fish shadows

2012-01-22T03:34:00.000-05:00

i'm not sure what kind of survival mechanism this is, but i'm becoming reckless. sobriety and stillness burn slow, so i drink and flirt and pull at her hair a little harder than playful. he wants to explain how i've hurt him but i haven't finished arguing with myself. if he only knew how. laugh loudly and curse louder and i can't hear anything else. so little means so much, but i care so little about the little things. so i'm forgetful, careless, vapid and distant. i toss words out just to see how they float, and if it offends, i simply shrug because i didn't mean them anyways. how insufferable i must be becoming.

2012-01-18T18:20:00.008-05:00

2012-01-14T02:25:00.001-05:00

trying to resist the temptation to measure my place by how long my hair grows and how weak my joints get. a bold idiot measuring too much with too little. i give my body everything it wants, and nothing it needs, and i wonder why i feel so awful.

long, endless week, so many small knots, so much grounded in what i do and say and think right now. i can't see anything besides the immediate. i'm jealous of you, you who can cross the cards, mind the swords and pentacles. numbers can utter warnings, and you know your place in constellations i could never find. i ask for fortunes, confusing it with meaning.

2012-01-10T22:09:00.002-05:00

The inflexible heart breaks first, the toughest iron
Cracks first, and the wildest horses bend their necks
At the pull of the smallest curb.

-Antigone, Sophocles

2011-12-25T23:05:00.002-05:00

getting sleepy and a headache at the third family christmas, i curled up and whispered sidelong, remember when we used to smoke cigarettes in my big green room? when it would rain and we'd leave the windows open? that room was so tall, perfect for smoking in. and he said yes but we shouldn't ruin the memory by trying to relive it. and i said no no that's not what i meant, i just meant i liked that part of our lives. and he said yes. it's a good memory. a week into indefinite sobriety, the last drink i had was a thin flute of absinthe while chelsea was in town, lounging on pillows and pressed deep into her amber scent. i can feel my self withdrawing; seeing her showed me that what i've been trying to fashion into friendships has been desperation. i have to be careful in winter, and now i have to be careful for both of us. how much is too much. why this belief in the redemption of extremes.

2011-12-23T11:12:00.005-05:00

been back home in LA for a few days now, and part of me hates it, absolutely hates it, but some other lunatic creeping inside never wants to leave. being here is a constant forced reassessment of who i am, where i come from, where i'm going, and i'm not sleeping enough to deal with it.
"where i come from" isn't solid enough to stand on and trumpet my laborious ancestry. instead, a rumbling, shifting mountain of sand upon which i am constantly trying to find footing on. one foot sinks into my mother's pain, which crumbles away as soon as i step foot into my own. another step towards figuring out who fled what, whom, only by kicking free a foot already stuck in hardening mud. "where i'm going" never seems good enough. "who i am". why even bother discussing.
and at the same time, the fullness of being around family and friends. the comfort of being around the ones you know well--too well for comfort, even. sensing the attachment growing, and the uncertainty with it.
i'm unsure of which guilt is mine, and overthinking the words coming loose. i hate it. i hate it so much. but i can't really leave, can i?

2011-12-18T18:09:00.006-05:00

i don't do this often, but i'm waiting up for my boyfriend. well, mostly because he doesn't have the keys. i tried to sleep a bit, but every car that passes by, i think, oh that must be him. but it's not. also another part of me thinks he's off making out with some guy, well that guy that he made out with last time, which is fine. in fact, i wish he would.

but in any case, sleepless in bed means my thoughts start crawling around the pillows, and my heart just gets soaked in this indefinite pointless melancholia. i also started reminiscing, which i also don't do often. i thought about that time in nepal, when i went kayaking down the seti river. on one of the nights, we pulled ashore to a very small row of houses along the cliff. there was a long skinny rope and wood bridge over the river, and at night, sayam, one of my kayaking guides and i lay flat on the bridge staring up at the moon, while kids hopped over and around us swinging sticks at the bats swooping overhead. here:

and i remember all those times that i looked up into the sky at night, because, this is going to sound cheesy as fuck, but because it's often the favorite moments of my life. i may not remember anything else on these trips, but i'll remember exactly the moment when i laid back and stared up, and that singular feeling of being turned inside out. my insides being emptied, dug into its cavities, all the knots being untangled, and an emptiness that feels exuberant.

and i think that that's all i really want. fuck bitches, fuck money, fuck fame, fuck success. i just want that

2011-12-18T04:57:00.002-05:00

there's a bar next to where i'm staying. early in the morning, i can hear the espresso machine start whirring, the tink and clanks of steel against glass, hard heeled footsteps, muffled italian. sometimes i make my way over and stand at the counter with men dressed in long dark coats, giving me sideway, if not blatant, glances at my sleep-marked face. i can never drink those fucking little cups of espresso as slowly as they do. embarrassingly quick, foreign. when i feel bold, i ask for another one. if not, i just slip a couple of coins onto the counter, give a nod to the others at the counter, or perhaps just to the counter, and wander off.

big & little dipper

2011-12-15T11:09:00.004-05:00

the void

2011-12-13T16:56:00.002-05:00

leap into the void

2011-12-13T16:52:00.004-05:00

2011-12-10T06:50:00.002-05:00

18 hours of airports and planes later, i'm in turin. staying at a friend's loft, and it's full of cigarettes, espresso, alcohol and surprisingly wide assortment of breadsticks/crackers. i just want to consume them all then pass out for the next 18 hours, but it's only 1pm, and i'm sitting at this desk, trying to see if i can't finish my final paper for a class. in three hours, we have to go into studio to start working on an album from scratch, to finish in about 9 days.

the loft is a funny husk of a place. he started renovating a warehouse space about a year and a half ago, adding stairs and levels, fancy bathtubs and rainfall showerheads, white walls accented with exposed concrete surfaces, plenty of natural light, modern furniture, all those things that an italian creative director-slash-art rock musician would have in his loft, i suppose, but it hasn't changed at all since i was last here, when it was first being decorated. he has met a new girlfriend since then, a woman too pretty to be so nice, and practically lives at her house now, and this place seems to have just been stuck on pause since then--a half finished house. i guess i notice because i feel the same way, like nothing has really changed for me since the last time i was here. i seem to have just made a big circle around some distance, some learnings, some relationships started and finished, and come back to this loft again, same as i was a year and a half ago.

i don't know what i'm talking about. i'm way too tired to be staying up. i'm gonna quit this paper writing business for now, drink some jameson, and pass out on the couch till i need to feel fine.

de Staël

2011-12-09T11:08:00.002-05:00

2011-12-08T11:45:00.002-05:00

my earrings are heavy, slowly stretching the holes. gold plated. like my fingernails.
i'm in a standoff with the gloom. i spend hours in the evening sitting in my chair, staring at the darkness, the darkness staring back at me, but seeing through, seeping through. it's ugly. seeing as though eyes half open, but actually they're wide. i turn on all the lights. at my best, i light candles too. short days, long nights. how much longer?

2011-12-02T17:44:00.001-05:00

i'm having a hard time grasping the days as it slinks by. i feel my weight within them, solid and struggling against the tenderness, and yet, so effortlessly, i'm ebbed through it all, unseeing, awkward, hollow. a pill in the morning, a pill at night, caffeine to speak, alcohol to shut down. how tediously drugged i am, colorless and monotonous.

of course, there are breaks in the wretchedness. a charming anecdote, a dry joke, a hungry fuck. moments of calm before you dive under another wave.

perhaps it's just that i'm simply too indulgent.

2011-11-30T16:11:00.003-05:00

Is it that I do not tell the truth, is that it, that some day somehow I may tell the truth at last and then no more light at lat, for the truth?

-Play, Samuel Beckett

The leaves blowing through the light like golden snow. Hair dirty but pinned up as if it were special. A single thought: you don't have to do it this way. If you don't want to.

john berger

2011-11-26T13:15:00.002-05:00

When hundreds of gulls circle in the sky and the light is horizontal so that their black and white are merged together into silver, they look like a shoal of the herrings they live off. And so imagine the sea and sky to be interchangeable. Imagine turning them upside down like the globes of a sand hour-glass. Thus this painting.

anne sexton

2011-11-25T15:27:00.001-05:00

She's my real witch, my fork, my mare,

my mother of tears, my skirtful of hell,

the stamp of my sorrows, the stamp of my bruises

and also the children she might bear

and also a private place, a body of bones

that I would honestly buy, if I could buy,

that I would marry, if I could marry.

2011-11-22T02:51:00.002-05:00

i'm not sure what i said, but i could suddenly see her withdraw. her eyes flickered for a second with the slightest knowing, then she closed off everything i was beginning to accept. and with that, we no longer defended together our breath against the unwieldy boredom smothering the nights. we had brought swagger to our squalor, flaunted the torn knuckles, bruised knees, blood-shot eyes rolling back with something disgusting and chronic. but now, without her, i could feel my skin stretch against my teeth, my tongue swiping at a body wrung dry, salty, withering. i was shriveling without her, while every other content fuck was engorging themselves on the fat of health and decency.

moonshine

2011-11-17T13:50:00.002-05:00

from july 2010

2011-11-14T21:29:00.002-05:00

And there, once, we found ourselves.
Sweltering in the heat of July's dampening boredom, we exaggerated accusations towards the pests, the heat, the smog, towards everything but ourselves. Instead, we sweetened our drinks with quiet resentment and pressed the glass against our cheeks, relishing the coldness, the opacity, the bittersweet aftertaste of our heart-swelling discontent.
And where this displeasure led was further and further away from the cruelty of knowing. Instead, a dense wall of whiny resentment, turning obese by accusations.
"You're sick," she said.
"It's never as fun as you think."

2011-11-13T22:20:00.004-05:00

do you remember when you got me flowers and cigarettes? the carpet is dirty and stained, and there are no clean dishes. it's such a joke, you were making a joke, but i think of bruises and wanting to be thin and finding little burnt circles on my underwear. there was that night, when i knew i wouldn't leave, that you took my hand, roughly, and told me to calm down, lightly, with a smile on your face that cracked with unkindness. i think of wrestling with you, inanely at first, but i'm pinned down with bluing thighs and fingers going numb. it's been a long time since your fucking jokes, but still, i smoke cigarettes and toss the flowers.

west wind drift

2011-11-07T21:33:00.004-05:00

it's hard to keep my own secrets.

i'm trying to get to the bottom of my own psychology. is there a place where truth and happiness coexist in peace? when i find it, i'll let you know. we can build a fire and stay a while. we can construct giant halos out of sticks. one for me and one for you.

Crush

2011-11-07T15:08:00.000-05:00

"Maybe my limbs are made
mostly for decoration,
like the way I feel about
persimmons. You can’t
really eat them. Or you
wouldn’t want to. If you grab
the soft skin with your fist
it somehow feels funny,
like you’ve been here
before and uncomfortable,
too, like you’d rather
squish it between your teeth
impatiently, before spitting
the soft parts back up
to linger on the tongue like
burnt sugar or guilt.
For starters, it was all
an accident, you cut
the right branch
and a sort of light
woke up underneath,
and the inedible fruit
grew dark and needy.
Think crucial hanging.
Think crayon orange.
There is one low, leaning
heart-shaped globe left
and dearest, can you
tell, I am trying
to love you less."

by Ada Limón

2011-11-06T11:11:00.002-05:00

daylight savings time always seemed to me like we were pausing, holding still for an hour to let fall catch up. and when it has, you get up in the morning and know the world has changed.
the trees shed their pitch of green for a new intonation. the sky has dipped lower, and you suddenly realize an abyss above you that hails no grace. the earth beneath you caves to let you in, and more than ever, a need to be swallowed whole.
it's also time when crushes form easier as our hands seek warm cheeks to hold, and it's so easy to fall, to mistake the simple pounding of our hearts for meaning beyond the banal. and yet, when you find someone with whom smiles come so easy, how do you distinguish your vanity from your obsession?
and when this is over, and spring commands back its hour, we will look back and wish we had gone further, or not far enough.

2011-11-03T16:53:00.004-04:00

pluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecoop
pluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecoop
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thenwearebackonthehardroad!thenwearebackonthehardroad!thenwearebackonthehardroad!
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thenwearebackonthehardroad!thenwearebackonthehardroad!thenwearebackonthehardroad!
pluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecoop
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pluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecooppluckabirdfromthecoop

2011-11-03T16:47:00.004-04:00

fffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuu
uuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccc
ccccccccccccccccccckkkk
kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
kkworkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

2011-10-31T12:40:00.002-04:00

i do this thing, where i sit still and spin myself into silent storms. i brood, recalling ravens and rancor where none existed, dig cliffs into shores, and bite my nails until blood runs down my chin. how do i stop?

2011-10-28T15:03:00.003-04:00

i feel your obsession fading, and it draws me to you. i don't think of you as often as you'd like me to, but when i do, it's not without gleeful details filling in the fancy of impossibility. you skip meals to buy me drinks, fill your head only with words you can share with me. you pass out on the bus for too many hours to lie awake in my bed, stroking the hair spread across my back facing you through morning. you'll grow to resent me. you already do, a little, when you see my empty smile as you roll off of me. but isn't it exactly this immobility of obsession, inability to consume, the inevitable disgust at everything we once were, that excites you?

on office lighting

2011-10-28T13:16:00.004-04:00

1:30 pm and my heart is pumping blood but somewhere somehow it comes back lead (atomic number 82) through my veins and i feel h e a v y with sleep and giving up on the day sounds like the only way / to get through it.

but there is no excuse for this. today i read,
"his eyes were like windowpanes streaked with rain."

when is nap time

2011-10-27T15:47:00.005-04:00

there is a layer of gray dust over everything this afternoon. at dusk yesterday it was more of a pinkish orange. maybe it's a layer of film over my eyes, maybe it's not outside of me at all. this morning the dust was deep blue but it felt more like a blanket pulled over the city than dust. it's like the street was laying on it's back and holding up the blanket with it's tree arms and tree legs. everything tinted blue by the blue blanket filter, or maybe my eyes hadn't quite adjusted to the light. but i don't think so. i think it's the blanket.

2011-10-26T22:30:00.002-04:00

i've been finding it hard to think.
all i do is feel, feel, feel, all heart, and all that bastard does is shoot stakes up into my head, and i can just feel my head crumbling. and in turn, my hands do what they always do when i can't think, and take off on their own.
they're constantly doodling. my class notes curve around shapes that bump against relevance
they're fretting, chipping away at the nail polish, reapplied every night, only to be dutifully chipped away again, bearing nails scratched rough and thin under glossy cracks
they're tearing into squares any spare piece of paper, folding 'em into paper cranes, which are immediately pinched off into hundreds and hundreds
if they got nothing else to hold, they pleat details into each other's grooves, unabashedly rubbing and grinding and showing everyone just how incredibly NOT HERE i really am.
how whorish.

2011-10-22T03:41:00.001-04:00

it never seems close enough.

2011-10-16T20:08:00.005-04:00

i can see so much of myself in you. your obsession with irrelevant detail. always too much of you out there/on here. your obsession with male energy while compulsively attracted to the SHE. you invite deep open eyes, but blank hard looks give you a rush that coats your lips. the way you pose for photos, the words you drop and the phrases you pick up. all distorted and complicated copies among us. i know we're made from the same clump of dirt, and yet i wish you would change.

hello boy, hello heart, stop leaving

2011-10-16T02:52:00.003-04:00

I wake up in this way sometimes, teeth clenched, fingers rolled into my palms, eyes throbbing as if they've been held open all night. when morning comes, i can finally wake up, but where i am gets to be the only place i know and i'm too tired to want more.

i've had so many good nights lately, so much of that head-thrown-back-mouth-gulping-the-sky-make-others-stare laugh, so much of that careless tugs of the shirt sleeve and the tussling of the skirt hems, the palms pressed, mascara smeared, lipstick eaten nights that keep me awake with possibilities. but still, morning seeps through and sits like burnt coffee grinds on the bottom of the mug. turn too quickly, and i remember mornings. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

ugh. I'M TIRED OF YOUR SUFFERING, YOU STUPID PIECE OF

letter to russel

2011-10-12T13:55:00.000-04:00

the book is going very well. it was a good thing i lost it. it's going to be much better. than it would have been. i'm more careful, more critical. it was dead so it's easier to kill it again. carson & i are headed to the desert, the real wilderness, in november and i will finish the book and he will finish his album. his parents are out of town so we've set up camp here. he spends all night composing on the piano. i compose on the computer and sell my socks and underwear to strangers. full moon and rain and the neighbors burning wood. it's romantic, in the underbelly of rockwell kind of way. he leaves for work and i wear his shirts unbuttoned and drink decaf and write more and read on the astrology of the collective.

miss the vicious girls. who are kissing cousins to the bored girls. who hold hands with the lying girls. is she a brunette? does she dance? how are her bjs? is she the kind of girl who lounges in camisoles and panties? or do you not get to see that part? is she a libra? is her hair long and her forehead high? have you perfected the art of applying makeup to your love wounds? use a green base to neutralize the red, etc.

feel like i was born a sexual terrorist; my sexuality terrorizes whether or not i do anything.

and if i actually do things.

2011-10-10T18:55:00.000-04:00

you miss being bad like other people miss the homeland.

benefits

2011-10-06T11:12:00.004-04:00

Do you ever try to be mindful of your body, specifically the tension in your muscles? Do you start from your toes and move slowly up to the top of your head and relax every muscle along the way? I find that it takes multiple waves to get your body as relaxed as you can. It's like cleaning your bathtub and noticing the tub get whiter. And then cleaning it again ten minutes later and noticing it get even brighter. And then one more time....

I ate an orange at work and my whole stomach seized up, and I played out that familiar scenario in my mind, the one where you end up in the hospital, and who would take you, and what would your insurance cover, and no wonder this day felt a little bit strange from the very start. Like one of the first days of spring in southern california, when walking from class to class in the early morning smelled a very specific fresh. Only it's autumn. Early autumn.

So I took myself through it, I relaxed the muscles, the toes, the jaw, the shoulders, the back, the diaphragm, the forehead, the eyes, hoping the pain in my belly would subside. and it faded so thoroughly that I can't quite remember what it felt like. The way our bodies forget physical pain is fascinating.

Last night I visited N at his apartment. We shot the breeze for a few hours over roasted chicken and kale. N is in school to become a counselor and we discussed the process of becoming conscious and approaching authenticity. I asked him, why consciousness? He said, because the alternative is to act out. I asked him, how do we become our authentic selves? He said, through love. And then I asked him, our true selves is good for what? He said, for peace and contentment, and for making things! Art!

Art!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-10-03T16:02:00.002-04:00

i'm still reeling a little from the OCEAN. The warm Atlantic Ocean at 1am, floating still on my back on slow rocking waves, staring up into the black sky, close and deep and wide and full. Rolling over and pedaling out further, all you can see is shades of black, the texture of which you feel gliding along your skin. Every once in a while, little fish jump up out of the water and dive into your hair fanned out and melting into the water.

I needed that so bad. to feel for a minute pure wonder and joy and happiness. to feel everything that was making me crazy and manic and stressed and unconsciously clenching my teeth hard, grinding them into each other until they hurt, get undone, swallowed away by this immense Being. to have for a bit uncontrollable laughter and giggling from the throat and the belly and the body, and to feel that it'll be ok it'll be ok it'll be ok.

2011-09-26T00:49:00.002-04:00

i was grating a lemon zest the other day, and i accidentally scraped my knuckle. i lost a little chunk of skin and watched the red come. then i stuck the knuckle in my mouth, and while licking the blood off of it, started sobbing silently. it was one of those where there weren't that many tears, but the few that came were heavy and burning on your eyes. your teeth feel as if they are pushing their way back into your gums, and you gut is twisting inside of you, trying to escape the heart thrashing and kicking and punching itself in the face. and for a few minutes, all that exists in the world is you and your grief.

i looked for the piece of skin in the bowl of lemon zests but i couldn't find it. i tossed them into the batter, baked them slightly golden at the edges, and fed them to strangers.

tlc

2011-09-25T11:40:00.003-04:00

my house is clean now. now there is bright blue morning light. then my friends will come over. i ate my bowl of cereal and am making some tea with the samovar. i am adding songs to a playlist for JPR called "reconciliation" because for a while it was like we weren't friends anymore. but then we went to raleigh/durham to see hh and we reconciled the distance with cat faces and hula hoops and shaved ice and swans and tin-tokers and the ATLANTIC.

we'll come back soon.
well, come back soon.
welcome back soon,
and so on.

this time you have turned me on.

lights off, lights on

2011-09-25T00:17:00.004-04:00

my partner frightens me the subtle sinister. i'm used to reading, instead of being read. i'm used to following the pull, instead of generating the gravity. he insists that i decide. whatever it is that needs deciding. when his mood shifts, the past is obliterated. ah, the denial of the past. i have never encountered this before. there is no backwards glance. no pillars of salt to worship. only the fresh choke and shimmy.

2011-08-21T00:01:00.002-04:00

sometimes in the dark, do you just lie and wonder about the next day, the day after, a year from now, 2 years, 10 years, and so on and so on until you think about yourself dying? sometimes i just feel so overwhelmed by what i want to be and where i need to go that i worry i will never be what i need to be. that's completely silly, right? good thing i don't spend too much time in the dark.

2011-07-04T15:36:00.003-04:00

one thing i've been thinking about a lot in the last week or so is just how i ended up where i am. how i came to love the people i love, live where i live, and eat what i eat. i think it's mostly cuz i've been hanging out with coworkers who can't seem to comprehend how the hell i got to be living in williamsburg-bushwick for the summer and eating at vegan thai places and going to midnight screenings of jaws on a saturday night, sneaking in whiskey and coke.
i mean, to be blunt, we kind of gravitated towards each other our backgrounds are more similar than with anyone else's in the office. but you know how in high school, we would say "white-washed"? well that's what they kind of seem to be saying. except it seems more complicated now.

my parents worked hard and struggled in ways that as a child, i did not understand how invisible they were. and i feel like as part of my "american dream," i've just been trying as much as i can to push myself into visibility--to be seen, to be heard, and even if not understood, to be acknowledged as a part of something bigger than the small offerings of tithe we made every week at church. and in some sad way, that meant pushing myself outside of all that was immediately around me. it meant going outside my immediate circle, where i already knew i had a place, and trying to present myself to the rest of the world. individual globalization, i guess. i strip myself of too distinctly cultural markers so i may be more easily digested by any and all. but obviously i'm still who i am, and even if i strip myself of the superficial marking of what makes a first generation working class immigrant from LA, the basic foundations of your identity is built upon this.

so where am i going with this? i don't know. it's just unnerving to find yourself in a new pair of eyes, and compelling to see what this extra layer of conscious does to your self-identification.

2011-06-01T23:05:00.001-04:00

i'm heaving with loneliness

2011-06-01T22:51:00.003-04:00

remember when you decided, in a way that you thought practical and luxurious at the same time, that you would not cook at all this summer? instead you thought to buy all your meals on plates or in clear plastic boxes, and drink lots of coffee, never mind your sensitivity to caffeine and sugar. but too quickly, food had become a weary thing. and you start thinking of sugars and salts and mono and trans and poly saturations and how the wooden chopstick unwrapped from its thin waxy paper cover smells like bleach. you see the dirt under the tables and the water spots on the knives, and the specks of dust on your server's bleach blonde hair. so you now instead roam the grocery stores and fruit stands, sharp eye out for tags that hang off the shelves like unmanicured hands, gaudily painted with two-for-ones and this-week-only. and you think of everything you eat.
not that you've grown thin, mind you. it's more like a weaning. search for replacement. still hungry for what you swore off.
you swap taste for taste and everything you swallow you've considered and accepted.

2011-05-15T11:32:00.004-04:00

the last month was a whirl. last couple of weeks of april, i studied from when i work up to when i went to sleep for my finals. then even before i could finish up my last paper for the semester, i moved to nyc and started work on the second of may. and suddenly face with a 10 to 6 (or something like that) job, i am struggling to find my place a bit. i guess every new place is a challenge, and i guess i figured it would be no challenge here in nyc, considering how many times i've been here before. granted, some things are easy. it's easier to see friends, to find something good to eat, to find something to do, to feel distracted and inspired.

but i also find myself mentally pushing back against the physical congestions of being in this city. the constant emotional and physical negotiations for space. to be allowed to stand untouched.
i guess it just takes a bit getting used to.

the last couple of years, i've noticed something troubling-- i've been having a harder time speaking, articulating myself without intermittent stops and stuttering. it's not always, but happens when i'm stressed or nervous. sometimes, for neither of those reasons. i notice myself doing it and it drives me crazy. it's like i'm saying a sentence, and all of a sudden, in the middle of it, i would lose the word i was going to use, and find myself searching for it. i'm not sure why it's happening and it makes me so frustrated to feel at a literal loss for words. so if you are speaking to me and i don't say anything, please don't think i'm not ignoring you.

Infection of the Brain

2011-04-20T23:21:00.001-04:00

john berger knows my heart

2011-04-20T10:56:00.002-04:00

"Three youngsters have taken possession of one of the stone benches:
two young men in white T-shirts and a woman wearing a quilted
waistcoat. They smile, they hug their knees, they lean a little
against one another and they wait together, as they often wait. In
small towns like Piadena on this plain, where the skyline hides
nothing, they wait for the moments during which life counts. When they
arrive, these moments, they come and they pass quickly. Afterwards,
nothing is quite the same and they wait once more."

-John Berger, To the Wedding

boredom

2011-04-20T10:51:00.003-04:00

send me books about boredom. I need to know more about it. J introduced me to an idea, something I've known in my bones but haven't yet found the words to articulate. send me books about boredom. J said, "you are necessary, you belong here!"

Sounds so goddamned much like Seoul Metropolitan Government

2011-04-19T00:12:00.000-04:00

"Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens and real diseases are useful material."

Susan Sontag

april

2011-04-13T19:37:00.004-04:00

my bones feel cold but my feet are sweating inside my slippers.

tom waits says, you can never hold back spring.
he says, winter dreams the same dream every time.

winter dreams the same dream every time.
winter dreams the same dream every time.
every time the same winter dreams dream.
every winter the same dreams time dream.

you can never hold back spring!

I'm caught up, you know, in my head, wondering how life could be different, how it should be different. am I sleep walking? sleep walking through an ice age, to quote, for the million time, some zine I read in high school.

"Who could ever tire of this heart-stopping transition, of this breakthrough shift between seeing and knowing you see, between being and knowing you be? It drives you to a life of concentration, it does, a life in which effort draws you down so very deep that when you surface you twist up exhilarated with a yelp and a gasp.
Who could ever tire of this radiant transition, this surfacing to awareness and this deliberate plunging to oblivion -- the theater curtain rising and falling? Who could tire of it when the sum of those moments at the edge -- the conscious life we so dread losing -- is all we have, the gift at the moment of opening it?"

-Annie Dillard, An American Childhood

Do you feel like you are awake? How do you know, and what is it worth, this awareness? I am teeming with energy but somewhere inside me, before surfacing, it gets lost at the event horizon in the center of my galactic heart. I am constantly searching for other kids who know this experience, who radiate ever-so-subtly this longing and loss. so when we find each other, we can talk and talk, and walk around and collect sticks and paint each others' portraits, and maybe kiss, and stay up all night looking for answers to a question that is still forming on the tip of our spent tongues.

winter and I have something in common!

2011-04-12T13:23:00.002-04:00

it's always the end of something. nowadays, it's the end of a three year long period of new friends, new home, and new hopes. everyone else who has started school with me is now graduating, preparing for their bar exam, finding their next homes. it feels a little strange to be staying behind, having taken a year off, and even stranger to realize i won't know anyone once all my friends leave. i guess i should go and make new friends, but you know how bad i am at doing that.

maybe it's because i've been physically and emotionally drawing everyone nearer and nearer lately, a last great scramble at a long hug, but i've been dreaming of friends. friends old and new. i wake up in the mornings with faint traces of held hands and sidelong smiles. i hate to get overly sentimental, but i can't help but want for more time, for those moments i didn't have and the ones that will never really be. there are those good byes you can never really say, but are imposed by time. it creeps up in months and years, and suddenly you realize someone has faded away and goodbyes unwittingly implied and silently accepted.

that being said, i'd just like to say hello. hello again. hello now, hello later, hello hello hello.

2011-04-01T23:56:00.003-04:00

again and again, the urge to simplify.

white and black are the only hues, and i can't stand the clutter in between. too much of everything. i want bone. licked raw by scavengers and bleached white by the sun. bone. made clean by abstinence. made whole by restraint. fat disgusts me.

i'm starting to be overwhelmed with all the "stuff" i have, and i don't know how to get rid of it. it's silly attachments, you know? but i think about what a waste things are. i don't want to simply throw away these books, these clothes, these shoes, these crafts, these anything! it makes me crazy to have them, and it makes me crazy to throw them out.

help me that i can let go

books

2011-03-30T18:33:00.003-04:00

i have books i haven't read.

third culture kids
alternating current
the varieties of scientific experience
some poetry by billy collins

i even keep one in my purse, crush by richard siken

even unread they remind me of something essential in myself, so i keep them around.

do black and white photos make everyone feel nostalgic?
i like you guys, you know. i like your words and your thoughts and the brevity and depth of it all!

2011-03-30T15:06:00.003-04:00

I have many pet names for Sacramento: The Valley of the Shadow of Death. The Land Where it is Always Christmas Never Winter. Kingdom of Stupidia. The new one, inspired by The Return of the King: The Orc Pit. Everyone is friends until someone gets stab and the pit smells blood and bam! feeding frenzy. Or someone wants the Mithril shirt that someone else got out of the swag. Knock down drag out brawl.

The next time I live somewhere I want to live somewhere where I don't know anybody. Maybe one person. Two at the most. Anonymity is one of those things you don't realize the value of until it is gone.

grappling with constant distance

2011-03-29T14:17:00.002-04:00

within these sheets is my home, and your presence is but a sordid detail. a touch that stamps your entry, your exit, trust granted that you would not abandon. now with another, now with other, unlit cigarettes, unwashed glasses, a mess growing cold, within these sheets is my home.

dream dream dream

2011-03-21T10:58:00.002-04:00

do you ever wonder if you can alter the course of someone's dream while they are asleep? if the person sleeping next to you is twitching, starting, or making movements that indicate being in the throes of an unpleasant dream, will holding his or her hand or whispering something sweet make the dream better or bring about a feeling of safety? i hope so.

point

2011-03-17T14:32:00.004-04:00

last night Beard and I watched the trailer for Bicycle Dreams, a documentary made about the Race Across America, aka the 10 day, 3000 mile cross-country bike race. One of the cyclists said the following:

"I think we have more people in society now that describe a feeling of missing something ... there's just something missing in my life, and i don't know what's missing. but yet they describe something very tangible, very very close to them that they're missing. And desire, true desire, may very well be, for many people, what is missing."

just now i sat in the sunlight for 30 minutes at the mutter museum garden, reading and basking. basking and laying. the left side of my face burned, toasted from the afternoon sun, slowly dipping west.

it's true. the constant yearning, pulling, longing, the feeling that i am missing something, that i need something so tangible but at the same time unnamed and unidentified, my gaze always extended to the blue of distance, these feelings that never go away; perhaps true desire is what i am missing. some moments draw them out to the surface while other moments keep them at bay (but the ships still close enough to view from shore!).

i thought about marriage, children, career, the things i always thought i wanted. god, maybe none of this is real, maybe i have to start negotiating with this feeling until i feel something true. something i can go after. until the gnawing in my heart goes away, or at least turns into something else.

"Always even-tempered, he spent most of his time out of doors, going on long expeditions even in the worst of weather, or when it was fine sitting on a camp stool somewhere near the house in his white smock, a straw hat on his head, painting watercolors. When he was thus engaged he generally wore glasses with gray silk tissue instead of lenses in the frames, so that the landscape appeared through a fine veil that muted its colors, and the weight of the world dissolved before your eyes. The faint images that Alphonso transferred onto paper, said Austerlitz, were barely sketches of pictures -- here a rocky slope, there a small bosky thicket or a cumulus cloud -- fragments, almost without color, fixed with a tint made of a few drops of water and a grain of malachite green or ash-blue. I remember, said Austerlitz, how Alphonso once told his great-nephew and me that everything was fading before our eyes, and that many of the loveliest colors had already disappeared, or existed only where no one saw them, in the submarine gardens fathoms deep below the surface of the sea."

- W. G. Sebald, Austerlitz

still, the same themes. transformation, nostalgia, the haziness of it all.

letter to S

2011-03-13T14:33:00.000-04:00

Coffee with coconut milk, agave. Almonds, dried cherries from the bulk bins of the co-op that I labeled as Thompson's raisins, $2.37/lb instead of $12.somethingsomething. Chloe came to California and said I think you're learning how to manage the chaos you find yourself in better and better. Jason says Don't take this wrong but you are more stable than I've seen you in a long time. It's spring now, my favorite. I haven't gone out in it much yet because spring is one of my more productive seasons. Long hours at the computer. Words and the shape of words. I know language is deeply flawed and not especially suited for the task we've assigned it. But I love it so much, and it's like people in that way. Of all the things humans have created, language is closest to ourselves.

2011-03-10T01:38:00.001-05:00

I want to make my life beautiful in the way women seem to be able to make their lives beautiful.

2011-03-10T01:35:00.003-05:00

i just a few quick days at home in the valley. didn't really get a chance to see anyone or say hello. too much time spent running around with mom and dad taking care of biz. sometimes, i wish i had so many more long slow days in LA, but after a whirlwind time of stress and almosts, i get so exhausted. i stress myself out when i am at home, worrying about all those things i am not able to do for my parents, all the ways things could be better or even different. always a sense of regret, of hurrying, or being not being or doing enough.

as i get older, i ask more questions, and i listen more to conversations. and i think my aunt and mom also feel more free speaking around me. i keep finding out things about my family history that is crazy and batshit and beyond belief. and i see these strong proud women standing in front of me and i can't believe that they are still here and so well after all the shit they've been through. from the moment they were born, they were born into post-war korea, where food was scarce to non-existant, and the youngest two girls out of 7 children. and as the finer details between then and now come out, i can't help but be amazed at the lives they've lived and are still living. i am sure that everyone says this about their family, but i do want to eventually get it all on paper and/or video.

perhaps a little bit later, when things are still not so bad and feelings can't be hurt as easily anymore, i can also sit down with the rest of the brothers and sisters and the different players and find out about their side of the story. i don't know if they would want to tell it, but maybe that's all they want to do eventually.

anyways, now i am in vegas. sitting at julie's dining room table, and feeling more disjointed then ever. after a night in DC, a few in LA, and now in Vegas, I feel completely out of it. It's not even like being on tour, because there are different expectations, but more like homelessness. Or is it the opposite--too many homes? either way, i miss everybody. i want to just gather all my family and friends into a smaller and smaller circle until we are all neighbors. so it's a simply bike ride away from my mom's to loff's, then to homes', then to rabbit's, then to my counsin's. this may be how cults start.

hannah and her sisters

2011-03-09T15:37:00.003-05:00

So I watched Hannah and Her Sisters last night. Alone. With three lit candles (the sacred kind), a bowl of vegan chilli (from a can), and a small forest green blanket. I laughed, i cried, i was moved to pursue two things, specifically:

1. read the e.e. cummings poem referenced in the film
2. get a piano

e.e. cummings - somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

friday

2011-03-04T16:44:00.002-05:00

i am so sensitive today. it's a combination of things; lack of sleep, bad dreams, hormones, and the always present obligation to show up to work. today was the kind of friday that i could have stayed in bed until 2pm, dozing in and out of rest, watching the light in my bedroom change as the hours pass. i would have sauntered outside in the late afternoon in the diffuse winter sunlight towards some specified destination. if i were not alone, i would not need to know exactly where i am heading. alone, my anxiety takes over, i am too self-aware, and i retreat so far into my own head that i feel unable to experience my environment. aep once told me, years ago, to get out of my head. and so i would practice, walking from class to class on berkeley's campus, balancing on the curb instead of walking on the pavement, focusing on the trees, the clouds, the grass, the buildings, the arch that opens up to sproul where you once could find jimmy hendrix's face imprinted in stone. every once in a while on a friday i want some freedom and some friendship. i had it last friday in durham. now my taste is whetted, i want more. plus my nailpolish is chipping. hyunhye!

more on longing

2011-02-22T15:15:00.002-05:00

"We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the distance between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing. I wonder sometimes whether with a slight adjustment of perspective it could be cherished as a sensation on its own terms, since it is as inherent to the human condition as blue is to distance? If you can look across the distance without wanting to close it up, if you can own your longing in the same way that you own the beauty of that blue that can never be possessed? For something of this longing, will, like the blue of distance, only be relocated, not assuaged, by acquisition and arrival, just as the mountains cease to be blue when you arrive among them and the blue instead tints the next beyond. Somewhere in this is the mystery of why tragedies are more beautiful than comedies and why we take a huge pleasure in the sadness of certain songs and stories. Something is always far away."

- Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

2011-02-16T19:36:00.004-05:00

so then what is it we can really hope for?
endless sense of general longing punctuated by moments of forgetting?
i feel that contentment too, on the road, when i'm haplessly moving, but what if all that is, is merely forgetting. is that satisfaction enough?

sometime i imagine that it is enough that we simply long together. that we are all separately but at the same time looking for that imagined fullness of knowing, of feeling and understanding. and in that company it makes everything seem all the less hopeless.

or perhaps it is not that at all.

memorize

2011-02-16T12:05:00.002-05:00

today j said this:

i totally know that feeling. i think ambiguous, diffuse longing has marked most of my life. i attribute it to a longing for the next life, to be honest. it's only ever temporarily satiated, and only by travel. I am convinced it's the shadow of a longing to fly with abandon through the universe. ha!

end of the day

2011-02-15T16:22:00.002-05:00

and that was what i've been trying to focus on all day today: what am i doing with my life? scattered thoughts:

my friends trekked across patagonia for 2 weeks this winter (summer there). E said, it takes a few days to adjust to walking all day. we get so used to sitting at a desk all day long...

and then i realized

i feel irritated when on my lunch break i have to walk to the post office, which is four blocks away. yesterday i searched for a dry cleaner within two blocks of my office.

laziness.

bazan: laziness cuts me like fine cutlery.

and then i realized that good writing, good living, is the ability to observe your observations and feelings. there is a berger quote. it is not with me. something about approaching reality as closely as possible. reality. there are so many distortions. like a beam of light broken up by bits of glass into different colors, or an image through a fish eye lens, a tree's reflection in a puddle. what is the value of knowing the original image? really knowing it. all my experiences creating distortions, and sometimes the result is happiness and sometimes so much confusion, fence sitting, white noise.

it's what i hope to get from therapy. it is not just "what am i thinking," but why am i thinking what i am thinking, and can i put words to it? will i make sense? do i make sense? if i really understood the way i react to my own thoughts, or why i think what i think, will i then approach some understanding of my own wants, needs? will i then find fulfillment in a certain activity?

will an art class change everything?

did my parents screw me up? did they set me up? they defined success. i go in and out of buying into their definition.

i want to go on a trip, and thankfully, i have one coming up. angela, take me on long walks where things become clear! and then we can throw ourselves back into our daily routines and hope for those moments when.....i dont know. moments that make me feel like that day we went to the albany bulb and took photos with all the trash sculptures, and you had on the blue beanie i made and we took with us a giant balloon.

inebriated

2011-02-15T00:46:00.002-05:00

it's valentine's night! whoo... and i'm lying in bed alone with two cats dozing by my feet, two bottles of empty wine next to the bed, unaccomplished homework strewn about every which way, netflix on labtop, and purple lips. sexy, i know.

not that i'm complaining. j left for europe today, but we celebrated early. but it's still so weird to see him off. after a whole year or being together nonstop, literally 24/7, now it's weeks and months apart. i think about the things he'll be doing in the next month, the things i used to do all last year, and the things i'll be doing in the next month, and it makes me feel so disassociated. i am not sure what i should be doing or how i should be feeling.

damn it, i'm drunk, and i got confessions to make. like i've watched every single episode of 30 rock, parks and recreation, and the office, and i use most of my netflix to watch mindless TV while just putting all the art films on instant queue, unsure if they'll ever be watched. like i used to put tape on my eyes to make double eyelids. like i still do things that's not good for my body when i feel shitty. like i am a fucking slob, and extremely OCD at the same time. like i am really not quite sure what the hell i'm supposed to be doing with my life right now but feel too deep in it to get out of anything, even if i wanted to. sometimes i feel completely sure. so sure that this is what i should be doing. sometimes, i feel like how does anyone know.

like what the hell guys, why are we so far apart? i'm so glad you're coming to visit homes.

also i will probably be in nyc this summer.

week end

2011-02-11T15:58:00.004-05:00

eating a baked potato with cheddar and broccoli last night, while R ate a corn dog, we talked about opposites and happy mediums. i learned about this in the context of academics, marxism to be exact, in my soc classes at berkeley. you start with a thesis, react with an antithesis, and the tension and application of a little reason yields the synthesis. never had i thought to apply similar reasoning to my personal life, my emotions, my growth and maturity. this application, combined with three beers and half a baked potato, blew my mind.

the next day, it's fuzzy. and here i am trying to put words to the fuzz. today, i won't push it. today, i am okay with the gears slowing, the system not computing. it's friday.

synthesis. i like the prefix "syn." a little internet search (never mind common sense) tells me that syn comes from Greek for "together with," or "fusion." in my mind, there is no replacement for the synergy of people coming together and sharing their thoughts. maybe that is what's missing right now. maybe that's why my fuzzy thoughts can't be focused and articulated, because i don't have R with me now, eating a corn dog, asking me to consider the opposite extremes of our lives, telling me he regrets nothing!

2011-02-07T02:04:00.002-05:00

feels like i've been running nonstop since i started school again. all the law school stuff on top of music stuff on top of fun stuff. i stress myself out by being too busy, but then i kind of like it and would go crazy if i weren't. i would feel ashamed that i can't stand myself when left undistracted for too long, if i had enough time to feel so.

our art opening at lump gallery was fun. i met people, answered questioned, burned myself on the radiator, broke only one dish, and all in all behaved very well, i think. then i went dancing at the gay club until my stockings were in shreds.

i missed being on tour again for a bit today. once when i saw an obvious tour-van parked at a gas station in durham, and then when i went to see my friend's band play raleigh while on tour. it was weird because we were on tour together before, but tonight, they were getting back in their vans, and getting to a motel, and back on road again, while i was going home early because it was school night. very different worlds. i can't tell which world i'm going to end up in. probably some place i'd never have expected.

anyways, this is a blog posting that's going nowhere, so i'll stop here for now.
on to more distractions.

spain for the weekend

2011-01-30T21:57:00.002-05:00

back home after a weekend trip to castellon for a show. the flight was once delayed, once rebooked, once missed, and in the end, we got to valencia 9 hours after scheduled time. our luggage was also lost, and our equipment barely made it after soundcheck. haggard.

the few hours free were spent walking and eating. tapas and wine at the bar across the street from the theater. sitting at the plaza for a while at dusk, drinking hot chocolate and eating churros, watching kids play around pillars and fountains. the festival was fun. everyone was very nice, and i got to meet thurston moore and say hello to the members of Faust. I really wanted a picture with Zappi in all his glory--"industrial music terrorist" shirt and camouflage pants--but felt too shy to approach him after the show. my swagga shrinks to peas in the face of bald giant german drummers.

i stayed up all night after the show, since i had to leave for the airport at 5 in the morning, where an obviously unsober man with sunglasses still on in the completely dark dawn drove us way too fast to the airport, from whence i spent another haggard 21 hours being tossed from one plane to another.

back home and part of me wants to do this forever, and another wants to never do it again. obviously the solution is to buy a private jet.

playing with

2011-01-23T17:01:00.002-05:00

there's some lives you live

and some you leave behind

it gets hard to explain

there are dark moods and there are light ones, irresponsible moments and responsible ones. there is the north and south pole, magnets pulling you in opposite directions, contradictions, things that are hard to wrap your mind around, moments of clarity and moments of indecision, there is everything you learned and everything you want to unlearn, in the end and in the beginning there is conflict.

i swear i have nothing to prove. but that's not true.

2011-01-18T23:09:00.002-05:00

steps and another, it's a gentle swaying. you're not going anywhere, but still, something small, something gentle, quiet movements that insist that you are still whole.

we are fostering two new cats. we brought them today and one is still too shy still and won't come out from under the couch. the other makes me feel a giant, as it darts away from me every time i lumber too close.

close and closer still. i hold the books in my arms and feel the crick in my neck. i somehow slept somehow wrong again, and it's hard for me to keep my neck straight. the only times i forget it is hurting is when i'm daydreaming. the deeper i burrow into it, the farther away i get. not that i want to go away somewhere. i want to be home, but i want home in a way that i don't have.

muffled with weight. to be lighter still.

2011-01-15T04:45:00.002-05:00

there are obligations of safety :: THEREFORE :: i wish i could pick up some new tricks

waiting

2011-01-12T23:05:00.002-05:00

it's been cold here lately, but not cold enough to snow. instead we get freezing rain, which sleek the roads with ice. they melt a bit during the day, and freeze again at night. our front yard has been a skating rink of sorts, which would be fun, if only i weren't waiting for the ice to melt.

between family stuff and trying not to feel too desperate about my own future, i keep myself awake at nights and starve myself more. i tell myself that nothing is as bad as it looks and that things can only get better, but i can't help but feel freaked out sometimes and then some more cuz i can't figure out if i'm trying too hard or not hard enough.

school has been good. it's kept me pretty distracted the last few days that i only have nights to bitch about.

david took me to a psychic a week ago... or two weeks? she said that my aura color was presently burgundy red. apparently, it should be gold. a lot of shit in life should be gold, but it's not. so i guess i don't feel too bad about it. but i wear blue just in case.

2011-01-09T23:58:00.001-05:00

there is nothing inexpressible, yet there is a nail in my throat every time i try to speak.
i would sit dozing on my couch, head holding into the chest, when suddenly i would be overwhelmed with some sudden emotion or another, and stand awake, shuffling back and forth among the rooms to chase away the stench of my own temper in my nostrils.
It is not the "wounds so grievous, disappointments so profound, and mistaken choices so tragic." It is merely myself, my own self-indulgent chants and too-broad confessions that fan this particular perfume wide and yawning.

washington

2011-01-07T13:55:00.000-05:00

black & white

2011-01-06T13:25:00.003-05:00

a,

when i think about you, you are always pretty. sometimes i try to think about you ugly, and i can't. i paint a left black eye, stitches across your forehead, a missing front tooth in your mouth, patches of the hair on your head missing, and still you are beautiful. i think it's the inside of you coming through to the outside of you, some essence communicated through your eyes or your skin. this is my love letter to you.

2011

2011-01-06T00:26:00.005-05:00

It's 5 days into the New Year, and generally I've been spending it so far being worried, stressed and bitter. Especially more so because I felt like I gave so much this holiday season, not just materially, but emotionally and physically, but received so little in return. Not that I'm looking for some karmic justification, because if that were the case, I may be homeless with a drug problem, but I just at least wanted some shit to work out before the end of the year. Instead, I ended the year with a bunch of meaningless and thoughtless general gifts, like plastic coasters and gift cards to a store i'd have to think hard about purchasing from, an impending criminal record, bad credit due missed mail sent to my parents' instead of my place, 6 extra pound gained over the holidays, and still, no moth fucking job lined up for the summer. luckily i made some money this year, so i was able to throw money at a lot of my problems to make it a little less life-changing than it could have been, but that means my vacation dreams for the year are shot.

what am i expecting for 2011? ...
over it.

Crow's Fall

When Crow was white he decided the sun was too white.
He decided it glared much too whitely.
He decided to attack it and defeat it.

He got his strength up flush and in full glitter.
He clawed and fluffed his rage up.
He aimed his beak direct at the sun's centre.

He laughed himself to the centre of himself

And attacked.

At his battle cry trees grew suddenly old,
Shadows flattened.

But the sun brightened—
It brightened, and Crow returned charred black.

He opened his mouth but what came out was charred black.

"Up there," he managed,
"Where white is black and black is white, I won."

-Ted Hughes

fantasy

2011-01-05T13:21:00.003-05:00

"I would like to go for a ride with you, have you take me to stand beside a river in the dark where hundreds of lightening bugs blink this code in sequence: right here, nowhere else! Right now, never again!"

-Amy Hempel, Tumble Home

dream

2010-12-31T15:40:00.002-05:00

the streets are piled high with black, oily snow. there are islands of yellowing ice chunks and trash crowding the iced slippery streets. i'm trying to wade through melting snow figures and black ice, and get nowhere.

david horvitz

2010-12-23T12:34:00.001-05:00

tonight i am sleeping under california stars.

winter solstice / shab-e yalda

2010-12-20T14:13:00.004-05:00

according to persian culture, tonight is the eve of the birth of Mithra, the god of sun, light, and truth. for the longest night of the year, we make celebration. we get together, read poetry, and eat fruits and nuts, especially watermelon and pomegranate. wikipedia, my source for learning about my own culture (pathetic), says "the red colour in these fruits symbolises the crimson hues of dawn and glow of life, invoking the splendour of Mithra."

tonight there is also a full lunar eclipse.
tonight is also my grandfather's birthday.

tonight, tonight!

2010-12-18T19:31:00.002-05:00

i've been daydreaming about going here. just a couple miles north of vancouver. march?

i think we're alone now

2010-12-16T16:18:00.004-05:00

i am trying to behave.

yesterday amir pointed out to me the epitaph on Charles Bukowski's grave: "don't try."

personally, the concept is not intuitive. in fact, i've been trying (ironically) over the last 24 hours to understand exactly what it suggests. don't try....as in, one arrives at true enlightenment only through intuitive insight and meditation, aka zen? or is he suggesting that there's no point in trying...the words fatalism or nihilism come to mind, but i don't think it's either of those. fatalism implies that there is some ultimate destiny towards which we are helplessly advancing, despite our best efforts, and nihilism says life is meaningless, empty. was bukowski just a cynic? or was he sick of people's failures? was he sick of his own? did he feel like all his efforts yielded tragedy, despite his best intentions? did he feel like all his efforts entered a vacuum, so insignificant in the world that the result is just....silence...space, which is arguably worse than tragedy?

there's a lot of positive verbage out there about self-actualization, or becoming truly authentic and responsive to your own needs and capabilities; realizing the extent of your full potential. i am trying to understand the motives behind my actions, to understand my own needs and how to honor them. it's strange to peel back the layers, to uncover the needs behind your needs, and to come to the conclusion that really we are all a bunch of broken children trying to be unconditionally loved. is this an oversimplification?

how can i behave, "don't try", and self-actualize at the same time? how can i be old enough to know better, young enough to pretend? i want to have fun, i don't want to hurt anybody, i want to be good and i want to learn things all the time. i also want to throw my hands up in the air, live and let live, honor bukowski's advice, and find myself somewhere down the line, in some unknown place, unsure of how i got there (but conscious all the time), beholding and beholden to something natural and fantastic: a desert sunset, the milky way at night, total quiet in the woods, melting ice on a seashore, rivers carving canyons out of rocks.

2010-12-15T14:24:00.002-05:00

the last night s + z were here, we all drank way too many four loko and joose. they had been drinking either or a combination of those for 5 out of 7 nights, and the last night, there were just too many.
it escalated so fast. one minute, we are just recording, me channeling elvis in a cop hat, j and s doo-wop-ing along, then z is out. he explodes his dinner and joose all over the bathroom and promptly passes out on the couch. j and s are drunk enough to clean it up so they don rubber gloves, old lady hats, rolls of paper towels each, and spray and wipe the heck out of the bathroom tiles.
then we take the bag of clean up, and set it on fire in the yard. we toss some fireworks into the fire and watch the bottle rockets go off.
as we're getting back inside the house, s somehow falls and bangs his head against the corner of the house, and starts bleeding from his head. there is a gape about two inches long right in the middle of his hairline. so much blood everywhere. trailing all over the house. he had blood all over his face and the j had blood all over his face too.
then j takes off his shirt and sets it on fire on the stove and tosses it outside.
then they try to go get nachos and get in the car, and then smartly realize they cannot drive, so come back in, and eventually we all pass out.
in the morning, there's blood all over the house, on the pillow s slept on, and outside too.

w i n t e r w e a t h e r

2010-12-14T09:53:00.002-05:00

it's my first winter on the east coast. today the high temperature is 27 degrees. i have been listening to smog almost nonstop, and there is a line that repeats in my head almost incessantly: "winter weather is not my soul/but the biding for spring..."

At night we light candles in a cluster on the coffee table, they are all different shapes and sizes. we share blankets and spread out on the couch, we make tea with the samovar my mom brought me from iran. we say, in one hour we will go to fiume for a drink, but we never do. it's cold out there.

the cold is biting but i know it gets worse in other places. here, i step outside in the mornings to go to work and it's bright and blue and cold, but i feel young, invigorated, as if nicole is outside in her car about to drive me to high school instead of our nine-to-five. early december mornings are still full of the promise of holidays, trips home and away, late nights with old friends and maybe we go for a long drive that starts with tense shoulders and neck from freezing car that melts into calm when the heater kicks in...it's not the desperate frost of late january, with spring nowhere in sight.

it's all okay right now, even the days like today when tuesday feels like it should be thursday or friday, when the wind keeps me up at night and gets into my head, turns my dreams into nightmares. these days the warmth of friends is more potent than ever, and a get-together at the bar feels like i'm living the movie life.

"winter exposes the nest/then i'm gone."

2010-12-12T01:25:00.003-05:00

gah. i am going crazy with too much time on my hands.
i don't start school until january.
and i decided to step out and let z + s work on music while they're here for a week, and just work on the stuff after they're gone, because 4 people with different ideas trying to do things all at once is just unproductive. so i can't get in the "studio."
and i can't find a book to absorb me helplessly.
so i just don't know what to do with myself when there is too much of it, and i get anxious. i just keep overturning everything. i dig through old drawers and purses and pockets and notebooks. i paint my nails, wipe them clean with a dirty cotton ball, then paint them again an almost different color. i watched an entire season of law and order svu--that's 24 episodes of 41:26. at the end of it, my hips are sore. i feel like i'm soaking in a big bathtub of reused bath water. tepid. i got so bored that i spent an extra hour caulking today at HfH--i spent 4 hours caulking the 90 degree angles between dry wall and wood in various closets of an unfinished house. i would have stayed longer but my hands were cramping from squeezing the trigger. i show up to bikram 30 mins early and spend it breathing in the heated room. i'm at level 53 of word-scramble. i spent hours making tamales and oaxacan mole from scratch. tomorrow i'm going to the bike coop and hopefully will get to spend 5 hours scratching sandpaper against rubber.
i keep moving and running around and skittering about and i get so frustrated that i can't go to sleep.
finally there's so much stress for things that are completely out of my control and i can't do anything but run around to distract my heart and try not to feel completely powerless.
i don't understand what i'm supposed to do with myself.
i shouldn't have more than a week to do nothing, ever.

2010-12-10T02:05:00.002-05:00

today lauren, sandy, and i went to kroger's--the one that's open 24 hours-at around midnight. we got some apples, oranges, bananas, etc. then as we were passing by holiday poinsettas with glitter glued on them, lauren started rubbing her face against the leaves to get the glitter on her face. she then rubbed glitter on her chest and then sandy rubbed glitter on her face.
glitter is my favorite color.

home home

2010-12-07T14:11:00.004-05:00

finally home. after the madness that was thanksgiving/thanksmas, now i have most of december to stay still.
i am enjoying the feeling of myself slowly getting heavier, a slight sinking feeling that feels warm. i think quicksand can't be that bad if you're in the right state of mind.

last saturday, we had a small local show of a noise/experimental set. it was really fun to play. we had one song of percussions + 2 flower synths, another of distorted echo harmonica + grunt tubes, another with 2 gameboys, and the last one was a spinning cymbals and bells mess. there weren't many people, but i think i like it that way too, at least for these sets. it makes it more intimate and personal. it was music felt loud, chaotic, random yet organized, and yet playing them, i felt more together than ever.

we also have a gallery art show to put together for feb. i had forgotten all about it, but now that i'm home again, i've been obsessing about what to curate and make for the show. lately my taste has been all about pink, glitter, and goth, like some tripped out industrial raver goth chick, which sounds terrible, i know, but can be wonderfully fantastical is executed right. (i blame it on my current john waters obsession)

today, z and s are coming into town for about a week to work on the next record. i am not sure what the dynamics are gonna be like with them all around, but i think it will be ok since we all work hard and like each other. .. i think.

mostly, i am learning how to feel myself again. when not constantly being whisked away in a van from city to city, a different country every day. picking out what to wear when my wardrobe has extended way beyond the rolling suitcase i've been lugging around for a year. figuring out what to cook and what to eat when i don't have a menu with, if i'm lucky, two veg options. figuring out where to go, how to get there, and from there, then what? everything seems quieter but not so. there is more noise, more distractions, more choices, more everything. ha. i sound like i got out of jail, not a tour.

2010-11-22T18:52:00.003-05:00

and the tour finally comes to a crashing halt.

i feel so weird. we finished in amsterdam a couple of night ago. at the last song, i almost cried. and then we all got smashed and made ruckus and passed out at the hotel. then i flew straight to LA. now im in the valley at my moms house and what a lot of people refer to as "reality" has started to set in. bills, job-search, class enrollment, etc. granted, i'm ridiculous jet-lagged, out of shape, and tired as hell physically and emotionally, but still it feels so weird to all of a sudden be walking the streets of reseda, instead of some other one i can't even pronounce.

it's so weird to think that since february, i've basically been on the road. US(x2), Canada, Europe (x3), China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand. not that i got to see much, but the constant movement, the constant sense of going someplace, being somewhere. i feel drained in some ways. expunged. i do think that at the end of the european tour, i was really feeling that this has to be the end, that i couldn't possibly be healthy traveling much longer without a break. it's a very visceral thing you feel. your body is just stiff and jittery. your mind feels like it's just dense and opaque and nothing gets in and nothing gets out.

but i already miss being on the road. this is the worst part of it--when you're on the road, all you want to do is go home. and when you're home, all you want to do is be on the road. does this ever stop?

well, i guess on to the next thing. eh?

i have the holidays coming up. getting presents, spending time with family and friends. also enroll for classes, start applying for jobs again, buy books, etc.
we will also be working on the new album in the next couple of months. i have no idea what i'll be doing next summer, or after school. i have no idea where i will be or how i will be.

onwards and upwards!

Edit:
This is what I did this year.
Dublin, Ireland @ Whelans
Glasgow, UK @ NiceNSleazy
Edinburgh, UK @ Electric Circus
Manchester, UK @ Islington Mill
Sheffield, UK @ The Harley
Cardiff, UK @ Cardiff Arts institute
London, UK @ The Luminaire
Brighton, UK @ Freebutt
Coventry, UK @ Taylor John’s House
Greensboro, NC @ Guilford College
Atlanta, GA @ Drunken Unicorn
Birmingham, AL @ The Bottletree
Little Rock, AR @ Sticky Fingerz Chicken Shack
Norman, OK @ Opolis Productions
Dallas, TX @ The Cavern
Houston, TX @ The Studio @ Warehouse Live
Austin, TX @ Red 7
Tempe, AZ @ Sail Inn
Tucson, AZ @ Solar Culture
San Diego, CA @ The Casbah
Los Angeles, CA @ Echo
Santa Cruz, CA @ The Crepe Place
San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
Olympia, WA @ Northern
Portland, OR @ Holocene
Boise, ID @ Neurolux
Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive
Lawrence, KS @ Jackpot Saloon
St Louis, MO @ Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center
Iowa City, IA @ The Picador
Northfield, MN @ The Cave @ Carleton College
Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
Oberlin, OH @ The Dionysus Discotheque
Cleveland, OH @ The Spot
Buffalo, NY @ Mohawk Place
New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
Cambridge, MA @ Middle East downstairs
Amherst, MA @ Hampshire College Dining Commons
Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
Washington, DC @ DC9
Richmond, VA @ The Canal Club Downstairs Lounge
Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
Detroit, MI @ Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
Krems, Austria @ Donaufestival -
Shanghai, China @ YYT Live
Beijing, China @ Strawberry Festival
Busan, South Korea @ Basement
Daegu, South Korea @ Guess
Seoul, South Korea @ Rolling Hall
Jerusalem (IL), Yellow Submarine
Tel Aviv (IL), Levontin 7
Leipzig (DE), Altin Village Festival
Berlin (DE), Hebbel Am Ufer
Poznan (PL), Eskulap
Warsaw (PL), Powiekszenie
Vienna (AT), WUK
Graz (AT), Postgarage
Budapest (HU), A38
Ljubljana (SI), Kino Siska
Zagreb (HR), Zedno Uho Festival
Nuernberg (DE), K4
Frankfurt (DE), Brotfabrik
Duisburg (DE), Steinbruch
Utrecht (NL), Ekko
Trier (DE), Exhaus
Brussels (BE), Botanique
London (UK), Plan B
Roubaix (FR), Cave Aux Poetes
Paris (FR), Filmer La Musique @ Point Ephemere
Metz (FR), Cloitre Des Trinitaires
Luzern (CH), B-Sides Festival
Torino (IT), Spazio 211
Padova (IT), Unwound
Foligno (IT), Auditorium San Domenico
Roma (IT), Init
Bucharest (RO), Liveland Festival
Mexico City (MEX) Pasaguero
New York City (NY) Jelly in the Park
Sydney, Australia – Oxford Art Factory
Melbourne, Australia – East Brunswick Club
Brisbane, Australia – Frankly! Festival at Brisbane Powerhouse
Hobart, Australia – The Brisbane Hotel
Perth, Australia – Amplifier
Auckland, New Zealand – Whammy
Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery
Vestal, NY – Binghamton University
New York, NY – Le Poisson Rouge
Providence, RI – Club Hell
Ottawa, ON – Capital Music Hall
Quebec City, QC – Cooperative Meduse
Montreal, QC – Ukrainian Federation
Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace
Kalamazoo, MI – The Strutt
Bloomington, IN – Rhino’s
Cincinnati, OH – The Northside Tavern
Cleveland Heights, OH – Grog Shop
Buffalo, NY – Mohawk Place
Northampton, MA – Pearl Street
Boston, MA – Paramount Threatre
Portland, ME – Space Gallery
Milford, CT – Daniel Street
Washington, DC – The Red Palace
Harrisonburg, VA – Clementine
Gainesville, FL – Common Ground
Orlando, FL – The Back Booth
Tampa, FL – Crowbar
Tallahassee, FL – Club Downunder
Dijon (FR), Novosonic Festival
Dublin (IE), Darklight Festival
Bristol (UK), Arnolfini
Leeds (UK), Brudenell Social Club
London (UK), XOYO
Kortrijk (BE), De Kreun
Groningen (NL), Vera
Hamburg (DE), Kampnagel
Malmo (SE), Debaser
Stockholm (SE), Fritzs Corner @ Debaser
Oslo (NO), Cafe Mono
Copenhagen (DK), TBA
Berlin (DE), Festsaal Kreuzberg
Prague (CZ), Club Matrix
Muenchen (DE), Rote Sonne
St. Gallen (CH), Palace
Vevey (CH), Rocking Chair
Schorndorf (DE), Club Manufaktur
Milano (IT), Tunnel
Lyon (FR), Grrnd Zero
Paris (FR), Fondation Cartier
Luxembourg (LU), Exit07
Amsterdam (NL), Paradiso

hey homes

2010-11-06T16:12:00.002-04:00

i copy.

backstage at a dark dank venue under a bridge in the middle of central stockholm. i want to drink but i don't because i think i will play terrible if i drink. i am already insecure enough about my timing without having to worry about alcohol throwing me off.

the sun sets at 3pm here. stockholm is beautiful but cold in many ways. the more i travel, the more i miss california. i have jakub blast the song ¨california girls¨ in the van, and tease him about how hot the girls are in california. daisy dukes and bikini tops.

all the touring is almost over. since february, we went to europe twice (three times in london), US tour twice, korea, china, australia and new zealand. shows went anywhere between having 12 people in providence RI in a shitty club melodramatically called ¨hell¨ to over 500 in london. i feel like i've been all over but i don't feel very different. am i supposed to?

everything is real. real places, real people, real roads, real everything. but still, a blur. "a dream withal". i wonder when it will be when i can look back on this and remark on it in some noteworthy manner. perhaps never. perhaps itĺl just be done and that's all. finished.

how are you?

i know you're out there

2010-10-26T12:56:00.002-04:00

angela, do you copy?

come in, angela. i know you're out there, painting your nails, reading some lofty piece of modern american lit, throwing stones into a river or at a car, riding a motorized scooter around walmart sometime between twilight and dawn, i know you're out there!

2nd sat of 2010

2010-01-09T13:45:00.003-05:00

since the new year i've been getting up at near close to noon every day. i don't get up until j raises the blinds in the room and let's the sun in fully. then i spend about 30 minutes tossing off one by one the 5 strata of cavernous blankets until i finally emerge with a head full of permed tangled. yes. i permed my hair. lest you forget, i'm still a korean from LA.

today is a particularly relaxing day for me. i only have to work on my paper, review the songs, and make some new sounds on the synth. while doing that i'm trying not to get pissed off at people for leaking the album and ignore the internet. no one was went a physical copy of the album, but some press and reviewers were sent streams. and apparently someone taped the stream and then leaked it. what an asshole. so now we're in a mad dash to shift dates of press and releases and everything around and compensate for the album leaking more than a month ahead of schedule. downloading music is one thing, but to tape the stream of an album and leak it ahead of time is really a jerk thing to do, isn't it? i've been tempted to download the leak and see what the quality is, but for some reason, i won't do it. anyone tell me what the leak quality is like?

but besides that (big breath, count to ten)...

we got a new birdfeeder that we've hung in the trees outside. so every day, juncos, woodpeckers, mourning doves, sparrows, cardinals, titmouse, etc etc. and a shit load of squirrels have been congregating outside our window. come over for tea and we can sit by the window and bird watch!

unrelatedly, here is my list for new year's!

1. start gardening
2. music copyright research
3. read at least one dozen law-related books
4. record at least 5 songs
5. visit julie in vegas
6. play a show in korea
7. take parents to the aquarium
8. patience
9. run 5 miles nonstop (i'm at 1 now, which is the best i've ever done considering how i hate running)
10. write more

edit: volunteer more with the bike coop and seeds!

new year

2010-01-07T13:01:00.003-05:00

even if intermittent, the continued efforts to keep documenting in some manner what's going on in my life...

after crawling through the dark solitary weeks of finals, i'm finally done with school for the year.

i spent christmas on flights and airports, and the whole week before and after new years sick (nye spent sleeping in bed with a fever). and as much as i hate the holidays for various commonly shared reasons, having an excuse to get friends and family in one place again and share gifts and warm feelings make it worth it.

back in town and band stuff has picked up full force. we practice every day--for hours we bicker and cheer and snark and consult through the layers and layers of sounds j had meticulously sculpted together, only to completely disassemble them in order to find sounds we can play live. then we try to forge it together again with without knowing whether it actually did start with us after all.

besides practices we also have all the extra stuff that takes us late into the night. editing videos, designing shirts and bags, interviews, finding a rehearsal space, etc. etc. etc.

all this seems to be merely another creature to live with. luckily a creature i enjoy the company of. i don't feel particularly giddy about "touring with a band" in a way that one would think i should feel, although i am very much looking forward to playing music for a living for the whole year. i think having observed the whole thing for many years, albeit as an outsider, has taken any delusion of glamour out of touring. i'm more concerned about taking measures to be healthy through the long tours, getting my visas in order, paying the bills while i'm gone, not taking snide unfounded criticism to heart, and all those practical things.

that being sad, i still have my sex trafficking paper from last semester to finish up, so i should get back to it now.

2009-11-16T02:12:00.000-05:00

found 5 bucks on the street.
this is the world's way of telling me to chill the fuck out.
thanks world.

2009-11-14T19:10:00.002-05:00

i went to mall today. it was packed with people. i could only find parking at the jokingly far edge of the giant suburban parking lot, and once inside the mall, couldn't breathe among all the people spending money.

i came outside feeling so ridiculously angry. now that the recession is supposedly clearing up, it seemed like everyone else was doing well, except me and my family. and i was overwhelmed with an exaggerated sense of indignation, hot flashes at what i felt to be the injustice of the world. some people, at the age of 60, are having to take up second jobs cleaning pools to make rent. Or 54 and losing the job they've had for the last 20 years, having to make a pumpkin spice latte at the barnes & nobles for some 19 year old buying $30 fashion magazines. why the fuck do some people have to work until they die, while some others...

i have never felt this way before, but i am completely freaked out about money. i've always worked and had savings before, but the last year and a half practically wiped me out. i'm in a six-figure debt, and still i come up short by the end of the semester. this is the first time i've felt so financially unstable since i've started working when i was a teenager.

i don't even know what to do with myself at this point.

california

2009-10-02T12:09:00.001-04:00

and i miss the ocean and cliffs. i miss fog, i miss waves, i miss the pacific.

Darjeeling

2009-09-28T01:15:00.003-04:00

i had spent a lot of time in Darjeeling. I was partly stuck because all the train tickets out of town were booked for a while, and had partly forced myself to stay put because i was sick--fevers and chills and bitterness.

i stayed in a non-foreign tourist hotel named, i think, Aspara. It was the first decent looking hotel i had come to climbing up a randomly picked hill road when i got off the Darjeeling toy train. it was run by an old man and his son. the son was kind of mean looking. he never smiled or acknowledged me when as i walked by the front desk. the old man warmed up to me after a few days and would call me over some days to offer me cookies as he tore apart the cellophane wrappers.
the room had two beds. one i used to sleep in, the other i used to watch tv in. it had huge windows that looked out to the mountains.

most days were foggy. it was rare when i could see the next town over on the next mountain over.

first thing when i got up, i took walks up and down the mountains, to tea plantations, to the zoo, to the mountain climbing center, to the monasteries. sometimes the walks took until dinner time. sometimes only 30 minutes if i weren't feeling well.
then i would make a phone call to j and have some tea at the same place every day and buy a piece of pastry too.

then i would walk again. the second walks always went through the market where i would purchase mangos and bananas. every day i got a different price for the same two mangos and two bananas. when it was the boy, rather than the older man or the woman, it was always cheaper.
back to the hotel and i would eat the fruits while watching hindi channels on tv, then i would walk again.

i usually sat at the town square during twilight. i liked to watch the sky go dark. the town was usually filled with indian tourists. there were ponies which well-dressed children were hoisted on top of and slowly paced around in circles around the square. there were photographers, hawkers, and a lot of families. a lot of local people--old tibetan women, groups of old men smoking and chewing, teenagers--also came and people watched. once in a while, a local college student would walk his motorbike through the square, although completely unnecessary, and inevitably be accosted by his friends trying to jump and ride on his bike.
when it got dark, the orange lights would create a strange effect through the thick fog, and i would order some tea from the street vendors and watch the crowd disperse for dinner.

if i were hungry i almost always had dinner at the chaat place. i think it was called hot and tasty. or hot and fast? i liked it because it was always busy, and i enjoyed the human company while jostling around for an empty table.

on the walk back to the hotel, i always stopped by the same corner store to make another phone call and buy a bottle of water. it was always the same lady who reminded me faintly of a lady that goes to my mom's church.

i never felt confused because i knew exactly what i was feeling. i was sick but it didn't hurt as much as it could have because i was alone. i didn't laugh but i didn't cry either. maybe i smiled but it's hard to tell what is on your face when you feel invisible. perhaps there was no need to smile, either. it felt good. i didn't do much thinking about myself, but instead was satisfied just to feel my weight, to merely feel myself as a body. as it is, i am barely the woman i am.