san francisco (iii)

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san francisco again. this time i think i've got a breakthrough. this is c&ped outta a rant, mostly unedited (added in some punctuation, heh):

i love this city. i love this city in a way that, when i go across the bay in the afternoon and see it shining in the fog, something in me caves in on itself. i think i've figured out why.

the reason it collapses me is because i can't...grasp it. it's like music. ever transient. the moment you hear it is the moment it's gone.

and san francisco - from a distance -

i love san francisco. i love being in it, living in it. but that sort of crushing love only comes when i'm across the bay from it. not even in it. just seeing it. and it's just...the moments.

i can - and i have, lotsa times - stood somewhere on the east bay from 5:30ish all the way until 7pm. usually with someone (if i'm alone, it's shorter - maybe 30 min, an hour). but if i'm with someone, like bri or even just a friend, i can just stand there, and just live it. watch the light change.

but it's gotta be "live". heh. like - see, you can't turn that to a movie ,a picture. it loses something if you see it again, or if it's static. that's what it is - if you try to record it, it becomes static. and the magic of it is that every moment is always slipping by.

the city is so far away. it's miles away across the bay and it's white in fog and sunlight, and you can't touch it. more so than that, you can't even touch what it is that makes you cave in on yourself - because what makes you cave in, is living it. is watching the city in the changing afternoon luminescence. and every minute you watch, every second that slips by - is never coming back. and that's what's crushing about it, as well as what's beautiful about it.

(look how much i'm ranting, heh)

it's cuz i can't...put it down right. i gotta keep going back over it to tweak, so it makes more sense.

here. one last go. what's beautiful about it, is living the moments of watching it. but because you're living it, and because it'll never come back again, you can't grasp that beauty; and because you can't grasp it - it's heartbreaking.

THERE.

san francisco (ii)

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man. i was @ berkeley today and i was up the tenth floor of Evans? looking west?

oh god

SF shrouded in fog.

looking at it, i was INSPIRED. i wanted to write bad poetry. i wanted to write prose and novels about SF. i kept thinking, 'yeah. looking at it, you understand why people say, this is it. this is the city you'll love for the rest of your life.'

course, no one says that, except me.

god, i love it. PASSIONATELY. divine love, baby. that kind people feel for their gods, that makes 'em want to cry and laugh all at once, the kind that grabs 'em by the heartstrings and tugs. that's what it is. looking at san francisco, white and utterly ablaze, luminous in the fog that catches the afternoon sun, i wanna curve in on myself to keep from splitting apart because it's - too - much. it's so beautiful it hurts.

i wish you could know what it feels like, to drive up from somewhere down south. that feeling you get when you get past the mountains north of LA, wind out from that last turn in the freeway and see the endless expanse of the central valley spread out before you, where you can set the cruise control on 80 and pop the CDs out for the long straight drive ahead - and you see it. you see it on the road signs.

North Interstate 5.

SAN FRANCISCO.

oh god, the feeling. the FREEDOM of it. you're flying. you want to shout it at the top of your lungs: INTERSTATE 5. NORTHBOUND. SAN FRANCISCO. you're driving and the road is flying by and your tunes are blasting and it's early afternoon and it's hot and bright and wonderful, and you know it, like in your bones and your blood. you know you're going back to san francisco, the great city by the bay, the city you love. you know you'll be there just in time to swing around those mountains and see it, shining in the evening.

i'm totally overcome. hahah. thinking of it, i mean? i'm just TOTALLY overcome. it's like you're going home to your girlfriend or something, only even more so. i can't believe how much i love it. heh. i sound stupid, but it's true.

i look at it and i know it: this is the city i'll love for the rest of my life. it's almost like an ending, a finality. there are bigger cities, richer cities, brighter cities, cities with more history. but nothing will top this city, ever. wherever i go, i'll remember the mrs. fields in the financial district, the palace of fine arts in the shadow of the bridge, the hills and the cable cars and the pigeons and the blue skies. and the way it looks in the afternoon, in the fog, ablaze with light.

macintosh!

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2010 note:

course, we all know how the mac affairs always end. MAD INFATUATION! TECHNOLUST! ... a waning of the fire. a gradual and inexorable building of frustration with numerous flaws, bugs, issues, problems, all emerging after the initial burst of amazement and style > substance, form > function has been lost. and in the end:

our silences are long cold.
and we sleep with our backs turned.

LOL.

--

holy moly: i'm in love with Macs.

yes yes yes, i know, macs suck, macs are slow, macs crash every other minute.

BUT.

omfg. if you saw this mac i'm on. it's one of those new ultra-slick ones, all silvery grey inside and transparent plastic coating on the outside. it's got a flatscreen display, and lemme tell you, i've NEVER seen such a crisp image. my eyes are wide from staring and i bet if you looked at my pupils right now they'd be huge.

i surfed around all my favorite pages and i MARVELED. omfg. pictures have NEVER looked so VIBRANT in my life. i swear, the colors are literally breaker than life, the edges sharper, the images crisper. i look away from the screen and the WORLD looks duller and fuzzier.

it's AMAZING.

and that's just the beginning. there are these little buttons on the monitor - two of them. both of them? holy fuck. they light up when you touch them. i mean, not when you press. when you TOUCH. this diffuse whitish glow behind them brightens up. it's SPACE AGE, man. it's like something out of a movie.

SO COOL.

and both of them? bring up menus on the screen INSTANTLY. not like ugly monitor menus, but menus from the computer, super-slick.

and the mouse?

oy!!!

it's like. clear. totally clear. not cheap plastic either. thick hard curving perfectly clear plastic. but you don't see the ugly circuits - who the fuck wants to see those? no; they're concealed in a black thingy. the mouse isn't all stupidly curvy either. very plain, just an oval. but it feels GOOD. it's heavy, the way a good pen should be. and when you click?

THE WHOLE TOP MOVES.

it's not a button!!! the whole mouse! like is in two halves! the top and a tiny black bottom where the laser thingy is! and when you click, the whole top of it comes down with a really REALLY neat "heavy" clicky-feel.

i LOVE this computer. i want it to have my babies. cool transparent silvery-gray babies with buttons that light up.

i'm totally amazed. i mean, i thought those DELLS were cool. it's still a piece of shit OS-wise, but - man oh man. i think the graphics and the overall cool factor is seducing me.

it's.

SO.

COOL!

parents.

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so it's occurred to me that your relationship with your parents change as you grow older.

when you're 5 years old, your parents are the All. they're never wrong, they're never bad, they're never human. they're your gods. like the old cliche says, every child's word for god is 'mother'.

then you get older. around 13, 14, you start growing aware of yourself as a person. of the people around you. in school, you're learning more profound, critical ways of thinking. and suddenly you see reflected in your parents the faults that you've been taught to see elsewhere. they're not perfect; they're not infallible, and sometimes, they have a rotten-ass day and take it out on you.

thus begins the process of growing up. you start pulling away. at the same time you see all their faults, you remain somewhat blind to your own. you think you know better; with typical adolescent arrogance, you think you're smarter than anyone else.

i'm using 'you' here. i shouldn't. this is from personal experience. those pronouns should be i.

i thought i was smarter than anyone else. which isn't to say i walked around telling myself that - it's just that i had an implicit arrogance that, i suppose, has yet to entirely go away. but any which way, i was embarrassed by my parents. i thought they were impossibly old and dorky. i thought they couldn't understand me and the problems and the triumphs i faced. they did things that humiliated me at every turn; i couldn't stand to be around them. at the same time, i sneered at my friends who treated their parents like dirt, never realizing i was doing the same thing.

i think my parents musta been really puzzled then. i'm their firstborn, and when they were growing up, kids were more respectful toward their parents. especially my parents, one of whom lost her father as a teenager and thus carried a burden that precluded defiance; the other of whom was the eldest of four boys, son to busy parents that were, while not neglectful, certainly not around very much. my mother became her mother's support and my father became a father to his brothers. both of them were the eldest of their family, and both of them grew up fast, skipping past teenage angst. then along comes me: surly, disrespectful, slouching, shying away from them, scowling whenever they followed me around.

must've hurt them. they must've been confused and sad, feeling like they were losing me. and, ugh, if i could, i'd take it all back.

freshman year of college, i couldn't wait for my parents to leave. could. not. wait. of course when midterms came along and stress crashed down like an avalanche, i missed them - but even that was transient. went home for break, and it was the same old thing. i was embarrassed by them.

then somehow things changed. sometime between freshman year of college and senior year of college, my attitudes changed. i missed my parents. i grew to love my parents deeply, or maybe rediscovered that. when they came to visit, i wanted them to stay longer. i tried to make them comfortable, as though doing that might undone what i'd done for the past ten years. i showed them around, introduced them to my friends, didn't slouch, didn't scowl.

i don't know how that change came about, but it's still happening. with every passing year i'm getting to love my parents more and miss them more. it's true, you know - before you've left home permanently, and even after, you think you won't miss them. you think you'll be glad to be free. but the farther away you fly, the more you'll want to go back.

i'm having trouble articulating this. i feel so cliche when i say this. i feel like i'm doing a self-satisfied pat on the back. i had the words in my mind so clearly an hour ago. i think clearly when i walk at night, and when i stand in the shower. something about both acts clears my mind of extraneous thoughts. i think it's something about the darkness and repetition of one, the utter relaxation of the other. either way, i think better like that.

i keep telling myself i'll get a tape recorder, so i can record the thoughts i have in the shower and while i'm walking. but of course that's ridiculous, and i won't ever do it.

i'm kind of dissatisfied tonight. i don't know why. i think i'm just stressed, but the things that usually interest me don't. and i miss my parents a lot. that's dumb, i know - i'm 27 years old, and missing my parents.

but it happens. my mother always said it happens. she'd miss her mother, and i know my dad missed his parents too, though he'd never say it. i didn't really believe her when she told me that the older you get, the more you love your parents. i was a teenager then, and now i'm just looping all my thoughts into a circle.

ugh.

sometimes i wonder what i'd do different if i could do it all again. i mean, the party line that i give to that is 'nothing. i regret nothing.' but times like these, it's not true.

i regret a lot. i regret that it seemed to be in my nature to cut myself loose from my parents and, in doing so, cut them to the bone. i think i wrote once on this diary about how after teenage, it was different with my parents, and that's true. before, they're your god. after, they're your friend. you still love them - you love them more than ever - but it's different. you see their flaws. you see them as human. most times this is a good thing, but i have to admit, sometimes i wish i could go back to the unadulterated, total belief in my parents.

i know why people worship gods. people always need something pure and holy to look up to. i know why eden was blessed blissful ignorance, too. times like these, i really know.

heatwave.

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Hot
as
HELL
today.

How hot? Try this. 90-something degrees. In San Francisco. In October.

That's not normal, folks. That's not even *remotely* normal. I don't think it was this hot all summer. Some sort of El Nino this year, but goddammit, the last time there was El Nino it rained.

I miss the rain. I would do a lot for one good, drenching rainstorm. I know by the end of winter I'll regret saying that, but right now I crave rain the way I craved it in the artificially green desert that was San Diego.

It was so hot today that everyone on the street was in shorts. Guys wore no shirt and girls, being trapped by society and all, wore the skimpiest shirts they could find.

This is usually a good thing. However, when you're baking to death in your car and the leather feels like a steam-iron on your back, you tend to care less about ogling curves and more about getting into air-conditioned buildings. Red lights last forever. Traffic jams are unbearable. If you stand too long in one place, you feel like your shoes have melted to the ground.

The air was hot. And it was humid. Not really humid - but decently so. 50, 60%, the way it usually is here. It was the kind of heat that surrounded you and poured into you, even if you were in the shade. And if you weren't, the sun blistered the skin off your back.

The heat broke around 4pm. Sort of. It went from 90-something to 80-something. There wasn't a breeze, but at least the air was liveable in. As long as you stayed out of the sun, you were okay.

I took three showers today. I took one every time I had to go outside for more than a few minutes, because if I didn't I felt gross. At least that still works. I remember in San Jose sometimes it'd get so hot showers didn't work. You sweated before them and right after them. Hell, you sweated right through them, and all day you dripped and melted and sweated and stuck and stunk and thought of one thing: night.

All day, I thought of one thing: night.

At dusk, it was 80 degrees. An hour later, it was 77. At 10pm, it was probably still 70 degrees. It was so warm that it felt earlier. It felt, tasted, smelled and sounded like summer. Not just summer this year, but summer a long time ago, when I was little. Strange how these perceptions stay with you. Air conditioners, food cooking (ever notice how in the summer you always smell food cooking because people leave their windows open, and also because warm air seems to hold smells better?), warm breeze, people congregating in outdoor cafes lounging around sipping ice tea. And frogs. It was so hot the frogs were fooled. They thought it was summer and they started croaking like crazy, advertising their presence, looking for mates. In the darkness, all you heard was frogs from every patch of greenery there was.

All that was missing was the smell of flowers.

3:32am this instant. I can still hear the air conditioners going. Frogs are still going too, though some have giving up now. I'm writing this from my balcony. I've been hanging out on this balcony since I got home today. Air con would cool my apartment, but A/C is expensive. So I just opened the door to the hall and the windows, and I'm still waiting for it to get below 80 inside.

This is one of those nights you don't sleep. If you try, it's too hot. You toss and turn and get hotter and toss and turn more and get even hotter and...

You just don't do it. Unless you spread out a towel and sprawl on the floor, but somehow that's a little too summery and I don't feel like doing that right now. So. Yeah. This will be a night I don't sleep. Or not until 4am. I'll just hang out on my balcony sipping a cold one, coke, not beer, fizzing it on my tongue letting the breeze slide in from the sea. One of my cats just came to jump up on the retaining wall. That used to scare me, since we're up on the 14th story, but neither of them have so much as lost their footing once, so I'm used to it now.

Cat silhouetted against city. Cool breeze stirring sluggish apartment-heat.

Like some sort of haiku.

It was a damn good day.

adolescent ranting.

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so i decided to put this up again cuz truth of it is, i was afraid to put it up in fears that everyone will now hate me. then i hear that apparently these flaws aren't nearly as well-hidden as i thought, and that i'm just finally saying what everyone already knows.

since that's the case, fuck, i'll leave it up. heh. remind myself.

***

flaws:

ARROGANCE.

my god, do i have this in buckets. this very post is an act of arrogance. i'm writing it because rachel wrote one and i was like, ooo, i wanna do that. i wanna shake out my dirty laundry because i assume the world cares and wants to see!

i am an insufferably arrogant bastard. i can't help it - whup there i go again, the arrogance of pinning my blame on some undefined Other, which i can neither touch nor change, thus freeing me to be as arrogant as i like.

i am arrogant. i think i am the end-all-be-all of things. i think i am wiser because i am older; i think i am better because i'm going to make more money. i think my point of the view is the correct one, no matter how contradictory or self-contradictory, even, it might be.

i think my schooling and the letters after my name mean i am smarter than anyone else who doesn't have these things. hell, i think i'm smarter than everyone because i'm damned good at BSing crap (more arrogance - reducing the hard work of teachers everywhere in giving assignments and appreciating what i've given in return to mere chaff, bullshit, nothing of importance - EVEN IF I DID WORK HARD ON IT), because i'm damned good at taking standardized tests (1510 SAT, 36ACT, 41 MCAT, 2250 combined GRE, IQ in the 99.9th percentile - WORSHIP MY FUCKIN EGO), because i can't help but flaunt this and - UGH

okay i am now honestly drowning in my own arrogance. i can't stop it! look, there it is again! shifting of blame, unstoppable floods of arrogance; i am the niagara of egotism.

i am so arrogant that i think arrogance is a GOOD thing.

*

HYPOCRISY.

is that even a fucking word? no matter. i am also hypocritical. while i am allowed to be arrogant, no one else is. i can't STAND fucking arrogance in other people; i tear it to shreds, i shred it apart. i can't stand it, and yet i'm so arrogant i don't think i'd be able to stand living with me.

*

UNTHINKING CRUELTY.

i am. unbelievably, unthinkingly cruel. unintentionally, maybe, but perhaps that's just me pinning the blame elsewhere again. i excel at ripping things to shreds. all this goes back to arrogance, really. i think my POV is the only correct one, and i never hesitate to rip into another POV to show why it's wrong.

i love to debate; i love to fight; i debate deeply personal things with a careless, analytical glee, and i shred deeply personal beliefs like they were words on paper.

i do not care that this may hurt people while i'm doing it. i'm just happy that i can do it. i'm just happy that i can shout down anyone else and impose my will upon them.

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SELFISHNESS.

this is an extension of all of the above. i am INCREDIBLY selfish. in my book, it seems to be me myself and i. i think i'm capable of caring for people, loving, all that, but even if i say i'll take a bullet for someone/something, i think if it should come down to the wire, i wouldn't sacrifice myself for ANYTHING.

*

TEMPESTUOUSITY.

another made up word. this is me in a nutshell. i think for the most part people consider me mellow, but god help you if i'm in a bad mood and you accidentally say the wrong thing and don't realize it in the 0.2 seconds it takes me to fly into a scathing sort of cruel rage, hot or even worse analytically cold, and begin my process of arrogance, selfishness and unthinking cruelty.

more than that, though, more hurtful than my hairtrigger piss-off time, is how fast i bounce back. i am arrogant about my bounce-back time; it is an act of selfishness that allows me to bounce back so damn quick, and it's also an act of unthinking cruelty to do so. i can get angry, i can roar and rail and bang things around, and then i'll be all right ten minutes later. i'll be happy. i'll be grinning. all the while the other party will still be losing white blood cells over my latest bout.

i have to admit, i say all this with a certain glee. i'm gleeful because i am, yes, selfish, arrogant, and unthinkingly cruel.

*

DECEIT.

i had to think twice about writing this one. actually i wrote it, erased it, rewrote it. writing deceit down kinda blows the cover, doesn't it?

i am DECEITFUL. i have to be. otherwise people would know i'm arrogant, hypocritical, unthinkingly cruel, selfish, and tempestuous. or rather, they'd know all this, and not forgive me for it. the only reason i can think that i still have friends is that somehow i've managed to mask my roaring shrieking screaming flaws as some sort of CHARM, some sort of CHARISMA, for god's sakes, and somehow people around me still like/love me.

which i love.

because i'm selfish, arrogant, hypocritical, unthinkingly cruel, tempestuous, and deceitful.

i'm sure there's more, but i'm sick of this adolescent whining.

general blargh.

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i am so. tired.

i slept at 3:30am (couldn't sleep earlier. was romancing viconia.) and i got up at like. 10am? That's 6.5 hrs of sleep, which is good, but i am still. so. tired.

that said, there's nothing more to say. guess this is gonna be another one of my short entries. heh.

well, i guess i could say this: those vision elite pens? god. love 'em. i'm stocked with like 3 of them, which i don't need, because they're refillable and i have like six billion refills for 'em. but i still like having them around. they're puuurty. 3 shiny silvery sleek styluses.

i am the master of alliteration.

no i'm not, but hey. heh. i'm tired. cut me some slack.

this is what i want right now:

pillow, face down, light off, sprawl, sleep. zzz.

that's it! i'd be so easily satisfied. but nooo, gotta drag my ass up and go to appt. fuckin little whiny brats. hahaha.

btw those of you who don't know who tf viconia is, you don't wanna know.

addictive. grr.

keeling over in 10, 9, 8...

no! up! on your feet, soldier! get to work! go! come on! MOVE YOUR LAZY ASS!

...okay, that did not work, obviously, since i'm still here typing vigorously.

ok going to work now. really.

jawdropper, showstopper.

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have i ever talked about brianna here? don't think i have. think i probably should, cuz. she's.

jawdroppin'.
showstoppin'.

yeah. you know what i mean. haha. okay, maybe you don't. see, this is how we met. 12:45pm or so, lunchtime, food court. lotsa yuppie-types, doctors nurses and the whole nine yards. san francisco. not too far from the once-mighty silicon valley.

girl sitting there in a booth. turned away from me right, so i could only see her profile. but dude, she was cute, really delicate, fine profile. so i'm thinking, hey. i go over to the next table, i sit down. eventually i say hi when i see her looking this way, we talk, exchange numbers, and the rest is history.

but all that comes later. what this is about, is the first 10 seconds. cuz see, while i'm setting my tray down, she turns to see who's sitting near her. she turns and faces me and i see her face and.

i swear.

i couldn't breathe for a split second. my breath just stopped dead in my chest; i was staring. i was fuckin' gawking for a second there. she was just. unbelievably.

LOVELY.

i mean, she's not a supermodel. she's not big-boobs-big-lips-come-hither-and-fuck-me-stare. she's...fine. she's slender and tall, long thin hands. graceful, quiet, a little shy. she has a very fine, lovely, foxlike sort of beauty. lovely is the word for her. her nose is thin and not overly long, kinda pert at the end, but not button. her face is oval with good cheekbones.

long hair, that sort of reddish brown, auburn. sleek, not frizzy. her eyes are grayish blue, large and always a little surprised-looking. she wears glasses. she wore glasses that day, very dainty oval glasses, and.

she's just very...slantingly, sleekly lovely. beautiful. utterly beautiful. god.

hmm...

i just reread what i wrote and somehow it came off as being very objectifying and crass. i didn't mean it that way.

i was writing it down because i wanted to remember. jess is accusing me of being negative right now, which is why i didn't write this at first (cuz it's all negative, haha), but i wanted to write down what i saw in her that first day in case someday we get in a bad fight, or break up, or hell - grow old together, and i lose sight of what i had seen in her.

then i could come back here and read my 27-year-old self ranting about her, and the way i felt when i first saw her. then i could remember that she was the girl who, of all the girls i've ever seen in all my life, sucked all the oxygen out of my lungs for a second and left me staring.

two years and machines.

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so it occurs to me that my diary had its 2nd anniversary two days ago. 2 years writing on this thing. it's september again, and i think the skies here are always that shade of blue in september: amazing, depthless, hard enough to hurt. heh. heartbreaking beauty. something like that.

i meant to write more, but i'm braindead. i'll just leave this at that. been listening to a lotta music though. strange thoughts in mind. this came up earlier and i'm just gonna c&p instead of like. redoing it.

this is what i kinda thought about listening to theatre of tragedy's Machine (vnv nation remix):

(begin c&p)

okay. well. like, inside this huge...plant/factory thing.

and like - shiny steel. but not smooth. ridged and cut into these grooves and protrusions. all these tubes made out of steel like that, and wires in those bendable - gah, what are they called - those bendable steel things? with all the rings? like, lamps have that a lot. the kind that you can bend around. anyway - wires in those, twisting around these steel tubes/pipes, which are kinda square and etched and at right angles to each other, everywhere

sometimes there are these windows in the steel tubes: inside, glowing green/blue stuff. and flickering rings of that green/blue light kinda skim over the tubes here and there like nerve impulses.

and this whole set-up kinda centers around this central core of blue-green stuff in a big clear container, like a torus, the machine they use to contain superheated plasma in a magnetic field with.

just general impressions. but that whole thing? is like - somehow the physical place where people's consciousnesses are stored. people don't exist physically anymore - they exist inside those pipes, just consciousnesses stripped of body.

the ultimate freedom and the ultimate prison. if you can think it up, it IS - because you're nothing but thought. go anywhere, be anything. at the same time, you don't really go anywhere, and you're nothing at all.

gah, okay, that was a morbid thought.

(end c&p)

jess twinks out!

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This is, um, Jess's little imitation of a twink scene. Heh. This will only be funny if you roleplay online.

::she purses her luscious red lips and pouts. shifting her ass enticingly on the chair she looks at him. Ruby Night sighs boredly to herself. she looks at him again and thnsk, why am i alone.::

::her eyes are a striking violet and her skin as is pale like alabaster and pearl while her hair is NIGHT (ruby night) black and when you look in them you see her very soul.::

::she sighs:: "On the rocks, bar tender..."

::she sighs again and thinks, this town sucks.::

::when the studly 6'4 mna comes in with the large buldge under his coat Ruby Night arches her eyebrow in a way which says I know what you are and then she turns back to her decanter of wine and says,:: i didn't ask for this. i asked for a bloody mary. ::the bartender falls over himself because of her beauty and apologizes profusely. Ruby smiles, her wet red lips alluring.::

::she sighs.::

::where are my kindred? she thinks, casting a stunning glance towards Phoenix Knight again and lingering. she flips shining raven hair over her pure white skin and sips her bloody mary like a lady. like a creature of the night.::

::finally she gets up and dances. she moves through the cwrowd like a demoness and her long ravan hair swings just below her perfectly formed ass. she is in a tight black leather cat suit which looks like she can't breathe in it (not that she needs to breathe) and it shows off every curve of her body. her boobs are large and perfectly formed like two ripe melons and her decolleteageu is marred only by a single ruby pendant. her unusual violet eyes focus on YOU and she dances seductively through the crowd, licking the neck of a kine sexily.::

::she pants a little lips parted. her eyes are longing;;, as shje dances.::

::the song ends and she breaks away from her partner with an aloof smile. he tries to hold onto her but she gives him a look and (dominate 1):: "Go away." ::and he leavesr her alone.::

::she sighs.::

::Ruby Night sighs again, her full curvaceous boobs strain against the tight shirt. (App 6)::

::"Who Wants to Live Forever" by Queen comes on and she sighs again looking sad.::

::finally she can't take it any more. who wants to live forever / when love must die. ruby night is taken by a sudden passion. she takes out a switch blade and looks at it gleam in the dark lights.:: "what have i got left to live for? i'm not even alive," ::she murmurs. one big, crimson tear spills out of one eye and paints a blody trail dwn her cheek.::

::she looks at the dancers, playing with the knife.::

::she puts it against her skin and looks at the cold vishous metal against her perfect pure skin.::

::with a sudden cry of vengeance and rage and suffering her anguished soul crying out through eyes violet like the night Ruby Night slashes her wrists and lets the blood flow as she waits to die.::

::her blood runs across the bar a deluge of sin.::

Ok U ppl SUCK y is no one playing with my character?

She iskilling herself!

Fck uyou!

(logs out)

shakespeare at stanford.

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It occurs to me that I like walking around at night, outside, and alone. it's somehow easier to think and let cool creative thoughts fill your head when you're alone and the world is dark and quiet than it is during the day, or when you're with someone. well, the latter is obvious, as you have to expend energy and thought to keep up a conversation most the time, but the day thing really matters too.

during the day everything's bright and you can see everything and everyone, and it all crushes in on your mind and takes up your attention. you walk down the street and you see stuff that triggers thought. you think, hmm do i want that CD or not? oh wow that smells good i'm hungry. nah wait i'm not, just greedy. damn nice car. shitload stereo, sucky song though. someone turn it off--yeowza, there goes hot girls in tight shirts.

stuff like that. you know? it clutters up your mind, and it's all mundane and everyday, and there's no room for anything else.

at night, though, it's different. it's all dark, so most of the world is murky and indistinct. most people are in their homes, and if you're walking in a place without stores, that sensory overload is taken away too. what's left is just yourself, your thoughts, and wherever they lead you.

i'm talking about this because i was walking from brianna's door to my car, and then from my car to my apartment building, and i was pretty late and everything was quiet. it was great. it was kinda cloudy today, partly cloudy i think it's called, and all these sort of soft, indistinct-edged clouds - they have them a lot in late summer/early fall in the bay, when the summer fog is just starting to turn into the winter clouds - were floating overhead, all nuclear orange from the city lights. that sounds awful, but it's beautiful in a odd sort of way. took me back.

all of a sudden i was remembering a summer i spent at stanford once. stanford has this church, the stanford memorial church, which is this huge, beautiful, spanish-influenced (all of stanford is spanish-influenced, which is great because it's not all faux-classical like most other big expensive good private schools are. it's a very californian school. everything's golden and red-tiled, and arches abound.)

anyway, i digress.

so, memorial church. mem-chu for short. the way stanford is set up, everything's concentric. heading into it, there's no mistake that you are entering Stanford University. you have this gate waaaay out, like a half mile, and then from there on out the road is straight and lined with humongous palm trees, each one worth like 50 grand. it goes straight up to the oval, which is where the road circles around in a, well, oval, the center of which is lined with flowers and a lawn.

beyond the oval, it's pedestrians only. you go through the big golden-stone arches into the outer quad, which has some rodin statues, and then you go through more arches into the huge, gorgeous inner quad. the ground is golden-brown flagstones, and there's a big sun or a compass or something laid down straight in the middle. f'ing amazing. this is all in a straight line, btw - palm drive (that's the name of the street), axis of the oval, middle arch of outer quad, middle arch of inner quad, and center of the church.

behind the church, off to the side, is a secluded little glade surrounded by trees, in which there are two semicircular stone benches. me and my friends would stay out all hours of the night in palo alto, and coming back toward the dorm, we'd pass through there at 3am, not a soul around, night's silence all around except for us and those nuclear orange clouds overhead, laughing and half-drunk on exhaustion, stumbling across the massive quad into the little glade that was a sort of refuge.

and this one night, me and my friends - two of them, jon and helen, were a couple - stopped in the glade and hung out and just talked about everything and nothing. helen was a drama major, or an english major, or both, and she had lines and lines from shakespeare memorized. so we were sitting there in this little glade on the stone benches, all in a loose circle, some laying down on the benches, looking up at the stars through the trees and the clouds, and helen recited shakespeare for us while jon lay with his head on her lap.

hamlet othello macbeth and caesar, lines and lines. i couldn't believe how many she knew. i think i was vaguely jealous. not enough to have any true enmity toward my friends, but i wished i had a girlfriend whose lap i could lay my head in, and watch her profile cast against the stars while she recited classical literature, the words of the ages, for me.

trains.

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scene (background music, aria - "ave maria"): trans-siberian railway. camera close to train tracks, ground level. steel rail and wood crosslay beneath, long as a dragon sprawled across all of the cold the dark the harsh tundras. heavy blizzard. night. everything's black except for snow falling to bury the world. horizon is a faint gleam.

train blasts by, sending up twin fans of snow, trailing a white mist, shaking snow off the branches of a dead tree crooked over the past.

camera rises, phantomlike; POV follows train. chases, levels, pans sideways, strafing along as though on coasters, keeping pace. sense of speed given by obscure shadows whipping by, blurred, in darkness. camera zooms in on dim lights within. protagonist: young revolutionary, fur cap, thick winter jacket, several day's beard growth on an intense, sharpedged face, gently swaying in the rhythm of the train, haggard eyes staring unseeing out. cradled in his arms, half on his lap, protagonist's woman, deathly pale and mortally wounded.

camera starts to lose pace. train passes by, at first imperceptibly faster, then accelerating relative to camera until it blurs. camera rises above tracks and pans out to reveal snow-choked landscape through which tracks carve a distinct curving twin black path, racing on to and past the horizon. on it, red tailight of the train, growing small.

wtf is it about trains? somehow they're so evocative. i was discussing this with liz. we decided it was something about the rhythm of the wheels over the tracks, muted but everpresent; the inevitability of the tracks laid down firm; the enclosure of the cars and the closed windows, yet still allowing that final brief aching contact in the way planes never will; the out-of-your-control motion, where the train might (will) start moving any minute, and there's not a thing you can do about it.

there's only so far you can follow on the platform, only so fast you can run. there's only so much time you have before the train becomes a red dot, becomes nothing. but the tracks linger on and on, in memoriam.

scene (background music, bliss - "kissing"): one of those tastefully-shot tender-lovemaking scenes. golden indirect luminescent lighting, indistinct glimpses: thighs intertwined, abdomens pressed movingly together, lips on underside of jaw, divine-rapturous face, closed eyes, parted lips; white sheets artfully rumpled. scene seguing into next--

long shot down train platform, grey concrete walk with glass overhang, once clear, now dulled and almost opaque with age and exposure. late afternoon, heavily overcast, sky a cast of silver-grey. gentle rain falling like mist. train tracks stretching across barren late-autumn plain, all the crops harvested, all the fields fallow. bare trees line the path of the tracks. protagonist on platform in thick dark overcoat, gloves and scarf, head bare.

overhead speakers announce times and trains in indistinct foreign language. train, black train engine w/ dark cars, is beginning to pull away. cut to window: we recognize the woman from previous scene, prim now in careful makeup and 1940s traveling attire, upper class. looking out, sorrow creases her brow. dimly reflected, protagonist's desolate face.

train begins to move faster. rhythm of the tracks. camera stays with woman in the window. emotions build and are bitten back on her face. reflected, protagonist growing smaller, face pulling out to a head-and-body shot to a full-figure shot, indistinct in the window.

like a man in a dream, he takes a few steps after the train. woman in window presses gloved knuckles to mouth. protagonist slowly raises a hand in farewell. the woman presses her palm flat against the window; tears spill over as image of man in window blurs and grows too small to see.

camera pans out. flat grey horizon under flat grey sky. steam train rolling away.

i have no fucking clue why my train scenes are all so desolate. it seems to fit though. hmm.

gah!

no ten minutes.

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had a dream!

and it was really weird. like, hmm. it was sorta about this girl at work? sorta? but not really. it just looked like her. she's chinese, but northeastern chinese, so she looks not quite like the 'stereotypical' chinese girl. like her nose is kinda long and aquiline (but she's really cute). she's the one that comes to work in skater garb. like baggy jeans and long lean sweatshirts. in general she's very long and lean. kinda street/skater chic.

anyway! so like! it was her, but not her. and we were hanging out, and she wanted to go (because she had something to do or something) but i wanted to make her stay and since she was right there, i decided i oughta kiss her to make her stay? (yeah, i know, random ideas.) but she were laying in the grass and i was sitting crosslegged and her head was in my lap, but like, face-up so if i bent down to kiss her we were upside-down to each other, right?

so i kept missing! i closed my eyes and i kissed her on the nose instead! so i laughed and tried again, and kissed her on the nose again! so i was thinking, all right, she must be MOVING or something, cuz i can't have THAT bad an aim, so i pulled her up and turned her around to face me and managed to kiss her on the mouth, but i was so afraid i'd miss again i didn't put anything into it, if you know what i mean, so it was like this chaste little peck on the lips and when i pulled away she was looking at me like, uh, that was it?

so i kissed her again. oh man, it was good. heh! i'm like, reflexively licking my lips just thinking about it. i distinctly remember thinking, ok, i oughta open my mouth this time, put some tongue into it and i did, and her mouth was all soft and kinda half-nervous opening back to mine and her lip gloss was like, sweet. is there sweet lip gloss? well, her lips were sweet, hahahaha. so here i am deepening the kiss and like, sucking her lower lip (cuz it was sweet!) and then suddenly she puts her hand on my chest and pushes me off and goes, "I know what you're trying!" - laughing, like - "but it's not gonna work! You don't get ten minutes!"

and then i woke up!

africa.

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i wanna live in prehistoric africa. long before colonialism; not too long after the dawn of man. i wanna be lean and dark and sure of foot. i want to walk on two legs and know that my ancestors were the first ever to do so.

i'll live in a tribe, i think. hunter-gatherers. i'd like to know what it is to move among the savanna grasses in the light of the wavering red dawn's sun. i want to sharpen my spear while i watch the antelope leap in the mist over the many and myriad branches of the river they'll call the Nile one day. i want to watch the lions glide among the grass as golden as their pelt with the sort of wary respect one gives to the true king of beasts.

i don't think i'd want to be the chieftain, or anything like that. i'd like to be just a young hunter, in the first or second summer of my adulthood. i'll shout and yell to flush the prey from the rocks and brush, and then i'll run and leap with them, as swift as they are with my weapons of stone and wood. and when i've singled out the one i'll call mine, i'll fell it with one unerring, steady throw of my spear that'll spill hot blood on the hot earth and kill it before its head hits the ground.

later in the night i'll skin my kills beneath a boabob tree while the sun sinks into the flat horizon of the west. all around me there'll be nothing but Plains; nothing but a sea of grass as endless as the sky. i'll know no true sea, no body of water larger than the watering holes so precious in the dry season. the water i know will be rain from the heavens, blood from the kill and sweat from my body.

the tribe will be led by a man old enough to be my father, but still in his prime. his wife is the head gatherer; his daughters some of the finest weavers in the tribe. his sons are my brothers-in-arms, the hunters whom i trust to guard my back when we stray close to the lions and the leopards. i'll have a wife of my own, too, whose eyes are dark and whose hands are deft. i wear the skins she binds into clothes for me with pride. our daughter, if she lives long enough, will grow up to be much like her, but for now she is young, an infant, small enough for me to hold in one hand.

she was born in the late spring, in the wet season, which is when all the babies are born. that's when the herds return to the northern plains again, and we follow. it's when the thunderheads amass in the morning and darken the sky; when the thunder rustles the grass and the wind tiptoes along the dried river-banks. then in the afternoon the rain would come, veils trailing from the moving clouds, and the watering holes would fill and for just a while, the plains will be green.

the dry season is the harsh season. that's when most of our very old and very sick die. we'll miss their company, the laughter of the young ones and the tales of the old ones, but that's the way things are on the savanna. when they cannot rise to follow the herd in the morning, we leave them behind as we must, and the jackals and the hyenas will be the end of their lives as they were the end of so many antelopes'. someday, if i'm lucky to live so long, i'll die in the same way. or, perhaps a little more likely, i'll meet my fate on the claws of a lion whose path i've crossed one time too many, or a she-leopard whose cubs i've strayed too close to.

i think before then, though, there'll be a night when the wind is cool over the grass and i'll stand outside my tent, awake, while my wife and child and tribe sleep. the earth will be dark and so flat that i couldn't ever imagine a mountain the size of those rising far to the east, where the continent called India is smashing into the one called Asia. the stars and the milky way will be bright beyond what i can imagine here, today, living in the heart of civilization; they'll be bright as they'll never be again, setting the heavens ablaze with a blue-black light around each pinpoint of fire, and i'll look and look and look.

and maybe, just for a moment, i'll understand something. something will click in me, and just for one single instant the sky will wheel and unlock, crack open like an egg, and i'll know the reason for the seasons' turning; the integration of the area under the curve; the secrets of the human heart; the tracery of the body's blood and the distance of the stars. it'll be like hearing for the first time a line in a song that'll become your favorite line in your favorite song, only multiplied a thousand million times, and long after the instant has passed i'll stand rooted to my place, staring up at the moonless sky, transfixed. afterwards, i'll spend all my life trying to grasp it again and in the end, be unable to articulate it as anything but divine and thus - reaching for something i'll never again touch - give birth to the world's first religion.

renee.

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2010 note: man, now i can't even remember what she looked like *LOL* ah, young love. i'm sure she was uberhot though.

--

okay.

remember renée?

well. due to SOMEONE'S ever-so-clever advice, i took her and her fiancé out to dinner. to like. i dunno. assess my position, see if this is some passing fancy, or truly some mad, mindless lust for the unattainable.

guess which it is.

...

...

...

...ten points for those who guessed the latter!

yeah. okay. so like.

ARGHHHHHHHH.

i can't believe this. i have never. EVER. been so smitten by someone so UTTERLY out of reach. Angelina doesn't count; she's COMPLETELY out of reach. Renée is...

well see.

she's not quite completely out of reach. she's out of reach of the sane and reasonable. i.e., the only way to possibly reach her is to go to boston in july, show up at her wedding, stand up during the "speak now or forever hold your peace" line, and scream at the TOP OF MY LUNGS:

"IIIIIII

OBJEEEEEEEEECT!"

....right.

like something out of a movie. a comedy at that, after which the father of the bride (who of course will happen to be an ex-heavyweight world champion) will proceed to drag me outside and pound the shit out of me while the devastated bride screeches at me for ruining her wedding and the bridegroom stands by looking amazed and thunderstruck.

so, okay, that option's out. option 2 would be,

BREAK THE FUCKING MARRIAGE UP BEFORE SHE GETS TO THE ALTAR.

it's like something out of a SITCOM now. what am i gonna do, try to woo the girl while simultaneously screwing the guy over? superglue him to his chair and make him miss a date with her? bolt him into his office...

argh.

no.

so of course, the only remaining option is:

stand by quietly. let it happen. forget it about it.

which is what i should do. cuz like. guh. it's just a crush, just an infatuation. i mean, i'm sure i've felt like this before; it just wasn't ever this bad because it's never been in a situation in which i couldn't for the life of me act on it.

it makes it worse, so much worse, that i know who the fiance is, and he's a pretty decent guy who i KNOW loves her to death, or at least halfway to death, and like. argh.

he's just a really nice guy! and it's hard to demonize him now, and even though what i SHOULD do now is realize that it's all for the best, all i can seem to do is FIND WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIM and compare it to ways in which i'm BETTER than him.

like.

ARGH.

1. i have a brighter future. dammit, i do. he's a fucking software engineer, i'm a doctor. i'm gonna run this fucking hospital one day (really, i am), and he's gonna go on churning out code for the rest of his life.

2. i'm a better conversationalist. i talked; he sat there and ate like a little idiot. okay, fine, maybe he's a good listener then, but i'm a good listener too! argh!

3. i'm not a fucking nerd!!! or well! not as nerdy as he is! he is such! a fucking! nerd! he must be thanking his lucky stars day and night that someone like renée fell on his lap, and...

....arghhh.

other narcissistic, cruel, awful things like that.

i am so. blindly. jealous. i don't remember EVER having envied another man so much.

i just can't seem to get it out of my mind. it's wrong, it's a mistake, if i just get it out of my head, i'll be fine.

if had met her earlier, it'd be fine. or later. later, when she WAS married, that'd be fine. just like.

the illusion of hope, you know? keyword being illusion.

starving.

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weird. i meant to start this entry talking about how fucking HUNGRY i am (because i am), but just sitting here, typing in the time, i was suddenly struck by this fleeting, ever-so-fleeting impression of a dream i had last night.

i can't remember what it was. can't even remember what the impression was. but something triggered the memory, and for a moment (more like an instant) i was frozen on the tiptop of that impression, straining for the rest of it. i wish...

argh.

it's frustrating; it's like reaching for something you're about a millimeter from touching, but can't. or worse: like reaching for something round at the top of the shelf, but as soon as you touch it, it rolls further away.

maybe i need to tilt the shelf. how do you tilt a mental shelf?

it occurs to me that i hard ever use capitalization in my entries here anymore. not sure why i do that. i think words come more easily when i don't have to stop and capitalize, though.

all right. NOW. let's talk about how hungry i am.

it's insane. i'm ravenous. i had clam chowder around 7pm, and yet i am utterly, completely starving. i'm sitting here and fantasies of food fill my mind. i'm fantasizing about food more avidly than i fantasize about women. mostly, that's because i've never mastered the art of daydreaming - how does that work, anyway? i hear it's like a semidream; you have some control over what happens, but not total control. you set it into motion and then it kinda unfolds by itself.

i've never, ever daydreamed. to be sure i've stared off into space and let my thoughts wander, but i've never been able to put together something that i could see. except at night, of course, when i'm one step away from sleep.

actually, come to think of it, the bridge into sleep for me is usually music. i can tell when i'm about to fall asleep because i might remember a song, and it'll be very vivid for me.

what do i mean by that? i mean: well, here. take any old song. take Garbage, or Beethoven; something complex and multilayered. try to remember the way it sounded.

most likely, what you'll get is just the melody line. like - You Look So Fine. you'll get the lyrics, the way the lyrics lilt. me, right now, i'm remembering that bit, "I'm not like all of the other girls/I can't take it like the other girls - that you used to know."

(You're taking me over...over and over...)

--heh, anyway. just the melody, though, right?

now, when i'm starting to fall asleep, i start hearing more of it. the background music. the bassline; the electronica; the guitars and the drums. more and more and more. then i either slide into a dream where the music fades off and goes into some sort of visual that i'll most likely forget - or, i'll wake up again.

that's usually because i heard something that woke me up; drew my attention and let my attention fade from the music in my head. then, when i try to recapture what i was "listening" to, it's back to just the melody line.

anyway. that was quite a tangent.

point is: i've never daydreamed. however, i can see clear-as-day, if i just close my eyes, FOOD.

thanksgiving turkeys, gleaming and golden-brown, stuffed with mom's stuffing, surrounded by heaps of creamy mashed potatoes (with skins in) and dark brown, thick, unlumpy gravy. meat loaf soaking in its own broth. ham with those little fruit thingies on top. steak. oh my god. steak, thick and juicy, a little pink at the middle. hamburgers. stacked high with lettuce and tomatoes and bacon and cheese. hot dogs, like those at Top Dog. crisped, a little burnt, hot and delicious with mustard, ketchup and sauerkraut atop. biscuits, flaky, buttery, hot. fish - trout, the way i make it. more fish - smoked salmon, the way my dad's old professor used to make it when he was a post-doc. tender and smoky and salty-sweet. curry chicken. korean barbecue beef and pork. ethiopian food, with those funky dough-things. gyros and hummus. all of it hot and ready to eat and delicious and sumptuous; prancing in front of me, sashaying around all utterly edible and begging to be devoured.

christ. i'm going to die if i don't eat something.

flamenco.

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I saw a flamenco dancer perform at lunchtime today on the Embarcadero. I'm not sure what it was for, or what troupe she was a part of, but it was amazing.

I've seen flamenco before when I was younger, back in San Diego, but it must've been at least 8 years since then. Dance is one of those things, where you forget what it looks like if you don't see it. You can't imagine, reconstruct a dance in your head, no matter what. Even now, I'm forgetting what it looked like.

I just know it was incredible. I remember her skirts: deep lurid red, and the sleek sheathe above that. And castanets in her hand, just one of them, and the startling rattlesnake sound they made when she snapped them and moved. And her poise - that highborn look, you know what I mean - chin up, back straight, arms held motionless, waiting for the music. Waiting to move.

And when she did move - I can't describe the dance. It wouldn't do it justice. There was a crowd around her (there are always crowds around street performers), and she was so sleek and muscular. And I don't mean bulging with muscle; I mean muscular the way anacondas and pythons are, that sort of arched strength that you can feel and see in the whiplash motions and the sinuosity of the body and arms. It was like she had no bones, and was sinew and lean muscle all the way through. Not liquid, no - flexed. The curve of her torso; the pull of her arms like some raptor's wings; the grace and strength of her legs, the two forming one shape; the shape of her neck and her fingers.

Understand, this dancer's face was not beautiful in the classic sense of the word. Handsome, perhaps, a little noble. She was tall, with black hair pulled into a tight bun. She had high sharp cheekbones and a long Roman nose, thick black eyebrows and a sultry mouth that pulled down at the corners as though she was displeased, or even a little cruel. But she was beautiful, maybe because she was dancing to set something on fire; maybe because she was so damned confident of her dance, and her eyes which flashed at those watching her, and her castanets that snapped like scorpions' claws. Watching, I thought of bows pulled taut; weasels, whips and vipers; thorned blood-red roses, the blooming queen of flowers.

summertime.

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now.

i'm sure a lot of people have heard that song, Summertime. the immortal Ella Fitzgerald and all that. heck, a lot of people have probably heard the fairly true-to-the-original Summertime by Janis Joplin.

but if you haven't heard it yet? go download Sublime's Summertime. i think it's also called Doin' Time. it's completely different. so, completely different. the words are totally changed except for the original "Summertime ...and the living's easy." it's somewhat reggae-style; the underlying story of the song is different.

all the same? it keeps the faith. it's a summertime made in the nineties, for a nineties summertime. and in the city, not the rural south.

it's a great song. it sounds like summer. maybe it's because it's on the hot side these days that i like it so much. it's something about the cool laidback bassline and the...what, a xylophone? repeating these few notes that, actually, are sampled from the original Summertime. towards the end, if you listen carefully, it's there.

but it's different. it keeps the feel of summertime, but everything else is different.

it reminds me of july days in the city. eating lunch on the steps of town hall, something like that. pigeons clucking around. girls in shorts and tank tops and sunglasses. one of those hot days where the sun bears down, but not unbearably, where you spend the whole day sticky and enveloped in heat, but it's not so bad because it's sunday, and anyway there's not too much to do.

a bit of a humid edge to the heat. well, as humid as california gets, at least. just the kinda weather to lounge around and nod to music in your car, on your front step, look up and look over the cute girl walking her toy poodle past.

melancholic.

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well, okay. first off, this isn't another hyperdisgruntled post.

this is...well, i guess this is as closed to depressed you'll ever see me. i wouldn't call it depressed. i'm just a bit - melancholy.

which is strange, because i just finished watching LotR, which usually puts me into a great mood because i love the movie. plus i was just ranting about it a bit ago. but, yeah. melancholy. despite the sunshine outside and the fact that it's the most beautiful day here in weeks and weeks.

i'm awfully stressed these days. wreaks havoc on my mood. this is one of those days i wish it was all already done with, or that i still had maybe another 3 months or so to prepare. heh.

i could, of course, be studying right now, but i can't bring myself to get up and do it. anyway, i have an appointment in 15 minutes, so i suppose there's no point now.

urgh.

one of those days i just feel a bit disconnected and solitary, even though i'm surrounded by people i know, and even more people are just a phone call away.

heh. anyway.

snoring. fuck.

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i left the time up there because it was cool. 123am. usually i like to take it off because the minute i start writing it is, obviously, never the minute i finish. plus i feel all mysterious when i type "past midnight" or "before dawn" up there.

yeah, okay.

so, let's start over: 123am. which means two things. 1. i should be going on a round (already did that, so check); 2. i should be trying to catch a wink of sleep.

it's been a long night. i got until 6am to go. i think this is the worst shift of all. noon to 6am. well...no. 6pm to the following noon is worse. and midnight to the follow 6pm is the worst of all.

all right, i lied. this isn't the worst. but all the same it's pretty bad. they're all pretty bad, with the exception of

(FUCK MY EAR HURTS)

6am to midnight. all the rest require staying up at ungodly hours, even though, truth be told, the workload is a lot lighter.

except in the midnight to following 6pm shift. that's just hell. you get in at midnight. you're already fuckin tired. you work until 6am and, lo and behold, el sol comes up.

people come in.

they're sick, they're cranky, you're tired, you're crankier, they wanna be treated, you wanna kick them in their ass and tell them to go home.

i know. this isn't your wonderful, idealistic post about the wonders of modern medicine and the joys of healing the ill. but this isn't 2pm on a beautiful sunday afternoon either; this is almost 2am and my ear hurts (see above, but no worries, it's not constant - it's just when i kinda...i dunno what i do, no name for it, but i do it and it hurts), and i've had so much caffeine that i can't sleep and it annoys me.

that's why i'm up, by the way. caffeine. i am very caffeinated, very badtempered right now.

some people think caffeine makes you alert. i say, bullshit. it jacks up your nerves so that you can't sleep, but that wears you out. so you're tired, tired as hell, but you can't fall asleep. that's what caffeine does.

i should've never had all that coffee. stupid thing is, i didn't drink it so i could stay up. i drank it because the idea of a nice cold Spin

(okay, 3 nice cold Spins)

sounded like a great idea then.

you know what's really getting on my nerves right now? there's a patient down the hall who insists on sleeping with her door open. god knows why, but she paid for a single, she can afford to leave her door open. so it's open. it's dead quiet in the hospital, her door is open, and she snores

like a fucking

pig.

i swear to god, i have never ever heard a woman snore like that. we're not talking cute little snores. we're talking great big gigantic rumbling snores, uneven, because once in a while she stops altogether (sleep apnea, all that, fuck) and you're like, shit she's dead, and then, oh fuck, here it comes,

...SNNNNNKCKKKZKZZZZNNKKK...

i'm telling you. it's earsplitting. it's unbelieveable. imagine the sound someone really really sick might make blowing their nose. now slow that down, drag it out, drop it an octave or two. play that new sound back. blubbering, mucusy, sickening, snotty. like she was breathing through a huge glob of snot stuck right in her larynx.

i listen to it and it makes me wanna gasp for air.

man, i didn't mean for this entry to be a major bitchrant. apparently, though, that's what's coming out of my hands tonight.

GAH! there she goes again. stops breathing - HUGE LOUD FUCKIN SNORE. how can ANYONE, much less a WOMAN, snore like that?

it's RESONANT. it echoes down the hall. i swear, if i were her roommate, i would've suffocated her with a pillow by now and blamed it on some obscure illness. thing is, she's not even that sick. no fucking clue why they're keeping her here overnight for monitoring, though i suspect it's because some asshole surgeon or other is gonna get a demand for taxes this year instead of a refund and wants to make a quick buck.

okay, maybe not. who cares.

this is me signing off.

right.

|
third entry.

hostility, man. that's what this is tonight. i'm just hostile in general. male pms or something.

sometimes i think society was better off before all these antiviolence rules. sometimes you just gotta let it out. instead all we got are punching bags and gym equipment. big solid manmade things of steel and rubber and foam and plastic that you can beat up and tear into without hurting this nice fragile little shell of a society we've got.

go on, let it all out. kick around that punching bag. tear that nordictrak around. show 'em who's boss. or just lace on some shoes and run. run to get fit. run all over the place. run away.

better yet, be like me. sit here and type futile little notes into some online diary shit while you'd feel a lot better breaking something. a bottle, a window, someone else.

how did things get so bad? jesus christ. now i'm a raving maniac. if this laptop wasn't worth a few hundred dollars and if it didn't assure me a pink slip by tomorrow, i'd chuck this machine out the window and then break every other window with a chair. this place needs some noise.

heh. all right, that made me grin a little. good nuff for me. i'm gonna go do something else. talk, sleep, work out.

least that woman stopped snoring. or if she's still snoring, which i bet she is, she's not being so damn LOUD about it.

i feel better.

cherry trees.

|
So.

It seems that the celebrated cherry tree out in front of my apartment, subject of so many adoring diary entries about early spring in san francisco, is some sort of FREAK OF NATURE because it blooms in late january/early february when the rest of the nation's trees bloom...like, now.

I thought for a while maybe it was just San Fran that bloomed early? No luck. Suddenly these days I'm noticing all them cherry trees blooming their asses off all over the place while my cherry tree...

...already has leaves.

Really ugly dark brownish green leaves.

Ah well. Heh. I still love it. I mean, I guess it's all springy/summery for cherry trees to bloom in april/mayish, but there's something about those fragile blossoms blooming in late january, when everything else is bare and cold and the rain freezes your nose off.

Just for a week, though. They bloom too early. Every morning I'd go outside and find cherry blossom petals littered all over the floor, blown off during the night. I bet the other trees last longer.

Poor beautiful strange early-blooming tree.

beach weather!

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It's finally happened.

Gone are the grey days of winter, when you had to wear three layers to go outside. Gone is the rain (for now, at least); the chill and the damp. Gone are the soggy umbrellas and the squooshy wet shoes.

It's finally here.

Warm breeze. 75 degrees. Brilliant, hot sun. Bay gleaming like fine-ground glass powder. Conversations outside. Traffic sounds mingling with streetcorner jazz. Girls in short-shorts and tank tops roaming the street in gaggles and packs. Endless blue sky above.

It, ladies and gentlemen, has finally, finally come.

BEACH! WEATHER!!!

Now. There are no beaches in the bay. No decent ones, at least. But I don't care if I have to drive all the way down to so-cal. I'll do it.

This weekend is one for lolling in the hot sand with the seawater drying on your skin. It's for tipping up your sunglasses to make eyes at the chick in the bikini, the one with the curves, passing your beach blanket. It's for tanning yourself so dark you end up scaring yourself with how white your grin is in the mirror.

It's one of THOSE weekends, that the rest of the world envies California for.

Sun.
Sand.
Sex on the beach.

(Or, fine, sex in the apartment, thinking of the beach.)

Heh! Woohoo! Summer!!

personality tests.

|
so, I went and did that one test Chuck did a while back. without further ado, here are the results:

Competitiveness - 66/100.

50 - 75: Driven. Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser.

heh heh. ain't that the truth? one of my teachers once asked us, "What do you call the guy who graduates 3rd in his class in med school? Doctor. What do you call the guy who graduates 817th? Doctor." it's a bit like that, only the other way around.

What do you call the guy who finishes 19th in a race? Loser. What do you call the guy who finishes 2nd? Loser.

well, runner-up, but who remembers runner-ups?

sidenote: ugh. just saw an ad at this site (which is, incidentally, some sort of christian site) for that book series, Left Behind? Apparently it's like this million-installment saga on the Second Coming and whatnot. *annoyed* i really hate it when books drag on for a million installments! not to mention i'm not a fan of religious fiction...if there's such a thing at all. it's sorta like christian rock. wtf? doesn't make sense.

Forgiveness - 10/60

0 - 20: Out for revenge. Though a thirst for justice can be admirable, your insistence on an 'eye for an eye' may be poisoning your relationships with others. Next time you have a chance to retaliate, let it pass.

Heh heh. expected. 'course, i don't think I was quite this bad as little as a year ago...online politics suck, dude!

Gossip - 11/30

11 - 20

Minimal gossip. Sure, you give in to the temptation of a juicy story every now and then, but you’re also a good listener when a friend needs a shoulder to cry on and you know when to keep your mouth shut. Sounds like you're a good friend and someone who’s fun to hang out with at parties.

Wow, I thought I'd score higher than that *chuckles* Gossip is kinda my weakness. I'm a regular clucking hen.

Narcissism - 55/100

41 - 80: Occasional narcissist. You occasionally think too highly of yourself; catch yourself whenever it seems like the world revolves around you.

This is a very forgiving test *smirk*

Vastu Type (whatever that is) - 15/30

8 - 16: Pitta. Your constitution shows the likelihood of a pitta (fire) dosha. According to "Vastu Living," someone with a pitta dosha should not sleep or work in the southeast quadrant, which is the realm of fire.

WTF? *LOL* cool. hmm. shiiiit. I sleep in the southeast quadrant of my room. I need to move my bed.

Cynicism - 8/30

0 - 10: Risk-free. Your Cynicism level is very low.

you know, there's a flaw with these tests. Some of the answer choices so obviously reflect one or the other that it's hard not to let your own self-perception influence the choice you make.

I'm sure that made sense, heh.

Spiritual Path - 139/200

71 - 140: Serene Sightseer. There's nothing you like better than a little moonlight meditation. You like to check out a lot of different faiths and aren't scared to ask questions. You'd most likely enjoy religions and spiritualities that stress individual practice.

Commitment - 73/100

38 - 74. Open to Love: You keep a healthy balance between giving yourself over to a relationship and maintaining a life of your own.

Huh. I'm WAYYY at the edge of open to love, and very close to commitment-phobic.

Okay, last one of the night.

Faith: Neo-Paganism

Oh my fucking God, I'm a NEO-PAGAN!? i keep mocking neo-pagans!

Here's the list:

1. Neo-Paganism (100%)

2. Unitarian Universalism (96%)

3. New Thought (88%)

4. Mahayana Buddhism (82%)

5. New Age (81%)

6. Hinduism (77%)

7. Liberal Quaker (77%)

8. Scientology (77%)

9. Reform Judaism (73%)

10. Sikhism (67%)

11. Theravada Buddhism (64%)

12. Liberal Protestant (58%)

13. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (57%)

14. Secular Humanism (57%)

15. Atheism and Agnosticism (55%)

16. Bahá'í (51%)

17. Jainism (51%)

18. Orthodox Judaism (51%)

19. Taoism (46%)

20. Islam (42%)

21. Conservative Protestant (28%)

22. Orthodox Quaker (24%)

23. Eastern Orthodox (18%)

24. Latter-day Saint (Mormon) (18%)

25. Roman Catholic (18%)

26. Seventh Day Adventist (12%)

27. Jehovah's Witness (6%)

And the descriptions for the top two:

Neo-Paganism:

Neo-Pagans are a community of faiths bringing ancient Pagan and magickal traditions to the modern age--including mostly Wicca but also Druidism, Asatru, Shamanism, neo-Native American, and more. Neo-Pagan is an umbrella term for various and diverse beliefs with many elements in common. Some Neo-Pagans find no incongruence practicing Neo-Paganism along with adherence to another faith, such as Christianity or Judaism.

• Belief in Deity

Some believe in a Supreme Being. Many believe in God and Goddess--a duality. Many believe there are countless spirit beings, gods and goddesses, in the cosmos and within all of nature--God is all and within all; all are one God. The Great Mother Earth, or Mother Nature, is highly worshipped. Divinity is immanent and may become manifest within anyone at any time through various methods.

• Incarnations

No human incarnations are worshipped in particular, as all of nature and the universe are considered embodiments of God and Goddess, or of gods and goddesses, worthy of respect, reverence, or worship.

• Origin of Universe and Life

Generally, there is no conflict between observations revealed through science and Neo-Pagan beliefs on origins of the physical universe and of man. Many believe in a supreme intelligence that created a duality of God/Goddess who then created a spirit world of gods and goddesses as well as all of the universe and nature.

• After Death

Many believe in reincarnation after some rest and recovery in the "Otherworld." There is generally no concept of hell as a place of punishment, but some believe wrongdoing can trap the soul in state of suffering after death. Some (Wicca) believe the soul joins their dead ancestors who watch over and protect their family. Some believe that life energy continues in some, if unknown, form. Some believe in various spiritual resting places. Many say we don't or can't know what happens after death.

• Why Evil?

"Evil" is imbalance. Most believe there is no evil but rather that people sometimes make mistakes. Wrongdoing results when we forget we are one with the universal spirit.

• Salvation

The concept of "salvation" is essentially irrelevant; rather the belief that people can attain spiritual balance and harmony with each other and nature. The path includes group ceremonies, dances, songs/chants, prayers, meditation, trance, altered states of consciousness, the metaphysical, magic, invoking or evoking deities or spirits, Tantric practices. Intercessors are commonly used: psychics, seers, shamans, tarot, Oui-Ja board. Ethical choices are influenced by a belief that one is rewarded or punished within this or after this lifetime for one's choices and an ethical code to do no harm.

• Undeserved Suffering

Most do not believe in Satan or any spirit being as the cause of suffering. Some believe in a karma-like principle, that choosing to live a life of wrongdoing and pain will naturally result in suffering in this or later lifetimes. Many view suffering as a result of spiritual imbalance in one's life or on the planet or in the universe. The focus is generally on healing suffering rather than answering definitively why it exists.

• Contemporary Issues

Abortion is not condemned, as there is no official doctrine; beliefs about abortion range the full spectrum. Views on divorce, homosexuality, and gender equality are generally very supportive of human differences, equality, and personal choice. Many believe that involvement in community action, especially regarding environmental concerns, is integral to the belief in human interdependence and worship of the Earth Mother.

Unitarian Universalism

• Belief in Deity

Very diverse beliefs--Unitarian/Universalists welcome all deity beliefs as well as nontheistic beliefs. Some congregations are formed for those who share a common belief, e.g. Christianity.

• Incarnations

Very diverse beliefs, including belief in no incarnations, or that all are the embodiment of God. Some believe Christ is God's Son, or not Son but "Wayshower."

• Origin of Universe and Life

Diverse beliefs, but most believe in the Bible as symbolic and that natural processes account for origins.

• After Death

Diverse beliefs, but most believe that heaven and hell are not places but are symbolic. Some believe heaven and hell are states of consciousness either in life or continuing after death; some believe in reincarnation; some believe that afterlife is nonexistent or not known or not important, as actions in life are all that matter.

• Why Evil?

Most do not believe that humanity inherited original sin from Adam and Eve or that Satan actually exists. Most believe that God is good and made people inherently good but also with free will and an imperfect nature that leads some to immoral behavior. Diverse beliefs. Some believe wrong is committed when people distance themselves from God. Some believe in “karma,” that what goes around comes around. Some believe wrongdoing is a matter of human nature, psychology, sociology, etc.

• Salvation

Some believe in salvation through faith in God and Jesus Christ, along with doing good works and doing no harm to others. Many believe all will be saved, as God is good and forgiving. Some believe in reincarnation and the necessity to eliminate personal greed or to learn all of life’s lessons before achieving enlightenment or salvation. For some, the concepts of salvation or enlightenment are irrelevant or disbelieved.

• Undeserving Suffering

Diverse beliefs. Most Unitarians do not believe that Satan causes suffering. Some believe suffering is part of God’s plan, will, or design, even if we don’t immediately understand it. Some don’t believe in any spiritual reasons for suffering, and most take a humanistic approach to helping those in need.

• Contemporary Issues

The Unitarian Universalist Association’s stance is to protect the personal right to choose abortion. Other contemporary views include working for equality for homosexuals, gender equality, a secular approach to divorce and remarriage, working to end poverty, promoting peace and nonviolence, and environmental protection.

...hmm. I glanced at Unitarian whatever-ism, and it kinda fits. Really, though, I think belief is way too deeply personal to structure into any sort of organized religion.

But that's a topic for another day.

spring in the bay.

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there's something about the Bay in the spring that's just magical. usually people associate spring with april, may; flowers bees sunshine and puppylove. if you lived in so-cal, you associated it with bigger crowds at the beach and the beginning of the hot days (not that it's ever COLD in san diego...). it's something different here, though.

for one thing, it starts in late january. i can't really draw the line between winter and spring very well, except i guess the spring (this year at least) is wetter and greener. winter's sort of a brittle time, lots of really fucking cold days with a crystalline blue sky above (see Blue for details), and a glaring white sun that doesn't seem to give any heat at all.

not that it's a bad time. there's something magical about winter in the bay, too. something about the crispness everything gets endowed with, like it was all flash-frozen and preserved. like everything's edged out for you by some cosmic exacto knife.

but then the spring comes and things go green. the hills, in particular. near the bay, the mountains that divide the coast from the central valley start getting carpeted in this sort of long wildgrass that, oddly enough, is gold in its maturity. it's not really DEAD - it comes back again. it's like grain. it turns colors. so summertime comes and all the hills are this glorious yellow-gold color (the fabled mountains of gold), but before that there's this very transient week or month or so when it's wet enough that the new grasses wake up and start pushing out. and then everything's green like you wouldn't believe under a heavy grey sky.

people associate green grass with blue skies. greenery, all sorts of it, is always cooler under a rainy sky.

i don't really know where i'm going with this. heh. thought i should write it down, though, because these days, every time i walk outside, i'm always thinking to myself, shit, gotta write this down, this experience, these sights.

so here they are, in no particular order other than that i remember them in:

the clouds rolling over the east bay hills, which are round and tree'd in ways so-cal hills never, ever are, and which are also green for that magical time of early-spring. the wispiness of those clouds, which become fog as they graze the tops of the mountains and pour down - or maybe mist. the way the trees show through them, the color of the sky.

the color of rain, the color of the sea, which turns silver, in the rain. the color of the afternoon. the pink and white cherry blossoms against the dark slender trunks and branches, which look so much like the limbs of a girl, especially when it rains and they're sleek and wet, that i don't wonder anymore why daphne turned into a tree.

the concrete wet with rain. the busses going past. the rain falling; the wind; the sun through the clouds. the clouds are different here in the bay; there's no real line between clouds and mist and fog. i think i mentioned this earlier, above. but they're all the same. it all depends on where you stand. the clouds are softer here, less defined, less...integrated?

the golden gate bridge stretched across the bay. the bay bridge. the city and its lights. berkeley's campanile. the sound of the traffic. the sound of the rain.

the thing about springtime in the bay is that it's not sunshine and birds. it's gray and wet, but at the same time it makes you feel SO good, so fresh and alive, but in a quiet way. it's gray and green and the shy/shocking vulnerable pink of a cherry blossom, and wet.

you want to take long walks - not even in forests or anything, but just on the streets, looking at the skyscrapers, or on university campuses, through the eucalyptus groves and the oak-lined oak-roofed paths, with the redwood and the pines nearby.

there's something holy about a forest in the rain. then again, maybe it's just the february rain of san francisco that's holy. rain is the heart of this season, and this season is beautiful. autumn in new england; springtime in the bay. it's the same sort of magic.

holy fuck!

|
so uh.

anyone who's reading this probably knows me well enough to know i CAN'T stand the damn celtic craze. or, for that matter, any sorta thing that takes some culture and makes it a fad to be indulged it. you know what i mean. where someone has like 1 drop of american indian blood and suddenly they're out worshipping the sun and moon and getting in touch with their "inner brave", blahblah.

okay, i'm digressing massively. point is: i can't STAND the celtic craze.

BUT.

for the first fucking time?

i understand it. my GOD do i understand it.

there's this song - ailein duinn? sung by meav? and...holy shit.

first time i listened, i was just...in shock. cuz it starts out all new agey celtic - you know, with the harp and the flute thang on top of this low pulseless bassline, and like...all mysterious otherworldly. you're (i was) expecting some stupid lyrics about like. druids and bards and shit. dismissing it already.

and then

it quiets.

and this girl's voice starts: and it's not english. it's GAELIC.

and you gotta understand i've never actually HEARD gaelic before. not sung in long sloping lines like this. it's just FLOORED me. i was like. wtf? what's this? gaeli--ohhh my god, this is pretty.

it's such a beautiful language. it's so flowing. i mean, in english, you have pretty discrete word-units in sound; one does flow into the next, but the vowels tend to be pretty short and there are a lot of sharp consonants.

not this, man.

gaelic is like...okay, maybe it's just this chick's voice? but it's clear and just flowing. not many sharp consonants. not many gutturals, either. a lot of "sh" "ch" "hh" sounds, too - these rounded vowels, all long, and just - all of it is so rounded and liquid.

oh my. god.

i'm in love. i'm not kidding. her voice is just incredible, singing this song. it's the way it lilts. it makes you think of oceans and birds. i don't know why, but just - like, green misty cliffsides near the ocean, sort of like in northern california, with seagulls swooping.

i'm ranting completely disjointedly. i can't put my thoughts together on this.

it's the way the lines of the song slope. the way they lilt - there's this one part that just sends shivers up my spine where her voice is just...buoyed, like a bird on the wind. you know what i mean. you've seen it, the way a gliding bird can kind of drop from one thermal to catch the next up?

that's how her voice is.

it just...soars up on an updraft, falls, and catches the next right up again.

same note held both times. but the difference in the surrounding notes - the first is major, the second minor - is so, so, so beautifully crafted that the tone is completely different the second time around.

aching.

oh , my , god.

i could WEEP. hahaha. okay, maybe not, but. it's aching.

meav is an incredible singer. you don't even notice all of it at first. it's just the absolute clarity of her tone. it's so sweet and...

you know, i've always heard people say so-and-so's voice is clear like a bell? this is the first time i understand. just. so beautifully delineated, without being rigid. and the way she curls her tongue around the sounds...

...it's fucking sexy, man. hahaha. oh man, i know, i know. everything goes back to sex for me. but you gotta wonder, if she can curl her tongue around a syllable like that--

okay no, i'm not gonna go there.

it's just the breathy-but-not-gaspy way she sings. she lets the words breathe, gives the gaelic breathiness its room, but still enunciates so. carefully. and doesn't cut them off. and. it's just. aaagh.

i can't say it enough! i'm just repeating myself like an idiot, but:

her voice. the song. it flows. it flows together.

FLOWS! like WATER. and SOARS. like a gliding BIRD.

i love this song. i mean, i absolutely love it. from the first line, it just sucks me in. and she has such...precise control over what notes she hits, and how. that's a rare thing in singers today. not many can modulate the tiny, tiny differences between notes. there's more than one way to hit a C#, or a Eb. it's not the hitting it. it's HOW, from which angle, whether you're just a liiiittle bit sharp or a liiiittle bit flat, and how long you dwell, how much breath you give it, how much body.

and the way she does it is just pitch-perfect.

i speak of singing like i knew how to sing. i don't. i'm just kinda deducting it from listening to her. that's how good she is.

i need to find CDs by her, man.

emily.

|
is it strange to love a girl who's been dead for a hundred years? maybe - probably - it's not even love. just some sorta fanciful attraction, a fantasy of a lyrical and poetic sort of love cooked up by the otherwise staid doctor-to-be in the creativity-stripped hospitals. maybe. but i do think i could love her. it's not anything i can explain, and everything about her poetry and her letters.

there's something so sheltered and imaginative about her. her letters are so polite. editors trashed her poetry as unconventional ...i'm losing my train of thought. it goes everywhere at once; there's so much i can say about this.

I know where Wells grow -
Droughtless Wells -

I think a little Well - like Mine -
Dearer to understand -

i saw this handwritten manuscript once. well, a copy, obviously. not terribly neat, but a fine hand. delicate. unbelievable - she'd created her own language. these curlicues and strange little signs, plus signs, it looked like. dots and slashes. walt whitman swaggers and boasts that he's something new, something previously untried and undone, freedom at its best! and then there's a girl in her attic who's rarely left her house, who knows the true meaning of freedom in a better, quieter, more personal way.

Of nearness to her sundered Things
The Soul has special times -
When Dimness - looks the Oddity -
Distinctness - easy seems -

she's just so polite. that's what gets me the most. she seems shy and quiet, so like a bird. self-deprecating in her letters to others. she referred to herself being a little ill, and i thought my heart would cave in from...tenderness? pity? a desire to shelter and protect?

i just can't believe the editors wrote her back telling her her poetry was crap. i can't think how must've made her feel, this girl locked away in her attic all her life, looking out at a world she didn't quite fit into, but understood better than most, writing about snakes and birds and death and waiting, and never quite about love. or am i wrong about that?

I shall forget the drop of Anguish
That scalds me now -

god! i just saw a page that lists facts supporting that she was a lesbian. jesus christ. what the hell is wrong with the world, that a woman who never really sought male company is immediately suspected a lesbian? the worst is how these people that write these things think of themselves as progressive and liberal, all the while furthering the old patriarchical supposition that a woman is made to breed with a man, and any woman who chooses another path is, of course, a lesbian. can't you people just leave her alone?

god, dammit!

....fume.

Now I lay thee down to Sleep -
I pray the Lord thy Dust to keep -
And if thou live before thou wake -
I pray the Lord thy Soul to make -

there's something slanted about her poetry, and i don't mean unnatural, dirty, wrong, whatever. i just mean - slanted. you have to think curved to get at the meaning, or get close to the meaning, as the case may be. you have to skew your perceptions a bit, even if you don't want you. just reading it, a line, any line, makes you think a little slanted.

what a quaint woman she must've been! and so polite, heh. i just can't get over that. there's something so fragile about her, as though she kept herself and most her poems locked away lest a stray breeze blew them all apart. i think i could've liked her, really loved her. i like to think i could've brought her out of her shell, but then again, maybe that would've just realigned her perceptions with the status quo. and then all her poetry would be lost.

I saw no Way -
The Heavens were stitched -
I felt the Columns close -
The Earth reversed her Hemispheres -
I touched the Universe -

i can't believe i'm writing this at 3:30am...

*****

It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain,—
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem,—
The summer’s empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen,—
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.

*****

And though thy sins be as scarlet,
They shall be white as snow;
Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool.

Isaiah 1:18

*****

her name, in case it's not yet evident, is emily dickinson.

blue. (ii)

|
this will be short. i'm tired, and i need to sleep, and i'm getting up in about 5 hours.

this is about the song, firefly (faye wong). great song. in chinese, though, so be sure to get the translated lyrics. it's worth it. the song is good; the lyrics make it great.

this is about this line, to be precise:

by day you don't even see me/but by night there is only you and i

you kinda need to read it in context of the rest of the song, so i'll tack the entirety of the lyrics to the end.

is it just me, or that an incredibly evocative line? i know, i associate all the songs i love with 1) sex or 2) tragedy. but there's already been an entry on why that is, and the link between sex tragedy emotion and music.

no need to go over old topics.

but come on now. by day you don't even see me. by night there is only you and i.

fucking sad! i can't explain it, but i'm sure you know what i mean. and so...imageristic. haha, i made a new word. but like, listening to it, i can almost see it: daytime, busy-ness, big city, skyscrapers, two people; somehow related, see each other often...casual lovers, or so the guy thinks, never for a moment imagining it could be more (or maybe knowing it, but ignoring it) - the way their eyes don't ever really meet; the way her eyes seek his out, but his gloss right over her like she wasn't even there, moving on to smile at someone else.

then, night: light's gone, no moon, no stars. inside, bedroom, everything's pitch black, utterly black, and all there is, is silence and ragged/languorous....fuck i can't spell that word - you know what i mean - breathing; touching, skin on skin, and the brief green flares of light behind the eyelids sparked by the caress of a lover. nothing else in all the world. and in those moments he knows she loves him, and he knows he loves her, too, but what does it matter? the sun comes up; he forgets.

by day you don't even see me, she tells him, but he doesn't hear it. by night, there is only you and i.

ag! i can't put it into words.

another subject, just something i want to jot down before i forget again. there was a girl in my third-grade class who sat next to me a lot. in retrospect, a startlingly pretty little girl. blonde hair, slender and small...blue eyes. that's the key - her blue eyes, which were the bluest eyes i have ever seen before or after.

her name was vanessa. i shouldn't forget that.

i've spoken of the winter sky here in the bay before, i think - that's the only blue i can compare it to, though the two shades are nothing alike. hers were a deeper blue, and clearer; the sky is a hard-edged, flat/deep thing, without facets - or the whole thing is a facet too big to see the edges of. her eyes weren't like that. i know i've read it somewhere, limpid blue pools for eyes, and it's so stupid and cliche, but that's exactly how her eyes were. unbelievable, the color. even now i can close my eyes and seen them in perfect clarity (blue - not electric, not shocking - just...so vibrant, clear, but dark too, and with a large dark pupil, threads of dark interlaced among the deep, rich, full, bright hue; god, it's hard to describe), though i've forgotten the details of her face.

it's easy to blow this out of proportion. it's so easy to call her my first crush. it'd be so much more dramatic and bittersweet. but i have to be honest and say she wasn't. she didn't like me much, and i didn't particularly care about her, i don't think. it's easy for me to wax poetic on the hue of her eyes, too, but that's only because i can't put it into words, so i use a vast abundance to try to make up for it.

i'll say this much, and this will be the last on the subject of the color itself: SURREAL.

so anyway, one day, i was sitting next to her - i remember this clearly - on the floor, while our teacher, Ms. Redling, was teaching us something, or reading a story, or something. that doesn't matter much. i wasn't listening anyway.

i was looking at her eyes. god knows why. this was before puppy love, btw, so i had a healthy contempt of girls, and while i think i did understand that her eyes were beautiful, it didn't really matter. she was still a girl (ew, gross), etc...but still, i was looking at her, at her eyes.

and all of a sudden, i had this thought: so that's what blue eyes are really like. it wasn't profound, and it wasn't melodramatic. bells didn't ring in my head. it wasn't an epiphany. it was very natural, just a passing thought i happen to remember. i, very simply, honestly thought that i had never really seen blue eyes before after all. i honestly thought i had been fooled all along, and had suddenly discovered what blue eyes were REALLY like, and all that i had thought were blue before that was just another shade of gray, duller, not as real.

i thought the shade of her eyes defined blueness. there was never a doubt in my mind; her eyes were the real deal. blue. all else that had come before was only a very paltry imitation.