my reemergence felt like an explosion. suddenly, i could hear again, and breathe again. light burst into my salted, stinging eyes. i struggled to reorient myself as quickly as i could. i planted a palm into the soupy white sand. i gasped for air, suddenly aware that i had been deprived of it while i was under. my eyes searched wildly for my family. surely they had seen what had happened. surely they would come and help him. i almost caught a glimpse of them, sitting on their faraway hill, when the froth beneath me began to draw me backwards again. i looked towards the sea instead, and saw it gathering itself again into a high black wall.
when it collapsed upon me, more violent this time, i felt myself spun about so much that i couldn't tell up from down. my mouth open, i swallowed the sea, and felt my nostrils burning as they too helplessly imbibed water. my eyes too were open, squinting through the salt and the churn.
there was a moment when the tossed up sand and frothing water seemed to dissipate and clear away. in that brief moment, i glimpsed it: the city under the waves. i saw the sandy floor of the ocean drop precipitously, and beyond, in the distance, beneath a shifting ceiling, i saw a series of glittering spires. despite my situation, i reached out a hand to it. it was so perfect and shimmering, that it seemed but a toy. but the city was indeed well beyond my reach.
it was at that point that i heard the voice. it was sibilant, like the whisperings of a snake, but it had enough form and shape for me to discern the words in them. "sink," it murmured. "sink, and then you will float."
i couldn't tell if the words were a command, or advice, or a warning. i couldn't see who spoke them. they seemed to come from all around me, as though the entire ocean vibrated their message to me.
it was just then that i felt an insistent tugging. it was coming from my right wrist. something pulled me, hard, practically yanked. i felt each joint, like a link in a chain, dragging each successive part of my body. suddenly, my head emerged from the water, and again, the world seemed an explosion of light and sound.
"get up, runt!"
it was my brother's voice.
Monday, June 29, 2020
poem: 6/28/2020
i remember my grandma driving me around waipahu
on her errands.
long afternoons in the leeward sun
sometimes staring at the patterns
in my green hand me down pants
and sometimes looking out
at the drifting landscape outside.
everything seemed washed out and blue,
like a photograph left too long in the sun.
or like a picture book from the 50's.
the people were like gilligan's island,
all white and smiling.
a church accepting donations,
with an open green field,
and glass louvers before an empty
tiled room of worship.
looking at the broken and forgotten toys
no one wanted.
in the car, to keep herself from
falling asleep at the wheel
grandma would reach for the
white tofu container
sometimes for ice, half melted,
and sometimes for sugared lemon drops.
she would glance at me
this small and quiet thing
in the rear view mirror
her eyes would smile,
and she would sing that one and
only song:
"baa-baa black sheep
have you any wool?
yes sir, yes sir,
three bags full."
we were running the errands,
making deliveries.
but her glittering eyes told me,
she never forgot
the little boy who lived down the lane.
on her errands.
long afternoons in the leeward sun
sometimes staring at the patterns
in my green hand me down pants
and sometimes looking out
at the drifting landscape outside.
everything seemed washed out and blue,
like a photograph left too long in the sun.
or like a picture book from the 50's.
the people were like gilligan's island,
all white and smiling.
a church accepting donations,
with an open green field,
and glass louvers before an empty
tiled room of worship.
looking at the broken and forgotten toys
no one wanted.
in the car, to keep herself from
falling asleep at the wheel
grandma would reach for the
white tofu container
sometimes for ice, half melted,
and sometimes for sugared lemon drops.
she would glance at me
this small and quiet thing
in the rear view mirror
her eyes would smile,
and she would sing that one and
only song:
"baa-baa black sheep
have you any wool?
yes sir, yes sir,
three bags full."
we were running the errands,
making deliveries.
but her glittering eyes told me,
she never forgot
the little boy who lived down the lane.
Sunday, June 28, 2020
6/28/2020
a few days pass...
let's see, what have i been up to?
well, yesterday, i went with my wife over to waiahole, to get food from this one hawaiian place. the food was great. i got a laulau plate, which comes with laulau (of course), lomi salmon, haupia pudding, and poi. we also got a "sweet lady of waiahole" (i think named after a song), which consisted of haupia ice cream over warm kulolo. it was awesome. my wife had the "three ladies," which was the same haupia ice cream, but over some sort of banana bread pudding thing. her thing tasted a bit tarter. i actually liked the milder flavors of the kulolo.
anyway, the drive over was kind of nostalgic for me. over the course of my time working as an active acupuncturist, i used to go all over the island to work on patients at their homes. i recall working on one woman and another man who both lived out that way. i recall the woman living in a section that seemed on the edge of a development, wild in its own way, with stray cats roaming all over the place. the man, meanwhile, lived with his wife in a brand newish looking house close to, but not adjacent to, the shoreline...
that side of the island always seems so much more relaxed. i actually like going on that side, because it gives me a sort of perspective. as i may have mentioned before, i think i get caught up in the rat race of city life (even in my own home!) and forget that there is all this natural space waiting for me just beyond the mountains...
*****
i have been thinking about my writing... it is always such a struggle to write for a purpose. i've been thinking a lot about neil gaiman's admonitions to "finish things." it is exceedingly difficult for me to "finish things," and i find that when i try to exclusively focus on one thing, then it is not only painful, but it rarely produces anything of any worth (i tend to "drown in myself.").
in any case, i was thinking of handwriting my drafts, and then posting them on a blank wall, so that they become somewhat more tangible for me... i also, after listening to david sedaris, considered reading them before audiences, to get some feedback through their reactions (though i honestly think that no one would ever laugh at any of my pieces... i'm not intending to write humor, after all). i was thinking of paying people a nominal sum in order to listen to and provide me with honest feedback... that was all an idea, anyway. for now, i have yet to settle on a satisfactory process, one that i'm relatively happy with.
i may have mentioned this before, but lately, my writing process has become a small part of a larger cycle of routines. i usually listen to a masterclass session (that's why a lot of the commentary from the masterclasses is relatively fresh in my head), and then i write some blog post (essentially a diary entry), and then i write 4 pages of whatever gobbledy-gook happens to be in my head (very stream of conscious stuff, a lot of it pretty lewd and sexual, unfortunately, but occasionally allowing me to "see" or reexperience lost memories), and then i have (recently) tried to write 1 poem, and 1 part of a story. for the story, i set a timer for 30 minutes, and tell myself that i will either write 2 pages, or write until the timer goes off, whatever comes first. of course, i only end up writing a bit before the timer goes off... and my writing is never tied to one story (simply because the drudgery of continuing an ongoing piece is still so... ugh). and that's it...
i don't know... my feeling is... it's all about feeling. there's a way to approach things matter-of-factly, like getting down to business, but not in an avoiding manner... not in a hesitant manner... just sort of sitting and appraising things, and just writing what comes up. i notice that when i draw, i can sort of get into this mindset. i mean, there are things that i draw that seem impossible, or that seem very time-consuming... but i just take a breath and work at what i can in this one part (like, say, an eye, or the shadow on the philtrum, etc.) and each part leads to the next and to the next, and eventually, i am completing things... i wish writing could be like that. i guess the only big difference is that there is clarity in seeing a face when i'm drawing... but in writing, oftentimes, it's all up to me. it's all unfolding in me... and oftentimes, there's a disagreement, or mismatch, or discordance... because a part of me is just "making shit up", and the other part of me is already retching from what's coming out...
what i'd like to do, or what i'd like to feel, is a kind of simple clarity. things don't have to be perfect, but i'd just like the capability to "speak" without internally doubting what i'm saying. i just want to be able to say it sufficiently in this moment. later, yes, i can come back and reedit it, improve it... but before that can happen, i just want to be able to write without a "bad taste" in my mouth.
*****
oh well, not much else left to say.
let's see, what have i been up to?
well, yesterday, i went with my wife over to waiahole, to get food from this one hawaiian place. the food was great. i got a laulau plate, which comes with laulau (of course), lomi salmon, haupia pudding, and poi. we also got a "sweet lady of waiahole" (i think named after a song), which consisted of haupia ice cream over warm kulolo. it was awesome. my wife had the "three ladies," which was the same haupia ice cream, but over some sort of banana bread pudding thing. her thing tasted a bit tarter. i actually liked the milder flavors of the kulolo.
anyway, the drive over was kind of nostalgic for me. over the course of my time working as an active acupuncturist, i used to go all over the island to work on patients at their homes. i recall working on one woman and another man who both lived out that way. i recall the woman living in a section that seemed on the edge of a development, wild in its own way, with stray cats roaming all over the place. the man, meanwhile, lived with his wife in a brand newish looking house close to, but not adjacent to, the shoreline...
that side of the island always seems so much more relaxed. i actually like going on that side, because it gives me a sort of perspective. as i may have mentioned before, i think i get caught up in the rat race of city life (even in my own home!) and forget that there is all this natural space waiting for me just beyond the mountains...
*****
i have been thinking about my writing... it is always such a struggle to write for a purpose. i've been thinking a lot about neil gaiman's admonitions to "finish things." it is exceedingly difficult for me to "finish things," and i find that when i try to exclusively focus on one thing, then it is not only painful, but it rarely produces anything of any worth (i tend to "drown in myself.").
in any case, i was thinking of handwriting my drafts, and then posting them on a blank wall, so that they become somewhat more tangible for me... i also, after listening to david sedaris, considered reading them before audiences, to get some feedback through their reactions (though i honestly think that no one would ever laugh at any of my pieces... i'm not intending to write humor, after all). i was thinking of paying people a nominal sum in order to listen to and provide me with honest feedback... that was all an idea, anyway. for now, i have yet to settle on a satisfactory process, one that i'm relatively happy with.
i may have mentioned this before, but lately, my writing process has become a small part of a larger cycle of routines. i usually listen to a masterclass session (that's why a lot of the commentary from the masterclasses is relatively fresh in my head), and then i write some blog post (essentially a diary entry), and then i write 4 pages of whatever gobbledy-gook happens to be in my head (very stream of conscious stuff, a lot of it pretty lewd and sexual, unfortunately, but occasionally allowing me to "see" or reexperience lost memories), and then i have (recently) tried to write 1 poem, and 1 part of a story. for the story, i set a timer for 30 minutes, and tell myself that i will either write 2 pages, or write until the timer goes off, whatever comes first. of course, i only end up writing a bit before the timer goes off... and my writing is never tied to one story (simply because the drudgery of continuing an ongoing piece is still so... ugh). and that's it...
i don't know... my feeling is... it's all about feeling. there's a way to approach things matter-of-factly, like getting down to business, but not in an avoiding manner... not in a hesitant manner... just sort of sitting and appraising things, and just writing what comes up. i notice that when i draw, i can sort of get into this mindset. i mean, there are things that i draw that seem impossible, or that seem very time-consuming... but i just take a breath and work at what i can in this one part (like, say, an eye, or the shadow on the philtrum, etc.) and each part leads to the next and to the next, and eventually, i am completing things... i wish writing could be like that. i guess the only big difference is that there is clarity in seeing a face when i'm drawing... but in writing, oftentimes, it's all up to me. it's all unfolding in me... and oftentimes, there's a disagreement, or mismatch, or discordance... because a part of me is just "making shit up", and the other part of me is already retching from what's coming out...
what i'd like to do, or what i'd like to feel, is a kind of simple clarity. things don't have to be perfect, but i'd just like the capability to "speak" without internally doubting what i'm saying. i just want to be able to say it sufficiently in this moment. later, yes, i can come back and reedit it, improve it... but before that can happen, i just want to be able to write without a "bad taste" in my mouth.
*****
oh well, not much else left to say.
Friday, June 26, 2020
story: 6/26/2020
there is a city under the waves.
i first glimpsed it when i was about three years old.
i had been walking too close to the shorebreak on a windswept beach. i'm not sure why i was walking there alone, but i was. i turned my head to look over my shoulder, squinting as the sand stung my bare skin, i could just barely see them, my father, my mother, and my older brother, sitting on a goza mat at the crest of the sloping beach. they didn't seem to see me. they were chatting happily amongst themselves. as always, they seemed to be in a bubble all their own, a family unit that had been complete before i came along.
the roar of the wind in my ears almost concealed the periodic thundering of the waves, crashing to my left. i was far enough from the break that the white frothy water slithering across the sand failed to touch my feet. i suppose i imagined myself safe enough, and kept walking, my soles slapping upon the sand made solid by the seawater.
the wave caught me by surprise. i had just been about to spin around to check whether my family was still ignoring me. it was in the midst of that act that a curtain of heavy darkness closed over me and enveloped me. for long, confusing moments, i was tossed in the argument of dark currents. my body tried to take on the shape of those conflicts, my joints flopping in odd angles, like a marionette loosed of its cords.
my reemergence felt like an explosion. suddenly, i could hear again, and breathe again. light burst into my salted, stinging eyes. i struggled to reorient myself as quickly as i could. i planted a palm into the soupy white sand. i gasped
i first glimpsed it when i was about three years old.
i had been walking too close to the shorebreak on a windswept beach. i'm not sure why i was walking there alone, but i was. i turned my head to look over my shoulder, squinting as the sand stung my bare skin, i could just barely see them, my father, my mother, and my older brother, sitting on a goza mat at the crest of the sloping beach. they didn't seem to see me. they were chatting happily amongst themselves. as always, they seemed to be in a bubble all their own, a family unit that had been complete before i came along.
the roar of the wind in my ears almost concealed the periodic thundering of the waves, crashing to my left. i was far enough from the break that the white frothy water slithering across the sand failed to touch my feet. i suppose i imagined myself safe enough, and kept walking, my soles slapping upon the sand made solid by the seawater.
the wave caught me by surprise. i had just been about to spin around to check whether my family was still ignoring me. it was in the midst of that act that a curtain of heavy darkness closed over me and enveloped me. for long, confusing moments, i was tossed in the argument of dark currents. my body tried to take on the shape of those conflicts, my joints flopping in odd angles, like a marionette loosed of its cords.
my reemergence felt like an explosion. suddenly, i could hear again, and breathe again. light burst into my salted, stinging eyes. i struggled to reorient myself as quickly as i could. i planted a palm into the soupy white sand. i gasped
poem: 6/26
i found a bead
while digging a hole in the garden
(planting marigolds).
it was plastic and purple
and still retained a shean.
i wondered where it came from.
likely, it was one of twenty odd others
that strung up a friendship bracelet
about 4 inches round.
the bracelet itself is long gone,
and its owner's wrist has long since outgrown
the bounds of its circle.
i held the bead in my dirty fingers.
once, on its curved face
my young daughter was reflected
probably as i dug other flowers
for her wondrous eyes.
now, she hardly has the time.
she walks past this planter box
and hardly notices
whether i've weeded it
or planted something new.
there was a moment
when i held her eyes
and held her hand,
now long ago.
the bead gives me pause.
but, like her, i move on.
i carefully deposit it
beneath the ball of roots
of this new marigold,
a secret happiness that
it, too, will not absorb
and will simply grow around
as it reaches flowers to the sun.
6/25/2020
wow, was it only two days ago that i last wrote? it seems longer.
yesterday, i brought my prototype barrier to school. if school starts up again in the fall, we will likely need to set up some sort of physical barriers between students to prevent the spread of "the covid." but plexiglass, the material of choice, is both expensive and in short supply (probably expensive because in short supply). and to obtain it in the quantities needed to keep children safe is impossible. so i thought i would make a barrier out of cheap, accessible materials. i got a moldy trifold board from my classroom, and some sheet protectors (or report covers?). i cut two of the sheet protectors open so that they could spread out like a folder. i made two windows in the trifold that were slightly smaller than the sheet protectors, and just taped them down. later, upon hearing some suggestions, i covered one side with clear packing tape, to make it waterproof (after all, it needs to be periodically sterilized). and voila!
my principal seemed to like it. he kept downplaying the "cheap" reason (which, honestly, was the main reason i'd made it). he felt it was ideal because it could fold up and be stored. "how would you do the same thing with plexiglass?" he thought out loud... so, i don't know what's going to happen next. you never know with my principal. there's a huge distance between the inception of an idea, and what actually happens. i think that, in the course of traveling that distance, there are a lot of gatekeepers, i.e., "people with opinions." and i know for a fact that a lot of people are going to look at my cheap prototype and think, "heck, is that it?" and sort of downplay it. so we'll see...
anyway, after showing off the prototype at my school, i returned home and felt extremely unmotivated to do much of anything. i recall just lying on the sofa and half-sleeping...
...well, as my wife was "off" (technically, she isn't working; she's volunteering over at a friend's restaurant), she wanted to go out. so in the afternoon, we finally dragged our butts out of the house. i drove over to kaka'ako, to h-mart, to this new korean grocery store that had opened up. i wasn't really paying much attention to things. i did notice the yellow korean melons, which i thought looked interesting. i also noticed some peach donuts (that is, peaches that were grown to take on a donut shape). and i did see those boba popsicles that everyone in hawaii seems to be raging for...
we went upstairs to the second floor, where there was a food court. i ordered something very conventional: kal bi. it is probably like my favorite thing in the world. it's messy to eat, and occasionally it looks awkward, because i actually like to eat ALL the meat off the bone, but i LOVE it. the vegetable side dishes are also great: kim chee cucumber, and other stuff. it's all so rich in texture and flavor. the rice that goes along with the dish serves as a kind of neutral background to all the spicy, savory flavors...
my wife had some korean fried wings. they were okay, but a lot of it was just the breading...
anyway, after that, we drove over to kahala mall... now, we have a lot of history with kahala mall. actually, that was where lynn's first godiva store was. i used to head over to kahala mall a lot, just to sort of hang out. there USED to be barnes and noble over on the top floor, and i used to go there a lot. but beyond that, i would often go to the starbucks, and just hang out there, doing stuff on my computer. kahala mall is sort of in a richie rich area of the island, so i used to imagine everyone there was like some sort of snob (not true)...
lynn wanted to see what was still around (we hadn't been to kahala in, like, forever). after she had made her rounds, we drove over to kahala beach. i had never been there before, and was at first excited to see the little bridge over the little river. but when we got to the actual beach, well, it was kind of a disappointment, on many levels. first of all, the water was pretty dirty. there was a lot of detritus and floating debris in the water. second, we discovered that there were rocks not very far from the shore. i was okay with it, but lynn kind of got freaked out. i mean, the rocks felt smooth under my feet; they weren't the sharp and unpredictable kind... but lynn kept mentioning "vana" (sea urchins) and moray eels... and i guess it kind of freaked me out too. it didn't help that she kept jumping on my back... :P anyway, we got out of the water pretty quickly, and just decided to walk along the shoreline.
kahala's interesting. there are these HUGE mansions on the beachfront. they are usually fenced off, with a lot of hedges and such, but you can still see these magnificent mansions. there are actually quite a few empty lots as well. in one of them, there was a truck parked inside, most likely illegally, and some squatters, teenaged kids, were hanging out. they were skateboarding on the cement foundations, likely remnants of the houses that once stood in the lot. for a moment, i imagined that sort of life, to while away the time skateboarding, and perhaps having sex in some secluded corner of the lot... i don't know. i couldn't be happy with that sort of life. i'd just feel as though i were wasting my time.
so anyway, we walked back. i remember at one point, lynn said something funny. we were ankle deep in the water, and the waves kept bringing all of this debris into shore: little logs and such. so lynn mentioned how she felt like she was playing "frogger." and i had to laugh at that...
we stopped by kahala mall once more to get food for the kids (they hadn't come with us to the beach- imagine that!)... and that was it for the day...
***
i can't remember what i dreamed about this morning, but for some reason, i felt optimistic about things, and especially about writing... but, you know, these feelings come and go. i wish there were a way to remain inspired. but somehow, in getting to the nitty-gritty details of writing, well, the dead businessman copy editor takes over, and kills whatever little feeling comes with me to the table... and then, everything becomes forced. compulsory.
...but again, i did feel optimistic. we'll see if things pan out.
yesterday, i brought my prototype barrier to school. if school starts up again in the fall, we will likely need to set up some sort of physical barriers between students to prevent the spread of "the covid." but plexiglass, the material of choice, is both expensive and in short supply (probably expensive because in short supply). and to obtain it in the quantities needed to keep children safe is impossible. so i thought i would make a barrier out of cheap, accessible materials. i got a moldy trifold board from my classroom, and some sheet protectors (or report covers?). i cut two of the sheet protectors open so that they could spread out like a folder. i made two windows in the trifold that were slightly smaller than the sheet protectors, and just taped them down. later, upon hearing some suggestions, i covered one side with clear packing tape, to make it waterproof (after all, it needs to be periodically sterilized). and voila!
my principal seemed to like it. he kept downplaying the "cheap" reason (which, honestly, was the main reason i'd made it). he felt it was ideal because it could fold up and be stored. "how would you do the same thing with plexiglass?" he thought out loud... so, i don't know what's going to happen next. you never know with my principal. there's a huge distance between the inception of an idea, and what actually happens. i think that, in the course of traveling that distance, there are a lot of gatekeepers, i.e., "people with opinions." and i know for a fact that a lot of people are going to look at my cheap prototype and think, "heck, is that it?" and sort of downplay it. so we'll see...
anyway, after showing off the prototype at my school, i returned home and felt extremely unmotivated to do much of anything. i recall just lying on the sofa and half-sleeping...
...well, as my wife was "off" (technically, she isn't working; she's volunteering over at a friend's restaurant), she wanted to go out. so in the afternoon, we finally dragged our butts out of the house. i drove over to kaka'ako, to h-mart, to this new korean grocery store that had opened up. i wasn't really paying much attention to things. i did notice the yellow korean melons, which i thought looked interesting. i also noticed some peach donuts (that is, peaches that were grown to take on a donut shape). and i did see those boba popsicles that everyone in hawaii seems to be raging for...
we went upstairs to the second floor, where there was a food court. i ordered something very conventional: kal bi. it is probably like my favorite thing in the world. it's messy to eat, and occasionally it looks awkward, because i actually like to eat ALL the meat off the bone, but i LOVE it. the vegetable side dishes are also great: kim chee cucumber, and other stuff. it's all so rich in texture and flavor. the rice that goes along with the dish serves as a kind of neutral background to all the spicy, savory flavors...
my wife had some korean fried wings. they were okay, but a lot of it was just the breading...
anyway, after that, we drove over to kahala mall... now, we have a lot of history with kahala mall. actually, that was where lynn's first godiva store was. i used to head over to kahala mall a lot, just to sort of hang out. there USED to be barnes and noble over on the top floor, and i used to go there a lot. but beyond that, i would often go to the starbucks, and just hang out there, doing stuff on my computer. kahala mall is sort of in a richie rich area of the island, so i used to imagine everyone there was like some sort of snob (not true)...
lynn wanted to see what was still around (we hadn't been to kahala in, like, forever). after she had made her rounds, we drove over to kahala beach. i had never been there before, and was at first excited to see the little bridge over the little river. but when we got to the actual beach, well, it was kind of a disappointment, on many levels. first of all, the water was pretty dirty. there was a lot of detritus and floating debris in the water. second, we discovered that there were rocks not very far from the shore. i was okay with it, but lynn kind of got freaked out. i mean, the rocks felt smooth under my feet; they weren't the sharp and unpredictable kind... but lynn kept mentioning "vana" (sea urchins) and moray eels... and i guess it kind of freaked me out too. it didn't help that she kept jumping on my back... :P anyway, we got out of the water pretty quickly, and just decided to walk along the shoreline.
kahala's interesting. there are these HUGE mansions on the beachfront. they are usually fenced off, with a lot of hedges and such, but you can still see these magnificent mansions. there are actually quite a few empty lots as well. in one of them, there was a truck parked inside, most likely illegally, and some squatters, teenaged kids, were hanging out. they were skateboarding on the cement foundations, likely remnants of the houses that once stood in the lot. for a moment, i imagined that sort of life, to while away the time skateboarding, and perhaps having sex in some secluded corner of the lot... i don't know. i couldn't be happy with that sort of life. i'd just feel as though i were wasting my time.
so anyway, we walked back. i remember at one point, lynn said something funny. we were ankle deep in the water, and the waves kept bringing all of this debris into shore: little logs and such. so lynn mentioned how she felt like she was playing "frogger." and i had to laugh at that...
we stopped by kahala mall once more to get food for the kids (they hadn't come with us to the beach- imagine that!)... and that was it for the day...
***
i can't remember what i dreamed about this morning, but for some reason, i felt optimistic about things, and especially about writing... but, you know, these feelings come and go. i wish there were a way to remain inspired. but somehow, in getting to the nitty-gritty details of writing, well, the dead businessman copy editor takes over, and kills whatever little feeling comes with me to the table... and then, everything becomes forced. compulsory.
...but again, i did feel optimistic. we'll see if things pan out.
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
story: 6/23
nowadays, i have a hard time remembering living with my brother.
yes, we lived together for at least a few months, in the unit that my japan grandma had basically bought for him up in makiki. those months were, frankly, a blur. i had graduated from college with my bachelor's in religion, and the assurance (to my parents) that i would take the mcats, and then apply to some medical school somewhere. in the meantime, i guess i tried to keep myself busy.
i worked at a pathology lab over on south king street, and at a restaurant (furusato) in waikiki. i also got a job as a bellman/valet over at the waikiki joy hotel. i had these three jobs going on simultaneously. i think i only returned home in the evenings.
my brother was similarly busy. he was into his first year at medical school.
we kept the place pretty clean, as i remember it. he had his room, and i had mine. i recall that there was a kind of "common room" (i guess that's college talk for a living room). there was a tv there, with a box nearby it filled with my brother's porn collection. there was a kind of fold up futon sofa in front of the tv. and i believe that there was a dining table of sorts right nearby, in the same room. i have dim memories of what the kitchen looked like, but it adjoined to that dining table. there was a sliding glass door that opened to what was barely a lanai; like, maybe you could stand there, but not much else. light filtered in through some long, straight leaved foliage into the living room.
my brother made some healthy food for us. there was always some chicken or something, cut up and cooked, and conveniently placed in tupperware containers. i don't know how often i actually ate at home with my brother, but i do remember it being there- the food, i mean.
i can't remember any bathrooms, for any reason. or more precisely, i don't remember where the bathrooms were.
*****
i recall being profoundly depressed and anxious (so when wasn't i?).
i mean, i had successfully exited college, but i had no direction in my life. i was working three jobs, and i suppose that kept me busy, but i knew that i was just floating. i really wanted a relationship, to be honest; there was that loneliness within me, perhaps still in a relatively nascent form, but it was there nonetheless: this nagging hollow that resembled a hunger in the gut.
*****
i remember, occasionally, my brother and i working out together. at least i recall us running over to the track field at roosevelt (?). but i can't recall much beyond that.
every now and then, we would go over to tower records (it still existed back then) to rent some stuff; or we went to this japanese manga shop on young street (it's gone now). i would also occasionally go to an anime place in the mccully shopping center... but that was the essence of our "entertainment" back then: reading stupid manga and watching stupid anime.
*****
i don't really have stories of that time, only flashes, like afterimages burned into my mind... like working at waikiki joy hotel... and trying to carry a bedframe down to a unit, one floor at a time, and thinking of a particular girl... and the song, "i can't even tell," going through my head. (i guess the movie "clerks" was big at that time).
i remember riding my bike down the ala wai. the bumps in the road. sometimes walking past the prostitutes late at night... all these meaningless details. nothing ever really happened, nothing memorable anyway. it was just the texture of life at that time...
...like i was just waiting for someone to recognize me as a human being.
yes, we lived together for at least a few months, in the unit that my japan grandma had basically bought for him up in makiki. those months were, frankly, a blur. i had graduated from college with my bachelor's in religion, and the assurance (to my parents) that i would take the mcats, and then apply to some medical school somewhere. in the meantime, i guess i tried to keep myself busy.
i worked at a pathology lab over on south king street, and at a restaurant (furusato) in waikiki. i also got a job as a bellman/valet over at the waikiki joy hotel. i had these three jobs going on simultaneously. i think i only returned home in the evenings.
my brother was similarly busy. he was into his first year at medical school.
we kept the place pretty clean, as i remember it. he had his room, and i had mine. i recall that there was a kind of "common room" (i guess that's college talk for a living room). there was a tv there, with a box nearby it filled with my brother's porn collection. there was a kind of fold up futon sofa in front of the tv. and i believe that there was a dining table of sorts right nearby, in the same room. i have dim memories of what the kitchen looked like, but it adjoined to that dining table. there was a sliding glass door that opened to what was barely a lanai; like, maybe you could stand there, but not much else. light filtered in through some long, straight leaved foliage into the living room.
my brother made some healthy food for us. there was always some chicken or something, cut up and cooked, and conveniently placed in tupperware containers. i don't know how often i actually ate at home with my brother, but i do remember it being there- the food, i mean.
i can't remember any bathrooms, for any reason. or more precisely, i don't remember where the bathrooms were.
*****
i recall being profoundly depressed and anxious (so when wasn't i?).
i mean, i had successfully exited college, but i had no direction in my life. i was working three jobs, and i suppose that kept me busy, but i knew that i was just floating. i really wanted a relationship, to be honest; there was that loneliness within me, perhaps still in a relatively nascent form, but it was there nonetheless: this nagging hollow that resembled a hunger in the gut.
*****
i remember, occasionally, my brother and i working out together. at least i recall us running over to the track field at roosevelt (?). but i can't recall much beyond that.
every now and then, we would go over to tower records (it still existed back then) to rent some stuff; or we went to this japanese manga shop on young street (it's gone now). i would also occasionally go to an anime place in the mccully shopping center... but that was the essence of our "entertainment" back then: reading stupid manga and watching stupid anime.
*****
i don't really have stories of that time, only flashes, like afterimages burned into my mind... like working at waikiki joy hotel... and trying to carry a bedframe down to a unit, one floor at a time, and thinking of a particular girl... and the song, "i can't even tell," going through my head. (i guess the movie "clerks" was big at that time).
i remember riding my bike down the ala wai. the bumps in the road. sometimes walking past the prostitutes late at night... all these meaningless details. nothing ever really happened, nothing memorable anyway. it was just the texture of life at that time...
...like i was just waiting for someone to recognize me as a human being.
poem 6/23: find your voice
i don't know how to tell you,
i've tried.
chained to a bear
this inarticulate, hungry thing
that clumsily murders with head-sized claws
that embarassingly ruts against the rough bark of trees
that shits and pees and farts at the most inopportune moments
that hibernates when i need it to explain itself.
believe me, i've tried to get it to speak.
i've tried to teach it the languages of the world
wherever we have been:
the abstract language of philosophy in seminar classes,
the abstract language of philosophy in seminar classes,
the ruddily crude pidgin with "locals,"
even silence.
but it only yawns-
rotten salmon and honey on its breath-
and leaves me to cover for the damages.
the words i offer are always apologies.
and after that, it's head nodding and
an attempt at amelioration and reconciliation.
empty words just to get by.
this, too, is the same.
so, when you ask me to "find my voice"
all i can respond with is:
i'm sorry. please.
bear.
with me.
(groan)
6/23/2020
i haven't been diligently following my routines. this past weekend, i focused more on other things, like landscaping and gardening. i got some marigolds and some edible herbs, and planted them among my edible vegetable crops, because i'd heard that it was a natural way to prevent pests from consuming the crops. i also (yesterday) got some shower curtains and placed them around the fish tanks in my aquaponics stations to reduce water loss from all the splashing. the splashing of the water as it drops from the grow bed is actually quite essential, because it helps to oxygenate the water.
sunday was also father's day, so i took a big break from doing a lot of my routines for that too.
i got my hair cut on sunday. my wife thinks i look great. i guess i look good too. i decided to keep my top long, and just have the barber cut my sides and back (those were getting pretty long, covering up my ears). i had the top styled with mousse so it rises up, and doesn't just flop down... well, we'll see how long this lasts, but it is always so nice to have a good hair style...
*****
i have been listening to david sedaris's master class... i think i do agree with a lot of what he says. in this latest "class," he talked about writing about people you know. he actually had a short talk session with his sister lisa. one of my big takeaways was that you should write about people that you like. he decidedly does NOT write about people that he does not like- unless they happen to be dead. that doesn't mean that you faun over your subjects- not at all. for example, he wrote about his mother's alcoholism... and he loves his mother. he stated it in an interesting and insightful way. he said that writing about people's faults makes them more complex. but that complexity is what makes people real and relatable.
i know i have been struggling to write about my brother. i guess a lot of it is because i'm in a bad place with him right now, and have been for a long time. i also don't foresee anything getting any better, relationship wise. so i guess that when i write about him, i am struggling to hold back some real hurt and hatred, and what ends up happening is the narrative becomes very muted and confused. i often ask myself, what is it i'm trying to say about my brother? am i trying to portray him as some kind of monster? (he's not, although he may have done some monstrous things.) i don't know. but perhaps that's where sedaris is right. you can't, or shouldn't, write about people you don't like- not ONLY because it's probably not morally right (because when you write about someone, they can't speak their side of the story), but also because it just doesn't work out practically. hatred tends to flatten the subject, so you only talk about a caricature... and no matter what, no matter how you try to compensate for it by, say, throwing in one flattering comment or something, you can't hide the fact that you've flattened the story, and added a slant, that you're portraying so-and-so as an asshole.
i guess that also gets to what my place is in the story. i guess i try to be self-deprecating, but only in an endearing way, not in a way that leads to or results from any authentic self-reflection. it is sort of like the positing of innocence. like, i was such an innocent five year old, there is no fault or sin in me... boo hoo...
*****
that having been said, i did have a few ideas:
- a vignette about the near drowning i had... only, to end with him (my brother) telling me to stand up.
- something about my mother... and her ambiguous relationship with religion. when she was young, she pretty much despised organized religion, as represented and espoused by my grandmother (tenrikyo). but now, she is a hardcore evangelist. the irony- or whatever- is disconcerting to say the least.
- i guess something about my mother, related to the schedule she wrote out for me on this piece of cardboard. and how i held on to that religiously... you know what, maybe it influenced me more thoroughly than i realized. i still, to this day, try to organize my time by making routines, to cover all my bases, as it were. i feel that, without such structure, i am nothing, vulnerable to neglect and guilt... but i recall this time when i was in the back trunk area of a station wagon, surrounded by my friends at the time (from first grade? second grade?), and how the car "jumped" from hopping the curb or something, and my birthday cake (from mcdonalds) got smashed... and it was so stupid, but when i saw the frosting all coating the underside of the lid, that ronald mcdonald image all but obliterated, i started to cry... in front of all of these boys... and i don't know why, but i couldn't stop... i'm not sure why that image comes up, but it is somehow tied to that cardboard schedule. maybe it was there with me in the trunk, and i looked at it, and held it as some sort of security blanket or something... jeez, was i a messed up sensitive basket case.
- i guess i could write about homecoming. the fact that i was taking my brother's shifts cleaning the portables on homecoming day, so he could celebrate and be with his cool friends... and how he took my paychecks anyway. what an asshole.
*****
oh well, i guess i've got to get going.
sunday was also father's day, so i took a big break from doing a lot of my routines for that too.
i got my hair cut on sunday. my wife thinks i look great. i guess i look good too. i decided to keep my top long, and just have the barber cut my sides and back (those were getting pretty long, covering up my ears). i had the top styled with mousse so it rises up, and doesn't just flop down... well, we'll see how long this lasts, but it is always so nice to have a good hair style...
*****
i have been listening to david sedaris's master class... i think i do agree with a lot of what he says. in this latest "class," he talked about writing about people you know. he actually had a short talk session with his sister lisa. one of my big takeaways was that you should write about people that you like. he decidedly does NOT write about people that he does not like- unless they happen to be dead. that doesn't mean that you faun over your subjects- not at all. for example, he wrote about his mother's alcoholism... and he loves his mother. he stated it in an interesting and insightful way. he said that writing about people's faults makes them more complex. but that complexity is what makes people real and relatable.
i know i have been struggling to write about my brother. i guess a lot of it is because i'm in a bad place with him right now, and have been for a long time. i also don't foresee anything getting any better, relationship wise. so i guess that when i write about him, i am struggling to hold back some real hurt and hatred, and what ends up happening is the narrative becomes very muted and confused. i often ask myself, what is it i'm trying to say about my brother? am i trying to portray him as some kind of monster? (he's not, although he may have done some monstrous things.) i don't know. but perhaps that's where sedaris is right. you can't, or shouldn't, write about people you don't like- not ONLY because it's probably not morally right (because when you write about someone, they can't speak their side of the story), but also because it just doesn't work out practically. hatred tends to flatten the subject, so you only talk about a caricature... and no matter what, no matter how you try to compensate for it by, say, throwing in one flattering comment or something, you can't hide the fact that you've flattened the story, and added a slant, that you're portraying so-and-so as an asshole.
i guess that also gets to what my place is in the story. i guess i try to be self-deprecating, but only in an endearing way, not in a way that leads to or results from any authentic self-reflection. it is sort of like the positing of innocence. like, i was such an innocent five year old, there is no fault or sin in me... boo hoo...
*****
that having been said, i did have a few ideas:
- a vignette about the near drowning i had... only, to end with him (my brother) telling me to stand up.
- something about my mother... and her ambiguous relationship with religion. when she was young, she pretty much despised organized religion, as represented and espoused by my grandmother (tenrikyo). but now, she is a hardcore evangelist. the irony- or whatever- is disconcerting to say the least.
- i guess something about my mother, related to the schedule she wrote out for me on this piece of cardboard. and how i held on to that religiously... you know what, maybe it influenced me more thoroughly than i realized. i still, to this day, try to organize my time by making routines, to cover all my bases, as it were. i feel that, without such structure, i am nothing, vulnerable to neglect and guilt... but i recall this time when i was in the back trunk area of a station wagon, surrounded by my friends at the time (from first grade? second grade?), and how the car "jumped" from hopping the curb or something, and my birthday cake (from mcdonalds) got smashed... and it was so stupid, but when i saw the frosting all coating the underside of the lid, that ronald mcdonald image all but obliterated, i started to cry... in front of all of these boys... and i don't know why, but i couldn't stop... i'm not sure why that image comes up, but it is somehow tied to that cardboard schedule. maybe it was there with me in the trunk, and i looked at it, and held it as some sort of security blanket or something... jeez, was i a messed up sensitive basket case.
- i guess i could write about homecoming. the fact that i was taking my brother's shifts cleaning the portables on homecoming day, so he could celebrate and be with his cool friends... and how he took my paychecks anyway. what an asshole.
*****
oh well, i guess i've got to get going.
Friday, June 19, 2020
story 6/19
broken, but clean.
looking back, i find the priorities interesting.
whenever i would wake in the wee hours of the morning, upset or anxious, then the very first thing i would do was take a shower. i'd clean away the first few layers of my skin, sometimes even scratching it away to get at what was raw underneath. the oil, the sweat, the deadness- i sought to rid myself of it.
it was only after i did that, my hair still damp, that i would address the pain i felt inside. on good nights, i would simply distract myself within my room: listen to music, or speak out to whatever deity was fashionable with me at the time. sometimes i would pace within my limited space, touching on surfaces like the edge of a chair or the surface of a desk, to confirm that i was still alive...
but on bad nights, that wouldn't be sufficient. on the bad nights, i needed to do more, to feel. i would take cds out, and break them in my hands. they weren't brittle, even though they looked reflective. they would only fold clumsily in my hands. but still, there were sharp edges beneath the skin of plastic, and they would leave red welts in the skin of my palm. i would continue doing this until there was a fair amount of fragments scattered across the floor.
and then- curiously- i'd arrange the fragments to form some sort of shape- a cross, perhaps, though i daresay it wasn't because of any religious inclination. it just seemed appropriate. i would carefully arrange the pieces, my fingers and palms still lightly stinging, compelled by some strange energy or enthusiasm that made my muscles tense, and my face eager and alive...
i would then dress in my most ragged attire. i had a pair of jeans that had holes ripped up at the knees (they had been there originally- it was the style- but i had worn them bigger to a ridiculous degree). i wore a pair of karate gi pants beneath them- partly because it was cold, but also partly because- even upset- i did not want to reveal my skin to the world. i wore some sort of t-shirt with a chaotic pattern on it. but- here's the kicker- like the jeans, like the karate gi pants, they all had to be clean. in fact, the cleaner and crisper they were, the better... even, or maybe especially, in moments of anger or hurt, i needed to feel clean.
somehow i maybe secretly wanted to be seen... and in those moments where i was, or when i had to even interact with others, i could feel a sort of snarling sarcastic twitch contorting the edge of my face, and my head always had this odd tilt to it. it was as though i needed to show the world that i was off-kilter, and broken. i wouldn't say anything overt; i wouldn't ask for help, or company, or whatever.
it was always for show. it was always to leave an impression.
more often than not, no one would see me. sometimes i would walk around, not aimlessly, but away from people. i would go to places that were semi-abandoned. there was a small graveyard behind my dorm one year. there were some windows that faced out to it, so there was always this notion that someone could be looking out to see me, to see what i was doing. i think that was always key. it wasn't likely that anyone was up at that hour, or that they would be looking out upon the little graveyard, which was, in truth, pretty nondescript. but the possibility that someone, anyone, could be looking out upon it, and me, was key.
even in the midst of a small snowstorm, with the wind blowing my hair to freezing, and drifts covering the tops of the gravestones- well, perhaps all the better, aesthetically speaking. i would find a tree, find a hard, smooth part of it- and i would start hitting it. not hard- never really hard. it was more to feel the surfaces. the surface was important. it was as though i (or it) were a drum, and the only way to make myself reverberate and hear myself was by striking a surface. the emptiness within me would stir, and for a moment, i would sense- something...
i would keep striking that surface- again, not hard, not blindly, not out of control- there was always the inescapable control- but just enough. sometimes the skin of my knuckles would break, and there might be blood. but not too much. not anything that would be particularly visible the next day, and definitely not something that would require much attention...
i might return after some indeterminate time, careful not to disturb the constellation of cd fragments on the floor... maybe i would lie on the mattress for a time, thoughts cycling through my head, restless. but i would still be clothed, and i would need to maintain this sense of cleanliness.
i wanted, in short, to feel the surface of things. because it was only at the surface, the clean and scoured surface, that i could feel anything at all.
looking back, i find the priorities interesting.
whenever i would wake in the wee hours of the morning, upset or anxious, then the very first thing i would do was take a shower. i'd clean away the first few layers of my skin, sometimes even scratching it away to get at what was raw underneath. the oil, the sweat, the deadness- i sought to rid myself of it.
it was only after i did that, my hair still damp, that i would address the pain i felt inside. on good nights, i would simply distract myself within my room: listen to music, or speak out to whatever deity was fashionable with me at the time. sometimes i would pace within my limited space, touching on surfaces like the edge of a chair or the surface of a desk, to confirm that i was still alive...
but on bad nights, that wouldn't be sufficient. on the bad nights, i needed to do more, to feel. i would take cds out, and break them in my hands. they weren't brittle, even though they looked reflective. they would only fold clumsily in my hands. but still, there were sharp edges beneath the skin of plastic, and they would leave red welts in the skin of my palm. i would continue doing this until there was a fair amount of fragments scattered across the floor.
and then- curiously- i'd arrange the fragments to form some sort of shape- a cross, perhaps, though i daresay it wasn't because of any religious inclination. it just seemed appropriate. i would carefully arrange the pieces, my fingers and palms still lightly stinging, compelled by some strange energy or enthusiasm that made my muscles tense, and my face eager and alive...
i would then dress in my most ragged attire. i had a pair of jeans that had holes ripped up at the knees (they had been there originally- it was the style- but i had worn them bigger to a ridiculous degree). i wore a pair of karate gi pants beneath them- partly because it was cold, but also partly because- even upset- i did not want to reveal my skin to the world. i wore some sort of t-shirt with a chaotic pattern on it. but- here's the kicker- like the jeans, like the karate gi pants, they all had to be clean. in fact, the cleaner and crisper they were, the better... even, or maybe especially, in moments of anger or hurt, i needed to feel clean.
somehow i maybe secretly wanted to be seen... and in those moments where i was, or when i had to even interact with others, i could feel a sort of snarling sarcastic twitch contorting the edge of my face, and my head always had this odd tilt to it. it was as though i needed to show the world that i was off-kilter, and broken. i wouldn't say anything overt; i wouldn't ask for help, or company, or whatever.
it was always for show. it was always to leave an impression.
more often than not, no one would see me. sometimes i would walk around, not aimlessly, but away from people. i would go to places that were semi-abandoned. there was a small graveyard behind my dorm one year. there were some windows that faced out to it, so there was always this notion that someone could be looking out to see me, to see what i was doing. i think that was always key. it wasn't likely that anyone was up at that hour, or that they would be looking out upon the little graveyard, which was, in truth, pretty nondescript. but the possibility that someone, anyone, could be looking out upon it, and me, was key.
even in the midst of a small snowstorm, with the wind blowing my hair to freezing, and drifts covering the tops of the gravestones- well, perhaps all the better, aesthetically speaking. i would find a tree, find a hard, smooth part of it- and i would start hitting it. not hard- never really hard. it was more to feel the surfaces. the surface was important. it was as though i (or it) were a drum, and the only way to make myself reverberate and hear myself was by striking a surface. the emptiness within me would stir, and for a moment, i would sense- something...
i would keep striking that surface- again, not hard, not blindly, not out of control- there was always the inescapable control- but just enough. sometimes the skin of my knuckles would break, and there might be blood. but not too much. not anything that would be particularly visible the next day, and definitely not something that would require much attention...
i might return after some indeterminate time, careful not to disturb the constellation of cd fragments on the floor... maybe i would lie on the mattress for a time, thoughts cycling through my head, restless. but i would still be clothed, and i would need to maintain this sense of cleanliness.
i wanted, in short, to feel the surface of things. because it was only at the surface, the clean and scoured surface, that i could feel anything at all.
poem 6/19
"having fun being yourself."
the title of a book my mother
had in the house
when i was young.
i suppose if the third word were changed
to almost anything else,
it probably wouldn't be
just hanging around on a shelf
for all to see.
but it was an innocent book.
even at seven i recognized that:
with a semi-childish drawing
of a girl or woman,
arms pumped into fists,
caught in mid-stride
on the way to "life."
there was a big smile on her face,
a smile that didn't fear
and didn't need anyone else.
i wanted to smile that way
with a gleam in my eyes
but couldn't.
there was something wrong with me-
a hollow, perhaps-
a hole in a chamber of my heart.
i couldn't find a "yourself"
to have fun with.
i tried.
i try.
it wasn't a conscious decision
but i did the next best,
next worst,
thing:
and lived my life
like the title of the book
with the last word
always different.
the title of a book my mother
had in the house
when i was young.
i suppose if the third word were changed
to almost anything else,
it probably wouldn't be
just hanging around on a shelf
for all to see.
but it was an innocent book.
even at seven i recognized that:
with a semi-childish drawing
of a girl or woman,
arms pumped into fists,
caught in mid-stride
on the way to "life."
there was a big smile on her face,
a smile that didn't fear
and didn't need anyone else.
i wanted to smile that way
with a gleam in my eyes
but couldn't.
there was something wrong with me-
a hollow, perhaps-
a hole in a chamber of my heart.
i couldn't find a "yourself"
to have fun with.
i tried.
i try.
it wasn't a conscious decision
but i did the next best,
next worst,
thing:
and lived my life
like the title of the book
with the last word
always different.
6/18/2020
i think my routines are being kind of compulsive. that's all that i really worked on today, to be honest...
i am often thinking about my need for attention. it may not seem like i am an attention whore, but in many respects i am. i don't enjoy things in and of themselves. for example, i kind of feel anxious if i were to just drive off somewhere and explore. i would feel like i was wasting my time. the only way i can justify to myself doing something like that would be if i were taking someone with me. for example, if i were taking my kids with me, then i could justify that i was providing an "experience" for them. or if i were taking my wife with me, then it would be an opportunity to "get out." but in itself, and by myself, there would be no justification. there is no true pleasure "in and of itself" for me. if i ever do something on my own, then it is shrouded in a kind of loneliness and sadness.
why is that? i get so angry that i am like that. for a person who is inherently alone, i have no capacity or enjoyment for being alone. it is so fucking ironic.
it's also ironic because in my attempts at art, i am always trying to "cancel out" the attentions of others, in order to "commune" with the emptiness, the no-self-ness, of art. but that has always been the quandary: because in my own experience, in my own life, the absence of the attention of another always results in a kind of collapse of purpose. and, again, i hate that. i hate that i am dependent upon the world. but it is true nonetheless...
what all of this means, if it isn't already obvious by now (particularly as i maintain this stupid blog) is that i am incredibly selfish. i say to myself that everything i do is to "help others," but in truth, all of my efforts are to justify my own existence. because again, in the absence of others, i am afraid of drowning and disappearing within myself... a meaningless, useless nothing.
i often blame this on my brother, or even on my parents... but maybe it was always there. it was always primary. this absence... this black hole. and i can't fill it. i can't plug it. i can't stand that. it hardly seems fair that i was born with the burden of this bottomless pit within me. it is unfair that i didn't have a self, and could only "be" by opportunistically using the attentions of others... i hate being dependent like that. i wish i were just who i was. i wish i could (on some level) be content with who i am. i wish i didn't confront each new person and each new interaction as a potential threat... as a potential discounting or disqualification of my own existence. i wish i didn't feel scared that i would be seen as useless or meaningless...
i guess all of my efforts are to impress people, and to have them acknowledge me, maybe even fear me. i guess all i do is intended to have the world see me...
i mentioned dualistic thought, and the alternative, to swallow that emptiness, and to attempt to disappear... well, it doesn't work. it only repeats the problem. somehow, i need to be nondualistic, find a way out of this trap...
*****
the wind is blowing through the trees.
my wife is exceedingly kind. i realize, more and more, how much i owe to her for my existence. it was through her love that i became what i am. i am still troubled by so many things, but at the very least, i feel some solidity and trust in myself, because she believed in me. without that, i would be plagued by the old self-hatred and loathing that i spent my whole life fighting or fleeing...
help me. i want to be.
*****
when i was young, my mom had this one book called "having fun being yourself." i used to read it or try to read it, every now and then. it embodied my mother's spirit, her shamelessness. it was something i aspired to, that sense of allowing myself to enjoy being who i was, and having fun. but for some reason, a lot of that wisdom, well, it never stuck. i was always convinced that i was a piece of shit. a nothing on someone's shoe. i couldn't shake that feeling...
i sympathized with broken toys, because maybe i felt i was one. my mom always warned me of the sin of self-pity, which she felt i had a lot of. yes, i did feel so sorry for myself. but it was only because i felt incredibly trapped, and didn't know a way out of it...
there is no salvation through others. but there is also no salvation through myself. so "why sit and wait for the new world to begin?"
"you can't believe in yourself. you can't believe in anyone else. so why sit and wait for the new world to begin?"
i am often thinking about my need for attention. it may not seem like i am an attention whore, but in many respects i am. i don't enjoy things in and of themselves. for example, i kind of feel anxious if i were to just drive off somewhere and explore. i would feel like i was wasting my time. the only way i can justify to myself doing something like that would be if i were taking someone with me. for example, if i were taking my kids with me, then i could justify that i was providing an "experience" for them. or if i were taking my wife with me, then it would be an opportunity to "get out." but in itself, and by myself, there would be no justification. there is no true pleasure "in and of itself" for me. if i ever do something on my own, then it is shrouded in a kind of loneliness and sadness.
why is that? i get so angry that i am like that. for a person who is inherently alone, i have no capacity or enjoyment for being alone. it is so fucking ironic.
it's also ironic because in my attempts at art, i am always trying to "cancel out" the attentions of others, in order to "commune" with the emptiness, the no-self-ness, of art. but that has always been the quandary: because in my own experience, in my own life, the absence of the attention of another always results in a kind of collapse of purpose. and, again, i hate that. i hate that i am dependent upon the world. but it is true nonetheless...
what all of this means, if it isn't already obvious by now (particularly as i maintain this stupid blog) is that i am incredibly selfish. i say to myself that everything i do is to "help others," but in truth, all of my efforts are to justify my own existence. because again, in the absence of others, i am afraid of drowning and disappearing within myself... a meaningless, useless nothing.
i often blame this on my brother, or even on my parents... but maybe it was always there. it was always primary. this absence... this black hole. and i can't fill it. i can't plug it. i can't stand that. it hardly seems fair that i was born with the burden of this bottomless pit within me. it is unfair that i didn't have a self, and could only "be" by opportunistically using the attentions of others... i hate being dependent like that. i wish i were just who i was. i wish i could (on some level) be content with who i am. i wish i didn't confront each new person and each new interaction as a potential threat... as a potential discounting or disqualification of my own existence. i wish i didn't feel scared that i would be seen as useless or meaningless...
i guess all of my efforts are to impress people, and to have them acknowledge me, maybe even fear me. i guess all i do is intended to have the world see me...
i mentioned dualistic thought, and the alternative, to swallow that emptiness, and to attempt to disappear... well, it doesn't work. it only repeats the problem. somehow, i need to be nondualistic, find a way out of this trap...
*****
the wind is blowing through the trees.
my wife is exceedingly kind. i realize, more and more, how much i owe to her for my existence. it was through her love that i became what i am. i am still troubled by so many things, but at the very least, i feel some solidity and trust in myself, because she believed in me. without that, i would be plagued by the old self-hatred and loathing that i spent my whole life fighting or fleeing...
help me. i want to be.
*****
when i was young, my mom had this one book called "having fun being yourself." i used to read it or try to read it, every now and then. it embodied my mother's spirit, her shamelessness. it was something i aspired to, that sense of allowing myself to enjoy being who i was, and having fun. but for some reason, a lot of that wisdom, well, it never stuck. i was always convinced that i was a piece of shit. a nothing on someone's shoe. i couldn't shake that feeling...
i sympathized with broken toys, because maybe i felt i was one. my mom always warned me of the sin of self-pity, which she felt i had a lot of. yes, i did feel so sorry for myself. but it was only because i felt incredibly trapped, and didn't know a way out of it...
there is no salvation through others. but there is also no salvation through myself. so "why sit and wait for the new world to begin?"
"you can't believe in yourself. you can't believe in anyone else. so why sit and wait for the new world to begin?"
Thursday, June 18, 2020
story 6/18
there is a shrine near the end of a knurled up street. the entrance to the shrine is somewhat nondescript and easily overlooked, nearly hidden by ancient cypress trees on one side, and the more modern two-story houses on the other. one of the reasons it is so hard to see is that the "entrance" doesn't directly lead to an open space and shrine buildings. rather, it's just the start of a poorly maintained path curling up the slope of a hill. it's only at the top of that path that you arrive at the formal shrine itself.
the view from the top must have, at one point in time, been truly spectacular. the nearby river, with its sandy shoals, resembles a golden trail, snaking its way to the ocean in the distance. across it, lies a more urban center of the city of iwakuni, filled with apartment buildings and karaoke bars, and backgrounding it, green boulder-strewn hills. i say that it "must have been" spectacular because some of the cypress trees are overgrown, and interrupt the view with their misshapen boughs.
the shrine itself is hardly worth mentioning. there is a torii gate, with a large shimenawa rope hanging beneath it, but, like the view, it is partially obscured by the encroaching cypress trees. there is a small courtyard, strewn over with cypress needles, and just beyond it, an ancient wooden building, long overdue for a new coat of paint, serves as the formal shrine, with a semi-frayed rope and tarnished bell to ring when making offerings. within the shadowed confines of the shrine, it is just possible to make out a glass jar containing the coils of a milky white snake, a animal-spirit that is popular in this area. there are no other buildings nearby.
*****
i'm not sure what led me to the shrine. i certainly hadn't been looking for it. in fact, i really hadn't been looking for much of anything on that day. i had just decided to wander through iwakuni. i left the area where i was staying, filled with karaoke bars (the streets there were littered with cigarette butts), and made my way towards where i believed the river was. you would not have guessed you were approaching the river from where i was, because there was no hint that it was coming. i turned a few corners, surrounded by walled off residences, and the next thing i knew, there it was, opening up in the space between two lots.
poem 6/18
i found another caterpillar
this morning.
it must have been the tenth or so.
yesterday, i found
the cabbage leaves had been riddled with holes
and a quick inspection on their undersides
revealed the causes:
camouflaged a minty green
tiny segments
shaped like innocent commas
were carving skylights into canopies.
i picked this latest off
and fed it to the tilapias.
i watched for a moment
as it curled and uncurled
floating on this
new and unfamiliar leaf
black and shifting.
i moved on
to other things.
i didn't even watch its death.
it wasn't about vengeance,
after all.
we all hunger.
we all eat.
some of it,
invisible, under the eaves,
chewing with mouths open,
staking our claim of the universe
with each clamp of our bits.
the only difference is who
steals a bite
first.
6/17/2020
i suppose writing has always been terrifying for me. it's not just that it's a chore (it tends to be, at least when i attempt purposeful writing). it's that it forces me to confront the contrived nature of my self. it's that it always leads to so many questions, not the least of which is, "what the hell are you even writing about?" and it always makes me feel as though i am drowning, drowning alone in a dark well, with no one to see me, and no one to understand my pointless struggles. i usually come away from a serious writing session bedraggled and filled with self-loathing... and for all that suffering, the product, a few pages of hard-won writing, will usually end up in the trash heap anyway. so i often ask myself, what's the point?
it didn't use to be that way. i suppose in high school, i was cocky and overconfident, and at that age, any decent assemblage of sentences that sound cogent and intelligent gets praised to the nines. it could be about nothing (most of my writing back then was about nothing)... i think after high school, there were moments when i felt i could write. there would be this lucidity within me, a feeling as though everything was perfect. and for some reason, i could just flow out something that seemed at the very least intriguing...
but not any more.
now, there are no natural narratives within me. i have a very fragmentary consciousness. i don't experience (or at the very least don't recognize) interesting scenarios. i just experience little things, the kind of things where you say "ah" and move on. and whenever i try to build things into larger narratives, perhaps discover a "point" to everything, it becomes fake and contrived, and that's when i really struggle to construct anything, because it is all like soupy sand, and each time i try to build something big, it all just dissolves within my hands...
my more recent "writing" has just been stream-of-consciousness basically. there is no theme, no nothing- it is just an attempt to record whatever is going on in my head. there are no complete sentences. there are hardly any complete thoughts. this is because recording anything takes time, whereas the mind is constantly shifting gears and distracting itself...
*****
sorry, i had to go to sleep, i was actually passing out.
my intention, as of now, is to do more "sticking to it" when it comes to writing. i mean, i'm able to draw a more or less complete portrait, even when things are pretty complex. and it's not particularly a strain; i just work on each new segment of the picture... why can't i do the same with writing? also, the consistent message, from neil gaiman through margaret atwood through david sedaris is that you just have to sit there and write. there is this notion of "completion" (particularly from gaiman). i'm not sure if that's always feasible (i can't write 30 pages in one go, and to simply force myself to do so would be akin to shitting out a mountainload in one sitting). but i do think that i have to compel myself again to do "serious work" on completing my projects. i've tried to "force" a poem or a "short story" (more like a vignette), and while i'm going to still try to write a poem, i think for the short story part, i'm going to put a condition: either write 2 pages or write for a half hour, whichever comes first.
it didn't use to be that way. i suppose in high school, i was cocky and overconfident, and at that age, any decent assemblage of sentences that sound cogent and intelligent gets praised to the nines. it could be about nothing (most of my writing back then was about nothing)... i think after high school, there were moments when i felt i could write. there would be this lucidity within me, a feeling as though everything was perfect. and for some reason, i could just flow out something that seemed at the very least intriguing...
but not any more.
now, there are no natural narratives within me. i have a very fragmentary consciousness. i don't experience (or at the very least don't recognize) interesting scenarios. i just experience little things, the kind of things where you say "ah" and move on. and whenever i try to build things into larger narratives, perhaps discover a "point" to everything, it becomes fake and contrived, and that's when i really struggle to construct anything, because it is all like soupy sand, and each time i try to build something big, it all just dissolves within my hands...
my more recent "writing" has just been stream-of-consciousness basically. there is no theme, no nothing- it is just an attempt to record whatever is going on in my head. there are no complete sentences. there are hardly any complete thoughts. this is because recording anything takes time, whereas the mind is constantly shifting gears and distracting itself...
*****
sorry, i had to go to sleep, i was actually passing out.
my intention, as of now, is to do more "sticking to it" when it comes to writing. i mean, i'm able to draw a more or less complete portrait, even when things are pretty complex. and it's not particularly a strain; i just work on each new segment of the picture... why can't i do the same with writing? also, the consistent message, from neil gaiman through margaret atwood through david sedaris is that you just have to sit there and write. there is this notion of "completion" (particularly from gaiman). i'm not sure if that's always feasible (i can't write 30 pages in one go, and to simply force myself to do so would be akin to shitting out a mountainload in one sitting). but i do think that i have to compel myself again to do "serious work" on completing my projects. i've tried to "force" a poem or a "short story" (more like a vignette), and while i'm going to still try to write a poem, i think for the short story part, i'm going to put a condition: either write 2 pages or write for a half hour, whichever comes first.
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
story 6/16
i noticed them one day, one of countless days, riding bikes from our house to japanese school. en route, my sister and i always had to slowly pump the peddles of our bikes up the sloping, red dirt path, through the field of wedelia, on the way to the concrete bridge across the irrigation canal. i guess going slow-mo up the toughest part of the hill, that's when i spotted it.
it was an ant graveyard.
ants were common on the path. even when we weren't really looking, we'd spot a line or two, or sometimes even individual ants who had strayed and were lost. but i had never seen (or rather, i had never noticed) a graveyard.
it was located not far away from an actual ant hole. it was a small area, but probably for ants, it was like an arlington national cemetary. the corpses of countless ants littered the area, looking like some indistinct brown moss or fur on the ground. in fact, that's what i thought it was, at first, until closer inspection revealed insect limbs or antennae, pointing lifelessly up to the sky.
i pointed it out to my sister. "look," i said. "an ant graveyard."
my sister wasn't squeamish about things like that. she got off her bike, and crouched down beside me to take a closer look.
"why do they make that?" she asked, after a few moments.
"i don't know," i muttered. "i didn't even know they did stuff like this until now."
there were other questions i had, and i'm sure my sister had some too. and it would have been cool to catch some living ants carrying a fallen comrade over to the graveyard, or perhaps even visiting it- i could imagine ants touching their antennae together like priests doing a gassho. but i suddenly felt the pull of our schedule. we had to be at the portables on the far end of the high school campus where japanese school was held by 3, and we had a ways to go still. so i got on my bike, and urged my sister to do the same.
but the ants remained on my mind.
i thought idly how much we- my sister and i- were like ants. i was not a leader or explorer by any means. i just followed a route that had been established by my brother long ago, when he had guided me from school to home to japanese school and back. and now, i was guiding my sister along that same route. instead of the chemical trails that ants used, we followed well-worn paths, carved out from the treads of our bicycles, and the bicycles of maybe a dozen or so kids besides us. and we ran on these paths, day in and day out, in a fixed and endless pattern.
we never strayed (at least not yet). we had a schedule to keep, after all.
but the ant graveyard gave me pause. was that a place of rest, earned after following paths throughout a life of hard labor? i wasn't sure if that thought gave me comfort or dread.
one thing was certain: if an ant strayed or got lost, then it probably just died somewhere alone. probably hidden away, but in any case, obscure. a kid like me could probably spot an ant graveyard, but no one would ever notice the end of an individual ant, lost upon some untracked and untold adventure.
it was an ant graveyard.
ants were common on the path. even when we weren't really looking, we'd spot a line or two, or sometimes even individual ants who had strayed and were lost. but i had never seen (or rather, i had never noticed) a graveyard.
it was located not far away from an actual ant hole. it was a small area, but probably for ants, it was like an arlington national cemetary. the corpses of countless ants littered the area, looking like some indistinct brown moss or fur on the ground. in fact, that's what i thought it was, at first, until closer inspection revealed insect limbs or antennae, pointing lifelessly up to the sky.
i pointed it out to my sister. "look," i said. "an ant graveyard."
my sister wasn't squeamish about things like that. she got off her bike, and crouched down beside me to take a closer look.
"why do they make that?" she asked, after a few moments.
"i don't know," i muttered. "i didn't even know they did stuff like this until now."
there were other questions i had, and i'm sure my sister had some too. and it would have been cool to catch some living ants carrying a fallen comrade over to the graveyard, or perhaps even visiting it- i could imagine ants touching their antennae together like priests doing a gassho. but i suddenly felt the pull of our schedule. we had to be at the portables on the far end of the high school campus where japanese school was held by 3, and we had a ways to go still. so i got on my bike, and urged my sister to do the same.
but the ants remained on my mind.
i thought idly how much we- my sister and i- were like ants. i was not a leader or explorer by any means. i just followed a route that had been established by my brother long ago, when he had guided me from school to home to japanese school and back. and now, i was guiding my sister along that same route. instead of the chemical trails that ants used, we followed well-worn paths, carved out from the treads of our bicycles, and the bicycles of maybe a dozen or so kids besides us. and we ran on these paths, day in and day out, in a fixed and endless pattern.
we never strayed (at least not yet). we had a schedule to keep, after all.
but the ant graveyard gave me pause. was that a place of rest, earned after following paths throughout a life of hard labor? i wasn't sure if that thought gave me comfort or dread.
one thing was certain: if an ant strayed or got lost, then it probably just died somewhere alone. probably hidden away, but in any case, obscure. a kid like me could probably spot an ant graveyard, but no one would ever notice the end of an individual ant, lost upon some untracked and untold adventure.
poem 6/16
i wonder who collected them
the porceline figurines in the glass case
in my grandmother's house
it never seemed to match her.
she was always so matter-of-fact
and hard working
with a bent in her left forearm
and a scoliotic crook in her back
from carrying 100 lb sacks of rice
while her good-for-nothing brothers lounged,
at the people's market when
she was growing up.
when did she have the time
or inclination to collect them?
perfect and shining,
with happy expressions
(well, no one saw them, really.
i myself can't recall their exact forms and shapes.
i just remember the smiles.)
and now that she is gone,
and i can't go to her house-
i wonder if my uncle even kept them,
or sold them on amazon-
all i can remember is SHE had kept them
all those years-
and they smiled blindly to the clear walls of the case
and no one missed them
and their good will
until they were
gone.
the porceline figurines in the glass case
in my grandmother's house
it never seemed to match her.
she was always so matter-of-fact
and hard working
with a bent in her left forearm
and a scoliotic crook in her back
from carrying 100 lb sacks of rice
while her good-for-nothing brothers lounged,
at the people's market when
she was growing up.
when did she have the time
or inclination to collect them?
perfect and shining,
with happy expressions
(well, no one saw them, really.
i myself can't recall their exact forms and shapes.
i just remember the smiles.)
and now that she is gone,
and i can't go to her house-
i wonder if my uncle even kept them,
or sold them on amazon-
all i can remember is SHE had kept them
all those years-
and they smiled blindly to the clear walls of the case
and no one missed them
and their good will
until they were
gone.
6/16/2020
today was a pretty uneventful day. i woke up feeling alright. it felt as though i had dreamed, and dreamed a lot, but i couldn't quite remember what i had dreamed about. i felt that there were echoes of williams college in my head, but beyond that, i couldn't trace the thread back through the maze, as it were. maybe some of it had to do with the fact that i'd recalled a lot of faces clearly the other day, some names too, even. i don't know what the significance of any of that was, those images and sounds, because none of them related to any particular vignettes or narrative memories... they were just impressions of people who i once used to know- or rather, didn't know, and never really cared to know better. just empty echoes. eggshells.
in any case, i tried to move on to my routines, in between checking out my plants... with regards to the plants. i don't know if i'd mentioned it, but i found a lot of caterpillars on my cabbages, chewing tiny holes in the leaves. when i examined the undersides of all of the leaves, i found more and more caterpillars of various sizes. and when i tried to open up the very heart of the cabbage, i noticed all of these tiny green nodules- no doubt, more caterpillar eggs. so i doused the entire cabbage in the aquaponics water, and watched with some relief as the eggs fell away and sank into the grow bed, perhaps to drain to the fish below, where they would be breathed in as some kind of hors'douevre (sp?).
my life, i realize, is extremely boring. but that's okay, for the most part. i just work on stuff. i just try to improve myself. i know it seems so- constructivist (don't know if i'm using that term correctly). but, i don't know... i think i only experience life when i'm with people. in myself, i, for the most part, could care less. things only "turn on" if others are excited by it. i usually don't "feel" much of anything if i were alone. it reminds me of santa monica. it may have been a beautiful place, full of opportunities and experiences, but it was frankly wasted on me. i just felt incredibly alone there. it makes me feel alone and sad just thinking about it... about, for example, walking to the beach in the darkness, dressed in my blue monk pants and a semi-long beige overcoat, feeling clean (because i'd just showered BEFORE this outing), and then doing a taijiquan form in the sand, with the lights all orange from the lamps, surrounded by no one in particular to see me... moments like that, repeated ad nauseum. no one to see me.
it still seems interesting to me, a particular quirk of mine. i don't exist in and of myself. i think, almost from the beginning, that i was opportunistic in using the attentions of others to create a self "for myself." because outside of that attention, i literally (i know, not using that correctly) did not exist. i don't know how to explain what that means. it means that i wasn't a person, i was barely even a shell, with no opinions or memories or thoughts. that's what it means to be a non-person. someone who doesn't care about much of anything. but i guess deep down there is this despair or something. a feeling of drowning. of disappearing. like you are in darkness, complete darkness, and your edges and skin are getting erased and blurred out... until no one even sees you any more.
like a fish. in a forgotten fish tank.
you have no feelings. no one feels sorry for you, because you can't emote, and you don't particularly count.
(i periodically take the dead fish out of my aquaponics tank, and dump the corpse out into the field in back of my yard. no burial, no nothing. they fall like leaden lumps, or crash through the california grass... buried amidst all of those waxy, razored leaves, sweating and drying out to the sun... maybe stinking and getting eaten by mongooses or cats. yes, no one mourns them, least of all me. why?)
in buddhism, nothing has a "self." nothing exists in itself. everything is in relation to everything else. so in a sense, what i experience is buddhistic, and my quest for this identity or narrative "in itself" is completely in vain. but there must exist something, right? someone beneath all of this? who experiences it all and could tell the story of me? because if not, i am just a temporary collection of fragments, like leaves floating on a river, that gather in an apparent pattern, but which, in the very next moment, shifts and scatters...
if i have no self, how can i tell a story?
the attention of others, the embrace of the web of relations, creates me. i am a fly which did not exist before i entrapped myself in a web. i vibrate in struggles, against the stickiness that holds me fast, and in so doing, become "real," recognized. whether by spiders or other insects...
*****
look at me, look me in the eye. just long enough for me to feel seen. i guess that's the premise of my whole life.
in any case, i tried to move on to my routines, in between checking out my plants... with regards to the plants. i don't know if i'd mentioned it, but i found a lot of caterpillars on my cabbages, chewing tiny holes in the leaves. when i examined the undersides of all of the leaves, i found more and more caterpillars of various sizes. and when i tried to open up the very heart of the cabbage, i noticed all of these tiny green nodules- no doubt, more caterpillar eggs. so i doused the entire cabbage in the aquaponics water, and watched with some relief as the eggs fell away and sank into the grow bed, perhaps to drain to the fish below, where they would be breathed in as some kind of hors'douevre (sp?).
my life, i realize, is extremely boring. but that's okay, for the most part. i just work on stuff. i just try to improve myself. i know it seems so- constructivist (don't know if i'm using that term correctly). but, i don't know... i think i only experience life when i'm with people. in myself, i, for the most part, could care less. things only "turn on" if others are excited by it. i usually don't "feel" much of anything if i were alone. it reminds me of santa monica. it may have been a beautiful place, full of opportunities and experiences, but it was frankly wasted on me. i just felt incredibly alone there. it makes me feel alone and sad just thinking about it... about, for example, walking to the beach in the darkness, dressed in my blue monk pants and a semi-long beige overcoat, feeling clean (because i'd just showered BEFORE this outing), and then doing a taijiquan form in the sand, with the lights all orange from the lamps, surrounded by no one in particular to see me... moments like that, repeated ad nauseum. no one to see me.
it still seems interesting to me, a particular quirk of mine. i don't exist in and of myself. i think, almost from the beginning, that i was opportunistic in using the attentions of others to create a self "for myself." because outside of that attention, i literally (i know, not using that correctly) did not exist. i don't know how to explain what that means. it means that i wasn't a person, i was barely even a shell, with no opinions or memories or thoughts. that's what it means to be a non-person. someone who doesn't care about much of anything. but i guess deep down there is this despair or something. a feeling of drowning. of disappearing. like you are in darkness, complete darkness, and your edges and skin are getting erased and blurred out... until no one even sees you any more.
like a fish. in a forgotten fish tank.
you have no feelings. no one feels sorry for you, because you can't emote, and you don't particularly count.
(i periodically take the dead fish out of my aquaponics tank, and dump the corpse out into the field in back of my yard. no burial, no nothing. they fall like leaden lumps, or crash through the california grass... buried amidst all of those waxy, razored leaves, sweating and drying out to the sun... maybe stinking and getting eaten by mongooses or cats. yes, no one mourns them, least of all me. why?)
in buddhism, nothing has a "self." nothing exists in itself. everything is in relation to everything else. so in a sense, what i experience is buddhistic, and my quest for this identity or narrative "in itself" is completely in vain. but there must exist something, right? someone beneath all of this? who experiences it all and could tell the story of me? because if not, i am just a temporary collection of fragments, like leaves floating on a river, that gather in an apparent pattern, but which, in the very next moment, shifts and scatters...
if i have no self, how can i tell a story?
the attention of others, the embrace of the web of relations, creates me. i am a fly which did not exist before i entrapped myself in a web. i vibrate in struggles, against the stickiness that holds me fast, and in so doing, become "real," recognized. whether by spiders or other insects...
*****
look at me, look me in the eye. just long enough for me to feel seen. i guess that's the premise of my whole life.
Monday, June 15, 2020
story 6/15
when i was young, i used to be a pussy magnet.
i noticed it whenever we went to my ewa beach grandma’s house. there was a cat lady
who lived across the street, and so the area was always swarming with stray cats.
whenever i would walk outside, cats would come up to me, and rub themselves against
my legs. maybe i had some dry skin or something, and had a lot of static electricity.
but i didn’t think of any of that, at that age. i just thought i was special. i thought the cats
could sense something about my personality, and they just couldn’t help themselves. they
had to get as close as they could to me.
who lived across the street, and so the area was always swarming with stray cats.
whenever i would walk outside, cats would come up to me, and rub themselves against
my legs. maybe i had some dry skin or something, and had a lot of static electricity.
but i didn’t think of any of that, at that age. i just thought i was special. i thought the cats
could sense something about my personality, and they just couldn’t help themselves. they
had to get as close as they could to me.
i guess most people wouldn’t really think much of that. like, “cats like you, so what?” but
for a boy like me, who wasn’t much of anything to anybody, it meant a lot. to me, it meant
that there was some hidden secret buried within me that cats could recognize. it meant, in
short, that i had hope.
for a boy like me, who wasn’t much of anything to anybody, it meant a lot. to me, it meant
that there was some hidden secret buried within me that cats could recognize. it meant, in
short, that i had hope.
i had no idea what it was that they saw, but the fact that they swarmed around me meant
that it at least existed.
that it at least existed.
so one day, i was just standing in the middle of a cat-aclysm or cat-astrophe (haha).
i was actually reaching down and stroking some of the cats that rubbed against my
crouched legs, and enjoying the vibrations they made when they purred.
i was actually reaching down and stroking some of the cats that rubbed against my
crouched legs, and enjoying the vibrations they made when they purred.
and that’s when my brother came out.
he surveyed the unnatural gathering around me, but he didn’t say a word. his already
skinny eyes thinned further. i could tell what he was thinking. “what the hell do those cats
see in HIM?” and i could tell, as he approached, that he wanted to erase this little talent i
had, so i could return to being the runty nobody that he knew and loved.
skinny eyes thinned further. i could tell what he was thinking. “what the hell do those cats
see in HIM?” and i could tell, as he approached, that he wanted to erase this little talent i
had, so i could return to being the runty nobody that he knew and loved.
some of the cats that were smarter, or more aware, began to give him berth. but there was
one wiry tomcat, orange in color, that was so into rubbing the back of his head against my
calf, that he didn’t see what was coming. my brother, grinning, caught the end of the cat’s tail.
it immediately went stiff and yowled, as though my brother’s hand were filled with electricity.
one wiry tomcat, orange in color, that was so into rubbing the back of his head against my
calf, that he didn’t see what was coming. my brother, grinning, caught the end of the cat’s tail.
it immediately went stiff and yowled, as though my brother’s hand were filled with electricity.
i jumped up, and backed away.
my brother gripped the tail with both hands while the cat spasmed at scratched at empty air.
he looked at me pointedly as he began to swing the cat, first in slow awkward arcs, and then
faster and faster. the shrieks of the cat were unearthly, and almost human. it had become an
orange lillyhammer.
he looked at me pointedly as he began to swing the cat, first in slow awkward arcs, and then
faster and faster. the shrieks of the cat were unearthly, and almost human. it had become an
orange lillyhammer.
i didn’t even reach for the cat, but i guess i would have, if i weren’t already so helpless.
when he let go, the cat yowled and spun and tumbled through the air, crashing into some of
the nearby potted plants that formed a wall in my grandpa’s yard.
the nearby potted plants that formed a wall in my grandpa’s yard.
my brother walked over to one of the steel potted plants, and peered behind one of the white
trunks of a confined ficus. he looked over at me, who anxiously, hesitantly, approached too late.
he smiled.
trunks of a confined ficus. he looked over at me, who anxiously, hesitantly, approached too late.
he smiled.
“guess cats don’t always land on their feet.”
poem 6/15
the evening sky is one color of gray
it stretches out to the outlines of horizons
the roofs of houses and the shapes of trees
the negative space around this earthbound life
beneath it i wait-
minutes sweat and swell,
a swipe at the forehead
and a fluttering of the shirt
to keep things from sticking-
for some reason,
i can remember now clearly
faces i hadn’t seen in years
i can almost hear their voices
plaintive nasal whine of one
enthusiastic shout of another
but there are no words that they shape around
and no sentences to build a story
of note or significance to me.
faces and voices crowd
without touching the deeper me
dry and brittle eggshells
long absent of a yolk.
-i sigh, and think:
tonight
it will not rain
and i will sit here
uncomfortable in a film
of only me.
6/14/2020
well, this morning was interesting. my wife called my son's phone (for some reason, i never seem to actually have my phone on me), and told me that she needed my help. she'd gone to walk the dog, and somewhere en route, had run into a loose pit bull. i suppose if it had been me, then i would have steered clear (especially having our hyperactive dog with me), but because my wife is so kind-hearted, she basically guided the dog up towards our house. but she was stuck at the culdesac at the bottom of our street because the dog would no longer follow her.
so i walked down to the bottom of the street, and tried to help her. for some reason, the dog kind of followed us. he was a big dog, at least for us and for me (our own dog is a pipsqueak, a chihuahua-terrier-pappion (sp?) mix). i could see his large jaws, and i noted in particular, the lower jaw with its spiky interlocking teeth... the dog, despite its large muscular appearance, and its menacing slobbering jaws, was actually very friendly and docile. it basically followed us home.
in the garage where we temporarily kept him, i kept rubbing the back of his neck, then his back, and then his belly (because he started to roll over on his back). my hands became greasy with his sweat and stink. but i actually enjoyed him. then, he started getting excited, and would try to hump me. i had to kept getting up, or making my legs wider than he could grasp with his forepaws, or he would be "doing his dance" on me, and i wasn't having any of it...
anyway, to make a long story short... i posted pictures of him on facebook. lynn and i then decided to walk over to the street where she'd found him, lehiwa, which is sort of a main drive in the area. we thought that if we just sort of parked ourselves on the side of that road, that eventually the owner (likely driving slow, and calling out) would pass by. in the meantime, i had gotten hold of some people via facebook who were really very interventionist about this sort of thing. one woman offered to come by and see if the dog had any chip implanted in him, and if so, she would find the owner.
anyway, lynn also got the help of this one talkative woman who lived on our street. she was kind enough to bring a bowl of water, some snacks, and some umbrellas (it was raining sporadically). the chip-reader lady eventually came down, read the chip, and was in contact with the owners right away (they said they'd come down in five minutes). meanwhile, the chip-reader lady and the talkative lady on our street started having a conversation about golden retrievers. the chip-reader lady was kind of a purist, who felt that she could not trust any local breeders because no one really did their due diligence, and had the right paperwork (outlining any possible genetic disorders, etc.)... the talkative lady from our street, on the other hand, had sort of a "whatevahs" attitude towards breeding. she wanted to get her own golden bred. the two exchanged numbers, though it was clear that the chip-reader lady was going to require a lot more paperwork and reassurances than the talkative lady was willing to give...
anyway, the true owners came in a hunting truck (a truck with a cage embedded into its rear bed), and they identified the dog as "bully." bully willingly went with them, and that was that...
*****
i went home, undressed, showered. i could smell the stink of bully on me. not entirely unpleasant, though with the rain and sweat, it probably wasn't going to make anyone (particularly my wife) happy.
then for some reason i got really tired. i tried to meditate, but i felt several times that i needed to rest. it wasn't that i was necessarily physically tired. but i notice that my eyes tend to wander, my vision blurs, and it seems as though there are so many thoughts crowding around in my head that i need to lie down with my eyes closed so that they can just sort of circulate... it almost feels as though my thoughts are like water, and my head is just full of this violent churning current... at such points, it almost seems impossible to meditate, because i will only be on the verge of nodding off.
it's funny how sleep can make my eyes feel burnt. like they are flashbulbs (from the old cameras) that have used up their luminescence in a brilliant burst. and now, there are fading afterimages on the insides of my eyelids...
*****
i listened to the song "king of pain" by sting. for some reason, i had a feeling of nostalgia when i thought of that song (that is, the song spontaneously came up, and the feeling of nostalgia accompanied it). i had never known the lyrics for some parts of the song, notably that rejoinder (?). for example, sting would sing "there's a little black spot on the sun today..." and then there's a part where sting sings a sort of response. it turns out that that response is always "that's my soul up there." and that made the song seem even more poignant for me... that pain is the distance and separation from the soul. maybe as king of pain he observes it, and maybe has a kind of objective distance from it, but it is pain nonetheless to- maybe even not be capable of feeling that pain. i don't know.
i sang some karaoke (alone) tonight, trying out a new speaker that my wife bought me for father's day. i was trying to target songs that would make me feel. feel something. usually, those songs ended up being somewhat poignant. for example, "king of pain." or "the crying scene" (aztec camera). or "best i ever had" (vertical horizon). or "something's always wrong" (toad the wet sprocket). or "black balloon" (goo goo dolls). and, as always, i had flashes of other people i'd like to impress with my singing. and i had thoughts about the performative aspect of life... and how we always seek to live through the attentions of others... for without that, what is there?
i thought of how cats used to rub themselves on my legs, constantly, like i was some source of static electricity or something. it used to make me feel special. it used to make me feel like- i don't know- i had some sort of power, or attraction, or something. and i think that that's what my life has always been about... this secret yearning for attention. because without it, i would drown in this... i don't know, oblivion. that's why, upon reflection, i have always questioned why i need people to pay attention, and why i can't be "my own person." it's such a puzzle. is there life outside of attention? if no one saw me, would i exist?
so i walked down to the bottom of the street, and tried to help her. for some reason, the dog kind of followed us. he was a big dog, at least for us and for me (our own dog is a pipsqueak, a chihuahua-terrier-pappion (sp?) mix). i could see his large jaws, and i noted in particular, the lower jaw with its spiky interlocking teeth... the dog, despite its large muscular appearance, and its menacing slobbering jaws, was actually very friendly and docile. it basically followed us home.
in the garage where we temporarily kept him, i kept rubbing the back of his neck, then his back, and then his belly (because he started to roll over on his back). my hands became greasy with his sweat and stink. but i actually enjoyed him. then, he started getting excited, and would try to hump me. i had to kept getting up, or making my legs wider than he could grasp with his forepaws, or he would be "doing his dance" on me, and i wasn't having any of it...
anyway, to make a long story short... i posted pictures of him on facebook. lynn and i then decided to walk over to the street where she'd found him, lehiwa, which is sort of a main drive in the area. we thought that if we just sort of parked ourselves on the side of that road, that eventually the owner (likely driving slow, and calling out) would pass by. in the meantime, i had gotten hold of some people via facebook who were really very interventionist about this sort of thing. one woman offered to come by and see if the dog had any chip implanted in him, and if so, she would find the owner.
anyway, lynn also got the help of this one talkative woman who lived on our street. she was kind enough to bring a bowl of water, some snacks, and some umbrellas (it was raining sporadically). the chip-reader lady eventually came down, read the chip, and was in contact with the owners right away (they said they'd come down in five minutes). meanwhile, the chip-reader lady and the talkative lady on our street started having a conversation about golden retrievers. the chip-reader lady was kind of a purist, who felt that she could not trust any local breeders because no one really did their due diligence, and had the right paperwork (outlining any possible genetic disorders, etc.)... the talkative lady from our street, on the other hand, had sort of a "whatevahs" attitude towards breeding. she wanted to get her own golden bred. the two exchanged numbers, though it was clear that the chip-reader lady was going to require a lot more paperwork and reassurances than the talkative lady was willing to give...
anyway, the true owners came in a hunting truck (a truck with a cage embedded into its rear bed), and they identified the dog as "bully." bully willingly went with them, and that was that...
*****
i went home, undressed, showered. i could smell the stink of bully on me. not entirely unpleasant, though with the rain and sweat, it probably wasn't going to make anyone (particularly my wife) happy.
then for some reason i got really tired. i tried to meditate, but i felt several times that i needed to rest. it wasn't that i was necessarily physically tired. but i notice that my eyes tend to wander, my vision blurs, and it seems as though there are so many thoughts crowding around in my head that i need to lie down with my eyes closed so that they can just sort of circulate... it almost feels as though my thoughts are like water, and my head is just full of this violent churning current... at such points, it almost seems impossible to meditate, because i will only be on the verge of nodding off.
it's funny how sleep can make my eyes feel burnt. like they are flashbulbs (from the old cameras) that have used up their luminescence in a brilliant burst. and now, there are fading afterimages on the insides of my eyelids...
*****
i listened to the song "king of pain" by sting. for some reason, i had a feeling of nostalgia when i thought of that song (that is, the song spontaneously came up, and the feeling of nostalgia accompanied it). i had never known the lyrics for some parts of the song, notably that rejoinder (?). for example, sting would sing "there's a little black spot on the sun today..." and then there's a part where sting sings a sort of response. it turns out that that response is always "that's my soul up there." and that made the song seem even more poignant for me... that pain is the distance and separation from the soul. maybe as king of pain he observes it, and maybe has a kind of objective distance from it, but it is pain nonetheless to- maybe even not be capable of feeling that pain. i don't know.
i sang some karaoke (alone) tonight, trying out a new speaker that my wife bought me for father's day. i was trying to target songs that would make me feel. feel something. usually, those songs ended up being somewhat poignant. for example, "king of pain." or "the crying scene" (aztec camera). or "best i ever had" (vertical horizon). or "something's always wrong" (toad the wet sprocket). or "black balloon" (goo goo dolls). and, as always, i had flashes of other people i'd like to impress with my singing. and i had thoughts about the performative aspect of life... and how we always seek to live through the attentions of others... for without that, what is there?
i thought of how cats used to rub themselves on my legs, constantly, like i was some source of static electricity or something. it used to make me feel special. it used to make me feel like- i don't know- i had some sort of power, or attraction, or something. and i think that that's what my life has always been about... this secret yearning for attention. because without it, i would drown in this... i don't know, oblivion. that's why, upon reflection, i have always questioned why i need people to pay attention, and why i can't be "my own person." it's such a puzzle. is there life outside of attention? if no one saw me, would i exist?
Saturday, June 13, 2020
6/13/2020
it seemed like a pretty uneventful day, until lynn called (it was probably about 1 or 2 in the afternoon) and told me that she had a flat tire. she was on kilhau (later, she corrected to kilihau) street. i looked it up; it was somewhere near nimitz, somewhere near the airport.
so i took aiden with me, and a cross bar, and a jack, and drove off to find my wife. all along the way, i started cursing. i'm not sure why. maybe i was irritated with this event, even though it was nobody's fault, really. maybe i was stressed that my gas was so low, and getting lower. there seemed an inordinate amount of traffic for this time of day, and maybe that was irritating me too. at one point, i almost wound up at hickam afb. let me tell you, i HATE going to military bases. i had this one incident where i headed into a base by mistake. i tried to tell the guard there that i had made a mistake, and that i just wanted to make a u turn to exit the base. but he asked for my safety and registration anyway (my registration was expired). he actually held me, and was going to call the cops on me because my registration was expired, even though i didn't even want to enter the base.
so anyway, i absolutely didn't want to go into hickam (i happen to have an expired driver's license, which i would have taken care of, had covid-19 not come along and force the closure of all the dmvs, and cancel my appointments). i could just picture the freaking guard announcing that my license was expired, and to pull over to the side so that he could issue a citation or call the cops on me...
fortunately, i noticed that there was a turn off to the right. at first, i thought that it was just a visitor center for civilians. but then i realized that it was an actual road. and as i turned down it, i found, to my great relief, that it was a familiar road. it was the same road that went to pearl harbor kai elementary, where we had practiced taiko. it occupied this kind of liminal space between the gated and fenced military base, and the surrounding community...
so, anyway, i wound up avoiding going into hickam... still swearing up a storm. past the destination, and had to circle around, going onto king. there was so much construction, that it made progress difficult. at a lot of places, i wasn't able to make the left turns i needed to. and as so many lanes were closed, well, it just dragged my progression through the area...
suffice to say, i eventually made it. kilihau is a run down street in an industrial area near the airport. the good thing was that it was a quiet street, with little traffic, so it was pretty safe (at least in terms of cars) to change the tire. i did so with great dispatch (i'm not sure if that's the right way to say it)... one strange aside-thing i noticed, was that in the puddles beside the road, there were tiny fish swimming. i'm not sure where those fish must have come from, or how they survived when the hot summer sun evaporated all of that water... but they were there nonetheless, casting little shadows.
*****
other than that, nothing much to report...
well... as i said, i was angry when i was driving to help my wife. i'm not sure why. i suppose, as i may have mentioned before, that i have a great deal of rage concealed within me. i'm extremely impatient with reality... i often feel, when things are taking too long, that- and this is weird, kind of a quirk of my psychology- that i'm somehow being left behind, and that i'm wasting my time, and that someone somewhere is laughing at me...
for some reason, i recall having this thought: what if my wife's flat tire had been a blow out, and what if she and my daughter had spun out and gotten killed in an accident? i don't know why or where the thought came from... but do you know what i thought about, irritated as i was? i thought about how angry i would be with god for allowing it to happen. and i thought about how angry i would be with my brother and his family, for shutting my family out... and how he would be trying to console me, and all i would do is shout at him, and shout out all his dirty secrets for his children and the world to know, because it was too late, too late. i would be spouting off all about how lynn had tried to reconcile, out of the kindness of her heart, but that my brother and his wife would repeatedly just give us the cold shoulder... and now (in my head) that she and my daughter were gone, it was just too late for my brother to come in and pretend as though he cared for my loss...
that's the kind of crazy, vengeful thinking that filled my head.
i realize that i wasn't being very buddha-like. in fact, i'm not really sure where all that rage came from. it certainly wasn't justified. but i guess it's there. and i let it just burn me up.
i know my son probably felt pretty- i don't know- embarassed? disappointed? at my lack of peace and composure...
but as i thought about that, i imagined my brother, and all the rest of the world, laughing at me, because of my attachment to my rage. and it just made me even more angry...
what is wrong with me!?
*****
well, i know i've got to meditate more. of all the things i do in my routine, i think i skip meditation the most. it's just not feasible most of the time... but as today sort of pointed out, i sorely need it.
so i took aiden with me, and a cross bar, and a jack, and drove off to find my wife. all along the way, i started cursing. i'm not sure why. maybe i was irritated with this event, even though it was nobody's fault, really. maybe i was stressed that my gas was so low, and getting lower. there seemed an inordinate amount of traffic for this time of day, and maybe that was irritating me too. at one point, i almost wound up at hickam afb. let me tell you, i HATE going to military bases. i had this one incident where i headed into a base by mistake. i tried to tell the guard there that i had made a mistake, and that i just wanted to make a u turn to exit the base. but he asked for my safety and registration anyway (my registration was expired). he actually held me, and was going to call the cops on me because my registration was expired, even though i didn't even want to enter the base.
so anyway, i absolutely didn't want to go into hickam (i happen to have an expired driver's license, which i would have taken care of, had covid-19 not come along and force the closure of all the dmvs, and cancel my appointments). i could just picture the freaking guard announcing that my license was expired, and to pull over to the side so that he could issue a citation or call the cops on me...
fortunately, i noticed that there was a turn off to the right. at first, i thought that it was just a visitor center for civilians. but then i realized that it was an actual road. and as i turned down it, i found, to my great relief, that it was a familiar road. it was the same road that went to pearl harbor kai elementary, where we had practiced taiko. it occupied this kind of liminal space between the gated and fenced military base, and the surrounding community...
so, anyway, i wound up avoiding going into hickam... still swearing up a storm. past the destination, and had to circle around, going onto king. there was so much construction, that it made progress difficult. at a lot of places, i wasn't able to make the left turns i needed to. and as so many lanes were closed, well, it just dragged my progression through the area...
suffice to say, i eventually made it. kilihau is a run down street in an industrial area near the airport. the good thing was that it was a quiet street, with little traffic, so it was pretty safe (at least in terms of cars) to change the tire. i did so with great dispatch (i'm not sure if that's the right way to say it)... one strange aside-thing i noticed, was that in the puddles beside the road, there were tiny fish swimming. i'm not sure where those fish must have come from, or how they survived when the hot summer sun evaporated all of that water... but they were there nonetheless, casting little shadows.
*****
other than that, nothing much to report...
well... as i said, i was angry when i was driving to help my wife. i'm not sure why. i suppose, as i may have mentioned before, that i have a great deal of rage concealed within me. i'm extremely impatient with reality... i often feel, when things are taking too long, that- and this is weird, kind of a quirk of my psychology- that i'm somehow being left behind, and that i'm wasting my time, and that someone somewhere is laughing at me...
for some reason, i recall having this thought: what if my wife's flat tire had been a blow out, and what if she and my daughter had spun out and gotten killed in an accident? i don't know why or where the thought came from... but do you know what i thought about, irritated as i was? i thought about how angry i would be with god for allowing it to happen. and i thought about how angry i would be with my brother and his family, for shutting my family out... and how he would be trying to console me, and all i would do is shout at him, and shout out all his dirty secrets for his children and the world to know, because it was too late, too late. i would be spouting off all about how lynn had tried to reconcile, out of the kindness of her heart, but that my brother and his wife would repeatedly just give us the cold shoulder... and now (in my head) that she and my daughter were gone, it was just too late for my brother to come in and pretend as though he cared for my loss...
that's the kind of crazy, vengeful thinking that filled my head.
i realize that i wasn't being very buddha-like. in fact, i'm not really sure where all that rage came from. it certainly wasn't justified. but i guess it's there. and i let it just burn me up.
i know my son probably felt pretty- i don't know- embarassed? disappointed? at my lack of peace and composure...
but as i thought about that, i imagined my brother, and all the rest of the world, laughing at me, because of my attachment to my rage. and it just made me even more angry...
what is wrong with me!?
*****
well, i know i've got to meditate more. of all the things i do in my routine, i think i skip meditation the most. it's just not feasible most of the time... but as today sort of pointed out, i sorely need it.
Thursday, June 11, 2020
6/11/2020
today is 6/11. it's a day after my sister's birthday. yesterday, my son and i attended an online virtual meeting about agcurious. it's an "interest" session for gofarm hawaii's agricultural program. i must say, i am definitely interested, although it will be a commitment if i happen to be accepted. i think my son is much more half-hearted about it. but as i explained, you can't say you don't really want to try something if you don't know what you're missing. and at this point, my son is pretty much reluctant to try anything.
*****
i think today, i've been feeling kind of blah. the weather has been gray and windy, but still, at times, ridiculously humid.
i've kind of matched the weather, i suppose: meandering, and inconclusive.
maybe there's a point where the routines that you push on yourself don't really have much of a point.
*****
i guess i've been feeling pretty drowsy. i close my eyes, and all of these images and thoughts float up to the surface, swimming on the underside of my eyelids... i wish that i made more sense. that whatever's in me could be directed to some purpose... that i could essentially flow. but i am a random assemblage of spare parts, that don't really add up to anything.
*****
i don't know if i'm really designed for prose, or poetry. i like to think of bassho, wandering the countryside, and, at moments, composing haiku. could i ever be like that, to feel so free and liberated, and trust in the art within me? i wish.
*****
sorry, i really don't have much to contribute today. i already gave at the office.
*****
i think today, i've been feeling kind of blah. the weather has been gray and windy, but still, at times, ridiculously humid.
i've kind of matched the weather, i suppose: meandering, and inconclusive.
maybe there's a point where the routines that you push on yourself don't really have much of a point.
*****
i guess i've been feeling pretty drowsy. i close my eyes, and all of these images and thoughts float up to the surface, swimming on the underside of my eyelids... i wish that i made more sense. that whatever's in me could be directed to some purpose... that i could essentially flow. but i am a random assemblage of spare parts, that don't really add up to anything.
*****
i don't know if i'm really designed for prose, or poetry. i like to think of bassho, wandering the countryside, and, at moments, composing haiku. could i ever be like that, to feel so free and liberated, and trust in the art within me? i wish.
*****
sorry, i really don't have much to contribute today. i already gave at the office.
Tuesday, June 9, 2020
6/9/2020
it's another day... i got some more fish yesterday for my aquaponics setups. i don't know if i mentioned it, but i transported them all inside because i was panicking about the way that moth larvae were eating up and destroying my cucumber and zucchini plants. i have always been paranoid about pest pressures. but real authentic sunlight is a big thing too. i had been trying to prevent pests from attacking my plants by spraying neem oil on them... but honestly, that's not a good solution. it's not good because, no matter what, you're putting a chemical onto the plant, and that may have untoward consequences for the other organisms in the system (the fish, the bacteria). also, you end up quickly consuming it all. i was spraying only a few plants when i could, and in no time, i ran out of a couple of bottles... so ultimately, i felt the best solution was to bring them into the garage. for the remaining plants outside (the ones in the planter boxes), i am considering using some kind of netting to prevent them from being attacked. we'll see how that works...
so... yes, yesterday, i got more fish. i also bought tulle from walmart to use as the netting around my plants. we had intended on going to masa and ___?, a local food place in kaneohe that sells poke, and hawaiian food, and okinawan food... but they were closed. so instead we went to burger king. i swear, that was the best whopper i've eaten in a long time. maybe it's because i never go to burger king...
other than that, not much to report. the fish seem to be doing alright, but we'll see what happens. i always suspect that some fish are bullies, and they stress out other fish so much that they eventually die. the paradoxical solution is to put MORE fish into the tank with the bullies... when there are too many other fish, the bully fish usually return to just swimming harmlessly along...
***
i was feeling cold and tired, so i just turned off the fan. there's a breeze kind of sloughing (don't know if that's the appropriate use of the word), and some light rain is falling. it's a kind of watercolorish gray day. i sort of like it. it's better than those blaring blue sky days where the shadows are hard, and you feel like you are always dirty and sweaty...
to be honest, i'm not sure what all this blogging and writing is supposed to do for me. i have always been so goal-directed... like, i wanted to finish writing this book and that poem, etc. but like most of the truest things in life, at least to me, it's not about what i want. it's not a clear progression from here to there. or at least, that's how it seems. art is kind of a form of trickery. like you have to trick yourself into accomplishing something, but because it has to seem like a discovery, you can't know where you are heading beforehand... it's like you put a blindfold on yourself, and walk on the same street, handicapped... i guess that's what it's like.
it's also like just vomiting a stream of your innards out... in the hopes that you will somehow find some diamonds amongst the half-digested chunks of food... gross, but i think it is true.
...well, maybe that's not quite so apt. maybe it's more like you exhaust your cognitive processes so much through writing that, in the afterglow, in that moment of forced relaxation, something- a truth, a voice, something- comes in. that's what marione howe was talking about, i think...
***
okay, now when i close my eyes, all of these images come unbidden... i think my mind is like this plenitude... i just wish. i just wish it would quiet sometime, and some sort of true voice would remain. and it would just be a matter of listening to that voice, that single, solitary voice... that's how i'd hope it would work out for me (but it never really does).
okay, nuff said for today.
so... yes, yesterday, i got more fish. i also bought tulle from walmart to use as the netting around my plants. we had intended on going to masa and ___?, a local food place in kaneohe that sells poke, and hawaiian food, and okinawan food... but they were closed. so instead we went to burger king. i swear, that was the best whopper i've eaten in a long time. maybe it's because i never go to burger king...
other than that, not much to report. the fish seem to be doing alright, but we'll see what happens. i always suspect that some fish are bullies, and they stress out other fish so much that they eventually die. the paradoxical solution is to put MORE fish into the tank with the bullies... when there are too many other fish, the bully fish usually return to just swimming harmlessly along...
***
i was feeling cold and tired, so i just turned off the fan. there's a breeze kind of sloughing (don't know if that's the appropriate use of the word), and some light rain is falling. it's a kind of watercolorish gray day. i sort of like it. it's better than those blaring blue sky days where the shadows are hard, and you feel like you are always dirty and sweaty...
to be honest, i'm not sure what all this blogging and writing is supposed to do for me. i have always been so goal-directed... like, i wanted to finish writing this book and that poem, etc. but like most of the truest things in life, at least to me, it's not about what i want. it's not a clear progression from here to there. or at least, that's how it seems. art is kind of a form of trickery. like you have to trick yourself into accomplishing something, but because it has to seem like a discovery, you can't know where you are heading beforehand... it's like you put a blindfold on yourself, and walk on the same street, handicapped... i guess that's what it's like.
it's also like just vomiting a stream of your innards out... in the hopes that you will somehow find some diamonds amongst the half-digested chunks of food... gross, but i think it is true.
...well, maybe that's not quite so apt. maybe it's more like you exhaust your cognitive processes so much through writing that, in the afterglow, in that moment of forced relaxation, something- a truth, a voice, something- comes in. that's what marione howe was talking about, i think...
***
okay, now when i close my eyes, all of these images come unbidden... i think my mind is like this plenitude... i just wish. i just wish it would quiet sometime, and some sort of true voice would remain. and it would just be a matter of listening to that voice, that single, solitary voice... that's how i'd hope it would work out for me (but it never really does).
okay, nuff said for today.
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