Colored Ink
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miss something? check the archives about me name: n/aaliases: kit (and various iterations thereof) age: 22 location: oakland, ca hobbies: comic books, reading, writing, doodling, video games likes: all of the above, being lazy, mushrooms, animals, food, laughing loudly in public, SUSHI dislikes: nuts, stinging/biting insects, religious fanatics, violence, olives contact: coloredink(at)gmail.com wishlist playstation 2car a good night's sleep money stress-free life hardon-kardon speakers 19" flatscreen monitor world peace realistic wishlist transmetropolitan vol 5-6, 9-10long-term obsessions comicsslash writing reading music animals life and living current obsession(s) supernaturalhouse m.d. temeraire currently reading the earthsea trilogy by ursula k. leguinthe iliad by homer currently playing okamifinal fantasy xii wild arms 3 currently watching ugly bettythe west wing house md supernatural |
Thursday, March 6, 2008 [link] 02:43 p.m. listening to: In an Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel My only really coherent memory of Chinese school, as a child, is one day being asked up to up to the blackboard to write something and not knowing the answer. I began to cry, and the teacher quietly shooed me back to my seat. As a child, I hated Chinese school. Any ABC (American-Born Chinese) did, and still does, with the possible exception of my niece, who's a freak anyway. (What child doesn't like candy? My niece, that's who.) But Chinese school, as a child, seems like a punishment. Here you are on a Saturday morning, trapped at school learning a language that seems completely irrelevant to your life, while your peers and classmates are at the playground or watching Saturday morning cartoons or playing video games. And there's a lot more than wanting to be playing rather than learning; for a lot of Asian-American children, it's about wanting to be more American and less Asian, because no way do you want to be like your ignorant, uncool family, and that means not speaking Chinese, not reading Chinese. I cried and protested and whined, and finally my parents agreed that I didn't have to go anymore. This is the part where I say I regret it now. Of course I regret it now. On a practical note, China is probably the next world power, so it'd be nice if I spoke the language. On a personal note, I hate how everyone thinks I'm stupid in China because I have the vocabulary of a toddler and don't understand simple sentences like, "What beverage would you like?" (I didn't know the word "beverage" because people had always asked me, "What would you like to drink?") And on an artistic note, I regret not being able to read all this beautiful poetry and literature in its original language, relying instead on imperfect translations that will never, ever be able to capture the nuances of the language. Every so often, I ask my father to tell me some Chinese legends. In this way, I've heard some very abbreviated versions of stories from The Journey to the West and the more obscure Fengshen Yangyi. My father is unexpectedly poetic at times, and when he tried to translate the title of the latter story, he said it was "about how people become gods." That was the one I liked to ask about--and still do--but my inability to remember the title means that he sometimes doesn't know what I'm talking about when I ask him to tell me a story from "the story about how people become gods," and sometimes he tells me a historical anecdote about Empress Wu instead. I bought some children's books about The Journey to the West and Fengshen Yanyi the last time I was in China. They're obviously meant for about a fourth grade reading level. They have pinyin and everything. And yet, I can't read them. The vocabulary is too advanced, and I need a dictionary to look up every third word. The real irony is that my mother once told me that as a young child, I didn't know English at all. I was raised by an aunt who didn't speak English, and they only started teaching me English when I approached school age. My mother attributes a series of tapes called You Can Read to my prowess in English now, which would make sense if I didn't have distinct memories of already being able to read by the time they started arriving in the mail. I'm fairly sure I watched the You Can Read tapes because I found them amusing in some way or because they passed the time, not because I learned anything from them. It's frustrating being so eloquent in one language and completely unable to express myself in another. I have so many voices in English: poetry, short fiction, long fiction, creative nonfiction, academic essays. In Chinese I struggle to ask for directions. I have to pause to remember the words for "stop," "strawberry," "museum," "left," "heart." My mother calls and struggles to articulate herself in English; I call my aunt and struggle to articulate myself in Chinese. At family gatherings, my family speaks to one another in rapid-fire Cantonese, laughing at jokes that I don't understand, telling anecdotes that I can't comprehend, and every so often one of them asks me a question in Cantonese just to laugh when I reply with, "Huh?" My Chinese instructor at UC Berkeley once asked the class, what language do you dream in? English, said just about every person in the room. I dream in Chinese, said my instructor, who was from Beijing. This somehow struck me as being very profound. Of course the best way to tell what language you think in, in your head, is in dreams. I dream in English; while I occasionally have a nonsensical dream in a foreign language, there are always subtitles in English. I wonder what language my family dreams. English? Chinese? Malay? Friday, February 29, 2008 [link] 08:07 p.m. listening to: my music library on shuffle Oh good Lord, have I ever been remiss in blogging. I've just been busy; I had two consecutive projects at my second job, and I still write every day on top of that. (Writing not in this blog, that is.) I'm still working on the second project, but it has a very long deadline, much longer than I need, so I feel all right abandoning it for a few hours. My father came to visit last weekend. It's become passive in his old age; I kept asking him if there was anything he wanted to do or see, and his answer was always the same: Oh, nothing. We'll decide what we want to do on the spur of the moment. I just want to spend some time with you. Argh! Also, he ended up staying in a hotel all the way in Union City (not my idea), which was its own special brand of aggravating. Next time I'm going to book him a hotel room in Emeryville or the city, no matter how many hundreds of dollars it costs me. While we sat in his hotel waiting for the taxi to take us to BART (that's how in the middle of nowhere it was), we had a nice, long conversation that ranged from urban planning to decision-making. Every decision you make, he said, will lead you one way, and you won't know whether or not it'll be good or bad. This seems obvious, of course, but when I thought about it, well. . . take last year, for example, when I lost my job at Lindamood-Bell. It was so awful and stressful at the time, but if it hadn't happened, I would never have found this much, much better job at Business Wire. So in a way, I should be grateful that I was fired. "See?" my father said, when I told him. "So I've stopped worrying about things. There's no point to it." On the subject of urban planning, I've started reading Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and what a marvelous book it is! Witty and observant and elegant; the only downside is that the book itself is riddled with typos. I forgive the occasional error--I'm a copy-editor by trade, I know that we're not infallible--but I saw three or four mistakes in the introduction alone, and so far there's been two in the first chapter. This is simply inexcusable, especially for something that touts itself as the "Modern Library edition." Bah. Sunday, February 17, 2008 [link] 11:01 a.m. listening to: Green Day's Kerplunk! I had my three-month review this week. I still have a job! I now have six colors of fountain pen ink: Cross' black cartridges (compliments of the store, which I can only take as a sign that I've been spending too much money there), Waterman's Florida Blue, Noodler's Ottoman Rose, Mont Blanc's Violent, and Private Reserve's Sherwood Green and Black Cherry. I think I have enough colors now. The pen itself has started splotching recently--very occasionally, given how much I write, but it's never done it recently, and so I'm a little worried that I somehow damaged the nib. I haven't dropped the pen or anything, so that seems unlikely. I can only hope it's the fault of the ink itself. (The Ottoman Rose, by the way, does not write very well at all, despite having a beautiful color. This upsets me because it was easily the most expensive, and it came recommended by the store. Sigh.) I finally bought an eyedropper to clean the nib, so that I can stop drawing water up into the converter to clean it. Things are now much more convenient, and I've started getting less ink on my hands while cleaning/refilling my pen every night. Thursday, February 14, 2008 [link] 03:23 p.m. listening to: "Gone Gone Gone" - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss The florist outside the BART station was open already when I stepped out on my way to work, a few minutes before 5 am. When I bought flowers from her yesterday, she said she couldn't wait until Valentine's Day was over. I guess florists don't like the holiday any more than we do. She said florists don't make any money off of it; it's the wholesalers and growers who jack up the prices, forcing the florists to raise prices in turn. "But they have to raise the prices, because they have to grow so much, you know?" she said. So the growers have to spend more to grow more, which means they have to charge more, which makes the florists charge more, which makes the consumers charge more. Who really makes money, then? I don't think I understand economics. I wasn't planning to buy any flowers today, since I was sure they would all be insanely expensive, and I was right: a single rose was $7. Yeesh. I asked if there were any flowers under $5, and she pointed me to the daisies and sunflowers. Not really what I was looking for. Finally, I inquired after the tulips, and after being informed that they were $4, I bought one, and handed it to the nearest homeless person with the change tucked inside. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. Wednesday, February 13, 2008 [link] 04:58 p.m. listening to: "Nivaos Pi" - E.S. Posthumus Today, I bought the receptionist at work flowers and told her she was my favorite valentine. Christ, those flowers were expensive. Curse you, February! I also got over my fear of answering the phones and took approximately one bajillion calls while the newsroom coordinator took his lunch break. And I sat in one of those accursed awful chairs in the break room for half an hour at lunch time and did not feel a single spasm. I'm on my way up, up, up! Tuesday, February 12, 2008 [link] 05:06 p.m. listening to: "Good Enough" - Sarah McLachlan I went to IHOP for a dinner of free pancakes today. The restaurant was extremely crowded considering it was four in the afternoon, and I quickly realized that the only people who eat at IHOP at four in the afternoon in Free Pancake Day are cheapskates who have no intention of even tipping the waitress. So I tipped my waitress ten dollars (far more than the pancakes were actually worth), I also put a dollar in the donation box. That'll show them. Sunday, February 10, 2008 [link] 11:29 p.m. listening to: "Egypte" - Campanile I think I need to go back to not writing on weekends. The past two weeks I did write on weekends, I've become something of a wreck. All semblance of balance in my life has been lost. I don't exercise because I should be writing. I don't cook because that's time that could be spent writing. I'm afraid that I'm writing too much at work and it's jeopardizing my job performance. Time for me to take a step back. I've been telling people that the best way to get past "writer's block" is just to write every day. Then writing, like everything else, becomes a habit. You never have to wait to "get started" because you're always going. In my case, however, it's becoming detrimental. So today, I made the conscious decision not to write. I went to the Anonymous protest in the city (not to protest, just to observe), and I brought my DS instead of my notebook. I ran some errands, then spent the rest of the day lounging about, eating leftover Chinese food and doing laundry and playing DS, and also talking to my friend on the phone. It was nice, and all the while, in the back of my mind, I thought, I should be writing. I felt guilty about it. A few times, I found myself reaching for my pen without thinking. Of course, since ideally my goal is to become a professional writer, I really should be thinking about writing all the time. I mean, it's what I'd be doing as a professional writer. I purposely found a job that I could leave behind me at the office, so that I could think about writing when I got home. But now the lines are blurring; I write at work, during slow periods, and I write when I get home. I've stopped doing other things--things that are good and healthy for me--because I can't stop thinking about the story. I'm taking a break from the current story. It's exhausting me. I need to write something fun and lighthearted and not serious at all. Wednesday, February 6, 2008 [link] 08:26 p.m. listening to: "Killing the Blues" - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss Sleepy. I feel my melatonin kicking in. Months after I started this new brand (purchased from CostCo), I've discovered that it does, in fact work like a sleeping pill. Unlike the first brand I took, this one actually does knock me out and make me drowsy. I got a call from a telemarketer or surveyor or something last week after taking my melatonin and was too kind to hang up, and it resulted in me nearly bursting into tears on the phone because I just wanted to go to goddamn bed already. My water is a beautiful blue today, difficult to describe. I guess I can only call it "Florida Blue," since that's the name of the ink. I'm not sure how I feel about how it looks on the page--it's not quite the shade of blue I'm used to--but the water is a beautiful color, and the ink works well enough. Also, it comes in a well-designed bottle that's easy to lay on its side, and I'm sure that'll come in handy when the ink level starts running low. . . When I'm walking, I compose bits of blog entries in my head. Today's was supposed to be "Tales From the City," and it would be a collection of small vignettes from working in the Financial District of San Francisco. Alas, all I can think about now is bed, and so to bed I go. That entry will have to wait for another day. Tuesday, February 5, 2008 [link] 02:18 p.m. listening to: "Blue Caravan" - Vienna Teng What a day! Three people called in sick today, two of whom were on my shift, and we're still in the middle of an earnings period: the result was chaos, and nobody got to take their breaks. When it's so busy I become virtually useless, since all my work still needs to be proofed by someone else, and so I appointed myself newsroom coordinator (one of the missing persons was the newsroom coordinator), whose job nobody appreciates enough. I'm still terrified of answering the phone; when I initiate the call I'm in control of the conversation, but when I answer the phone there might be anything on the other end, from a wrong number to an angry client. There were also several occasions where I had to call the client because there was something wrong or missing with the release, which sucks up time like you wouldn't believe, and being on the phone with a client for even a scant seven minutes means there are two or three documents that aren't getting pulled and are simply waiting in the "New" tab. I didn't take my breaks either, except for a too-brief lunch, and the only reason I knew it was time to go was because people from swing shift started showing up. At least the day passed quickly. It's another gorgeous day today, and I meant to run errands, but I'm exhausted from work and sleepy from a restless night. My errands can wait another day; I think I might just go sit out on the front step and write while the sun shines. Someone from the building next door is sitting on his doorstep, highlighting in a large book, and next to him is sprawled a scruffy silver tabby with half-closed eyes. I think I agree with the cat. Monday, February 4, 2008 [link] 02:54 p.m. listening to: "Blue Caravan" - Vienna Teng I went for another bike ride today, as it was a rare sunny day and I didn't have to work. I took my pump with me into the city and down into the bike room, as poor Rasputin's been sitting there for weeks and probably had flat tires. I'd noticed a pump in the room before, but didn't know if it would still be there. After Rasputin's tires were pumped and ready to go, I discovered that I am sadly out of shape. The rainy season means I haven't been biking as much as I did a few months ago, and it shows. I normally can't make it all the way up one particularly steep hill anyway, but I've been able to make it almost to the top before. This time I not only didn't even make it a third of the way up, but I had to pause on a corner to gasp like an old woman and catch my breath. Humiliating. I made it up the next hill without any mishap, as that one is significantly less steep and I know I've been able to do it before. I'll be able to make it up that first hill someday. No kite-flyers out today, although there were a couple of artists with their easels and canvases standing on a little hillock, painting. . . what, I'm not sure. One of them faced the sea, the other one faced a different direction. There were significantly fewer people at Ft. Point today, although not so few that I felt comfortably solitary. I always bring my notebook and pen on these excursions, with some whimsical, romantic notion of writing with the sea at my back and the sun on my face, but it's never really worked out that way. It's too cold. Even when I just take a trip to the park down the street from my apartment, far from the Bay, it's too cold. But twelve yards from the waves, the sea breeze coming right at me, my hands go numb and I start thinking longingly of warm beverages. I managed to write two and a half pages before finally giving him and heading home, and I got significantly more written on BART, where I was warm and could focus. Alas. And now I'm home and sweaty, and contemplating some kind of meal. I also need to do laundry. I also need to shower. God. Monday, February 4, 2008 [link] 09:43 a.m. listening to: "Killing the Blues" - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss Hillary v. Obama has turned into a complete media circus of "My group is more marginalized than your group," which is a completely silly way to pick a candidate, but there's no one besides them, it seems. Edwards has fallen by the wayside. I predicted this years ago, when Newsweek or Time magazine or some large, famous magazine showed a picture of them side by side. The caption did not say, precisely, BLACK MAN V. WHITE WOMAN: WHO WILL BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT? but it might as well have. When I was teaching at Lindamood-Bell, I had a student--the only black student at that center--who wanted to be a rapper when he grew up. When I expressed this to another clinician who'd taught him last summer, she said, "Haha, that's funny, he wanted to be a basketball player last summer." A third clinician who has experience teaching inner-city kids came in and said, "Are you talking about [name]?" Yes, we were. She shook her head and said, "Every black kid I've ever taught has only ever wanted to be a rapper or a basketball player." "Because those are the only high-profile black people I see," I said, and for the first time it dawned on me that representation really does make a difference. If you're a ten-year-old black kid, the only way you see to make tons of money is to go into music or athletics. This was something I'd always known, but never really felt. "But there are black people in politics, aren't there?" ventured another co-worker. "I mean. . . Colin Powell?" I shook my head. "That's not visible enough. No fifth-grader says they want to be Secretary of State when they grow up." And, you know, I abhor the media circus the Democratic nominee has become. Can't we go back to deciding things based on, you know, policy? But if I had to give in, if I could make one of them President based on how marginalized their group was, I'd vote for the black man, just so I never have to talk to another little black kid who thinks he can't be President. Sunday, February 3, 2008 [link] 11:44 a.m. listening to: "Blue Caravan" - Vienna Teng This morning I got up before my alarm and, before I even washed my face, I sat down at my desk and wrote. I wrote four pages before I decided that I needed to use the bathroom and eat, and making myself a breakfast of cereal and milk was a chore; I wanted to write. Now the flow has been broken; my notebook sits open before me with four pages of Black Cherry ink in it. I'm not sure where the story is going to go next, or whether I want to go back and revise the beginning some more. This is my usual strategy when I'm not sure where I want the story to go: I return to the beginning and smooth it out, and meanwhile another part of my mind worries about the future. By the time the past is figured out, I usually have an idea of where I want the story to go, and I carry on. I understand that blogging about my writing process might be boring to many. But that's why I keep this blog comment-free; it's so I can pretend that nobody's reading, and I don't get distracted by 0 comments on the entry the next day. Writing is inherently masturbatory and exhibitionist, which is why I keep a public blog in the first place--but at the same time, I am maybe too focused on the opinions of others. Sometimes, I just need to write for myself. Saturday, February 2, 2008 [link] 08:06 p.m. listening to: "Blue Caravan" - Vienna Teng A part of my nightly ritual is now cleaning my pen and refilling it with a new color of ink, and it's turned out to be a strangely satisfying part of my day. I suspect part of it might be the novelty. It is, however, very interesting to see what color the water turns. The first day, when I emptied my pen of Private Reserve's Sherwood Green, the water turned a brilliant emerald color. The next day, when I cleaned my pen of traces of Mont Blanc's Violet, it turned a vivid purple. Today, after taking out the remnants of a black cartridge (I was surprised to see how much ink I'd gone through), I washed out my pen using the converter to twist the water in and out, and the water has turned a sort of deep bluish purple. Fascinating. I'm enjoying my fountain pen a great deal. Yesterday, when I inserted my Cross cartridge, I was surprise and disappointed to find that the flow was less smooth, and also that the ink appeared washed out and gray. It must have been remaining water in the nib, though, because after a page or two the ink quickly cleared up, and it wrote very well thereafter. I just put Black Cherry ink in my pen, and it's a little darker than I expected; I worry that I may confuse it with the violet or the black. Oh well; we shall see. Thursday, January 31, 2008 [link] 08:14 p.m. listening to: "Blue Caravan" - Vienna Teng I should really be off to bed, but I just wanted to blog about my new fountain pen. I tell you, I never thought there'd be a day when I could justify such an extravagant purchase. And I mean, this is really extravagant. This is not even anything I need. But I wanted one, and after three days of trying one pen after another and reading about assorted pens and inks online, I finally bought one. Ironically enough, though part of my justification was that a fountain pen would be easier on my hand, it has actually made my hand cramp up more, just by virtue of being heavier than the disposable plastic rollerballs that I usually use. This at least is something I hope will resolve itself when my hand gets used to the extra weight. The fountain pen is lovely, anyway. It just leaves lovely marks on the page. I love the way it makes my handwriting look. Sunday, January 27, 2008 [link] 09:43 a.m. listening to: various renditions of "Me and Bobby McGee" I've been thinking, increasingly, of getting back into therapy, except I don't really know to what end. Therapy didn't really do anything for me except make me aware of my issues, and while yes, the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem, I'd like to be more. . . pro-active? Therapy hasn't helped me take any steps toward solving my problems, just aware of all the reasons I'm terrified. I was reading about love-shyness at Wikipedia at work, thanks to the "random article" function, and was surprised at how many of the symptoms I share. Not all of them, since I'm not some kind of obsessive stalker, but the unattainable people, burying myself in other things to avoid thinking about unattainable love, etc. Oh well. I guess I'd better go play some video games or something. Wednesday, January 23, 2008 [link] 04:12 p.m. listening to: Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon I've been reading if upon a winter's night a traveller by Italo Calvino, probably the first "serious" or "literary" reading I've ever done for my own edification and pleasure, such as it might be. I've generally felt that on my own time, I would rather be reading fantasy or something else the New York Times would not be caught dead reviewing, unless one counts The Da Vinci Code. I do not, because that book was fairly terrible. So anyhow, the general structure of if upon a winter's night a traveller goes like so: The first chapter is in second person, and it is about you, the reader, purchasing Italo Calvino's latest book, if upon a winter's night a traveller, and reading it. The next chapter is then titled if upon a winter's night a traveller and is presumably a chapter from the book, although it's still written, to an extent, about you reading it. The first paragraph describes how the text of the first chapter is obscured by clouds of steam from a locomotive, and you know that it is not literal steam: you, the reader of the book, are not reading at a train station. However, the first chapter takes place at a train station, and that is why the first page is filled with smoke. It's very clever. The entire thing is very clever, and the sort of thing I'd absolutely adore at this point in my life. I've started to take writing more and more seriously, which means taking more risks and generally being more experimental. I would have abhored this once upon a time, thinking, "Stories are for reading! Just go from point A to point B! If you lose the reader along the way, if there's miscommunication, then you're not writing." But now I see that there is more than one way to tell a story, and sometimes telling it from a different point of view, telling it backward, coming at it sideways, makes for a better story and enriches the reader's experience. And I think that if the reader has to work for it a little, they might enjoy it more. Reading doesn't have to be an entirely comfortable experience. Whether or not it should be is another discussion entirely, and one that I don't think I'm suited to participate in. Anyhow, the chapters alternate after that: first one chapter from the point of view of you, the reader, and then another chapter of the book you're reading. Somehow the chapters from the books manage to be in second and first person at the same time. The first few paragraphs are usually metatextual, describing the words on the page, or saying something like, "The descriptions here are very precise, very solid" (I'm paraphrasing), describing the experience of reading rather than letting you read the book itself. Yes, that's more or less what the chapters from the books are like: They describe the experience of reading, rather than letting you just read. After those first few metatextual paragraphs, they become more first person, a character in the book talking to you and describing their experiences. It's a bit of a difficult read, I suppose, but I'm enjoying myself immensely. Today, on the way to the break room, I turned the book over and actually read the blurb on the back. I started skipping back cover blurbs years ago, since they're usually very inaccurate, and also because I'd rather just start reading. Here is what it says: "If upon a winter's night a traveler turns out to be not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together they form a labyrinth of literatures, known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers, a male and a female, pursue both the story lines that intrigue them and one another. They are the true heroes of the novel, for what would writing be without readers?" This struck me as very true, and also something that I've been dwelling on recently. It's an open secret that I write fanfiction because it makes me popular on the Internet, and I often have what I call--in my head--"Anno Hideaki's Evangelion struggle," where I simultaneously hate my audience and yet seek their validation. This has resulted in my writing stories that are increasingly more and more abstract, and yet which continue to be well received. I call that "Radiohead Syndrome." But really, what would a writer be, without readers? If I didn't get any comments on my fanfiction, I'd probably stop writing it, because there's no feeling worse than thinking that nobody's read your writing. I'd rather have people hate my story than not read it, because that means that someone read my story and at least felt something about it. A story just doesn't exist until it's been read. A brilliant published writer on my friendslist once described an unpublished story as "a sad little match girl in the rain." I don't feel that every self-styled writer is obligated to publish. That's not my place. If you write for the sake of writing, if you're writing something you never plan to show anyone because you need to get past a block, if for whatever reason you don't like showing people your writing--it's a soul-baring exercise, after all--then that's your right. But I do think that continuing in that vein is, well, a little bit sad. Not for you, necessarily, because you might well be very happy, but for your stories, who'll never be born. Tuesday, January 15, 2008 [link] 03:27 p.m. listening to: "For the Sake of the Song" - Azure Ray I finished a notebook today! Today is truly a day for rejoicing. I wrote 2:05 pm 1/15/2008 on the last page, in the event that someday I actually want to go back through my old notebooks and see how much I've written. It seems unlikely, but I like to treat everything in my life as if it were a time capsule, someday to be unearthed and examined by future historians. I started a savings account today, after work, at a Bank of America across the street. It's swank in there, all glass doors and high ceilings and a thick, plush carpet that completely muffled my footsteps. I was shown to a chair and told to make myself at home, and I did, finishing up the last few pages of my notebook while I waited. And then I sat in another chair, and told a woman to make me savings account and dump X amount of my checking into it, and then I asked her to use my BoA credit card as overdraft protection, and then I went home. I would say that one out of every three mornings I walk into my office building, I marvel that I belong there. I have a key card, I have a desk, and there is no reason that I will not continue to work there for the next several years, barring bad performance or the company going under (which seems improbable at best, given that we're now owned by Warren Buffett). But I still feel out of place in this building with its marble floors and its concierge and its security and its three banks of elevators (!!!), one for each third of the building. Some days I feel like someone is going to stop me at the elevators and say, actually, there's been a mistake. Yesterday, I walked into a Bose sound systems store and looked at set of very nice computer speakers and thought, I can actually afford that. It was a new and profoundly moving thought. My front door lock has been giving me trouble lately. I couldn't fit the key all the way in, and then I'd be standing on my doorstep at dark o' clock, jiggling the lock and sawing the key back and forth and waiting for someone to come up the driveway and club me over the head. I finally went to the locksmith today, but there was little they could do for me without seeing the actual lock. The man advised I try oiling the lock and return if that didn't fix the problem. I went home worried, as I don't actually have any WD-40; it's one of those things I've been meaning to buy and simply haven't. But lo and behold, there was a locksmith's van parked outside the building next door! I camped outside with my newspaper until the locksmith--a large man with very many dreadlocks--came down the steps. I inquired as to whether he was the locksmith. He said yes. I asked if he'd be so kind to take a look at my lock. He didn't have to do anything, I added, just tell me if I needed to have it serviced. He could see the writing on the wall; he brought with him a can of oil. A spritz on my lock and a few thrusts of the key, and my lock was smoother than I've ever felt a lock before. I marvel at my good fortune. Who knew things like this actually happened in real life? I seem to have landed on my feet this time, oh yes. Sunday, January 13, 2008 [link] 05:55 p.m. listening to: "The Ballad of Barry Allen" - Jim's Big Ego I stepped outside after noon today and blinked at how sunny and warm it was. Living in a basement studio as I do, I often don't really have any idea what the weather is like. I have windows, sure, but they're obscured by giant bushes, and also the weather around here can fool you: it might well be sunny outside, but with a biting wind. It's difficult to tell by the temperature in my apartment, as I more or less live surrounded by concrete and the temperature is frequently much, much cooler than it is outside. This was quite a blessing when you don't have air conditioning, but not so much during cold autumn nights, when the days are growing shorter but the heat hasn't been turned on yet. But I digress. It was lovely outside, probably 70 degrees or thereabouts. I want to say that the sky was a blue I'd never seen before, but probably it was a blue I'd seen before, and every time I still marvel and say, "I never knew the sky could be that color!" It reminded me a bit of when I was in elementary school, and the cerulean crayon always wore down the fastest because we wanted to color our skies cerulean, not blue. So I went to the park, and ate crackers and reread an old Redwall novel, which was delightfully terrible in a very nostalgic sort of way. I wrote a little bit, in my notebook, which is nearing its end. I'm pleased; I started this particular notebook in October, and it's no silly little 60 page moleskine, so it's quite significant that I filled it up in three or four months. I bought some more notebooks from Borders; three moleskines, as a matter of fact, as well as a Paperchase. I've been thinking of ending my search for the perfect notebook (conclusion: there isn't one, at least not for me), but perhaps I should start a search for the perfect pen. I'm not very picky about pens, is the thing, save that I would like one of those multicolored pens that doesn't suck. (I like to alternate between black and blue when I write in the notebook, so it's easy to tell how much I wrote on a given day. I think having one of those pens that writes in green and red as well as blue and black would be nice and decorative, except such pens are inevitably really trashy.) I actually have a fondness for cheap ballpoint pens, which actually write quite well. I used to like those uniball rollers a lot, but for some reason they fell out of favor. I just started using them again, and I'm certain why I stopped; I like how dark the ink is. Blah blah blah; isn't this dreadfully boring? Talking about pens and notebooks. Honestly, you'd think I was some kind of writer or something. Friday, January 11, 2008 [link] 05:31 p.m. listening to: Cowboy Junkies Gaaaah, I need to have better discipline about writing. It's just that, really, nothing's been going on. I write every day, or almost every day, but nothing publishable (yet). I really need to work on that. My snake still isn't eating, but he doesn't seem to be losing weight, so I'm not too freaked out (yet). The guy at the vivarium said he might fast up to four months. Four months!! The worst part, really, is how I keep going back and forth and back and forth to the vivarium, buying rats and then returning them. . . feh. Just eat, you dumb snake! I didn't mean that. I love you, snakey. I need to handle him more. He's a really poorly socialized snake. He's not aggressive or anything, but he really obviously freaks out at being handled. I got a promotion at my second job, and now I get paid more to do (what I feel is essentially) the same thing I was doing before. Score! Speaking of which, I need to start a savings account sometime. . . soon. I'm just too lazy to go to the bank in my spare time. Maybe I should try going on my lunch break sometime. I am, however, finally getting a haircut. It's been something like three months since my last one, and my fauxhawk is entirely grown out. I'm also thinking about buying a digital camera. I know! What a shocker, huh? I kind of want to be a rebel and buy a film camera, but if I'm honest with myself (which I try to be), I would never develop the film, like, ever. Also, I really just want to take pictures of stuff I see when I go cycling and send them to my family, all, see? I'm doing things! Cool things. All right, it's cold in my apartment and I'm gonna go take a hot shower. Brr. Friday, January 4, 2008 [link] 02:27 p.m. listening to: "Weather With You" - Crowded House I work on the 39th floor of an office building in the Financial District of the city, and normally it's pretty awesome up there. You can see the Golden Gate Bridge from the newsroom and Coit Tower from the conference room. It's gorgeous even when stormclouds are building in the distance, marbled gray with white streaks. It's fascinating to watch the fog roll in and cover the world below in white. The sunsets were amazing, but alas, I no longer work late enough to see the sunset, and I'm on the wrong side of the building to properly watch a sunrise. Today, however, we were visited by high winds that--so I heard--ran sometimes up to 85 miles per hour. You could hear the building creak when it was quiet (such as in the bathroom), and at all times you could feel the building sway. The newsroom was soon full of--there is no other word for it--extremely seasick people. A few people didn't take releases at all. I opted to work through the nausea and regretted it, as I couldn't read properly and at one point had to call the client when all I wanted to do was put my head between my knees and try not to puke. (Fortunately, he wasn't there; I left a message. Two messages, actually.) I'm home, and now I'm going to do something I hardly ever allow myself to do: take a nap. I think I've earned it. Tuesday, January 1, 2008 [link] 05:34 p.m. listening to: In an Aeroplane Over the Sea I went cycling again today, to the pier, and it was just as lovely as it was last week. This week, however, the kite-flyers were out. I stopped and watched one man who had an enormous compound kite made of twelve smaller kites. Each one had a colored streamer attached to the end, and it looked like he was flying a rainbow. Small children dashed around the field trying to catch a streamer, and he would bring the kite in low, hovering just over their heads, just long enough that they might be able to snatch a streamer, and then whirl off high into the air again. Some tourists stopped to take pictures, and he buzzed them with the kite as well, bringing the kite in to hover above them close enough to touch, before whisking away again. I could have watched him and his kite all day. Happy New Year, folks. Wednesday, December 26, 2007 [link] 01:28 p.m. listening to: nothing Ugh. So tired. I thought I'd sleep really well last night, since the bike ride wiped me out, but I woke up in the middle of the night because I was roasting thanks to my uncontrolled heat. I was planning on making a trip to the vivarium today to return this rat that my snake is (once again) refusing to eat, but the rat might just have to survive one more day. Plus, I'm still sore from yesterday. Tuesday, December 25, 2007 [link] 04:08 p.m. listening to: "Butterflies" - David Garza I did, as promised, go cycling. My intent was to bike out to the Presidio and do some actual trail-riding, as my new mountain bike is sorely neglected, and so I packed myself a bottle of water, a carton of soy milk (for carbs and protein), some pens, my journal, and my hoodie (in case it got cold). The route I'd marked out from Embarcadero BART to the Presidio proved to be a little more grueling than I anticipated. San Francisco is widely acknowledge to consist mainly of HILLS HILLS HILLS. I gave up halfway through the first one and panted up the second. Fortunately, after that it was mainly downhill, but with every slope I coasted down I worried about whether or not I'd be able to make it back, especially since I'd presumably be bumping about the Presidio for an hour. As soon as I turned right onto Laguna and from there onto Marina Blvd., however, I decided it was worth it. The route I picked out happened to be the most scenic one in San Francisco, and I found myself cycling alongside wetlands. The vista somehow became even more gorgeous with every quarter-mile, and I idled my way along, passed by cyclists no doubt inured to the view. At one point there was a heron, bright white still as a photograph. By the time I finally reached my destination, I was no longer interested in moving inland, away from the view. I hung out by the Torpedo Wharf instead, watching people fish and texting my family members, and then retired to the picnic area a half-mile back, where I wrote half this journal entry. I watched a rottweiler frolic with a bulldog, an elderly man throw a tennis ball to a young boy, various family picnics. The sun was warm and the breeze was cool. It was thoroughly enjoyable. Merry Christmas, everyone! Tuesday, December 25, 2007 [link] 10:17 a.m. listening to: "For the Sake of the Song" - Azure Ray Merry Christmas, world! It's a gorgeous day today. I'm going to go bike riding. Saturday, December 22, 2007 [link] 06:53 p.m. listening to: "Whiskey" - Voxtrot Suuuuuch a slow day at work today. It was rather terrible, actually; I'd rather be at home than at work, if there's going to be nothing to do. But on the other hand, I got paid to sit on my ass and play Final Fantasy III and watch Stranger Than Fiction, which has led to my having all sorts of Deep Thoughts. I don't know how I feel about that movie, actually. There were a lot of bits that I found extremely excellent, but the ending made me actively outraged. I can see why that ending happened, but that doesn't mean I agree with it. In any case, I don't regret not seeing it in theaters at all, as I don't think that was a movie that suffered any from being on a small screen. Also, Emma Thompson was quite amazing. I have a three day weekend now, thanks to Christmas falling on a Tuesday this year (I don't work Sundays and Mondays as a matter of course, and I don't work on Christmas because, er, they don't yet trust me with scissors, in a manner of speaking). I'm not entirely certain what I'll do. Clean, maybe. I hope I can go cycling. Monday, December 17, 2007 [link] 11:49 a.m. listening to: "The Fighting Priest" - Ailsean (OC Remix) Home again, home again, jiggety jig. The flights were short and uneventful; I read Spirit magazine and did the crossword. Dinner itself was nice; lots of food, and I saw a lot of family that I don't see on a regular basis. They all wanted to hear about my new job and were thrilled that I was doing so well for myself. I'm rather thrilled that I'm doing so well for myself, and it was nice to be reminded that I am, in fact, extremely ahead of the curve. I know that, but it's nice to be reminded every so often. We're all so career-driven these days; we all feel like we should make $40,000 out of the gate, what with our degrees and all. So, yeah. I'm doing very well for myself. I'm proud of me. A few aunts from my mother's side of the family were there, which was a little awkward for me. I haven't spoken to them in years--probably nigh onto a decade, at this point--and I don't know what to say to these women with my mother's face. "Do you still like to draw?" they asked. Nobody from my family has asked about my drawing for years; as far as they're concerned, I guess, it's something I outgrew years ago. And it is something I outgrew a year ago, except that just last week I drew monstrous personifications of some terms that come up often at work. Art is something I haven't taken seriously in years, although every so often people ask me if I ever took classes or ever think about taking classes. "Your mother used to draw a lot, too," said my aunt. This was something I knew. My mother even wanted to go to art school, but her father wouldn't let her. "Except she drew people," said my aunt. "Portraits of women. That was all she ever drew." "I draw animals," I said, awkwardly. I've only ever drawn animals. My attempts at drawing people come out horribly, terribly wrong and should probably be banned. "Yes," said my aunt. "You used to draw horses all the time." I know nothing about this woman, and yet she knows so much about me. I want to ask her about my mother, whether she still draws, whether she has any of my mother's artwork, but I don't know the words. Thursday, December 13, 2007 [link] 10:45 p.m. listening to: "Ce He Mise le Ulaingt" - Loreena McKennitt I was seized with a sudden urge to clean tonight, so I did. Now my coffee table has been wiped down, my floor has been cleared, and I even cleaned off a bit of the ledge that runs around my apartment. It was really appallingly dusty, and for some reason various surfaces are covered with dead ants even though I can't remember killing any ants there. I don't know if they were there to begin with or if that ledge is simply some sort of ant graveyard. There's certainly one area that I've wiped off multiple times, only to have more dead ants reappear. I guess I'm grateful they're dead ants. I'm flying back to Los Angeles this weekend for a holiday get-together. It was a stroke of good fortune, really; I have a three-day weekend because next week I start my Tuesday-Saturday shift, and my family for whatever reason decided to have their gathering this weekend as well. I don't know when I'll get to see them next, since I won't have any vacation time for another year, so I thought I might as well take this opportunity now. Though I rarely if ever talk about my fannish life on this blog, I'll just say one thing: I really want to write another due South fic. There. That was it. I keep making all these plans for after my schedule change. When my schedule changes, I'll hang out more with my friends. When my schedule changes, I'll exercise in the afternoons. When my schedule changes, I'll run errands in the middle of the week instead of always waiting for the weekend. When my schedule changes. . . what if I don't do any of these things, though? What if I don't exercise, what if I still leave errands for the weekend, what if I still don't call up my friends? I suck. I'd better make sure I actually do what I say I'll do. Wednesday, December 12, 2007 [link] 12:11 a.m. listening to: "Out Here" - Peter Mulvey I've been listening to this story a lot the past few days, partly because of a story I want to write and partly because I feel like this song understands me, as terrible and cliché as that sounds. I sort of hate myself just for writing it. I feel like every 16-year-old who ever cried when Kurt Cobain killed himself because he was the only one who ever understood them. My father's been sending the family emails lately, detailing how he's moving to Jiangmen province, where apparently his parents were from. I feel like he's been moving a lot, since he got to China, and I wonder if part of it is the same feeling of restlessness I occasionally suffer from: the idea that moving to a new place will somehow make everything better. It doesn't, of course, because being in a new place doesn't make you a new person; you still have all the same baggage. Then you feel compelled to move again, get even farther away, and--well, I guess you eventually end up in the place where you began, which he sort of has. Good job, Dad. I'd love to visit him, but now that I have a real job I'm never going to have time to go anywhere, like, ever again. Sigh. I'm flying home this weekend to visit family in Los Angeles, since God knows when's the next time I'm going to have any time off to do that. Coincidentally enough, this weekend is their holiday dinner thing. What good timing. Sunday, December 9, 2007 [link] 06:47 p.m. listening to: "The Blood of Cu Chulainn" - Mychael Danna, Jeff Danna Whoa. It's been a while, huh? I actually went Christmas shopping, which was something of a first for me. In the past, my attitude toward gifts is mostly that, if I see something that reminds me of you, I buy it for you. Doesn't matter if it's July or December. My friends have gotten random (and sometimes very expensive) presents at odd times of year, but then often don't end up with anything at birthdays or Christmas, simply because a) I can't remember birthdays and b) I didn't see anything that reminded me of them. I hope it evens out somehow. So this is the first year I've actually gone Christmas shopping. It could be peer pressure, since my coworkers and friends talk about Christmas shopping more or less constantly, and now that I actually have steady income I feel obligated to, you know, add to the consumerism of the holidays. I hope my relatives like their presents. Friday, November 30, 2007 [link] 09:46 p.m. listening to: nothing I started taking melatonin recently, at the suggestion of several very intelligent people. The thing about melatonin is that it doesn't work like chemical sleep aids, like, at all. It doesn't make you drowsy, it doesn't keep you asleep once you've actually fallen asleep, and it doesn't give you a chemical hangover in the morning. Some of these are good things, some of them are. . . not so good things. Overall, though, my experience has been highly satisfactory. Since melatonin doesn't make you drowsy, what basically happens is you take your pill, and then you have twenty to thirty minutes to actually go to bed. Once you're actually in bed, in the dark and quiet, you're pretty much out like a light. In my case, three out of four times, not only was I out like a light, I slept so deeply that I didn't even move, which has been a rarity ever since I moved into this studio. I can only assume that some ambient noise has been waking me up in the middle of the night. (That one time I woke up even after taking the melatonin, it was because I actually woke up because the stupid rat was squeaking loudly. It's a long story why I have a rat. He's going back to the store tomorrow.) I imagine the melatonin will come in handy once I start my new 5 am schedule at work. It's been an unusually bright and warm winter so far, which is contributing to my sleeplessness. Since I don't have to be at work until 10:30 am (at least for the next two weeks), I generally plan to sleep in until 9 am, which means I don't go to bed until sometime between midnight and 1 am. However, this doesn't factor in the sunlight that shines into my studio, directly onto my bed. If I sleep facing away from the window this isn't such an enormous problem, but since the melatonin mostly knocks me out as soon as I get into bed and I'm inclined to sleep on my left side, well, I wake up because the sun's shining on my face. Which isn't such a bad thing--this is a very natural way to wake up, and I'm told they even sell alarm clocks that mimic the gradual fall of sunlight on your face--except that I mostly haven't been getting enough rest lately. Oh well. It'll all change in a couple of weeks. Sunday, November 25, 2007 [link] 12:32 a.m. listening to: "Killin' the Blues" - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Part of my normal nightly ritual, when I'm falling asleep, is to count my blessings. I have a roof over my head, a well-paying full time job that I don't hate that is actually reasonably stimulating, family and friends who love me, health and wealth and material things. . . and if there are things I still want, well, who doesn't? But really, I have no cause to complain. There's a part in The Blue Sword where Corlath the king asks the Outlander girl that he kidnapped, Harry, if she is happy here. She thinks about it for a moment and replies--and I'm paraphrasing here--"I don't know about happy. . . but I don't believe I wish to complain of unhappiness." This is the sort of standard I've set for myself: to not be unhappy. Happiness is, I think, too difficult to achieve, and too short-lived. It's like the man said in the movie Better Luck Tomorrow: once you're happy, where do you go from there? So I aim for contentment instead, or something resembling it, because that's an achievable goal, and there's no use in making myself discontent. And it's not like I'm never happy; of course I'm happy sometimes. And sometimes I'm merely content, and that's okay, too. Once, during therapy, I was talking to my therapist about Maslow's pyramid of needs, for some reason. I no longer remember why, but I suspect I was talking about how I have few wants and needs, and I am easily satisfied by the bottom tier of Maslow's pyramid. Somewhere in the midst of my ramblings, she interrupted me with, "Love is a need." This is not as much of a non sequiter as it sounds, as I started therapy because I have intimacy issues and fear of commitments. But she'd derailed my train of thought. "What?" "Love is a need," she repeated. Holy fucking shit, I thought. Love is a need. I had never, ever thought of it this way before. If I'd been reading it in a book, I know, if a fictional character didn't seem to think love was a need, I would have exclaimed, "Of course love is a need! How could you not think that?" But I've never played even by my own rules, it seems; I never needed love. Or I thought I didn't, anyway. I still have trouble thinking of it like that, sometimes. I need love? What would I ever do with a thing like that? Sunday, November 11, 2007 [link] 10:23 p.m. listening to: "Out Here" - Peter Mulvey I start my new job tomorrow. I guess this means I'm not going to law school. I feel like I haven't fully accepted that I'm Done With School. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think this whole working 40 hours a week gig is going to stop, eventually, and I'll be back to living on campus and going to dinner with friends and having nothing to worry about, really, except homework. The idea that every day of my life after this, for years and years and years, is going to be like this, frightens me a little. I have trouble imagining it. Oh well. First thing's first. I have to pack my bag for tomorrow, and then I have to actually go to work. I hope they don't hate me. Thursday, November 8, 2007 [link] 08:18 p.m. listening to: "Going to Marrakesh" - the Extra Glenns I bought a mountain bike today! It was quite a hit to the wallet, but I'm looking forward to trail riding, etc. Unfortunately, I realized, it's the beginning of the rainy season, which is maybe not the best time to buy a trail bike. Or maybe it is! Anyway, on Sunday I'm going to bike out to Lake Temescal and see what's what. Tuesday, November 6, 2007 [link] 04:40 p.m. listening to: "Going to Marrakesh" - The Extra Glenns I CAN HAS EMPLOYMENT. |
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