dream (9/26/2021)

i had a dream in which i was riding some sort of plane or transport somewhere, i think with phil (though i'm not sure right now). anyway, once we arrived, i was trying to get myself together, and took a while to find my shoes. once i did, i was getting our things- not from baggage claim, but from this hallway or something. we had a lot of things. anyway i was pushing this cart full of our stuff... then, there was this point where i approached this place where they were digging out some sort of ancient ship. i could see the shape of the ship (top view) embedded in the side of this orange-rocked hill. the path that i needed to take ran up the right side of this hill- into this little cave. i went in- and discovered what was perhaps the body of a child- i wasn't sure... i found little shoes, and little socks- but it was indeterminate whether those were on the body of a child, or were just placed there... in any case, as i discovered these, someone mentioned (or i realized) that there had been some child missing. below the shoes and socks that i had discovered was a bookshelf, filled with books from some sort of publishing series (with the same patterned covers), only the books ranged from children's titles to more advanced stuff... it seemed like what someone would have picked up at a garage sale, not knowing what to get to help a child learn... and that was pretty much it.

9/1/2021

hello... how are you?

*****

it has been a long month or so. school (elementary school) has started up again. the acupuncture school finished, and then (yesterday) started up again. and we went over to california for a week to drop off my daughter to berkeley. (oh yeah, and during that week, i got to meet and briefly hang out with a couple of old friends, one from college, and one from high school).

the thought i've had (and still have) is that life is short. i've said it before, and you've heard it so many times that it loses its meaning. but i'm here to tell you, from this side of life, that it's true...

*****

there's an episode within cowboy bebop (this now old anime show from the later 1990s, i think from 1996)... one character, faye valentine, had suffered amnesia after some sort of cryogenic sleep... her character post cryo developed into this wry, self-sufficient gambler type... but she could not remember her life from before... anyway, in this one episode, she and her friends discover an old vhs tape that her previous self had recorded, as a message to herself... i guess it's been done before, like in that arnold schwarzenegger movie (total recall)... but this was much better, and far more poignant... because in the video, faye is a teenager, with all the innocence and hopes and dreams of someone on "that side of life," who wants to give a message to "cheer herself on." she comes up with a cheer (and performs it with pom poms), and the message is "don't lose, me!!!" but when she says it, it keeps coming out as "DON'T LOSE ME!!!" ... which is sad, because that innocent hopeful self is gone and forgotten, a part of herself that she can no longer remember...

i sometimes feel that way. i mean, i can remember the past, but only in traces and shadows... sometimes i think the "meat" of the past, the thing that gives it the most content, is probably the most insubstantial part of it, the part that has proven itself to be unreal... the hopes you felt, for instance. the air of possibility... i can sometimes feel it, or sometimes relate... sometimes... but only from the outside. and maybe it's because i've seen a bit on the other side of life, how so many things never came to fruition, despite my cherished belief that they would... i've seen other kinds of happiness, other kinds of fulfillment... and developed other hopes... but sometimes it feels like, in the process of living, we are always leaving behind other pieces of ourselves, other "faye valentines"... and sometimes that is sad.

i also have been reflecting on who we live for. sometimes you don't even realize that you were living for someone else, trying to earn someone else's respect, until they disappear, or die. my grandmother, for instance... i guess, secretly, i had wanted to write stories to earn her respect... maybe a lot of people. my parents, etc. but as i get older, and as the stars slowly wink out from my constellation, i realize... maybe there's no one left that i care to impress... no one connected directly with me, i mean... and i start to think, what's the point? i mean, i portray it as a negative thing, but it's also liberating... i also have realized that this compulsion to write, or tell stories, even if it's futile... by a certain point in life, you have to try, because it's the river you're on, and you can't fight it. maybe all the vicissitudes of life are just realizing that you can't fight what you already are. you can only pretend, or distract, but it will always come back to you, pushing you, wounding you, killing you, even...

i am tired. i am sad. but somehow i take joy in the little things, day to day. i like to talk to people. i like to laugh with my students sometimes (even as they frustrate me)... i like to look at my wife when she doesn't think i am looking. and make my face look weird or stupid (it's not hard). i like to talk to my son, in that way where you are trying to be casual and not too judgmental... all of these things, all of these people, i love... because i know what time and memory will do to them... right now, i love them in a gentle sad way. i think that's the one gift i have right now, is a kind of appreciation of people and things in my life- because it all goes away. even (or especially) because i will have to, i am always, going away...

life is short.

life is short.

life is-

7/24/2021

i am in this writerʻs class... the way it usually runs (at least for now) is the instructor gives a prompt (usually a word, although it could be a scenario), and we write lines for a script for a few seconds to a few minutes. anyway, at one point, the instructor said "worry", and i wrote "worry has a time, and that time is 3 am." what was funny was that another student in the class wrote something along similar lines. she wrote: "3 am... i wake up each morning and i worry until sunrise." it was a funny/odd connection...

...but itʻs 3 am again (or maybe more precisely, itʻs 4:20).

i recall, when the kids were 10 years younger or so, that i would wake up and haunt the halls of the house. i would go into the kidsʻ rooms and whisper, "i love you," like some kind of ghost (i would do the same to my wife, sleeping in her dreams). i canʻt remember what would disturb me. there is always always always something in life to be anxious about... money matters. the trajectory of your children. health issues... always there is, and always there will be...

there is always also a perpetual sense of regret, and it is something that doesnʻt necessarily grow, but it just seems more prevalent, more ever present. iʻve come to the conclusion that itʻs largely ridiculous to feel too much regret, or rather, that it is an inevitable part of life to feel regret. life is all about choices- choices that are made or not, or rather, choices that weʻre aware of or not. i think to breathe is a choice. even to dream in the depths of sleep is a choice. and weʻre constantly making them. weʻre largely blind to them, we canʻt help but be, but we still make them. and each choice wends a path through this woods, through this rapids, and even if we lay ariadneʻs web behind us, we will never be able to remake the choice, to redo it, to go back. and thereʻs inevitable regret in that, this idea that things could have been different. and perhaps they could have, but thereʻs no use in bemoaning that, because itʻs gone... and anyway, we have so much right here, so many other choices to make, so busy-busy-busy making choices...

what i want to say is this: life is incredibly incredibly short. i know we always hear that, we always perhaps say it ourselves. but it is. you think youʻre one thing, and youʻre so busy taking care of becoming that one thing, and then before you know it, youʻre something else. the world has changed. people are gone. people have grown. and the towers you thought you were building for one moment- for example, that swing set and that backyard play area you were working so hard to cultivate- why, the children are too old, and they donʻt want to play there any more... all these investments you make turn out to be irrelevant to the ever changing present...

i think my writing is a stubborn dream. and i hold to it. it may be irrelevant... but i think itʻs not so much about producing anything that would be read or celebrated by anyone else. itʻs more about me attempting to bind back my life, and find a meaning in it that perhaps only i would appreciate...

*****

among my insights (lately)... i keep associating my brother with the first chinese brother, the one who swallowed the sea. and i have a story for that association, about how he swallowed so much water teaching himself how to swim- and perhaps tears- that he essentially swallowed a sea. and how he might say that it was all for the sake of others- like myself- that he did this. when actually, it was always for himself... i also have ideas about this idea of trajectories. one of deanʻs friends is a literal rocket scientist, and i wanted to have this notion that, because of his friendship, my brother gave this friend the confident to have faith in trajectories, and to become a rocket scientist... but in the process, i wanted to say that he stole away my sisterʻs trajectory (in the story, she is the dragon princess, which is actually a carp that wants to jump a waterfall to become a dragon... only, she canʻt). the message is, yes, my brother has contributed to the world- the larger world- but it has come at a cost in terms of what he has taken away from my family... something no one ever talks about...

i also wanted to make mention of urashima taroʻs treasure box, somehow. this thing that holds time. "time in a bottle" essentially... and why anyone would want to hold back time?

*****

wherever and whoever you are, try your best, live your life, fulfill all your nagging obligations... just do your best to do what is right... because truly truly truly: life is short. life is so incredibly short.

7/21/2021

i apologize for not being more diligent in writing in this blog. to be honest, iʻve been busier than usual, even though it was the summertime. i have been trying my best to earn enough money to send my daughter over to berkeley, which costs about $60,000 a year (at least). so i took on a couple of classes at the acupuncture school, and taught summer hub (summer school). i also have a gig developing an online lesson on hawaiian shark teeth, through nprʻs educator phenomenon forum. so between those three things, itʻs been pretty hectic. not to mention just sort of keeping up with other things, like the car maintenance, or coaching robotics. i get tired at the end of the day, and i just stopped doing my routines...

sometimes keeping busy keeps me from thinking about things overmuch. like the fact that my daughter will be leaving soon. it seems so swift, the passage of time. i remember not so long ago when i would hold her up in the air laughing... or i would do her hair in pony tails so she could go to preschool... her happy laughter. when did that little girl transform into this woman? iʻm not sure... i suppose it happened at the same time that this youngish father began to turn old and decrepit, lol.

iʻm still working on the writing of that stupid story. at times, i have faith that just hanging with it will eventually lead to something. it seems sometimes that persistence opens up a new pathway, a new perspective on the writing, and iʻm able to proceed just a little... but then, i end up writing myself into blind corners. it gets really frustrating. thereʻs no core, or structure, that can prevent you from making these mistakes, because you are the one weaving this house of lies from thin air. you make the walls, you make the rooms, and if itʻs not believable, well, that omnipotence of creation comes with a price, because you can definitely make something incongruous and ridiculous; nothingʻs stopping you from doing that.

i havenʻt drawn anything in a while.

i also havenʻt practiced japanese in a while.

i also also havenʻt done taijiquan in forever.

and my health is probably going. i just eat and sleep. and cough. i have this insistent nagging itch and irritation in my throat. itʻs definitely not covid, but itʻs just a sensitivity in my throat to the things that i eat: especially greasy things. i wish the irritation would settle down, but it hasnʻt gone away in probably years. i suppose that now that i have insurance, i should visit a doc and get it checked out. but i tend to put things off when it comes to my own self-maintenance... heck, maybe iʻve got cancer, colon cancer, who knows...

there really isnʻt much to update you all on. my life is just routines that i put off and routines that i honor. iʻm just trying to survive, and keep up with the endless obligations. i hope you are alright, reader, and things are going okay for you. i think that the way the world is going right now, we all just need some moments where it seems like things are alright... i think if you narrow your focus, and your context, you can at least pretend a peace. like, i canʻt control tomorrow, and i canʻt answer for yesterday, but in this moment, in this inescapable, fleeting moment, i can just- i donʻt know- be...

and with that little piece of bs, iʻll leave you... till the next check in.

dream 7/11/2021

i canʻt recall all the details of this dream. i do remember standing next to this beautiful woman, in a room with people all lined up, as in some kind of dance. and we would all be cued to do the motions for some kind of dance. i recall one "line" of the song had people clapping their hands, and the woman suggested that i clap behind my back (apparently that was more "in style"). the line wrapped around the room, and so i could see the back of one large dude somewhat across the room. he was wearing this big t-shirt. he was a big framed korean dude. anyway, it seemed as if he was looking for some "company" (i recall the word "sticky" as in warrior), and the person who headed the place (i guess you could call him the pimp) laughed at him. and then when i saw the big dudeʻs face in profile, i could see why. his head was somewhat chinless, and resembled the pale extension of some worm, with his neck rising up straight to his buck-toothed maw. and the skin was covered in pink and purple zits. he certainly didnʻt look desirable. but i thought to myself that i was sure that all sorts of ugly went through whorehouses, and the workers couldnʻt be picky about their clientelle... still, it seemed as though he wasnʻt going to get any that night.

somehow the dream transferred over to the big korean guyʻs line of work. he was apparently some sort of delivery boy in a very cutthroat and competitive field. he would ride/drive this compact one seater (it resembled some sort of bicycle, only it had a thin shell of some sort of flimsy metal wrapped around its entirety like a burrito). i watched as one competitor raced down this grassy hill, only to crash and tumble down the slope, while the big korean guy had discovered a hidden path around the slopeʻs periphery...

near the bottom, as he was waiting to get his delivery accepted (it looked like he was selling a bunch of different kinds of cigarettes), he noticed one of his other competitors lying in the shade. it was a girl, but she looked like a boy. her hair was cut short and sloppy. she was lying in the grass, dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, with twigs all over her. you could just see the shape of her nipples poking sharply, through the t-shirt. apparently, she was the master at this game of competition, and here he was, seeing her in a moment of rest...

[thatʻs all i really remember/]

dream, 6/6/2021

this was a morning dream. meaning, i had already woken up once, but still in that sleepy grip, lapsed back off again while the sun was already up. i dreamt i was back in williams, but again, a williams i would say i had a hard time recognizing, or navigating through. i supposedly had a beautiful room, in one of the "wings" of this building, but as much of the building was still under construction, i was having a very difficult time getting to it. there would be entire sections of the building that were closed off. so i remember kind of making my way around to get to where i was supposed to be. on the way, i think i stumbled into some forgotten places. it looked as though at one point, i was clambering over a storage space, and looking into a lot of flotsam and jetsam from students over the decades: a mirror with the profile of people cut into it. other things. at the same time, i came to the realization that it was friday, and that all the "kids" were itching to party. and i thought how odd it was, and how i couldn't really feel that, or feel the same way.

there was that feeling, of not measuring up. it was strange, but i wasn't at williams as in a memory of the place. i was conscious that i had already graduated. i had already "passed" this place. but somehow i was back, perhaps to earn a different degree or something. there was this notion that the only place i could perform to a higher standard was here, because i was pushed to excel here. everywhere else, i was only degenerating...

*****

i recall now that there was an earlier part of the dream, one in which i was travelling back somewhere. i had some sort of strange (but cheap) vehicle; it was elongated and yellow, with tapered ends. at the "center" where the driver sat, there was some sort of (motorized?) wheel. basically, the thing ran almost like a fulcrum, with the ends gently going down to the ground as i moved... only, at one point the tip of my vehicle kind of broke... i believe me father was there, i recall him talking to me. and other people. and all around where other inventions, similarly strange vehicles. this was on an old cracked sidewalk... 

dream, 5/18/2021

i remember walking around with this huge backpack. and these two kids asked for something back, something i carried in the backpack for a long time. and i remember them going in and taking them, two dolls. the kids were siblings, and they missed their dolls, the ones i had been carrying for an inordinately long time. i recall that the bag seemed cavernous as i looked into it. i saw other dolls, other things. and scraps of paper, some with writing like "free william faulkner" from a student that i doubted had ever read faulkner. also, a room, a library, with walls of glass, and very colorful art projects, one in all yellow and green... there seemed a purpose to my journey, but then again, it seemed like i was just looking... can't recall other parts of the dream at the moment...

i've been inordinately tired. like super tired. i think this whole graduation thing (my daughter just graduated from high school) is really bearing down on me... well, there are so many other things. thinking about how to pay for college. my mother's amnesia.