4/28/2021

it has been a week or so... time is seeming to drag.

there are anxieties about a lot of things... our ability to pay for my daughter's college (she made it into berkeley), particularly as i must now foot the bill for our exorbitant health insurance costs, as my wife lost her job... she's now working for a different company, but she's experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety at it, because there are a lot of new things, and the pace is much faster... i'm trying to take on a few more classes at the acupuncture school, and they are on subjects that i'm not necessarily an expert on. i'm also more pressured to finish my writing, and offer it up for sale, probably on a pity-basis (i'm using this to help fund for my daughter's education)... probably need to look for a second or third job as well.

in the midst of all this, it's hard to keep my routines. it's hard to have the peace of mind to decide to pursue these things. i guess it's just sheer compulsion that keeps me going, that makes me do these things, even as their point becomes questioned by the events taking place...

*****

i struggled to write my four pages this week. i've been writing the "tales" told by different kappa, each with a name + less, like "sightless" or "heedless." this past week, i wrote about the tale told by "heedless," about how i basically stole and lied my way into a position of recognition, and later about how my artistic "style" developed through errors i had made. i think that last point, about the nature of creativity as a blurring over of clear mistakes, i think that certainly continues to be relevant.

*****

well, gotta get back to work.

*****

i hate being a hardass...

at times, i can see the way people are, and the collisions that are inevitably going to happen. and i try to talk to both people, and warn them about what's going to happen. but it's like they're already primed for what's about to happen, and all my talk is futile, like trying to hold incredibly strong magnets apart from each other. sometimes i come out hard against one side because i can see it as "the problem," but then afterwards, i regret speaking so harshly, and have to do some damage control... i know all this must sound obscure and mysterious, but it is all part of the daily life of a teacher... i intend the best for my students, and when i must be cruel, i must always be careful to communicate that i care about them as well.

i'm so tired, though.

i wish... they could see the future as clearly as i do... the challenges they will face. then they would understand why i urge them to do certain things, or be a certain way. why must it be that people only learn their lessons accompanied with the bitter taste of regret?

dream 4/21/2021

moments in the dream: i recall little things, fragments. like how there had been a problem with my family, and then i found a note put up by my college friend daniel; he had actually snuck into our house, and put up a note close to where i slept on the couch... i didn't fully read it, i just noted the neat handwriting, and the emphasis of certain words... and i felt at once happy that he had cared enough to do this (haven't heard from him in many many years) and embarrassed that he had broken into the house and seen it...

i know we were somewhere meeting about something... but the part i really remember was walking with this group of people across a field... no, we were outside of this building, walking in the parking lot, and to the right of us was this large field. normally, it was completely empty, but on this day, it was filled with people: a soccer game for kids was going on, and aside from the field being full of kids and refs, the borders of the field were filled with families cheering... and we commented on how unusual this was, especially after being in the pandemic so long...

and then, suddenly, we were on the field. we were still walking, but we were in the middle of the field, surrounded by soccer players. i sort of got out of the way when the ball was kicked, on its way to the goal... we eventually got beyond the field, but not before i heard the coach/ref? this old japanese guy. i noticed all the spectators on one side were these older japanese people, like maybe this was a community of grandparents watching their kids... and i remember thinking of this sort of community. i saw this young (like 12?) japanese girl, for some reason, i had an impression that her name was hatsue, and i had some thoughts about what it would be like to speak to this girl if i were that age... some notion about asking how she felt about me, and how, if she were to take five minutes or more to not respond, then it would be clear that she wasn't interested at all... i recall speaking to a young boy (the brash son of a friend of my wife's) about such things as dating- or maybe he brought it up- but he commented about how boring it would all be, and how he couldn't tolerate being 5 minutes talking to anyone...

i recall looking at the pavement, which was slightly cracked, and feeling this music pulsing through the floor of it... some howard jones theme...

oh yes, i also recall something about kaimi (this counselor at my school)... something about how as i was leaving a meeting at this building... there was a book or something... that i was supposed to pick up. and a comment that left some sort of impression that i was respected, at the very least... i don't know...

4/20/2021

things are alright, i suppose... i like to think that the one enduring quality that i am developing is perseverance. not much of what i do ends up clean. and by clean, i mean, not much ends up in a result that matches its intention within me. there are so many interruptions and... discontinuities... i believe in little's class on sociology of religion, we (i?) basically concluded that much of religion had to concern itself with the problems of discontinuity...

all in all, work is a happy place. certainly, there are difficulties, but they aren't insurmountable. certainly, i would wish that my students were more motivated, or that they "got things" quicker... but i wouldn't be in this job if i couldn't maintain a belief that there's hope in hopelessness... i like to think that, no matter what, some part of my love and intention seeps into these kids, and whether they "get it" during my tenure with them, or afterwards, it results in these kids "waking up" to the possibilities that i see in them. that is always my hope.

*****

as far as my writing's concerned... well, i guess it's going... i guess. of course, my cycles are getting wider and more spaced out, so there's more time to forget... more time to neglect... oblivion can be a good thing or a bad thing, i suppose. maybe a little oblivion is what keeps us from complete despair. if we remembered how terrible things were, then maybe we wouldn't have the courage to ever get up and do them again.

*****

inside, i suppose i am feeling very tired. i'm tired of the world. i'm tired of myself. i'm committed to my obligations, to my students, to my wife, to my family. maybe they are the tensile wires propping me up nowadays. but there oftentimes doesn't seem to be any intrinsic interest in much of anything... also, if i do evince an interest in anything, it often seems accompanied by a kind of guilt... as though someone in the back of my head were saying, "why are you wasting your time?" believe me, it doesn't matter WHAT you do, or how JUSTIFIED you think your actions are... that guilt will always return to haunt you... a lot of times lately, i just try to lie down and almost sleep it off... because there's nothing you can do to reason with it.

*****

my grandmother passed away in 2009, so that means it's been about 11 years now. i've been thinking a lot about this sort of thing, about how (unconsciously) you motivate yourself by attempting to prove yourself in the eyes of an audience. oftentimes, it's people like my parents, or my former teachers, or my grandparents. but as that audience somehow dissipates and disappears, you're left with this doubly empty feeling. doubly empty, because you realize that such external attentions were the motivating factor, and not something more "intrinsic" or "true"; and because you realize that this person, or that person, was a part of the pantheon of gods that you sought judgment from... and that whatever you do, they won't even see it any more. so what's the point? i don't care what most (99%) of mortals think. i wanted to impress YOU. and you're not even around to see it any more... i wanted to make YOU happy, and you've been gone so long...

i'm reminded of soul asylum lyrics:

"and you can't believe in yourself.

you can't believe in anyone else.

so why sit and wait for the new world

to begin?"

why do anything? why do anything for anybody?

i try to understand this, not in a pessimistic negative way... rather, i try to use this sort of statement to purify my intentions. i like to think, or in my idealized mind, i feel that: art is blind. it is a pure expression of some truth... but i'm a realist nowadays, and i also understand that i live in the real world, and tasks are not completed without some motivation, without some gas... and that's true of art as well. we don't do art unless we believe in an eye or an ear that would hear it. and we don't do art unless we've somehow fooled ourselves into believing in the beauty of what we're trying to say, hard as that is to do. it is a double obfuscation, art is... double, triple, etc., always with the goal of forgetting oneself...

4/17/2021

it's been a busy week... aside from regular work, i've had to work on the taxes, and continue the chore of cutting down that stupid tree... and there were other things: oh yes, the final. and discussions of increased work over the summer, because i'm taking on a few classes in the acupuncture school that i'd never taught before... so with all that going on, it's been somewhat hard to keep up with my routines. in fact, i'm getting into this mode where all this busy-ness is superseding any of those writing plans. i'm frankly despairing of it all... secretly... but if i hold things at a distance, it seems as though i can do it.

i've been thinking about neil gaiman. i thought his work in "the sandman" was excellent. i haven't really REALLY liked some of his later work: like the graveyard book or american gods. i think i liked anansi boys mainly for the tone of the story, which seemed a bit more overtly humorous. but i felt like there were a lot of holes in the graveyard book and american gods... by holes, i mean things that could've been explained better or more precisely. maybe i'm such a pedantic reader, but i like being told what's going on, or at least, i like being told in a way that makes me feel like it all makes sense... even anansi boys had some holes... for instance, who was the bird woman, and how was she connected to tiger? 

bottom line: i like stories that are complex... rich... but that somehow make sense, almost in an intricately mechanical way. which is why, for me, stories are so damned hard to write. because if i see inconsistencies in a story that i am reading, well, you can damn well be sure that i'll catch them in anything i write... oftentimes before i even put my fingers to the keyboard...

right now... i have been wondering what i'm trying to get at with the kappa noodle story. it just seems so cruel. my brother seems like an asshole. i mean, he is, in several respects, but he also isn't. and i don't think i do a good enough job at making him a multi-leveled character. and myself. i mean i usually portray myself as pathetic, because it's often true... but in this story, there is no sympathy for the main character. there's no reason for anyone to like me in the story. and there's no real development or arc in the story as i had planned; he just experiences this weird event, ho hum... so i've been thinking about it more. it's not that i necessarily want to put a moral to the story. it's just that it doesn't work without it. there's no reason people want to read about how shitty your brother is. it then becomes just some pathetic complaint to the world. nothing more...

*****

sorry, took a break. er, brake. er, brake, Brake, BRAKE!!! what i mean to say is i took my two kids for their first day in official driving practice. it was fine. but scary...

*****

i had this idea of having two kappa, yagoro and kappa-chino. sort of like an angel conscience and a devil conscience. the bottom line would be that the protagonist needs to find his own way through life. not copy his stupid brother, who has a successful strategy in his own right. it's not really about right or wrong, but it is about finding your own authentic path. and for the protagonist, his pathway is not the flamboyant, successful, arrogant one. it is quiet and hidden, and based on small incremental actions. and so it is not as visible, not as obvious... it is based on gentleness and kindness. at least that's the message i'd like to say. not that the path of my older brother is either easy or wrong. but i think the world already recognizes it (too much), and it does not see the other path, or any other path... also, i think i wanted to hint (foreshadow) that even if the protagonist forgives his brother for the little abuses he commits to himself, there would come a time and an event when he (the little brother) perhaps could never forgive his brother. something irreparable. won't necessarily mention what it is...

dream 4/17/2021

had a couple of dreams. in the first, i had this infidelitous affair with a younger girl... i excuse it to myself by saying that, in the beginning of the dream, i seemed to be this younger person, perhaps that this was something that happened before i was ever married, but to be honest, a part of me always knew what was up. in any case, i felt i cared for the girl sincerely, and spoke to her through the night... and then as time passed, i realized who i was, and when i was, or at least it became more apparent to me, and i was struck by this profound guilt about my wife and family, and how i was to explain any of this, or live with myself for the rest of my life... when i somehow woke up, i was so incredibly relieved that it had only been a dream.

in the second dream, i was part of a team or crew of people filming some sort of movie in an abandoned town. the reason the town was abandoned, apparently, was that there was a volcanic eruption occurring at the time. anyway, we were wandering the town when it started to become overrun by lava flows. it was incredibly hot. so the entire crew started to go into this river which was adjacent to the town. eventually, we were all in the river, making our way to a far shore. one thing that was pretty interesting was that i could see animals moving in the same direction: fish, mainly. this huge dark shape moved past me, and at the end of it, this one fearless, brainless actor. was holding on to the tail of it. i realized it was a huge crocodile, and called out to my cast mates... in any case, we made it to the far shore, which was heavily wooded, and rocky, and somewhat unpredictable. i made my way along the shore, trying to pick out a path (in some strange sense, i became the leader, even though i was, as in my first dream, young, a boy even). anyway, i remember climbing over this somewhat muddy boulder, and seeing a near sheer drop off on the other side (even though another boulder was visible just a short distance beyond). the fearless guy said something about "when in doubt, just jump." but i talked him back out of it. i told him we needed to work our way around the boulder and see if there was a way around the drop off. so that's what we did. we eventually wound up on a ledge in front of this boulder. i didn't really think much of it before, but the boulder had this weird pattern on the front of it. the fearless guy pulled out a section of the weird pattern, and suddenly this door opened up in the boulder, leading to a secret cave beyond. i couldn't believe it, and congratulated the guy profusely. anyway, we entered the cave. at first it seemed like some strange temple, but then it turned into more or less ordinary living quarters... there were louvered windows, rooms with surveillance equipment, stuff like that... we stayed in that house- by this time, it seemed like i was leading some ragtag group of refugees...

and then, at some point, the house became part of a more civilized town; it was no longer in the middle of the wilderness. and the post office lady came to drop off some mail, at the same time that the proper owners of the house arrived. there was this big, swarthy hispanic looking guy who was the boss, and he demanded to know what we were doing there. i claimed to be the leader, boy that i was. while he slapped me fully in the face over and over, i recounted our tale; how we evacuated the town due to the lava flows, how we ended up in the river, how we stumbled upon the entrance to the house by accident. i was nearly crying by the time i finished (he had been slapping me throughout). i then wandered the house, calling my crew together- a lot of poor families, mostly vietnamese- and in a single room, told them the situation. i begged the boss to allow us to stay the night, and that we would be gone in the morning. he accepted this...

and that's pretty much where the dream ended.

4/10/2021

today was a decent day. i got up, and pretty early on, i started working on cutting down ficus tree #1. it's been a quiet obsession of mine. i would climb the ladder up, and using a long pole saw, would start to saw away at the next incongruous branch. i would have to rest every few strokes, simply because i am out of shape. but i would persist. i would imagine that, say, each 20 strokes, would get me incrementally closer to getting the branch or whatever to splinter and fall... actually, what usually happens is i cut 3/4 of the way through a branch, give up out of fatigue (or simply because it becomes an awkward angle... remember, i'm using a pole saw many feet above my head)... and then sometime in the night, during a wind storm or something, i would hear this ominous cracking sound, and then this thundering crash in the darkness... and i'd know that the branch had fallen. actually, there would be times when i would wake up in the night and imagine hearing that strange splintering sound... it's kind of like a thundercrack in miniature... a complaint of sorts that you can feel in your own bones... and then what comes afterward would be unpredictable... like a lot of the time, it would just turn into silence, a kind of suspended animation... and then at other moments, it would lead to a kind of staccato series of cracks, as though one end of the tree were sending signals back and forth through the cut, as though lignin threads were being snapped one by one, and the speed of those sounds conveyed a kind of collective panic, as though the support cables were snapping rapidly, and the golden gate bridge and all modern engineering had thrown up its hands in despair and just given up... anyways, so that's what i've been preoccupied with. today, i sawed through a major branch, in preparation for tackling the central trunk, that still has one towering crown reaching towards the house. that last one will be a challenge, but at least i've removed all the peripheral obstacles...

that brings me to the next challenge... i've had this idea of creating biochar with the waste wood. biochar is essentially charcoal, produced through a slow burn of wood in an environment of low oxygen. while not a fertilizer in itself, it is believed to produce ready carbon structures for other important soil microorganisms to take up residence. there are several ways to produce biochar, but i opted for the cheapest and simplest method, which involves digging a conical pit in the ground, and after starting an initial burn, covering that pit over with a metal plate (or something that cannot burn). the plate would essentially limit the oxygen going into the burn, so that the gases would circulate and reburn... (i think there are ways of capturing that gas as syngas or something, but of course, i wasn't interested in the burnoff). anyway, right at the start, i kind of panicked, because i was generating too much smoke, and i feared that my neighbors were going to call the fire department on me. so i think i doused it with water too early. the wood burned for many hours, puffing smoke through the dirt and the corners of the metal plate... but when i opened it up at the end of the day, i found several chunks of unburnt wood... a lot of moisture... so i messed it up.

i'm not sure that it's wise to make biochar in a residential neighborhood. too bad. i wish i could just process this wood and recycle it to better my soil.

*****

i listened to salman rushdie again, and i feel a sort of quiet hope. i also have been reading neil gaiman, both his "american gods" and his "anansi boys." i actually like the latter story better. "american gods" lacks the humor and lightheartedness of "anansi boys," and i actually think it needs a touch more of it. as it was "american gods" just seemed too dark, and the lack of a clear protagonist (or at least one with more of a character; shadow just seemed, well, like a shadow) just made the tale unsatisfying... but in any case, reading gaiman gives me hope that i too can create some sort of narrative. also the rushdie statement (and i'm paraphrasing) that the job of narrative is to tell truth. that's always been my stated objective, even if i get totally lost in the embellishment of my stories...

*****

i suppose i had an insight as i was sawing away at tree limbs... it wasn't anything profound. but it was this feeling that the important thing was that you kept going. you keep fiddling away at what needs to be done. you make mistakes. but the general direction remains the same. things get changed, incrementally, and incrementally, your art starts to match your vision. at least that's the hope. that's always the hope.

*****

secretly, in my head, i am considering writing my book so i have something to sell, and thence, help pay for my daughter's impossible college tuition. i may have mentioned that she got into berkeley. of course, she failed to list berkeley under the fafsa form, so they didn't give us a financial aid package. she's attempting to rectify that issue, but frankly, i'm not holding my breath. of course, she's trying to put up a brave face, and is claiming that she will go wherever we can afford, but i know in her heart that she wants to go to berkeley. so i need to find a way to pay for it. we're actually very poor, particularly after the pandemic... and yet. maybe there's a way.

dream 4/10/2021

i've been pretty tired lately. i don't know if i explained my "disease," but... i'd had an abscess on the back of my shoulder. although reluctant to get it checked out, i eventually did go in. the doctor incised it so that its contents could weep out (previously, i had been "popping" it). anyway, i was given a course of antibiotics to clean it out from the inside. it was a pretty aggressive course, two types of antibiotics twice a day. i was down to almost my last day last weekend, when i was struck with this sudden fatigue and fever. i ended up sleeping for most of last saturday, into sunday. it was off and on fever and chills with this near constant fatigue. i ended up calling in sick for monday. then on monday morning, i discovered that there was a rash all over my torso. at the time, it wasn't itchy; it was just red and splotchy. gradually, it started to progress onto my limbs, and my neck and head. so i went to the doctor's again. they weren't sure what it was, so they ruled out covid and the flu, and they did some bloodwork on me. they still weren't sure by tuesday, but they guessed that the antibiotics were causing some kind of allergic reaction in me. so i discontinued them (i had already discontinued monday's dose) and i was to just rest to recover. i started taking claritin to get rid of the allergy symptoms. i think i was taking more than the recommended dosage, because the itchiness would start returning with a vengeance... so long story short, i think that this fatigue is just a result of all of that, of playing yoyo with my adrenals...

*****

ahem, the dream. so in this morning's dream, i was in california. there was this feast at the tenrikyo church there (although it definitely didn't look like the honbushin over in california). everyone was there: my family. even my brother. i didn't want to see him, even in my dream... so anyway, my uncle masao was there, and he seemed genuinely happy to see me (that's not necessarily true in real life), and even invited me to his place (which used to be my grandma's house in ewa beach). i truly intended to take him up on the offer, because we haven't been to my grandma's since she passed away... then there was the meetup with my brother, awkward. in fact, i don't think i even really looked him in the face... i think there was the sense that he was jealous or angry because willow had made it into berkeley. but whatever. i also saw faces of people that recognized me... this guy that i might have associated with during my california days. maybe not quite a friend. but he recognized me, and seemed like he wanted to catch up... and even in my dream, i had this thought, this thought that i have in real life, that although it would be nice to have a friend like that, i know that there would be this inevitable disappointment when that person realized what a total bore i was.... it got me to thinking about what constitutes a friendship? how does it happen? why does it happen? i know, these are not deep questions, but they are of concern, especially for someone like me, who doesn't understand, or isn't necessarily even comfortable with, the whole issue of being close to people...

so anyway, up the street, there was berkeley. i imagined i could even see part of the campus in the distance. but at the same time, there was this christmas parade going on. and i was carrying this huge, longer than usual broom (why?). so i wanted to go to berkeley, to check it out, and maybe clean up the place a bit. but to get there, i had to navigate through all these performances of elves, and floats getting ready to be deployed. it was chaotic and interesting to say the least. i had to coordinate my push forwards in breaks in the dancing. i remember seeing this large white float that said omega... kinda thought it must have something to do with a sorority or something. i imagined a bunch of blonde barbie doll girls to be getting ready to deploy with that float... 

i never actually got to berkeley... i woke up sometime at that point.

4/3/2021

i am getting more and more frustrated with my writing, to the point where i don't really want to work on it any more. i got lost in the plot of the previous project. i think i need to work on characterization more. however, the more i "think" about it, the more i feel like the narrative is falling apart... i wish i could make it a simpler, shorter story. something that allows me to just accurately depict a feeling, without all the complexities of a plot.

i wish writing were something where you could just allow something natural to flow out of you. well, i think there's an element of that, but actually most of what comes out initially isn't suitable, isn't polished, doesn't make sense, and it takes a lot of work to get it into something remotely palatable to audiences...

*****

i listened to salman rushdie, and every time i listen to him, i feel a small renewal of hope. he goes over a variety of strategies, possibilities, for how to write the narrative to best effect. for him, writing truly is a craft. so i'm going to weigh my options, and try to write detailed character biographies to make my characters more real... and we'll see what happens then.

*****

part of the problem is i'm not really sure what i want to say. and then, i'm still not sure how to say it. what is my point?