i have internet access again (cue triumphant choir)! i am now once again connected to the rest of the world. no more long conversations with Marley, my plant. sadly, i think Marley has taken a turn for the worse, and is slowly dying. heartfelt supplications and pep talk have not worked--i think he needs sunshine.

so it turns out that i do not have any cavities, thank goodness. no drills last saturday.

i bought two cases of wine yesterday, ostensibly to give to friends for christmas, but i think i just want an excuse to have too much wine on hand so i can drink it whenever i want.

i'm going to Lawry's tomorrow to celebrate the holiday season with a large, juicy prime rib, creamed corn, and spinning salad. one day, i will marry a Lawry's chef, use him for all the prime rib he's worth, then dump him for another Lawry's chef with a bigger medallion. now THAT's a goal.

still busy. very very very busy. no time for reflection.

i have a dentist appointment on saturday. i haven't been to the dentist for a long, long while. he creeps me out. i can't stand the smell of the place...and the sound of drills *shudder*.

i don't have internet access at my new place. it's amazing how much you can accomplish when the option of signing on isn't there. but i feel so cut off from the world lately.

oh! I HAVE A NEW CELL NUMBER, so email me for it if i didn't already give it to you. i just mass-emailed my number to everyone, but i got all these return emails from that bastard DAEMON...so i guess i have a lot of outdated addresses.

sitting at the office right now, eating a rice bowl and drinking green tea vitamin water. another thursday.

I'm moving out of my house this weekend.

I've moved out before, during college, but I've always left all of my non-essential things behind, knowing I'd be able to come back and get them if I ever needed to. But my room is going to be used for other things, and I need to clear everything out this time, and I doubt that I'll ever be living in this house again.

Strange, realizing that I no longer live at home anymore.

I've lived in this house since I was a baby. I remember running around the neighborhood with the other kids (all of whom have moved away) repeating the only thing I knew how to say in English: "Just a minute!" I remember the glorious day I finally grew tall enough to reach the light switches on my tippy-toes. I remember sitting in the front yard with my mother, tickling one another's noses with the weeds. Years later, sneaking out the back door at night (and sneaking people in). I've gone through 22 years of laughter, arguments, fear, joy, tears, in this house. So many memories reside here.

It'll still be here, of course, but I'll no longer have my space here. It's sad to think that my whole life fits into a few truckloads of boxes.

Upheaval is a catalyst for change.

i've been so busy lately i barely have time to breathe, much less write, so i have decided to use my saturday night to mull over law school applications and try to put some thoughts together for my personal statement. i should have done this a long time ago, but considering that i now have 13 days to fill up the blank paper that is my essay so far, and fill out all of my (blank) applications, and get my transcript from Fullerton College sent over to the LSDAS, and make sure all of my letters of reccomendation are in, it looks as if next weekend will also be spent at home.

the new job is very hectic, but i am now so much more clear about what it is a lawyer actually does all day. my co-workers are just about some of the most stressed-out people i've ever seen in my life. also, they speak legalese, which is a completely foreign language to me. they run around throwing phrases like "motion in limine for collateral estoppel" at me... and i have not an inkling of what they mean. do they want me to stopper their collateral with a modified lime? if i survive it, i'll learn a lot from this job.

I bought FIVE pairs of shoes today for a little under $70.00! I have a pair of red euro-style tennis shoes that look like bowling shoes, three dressy strappy shoes, and a pair of black boots. I am so proud of myself.

for some reason, all of my old shoes decided to fall apart in unison. could it be possible that i wear them all out at exactly the same rate?

i didn't vote yesterday. and i don't even feel guilty about it. why? because, dammit, we had two of the most sorry lame-asses on the planet running for governor. i have a major problem with smear campaigns, and it seems that all gray davis has been spending his tens of millions of fundraising money on is defaming simon on national tv. not that simon doesn't seem kinda goober-ish himself.

maybe someday, when the gubernatorial candidate is not a cretin devoid of common sense and morality, i'll actually drag my lazy ass to the polls.

actually, strike that. i'm registering to vote for 2004 elections--i'm voting for whoever runs against bush. i don't care who it is.

2nd day of my new job. worked from 8:35 till 7:40. learned ten million new things. tired as hell. byebye.

i made my own halloween costume. it's a tulle skirt with flowers and ferns and spanish moss---i'm gonna be a woodland fairy! i have big purple ears and a wand, too. i ran around the house in my costume all night last night.

tomorrow is my last day at my job!! i'll try to look sad, but i'm sure i'll barely be able to contain my glee. i'll be lucky if i don't break into paroxysms of joy in the middle of my goodbye lunch. in the past two weeks, i've finished all their database queries and reports up to june, so if they don't find someone else who can use a computer by then, it's their own fault. ha.

do i talk too much?

Baby61212: but really, i don't like online chess
eMdeeMae77: heh
eMdeeMae77: aite
eMdeeMae77: some reason i like the top view
Baby61212: i'm going to mexico soon, and i;m going to buy a miniature chess set while i'm there and accost everyone with it
eMdeeMae77: accost eh?
Baby61212: i like the "unnerve your opponent with steely glare" view
eMdeeMae77: hrmmm
eMdeeMae77: for some reason
eMdeeMae77: i can't imagine u able to do that
Baby61212: how about "talk your opponent into delerium" view?
eMdeeMae77: u do that even when not playing chess

i got my LSACD in the mail today. i was hoping that, considering how much i paid the LSDAS, it would be wrapped in $5 dollar bills, or that when i opened it i'd find a golden ticket, but alas, all i get is a cardboard sleeve (and a flimsy one, at that).

monday again. on the other hand, this is the LAST monday i will ever be spending at my inane job. kinda makes me glad it's monday :)

instead of going to washington DC and new york, i have decided instead to go on a cruise. sunshine and fish tacos just seem like a better way to spend my vacation than cold weather and a bullet in the head.

speaking of vacation, my work is refusing to pay me my vacation time!
Try to solve this legal quandry: (more for my reference than anything else, but please give me any and all suggestions you can!!!)

My company policy states (sic):
"After 1 year of continuous full time employment with the company, you are eligible for 2 weeks paid vacation annually. The vacation allowance is during the calendar year and vacation days do not accumulate. Vacations cannot be "cashed" for addiditonal payroll."

My first day of employment was September 13, 2001. I have worked 40 hours each week since then.

A few of my friends have pointed out that it's illegal in California for companies to force their employees to "use or lose" their vacation, and that unused vacation must be paid out as extra payroll. Read all about that here, and here, and here.

Last year, I used up 5 of my vacation days, which were advanced to me before my one-year anniversary in good faith that I would, in fact, stay for a year.
After September 13 (my one-year anniversary), I requested a vacation day off to go to Arizona, and it was approved.

When I gave my two weeks' notice, I asked my employer if I could take my four remaining days of vacation. They refused, and will not pay me for my vacation because "they do not want to make a habit of paying people for vacation when they are leaving."

Doesn't make much sense, does it? Well, I asked for a written denial of my vacation pay, and they refused, saying that they will sign nothing.

Now, they say that ANOTHER reason I don't get vacation pay is because I was not actually classified as a full-time employee until December 7th (ostensibly, after my 3 month probation period...but that doesn't make sense either, because then it would be December 13th). However, they gave me my one-year anniversary review in September, and approved the one vacation day I took in September... so it sounds to me like they're trying to find an excuse to push back my date of eligibility.

Some questions:
What is the definition "1 year of continuous full time employment"? It is not outlined in the company policy. If I have been working 40 hours a week for one year, would that not qualify me as a full-time employee for a year, or would I have to be checked off somewhere on some form or other as a "real" full-timer?
If they gave me my one-year review in September, does that not imply that I was with the company for one full year?

Pretty confusing, eh? I don't think it's very fair, but since I'm still on good terms with my boss, I'll sit on it for about 6 months.

i went wrinkle cream shopping with my ex yesterday. he is obsessed with the (false) notion that he is starting to look old and wrinkly and droopy. when i got home, i carefully examined my face in the mirror, and i am now convinced that i, too, am exhibiting the first signs of age. i have these tiny little lines around my mouth, and if i crinkle up my eyes i can see the beginnings of crow's feet. ugh.

anyone privy to information on anti-war (on iraq) protests, please let me know--i wanna protest!!!

meanwhile, check out Not In Our Name

Oh. my. god.

i just registered for the LSDAS (Law School Data Assembly Service). I knew beforehand that it's a ripoff, but it didn't really hit me until i actually plunked down the cash.

now let me get this straight:

$99 for putting my name on a file folder.
$10 each time I want them to open the folder and mail out a transcript ($12 each time if i don't prepay--i paid for 8 in advance, that's $80 for them to mail shit!).
$63 for the CD containing all the law school applications. the CD is coded to my name so it cannot be copied, and if i choose not to get the CD, i have to write to each school separately for their applications and fill out the ones that don't have electronic apps. in other words, it's infinitely easier to jut pay $63.

my question is--how the FUCK do these people sleep at night knowing they're squeezing the last pennies out of poor students? on their space-foam Duxiana beds with goose-down comforters lined in $100 bills, i reckon.

damn, i'm in the wrong business.

"It is with regret, yet strong conviction, that I resign as Marketing Director effective October 25th, 2002." WOOOHOOOEEEEEE!!!

got my contract and i'm outies from my tedious, borefest of a job in two short weeks!

then, I'm going to Washington DC and New York, and if i don't get shot in the head i start at the law firm on Nov. 4th.

i am starting another blog. I'll still keep this one, but since i'm too broke to get blogspot plus, i can't filter out the posts that i wouldn't want a prospective employer to read. i am taking suggestions for this new, g-rated blog that will contain mostly cut-&-paste entries from this blog, plus writing samples and my resume. so far i've come up with: silentsanctum.blogspot.com and the oh-so-exciting [my name].blogspot.com. email me some better ideas--the winner gets a pair of extra-large thongs and my old broken cell phone! AND, if you email in the next 10 minutes, you get my OTHER old, broken cell phone ABSOLUTELY FREE!

It just gets worse and worse: The Bush Doctrine

I FOUND GELATO IN LOS ANGELES!!!!!!!!!! yummy, creamy, delicious gelato. goodbye diet, hello extra 20 pounds!

it's called Al Gelato, but i will lobby for a name-change to "Karen's Second Home." i tried the banana and coconut. but i also tasted the blackberry, pistachio, and honeydew. all were amazing. and to make things even better, they serve great pasta and pizza, and whenever you order food you get big slices of crusty bread with a dish of olives and a jar of pickled peppers.

i heard a radio interview with laura bush recently, and the interviewer asked her what the president has been reading lately. she said that he just finished reading The Emperor of Ocean Park (by Stephen Carter)....but so have i! i don't know what to think now...i mean, i feel like now we share some kind of literary comraderie, and i can no longer hate him as much because he, too, enjoyed the book.

some time in the past few weeks, geroge w. bush and i were reading the same book at the exact same time. *shudder*

Two passages, out of order, from Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez:

“In the end they knew each other so well that by the time they had been married for thirty years they were like a single divided being, and they felt uncomfortable at the frequency with which they guessed each other’s thoughts without intending to, or the ridiculous accident of on of them anticipating in public what the other was going to say. Together they had overcome the daily incomprehension, the instantaneous hatred, the reciprocal nastiness and fabulous flashes of glory in the conjugal conspiracy. It was the time when they loved each other best, without hurry or excess, when both were most conscious of and grateful of their incredible victories over adversity. Life would still present them with other mortal trials, of course, but that no longer mattered: they were on the other shore.”

“Dr. Urbino caught the parrot around the neck with a triumphant sigh: ca y est. But he released him immediately because the ladder slipped from underneath his feet and for an instant he was suspended in air and he realized that he had died without Communion, without time to repent of anything or to say goodbye to anyone, at seven minutes after four on Pentecost Sunday.
“Fermina Daza was in the kitchen tasting the soup for supper when she heard Digna Pardo’s horrified shriek and the shouting of the servants and then of the entire neighborhood. She dropped the tasting spoon and tried her best to run despite the invincible weight of her age, screaming like a madwoman without knowing yet what had happened under the mango leaves, and her heart jumped inside her ribs when she saw her man lying on his back in the mud, dead to this life but still resisting death’s final blow for one last minute so that she would have time to come to him. He recognized her despite all the uproar, through his tears of unrepeatable sorrow at dying without her, and he looked at her for the last and final time with eyes more luminous, more grief-stricken, more grateful than she had ever seen in half a century of a shared life, and he managed to say to her with his last breath: ‘Only God knows how much I loved you.’”

i forgot Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess at work today, and am now suffering from acute separation anxiety.

Life really sucks ass right about now.

i just ate 1/2 scoop of ice cream, and i feel so guilty. i hate this cholesterol-free, taste-free diet thing. it puts me in a bad mood.

which reminds me: i am so fucking tired of this prospective employer stringing me along!! FIVE interviews and TWO job offers later, they have yet to give me a definitive answer as to whether i can quit my current job to work for them. goddammit, i am at a standstill because their offer is too good to take lightly, and all they can do is make vague promises (that THEY initiate, mind you) and tell me to keep in touch or that they're just on the edge of a decision. I'm even in salary negotiations with them for chrissakes, yet i've received no concrete offer letter and no go-ahead to resign my current job. I'm losing hope...and self-esteem. A year after graduating from college, I'm still puttering around in a dead-end boring job, having learned little to nothing that I couldn't have taught myself, about to be knee-deep in law school application fee debt when i have no idea how the hell i'm going to be able to afford law school in the first place, living paycheck-to-paycheck with no clear vision of my future career plans, no longer on speaking terms with my evil stepmother, and generally stressed the hell out for fear that i am, in reality, merely a mediocre peon unwilling to admit my inferiority.

okay, i'm done whining.

my doctor told me last week to severely limit my intake of cholesterol, so the whole week i ate nothing but vegetables and ungreasy food. then, the weekend came, and i am now chock-full of artery clogging cholesterol. among other things, i ate: fried lobster, fried crab, rotisserie chicken with garlic butter, gelato...the list goes on. the point of that previous rambling being...i found good homemade gelato that isn't in Italy! although it is in san diego, which is defintely too far to go on spontaneous gelato-runs.

this week, i cured myself of a long-time addiction, and i am never turning back: i abandoned my hotmail account. instead, i now have yahoo, where i have 4mb storage space and am not deluged with spam offering me a larger penis. my new address is: meow61212@yahoo.com. actually, i will still be checking my hotmail periodically, so i haven't quit cold-turkey yet. one day at a time.

i am overcome with the fear that, now in his older and wiser days, my cat has decided that he does not love me anymore. he loves my father, but not me. then again, my dad feeds him sirloin steak, and i only feed him chef's blend (sprinkled on top of his wet cat food, cut into cubes, and microwaved for 10 seconds). i do everything i can to try to win him over, but i just really don't think he's gotten over my painting his paws green last june. i have the sneaking suspicion that he's only using me for food.

i'm SO over my closet. it's hopeless. it's actually impeccably organized, but now my room is filled with everything that used to be in my closet...and my room is a total mess! i'd rather have a messy closet and clean room than a messy room and clean closet.

my new strange obsession has become...chess. ever since i finished reading The Emperor of Ocean Park, I've been really wanting to learn to play chess well. i am now reading Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess.

closet cleaning....chess strategy books....um, can i get any more nerdy?

I was listening to NPR on my way to work this morning, and came across live coverage of Bush's speech to the UN General Assembly.

Here is the Text of Bush's speech to United Nations. keep in mind while reading the text of the speech that Bush pronounces "nuclear" like this: "Noo-cue-lar"....puts a whole new pinon things. hasn't anyone told him that he's butchering the one word he keeps using to make his powerful, moving points?

Laughable pronunciation aside, I agree with the analysts that this is a well-written speech (amont other things, it is certainly vague enough while still managing to warn of US unilateral military action). Hooray for Bush's speech writers!

He still doesn't have a point though. Here's why.

ugh. i am very sick. i crawled out of bed to make myself chicken soup, and then while i was eating it, i was convinced of the unequivocal hatred that god must harbor towards me, because a cricket jumped into my soup and drowned itself. now i do not have the energy to make more soup (and even if i did, i wouldn't be able to taste it anyway) so i will lay in bed some more and read about people more miserable than i (El Amor en los Tiempos de Colera ).

Weekend recap:

Thursday...went to Felix's and shared 2 bottles of wine. Then, headed down to Er and Francis', where I drank 3 more bottles of San Miguel and then commenced taking swigs out of the bottle of Jack and Southern Comfort with the guys. I drank like a man, dammit! The next thing i remember I'm throwing up all of my salmon on the side of the freeway. Here are a few highlights (some i do not remember):
*Group primal scream
*Er pouring beer into Mike's ear
*Jon wanting to jump through the living room window very very much
*Er throwing office chair at Mike
*People throwing one another into the bathtub full of ice
*Joe prostrate on the cement with his head in a bush
*Loud drunken rendition of "drop, baby drop, baby drop, drop all your love on me"

I wake up in the morning, still drunk (I find out later that just about everyone else woke up drunk too....worst of all was Mike, who woke up drunk still in the hallway of the empty apartment) and drag myself to work. Somehow i make it through, and then head to church retreat! Hypocritical, you say? I fully agree. Spent the weekend soaking in mineral hot springs, eating resort food, staring at the beautiful lake and black swans....and i must admit, not praying very much at all. I have some issues to work through, but I do not know if I will find the answers at church retreat.

After a weekend of heartfelt talks, admonitions, and altar-calls set to the weepy picking of a guitar, i have only been able to recoil at what now appears to me as emotional manipulation...preying on the insecurities and wounds of a few kids who are hurting so much inside. the altar call dangles in front of you the shiny carrot of forgiveness for your sins, healing for your pain, communion with your peers...but at the price, in my humble opinion, of your self-reliance.

i am not saying that we as humans can ever be self-reliant....but we must learn before we submit to a higher power the abitlity to discern the things caused by our own actions from those directed by divine intervention. too often it seems that whenever i'm wrong, it's because i'm an imperfect sinner and i deserve all the bad things that happen, yet whenever anything good happens to me, i should thank god for his blessing. i want my successes, as well as my failures, to be my own.

even so, i realize that just because i want something to be a certain way doesn't mean that it is.

....tonight, i'm cleaning out my closet.....

....literally. It's become a major obsession. We had to refloor it, so I took everything out, and now i cannot for the life of me figure out how everything will ever fit back in. I have spent countless hours cleaning my damned closet. I have bought no less than $150 worth of baskets, boxes, hangers.. the works.

I ditch my friends so i can clean (i can't imagine how they must feel when i say,"sorry, i'd go out with you but i gotta clean my closet tonight").... sheesh.

witness exhibit A:
TiIvIIvIy: wanna come by and clean my room while ur at it?
Baby61212: no, i have my closet to deal with
TiIvIIvIy: after ur closet is ok too
Baby61212: my... closet...will never be okay *sob*
Baby61212: it's impossible, i am beginning to believe
TiIvIIvIy: they have support groups for ppl like u

last night i went to my "Happy Spot," which i remembered to be a remote and beautiful tiny little beach in Laguna....and realized, to my charign, thst many other people have discovered this place since i last came here! They got rid of the favorite rock i used to sit on and put a bathroom there!!!! ugh. and there was a group of about 15-20 loud screaming drunk people.

I was so shocked, and sad. whatever though, it was still beautiful. The moon was almost full and the waves were just crashing down with a giant roar that drowned out all of the noise, both outside and inside of me.

i bring all my good friends here at one point or another, and this little beach holds for me so many memories of good conversations, sunsets, and dark beautiful nights. I always imagine that, sitting on the sand, if i just squint hard enough i can see the specters of my past.... me sitting on my rock (now a concrete bathroom) and singing to the moon.....climbing over the rocks to another inlet where sometimes a few sea-lions play....pondering the erosion of time on the human life over a bottle of champagne....and things don't seem so bad anymore, because i remember how fortunate i am to have friends who will listen to the waves and exchange hopes, fears, and dreams with me all night long.

Hey everyone! Let's all donate $10 to The Time Travel Fund and get whisked away to the future!!!!! Seconds after your donation, you just may disappear into thin air, and reappear sometime hundreds or even thousands of years into the future! I wonder how much money these guys have made...

Try, just try, to read this article (courtesy of Mat's blog) and not laugh hysterically:

LAB MICE DIE AFTER DRUGS, DISCO


LONDON (AP) - The government on Monday reprimanded scientists who plied mice with drugs and loud dance music to study the effect on their brains. The Home Office said it was taking "infringement action" against Cambridge University researchers who injected mice with the stimulant methamphetamine and subjected them to loud music, including tracks by dance act The Prodigy. Several mice died and others suffered brain damage in the experiment, whose results were published in the journal NeuroReport last year.


Animal rights activists condemned the experiment. The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection called it "tasteless and horrific." The experiment was part of a wider study looking at the effect of amphetamine on a the striatum, a brain region that degenerates in Huntington's disease, a fatal, inherited brain disorder. The findings suggested that loud pulsating noise like that found in dance clubs could intensify the drug's toxic effects. Researchers studied 238 mice, injecting half with salt and half with the drug. While the mice injected with salt fell asleep when music was played, the drugged mice appeared to jiggle backward and forward.


Scientists found that the drugged mice suffered more speed-induced brain damage than normal. Seven mice who listened to the Prodigy died, as did four who were played music of a similar tempo by Bach. The Home Office, the government department responsible for overseeing rules for animal research, did not say what form of action had been taken against the scientists.

i think whoever said that it is better to have loved and lost than to never loved at all, was clearly smoking crack. who believes in love anymore anyway? emanon says: "love is just word for the lack of a better term, a substitute for the word with four letters," and i daily wonder about the veracity of it all.

lately i have been finding myself with a silly grin on my face, sniffing at my wrists (which smell like Escape for men), daydreaming about weekends and pine trees and blue pillows, and trying to pinpoint the exact moment at which i began to fall.....and then some part of me, deep inside, screams "STOP, you idiot!!!" and i relent that alas, i am more of a spineless sap than i ever feared. some part of me tries to explain that perhaps i am merely afraid of being happy, yet past experience tells me that hoping against hope is a very dangerous pastime indeed, and a hole that i will probably end up falling into despite my every fiber of common sense telling me otherwise. and as i proceed into the valley of the shadow of death, here it is, written (well, typed) out, stored electronically for posterity, so that later, i can tell myself, "I TOLD YOU SO."

---

by sherry, from The Joint Ascension....

When did all of us chicks grow dicks?
Risk heart and mind just for kicks?
To fake ecstasy will make us sick;
Subject us to courage that cannot stick.

Legacy....
drink with me to days gone by.....






Photos of francis's birthday, courtesy of jonruizonline.com

alright, i am convinced that Fate woke up this morning and decided to take a big fat shit on me yet again, since i got into ANOTHER car accident today. i was rear-ended by a F-150 and the damage isn't too bad at all, but dammit, i'm sick of car trouble!!!!!!! i got a new car so i wouldn't have to deal with taking my old car into the shop, and a month later.... *CRUNCH*! i hope the girl who hit me is nice enough to pay for the damage out-of-pocket, as we are trying to keep the insurance companies out of this.

on the brighter side....i am still basking in the glow of a rather relaxing and much-needed weekend away in big bear where i went alpine sledding, tried to hike, breathed crisp, cool mountain air to the delight of my smog-infused lungs, walked around the lake, watched vanilla sky and blissfully soaked in the jacuzi till i was all wrinkled and resembled a 108-pound prune. and i ate massive amounts of meat... dr. atkins would be proud. :)

i don't know what this means....just an exercise in rhyming i suppose:

the walls torn asunder
the Holy veil ripped open
amid a peal of thunder
the somnolence that wakens
the insolence that weakens
the dropping of a token
the lighting of a beacon
the tragedy that follows
the receding of tomorrow
the darkness that binds us
the lies left behind us
the sunlight this morning
and ominous warning
the slaughtering of the Lamb
the rise and fall of man
the ebbing tide of flood
Pontius Pilate washing his hands
in a river full of blood.

---

chambers
of the heart and mind
like a tangled string unwind
spectres
of a life half-lived
decisions, reactions, forced through a sieve
hold back the thoughts they don't want you to think
until all that is left is a diluted dream
and we continue to sink.

We don't own our pets....they own us.

SmilEx4eVa: OH MY GOODNESS ! My hamster chewed thru the box and IS FREAKIN" LOOSE
OH MY GOD!
SmilEx4eVa: BRB
Baby61212: yikes!!!
SmilEx4eVa: ok... hamster emergency... i'll talk to u later
SmilEx4eVa: he chewed straight thru the corner of the box
SmilEx4eVa: he's sooo cute! u gotta meet mo

---

lifted this from Stella's blog....very intriguing:


Who am I?
Who the fuck am I?
Who are you?
Do you know who you are?
Alls I know is there is a revolution.
THERE IS A REVOLUTION.
And I am the revolution.
I am the revolution that resists bullshit.
The bullshit that gets spit into my face
The horse dung that gets smeared onto my face
What am I talking about?
I’m talking about who I am.
I’m human first of all.
Second of all, I’m Asian American.
What is Asian American?
Asian American is being human.
What is being Caucasian, African, Hispanic, European, Indian, Middle Eastern, and Asian?
Isn’t it about being human?
Then why are people so mother lovin INHUMANE?
Why the fuck do brothers and sisters of the world go out and mortally and mentally wound each other?
Why is it that when I want to show everyone love I am labeled a “wanna-be”?
Why the fuck do I get asked the same mother fucking mundane questions?
Why is it that I am generalized, categorized, stereotyped, and did I already mention GENERALIZED?
Why is it that most Caucasian, African, Hispanic, European, Indian, and Middle Eeastern person I meet that lives here in America are automatically accepted as an “American”, yet Asians are not?
“Asians are Asians. Asians are taking over America! Go back to where you came from!”
Oh, you mean East L.A. fool?
Why is it that everywhere I go I am referred to as the “Chinese girl”?
Not that being Chinese is bad. No, not at all, but I’m NOT Chinese.
My blood is of Korean descent. Perhaps I have some Chinese blood in me.
But that isn’t the issue.
What the issue really is is that there is a revolution.
And I AM THE REVOLUTION.
I AM THE FUCKING REVOLUTION!
Why is it that woman of my descent mutilate themselves to be socially acceptable?
They go under the knife to enlarge their eyes, when in fact their eyes are not open.
THEIR EYES ARE NOT OPEN.
They go under the knife to slim their calves,
To sever a chunk of muscles to slim their calves
Aren’t their legs their most commonly used way of transportation?
Is it a surprise that they cannot walk after this mutilation?
Why are these girls surprised?
“A woman’s past can be forgiven, but her ugliness cannot.” They say.
“It is a natural instinctive quality for women to beautify themselves.” THEY SAY.
That’s pure bloody poppycock.
What defines ugly?
Who defined ugly?
Take me to him or her.
I will beat them to a bloody pulp and drink them like my fucking orange juice.
If there are such standards in society then I don’t want to be a part of society.
I said, IF THERE ARE SUCH STANDARDS IN SOCIETY THEN I DON’T WANT TO BE A PART OF IT!
There is a revolution.
This revolution may save society, may anger society.
This revolution may open the eyes of people who thought their eyes were too small.
This revolution may open the eyes of people who sliced their eyes too big.
This revolution may open the eyes of people who judge each other and themselves.
This revolution may open the eyes of people who cannot forgive.
This revolution may open the eyes of people who cannot show compassion or mercy.
This revolution may open the eyes of people.
It may. It may not. It may shut the eyes of those people.
If that’s what it takes to get the word out, then so be it.
If that’s what it takes to spread TRUTH, then so be it.
Because there IS a revolution.
I AM THE REVOLUTION.

Last night was truly an anomaly.

Lisa's 22nd birthday. I got her a very cute transparent shirt that I left in Stella's car. It was great seeing all of the girls again, but alas the venue was not very conducive to conversation, so I didn't get to really talk to many of them.

I was also blitzed comatose the whole time, which I guess would impede my social skills quite a bit.

It was nothing short of hilarious to sit and watch my friends get scooped away in mid-sentence by the waiters who descend like vultures upon the nearest single-looking girl. We'd literally be in the middle of a conversation, and the waiter obviously knew we were talking, when --off she goes!---she'd be dragged away still trying to shout back the last half of her sentence to those at the table. This happened a number of times, but it didn't get any less amusing (although a tad rude to me, it seemed).

I must say that the decorations were really nice, but that doesn't make up for the complete lack of presentable males. Stella and Candice and I went to the smoking room to share a smoke, and right when we lit up, this magically annoying guy suddenly appeared, took quite a liking to stella (or the cigarette in her hand?), and brought back a friend to partake of our tobacco. Ugh. And he couldn't even take a decent hit--ran to the trashcan coughing, while still attempting to brag about his job and company etc.etc., and I thought, "This is why I do not frequent these places--weak-ass guys who have so little game that they need to pay exorbitant amounts of money to even get a chance." What kind of drunken stupor would any self-respecting girl have to be in to ever give any of these creeps the time of day?

I made a brave attempt at dancing, but for some reason I just wasn't feeling the place. I didn't even get up to dance to The Ditty, and i LOVE that song! i can't believe i used to enjoy this sort of environment. I kinda wished I was back where i was earlier that night, in a bar somewhere in k-town talking about preemptive war against Iraq and getting a PADI Openwater diving license.

So here i am, $30 poorer and none the wiser. I never learn.

I watched Amelie tonight, and I am now lovesick for Paris. I was exhausted while I was there, but the sight of the Metro stops in the movie brought back everything--
the strange, acrid smell underground that was a mix between machine grease and stale air, the bright "Sortie" signs, the endless steps of stairs, the advertisements that somehow seem less intrusive and more decorative than ads here....fumbling around in my pockets for the black-striped green Metro ticket, and squinting to see whether it's been used or not...the Seine at night...sharing a joint with a bunch of random French guys who spoke almost no English so that I had to communicate with them in my horrible Spanish...Falling asleep on the bridge to the Ile de la Cite....sitting in the sun in front of the fountain at the Luxembourg Gardens...getting ass-drunk and stumbling around Sephora on the Champs Elysses...I can close my eyes and imagine it quite clearly, but there is a good chance that I will not see this place again until I am in a completely different stage of life.

I need another journey.

"...We cannot see who we truly are; we cannot see that we are not free. This is why humans resist life. To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive--the risk to be alive and express what we really are. We have learned to live life trying to satisfy other people's demands. We have learned to live by other people's points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else."

--Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

a depressing thought:

That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms: that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave: that all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried underneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy that rejects them can hope to stand. Only [on] the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation be safely built.

--Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not A Christian, 1957, p. 107

haven't written in awhile because i am in a state of intense anxiety and anticipation regarding a very precarious but impossibly great-sounding job opportunity. i cant even think straight, i worry incessantly that what may be my only chance at success in life will slip through my fingers as i watch helplessly. why must the hiring process for large companies be so bureaucratic? sigh.

at least i have a pretty fun weekend to look forward to:

Friday: Estrogen night in LA with the girls, take-out sushi, wine, Sex and the City, and Amelie.
Saturday: Split a *** with stella and head to Le Prive (gross!) for Lisa's birthday (yay!) but hopefully stel and i will be too faded to care about the excessively creepy guys who lurk in those shadowy booths.
Sunday: BBQ for Francis's b-day, so i finally get to see all of my old old homies whom i have not hung out with in a long time, and whom i miss a great deal.

hell-mothafuckin yeeah!The Virtues of Promiscuity

went to a concert yesterday featuring (drumroll please) J-5, The Roots, Outkast, and Lauryn Hill !!!!!! AAARRRGGGHAAAAAUUUUOOORRAAAAH! (that was me, screaming my head off inside, though outwardly i was just biting my nails and smiling in awe for 4 hours) so much great music, all in one place....i....was....rendered....speechless.

i love getting away for the weekend--going places where i have no chance whatsoever of running into anyone i know, and where things are just unfamiliar enough to make me feel like i've escaped the drudgery that is my work-week.

after a set of unexpected (though on a level, i supose, not completely unforseen) events, i am now in a state of deep confusion that will take a lot of soul-searching, and perhaps a pint or two of ice cream, to resolve. although i have not read the book, i feel i am caught in a catch-22 where any action i take, even if i take no action, will precipitate situations i would not be happy with. is the rather crazy scattered life i have been living of late something that i will later look back on with nostalgia or shame? am i lying to myself when i say that i'm happy alone, or am i too much of a coward to stay independent? and did my morals accidentally get dumped out with the bong-water, or am i finally becoming comfortable with myself?

what are promises unkept but lies?

i am afraid to hope.

been running around, driving WAAY too much, trying to improve my job situation by going to interviews. i hate pantyhose. hate hate hate!

i feel like such a sedentary drone--it seems like everyone's traveling but me! sherry's in costa rica, mat's all over asia, will's leaving (sniff) for taiwan and japan this week, janet is going to new zealand, my dad and sis are headed to france...dammit, even my evil stepmother is out of the country! i'm green with envy, and feel that i need to make certain sacrifices in order to travel soon before i get too caught up in the daily grind.

i went on what would have been an extremely romantic date last night, by the beach....cozy italian resaurant, bottle of wine, andre boccelli crooning in the background (in spansh, strangely)...EXCEPT---i wasn't with a date! i was with carrie! we both laughed at how date-like C&O is at night. who knew? i had a blast getting all tore up singing "that's amore" and feeling my

notes for the poem a few posts below, in case anyone's wondering where the hell THAT poem came from:

Bridge of Sighs: A bridge in Venice, Italy. Legend has it that if you kiss under the Bridge of Sighs, your love will last forever.

Eighteenth level of hell: The Chinese soap operas that consumed most of my childhood told me that hell has 18 levels... and that if you try hard enough, you can fly around like a bird.

River Styx: In Greek (?) mythology, the river serving as a moat for the Underworld, keeping the dead from leaving and the living from entering. You have to pay Charon to ferry you across. Styx means "hated."

Cerberus: Greek and Roman Mythology: Three-headed dog guarding the entrance to Hades

poor huddled masses: The inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, your hungry masses yearning to breathe free. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

My soul’s sanctum for a seat: pilfered from an Eminem lyric: "The sinner's mind is his sanctum"

“Bring the eternal note of sadness in” : a line from "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold. One of my favorite poems...i have taken to writing the end of it on dry-erase boards across Southern California.

Ark of the Covenant: a very holy piece of furniture mentioned in the Old Testament...with two gold, winged Cherubim on top of the Mercy seat.

between the cherubim’s wings: (excerpt from Catholic Encyclopedia, link above): The holiest part of the Ark seems to have been the oracle, that is to say the place whence Yahweh made his prescriptions to Israel. "Thence", the Lord had said to Moses,

will I give orders, and will speak to thee over the propitiatory, and from the midst of these two cherubims, which shall be upon the Ark of the testimony, all things which I will command the children of Israel by thee" (Ex., xxv, 22). And indeed we read in Num., vii, 89, that when Moses "entered into the tabernacle of the covenant, to consult the oracle, he heard the voice of one speaking to him from the propitiatory, that was over the ark between the two cherubims".

Yahweh used to speak to his servant in a cloud over the oracle (Lev., xvi, 2). This was, very likely, also the way in which he communicated with Josue after the death of the first leader of Israel (cf. Jos., vii, 6-1). The oracle was, so to say, the very heart of the sanctuary, the dwelling place of God; hence we read in scores of passages of the Old Testament that Yahweh "sitteth on [or rather, by] the cherubim".

a thought on predestination.... someone once explained to me that the existence of predestination and free will at the same time is possible because: if God is omniscient and knows the future, He knows what we will do, and whether or not we will choose to accept HIm or not. But, he cannot intervene because if he does then that infringes on our free will. Er...but I've been wondering--doesn't that still mean that some of us are still damned from the get-go? It's like a big, cosmic "I TOLD YOU SO." Is there room for free will? To what extent? I am TOO confused.

strange...my computer at work freaked out on me today, and Word lost all its capital H's and lower-case Z's. which is hilarious becasue my company's name is HHH and i use the word "authorize" a lot in my daily correspondence. i should post a bulletin: You are all orrible ombies and i ate you!!!! (except for my boss, who is cool)

My boss called us all into work this morning and had us vote on whether or not we should come into work on friday. and my MORONIC co-workers voted to work on friday! i was the only person who voted to have the day off!!!!!! i guess these people really feel that this is their career... i gotta get the hell out of there. who in their right minds would rather spend the day after July 4th sifting through files and performing mindless administrative tasks?

Something i wrote while cracked out at work, based on a hallucinatory daydream i once had:

There is a statue near a creek
Smelling of fear, covered with moss
A talisman for those who seek
The memories of the lost.

I look into the statue’s eyes
And find myself floating under the Bridge of Sighs
Falling through the wishing-well
To the eighteenth level of hell

Over the River Styx, its black waters a rising tide
Past the pit where the serpents writhe
Into a room where I beat down Cerberus
The three-headed dog guarding a door
With a placard labeled “Nefarious”
I pick the lock and fall through the floor

And arrive at a church—full to capacity
With the poor huddled masses who conquered adversity
Only to become anonymous faces
In a sea of forgotten places

There’s no room for me in this church
So I turn within and search
My soul’s sanctum for a seat
While my mind rages on to the voice of the proverbial beat

Muffled whispers in the din
“Bring the eternal note of sadness in”

I run, struggling to fight the insanity
While holding my head and screaming profanities

Run through the hallways of time immemorial
Past forgotten aspects of the aural and pictorial

Past classrooms full of mute teachers
Teaching deaf children—past truth-seekers,
Prophets, professors, lyricists, liars
Politicians, philosophers, false messiahs
Throwing their thoughts into a funeral pyre

From the fire I steal a spark
That feebly assuages the deep cold dark
And in the distance there appears
A torch made of tears

And holding the flickering flame, I light the torch
That transports me back to my front porch
Where waiting for me under a dirty tent
Is the Ark of the Covenant
And inside, between the cherubim’s wings
I find what I’ve been looking for:
Myself---nothing less, nothing more.

Went to EDC yesterday. we parked waaay far from the event grounds in long beach, and had to walk back across the bridge at night. the lights reflecting off of the water far below reminded me in a strange way of venice....or the pier at the end of Las Ramblas in Barcelona. I was silent most of the time, wondering how many more moonlit bridges lay in my future... and noticing that parts of the water seemed to carry a different surface tension, thereby causing the ripples made by the breeze to be slightly smoother in some areas. what causes this? temperature? depth? prevailing wind conditions?

in some ways, this edc was really really cool, but i still think it's a bit of a bastardization of the whole supposedly underground scene...ending at midngiht and all. spent the night (as always) talking among friends old and new...spurred on by an aritficial moment that creates a very real sensation of closeness and causes a breaking down of the fundamental borders of learned social interaction--so that for one short night, everyone gets along the way they're supposed to. people whom i've barely met, and who know only an inkling of who i am, seem suddenly like i've known them forever. ah, the blissful artificiality of it all. still searching for the realization that has not come to me yet--about what the hell it is i want to do with my life, and when i'm going to stop partying on weekends like a madwoman. i met BT and he gave me a hug!!!!!!

"Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody is watching."

still though, i keep telling myself that these are the last years i will ever be able to discover my boundaries on my own...and learn to live life, and not just simply exist. but at what price freedom? at what cost enlightenment?

a dark way to end a good weekend, but i will add that i had an astoundingly immense amount of fun.

Not to harp too much on Bush's speech, BUT this is a great article enunciating much better than i could how damaging this speech was. you'd think that with people like Colin Powell giving him advice to the contrary, Bush would actually listen. I'd be interested to find out who's controlling our president. An'd i'm worried about the upcoming G-8 summit (this saturday, i think) and whether Bush will selfishly direct the focus away form helping Africa (which is what the summit is supposed to be about) and instead spew out more bullshit about our righteous crusade against terrorism.

igotacarigotacarigotacar! vroom vroom clicka-clicka cccchhhhhhhcchhhhROAR! it's adorable, but i cannot think of a name yet. fluffy? actually, i'm more proud of the fact that this is the first major purchase i've ever made on my own credit, with my own money. also very saddening to realize that now i have a car payment for the next four years and can no longer abandon everything to travel around the world as i had earlier hoped. but at least i won't have to worry about car trouble for awhile, which is SUCH a relief since i've had nothing but car trouble since i started driving.

i hope my stepmother turns green with envy, vomits, and then chokes on it. i know, it's a horrible thought, but those who have known me long enough to see the evil which has been wrought by her hypocritical, despicable, sinister, selfish hands will rejoice when they hear that she's gonna be gone for at least another month! and when she gets back, $100 says she will attempt to pilfer my car or somehow make me feel guilty for borrowing her car when i crashed my old one. greedy little bitch. i'm getting mad in advance.

G. Dubya in his speech earlier today:

"When the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state, whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East."

First of all,
New Leaders:
"The Arab world will not sleep tonight...he practically demanded the removal of Arafat, the symbol of Palestinian unity...The Palestinians have elected Arafat and they will elect him again. If the Palestinians re-elect Arafat, are they going to be punished?" -- Mohamed el-Sayed Said, Washington bureau chief for the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram

Second:
New Institutions

The following are excerpts from AlterNet -- Indecent Proposal:

"Interim independence and partial sovereignty make as much sense politically as a woman being somewhat pregnant. Independence and sovereignty are either fully realized or meaningless.

Much the same may be said about the president's repeated calls for the Palestinian Authority to become democratic. While Palestinian reforms are clearly needed, it is absurd to speak of creating a democracy among noncitizens of a nonstate under a foreign military occupation and without meaningful sovereignty.


The intensity, viciousness and frequency of Palestinian suicide attacks against Israeli civilians have only increased as a result of Israel's recent rampages and the sacking of many West Bank cities. Israel's plan, announced Wednesday, to reoccupy Palestinian-ruled areas is not a change of policy; it's a continuation of Israeli behavior over the last five months. More of the same will meet with just as little success.

And Israel's new "security fence" is another chimera offered up by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who continues to feed his people the illusion that the Palestinian uprising can be crushed and the occupation then continued in peace and security.

According to numerous reports, Sharon told a closed meeting of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that there would be no peace deal for at least 10 years; that Israel was prepared for a 100-year struggle; that a Palestinian state was out of the question any time soon; and that the key to Israel's security was 1 million new Jewish immigrants."

And third:
New security arrangements with their neighbors
Arafat is currently holed up in his HQ in Ramallah, the roads are blocked off, and as Time magazine so fittingly put it a few months ago, he is "all boxed in." How the hell can he negotiate security issues when he's being held a virtual prisoner in his own compound?

The following from BBC News | MIDDLE EAST | Analysis: Israel's new tactics:

"Israel has a new policy - land for peace.

It is not the old land for peace approach, the grand vision under which Israel would withdraw from most Palestinian territory in exchange for recognition and acceptance.

This time, in response to the latest bus bombing in Jerusalem, the process goes into reverse. Israel will occupy some Palestinian land, which probably means major towns and cities, and hold it until the bombings stop.

In effect, the Israelis are saying, if we have no peace, we take a piece of your land. And if there are more bombings, then more land will be taken. And on and on.

The logical outcome is that Israel will eventually re-occupy the whole of the West Bank. Gaza remains, for now, relatively quiet. But its turn could come if bombers emerge from there as well."

I'm educated in the wiles of media indoctrination and propaganda. I wouldn't let a hilarious HBO show dictate my misadventures. Would I??? Life's certainly been more.....interesting lately. More shocking and definitely more strange. But defintely worth the experience.

This poem came to me (or rather, i came across it---but i'd like to think it came to me) at such a relevant time:

Not Love Perhaps

This is not love perhaps--Love that lays down
Its life, that many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown--
But something written in a lighter ink, said in a lower tone;
Something perhaps especially our own:
A need at times to be together and talk--
And then the finding we can walk
More firmly through dark and narrow places
And meet more easily nightmare faces:
A need to reach out sometimes hand to hand--
And then find Earth less like an alien land:
A need for alliance to defeat
The whisperers at the corner of the street:
A need for inns on roads, islands in seas, halts for discoveries to be shared,
Maps checked and notes compared:
A need at times of each for each
Direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech.

--A.S.J. Tessimond
(19 July 1902 - 13 May 1962)

Started group therapy...er, blog... with sherry and janet at Joint Ascension!


Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn and caudron bubble

it's Juneteenth today, (actually, technically it was yesterday, june 19th) --the day that the news of lincoln's emancipation proclamation reached the slaves in galveston, texas. A holiday of sorts... the commemoration of the last group of slaves to be (legally) freed.

such a sobering thought that although i wish i lived in the 60's, i'd probably be discriminated against if i had actually tried to fit in then.

today is also $1 per 24-ounce draft night!

Why I write (explained by smarter people):

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." --Philip K. Dick (1928-1982)

Doesn't the very idea of being able to manipulate the way in which people conceive reality just turn you on???? (that's from me... not philip k. dick)

---

Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated. We have evidence of this in the facts of experience. Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. The cause of this again is, that to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general; whose capacity, however, of learning is more limited. Thus the reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in contemplating it they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps, 'Ah, that is he.' For if you happen not to have seen the original, the pleasure will be due not to the imitation as such, but to the execution, the coloring, or some such other cause.

Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry.

---Aristotle, Poetics

---

The very act of writing is an imitation of life...an execution of an idea, the metamorphosis of something intangible into action. maybe i write because the very process of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) is therapeutic... being able to create something shows me that i can come to rational conclusions, when oftentimes in the real world conclusions seem forced upon me. Aristotle brings up such a great point with his "Ah, that is he." The pleasure we find in reading stems from the recognition of our own face in the mirror of literature (in Aristotle's point, poetry). It is the realization of a commonality--the moment when we discern within a piece of writing that part which is familiar because it relates. writing (and reading) keeps us in touch with our own facilities for higher knowledge--brings to the forefront an a priori recognition of our own sentience. "Ah, that is HE"--- not "that is IT."

---

"So we beat on, boats against the current,
borne back ceaselessly into the past."

--F. Scott Fitzgerald

hahaha, everyone at work seems alienated by my gargantuan headphones. but you know what? i don't give a flying fuck! and i'm sure that in a few days or weeks they'll notice that i enjoy my headphones, so they'll tell me to stop. but until then, i'm gonna keep listening, tyrannical office managers be damned. better yet, i hope i get another job by then. right now my lunch hour consists of doing thingslike looking up kobe bryant's wife on the internet and joining my co-workers in shouting "hoodrat!" at the computer screen. riveting.

sherry might go to see paul oakenfold tonight. but since i need to work tomorrow, the closest i can come to that experience is shouting "ready! steady! GO!" very loudly in the shower. or i can make weird techno-noises at my cat....but i think he's still mad at me for painting his paws green yesterday. muahahaha.

vicoria's secret had their clearance sale today. so i went and sifted through piles of bras and underwear and tried on a silky lacy thing...then cracked up at myself when i realized that i'd much rather...get ridiculously large headphones to connect to my computer at work....and the eminem cd, and the blackalicious cd. so here i am, no new underwear but a lot of good music and some dope-ass headphones that will allow me to shut everyone at work off.

no more listening to music at respectable levels!

*boom boom boom boom......boom!*

Found thisAstronomical Enigma..... I'm math-deficient so I do not understand any of the equations, but anyone out there who's good at this stuff please take a look and see if it freaks you out...or if it's just a hoax.

so sherry wrote about this male that she met, and from her description, i envisioned the following:

a white guy with dark blonde dreadlocks sitting atop a mound of cushions, smelling of patchouli, totally Goa, wearing a bright monk-orange loincloth and playing the sitar (thank you gina) while occasionally spewing forth random, half-contemplative and helf-nonsensical phrases.

see what happens when i get too bored at work? my mind goes off on all sorts of crazy tangents....i was intensely curious becuase this new mental picture was hilarious to me....but i REALLY started to want to know the true description of this guy when the imagined sitar music started floating around my head. sounded curiously like The Beatles' Within you, Without you, and drove me crazy.

so it turns out that he's just a pretty normal guy. but my little imagination-gone-rampant vignette still makes me laugh.

Went to San Diego this weekend, and learned more about Thurgood Marshall than in EVER, EVER, wanted to know. Also got a little too saturated for my own good, and now i have a sore throat. And i bit my tongue last night and it is swollen and painful.

San Diego is such a beautiful city...I want to go to the zoo! and the beach! and Tijuana!

some inspiring thoughts from a bedtime book i'm reading:

---

Have you ever marveled at how fate has drawn you to someone? Maybe you met the person of your dreams through a very interesting turn of events. Perhaps you stopped at a store you've never been in before and discovered a childhood friend working there. Or maybe you were laid off from work, and for some reason attended a meeting in a different state and met an employer looking for someone with your qualifications.

There's a lesson to be learned from each person you meet. Your contact, however brief or extended, has occurred for a reason. Sometimes when you meet someone at a particularly meaningful time, you may feel as if you're part of a play, sharing a stage with characters you know will have an important influence on your life. Although not all the lessons you learn will make you feel wonderful--some people may treat you badly, others may leave you with pain and heartache--all will have provided you with a valuable lesson.

Tonight, trust that your life is being guided not only by the decisions you make, but also by divine forces. Rather than marveling at chance meetings and interactions that have a positive impact and questioning those that have a negative influence, accept the fact that every lesson you learn is meaningful.

---

It's a rare person indeed who never feels lonely at night. Even when you're surrounded by friends, family, roommates, or are in the company of an intimate partner, you can still feel lonely.

YOu may question, "What's wrong with me? I'm not alone. I have others with me." What you may not realize is that having people around sometimes puts you in touch with just how out of touch you are with yourself. Until you're happy being with yourself, is may be hard to feel content with others.

How do you create happiness in your solitude? You accept the fact that no matter how close you are to another person or other people, you are essentially alone. You have to live within your own skin and be your own separate person. To do so takes practice. For example, instead of reaching for the telephone when you're lonely, you can listen to your faorite music. Connecting with yourself, rather than relying on connecting to others, is the best way to develop enriching experiences in your solitude.

Tonight, pay attention to your feelings of loneliness. Then be there for yourself. Learn that loneliness doesn't have to be bitter, and solitude doesn't have to be frightening.

---

and from an email i received (thanks eric)
Moving Thoughts

Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one so that when we finally meet the right person, we will know how to be grateful for that gift.

When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us.

The best kind of friend is the kind you can sit on a porch and swing with, never say a word, and then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you've ever had.

It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives.

Giving someone all your love is never an assurance that they'll love you back! Don't expect love in return; just wait for it to grow in their heart but if it doesn't, be content it grew in yours. It takes only a minute to get a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone, but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.

Don't go for looks; they can deceive. Don't go for wealth; even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright. Find the one that makes your heart smile.

There are moments in life when you miss someone so much that you just want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real!

Dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go; be what you want to be, because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do.

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, enough hope to make you happy.

Always put yourself in others' shoes. If you feel that it hurts you, it probably hurts the other person, too.

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

Happiness lives for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried, for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives. Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss and ends with a tear. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so that when you die, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

My weekend:

Friday: Went to sherry and janet's place and slathered on Borghese mud masks, watched Sex and the City and Absolutely Fabulous, smoked, and ate ice cream....sweetie, dahhhling!

Saturday: Went to Spundae and had so much fun my brain hurts.

Sunday: Houseparty, and was privileged to witness live (and repeatedly since they videotaped it) a three-girl makeout session.

Weekends fly by way too fast.

i'm reading Dune right now. it's completely absorbing.. one of those books that just suck you right in. i can't put it down...i bring it everywhere...even when i'm only going on a short trip and i know i won't have the chance to read any more of it. it's less than 4 inches away from me as i type right now. caught in the bliss of bibliophilia...this hasn't happened since A Hundred Years of Solitude and Tides of War.

it's summer.. and i don't have a summer vacation. this 40-hours-a-week thing is really starting to get old. i had better go to grad school soon before i wake up one day to discover that i'm 40 and living in a one-room apartment with six screaming kids and a handful of foodstamps. hmmm... but not much better is the prospect of waking up one day finding that i'm 40 with a fistful of benjamins and surrounded by material posessions that i don't have the time to enjoy because i've worked my ass off and no longer have any friends. i wonder if i'm always going to be this unsure...if life ever comes to a point where one sits back and says, "ahhh, i understand." that's probably the moment before we die.

Someone slap this guy. Please. Pretty pretty please???

Bush's United States Military Academy Graduation Speech

actually, it's an extremely well-written speech. very inspiring, poignant, etc. etc. his speech-writers are getting better and better! compare, if you will, this masterpiece of a speech to G. Dubya's vocabulary in the bush-blair debates. hmmm...do i detect a MAJOR DISCREPANCY here??

what bothers me very much about the West Point speech, so much so that I am compelled to rant about it, is it's very well-disguised and very cleverly explained message that it is now acceptable political doctrine for the US to be able to stomp on any nation that even shows a potential for harming "freedom." and who decides what freedom consists of? why, the US, of course!

Some of the more shocking excerpts:

"Deterrence -- the promise of massive retaliation against nations -- means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies."

"If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long."

"Yet the war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge."

"Some nations need military training to fight terror, and we'll provide it."

"We will not leave the safety of America and the peace of the planet at the mercy of a few mad terrorists and tyrants." (Applause.)
hmmm...ever consider that these "mad terrorists" are angry at us for a reason?

I wonder how patronizing this sounds to other nations:
"We will lift this dark threat from our country and from the world."

"By confronting evil and lawless regimes, we do not create a problem, we reveal a problem. And we will lead the world in opposing it."
and right after, he goes and says:
"Competition between great nations is inevitable, but armed conflict in our world is not. More and more, civilized nations find ourselves on the same side -- united by common dangers of terrorist violence and chaos."

A nod at hegemonic stability:
"America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge -- (applause) -- thereby, making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace."

but, immediately after, a claim at interdependency:
"When the great powers share common values, we are better able to confront serious regional conflicts together, better able to cooperate in preventing the spread of violence or economic chaos."
but wait, the disclaimer:
"America needs partners to preserve the peace, and we will work with every nation that shares this noble goal."

"America cannot impose this vision -- yet we can support and reward governments that make the right choices for their own people."
Sooo.. the contrapositive to that statement would be: "Governments that don't make the right choices can be opposed and punished by America." (I knew all that LSAT logic would come in handy).
Again, who is deciding right from wrong here? I don't buy the universal-moral-imperative line when it so happens that the obliberation of those governments deemed "evil" serve directly to improve our hegemony.

an exercise in iambs (and misplaced trochees):

lay it out:
some questions:
Why do i smile when i fell torn apart by antithetical beliefs that claw and scrape at the small strings that bind my heart and leave it tender, scarred, and raw? Would I be able to live with myself knowing that i sacrificed my pride, morals, individuality--for wealth (for after all, it'd be my heart that lied)? And, above all, do the questions i ask make any difference as to whether i will ever finish the impossible task of being somebody before i die? Another suitcase in another hall--do i progress only to fall?

break it down:

some questions:

Why do i smile when i fell torn apart
by antithetical beliefs that claw
and scrape at the small strings that bind my heart
and leave it tender, scarred, and raw?
Would I be able to live with myself
knowing that i sacrificed my pride,
morals, individuality--for wealth
(for after all, it'd be my heart that lied)?
And, above all, do the questions i ask
make any difference as to whether i
will ever finish the impossible task
of being somebody before i die?

Another suitcase in another hall--
do i progress only to fall?

I seem to not be able to get past the second line of the third couplet, although the next line is trochaic also.. but still....*sigh*

If a man speaks in the middle of the forest, where nobody is around to hear him.... is he still wrong? hahahaha

Uncanny...Will showed me my horoscope for the day, and it read:

An option appears where none existed. Beggars can't be choosers, although your first impulse is to hold out for something better. Haven't you learned your lesson during the past few days? Seeking temporary relief is different from signing away your soul. Refrain from making a full commitment until you have a chance to rest and learn more of the facts. Ignore thoughtless laughter. Anyone that makes light of your situation obviously hasn't been in your shoes. It's nice to get a few points for style, but your raw accomplishment is what ultimately appears in the history books.

am i truly free of pain or do i simply choose to ignore? i feel in so many ways that i'm moving forward blindly--flinging myself against the winds of change...the faster i move the farther i am from where i used to be--but am i headed in the right direction?

the days fly by, the weekends are a drunken blur--and somewhere i know i need to come to terms with God--because i feel very, very guilty.

one part of me wants to move forward, metamorphosize, prove to myself that success is not an intangible illusion. the other part wants to linger and luxuriate (or perhaps wallow?) in the last years i will ever truly be free--

and i cannot for the life of me discern which voice speaks the truth.

In darkness soaked, sinking
awake yet still sleeping
not seeing, not hearing
but somhow still feeling

A fingernail scratch
along the spine, down the back
draws a line of red blood
a bright crimson flood

A six-act charade
well written, well played
the delusions you made
while smiling I bled

It's so hard to cope
waiting for hope
some sort of spark
light my way in the dark

a half-second long song
ripples in a pond
light gleams and is gone
what have i done wrong??

love is a four-letter word.

Links to other blogs:

Dave

Mat

Sherry

Janet

I'm lost in nostalgia today, hehe.

My first and only attempt (circa 1999) at the Shakespearean sonnet (iambic pentameter, rhyme scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG) with enjambed lines a' la Robert Browning's My Last Duchess :

I sometimes think that if I searched my mind
and happened u'pon some dusty, lonely wing
of memories long forgotten, I would find
a clearer explanation of the string
of dark uncertain thoughts that fill my head
with premonitions of impending doom
and worldwide pandemonuim. Instead,
I'm quite surprised to find that in this room,
pressed hard against these stark white padded walls
a part of me that wants to stay and hide--
A part that recognizes that life calls
for so much more than I posess inside.

My sanity, has left, it couldn't bear
To face the callous, dark cold world out there.

from my journal on november 11, 1999-- the ramblings of my nineteen-year old mind:

somehow it seems that all my past transgressions follow me around like a shady mist, sprinkling their dewy wetness on everything i attempt, so all that is left is a damp waterlogged sheet that disintegrates with the next rain.

whispers slink snake-like through the room, carried by the overinflated egoes and shrunken self-image of the roomful of people.

through the air, lingering here and there near gossipers' perked ears just long enough for the lies to spread.

i cry out, but no-one hears me. the room has changed--it has become a prison.

---

Bigger, 1999 ---

Hiking up the dark, steep trail, all I can think of is that I wish I had quit smoking.


Somewhere, someone is whistling. It echoes through my head, reverberates until i can hear my memories answering, spreads and grows louder and louder until my thoughts are a cacophany that i can neither distinguish nor comprehend.


The air tastes tangy, like copper. It is that time just before dawn (dusk, i think they call it, or twilight, i can't remember which) when the light is diffused through the morning air, and fog descends on the mountaintop, trees, and people, like a shimmering veil.


I have never left that mountain. I have never forgotten that night, those people, the music. When i close my eyes, memories wash over me and take me back, however briefly, to those few hours when I first felt I belonged somewhere.

They say that fairies come out at night and dance in the woods. I have seen it.

i have been reading my old journal lately... revisiting past thoughts and worries. some things have changed--i have much more control over my irrational emotions-- but other things remain quite the same, like the fact that i'm still completely flabbergasted as to where my life is headed (not down the drain, i hope).

i desperately want to be free of materialism, but lately money (or the lack thereof) seems to be dictating my goals. i can't move out or buy a car or afford law school without money.. but i know quite well that once i accomplish all of those things, i'll still have lots to worry about. it's begining to sink in that life only gets harder and harder, and if i don't keep growing i will soon be overwhelmed my societal and personal obligations that may or may not serve to improve my well-being....

bowl of cherries my ass. :)

so i'm back from berekeley and have a small cold due to the glaring miscalculation i made in assuming (subconscioulsy, maybe even unconsciously) that every other place on earth must be as mild and sunny as so cal. it rained all during the graduation and yours truly stood out in the open and got completely soaked. greek threatres suck.

but on the brighter side, i got to see all the old homies again...not too often we all get together. it's amazing how with some friends (the ones worth keeping) you can not see each other for years and still hang out and feel like nothing's changed....

henda works in this amazing club that's very very nice and had a lot of exclusive VIP areas that we got to wander around in, acting like very important people....needless to say, i felt rather out of place. this strange guy started gyrating in front of me like a belly dancer gone wrong, and actually BECKONED at me with his finger--a truly horrifying sight, and very painful to recount. i stood there with what must have been a look of utter confusion bordering on hysteria... and he eventually gyrated in another direction. sherry cracked up. i'll probably stay confused for awhile.

off to berkeley....

i came thisclose to death or serious injury yesterday. three or four inches and i would have hit a very big, very sturdy looking tree. i don't even really care that my car's totalled, and although i worry about the pther party's medical bills that i will probably have to pay, i feel very lucky to be alive.... somebody up there loves me, that's for damn sure. it just freaks me out that i caused the accident and that i was completely unaware of what was happening... i couldn't have prevented it. funny how a split second staring at a car headed straight for you can really put things into perspective. it makes me shudder. i could be dead right now. inches away.....

i went to visit you today. it was very hot and sunny, but there was a cool breeze near your grave. we brought you white flowers that withered in the sun.

i miss you so much. happy mother's day.

wrote this while hopelessly bored at work....

Beige
Sitting, Staring
at the plastic calm
hiding so well the troubled storm
of emotions, worries, goals unmet
boredom, loneliness, mounting debt
administrative banalities
muttered obscenities
Frustrated, feeling
that i may never escape the
painted, peeling
walls that shape
the boundaires of my self-made prison--
dampened hopes, blurry vision

MatTrix700: i've wanted medicine since i was very young

Wish You Were Here

I once threw out a half-whispered wish,
Flung it out into the depths of an abyss
It floated there for awhile, on gossamer wings,
Borne up by hope and sunshiny things

And as i watched, there came a silver cloud
-it looked so very innocent at first-
That wrapped around the wings, a silver shroud
And then the veil caused those frail wings to burst

And as I watched my wish plummet down
I noticed that there were other wishes too
Made by others, falling, not my own
More than one made me think of you

And wonder whether somewhere in the somnolent dark,
The pieces of our splintered wishes met--
Before your dream, and my half-muttered soliloquy,
Shattered on the rocks of reality.

I was looking through a stack of old floppies and found this half-written essay on one of the disks. I wonder what else i I would have said if i finished it.... and before anyone reads it, i do apologize for the choppiness and the overuse of innapropriate words, and the syntax errors....this WAS two years ago...

The attempt of a moral argument for drugs attacks much broader issues than just the immediate health and legal problems associated with drug use. In order to form a cohesive and adequately comprehensive argument for drugs, the issue of why drugs are stigmatized must be addressed. Thus, an attack on the commonly held belief that drugs are “bad” must argue against the very precepts of society as the world has constructed it. In order for drugs to become socially acceptable, even laudable, there must first be a drastic paradigm shift. Are the values that capitalistic societies uphold really the values that should be upheld? Is drug use labeled as immoral because it is dangerous to the individual, as is so often proclaimed, or because it threatens the existing power base?

It is not without good reason that most countries adopt a strict anti-drug policy. Drugs are seen as a matter of great international importance; among the first international intelligence sharing between post-Cold War Russia and the United States had to do with information regarding the movements and activities of drug cartels between the two nations.

Among other reasons, drug use has been viewed as immoral because it poses a threat to society. In particular, the societal norms of Western civilization mandate a control of one’s senses and actions, and drugs are seen as detrimental to such capacity for control. Indeed, an individual under the influence of a highly potent hallucinogen such as PCP, or in the grasp of a debilitating heroin addiction, is in many ways an inactive member of their society. The drug addict is effectively a non-member of society- one who contributes marginally, if at all, to the advancement or sustenance of the state or government, while at the same time contributing to the deteriorating effects of underground economies and organized crime that threaten to undermine the control governments have on their citizens as well as their economy. The nonexistence of conventional methods for control in the drug world make violence the necessary means of control, thus directly threatening the lives of anti-drug task force workers and innocent bystanders alike. Drug use creates an alternative society, based on different mores and relying on an alternative, underground economy, operated by underground organizations (drug cartels) which rival established nations’ resources and power, and thus posing a very real threat to the livelihood and safety of the citizens of established nations.

The question then arises as to whether the values held by society are necessarily the values that are best for humanity. Is capitalism, and the relentless pursuit of money, any less damning than the relentless pursuit of drugs? People commit suicide due to drug problems, but people also commit suicide because of money problems. Likewise, society condemns drugs citing health risks, while it does not condemn risky activities such as extreme sports. Gambling is a multibillion dollar industry, yet it creates addictions that ruin lives; tobacco and alcohol are extremely hazardous, yet the government wouldn’t dream of pulling the plug on such large revenue generators. It is notable, however, that tobacco does not alter the consciousness, and thus poses no threat to established society. Though alcohol does alter the consciousness, it is nevertheless accepted, thus illustrating yet another paradox.

Societal condemnation of drugs has proven to be extremely case-specific, and aimed towards self-sustenance. Drugs are criticized as deadly and a major health risk, but many indigenous cultures have used drugs as part of their religious rituals without the observed hazardous effects that occur in Western society. Drugs, particularly hallucinogens, cause the user to too often think “outside the box”- an activity that can be dangerous in a society where homeostasis is maintained by conformity.

okay, finding a job in LA has been more difficult than i had hoped. but i'll keep trying, and hopefully i'll and a respectable position that won't relegate me to, say, removing staples out of stacks of paper all day long.

i had a dream last night, and woke up with a very bad stomachache, and generally very agitated. when this happens, it usually means my dream will come true. it's very strange, i know, but i wrote down what happened in the dream, and i am keeping it stored away to see if it really happens. if it does come true, i'll have written proof that i knew what would happen...but i can't repeat my dream to anyone for fear of actually causing the event.

on mark's away message:

"Computer games don't affect kids. I mean if computer games affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching on magic pills, and listening to repetitive electronic music". Kristian Wilson, Nintendo Inc, 1989

a most interesting blog.... The Suburban Limbo

i love paris in the springtime...but i am not there so instead i'm humming this song and checking the low, low prices and growing wistful....New Frontiers - France & Europe vacations

i am too pooped. i refuse to leave the house.

i found out last night that indeed, i partied way harder on thursday than i remember.

unbeknownst to me, i had, while drunk, been dancing (i rarely dance with much gusto), talking my head off about various useless subjects including but not limited to my newly-discovered uncomfortability with people touching me, eating burritos (i have NO recollection of any burrito whatsoever), and even mysteriously disappearing for a period if time, during which god-knows-what could have happened. ugh.

so i'm spending the entire day catching up on much-needed sleep and generally vegging out. i'm even going to church tomorrow.

i went to southcoast earlier and almost bought shoes from charles david, until i realized that, even with the 40% off i could get from stella, the shoes would STILL be around $90.00! then i went to target afterwards and spent $90.00. go figure.

note to self: getting belligerently inebriated and stumbling around LA blabbering about goodness-knows-what, swilling beer and vanilla vodka like there's no tomorrow, passing out, and waking up at 6:30am STILL in LA when i need give my sis a ride to school at 7 are NOT good ideas for a weeknight.

i've eaten an unholy amount of food today. two large steaks (at least 10 oz each) and two small buckets of salsa and 1/4 loaf of crusty bread... and that was just LUNCH. then i went home and saw that my dad had a gigantic chicken on the grill and veggies with balsamic vinegar, and i'm now convinced that i will either explode or shit out a monster tapeworm.

i'm going to see jason bentley spin tonight, yay! maybe i'll barf all over him....

My dad took me to "Monday Night @ the Grove" service last night. I told him I didn't want to go but that I'd go if he wanted me to. I actually liked it--it made me think. Greg Laurie was speaking...and he said some things that struck a chord in me, though I must admit I don't agree with everything he said. Obviously, I still have some major issues to work out with God, but maybe avoiding Him isn't quite the solution I thought it would be....it's just that I don't want to lose myself again. I've never been as closed-minded as when I was a devout Christian. It's scary trying to go back. I don't even know if I could, or if I should.

Off to yoga class!

Why do my poems always seem to end up in iambic pentameter?

Revealed--a dusty shard of memory
Forgotten fragments of a long-lost dream
Come forth with sudden perspicacity
And standing out like Islands in the Stream

Caught and glimmering, shining in the light
For one brief moment bursting into song
The fleeting glimpse of hope I once held tight
But when I reached to grasp it, it was gone

And in my small still empty outstretched hand
Are only aspirations, yearnings, goals
That slip between like silky grains of sand
Yet sear my hands and soul like burning coals.

LMAOWeblog Entry - 03/30/2002: "The Heterosexual Questionnaire"

Les Iles du Frioul, Marseilles, France, April 5, 2002:

It's amazing to be able to sit and hear only the crash of waves and the cries of seagulls and the wind blowing past my ears.


I'm sitting on a rock looking out at the Mediterranean Sea--the rocks are a sunbleached white, and they stand out from the gemlike turquoise of the ocean below. It's very windy, and the air smells fresh and crisp, not salty and briny like at home. I envy the seagulls that are floating around playfully in front of me.

I love it here. It is so far, far away form home, and I'm glad I had the will--and the means--to travel to the Mediterranean again. The light seems more pure, the sun more friendly, than any other place I've been to. In two days It'll be back to "normal life," my stupid car, the innane job, bills, bills, cell phones, law school applications, loneliness....but right now, I'm not worried about any of that. Because I'm sitting on a rock in the French Riviera, drinking a carton of (delicious) white grape and mandarin orange juice, smoking a Mild Seven Light that I lit with my "I love Amsterdam" lighter, and enjoying life perhaps more than I deserve to. Life is good. No, life is beautiful.

In the Basilique de Fouveiere, Lyon, France. April 3, 2002

I climbed up a steep hillside garden sprinkeld with tulips and trees that showered small white petals like a delightful spring rain. The hill was so steep that I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of my camera strap against my neck like a pendulum, and imagined I was walking up the central street in Riomaggiore. At the top of the hill there was a panoramic view of the city, its orange rooftops gathered closely around the two great rivers that bisect it.

The inside of the basilica is gilded to the hilt, but done nicely, with a subdued rainbow of pastel colors. Organ music echoes through the space, as do the footsteps of churchgoers and tourists. The vaulting on these ceilings are interesting--either I've forgotten what kind they are, or I never learned of them.

The stained glass windows are truly a sight to behold--the colors are very nuanced, and I can see the details and shadowing of the clothing, and the stripes on a tiger's back. The side windows (there are 3 sets of 3 panels on each side) are more subtle than the three giant windows behind the altar tht display a profusion of royal purples, reds, blues, and oranges in a sunburst of color.