistically there was little chance of being able to randomly find him. but then i told him that it's not impossible. i explained my theory about if i dropped my keys in the ocean and found them again years later on distant shores, i would have my answer. i would believe i have proof of god and universe. he asked me what i would do when i find my keys. "just throw them away?" he asked. he had a way of posing his questions as hypotheses for me to affirm or refute. i was honest. i told him i didn't know. i only knew their symbolic value.

we stood there talking until the sky was dark, shivering in the cool night air. there was the usual awkwardness in saying goodbye. he told me again that he hoped to run into me again if i'm ever back in the neighborhood. i laughed, and he said, "you're right, it's not going to happen is it?" i said that life is strange, and that i believe that people can find each other if they really want to (i think about how this guy, jamie, took my phone number when we met, but i punched in the wrong number. he said he tried various combinations, and managed to reach me. so, anything is possible). "i'm easy to find," i said. "anyone can find me if they really wanted to." we parted on, "until next time if it's meant to be." it was a pleasant encounter and connection.

I'm from a different world. A world you've imagined, but which you didn't come from.

came home tonight after visiting rie in berkeley. i saw my mom's light was still on, and she was reading the chinese newspaper.

"hey what was the name of that cruise we went on? celebrity?"

"yeah," i said.

"mercury, right? they just had an outbreak of 350 cases of stomach flu."

i looked at the newspaper, and saw the article in a tiny box in the middle of the page, under a domineering photo of the ship. there were a few words in english scattered through the text -- celebrity, mercury, cdc, south carolina.

"yeah, that's the exact ship we were on."

messaged tom. "looks like they got what you got."

found an article about it in english. what the fuck has that poor ship been going through. but sounds like the number of cruise-ship outbreaks has gone down in recent years, from 34 in 2006, 21 in 2007, 15 in 2008, and 13 in 2009. if that's any consolation.

The truth is, there's a 75% chance I'll go work for my mom. My greatest fear has always been that she, knowing my powers, would weaponize me. I would like to work for greater powers. But I would love the taste of the hunt without the commitment. That's why I've always liked selling.

Why wonder when you can wander.

what are we doing here? why are we even conscious if most people don't even use it?

1. The only times you lie to me are the only times I let you get away with lying to me.

2. Don't confuse me with sex. Overt innuendo is cheap. It makes me want to pounce you, but not respect you. You're better off with my respect.

*****

1. Be careful of the Scorpio tail.

2. You're being mirrored. Be still.

i just had a talk with my realtor about why i wrote a letter to her manager saying that while she's a nice person, she's negligent, unresponsive and underwhelming in her attention to her professional duties. just recounting all the lapses in her performance was exhausting, and i even told her, "i'm exhausted just going over how hard it was to get on the same page with you and get you to communicate, when in a 10 minute phone call with the other agent, we worked out everything." she did say that a lot of people normally wouldn't put that much energy and time into leases versus sales, but she did try to put in work.

that's like a guy saying to a girl, "most guys would just use you for sex, but i did buy you dinner a few times first."

i feel like basically, saying that, why sign the contract to rep my property and waste my time, if you viewed it as a low priority to begin with and then try to make an excuse that basically says, "I really didn't care that much, but I did try to care a little?"

whatever. i'm glad i'm me and not her. at least i'm competent and don't make excuses when i'm just being lazy.

I've put together deals worth just under a million. If I go work for my mom, I will have the opportunity to put together multi-million dollar deals if I believe in myself enough. My greatest fear is that this company has always been her territory, and I've always tried to carve mine. The entire family has always had such high expectations of me, that sometimes I feel I have to be perfect in their eyes. Failure is a part of success. You have to fall down lots of times to get better at walking, then running, but while I know this, I also don't like for them to see the times I fall down. In the past, I just let them know when I've won an award, or achieved something. But working for her, they're going to see all of it, and it's so much pressure because I don't want them freaking out when I fall down. I always stand up, but I need them to accept the human process when it comes to me. That's one of the reasons I never wanted to work for them. The Dark Side, we call the company, since everyone ends up working there. But they always planned for me to be the successor, but weren't willing to train me. So I became the Prodigal Daughter.

Now, things have changed. My mom had her scare and realized she can't do it all herself forever. I'm going stir crazy from lack of challenges, particularly since I can't play basketball anymore so I don't have that outlet for pushing myself through self-discipline and competition. I don't have anything that spikes my dopamine levels, which I need. I went in to discuss with Bohr. He doesn't want to be a product manager anymore, and while he wants the sales commission, he doesn't want to do sales. He wants us to be a team...I'm the face, brain and mouth, he's the technical back-up. We would split commission. Working for the Dark Side.

Outcome is 50/50 right now.

A long time ago I dated a guy who took offense when I told him I don't like to drink orange juice in the morning. I like orange juice but it can sometimes make me feel queasy if I drink it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.

He said to me, but you're lying. I've seen you drink orange juice in the morning, and the topic was something that he couldn't wrap his head around and yet, he couldn't let go of. I'm serious. He was really perturbed by it, like it was proof of something.

I couldn't understand why he was so black-and-white and couldn't understand that I could "not like to drink orange juice in the morning" and yet have been observed drinking orange juice in the morning. Both are true and can co-exist without me being a liar. Sometimes contradictions are incredibly truthful.

For example, I don't like to drink orange juice in the morning.

But a stronger piece of coding in my brain, is that I shouldn't waste food.

So if someone pours me orange juice in the morning, I will drink it so I don't waste it, and also to be polite.

But then, I don't like to waste food.

But when I'm nervous because I'm feeling shy, it's hard for me to eat.

So sometimes I will waste food by not eating when I'm feeling shy.

I'm very shy.

But my mind is so hungry for information and understanding, that my curiosity makes me initiate open communication with people, and strive to make them feel comfortable so they will be open.

So even though I'm shy and often feeling anxiety inside when talking to people I don't know really well, I will still be talkative and actively trying to engage.

I'm an incredibly sociable being that needs to interact with people.

But because interacting with people taxes my energy and focus, the more human interaction I have, the more space and time I need to myself to recharge and reflect.

So even if I can be the life of a party, I'm inherently an introverted, hermit type who's usually found at home.

The thing I need most and crave most is a secure, home base.

And by having that, it gives me the freedom to feel emotionally safe to travel and explore.

I'm obsessed with being honest and tend to be very straightforward. But because I perceive truth as being so multidimensional, sometimes people perceive me as being abstract or cryptic when I'm at my most honest.

I don't have an answer for any of this, only that it's true. Brian always describes me as a human contradiction, two polar opposites that on any given day or time, is somewhere in the spectrum between the two. I just don't like being called a liar, unless I'm actually not telling the truth.

But there are ways you can answer a question honestly without telling the truth.

The world and its meanings are very big to me. Easy to perceive, hard to understand.

horses.

you put blinders on them and they'll run for you.

otherwise, all they want to do is find different types of grass to taste.

google trends. great tool.

bloom box.

You never have as much time as you think.

First, the background.

Ezekiel 23:30:

There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Then, the revelation.

Woman on message board:

Can anyone explain Ezekiel 23:20 ? I need to explain it to my child?

Pumpernickel. Etymology. Who knew.

what happens to the man when the butterfly is awake?

i had a conversation with my dad on friday in the car that turned out not to be true. he told me my cousin and his girlfriend asked for two tickets to the game. he said he couldn't give them to edward because edward's in china. but the game was on sunday, and on saturday, edward came to the party at our house. so he wasn't in china. so i asked my dad where the tickets were for my cousin and his girlfriend, but he looked surprised and said, they're not going to the game. i said he told me they were and that he gave them an extra ticket because edward's in china. he said he didn't remember having the conversation, because none of that was true (my cousin wasn't going to the game, edward wasn't in china).

i can tell you where we were, where we were going, what was said, what radio station was on when we had that conversation. and yet, why would he have said those things when they weren't true? or can it be that somewhere, this conversation didn't happen at all?

next big day, feb 28th.

msg sent.

February was dominating, disorienting, falling headfirst into a well only to discover sky. February is Fremont within and without. 4 more days. Make the most of me.

hard to understand, easy to accept.
easy to accept, hard to understand.

Some people do not live in this world as much as others.

The person who has woken up here is not the same person I was before the surgery. Is it the gap in consciousness that made me change, or did the gap just make it an easy explanation for my perception of it? How is it I can change so much and be the same?

Either always give your real name, or never give your real name. No in between.

Imagine coming into this world so honest to discover a dishonest world. And because it doesn't really exist, you can't live there.

What are roots? What is family? When in the end, you have to trust an ocean to give you proof of finding anything?

I dropped my keys in the ocean, and one day I'll find them again. In whatever form they may come.

julia is the secret shaker.

Business has nothing to do with mercy, everything to do with competency. - the Jean

Today the other realtor called me and when we compared our notes, we both were furious with my agent. The potential tenant went AWOL with the deal basically closed after that phone call I had with him on Saturday, but what he revealed today was that he had given my realtor a 5pm deadline on Friday to get it all done, a deadline I had never heard of.

We fear we have lost our fish.

After finding out what I found out today, I am going to speak to her manager tomorrow. I didn't want it to come to this, but it's not my job to cover for her, especially when she cost me money.

Michael's Birthday Weekend (the start of Pisces)

First the startling. Tuesday morning, I wake up from a dream in which I'm traveling with my mother. We're both young and happy and I go to hug her when I feel a peanut like object on the left side under her stomach. So that's what a tumor feels like, I think, and I tell her that there's something there that needs to be checked out.

I woke up from this dream so groggy, and as I stumble out of my room, I see my mom in the hallway. I just had a dream about you, I told her. We were traveling together and I felt a hard peanut thing under your stomach on the left side. You should get that checked out. She has a bit of a haunted look on her face and I said, don't worry, in my dream it was nothing, yet as I was saying this, I realized I didn't remember the rest of my dream.

Normally she just says, "Dreams are always opposite" when I tell her about a bad dream. But she didn't say that on that morning. She said, "How did you know," almost to herself, then said she'd felt something there, but her Chinese doctor had said it was nothing to worry about. She'd had an ultrasound done anyway a month ago, but the doctor never called with the results, so usually when they don't call it's nothing. I told her to find the results anyway, and when she gets them, to get a second opinion.

On Friday afternoon, my dad came home early and asked us to meet him in his room. I asked if we could meet in the living room, since I was already settled in there. He came over and sat next to me. That's when I saw that his eyes were red, and he was shaking.

"I need you both to understand your mom's been under a lot of pressure lately. She went to the doctor last month and it turns out they found four spots on her liver."

My dad started crying, and I clutched his knee, because I didn't know how he would respond to me hugging him in that moment. Perhaps that moment was even a little too naked for me. I asked if she was okay, and he said that she'd gone to the doctor yesterday and they verified the results and it turned out to be nothing. But he wanted us to understand that life doesn't last forever.

My mom came home a few minutes later and we all hugged her. She explained that she had felt something hard under her stomach and had gone to get an ultrasound a month ago. She'd figured since she hadn't heard from the doctor that it was nothing, until that morning when I told her about my dream. The next day, Wednesday, she called the doctor, and the nurse said there was no record of the ultrasound in the office. They investigated and found that the lab never sent it to the office. The nurse called her again and said there appeared to be something on her liver and needed her to make an appointment. She made it for the next day.

That night we all went to a basketball game, and as an opera singer was singing the national anthem, my aunt pointed out that my mom was on TV on the giant scoreboard, right behind the singer. She looked so oblivious, looking around without smiling, and later, my aunt would tell her that we saw her on TV, and she should smile when the camera's on her. Later, when my mom was telling us about the ordeal, she said that she was worried about the test result and that's why she couldn't smile the entire night.

So the next day she went to the doctor, who looked it over and said it was fine. Cysts on the liver. She sent the results to her cousin who's a doctor in LA, who had some other specialists look at it as well, and they agreed that there was no issue. That was Friday. As soon as she got the good news, she found my dad having lunch alone at his favorite restaurant and told him all that she'd been going through. It really shook him up. As much as they fight, I don't think he was ever prepared for the thought of losing her.

I asked her if she thought I had that dream in order to cause these events. She said that it was because of the dream that she called the doctor and found the results, but then again, if I hadn't had the dream, she would have never known. She paused, then said, "But it did make me realize, things are going to change now. What's important. I'm going to be a lot nicer to people."

It's funny because the night before that, Michael and I just wouldn't go to bed. We crowded into my mom's bedroom as she was trying to get to sleep, each wanting to spend more time than the other. I was already in there asking my mom if I could sleep in her bed instead of my own, and Michael was telling me I couldn't stand in her room because I was "blocking access to the closet." Then she said, "Whatever happens, just know that I really love you and want you both to stand up for yourselves."

*****

So that afternoon, after finding out, I took Michael to the gym for his training session. I came home and parked in front of our house. The sky was the kind of rich, moody gray that makes me feel most alive, but I couldn't go into the house. I thought about how even if I were to call someone to talk about this, this heaviness inside me, the only person I could call is Rie. And how few real people we have in our life. I cried there, silently, head in my arm against the steering wheel. Just enough to not feel like I was drowning inside.

That night my mom decided to stay home with my brother instead of going to the game. I went with my dad. Josh had mentioned he would be at this game, so I said I would go up and say hi at halftime. I haven't seen him in a month. Last time, I met up with him and his fiancee at the game, and it was an obvious diplomatic meeting; he made an obvious effort to make peace between his fiancee and I. She'd always been threatened by me, and it hasn't always been that comfortable around her because of it. As they walked away, he'd turned around and nodded at me. On some level, I knew what it meant, but the conscious me finds it poetic and unknowable.

So on this night, I met him on the concourse and showed him my sling. He asked about the surgery, but as usual, he was talking to me with his arms crossed in that way where he's definitely listening but trying not to look at me. He always stirs something deep and beautiful inside me.

I told him that I feel like I had surgery and somewhere between the anesthesia and the pain pills I'd been on the first couple of weeks, I'm stupider. Just little missteps in memory and articulation. He mentioned that 10 years ago, he'd had a brain tumor that they had to remove, and they'd given him morphine for that. He talked about how when you're in bed for a while, everything feels different, like getting up and trying to walk. I was really surprised. I'd just learned that his father had died of a brain tumor 10 years ago, around the time I'd lost touch with him. I didn't know they'd operated on him as well.

We said goodbye when the game started, but as always, the first time I see Josh after not having seen him in a while, there's an ache. I still think it's so strange. I always associate Josh and Aubrey together in my memory, but I was enduring friends with Aubrey. I would have never predicted that some day 10 years later, I would be closer to Josh. I never knew about his operation, what it had been like for him to lose his father and be diagnosed with a brain tumor. I realized I could have lost him before having gotten a chance to realize what a great friend I had. All of this life, is so fragile.

The truth is, sometimes I feel while others are out there living, I'm just waiting. I've always felt that if I stayed in one place long enough, I would find what I was looking for as long as I trusted myself to realize when it is here. Sometimes...I get scared. Sometimes I wonder if I died today, if my life is cleaned up enough to leave what I want to leave.

Michael is so mean to me. Sibling rivalry, don't know, but I can't even give him a compliment sometimes without him being mean. But I've always said his development is like 8 years behind, so he's just about at that rebellious teenage stage. Maybe he's just got to get to a place where he feels comfortable that I'm seeing him on his terms now. It's just one of those things. I love him no matter what because he's my brother.

I had a dream last night with an unexpected character from my past. Someone I know came to visit me, and I was living in some city (looked a little bit like the Gaslight District of San Diego or maybe San Jose but it was supposed to be LA). He was in town for just a little bit and called me out of the blue to go hang out. I showed him around but I couldn't figure out what he wanted--to be taken around or to see me. All I know was he kept bouncing around in terms of what he wanted to do that I felt like I was being carried by wind that wasn't allowing my wings to fly. Finally, I asked him if he wanted to go into this place for lunch (it had a lot of wood and looked like the pub on Santana Row). There was a moment where we sat down and I thought we were going to kiss, and as much as I wanted it just to know, I also realized clearly that this guy was too fast for me. I would never feel comfortable with him. I would never understand what he wanted for me. I would never feel comfortable that for him, it's just me. I invited him to a basketball game but he was gone again that night, not there when I wanted him, so I called up some stranger and invited him instead.

I woke up struggling to hang on to the strings of the dream. There are some dreams where the people are so real, you feel like they were there, almost like someone dead crossed over, so in some middle dimension, they are real and there with you if even just for a brief time. When people feel so real in my dream world, it's a hard thing to let go of.

Michael was having his birthday party at our house today, so we picked up his cake, which he was so excited about he dropped, but managed to bat it onto the ground so it fell right-side up, though slightly flatter.

I got frustrated with my rental deal for my condo (particularly my astoundingly incapable agent) and called the other agent directly and closed the deal.

The party started and I noticed that Michael had invited his trainer friends and they're all young guys so they probably want beer. We only had 1 beer in the fridge, so my aunt and I went to the store. We talked about love and relationships and fate. I told her I just have a hard time with the idea of moving back to Fremont, because I'll never find a husband. Fremont is the same people, the same old thing--work, gym, dinner with parents. I could spend a lifetime doing the same old thing, and that's what I'm afraid of. But to be honest, this scare with my mom makes me want to be closer. I know she fears who will take care of all her responsibilities if she's not there. My cousin has been calling me, trying to get me to come work on the same sales team as him.

One of the first guests was Curtis. He had mentioned he would try to stop by Michael's party when he'd emailed me to find out the details. I was kind of hiding in the kitchen because I felt really shy. He's shy, too. But very shiny. Like I can feel my pupils dilating when I look at him because he glows. But...my goodness. He's the kind of guy who reaches for you, drawing you in, but you go deeper and suddenly he's pushing you out. Like the tide. I struggle with these kinds of guys. Because I so want the face-value to be true within all depths. But with these types, you never know where you stand, and that can be hard for me sometimes. I have Need to Know Syndrome.

Curtis and Sean (Michael's trainer) spent most of the party sitting in the corner of the kitchen with me. When they left, my mom came up to me and whispers, "That Curtis really likes you. It's too bad he's so young."

I don't think that's the issue so much as...a guy has to want you. It's not enough that he really likes you. He has to want you.

The truth is the week was intense. Happy for closing the deal with the condo. Big scare and lots of introspection for my family and I regarding life and what's important. Uncertainty about my future.

Universe, I want a partner.

my realtor is mindblowingly lazy and inept. with 2 days left of her contract after being given notice that she was fired, she suddenly comes up with 4 showings and an offer. if she had just worked as hard in her first couple of months as she did in her last two days. regardless, as we negotiated the contract, she managed to almost sink it. i wrote her an email giving her 3 very clear choices, and even pointed out the one that was win-win for everyone. she wrote me back an email that basically blamed me for being confusing and really wanting to close the deal but that the other realtor and client were frustrated because i was being difficult. it was irritating. i called her and she told me she was on the phone and would call me back, but half an hour later, she still hadn't. i'd had it. i called the other realtor and in a 10 minute phone call, closed the deal. seriously. want it done right, do it yourself. i'm an idiot for always being lazy about accepting this wisdom.

cult of personality - intense devotion to a particular person.

from wikipedia:

A cult of personality arises when a country's leader uses mass media to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise.^[1] Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships and Stalinist governments.

A cult of personality is similar to general hero worship, except that it is created specifically for political leaders. However, the term may be applied by analogy to refer to adulation of religious or non-political leaders.

"So just because I have a girlfriend, we can't be friends?"

"I don't have a problem with being friends with you. I have a problem with you trying to act like you might possibility be available if I'm willing to fall for you."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, there's nothing going on here. I have a great girlfriend. Nothing on you, but I'm not planning to leave her."

"Probably not."

"I won't."

"Uh huh."

"What are you saying?"

"You're an emotional masturbator. You come out here, dangle a little bait, role-play the highs of 'what if I were available,' 'what if this girl really fell for me,' get your kicks, come all over yourself for being such a great guy who could fall in love with someone else, who had every opportunity to cheat but didn't, then go home to your girlfriend like some prize when she should be leaving your ass. Why? Because just the fact I have to explain this to you when you know full well you were toeing the line makes you just another unoriginal turd."

tomorrow's subject-- prison pen pals. murderers and the groupies who love them. find that book i check out years ago written by a woman who had a thing for dating murderers behind bars. okay, found it. i remember really being disgusted with it, but there was something i wanted to remember from it. read this article. and this one. and this one. and this one. and this one.

google search for letters from inmate

here are tips on how to write to an inmate.

and of course, prison pen pals.

good luck, tomorrow julia.

when you're down, you've gotta fight through it.

Winning the Lottery

In 1988, William "Bud" Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania Lottery. First he was sued by one of his ex girlfriends, then his brother tried to hire a hitman to kill him for the inheritance money. At the time of his death in January of 2006, he was living off of $450 a month from social security and food stamps.

Two years after winning $31 million the Texas Lottery in 1997, Billie Bob Harrell Jr. committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest with a shotgun. Shortly before his death, he'd confided, "Winning the lotttery is the worst thing that ever happened to me."

In 2001, Victoria Zell and her husband won a $11 million Powerball jackpot. She was involved in a drug- and alcohol-fueld car accident killing one passenger and paralyzing the other after vowing to show them how to "drive crazy." She was convicted of four counts of criminal vehicular homicide and four counts of criminal vehicular operation, and sentenced to 7 years in prison, 3 more years than the sentencing guidelines recommended.

Evelyn Adams won the New Jersey lottery twice, in 1985 and 1986, her winnings totaling $5.4 million. Between a love of slot machines and an inability to say no to friends and relatives, she lost all her money by 2001 and was living in a trailer.

Willie Hurt of Lansing, Michigan won $3.1 million in 1989 through the Michigan Lottery. Two years later, he had spent his his winnings on crack cocaine and a divorce, and had been charged with murder.

Jack Whittaker won $315 million Powerball jackpot in the largest individual payout in US history. His initial good intentions towards sharing his earnings backfired when his granddaughter Brandi died from a drug overdose with drugs funded by her allowance from Whittaker, and he was bombarded with lawsuits and other schemes fueled by greed. He became an alcoholic, blaming the "powerball curse" for destroying his life and his marriage.

Abraham Shakespeare, a barely literate ex-con, won $30 million in the Florida Lottery in 2006. He was sued by the truck driver who had bought the ticket for him, claiming that he had bought the ticket for himself and that Shakespeare had stolen the ticket out of his wallet, as well as by an ex-girlfriend. In 2009, he met con-artist Dorice "DeeDee" Moore, who had him sign over properties he owned and later, killed him and buried him under a 30 x 30 concrete slab in her backyard.

the strang3r sang a theme
from someone else's dream
the leaves began to fall
and no one spoke at all
but i can't seem to recall
when you came along.

ingenue
i just don't know what to do.

- mono

"wake up" by arcade fire was used in 3 commercials during the super bowl. this song was on an album released in 2004. why now? i'm just saying.

hard to sleep last night from pain. went to the gym yesterday and rode the bike, reading phantom of the opera. all i can do are passive exercises for my arm, just swinging it in a circle and a cross. what makes it worse is i keep dreaming about basketball. and getting lost. dense cloud of depression on the edge of my peripheral that i've been ignoring. feel so far from home.

i forgot to write about this. when i was in la in december to get the house together, i went to the other room and was hounded by this guy whose energy i didn't like. i think the reason was because he had a very negative, bitter energy, and he told me he was working on a "bad high-concept screenplay because that's what audiences like, so that's what i write." this is the kind of thing that makes me hate talking to other screenwriters who haven't been produced yet. this concept of writing a bad screenplay because audiences are idiots. what it says is, "i don't have the confidence in myself to write a good screenplay."

i wasn't being very open to him, but i was being polite enough to have limited conversation when he would talk to me. at one point, he just stopped and stared. finally he said, "i'm going to say something that might sound really weird. there's something about your eyes. like, you're looking at me, but you don't look at me the way a person normally looks. i feel like you can see inside me, like you really know me, know things that nobody else knows. maybe things even i don't know myself. does that sound crazy?"

i just smiled and he said, "that's not the first time you've heard that, huh? people tell you that a lot?"

i smiled again. he looked at me like he was expecting more of a response. then he just said good night and left. i noticed he hung around behind me, watching me but i ignored him. i was relieved when he finally left.

i don't remember much about him. only that when he told me he was from out of town on business, i knew he was lying, and that he'd taken off his wedding band because when he was thinking about what to say to me, out of the corner of my eye, i noticed him absently stroking his ring finger.

I might not be the right one
It might not be the right time
But there's something about us I've got to do
Some kind of secret I will share with you

I need you more than anything in my life
I want you more than anything in my life
I'll miss you more than anyone in my life
I love you more than anyone in my life

-daft punk, something about us

dvds watched:

2012 - good entertainment as long as you can forgive lots of stretching of plausibility. scary to watch after the haiti earthquake and with all the climate abnormalities of late.

zombieland - really funny. loved bill murray's cameo as himself. really entertaining way to spend an hour and a half.

sherlock holmes - i can't watch movies with english accents without subtitles. not as good as i hoped, though i watched a pirated version with bad sound. fell asleep for a few minutes, but that could have been the pain pills.

the blind side - formulaic feel-good sports movie. i'm a sucker for those. great role for sandra bullock but she played the same character as in so many of her other films. i don't particularly feel she deserves the nominations as an actress...the nominations are more for the strength of the role. but definitely a feel good movie. the kids are adorable in it.

the invention of lying - really funny concept and opening scene between ricky gervais and jennifer garner. worth a rental. lots of unexpected cameo's.

surrogates - sucked. so weird (silly) to see bruce willis with hair.

yes man - funnier than i expected. i wish jim carrey would take a lesson from will ferrell and not take the idiocy to 11. his characters all always almost likable and then he has these cartoon moments that are annoying.

bangkok dangerous - nic cage looks like he belongs in a wax museum. his romance with a deaf girl was contrived and made me really uncomfortable. weird old guys in thailand always make me think of what weird sex things are happening behind closed doors.

role models - another product of a alumnus of the state. have heard it's funnier than you would expect. i thought yes man had more laugh out loud moments.

the soloist - i got bored and fast forwarded through parts with no dialogue.

me & marley - same with this one.

district 9 - incredible! visually & thematically. just a really well-done low-budget film. highly recommend.

the bucket list - decent writing but it's what you expect. i did cry at the end though.

sunshine cleaning - interesting little indie about two sisters cleaning crime/death scenes. i fell asleep in the middle and dreamed about being at some kind of high school reunion and meeting people from school i hadn't seen in over 10 years, but not knowing exactly what i have in common with anyone.

whip it - love kristen wiig. rent it if there's nothing else you really want to see.

notorious - the story of b.i.g. and the rise of east coast rap. very strong acting. exec produced by diddy which becomes obvious when dealing with the tupac/biggie rivalry. worth a rental.

ghost town - ricky gervais' niche is a dry kind of unlikability. he should stick with it.

doubt - john patrick shanley directs the film version of his play. very strong performances by meryl streep, amy adams and philip seymour hoffman. outside of that, like a heavy meal that doesn't fulfill.

there will be blood - daniel day lewis is incredible. taut drama.

julie & julia - amy adams and meryl streep again. a bit of inspiration for struggling writers. that dude who plays the nice, supportive boyfriend in everything plays a wonderful husband that we aspire to have. but a forgettable movie.

weeds - season 5 - still think last season was the funniest and darkest. love the addition of alanis morisettte as the ob-gyn.

chuck- season 2 - looks like they took a hint from tropic thunder and dialed down the full retard of season 1. he's not as helpless and wimpy in this season. the overt attention to the romantic tension between chuck and sarah is getting distracting.

united states of tara - season 1 - great characters. great acting. it's a very fresh, original, darkly funny show

every moment we are simultaneously living and dying.

in fremont recovering from the surgery. arm in a sling, limited mobility. can finally somewhat type, albeit standing up as i can't lift my arm f0r a month. surgery went well and the pain can mostly be relegated to the background, just bad in the morning. i've got percocet but have been trying to keep it minimal in power. i hate pills. am watching about 4 movies a day, reading about 3 books a week. not writing. fell into a bit of a low patch where i hate my creative output, not happy with self, place in life. i know it's just a phase, since my mood can be influenced by how i feel physically. also suspect my left knee needs minor surgery. i really went to town last year with my training-like-a-professional-athlete objective.

watched 2012 and got more anxious. whatever is supposed to happen 12.21.12, we'll get a hint of it on 12.12.12 as well, which is a date i'm more interested in anyway. they're both 9 days incidentally. i'm thinking it's the revelation of the higher consciousness but who knows...if it changes life as we know it, it could do away with our physical attachment to this reality. whatever happens is going to happen though, so it's best to deal with it with three eyes open.

watching mass media though, i'm noticing a change in creative output. there's been a huge wave of media dealing with the concept of Others, both showing them in a collaborative, humane light (Avatar, District 9) or fetishizing them (the whole vampire 0bsession). it was most disturbing in the past, when films showed a terror of Others as a threatening, malignant force (ie Aliens, Independence Day, that Tom Cruise movie that escapes me right now). those spread an ignorant kind of fear but were also indicative of the overall terror of the unknown. collective consciousness is evolving. this new era coming up is definitely one i feel more comfortable in. i feel like most of my life i've been out of place, waiting for the rest of the world to be at an open-minded enough place to accept me instead of being afraid or threatened by me, and it's happening now. for now, i'm just observing. i'm out of the loop, on the bench, healing. feeling the vulnerability of my human body, the precariousness tied to this level of life. we are so much bigger than our bodies. we have to find a better system.

outside of that, very little to report. i recorded an "interview' with a guy i met a couple of weekends ago in seattle. he had a moustache tattoed on the side of his finger so when he held it up below his nose, it looked like he had a moustache. he was really into me but i kept it friendly but platonic--he's very interesting, a bit of a muse connection, but not someone i can see myself with as a partner. i met him on a friday night and when he found out i was a writer, he told me he had a lot of stories. he started telling them to me and i soon realized that i would need to record him to capture everything...he was overwhelming me with details. so he agreed to meet for lunch the next day but asked me to not call before noon because "i plan to do some coke tonight so i won't be up early tomorrow." everyone knows how i feel about cokeheads (not to be trusted). the next day, he regaled me with stories about going to boarding school and at 17, seducing his english teacher. about his travels across the country, about the many times he'd been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct. he was coming 3 weeks off a break-up with the mother of his son (a woman who's half chinese and half vietnamese, thus explaining why he was so zoned in on me), and his eyes would well up with tears every time he talked about it. he told me that 3 years ago, he was in a bar and a drunk guy had threatened his friend so he got in the way to protect him. the drunk guy smashed a pint glass in his face and it required surgery to stitch his face back together. he and his wife used to go out a lot but after that, he looked like frankenstein and he was self-conscious about going out. i used to be a pretty good-looking guy, he said. and then suddenly, it was all gone. i didn't even look human anymore. it's taken until now for the scars to heal, and outside of a small scar on the tip of his nose, there's no physical evidence of the disfigurement though psychologically, they're still deep.

i listened to him for a good 3 hours. i could tell he was self-editing, more careful about what he was saying because of the tape recorder, but there was plenty there. to be honest, i'll probably never listen to the tape. sometimes i think i meet these people and talk to them more for them and their catharsis than me really trying to get direct "material" out of it. i know that i was exhausted afterwards and felt really heavy, and slept 5 hours through the afternoon, into the night. as he had spoken to me in those hours, i was somewhere deep inside him, feeling the core of pain within, trying to siphon it, understand it, release it. this man was very strong, very kind, but whatever it was he was carrying was very painful and heavy. i never got a good look at it or a good handle on it, but i hoped it helped.

that night, he called me and invited me out again. i happened to be in the area, after giving a writer who had very negative energy and was frustrated about the state of publishing some ideas about electronic publishing. so i met up with him and his friends. he confessed to me that he'd had mixed feelings after meeting, like he wasn't sure if he felt used. i told him he shouldn't feel used, that my intentions are always good. he said that he'd never told anyone a lot of the things he'd talked about, and i told him it's okay, strangers often find themselves confiding in me and it's because i don't judge...i just listen and try to understand. he confessed that he'd invited me out because he'd been worried, that after he'd talked to me that i would think he was a really fucked up person. i told him that he was a good guy, just going through a lot right now, trying to get a handle on the rest of his life. i bought him a drink, but still kept it friendly, even though i could see he was working through his ambivalence, wondering why he felt so deeply connected and having told me so many personal things when he didn't really know anything about me (he actually wondered this outloud. the truth was, he never really asked me questions about myself. i sensed my value to him required him to subconsciously keep me mysterious so he could use me as a mirror. that's usually how it is. that's how "work" connections tend to feel, rather than "personal" connections). at the end of the night, he said, "i really like you. you're really smart, and analytical. you're not like other girls. and you're incredibly sexy too, but that's obvious. i really like you, but i don't know if i like like you, or like you as a friend."

"you want to like me as a friend," i said quickly.

he looked a little hurt, and asked why.

"i just feel that's the optimal distance to really appreciate me," i said. for most people, trying to push for more erases all the positive that the connection as it was meant to be produces. i have many connections that seem to make sense on such a deep level, but not so much in the mundane world. i don't know why they happen, but i find that by going with them and letting them naturally the way they seem meant to unfold holds great benefit to both me and the other person. i've learned that my life generally goes better and i seem more tangibly "lucky" if i'm open to them, even if sometimes, they put me in contact with people i would normally never interact with. i think on some level he understood this (he was clearly still in love with someone) but on an ego level, he wanted to be able to place a label on his feelings so that they could be more comfortable, so he kept trying, putting his arm around me at one point like i wouldn't notice. i told him it was late and i had to go. i wished him the best of luck. i remember the look on his face as he watched me walk out. like he was trying to memorize me.

i learned a long time ago, you can't save people. you can't make their choices for them, as it's presumptious to think you could do such a thing, and it defeats the purpose of each man living his own life and learning the lessons of his unique life journey. but i've learned that i can listen, and i learn that as i understand things, people seem to understand as well. at least, there's a comfort to this, that for a brief time, even with a complete stranger, they felt present, seen and known. i remember almost everyone i meet. inside me, they're all there, their stories, their hearts, their souls. in the deepest of nights, i can feel their echoes pulsing in the darkness. there's very little difference in terms of what goes on within and what goes on without. everything happens for a reason, including why we meet who we meet, and what happens when and where it happens. i'm still learning what my purpose is here on earth, and perhaps when the time and place have arrived, it will all become naturally clear, part of the flow, and all this is part of getting me to where i'm supposed to be; i'll never know until i'm in a position of looking back. when the footsteps stop and i've finally reached the end of the journey, the top of the mountain to observe the meaning of my life in its entirety. until then...it is what it is.