12/30/2020

it's a day later. it's cold. the air sits on my back. and i can hear the rain punctuating the silence outside.

i hate myself, i hate my writing. i think what i've done is a terrible thing. i have no idea where i've been going with my story. i thought that if i wrote it incrementally, that somehow it would amount to something, but no. it just feels like an ingrown toenail, turning in on itself, and wounding the foot in the process... something wrong. i have been thinking that it reflects me, that there is something wrong about me. that i am not interested in the same things as other people. i think about some of the ideas i have had for stories. they don't arise necessarily from the richness of experience. they are usually just coincident things, things that i find make some sort of interesting connection. but there's no heart, and no blood, in such things. what is the point?

maybe that's all i am. an interest in these connections, these blurs, these overlaps. it is like a snapshot taken of a deep ocean, and how the alignment of the sunlight, and the water, and the fish beneath, maybe give some sort of impression of depth. but so what?

i am a terrible father. i just read another chapter in "girl in the shape of a cloud," and by gods, how depressing it is. olive kitteredge was also depressing, about an inescapable and impossible life... i am thinking about my son, in particular. and how, i don't do anything to form him. i feel, at this point, that he is his own person. but i am also worrying, in the background, that he isn't driven, and he isn't particularly heading to any known, good trajectories. and why am i not doing something about it? i suppose i want him to be happy, but i am not providing him with the tools necessary to make a happy life. in the present, i am just giving him free reign... i am so laissez faire with things. is that right? is that wrong? i am so uncertain about things in my own life, how could i define a trajectory for my son?

*****

my dialogue is wretched. part of the issue is: i don't know what anyone wants. it is all just "figuring itself out." maybe it is because what is wanted, what i want, i cannot say. so i am constantly muddling about. i want to kill my brother. no i don't no i don't no i don't. i just want to- maim him. (this reminds me of dobby from harry potter or something: dobby didn't want to kill harry potter. only maim or seriously injure). or maybe i just want his respect. or maybe i just want to be like him, to steal something of his, and claim it as my own. it is all these things. how can i distill it into one thing? why is everything i write so wrought with ambiguity? i hate myself for that.

*****

why do we do the things that we do? is it out of feeling, or compunction? or blind routine? a pattern established, decided upon... and followed religiously? why do i do these things that i do, in this order? what would i feel if i didn't follow this path? i would feel lost, cast off. and the self-hatred would leap into me like a - what were those dinosaurs called? with their bird-like talons? the hook-shaped claws? they would stab into me and disembowel me instantly... i know that that hatred pursues me. it pursued me from ever so long ago. it is my shadow, inevitable. i cast it off only through distraction and routine. distraction and routine.

and concern for what i should be concerned about.

*****

the rain is coming down harder, pelting the earth now. and my skin is chilled. i hear the distance in the rain. the curtains of it coming down.

*****

i wish people listened to me, and found a heart in anything that i was saying. instead, i always am left with the impression that there was something off about me, something lacking. and people won't say it out loud, won't mention it politely... but they fold back into other narratives, because whatever i say only leaves them with a feeling of discomfort. like a glimpse of a gallery of misshapen, hideous artwork. or a symphony played off-tune...

that's me.

12/29/2020

on sunday, we finished a 12-week writing workshop. it was a wonderful experience. for the first 6 weeks or so, it was more about timed writing to impromptu prompts (is that an oxymoron?). sometimes it was words, sometimes situations. we had to write everything in dialogue format, because i guess it was a writing workshop primarily geared towards writing screenplays. and besides that, i suppose that dialogue (and related action) really drives a plot, and distills it into the visible. a lot of that narrative, expository crap that i'm into (still am, unfortunately), it bores the pants off of audiences...

so, yeah, the first 6 weeks was like that. and then the last 6 weeks, we had writing "homework," where we had to bring in 4 pages to do a read-through. i think it was good for me, ultimately, because the workshop held me accountable to do that regular writing. i mean, i have been trying to routinize writing, but i suppose by having it actually "read" by other people, well, i guess it made it more official or something. anyway, i thought i started out okay. i decided to work on "kappa noodle," which is a story i'm writing about my relationship with my older brother. i know i still have a lot of raw feelings about my stinking brother. i have a lot of unresolved hatred. probably misplaced, but it's all there, nonetheless...

(did i mention? maybe in previous posts: but just to be clear, i haven't spoken to my brother in like ten years now. it all had something to do with my daughter and his son, just a little misunderstanding, but my brother and his scheming wife overblew it... and then started to get into hypocrisy territory. because while he was defending the honor of his then seven year old son, and started talking about "honesty," and started likening my daughter to my criminal sister, well, he neglected to mention about how when my sister was seven, he apparently molested her, and then after confessing to it, started backtracking and saying how that was a "lie." i suppose a lot of that sort of blew up in my face... it's funny, how i had, and my family had, up to that point, "buried" the issue... my sister was a fuck-up, it was all her fault, we never really, really believed her anyway, did we? and my brother was the (is the) upstanding citizen, great father, defender of honor. bullshit. BULLSHIT. i suppose that, in writing this story, i explored a lot of the ways in which my older brother sort of always was like that. i know that the story has been colored by my negative present perceptions of him and his family... and i have struggled, really struggled, to make him more redeeming than he perhaps was... but...

in a lot of ways, the story is a trial. my brother is being put on trial. and the voices of the two "lawyers," one yagoro and one kappa-chino, are the two voices in my head. kappa-chino's voice is the one talking about how i SHOULD hate my brother, i should rip his world to shreds... while yagoro, while not overtly defending my brother, claims i should sort of let it all go, keep going with my life... i don't do a good job of it, i think i wasn't particularly clear about where i was going with it, but in retrospect, i think that's what it all boils down to. should i kill my brother? or should i just move on?

[by the way, moving on means burying something... in the story, it doesn't really have anything to do with my sister, it all focuses on MY personal relationship with him... but, yes, it has something to do with burying a part of myself. my hatred for him.]

it's hard for me to relate any more to the love and respect i had for him. yes, on the surface, he is respectable. and, no matter what i or anyone says, he does work hard, he does stress out a lot, he has enormous passion and talent... all of that is incontrovertible. but i suppose what i wanted to point out was that it comes at a cost. and it comes with a theft. a fundamental hypocrisy. someone pays the price for it. someone always does. and it is the invisible people, like me, or my sister, who pay for it.

*****

ANYWAY. whew. i really started to loathe my story after the 12th week of the workshop. in the end, i think it was good that i was forced to regurgitate all of that. i know it was inconsistent, really wordy, really- boring. exhausting, really... but as i wrote it, i think i started to get a clearer picture of how to clothe this idea in a plot. because, up until that point, all i had were these images- not really full incidents, more like little memories, divorced from context... like pictures at an exhibition or something. and i didn't have the skill or whatever to weave them all together into a single narrative. to be honest, i wasn't (and still aren't) sure exactly what impression i wanted to give of the characters. i wanted to express ambiguity. but ambiguity is a tricky thing. if done right, the audience feels the internal conflicts. the hypocrisy. but if done wrong, the audience just gets lost and disconnected, like: "where the fuck is he going with all of this?" i actually think i strayed into the latter territory, because, to be honest, i really wasn't sure where i was going. this, even though i have been wrestling with this story on and off for like years.

right now, i have a few ideas for how to improve the story. first of all, as i have these two characters, stuffed animals named dd and owlie, who are ostensibly his only and imaginary friends... and as they don't really have anything to say during the "trial" portion of the play... well, i was thinking of having them be in a parallel storyline. perhaps when the main character "falls down the well," so to speak, into this other world, well, he gets separated from his "friends." and while the main character undergoes this trial (which, apparently, is a great device for this sort of exploration of memories... because you can jump into and out of them, and then have a debate over what it all meant)... a trial being a very static, stationary event... well, the other two characters are having an actual journey, through physical trials, to reach and reunite with the main character... i think it could potentially accomplish a few things: give those two characters more "living" parts; create a sense of journey in tandem with the trial, because the trial itself may seem so non-moving; provide opportunities for more resonant discussions and images, that could "inform" the events of the trial... anyway, that's the idea for now. because, again, after my 12th week performance, i almost thought of divorcing myself from this effort once again.

*****

i've been listening more to david mamet. while i hear there is controversy about his hyper-masculine plays (because, apparently, that's what his plays tend to be like), i do like his hard and fast discussions about the structure of plots... and the need to keep and maintain the trust of the audience. stuff like, if you don't win your audience over early, then they won't be willing to suspend their ignorance and wait for you to tell your story later... so you need to hit them hard and fast with a good joke in the early part of the play. (he likens plots to jokes with clear punchlines- only essential information reaches the punchline).

*****

i've been reading 3 books at once: dh lawrence's "sons and lovers", which, apparently, is his most autobiographical work... although he was known for scandalous, pornographic works like "lady chatterly's lover..." it's okay so far. i wasn't sure where he was going with it, and it took me a while to develop a liking to the style. sometimes it's hard to translate the- i don't know, scottish? english? speech. especially the speech of morel, the miner (father).

i've also been reading "olive kitteredge." in this latest chapter, she attends the funeral of a former student... or, rather, the former student was the widow. it was- interesting. but it is a chapter about how she continues to struggle with her life, or absence of a life, now that her husband is essentially a living shell of himself after his stroke, and her son voluntarily estranges himself from her in her moment of need... she is coming to terms with a life gone astray. she actually has considered suicide. and perhaps her limited interactions with people all have to do with trying to "place" herself on this spectrum of suffering. maybe she wants to find someone who has it worse. to gloat? or to take notes on how to continue to live? the oddest moment was when the widow matter-of-factly takes a paring knife and considers seriously killing one of the funeral guests... and how olive casually walks her back from this...

i've also read a chapter in "cloud in the shape of a girl." this was the strangest chapter yet. it was about how grace, the daughter, is trying to come to terms with her life after her mother's death. how she has to somehow keep the family going, if not restoring them to their previous unstable unity. in the process, at the end, she has sex with this gross, goofy older man named les moore... it's not as though she wants to. it's almost just this inevitability or something. i look upon this as grace living through the karma of her mother and grandmother, who were both unhappy, and at one point, both had extramarital affairs with unlikely characters... (grace's (real) father, in fact, was one of those)... i think grace was pulled along by this shape of destiny, or something...

*****

but aren't we all...

12/26/2020

it is the day after christmas. it was a pretty uneventful christmas at our house. maybe i am being lazy, maybe i'm just using the covid-19 as an excuse, but i hardly put any effort into christmas this year. we didn't put up a christmas tree (but we did put up decorations in the yard). i did write a "santa note" to the kids, just out of form; it's basically a regurgitated and distilled "parental note." but i hope they took it well.

i suppose i've been reading a lot about the passage of time. about people who live with each other in retirement, about unexpected tragedies (strokes, etc.), about living with the burden of old age and decrepitude. mainly about how to pass the time, when there isn't as much left of it. and there isn't anything really big to look forward to. i've also read about people dying, and about how people have to take care of the burden of tying loose ends, making an ending "appear" finished, for appearance's sake. a lot of it makes me question the socially constructed reality that we imbibe every day. that reality posits a kind of sexy, virile patina over everything. it is always the bold conflict that draws our attention, not the humble, and invisible, day to day struggles. but in truth, most of life is that invisible struggle. that getting up, that getting down to do shit... that's really what life is.

life is, or should be, about connecting with others. i think i've largely forgotten that during this whole covid crap. i would like to, but it just seems... i don't know...

*****

so, yesterday (christmas day) we went over to lynn's friend's restaurant, and i ended up washing dishes with the kids. it was a real chore. some of that food was burnt into the pan. i used the metal scrub pad so much that it started fragmenting in my hand. also the industrial detergent soap that they use started to eat away at my skin. at one point, i felt like i got a shard of the metal scrub pad stuck in the pad of my middle finger. i squeezed it until a drop of blood (and hopefully the shard) got out...

i actually enjoy working hard like that. it makes me feel alive. it also makes me feel like i'm doing something. if you stick me in a room with people, and have me socialize- well, that kills me. i'd always rather be doing something- killing something, cleaning something, whatever. even singing. but conversation- it always makes me anxious. and i probably bore my conversation partners...

*****

in fact, this returns me to an image i have... people are like gravity wells, like black holes... and so long as i am moving, doing something, protecting myself with contexts and responsibilities... then i am fine. but if you allow me to drift, then it feels as though i will inexorably crash into and through people... so i keep things busy in order to protect myself, and others...

*****

i just returned from visiting my parents and my neice and nephew. they are all doing alright. my nephew is back from his first semester in new york city. i imagine he's living it up there. i just imagine that because that's the sort of person he is. he is the center and life of the party. i suppose if i were younger, i'd almost be envious of that sort of life. but i guess as you get older, you start becoming more- i don't know, realistic about things. maybe cynical. you start to understand that not only would you not experience that sort of life now, but you probably wouldn't have experienced it when you were younger. it's you, after all. inescapable you. and that's okay. it's just you start to understand yourself and your reality as something particular that doesn't always match the circumstances of others. you might call it karma, or whatever. i just think at a certain age, or stage in life, you start to accept your karma, and not imagine that things could be or should be better...

or maybe it's just the age. and the turning of the wine in me.

in any case, i realize that there's less in me that is willing to overexpend myself on fruitless endeavors. i'm more of a concerted effort sort of person now. concerted, and purposeful. at least with the purposes that i invent for myself (because ultimately, there are no ultimate purposes left)...

12/21/2020

i read another story from "olive kitteredge" today, this one about an old couple who appear content in their waning years... but for whom there is some secret infidelity (what is it with her and old people who cheat on each other?). i know, it's a common theme, mortality leads one to search for renewal and a passing distraction... i feel it myself, even though the better part of me knows better. or maybe (and maybe this is more to the point) i don't get into trouble because i'm so boring and lazy... i think that's true. i wouldn't know what to do with myself if i were to cheat. it just seems like so much work. and for what?

i don't think i'm capable of falling in love or in distraction any more. maybe most of that has burnt out of me (i don't think that's entirely true... or else i wouldn't talk about it so much). but, yes, again, maybe i'm too pragmatic or stupid or something, but most of those zepellins get shot down way before they can cross too far into my horizons... and they explode quietly, noiselessly, in fact. deflating clouds of nothing.

i think there is a cynicism within me that has put a scab over most of my feelings. a manhole cover. and because of it, i'm incapable of truly appreciating things... most of what i "feel" is a slightly regurgitated, watered down version of the real thing... a pale abstraction... i think maybe for me that's what the restlessness is about? but then again, it is just the same thing, a need to make things alive, again, and forever.

*****

i also read a bit into "girl in the shape of a cloud" or something like that. another great book, another great writer. i'm at this point where the mother, the middle "girl" in what is turning out to be a triad, has come down with lung cancer... and her daughter's reluctant adoption of the role of "caretaker" for the family... of bridging unbridgeable gaps... the mother, in perhaps one of her more lucid moments, speaks of the "non" fairy-tale romance of herself and the girl's father... perhaps more to humanize him, and to help the girl appreciate him...

*****

david mamet talks about structuring the plot. he uses this idea of the three uses of a knife. in act i, the man cuts his bread so that he has something to eat to give him strength to work and earn enough to win the girl. in act ii, the man uses the knife to shave his beard so he looks decent enough to win the affections of the girl. and in act iii, he catches the girl in bed with another man, so uses the knife to cut out her lying heart.

i'm not sure where my "play" is going. i never intended it to be a "play," but perhaps it is as good a format as any. i had an idea of the ending, just as david mamet's hero does... but drama demands a kind of shift or switch, or at least a reimagining of the ending. it can't be a smooth journey, or else why would we need to hear about it? i'm just writing each act as it comes along... but maybe i'm just getting myself more and more lost...

over the week, ideas sort of come into my head. i don't really pursue them, but it seems as though clouds, like stormclouds, are coagulating and assembling- perhaps to form something terrifyingly lightning infused... or else, at the very least, something dark and obscuring.

*****

okay, the air is getting cold. i think i'm going to get a blanket. see you.

12/19/2020

it's been a busy week. it was the last week of classes, for one thing. in addition to a couple of ieps, there was a lot of work to do for christmas. i drew pictures of all of my face to face students. i realize that they were imperfect, but i felt they were still fair representations of them; plus, i wanted to pass along the message that i wanted them to see themselves as i saw them: as smart, capable individuals... on top of that, i learned that my awesome educational assistant would be switched out next quarter. her replacement is also great, a very experienced educational assistant... but the fact is that i had grown accustomed to my other ea, and so had all the kids, so switching mid year like this will definitely have consequences...

so, yeah, the week's been pretty packed with stuff.

i'm feeling a lot of despair with regards to my writing. i feel as though i've gotten irretrievably lost within the plot. i'm not sure what anything means any more. there are large ghost shadows that loom and insist on being told or talked about... but i don't know what their actual significance is, or how they fit into the larger plot...

*****

i think i'm coming to treasure sleep more and more. a few days this week, i didn't do my morning routine. i've given a few excuses... some legit and others not. for example, i did have to do a lot of iep work, and that took a lot of time. i also needed to finish a few drawings, and that took a lot of time as well... but no matter what, there is this nagging sense that i'm shirking my routines... at times, i wonder why i continue doing them. maybe i am a machine who only feels content with himself if the parts within him are moving, gears turning gears and such. ironic, since i like to, or prefer to, envision the world in "organic" terms; organic, here, meaning unconscious, oblivious, but natural. the alternative, the "engineered" or "purposeful" vision of life, mostly feels like too much work. and it also feels artificial. the fish doesn't "practice" at swimming; it breathes the water and is the flow within the water. it is forgetful of itself, because who needs to remember oneself?

*****

i've been semi-reading this book by betty edwards called "drawing on the dominant eye." i'd practically learned how to draw using her book "drawing on the right side of the brain." now, i'm not so sure what her message is, but she's pursuing this line of thought about the significance of eye dominance, i think using it as a signal for personality traits or something. in any case, i've tried a few of the tests, and found that it seems i'm left-eye dominant, meaning my right side of the brain dominates. i could be wrong though. i think part of the reason i draw, and play the piano, and read, and write, is so that i make myself as well-rounded as possible, i.e., rely upon both ways of thinking... but maybe it's not working, and is just leading to a more thoroughly confused state.

*****

"the only thing i ever really wanted to say was wrong was wrong was wrong."

this is a lyric from the sundays song, "here's where the story ends." i'm not sure why i recall it right now. i think it's because i know that the restless part of me, the one that looks out upon the world for some sort of toehold of recognition, or romance, or whatever, is usually horribly wrong. i am constantly misjudging the world... i feel that it is primarily filled with impatient eyes and ears... it recognizes when things ring hollow... which is most of the time... and so, by the time i work up the courage to speak something, some little insight, maybe to express some attraction or what not, i am so thoroughly off the mark... so most of the time, it is right and good for me to hover in the silences... my thoughts, nothing more than drifting clouds...

*****

i marvel again and again at the miracle of my wife. she has such love and sureness about her. she has been hurt before by the world, but i don't think it's turned her in any way (at least that i can see). myself, i know, there is a cruelty within me, and a heartlessness. it comes from my periods of alone-ness. i think, for a time, my heart turned and involuted upon itself, and flooded me with darkness and old dead blood... i don't think a part of me ever fully recovered... maybe i will never recover. i don't think i feel as much empathy or sympathy for others any more. i think i intellectually appreciate suffering, and respond appropriately. but it doesn't hit me in the heart any more, maybe because i lack one. i think i'm more pragmatic about things. about people. some of my students, for example... when they cry, i no longer respond with anger, or with pleading; i often offer some trite words, and walk away. i have found that either alternative doesn't solve the problem. sometimes you need to give children the time to weep. you can't treat outbursts always as things to be "solved" and hidden away. at least that's what i've found. some people think i'm heartless for doing things like that, and in some sense, in the emotional sense, maybe they're right. but it's not because i have given up on my students, or anything like that. if anything, it's because i really want what's best for them... and i'm not going to overly indulge them with pity or whatever...

*****

the time is drawing thin, my friend. thin as a thread of spider silk. holding a heavy sharp thing above us all...

dream - 12/13/2020

i just woke up from a dream. it left me somewhat disturbed.

in my dream, there was a girl who was very sick. she was surrounded by friends and family, who would give her little gifts. after i left something with her, i stayed in the background. she had something upset her; i'm not certain if it was something to do with the gift i left her. but in any case, she said some pointed words, something about how people were so afraid to be with her. they thought that leaving gifts with her would make her feel better, but really, she could care less about them. she thought it funny that, as soon as she was suffering, no one would say anything about it, they would just stand back and watch. i felt as though her comments were being directed at me. but there were too many people around her, too many eyes watching.

later, i sat beside her. i had overheard something about how she had first contracted this illness in the fifth grade, and ever since then (i think in the dream, it was 4 years ago), she had been isolated in the hospital. i said something trite and sympathetic, about how that must have been rough. it was a little nothing to say, but i think she liked that i was sitting there talking to her.

there were images or memories i had of gossiping old women, and useless old gifts. there were images of disease, of a particular disease where being bitten by a spider or contracting this disease made your intestines turn into crickets or something. i saw this happen on a tv screen.

and i awoke feeling, as i said, mildly disturbed. there is a little soreness at the back of my throat, which i hope isn't anything...

*****

it's 4 am. i actually have quite a bit of stuff to do, so i'm debating about what i should work on. the story i'm writing is bugging me more than usual. i think, internally, that i'm wrestling with the plot. i'm at the point where it's very easy to get lost in it- to consider what is essential, and not essential, in it- to changing things around so it seems to work better. it's hard work- work that requires fiddling with things and then letting things run their course... nothing straightforward or direct about it.

at the same time, there are pressures from work: i've two ieps to write, and i've got to draw the portraits of all my students.

also, i've been keeping my early morning routine of meditating and then doing taijiquan pretty consistent. this morning, i'm probably going to break that streak...

oh well.

12/9/2020

i am at the acupuncture school right now. i actually don't have to be here. i am administering the final for the class primarily via distance (meaning students receive and send an electronic copy). there were a few in person students, but as there weren't really any questions regarding the final, i'm just sitting here waiting.

what sucks is that i got a speeding ticket driving here. i'm not going to comment on it right now. but it just sort of put me in a bitchy mood. like, i didn't even have to come here, and i am ending up paying for the stupid ticket for the privilege of my optional appearance...

*****

i read a story in "olive kitteredge", which is an excellent book, btw. in the latest chapter, called "starving," an older man named harmon basically finds new life in a relationship he has with another woman. i should say that harmon has been married (bonnie) for many years, enough to have raised 4 boys, all now gone out of the house... the empty nest syndrome hits him hard, much harder than his wife, who seems to find a kind of empty joy in little craft projects and her weekly book club. bonnie also doesn't "accommodate" him, and even tells him, with finality, that that aspect of her life was over... so i guess that sets harmon wandering... he learns the slang from a couple of younger twenty-somethings: "fuck buddies." and realizes, somewhat ashamedly, that that's what he and this other woman, daisy, are... fuck buddies... but eventually, due to a tragic and heartrending event- the intrusion of a desperately anorexic young girl into their "cozy" relationship- well, it somehow transforms harmon and daisy into something more.

the story is called "starving," and, on one level, it is about the young anorexic girl. however, on a parallel track, it is about harmon, who comes to starve for life... even after living what most would consider a full life. some might superficially label this a mid-life crisis- and perhaps there are some aspects of that- but to me, it expresses more the notion that life ALWAYS hungers for life... and that there are those that feel this, sometimes acutely... and there are those that sort of give up on life- on all its newness, its relentlessly unfixed nature... harmon understands, at the end, that choosing one (his relationship with daisy) will destroy what he already has (his marriage and life with bonnie)... but in a certain sense, it is not a choice. because who, "infected" by life, would choose death?

*****

anyway, it is now a day later. i always end up doing this. i start to write an entry somewhere, and then, due to circumstances, i can't finish... and i have to pick up the loose thread and go with it.

*****

i don't know, i'm sort of mixed, not about the story, but about its portrayal of commitment as death. yes, it is always a relentless draw to think about other lives, other loves, other possibilities. and familiarity, the oblivion that comes from living with the patterns of those you "love," well, it can seem akin to a sort of death. but in the surrender to that, there is also a miracle. this, i have to believe.

i also think that people never really stop growing or changing. just because it seems as though things are "fixed," there is always someone or something restless within us that is trying to come to be. i'm thinking of counting crows lyrics, although i think they were sung with a darker significance... nevertheless: "beneath the dust and love and sweat that hangs on everybody, there's a dead man trying to get out."

*****

i'm trying to keep to certain routines, and miraculously, i've been able to do so. i get up at around 4, and then meditate for 30 minutes... the main problem i have during my sessions is that i wake up with some sort of random snippet of song in my head, and for the life of me, i can't get it out of my head. i think it's something like my ego or a shadow of it trying to assert its control over the acid of my awareness... it tries to pretend a sameness within me... anyway, after meditation, i do my taijiquan, based on adam mizner's instructions. i basically do 25 minutes of standing meditation, which is getting easier, although the last 10 minutes (poses that involve putting 90-100% weight on one leg) tend to be very difficult, to the point where i'm sweating and vibrating... after that, i do 10 minutes of fang song exercises, basically simple movement exercises that get things moving. and then i do the small snippet of the 37 movement form made famous by cheng man ching...

i also do a few ab exercises, and some chest/back and shoulder/arm exercises from p90x. just a little bit. i think it's best to break things into small increments... otherwise they become insurmountable (psychologically) and they just don't get done...

so i manage to do that every morning. and in the afternoons, i set about on my routines... like drawing, playing the piano, reading chapters in different books, stuff like that. it pretends at life, this routine... this "forced" immersion in different aspects of culture. but so far i like it. it makes my mind active.

12/4/2020

 i am currently in school. i am waiting for a particular student who has a habit of not showing up for his session. if he does show up, he tends to be very late. i think, for this afternoon, i'm simply going to sign out of the google meet at the 15 minute mark. it's standard policy at the college level to simply leave the class if the professor doesn't show up after 15 minutes... why can't we apply the same standard to students?

things have been slower lately. i have been struggling to work through some of my routines, and i suppose at times that they have felt compulsory, rushed... like i'm just doing them for no particular reason. i also think that a few of the things that i try to do, particularly those that seem to be difficult... i have kind of backed off of them. for example, one of the things that i do is work on something from khan academy. currently, i'm trying to rewrite a memory game using javascript to incorporate a bunch of different features. the difficulty for me has been issues with functions that are called recursively by the program, even out of sequence. if something runs constantly, then how can you do something "before" it, or "after" it? i guess i'm more used to "old school" programming, where there is just one stream, and you can more or less control what gets done and when... in any case, i kind of backed off of this. i started to do other, lesser things, but a part of me couldn't help but feel that this was a cop-out.

i guess there is something important about finishing things. it has some sort of psychological effect. it confers a feeling of solidity to you. as long as you decide something in advance, like, i'm going to write 4 pages, and you do that- then you feel as though you have accomplished something. sure, those 4 pages could be pure shit, and they may not really progress the plot of your story very much... but they are 4 pages... i know that when neil gaiman talks about "finishing things," what he means is that you pursue things to their natural end, not some arbitrary mini-end points that you invent for your convenience. i'm not ready to do things to that extent... i mean, i have, and frankly, it used to stretch me so thin that i felt worn out and transparent. and the other issue is that i have so many other obligations... so to obsess over a single thing only left me incapable to function in the countless other dimensions of my life. so i had to apportion things, for both my sanity and my continued functioning. it was a compromise. a necessary one... sure, there may be miraculous works that i don't create, because i don't allow myself to relentlessly pursue my muse... but so what.

the funny thing is that i think my brain sort of likes this cyclical routine, and the pauses in between allow it to come up with ideas and solutions unprovoked. i think there is much to be said for the passive aspect of consciousness (otherwise known as the unconscious mind). we acknowledge its power, but in attempting to yoke it to service, we actually cause it to slip further and further out of reach. there's something to be said for ignoring things, forgetting things... because when we are no longer actively concerned and working on something, sometimes that's when the unconscious, like a shy voice, babbles out ideas into the ether...

for example, currently, with my kappa noodle story... i imagined a few other characters, notably someone called kappa-rate (supposed to be read like corporate), and maybe some sort of jokester called kappa-chino... they were supposed to be the new school kappa, different from yagoro... they were supposed to be a part of a global enterprise to find the "unwanteds" and turn them into the new army of kappa, who had as their goal the overthrow of the human race... yes, i had this idea in my head, but i wasn't sure how i wasn't going to execute it. largely this was due to the fact that i had a notion of a journey... something about how the main character was trying to find his way back to the surface world... but at the same time, i wanted there to be this internal tug-of-war... and that tug-of-war had to do with the feeling that my brother was worthy of hatred and destruction, or whether he ought to be forgiven. the latter is inconsistent with a "journey," in the sense that a journey progresses into new vistas, whereas a "tug-of-war" is a static situation... i also didn't know how kappa-rate and the others would fit in. were they antagonists? (well, actually, they were to be seen as antagonists in a certain sense, no matter what)... and how was i to present the memories? were they supposed to come out naturally in the course of the "journey?"

this morning, as i was doing my standing postures, it sort of came to me. i should turn it all into some sort of tribunal. that would allow me to incorporate a series of little vignettes/memories, without fear of dragging a journey. a tribunal is a tug-of-war, a matter of deciding guilt or innocence. and besides, it would parallel the events in the "five chinese brothers" story, which this is ostensibly an undermining of...

so, yeah. after this, according to my routine, i've got to write at least 4 pages in that story, so we'll see if i can execute it. but i think things are coming along, if not perfectly, well, at least they are coming along. and i suppose that's the best i can hope for...

*****

but, yes. lately, i'm cold. i'm tired. i'm not particularly excited. sure, there is hope on the horizon, but oh, what devastation we have seen in the interim! what betrayals of character! i was thinking of the term "faithless elector," and i think it's appropriate for our times. things only work if there is faith in things working. without that "faith," everything falls apart, and there is no sense in coming together for anything. there is only the nagging fear of betrayal, ad infinitum...

*****

okay, so i better get back to work. i'm going to clean up this room, and then make some deposits, work on editing my daughter's essays (she's applying to college- hard to believe), work on an iep, and then get down to the business of writing my 4 page assignment...

11/28/2020

 it is cold, relatively speaking. it is feeling like it is nice to be under blankets... at the same time, i'm kind of suffering from abdominal issues. i think it's from some of the desserts i've eaten, which tend to be very agreeable going in, but not so agreeable coming out...

i'm in appreciation and awe of my wife, who went in early today, and just came back (it's past 12 am). she is such a dedicated worker. and she doesn't complain for all the little vicissitudes that are thrown her way. she just finds another way around obstacles...

*****

i finished reading beatrice and virgil. it was somewhat of a disturbing book, with a shocking ending. definitely not happy. but i suppose that that was the point. it was about the holocaust, and about all such unspeakable events (the horrors); it was about the possibility or impossibility to speak about such things, or live a normal life after such things... 

the "games for gustav" at the end were gruesome, and point at the absurdity of morality when all systems have broken down...

*****

it is actually now the next day. i fell asleep with my wife, who has been putting in a LOT of time at the store... i think my dreams are "safer" when i am with my wife (much of the time, even when i start off in the same bed, i wander off to the couch in the other room to sleep). that's the impression i have anyway...

i have to write at least 4 pages in my story by tomorrow for the writer's workshop. all week, i have been musing about it. all of these ideas have been bombarding my brain. there are a lot of critiques i have to address as well... the owl character in the story sounds too long-winded. to be honest, i didn't seriously think about the characters... that is, i didn't think about their voices, or even their specific perspectives, to be honest. they were just sounding boards for ideas, more or less. they gave me the alternative of presenting situations through dialogue, instead of simply describing things... this externalized the situation, and prevented it from being a purely solipsistic exercise. what's more, i think it actually highlights the complexity of the main character, because if these are projections of himself (imaginary friends), then it reveals that he has more within him than he lets on.

*****

in writing, and in minecraft, and in other things, there always comes a point when you have to decide whether you want to "own" your legacy, or if you will just cut your losses and run. i suppose this is true of people too. at times, there is a kind of self-hatred or loathing that abides in you if you aren't careful. there's this notion that this reality that you're living isn't the one you SHOULD or COULD be living... and that notion negates whatever you have already built. there is the myth that if you could only start over, things would be different. yes, and no. yes, temporarily, they could be different. but no, it's not as though you have escaped the problem. at some point, things either get difficult in the game, or project, or life, or whatever, and you are left with the same question. even if things don't get difficult, then there is still that internal dissatisfaction, augmented by witnessing perhaps other people's solutions, other people's lives. we always want better.

so... there comes a point where you decide to stick with it. for better or for worse.

i have an ugly world i have been working on in minecraft. it's ugly because there wasn't an essential plan to it. but there were sincere attempts to construct something worthwhile, and perhaps it isn't fair to simply walk away from it. maybe it's still possible to create something legitimately beautiful... again, it's a matter of owning the ugliness of oneself.

... oh well, i've got to get going on that story!

11/23/2020

it has been a while since i last wrote here... well, actually, i did write about that silly dream a couple of days ago... but anyway.

i think i kind of got stuck this weekend, at least in terms of my routines. in part it was because i had a stupid headache on saturday. but it was also because i was trying to work on my writing assignment for the writer's workshop that i'm participating in. i basically decided to use the assignment to break the inertia that i'd had with some of my writing projects, notably this "kappa noodle" story that's been haunting my head for so long. at first, i thought i did a decent job of it, and it felt pretty easy, pretty flow-y, writing it. but having heard it read, in retrospect, i realize how long-winded it sounded. a particular error on my part was having a character retell another story. there is nothing more boring than having characters TELL stories. but i guess, i guess a lot of what i like to write tends to be like that. explanations. i wish it were otherwise, but i guess that's me.

so, right now, i'm feeing kind of down on my writing, and my "writing style." it's something that i think people patiently endure when they read it, but it definitely isn't something to celebrate...

at the same time, i feel two influences: 1) this optimistic faith in the "flow," largely due to my participation in this writer's workshop; and 2) this drive to finish the damn thing. so i'm hoping that, through those two influences, i am able to "rid [this story] from my bones." (from the decemberists "engine driver"). hopefully, they will carry me through...

***

i put off so much nowadays. i am only a skeleton held together by a frame of obligations.

***

i think my wife works miracles. i feel that she is so full of love, that she breathed me into being, and made me into something half-worth this life. me, on the other hand, with this perpetual chip on my shoulder, and leaky chamber in my heart, i have this cruelty imprinted upon me, perhaps by others, but which i perpetuate endlessly. i try to hide it, most of the time successfully, by a feigned kindness, a sense of obligation... but i lack the true breathing love that my wife embodies. i am so blessed to have her, to have been loved by her. otherwise, i would still have been haunted by my own self-hate, pursued by it as i have been relentlessly for decades of my life...

***

i don't really know what else to write about at the moment... i'm just pushing forward, like everyone else.

dream: 11/22/2020

 it is 3:40 am right now.

i had a dream earlier in the night. it was pretty nondescript and unmemorable at first... but as i was talking to my wife in her sleep (i was actually asleep in the other room, and crawled into bed, mumbling to her), for some reason, fragments trickled back into my consciousness...

i recall... catching the bus to some part of the city. i'm not sure what city, but like all cities, there were the empty dingy places. that's kind of where i was going. and for some reason, as i got off the bus, there was some sense of obligation or something. like someone was watching me. in fact, i kind of accompanied this old mexican guy who traveled in some powered wheelchair. he never spoke to me, but he kind of watched me... maybe i was a flight risk or something. in any case, i remember the horribly buckled sidewalks... and storefronts (mostly closed, as it was approaching dark) that had shuttered themselves in with rusty metal bars... it was about seven (in fact, it was seven) and i finally got to where i had intended: a bike store. only, just as i was walking up to the door, the worker- a young chinese man- said, "it's seven. we're closed. it's seven." and so, the whole point of my walk through the crappy city was gone. for some reason, after that, i was pushing some sort of shopping cart. i wanted to ditch the mexican guy, who was still waiting for me somewhere near the entrance. so i crossed the empty street and tried to go back on the other sidewalk. it was no less buckled and bumpy... in fact, i recall it being coned off or something, so i had to navigate my shopping cart carefully, weaving through these cones. i think the mexican guy saw me anyway, but it turned out to be too difficult to give me chase...

at some other phase of the dream, i passed a more important part of town. there were some cones, and some news people packed in some entrance. there were cameras there, the works. it looked like some press conference or something. and i saw these youngish people, some flighty people like i had met in college, with nothing better to do, all dressed up- seemed halloweenish, in fact. and they were excited because they were witnessing this press conference, which had something to do with some big event, some big announcement (it seemed related to the 'rona). but i ignored them, and plodded on through this empty night time city.

i arrived at a parking lot of some mcdonalds, where this woman sat. and then my old friend kendall appeared, and it turned out they were boyfriend-girlfriend. for some reason, i wasn't entirely happy to see kendall, even though i hadn't seen him (in real life, and in the dream) for many many years... i don't know if i was expecting him. but the city just seemed so dead, like a hollow dessicated version of itself- no life, no people, just empty rumors of things, and stores closing, and broken sidewalks... that it all seemed unhappy. and maybe for that reason, i, as part of this city, was unhappy too...

i think i have dim recollections of meeting some older woman, who was somehow a "kindred spirit." and the implication was that she wanted more from me, wanted something physical. but i couldn't oblige her, not only because i didn't feel particularly attracted to her, but because i knew i was tied to someone else. there was this sense within myself, this reproach or regret, that, again, there was something wrong with me. there were others- maybe most others- who would have taken this opportunity, and made, so to speak, the barren unhappy ground something fertile and life-giving. basically, this idea that intimacy could bring people to life. and by denying her this, i was making both of our lives a little bit emptier. but- as before- as always before- if "the stars weren't just right," then i wasn't going to do it... it's funny, but in real life, in my real relationship, there are compromises on my part (and no doubt my wife's) where we give beyond ourselves, and there is little "perfection." but it always seemed that the initial ground-breaking, so to speak, of any relationship, well, it required a ton of funding and planning, and a nice big ribbon, and a shiny pair of shears- the whole gamut, the whole works, before anyone even remotely thought of impacting the hardened soil with the tip of a spade...

... i must say, there is a kind of happiness to recounting dreams. it's not that the dreams themselves are happy. but it feels as though i am acknowledging the story of some piece of me. i don't know if it makes sense, or even if it is supposed to. but it's similar to when i listen to some student prattle on about some amusing detail in their life. i am impatient at times to get to work and make things productive, but i try not to cut them off, because i understand how vital it is for students to develop their voice, and to feel as though their feelings and lives are worth it... well, anyway, maybe recounting dreams is like that. like student stories, they probably don't make much sense, and don't amount to much, but that's not really the point. the point is to listen. and speak them out.

11/13/2020

today is sunday. yesterday, i took the kids over to ala moana. i wanted to get a book, or a couple of books, on color theory, and how to incorporate color into drawing. i'm thinking of transitioning into painting (water color) at some point, but prior to that, i'd like to get a better sense, or a better eye, for color. so that was basically my reason for going. my daughter wanted to fix her computer, so she wanted to take it to the windows store. and my son, i guess he just wanted to tag along and get some food.

... turns out i got what i wanted. i got a book on colour pencil drawing and another "theory" book on color and light. both seem really interesting, and i can't wait to get into them. my daughter didn't get what she wanted, because, well, the windows store is closed! permanently! wow, now that's serious. i knew the pandemic was causing havoc with a lot of businesses, but i would have thought that computers wouldn't be affected. i actually know a few people who worked at that store, and to think that they're out of a job? wow, that's serious...

we went to the food court. willow wanted to try a cheddar dog, that is, a hot dog with cheddar, fried in a batter mix, and coated with sugar. i know, it sounds kind of weird, but it actually tasted pretty good. aiden wanted a spicy ramen from bario ramen, this place we tried originally over at the waikiki yokocho. anyway, we were cracking up at the menu, because it mentions their "kilauea" special, which is the spiciest ramen that they make. there's a disclosure at the bottom that says: "we will not be held liable for die or illness." the japenglish part, the "die or illness" got us all laughing. in fact, i kept referring back to it: "i better watch out or i'm going to die. or illness." yeah, i guess you had to be there.

anyway, i got the same thing as my son. he likes things spicy, so he opted for the level just below "kilauea" (i wonder, did the warning only apply to the "kilauea"? what if we die or illness from a lower level of spiciness? just kidding.). i got the same thing. what was funny was that i scooped out the heaping pile of hot chili paste that they had dolopped on my ramen, and my son fished out every single bean sprout from his... the ramen was pretty good, just the right consistency... and the pork? it was perfect! i love it when the pork has the same soft wet consistency. it bums me out when i eat pork in ramen, and it is hard or dry or chewy. i think pork is perfect when it literally melts in your mouth...

*****

i have been meditating for 30 minutes every morning, and then doing the exercises given by adam mizner. i do some loosening up stuff, and then some standing meditation. it's pretty good so far. if nothing else, i've become painfully aware of my right shoulder, which has the humerus perpetually turned inward (maybe due to overdevelopment of my right pectoralis)... this turns the humeral head slightly, so that it keeps clicking into and out of joint. i think it's been loosening up somewhat, with regular exercise. it's my hope that it will be free and clear later on, so i can fajin through it.

*****

my daughter asked me what i thought about her dropping physics. she claims that she has no time for college applications because that physics class stresses her out so much... i kind of meandered in my speech/lecture to her, but ultimately, i told her that it was her call, and that i trusted her. i told her she was smart and responsible, and if she felt that she needed to drop the class, then she should just trust herself... i think at this stage, it's maybe my job to offer opinions, but ultimately she runs her own life...

*****

during my last drawing session, i returned to the idea of committing to an artistic piece, and finishing it completely... i was thinking about this specifically with regards to writing, which has always been a struggle for me. i mean, when i draw, i do commit to finishing; usually, it is a point where i feel it's sufficient... i don't capture everything in my drawing, just the essentials... but i was thinking that that feeling of closure (if not satisfaction) will always elude me if i follow this routine of just doing what needs to be done to be done with for that particular day...

11/12/2020

 i am still at school. i'm waiting for my 1:30 to show. actually, i WAS waiting for my 12:30 to show up, but he hasn't been coming on for a few days now. i'm actually pretty disgusted by it. i mean, i keep calling mom to remind her, and even after all this time, he doesn't show up regularly...

what it means for me, at the moment, is that i have a few spare moments to do some writing.

at the moment, it is raining pretty hard, even though the sun is shining bright. there's a smell in the air, the smell of rain... but it is a particular smell that summons in me vague memories of when i was young... i have images of the commute to japanese school, when we would have to ride our bikes through these neighborhoods in mililani to get from the elementary school over to the high school... these hills around the nob hill subdivision, with the sidewalk panels that would go click-clack when you rode your bikes over them... glimpses of residences through slat wood fences... and an image of a flower growing on crumbling concrete stairs, accompanied by this music which i later misrecognized as pachelbel's canon (i think there must have been a sesame street thing, just a wordless portion showing a similar flower slowly growing in the sunlight)... there are also vague images of the district park, of fields of grass that i didn't particularly want to be around, because it meant prolonged p.e., occasions for other kids to show their stuff, when all i wanted to do was find a book to read, or a place to dream...

anyways, those are some of the images that come to mind...

*****

the past couple of days, i've tried to be very regular and regimented. in the early morning (i try to get up around 4 or so), i meditate for half an hour, and then i go through my taijiquan routines. there are some loosening up exercises that i do, and then some standing postures that i attempt. i really am enjoying the course set up by adam mizner, and hope it produces in me some real results. i really would like to authentically fajin, for one thing, but it sounds like, to him, fajin is only just preprimer stuff...

*****

what are some of my thoughts... i guess i realize i've always been "missing out" on life. or perhaps i've never really been "missing out" on anything. because what life is there apart from the one you're living? we speak of different alternatives or different choices, but maybe it's all just like this view from a river- while you are being pulled on the currents. yes, you can see life, you can see other possibilities- but you can't necessarily be at all of those places. i mean, the current is pulling you too fast. maybe you could, if you really tried, if you really wanted to, but wouldn't you be missing out on other opportunities? and wouldn't you be using up your energy, your life, in the meantime?

i remember when i was younger, how i always felt so dissatisfied with my life. i always imagined that there was somewhere else, another "stream" where i was supposed to be. maybe it was another place, or another job... most of the time, it was proximity to some special person. yes, i always imagined that being coupled with someone would be salvific or something. like all of my concerns and problems would disappear... of course, i placed unrealistic expectations on what a relationship like that was supposed to be like, and probably as a result, it never materialized. i mean, how could anyone have satisfied those extreme demands?

anyway, i felt such a loathing within myself, because i always felt like i had "missed the boat." the only way i could hide- temporarily, of course- was to attempt to disappear within art. i felt that art- ironically, or paradoxically, without an audience- could save me because in the moment of performance, neither myself nor the other existed. there was simply the concentration upon "it."

... now that i'm older, i feel less and less dissatisfaction with my life. does that just come with getting older? i mean, i do feel yearnings, but i also feel- how should i put it- more solid? more content? i feel at times like this big fat mountain. the weight of my accretions, and my "settling" for a certain set of circumstances... well, maybe it's hard to feel much of anything nowadays. there's the longing for memories, even if, as i well realize, the past wasn't all that great. again, the past was haunted by that inescapable sense of loneliness and loathing... so which was worse? which is better? it's hard to say...

from my present perspective, i guess i would just like to have the capacity to appreciate my past. i guess i just want to feel like i could still feel the past living inside me, like a memory... most of the time, i fear i'm really dead inside, like a hunk of steel... there may be vibrations within me, echoes from some unknown past, but they only make vague shadow-sounds that i can no longer hear clearly... 

well, gotta get back to work, students are coming on now.

11/10/2020

i am here at work this chilly morning (chilly for hawaii, that is). my morning session student hasn't shown up for about a week now. i don't really blame the student at all. he was in quarantine at a hotel for a couple of weeks, and after moving home, discovered that he doesn't have any internet. so until that is taken care of, we can't meet. what that means for me is that i can come in and sort of relax. i mean, there are a lot of other things to do to prep for the face to face students that will be coming in (soon), but i've kind of taken care of a lot of that, so...

my feelings regarding politics oscillates. i was elated and relieved that biden won, but i feel a sense of dread when it comes to the way that trump and his gop sycophants are refusing to accept the results of the election. what will it take to make them leave? and what will it take to make them feel remorse or shame? i feel that they need to feel that. the hatred... it's a non-negotiable. they have to realize the mistake they made. or, as i've mentioned, generations later, when grandchildren look over the facebook records, they will see this black spot on their family tree, this instance of true shame. i mean, it is literally like germany; we should shun those who supported the nazis, because it was a shameful thing. the only difference here is that, at the moment, at least, we turned trump into a loser, before he took us into a world-wide war...

*****

i need to write a 4 page assignment for my writing workshop. i'm kind of excited, but kind of anxious about it. i have a lot of fun in the workshop. it encourages a lot of spontaneity in writing, which i tend to lack. i mean, i've been trying to encourage that free-floating spontaneous voice inside me by doing a lot of little exercises... now, after i do my blog, i have a 10 minute "true" free write, which becomes a kind of dump for my thoughts (often lascivious and unspeakable), and then i spend 10 minute sessions writing based on alternating visual and word prompts (i use these sites called random picture generator and random word generator). and finally, i try to write for 30 minutes on a more prolonged project... it's been fun, i suppose. i still struggle with turning these efforts into more "purposive" writing, that is, writing that leads to a completed project... but i don't know, maybe if i get more confidence in my "voice," it will be easy to do that...

anyway, for this 4 page project... i was thinking of associating a few things. my mom, when i was young, used to force us to get our ears cleaned by her. she used this thing called a mimikuri (it's funny, when i google it now, there is no reference to the cleaning instrument that i was used to... instead, it's turned into a loan word for "mimicry"). the mimikuri is this thin wooden instrument, with a tapered shaft that ends in a little hook or scoop. you're supposed to stick it in your ear to dig out all of the accumulated ear wax and crap inside of your ear. i know, definitely not medically approved. but it was something my mom would force us to do. we would have to lie down with our heads in her lap, and then she would gradually dig out whatever was in our ears, and put the leavings on her knee right in front of our faces. so we could see what came out. usually, it was just some powdery stuff. but sometimes we would see monstrous strings of skin, like shavings off of a pvc pipe. or there would be hard chunks of dark, transclucent material, like a carbuncle... a mixture of blood and pus and ear wax.

i was thinking of associating this with an image i've been struggling with... this notion of the deep sea. and the image of the five chinese brothers, and how one brother (the first) could swallow the sea... and how there was a beggar boy who drowned when the first chinese brother let loose the sea upon him. i have been struggling with that as an image to capture my relationship with my brother... and there was this idea of the treasures on the sea floor being laid open and bare for the world to see, and how it was similar to what my mother did to my ears... but i could go a lot of ways with the whole mimikuri thing. for one thing, i could talk about how my brother punctured my ear drum once. i had been digging my ear with the mimikuri (when we got to be a certain age, we would do it ourselves... by then, we were addicted...). my brother was doing some sort of martial arts pretend shit, and he knocked the hand holding the mimikuri so that it went straight into my head... there was the sudden loss of sound. i'd thought that the mimikuri had penetrated into my brain, and ran halfway up the stairs in utter terror... yes, i could tell that story, and its aftereffects, like how i started to believe in the chinese meridian system, because simultaneous with my subsequent ear infection and the gradual reconstruction and healing of my ear drum, there was a rotting of the nail of my 4th finger...

i could go that way. or i could talk about how my father unearthed my tongue...

anyway, i will see what i can do for that assignment...

oh well, time's running short. it's about 7:30, and some of my earliest students come in about this time.

11/8/2020

yesterday, they called the election for biden. and by "they", i mean a majority of the media outlets, which is pretty official. i mean, it won't be for a few more days (?) until the election is certified by all the states, but at this point, it's pretty official.

i'm happy, of course. or should i say relieved. i'm disturbed that trump still got 70 million votes. that means that 70 million people in america believe in his racist, sexist policies... or at least, they are okay with them, as a tradeoff for tax breaks or anti-abortion policies or anti-immigration policies... which, i can't decide, may be even worse. there is this call for reconciliation, for healing and mediation, and i'm all for that. but at the same time, i don't think there is a "middle ground" with these people. i think that they have to face up and fess up to the evil that they supported. the way i see it: your children and grandchildren will see all of your pro-trump facebook posts... aren't you going to be ashamed that you supported such a hateful man? history, and your family, they will look upon you as some dark stain. happy with that? no? then start asking for forgiveness. from god, first of all (not the trump god, or the god of your evangelical christian church, which is actually a front for gop talking points, but the true god, the one that walks the silences, and is just and is love). from your family... and then from the world.

okay, there was my rant.

in terms of what's next, politically... we need to support the two senate races in georgia. right now, the gop still has control of the senate, which means that they will continue in their role of being a barrier to getting anything done. so we need to flip the senate as well...

*****

i read 3 more short stories by amy hempel. the first i read this cycle was actually very long. it was called "tumble home," and it was very moving to me. i hadn't been able to really access or appreciate most of her work. i thought it was trying to be too clever or something. but this one sort of got to me. it was about a woman who (although it's not clearly stated) is in some sort of asylum, due to some unidentified mental problems... and she is writing a letter to a famous painter whom she had tea with for one hour once long ago... the painter is sort of an idealized love interest for her... and the letter is sort of a confessional, a disclosing of her life and her inner workings...

*****

what have i been thinking about?

i keep recalling people in my life. their transitional roles... and how so many of them have moved on and developed and changed in their lives, and i was never a part of it. and maybe i feel sad that i didn't share in their lives, that i wasn't there. it's sort of an arrogance on my part, i suppose. i have always felt a fear of being irrelevant, and maybe like the narcissist in chief we have, i would like a hand in everything (of course, not pussies, like him)... what i mean is, i would like to have had people think well of me, think i was somehow important. even though i am not, and was not... i suppose it's arrogant in the sense that, i imagine, most people just want humbler things, like just getting by, or being normal. i want those things too, i want an easy path, but at the same time, i want to be seen as important, even if it is not in an overt way (cause i couldn't handle that), but in a hidden way... like the invaluable servant or something... like arthur for batman. only a bit more glamorous... cause i would have wanted SOME recognition...

i keep repeating this... but i think i have this need to be considered important because i am so afraid of disappearing. why am i afraid of that? that's where i came from. i was in my brother's shadow, and i didn't exist. i think i was someone back then, and maybe i was kind. i think i was a good older brother to my sister... but i wasn't anyone. i didn't have a self. i was kind of like this harmless thing, this "nice guy," who people didn't see because i couldn't see or recognize myself... it was only later that i discovered i was solid... and i think afterwards, i had such a dread of turning back into what i was, that liminal half-hearted thing (which, in many respects, i probably still am), that i claimed the sun for myself. i wanted to swallow it, and have it burn within me forever. that, or at least have its spotlight trained on me, in some small respect (still borrowing some shade from my brother)...

"look at me. i'm still here."

*****

there is again the myth of the disappearing. but in my world it is never true disappearing. it is the disappearing that hopes for the world to miss it, and therefore redeem it. it is the "didja miss me?" play. and when i see myself doing it, i think it's so pathetic. true disappearing is a death... and even in that, there is this sneaky ploy... i think of manga arcs where the protagonist disappears for a time, and then reappears, a stronger, more experienced character, after having suffered some trials, or having undergone some deadly training, or something... there is always that hope... that when you return "from the dead," you will be more relevant, more effective, more beautiful, more loved... so it is the same thing.

there is no coming back from the true death. and if there is, it is usually a diminution of the self. that's how it is in the real world...

so again, that is a strategy of the self. to stage its own death so that we are delighted in its resurrection...

*****

i just want everything to be itself. in its own skin. and me okay with that.

11/3/2020

it is election day. i took a break from watching the tv, because i was starting to feel anxious. i'm starting to worry that the country will end up electing trump as president again, even after his disastrous first term. more than anything, it will make me despair about the state of our democracy... how idiots and racists and rich people can game the system. anyway, as i said, i'm taking a break from all of that. i'm trying to focus on my routines. i just came back from watering the garden. it's doing alright. some plants are clearly dying, like some of the tomatoes. but my eggplants seem to be having a resurgence or rebirth after a long period of decline. there is a hyotan vine that is monstrous. it has snaked through a lot of my planter box, maybe choking off the light from a few things, and has wound its way down to the grass lawn. pretty soon, it may cross into the sidewalk, and i'll have to intervene. so far, it has given me one big hyotan (squash), but i'm confident it will give me more. that one hyotan that i harvested inspired my wife to make this dish with pork and squash, which was really good. so i'm hoping we can use more of them to eat. on the other side of the house, i have a bittermelon vine which is also doing well, and has also produced a couple of bumpy bittermelons. one is growing relatively large (for a bittermelon), while another is just starting. like the hyotan, the bittermelon vine has been pretty disrespectful of boundaries and borders, and has just crawled a distance both ways. i had a metal wire cone that i'd used for a zucchini plant. it was standing a ways from the bittermelon, empty. but now the bittermelon has taken it over, and climbed up it, producing a bunch of yellow flowers...

i keep wanting to harvest my worm castings, but i get lazy. it seems like such a messy, dirty job. my worm bin is filled with wet, slimy stuff that really stinks. i mean it smells like fresh shit, or something. i try to make it less awful by occasionally tearing up paper egg cartons into it. i'd heard that giving carbon stuff (like shredded paper) would reduce the smell... so far, no luck. i try to tip the bin daily to drain out the excess water, and give the worms a chance to "breathe." i mean, the bin has some air holes (probably a minimal amount), but i don't think it's enough to provide the thriving worm colony with enough air to breathe. they are red (red wigglers), and have a lot of hemoglobin in them, which means that they like air. so i try to give them that period of about 10 minutes to just breathe. i always have to watch out for them, though, because there are a couple of birds (songbirds, nightingales?) that come around hunting for worms... did i mention the smell? yes, it's awful. i even notice, after a few minutes, a few blue bottles coming around searching for a corpse...

my composting operation is doing well. i have 3 piles going. one is significantly reduced. i think it is almost ready to use. i'm not sure though. i think they say that compost is ready to use when the bits in it are unrecognizable. well, everything is pretty much brown, but i can still see small shreds of leaves and stuff... so maybe it isn't quite to the point where it should be. the other piles are processing. i keep adding stuff to the biggest of the piles, which is a monster held in by wire fencing. i even added fish bones and other food to it, which i try to cover up with a ton of dead leaves... i'm proud of all this stuff i'm able to keep from the waste stream, and recycle for my garden. i'm hoping that if i do a good enough job of taking care of the soil, then things will start to grow really well.

*****

i had a good time in my writing class last week. i'm not an actor at all, although the 3 other people, and the teacher, are clearly "in the business." i can't do a good reading for shit. i don't know why. i think it's related to how i can't talk pidgin. talking pidgin requires a sense of intimacy, of commonality, with your audience, which was frankly humiliated out of me by my older brother. or maybe i just never had it in me, and i'm just using my brother as a scapegoat... anyway, although most of my writing tends to be awkward and cerebral, i think at certain points i was able to write more or less from the heart (which means that i managed to bypass my stupid brain).

at one point, i wrote some dialogue using the seed word "cry", and with instructions not to use any caps or puncs. it seemed good enough to get somewhat of a reaction from the people who read it. i also wrote a little something about the moon. i talked about my grandmother, who i always associate with a sliver of a crescent moon...

i've tried to adopt some of the strategies and thinking of the class in my own routines. of course, i don't have other writers to play off of when i write alone. but i use a copy of the same worksheet. and i use this site that gives random words and random images... and i try to write little bits of dialogue based on these. i don't think it has the same bang as being in the class, but i'm trying...

i sometimes despair of completing something. because it seems that once you set out to complete something, the editor brain starts creeping in and ruining all the fun, the spontaneity, the creativity of the writing. i like the workshop because it encourages me to trust the side of my brain that doesn't exactly know what it's doing. to keep going with that...

*****

i am trying to do my routines faster, because as part of them, i'm incorporating what i'm learning from adam mizner, and i feel like i need to be more regular about all of that. right now, i'm really trying to target my right shoulder, which has a lot of stiffness, and which clicks and grinds a lot when i take it through a standard arm circle... as he says, taijiquan only works when you have a lot of song, or relax/release... and the shoulder is a typical place for most people to get locked up. if the shoulder is locked up, then it is impossible to truly fajin or emit energy/power. it's like you have a kinked hose or something... so i've been really working on that. also, in standing exercises, i've noticed how i don't sit in the position, and how i'm imbalanced between my left and right legs, and between the front and back of my feet. so i really try to focus on that stuff...

*****

well, not much else to say. let's hope that the country still survives today.

dream: 11/3/2020

on this, election morning...

i dreamed at first that i was at some convention or meeting or training or something. and president obama and vice president biden were sitting at the table just beside ours. he was dressed for work, with no coat, his shirt sleeves rolled up, "all fired up." i wanted to tell him how he was the best president ever, but didn't manage to. at some point, he walked off, and the dream kind of shifted to other things...

later, i was in some garage. it looked like my grandparents' old garage in ewa beach. there were some food products, lovingly prepared by some anal japanese people who were currrently staying at my grandma's. i was told to watch the stuff, and not sell it. apparently, it was a saturday morning, and people in the community were coming around to houses eager to buy stuff (kind of like a farmer's market). while i was watching the stuff, i was also prepping some of my harvest. it was supposed to be some green leafy vegetable, which i was peeling the leaves off of, and putting into some wide deep basin with water to rinse everything off, but at times, there were broccoli heads and other things. anyway, periodically curious people would come around asking what i was selling, and i would tell them that we weren't selling anything...

then at one point, i tried to get some paper towel, and i saw the way that the japanese people had prepared the paper towel roll was so intricate that i couldn't get a sheet of paper towel, and i was worried that i couldn't put things exactly the way that i had found it...

then i noticed this monstrous insect. it was a dragon fly, but it had this head that was 6 feet long. it had an angry, sharp toothed looking head... i decided to film it with my camera, but it exitted the garage before i could. so i ended up wandering into the garden at the side of the house. it wasn't like the real garden at my grandparents' house, i realize. it was lush and green. i didn't see the dragonfly, but i did see other things... like this floating caterpillar made up of clear balls filled with green or green-tinged liquids; the colors shifted periodically, but they all remained within the green spectrum. i thought i saw something similar made of red...

then i think there was this part of the dream where there was a kitchen, and i was thinking about getting a present for my friend shari. but i couldn't think of anything. and i recalled other presents that other people had gotten her, and how thoughtful and eclectic those presents were. but i couldn't think of anything creative, or convincing...

and that seems to be where the dream sort of fizzled out.

11/1/2020

i think i may have picked up something. i don't think it's the 'rona. probably some cold. i don't have any overt symptoms, but i do feel really tired at unexpected points throughout the day. and i can't settle my thoughts. and i have this little spot that aches in the back of my throat, and a periodic itch that i can only address with dry coughing...

i'm kind of using that as an excuse for my failure to keep up with my routines. i have been productive today (actually, yesterday now). we had my wife's aunt over for halloween, so i cleaned up the entire house, including my kids' disgusting bathroom. i think we'd let the house go during this pandemic, at least in the more recent part of it, and it was just bugging me. it might seem a little thing, but the cleanliness of the environment does sort of weigh on me after a while. so i'm glad i got to clean up.

- on friday, we had a meeting to discuss pursuing a section 504 for my son. he's been having problems keeping up in his classes. i know that a major factor (or excuse) in all of this is that we're in a pandemic, and he's doing online classes, and that's a completely different context. but i still had some concerns, and when we'd had a similar meeting earlier in his high school career, the request for the 504 had been denied (they'd said he didn't need it)... so now, the school WILL pursue a 504, which would follow him as he goes to college... what i was impressed by was how my son- without any shame- advocated for himself at the meeting. i hardly had to say anything. that, more than anything, gave me some hope about my son. i tend to worry more for him than for anything else. but i do think, and have always thought, that he's such a good, affable, loveable person. and i do think there are sparks of brilliance in him- no, not just sparks- i think he's brilliant... i just worry about his direction, his path... you know, i'm just a typical parent...

- i think about people in my life. there have been a few people who, at one period at least, were really close friends... but some how, i've lost touch with them completely. in fact, we'd be strangers to each other now. and i wonder at that. i wonder how i'm capable of that kind of distancing. it's almost like there's a light switch that i can turn on or off... well, it's not even like that, because i don't even have to consciously think about switching it off. it just shuts off by itself when i'm not near people, or when their lives no longer are relevant to me...

for example- at one point, i had a friend named hanae in japan. she was my confidant and support during a time when i was really lost, and really anxious. at one point, i wondered why we weren't boyfriend-girlfriend... i think i was not interested in her physically... but i think our relationship, our closeness, was such that that shouldn't have mattered. she was always so generous and clear. i don't think there was ever a time when i had to be her support. i mean, i can't remember when she came to me, upset, and i had to cheer her up. but she'd had to do that for me every now and then. i even remember crying in her presence- i think it had to do with my direction in life, and also with my failure to connect with anyone (aside from her)... and she just wordlessly listened and walked with me back to the dorm.

what happens to that sort of relationship?

i tried a year ago or so to get back in touch with her. i did manage to. but it seemed clear from her brief responses that she didn't want to pursue anything with me, be it friendship or otherwise. she mentioned that she had gotten divorced... and that she was still living in mexico city. i didn't talk about my situation- she didn't ask, and it seemed- i don't know- gloating of me to mention it... i think i had wanted to mention something about how she had been important to me, at that point in my life- but what would have been the point of that? in any case, whether i should or shouldn't have said it, i didn't.

and, again, it leaves me wondering at me, my heart, my life... there are so many others. i could go on...

maybe it's a selfish instinct that makes me wonder at that. maybe there's this feeling that, if i could only continue to relate- to have a living relationship- with the figures of my past- then i would somehow be more alive myself- instead of always feeling like a haunted empty shell that dreams of the sea in the middle of a desert.

10/23/2020

 okay, it's been almost a week i believe. i think my last posting was on the 19th, which was about 4 days ago... but really, it feels like it's been a week. again, work sort of interrupts my life. i had to do a few progress reports and stuff like that. i'm also transitioning from teaching exclusively outdoors to teaching in my classroom. this meant moving a few shelves so that the windows could all be opened, to increase ventilation through the room. i know it may not seem to help, but it's recommended that we open the rooms up as fully as possible... so...

i decided to subscribe to adam mizner's online taijiquan course. he releases one video a week for his students to train on. so far, i got a video about loosening up exercises. they're actually really good. i may have mentioned that my right shoulder has been "clicking" a lot due to tension in the joint. well, i did some of those loosening up exercises, including one called "knocking on the door," and afterwards, when i did an arm circle, i noticed that there was no clicking! mizner feels that in order to properly do taijiquan, you have to "remake" the body. this remaking involves what's called fang song, or complete relaxation of the body. it means finding tension in the body and relaxing or dropping it. i think this first stage (the loosening up exercises) seeks to release tension around and within important joints in the body...

not much else to report, honestly...

i had a dream about cutting off my own thumbs with a pruning shear. during the dream, i remember repeating "compassion means with passion" over and over and over again. once i viewed the bloody stump where my thumb had been, i felt a kind of sadness and remorse and regret at the stupidity of that irreversible cut. that's the thing about cuts, they're irreversible. you can't fix things back the way that they were- only if you're a salamander, or in stupid marvel movies... when i woke up, i was releaved to find i still had both of my thumbs... but the sense of that irreversibility remained with me. there are a lot of things in life where you can't go back. in fact, maybe every moment in the present involves an irretrievable loss of the past- a very real pruning of things. we have a narratival recollection of time, so this pretends a kind of connection, a blurring, or an afterimage effect of the past... but really, we can't go back. we can never go back...

i always imagined, when young, that people were doorways or windows to other realities. and that each person contained a universe within themselves... as i got older, i started to feel that maybe a lot of those so called doorways were actually prison gates... in fact, maybe a majority of them were... and the people inside were, like me, just trying to get out... also, there were people that HAD universes within them, but more often than not, they were sinister and dark universes... the sense of finding people that had a kind of light and carefree world within them... well, it's been rare indeed. there is always a kind of darkness or need or compulsion that gravitates within most people... it makes of them, well, a sort of dark gravity well... that their light tries desperately to escape...

i despair of writing a narrative. a convincing narrative. a part of me no longer believes in narratival reality. maybe the point of my life is that disbelieving. maybe liberation is found only through a complete destruction of the narratival experience. maybe narratival reality is the one delusion/illusion that maintains this social fabric... we all love stories, we all love to tell stories...

in writing class, we try to liberate ourselves from "thought", and write more or less spontaneously. i think that's the whole point of the random prompts and the time pressures (like we have 1 minute to write about something random, like "teeth" or "she"). i sometimes despair, because i think that my controlling narratival brain is so hungry for dominance and so effective at taking over that it clouds over any chance for open sky and possibility to infect me. it steals the mike, in essence... and the result is dead words from a dead mouth. i don't know if it's possible to ever write something "real." "living." because by the time an inkling starts to break through, it's suddenly taken over by that other side of me...

i have in fact had this vision of myself... of the past me... that maybe once had a shot at capturing the truth... but that was so drowned or buried, so long ago, that probably nothing remains... i think that's why it's so hard for me to feel... it's so hard for me to even sympathize, or empathize, with much of anything any more. i am a kind and respectful person by habit, by rote habit... it's not that i'm genuinely caring, it's that i've been trained and molded to be this way, and i simply don't know how to be otherwise. it's not in my shape to be anything else... and meanwhile, that little voice, it is so indistinct as to be imaginary. a hint of something, an echo of something, drowned in this overwhelming and hungry darkness... is there any hope? is there any possibility that i could ever release myself?

10/18/2020

 it's been only a couple of days. usually on the weekends, i kind of blitz through my routines... i'm about at the point where i want to make some shifts to what i do. first of all, i (kind of scared) am set to pay about $500 to become a student of adam mizner. it's not a big deal (at least besides the price), because everything is online right now. i suppose he has videos for each and every week of the year. i guess i wanted to do this because i've seen his stuff. aside from being able to do some amazing stuff (things that i've wanted to learn forever, like fajin), he has a clarity in his way of explaining things... so, if i start to prioritize the taijiquan stuff, then some things may have to go. or at least be downplayed...

i'm also learning a lot from the writing workshop that i'm doing with jason fong. a couple of things... he kind of focuses things by setting a timer, or in some way limiting the work. a deadline creates pressure, and i suppose that that's key for writing. it is its very interminability that makes it so potentially flimsy and insubstantial. it's like water, i suppose. if you don't create pressure, then water (and writing) loses its force and shape... i also like that jason tries to create random prompts. the ability to simply jump into writing, to "not think" is key. i don't know how i would necessary emulate that sort of thing into my practice... unless maybe i found a sort of random word generator or something. it would have to be completely random to work. nothing thematic, or tied to what i'm doing... of course, these would just be exercises, to "free" the writing mind. when it comes to the actual work, that is, the planned and constructed stories, then that would be another matter entirely. i think i'd still keep the time deadlines, and the mentality of "not thinking" too much...

i guess another advantage of a workshop is that you can read each other's work. and you can give feedback to each other's work...

so, in those two senses, my routines will change. i was also thinking of upping things for my drawings. i am thinking of incorporating more color. maybe even learning how to paint.

*****

i am cruel to the family dog. that's a fact. i have wondered at this. i have wondered why i have this cruel seed within me. i think, at times, that it is akin to the notions of sexuality. not that i'm cruel in that sense, but both derive from this notion of getting something to "feel," and perhaps feel dependent upon me. they also both derive from notions of power, and of the fundamental unfairness of the world.

maybe i'm cruel to the dog because i feel that there is no space for the kind of coddling that, say, my wife offers to him. maybe i somehow feel that it's unfair, and that, in the interests of restoring a sort of fairness to the world, i "break the dog down."

i blame a lot of things on my brother. i claim that he ridiculed me a lot when i was young. he made me feel that my feelings were trash, that my opinions were not even worth responding to... he made me think that there was a different law or reality for the "cool people," and another for the shit people like me. basically that law was that the "cool people" get special treatment, in the sense that their feelings count and their thoughts are worthy of listening to... whereas the shit people, well, they essentially have no feelings that are worth hearing out. nor are their ideas legitimate...

it's so ironic, because having experienced that sort of thing, not just from my brother, but from the world at large, you would think that i would be passionate about restoring the balance, of justifying and empowering the disenfranchised voices of the world... but instead, it seems i repeat the very things that i hated...

why?

why is it that i feel it necessary to teach my dog that the world is cruel, and that no one gets what they want? ... i think in addition to this is the feeling that my dog hates me, or at the very least, is indifferent to me... how dare he? when i hold sway, when i am powerful (... like my brother)? it's really stupid. but when i see my dog treated extra nice by my wife or my son... well, something about this irks me. like, it's not fair. he should appreciate that he comes from shit. just like me...

*****

i'm not sure what else to say right now. i am feeling a bit tired. it seems that i've no choice really, but to trust in kakashi...

Well, thank you!

*****

10/16/2020

 yes, work started again. it's been a week since i last had the time to write in this blog...

things have passed in a blur. aside from the chaos of starting instruction again, i had to contend with issues relating to an iep. i definitely won't get into the particulars, but i will say that this is an entirely new situation with special education, due to the covid pandemic, and the setting of distance learning. i think generally that distance learning is a completely different animal, and that not all (in fact, i would say most) kids can't really access it. when you superimpose distance learning over such issues as inclusion and the least restrictive environment, well, you get a lot of chaos. i often think that removing the cloudy lens of distance learning can clarify issues, and this is what i find i have had to do in a lot of cases... distance learning IS unnatural, and kids should not be expected to be successful at it, immediately, or ever. to equate "inclusion" in the distance setting with face to face inclusion... well, you are comparing apples and skateboards... completely different.

*****

i started a writing workshop with jason fong. it was interesting, fun, but a little intimidating. the other members of the class are all either (employed) writers or actors. i come from no dramatic background. my perspective is limited to my work, and my solitary, solipsistic efforts at writing. i also write primarily in a short story format, with a lot expressed via exposition (i.e., descriptions of setting, the internal monologues of the characters). i'm not used to straight dialogue. in fact, i would say that dialogue is definitely not my forte. i discovered that a lot of my interactions are stereotypical, cringe-worthy, and wonky, both the back-and-forth of them, and the set up (the invented scenarios)... nevertheless, i enjoyed it, and found the quick shifting of the tasks refreshing. my main takeaway from the workshop was that i have to stop thinking, and just go with things...

*****

i've been practicing more zhan zhuang (standing pile) lately; it's been incorporated in my "routine." at the same time, i've been watching more of adam mizner's videos. this latest video that i saw was on what's called a song gong practice. this practice is primarily about softening the body, particularly the shoulders. i have noticed more and more the issues with my right shoulder. at certain times, even slight movements of my shoulder will result in a kind of clicking sensation, as the different muscles of my rotator cuff engage jerkily to allow my gleneral joint to turn. it could be my imagination, but after i did 30 repetitions of the song gong practice, it seemed as though there was less tension in that shoulder. i don't know if i'm doing it exactly right, but i'll continue doing it to get a bit softer and looser...

*****

i get very tired by the end of the week. don't get me wrong. i like engaging with my students. i do see some gradual progress with them, and what's even better is that they do too. when students sense that they're improving, they get a little excited... it seems, for a time, that the world opens up for them. they can do anything that they set their mind to... the last couple of students i worked with today got their first long division (4 digit dividend, 1 digit divisor) problem right...

but i find that when i get home, i almost collapse. i start to watch or read something, but i feel i have to lie flat on the floor and close my eyes and disappear... i want to just forget the world for a time.

*****

i had an insight about relationships, particularly sexuality... i realize that, for me, perhaps there is this inextricable tie to power dynamics. no, it's not so overt as a bdsm sort of thing (i think of "master and servant" by depeche mode). i don't deal in pain, either in receiving it or giving it... but there is a sense of what i keep referring to as "overwhelming," that is, dealing in pleasure to the point of- well, almost control... or even beyond. i think i referred to it as a redox reaction or something... this was imprecise, because a redox reaction has a sense of equilibrium, but in this, there is almost a sense of "reducing" someone, via pleasure, to a thing without thought or cognition, merely a sensate "thing." something fully released... i find that, for me, that has always been the goal: to be "felt" to the point of overwhelming. i don't derive so much pleasure for myself personally; in fact, that's precisely NOT my goal. in a way, if i ever get "overwhelmed" myself, then it works counter to my objective, because that would make me the powerless partner in this relationship...

i know, it sounds twisted, and it is twisted. i think it has something to do with this imprint during my youth, like when i was 4 or 5 years old. again, i was surrounded by these nubile teenage girls who always treated me like some sort of "mascot," but for whom i would never be taken seriously, i.e., as a romantic partner. i think that feeling has always stayed with me, the feeling of being this "innocuous" presence that no one really "loved" (in the sense of wanting me, physically). and, now that i'm older, i think this has morphed or mutated my notions of intimacy to- well, almost a revenge plot against my partners. like it's almost like i want to "prove" to my partners that i do have puissance, that i'm not just some cute innocuous sexless mascot...

it tends to work out, because i make people happy in the process. in fact, maybe, ironically, it just repeats the process... this notion of servility, only stepped up a level. the idea of intimacy as an "equal" negotiation of wants, that somehow eludes me... i mean, i personally don't want anything from my partner... except the opportunity to make them happy. i simply want to be what they want...

stupid, i know. i'm old, anyway, and maybe shouldn't be thinking so much about these things. these are my waning, downhill years, and perhaps i should be considering the end, and not so much about- well, these extraneous matters... but somehow, these images and memories return to me, and upon reflection, i just see patterns... infinite, repeating patterns... like the reinforced repeating walls of some crystalline prison... in my youth, i imagined this angel that could save me, redeem me, value me, and free me from this prison... but nowadays, i feel that angel never existed, and that there is no other world aside from these prisons, that i keep recreating, not knowing anything better or different.