Goober

Seven

2008-12-22T09:50:00.000-08:00

12.22.08

Last week I gave a girl seven dollars on my way back home. It was during Chicago’s worst wintery cold periods. You have to keep moving or your extremities start numbing up and freeze. Often, my eyelashes freeze together during these extreme cold periods. It really feels weird and kind of interesting at the same time. When you blink, your eyelids fight against each other. With effort, they pull themselves apart from one another very unnaturally. Anyhow, the girl stopped me on my way back home showing me a metro schedule in her hand, pleading for some fare to get back to the south side part of Chicago. I don’t know why I paused and didn’t just shake my head no and move on. The hesitation is what got me. Once you hesitate, you’re required to act charitable or look like a stingy asshole. If you don’t have something, you quickly flat out say no and move on, but the pause elicits hope. You then have to say no, feel sorry, feel like a shit head for not dishing out. For four years that I’ve been in Chicago, I have never given anybody anything on the streets. I won’t give beggars even five cents or any pennies from my pocket. I made an active decision a long while back that I would be fair to everyone and not choose anyone over others. Everyone would get nothing from me no matter how badly they looked or how badly they really needed it. The answer was always no. The action was to always walk on. So where did this seven dollars come from? I broke my rule. Now do I give everyone something every time they ask? She was a teenager or something under 21. She was blonde, not anything special, just an average girl. She was nicely dressed, looked very warmly kept despite the cold, and looked like she didn’t need any money but could be dishing out some herself. I think if she had asked for a dollar or some spare change, I would have said no, but seven dollars blew me away. Nobody who was trying to get money for some booze or crack would ask for that much. They would take what they could get. She was obviously not a professional beggar. I fumbled around and got my wallet out. I couldn’t feel anything with my gloves on, so I took off my gloves, big mistake. My fingers started to lose circulation and became stiff. I felt embarrassed as my wallet was so fat with cash, and it desperately tried to keep itself together. It wanted so badly to explode its seams spilling money everywhere. I pulled out a five and gave it to her and told her I needed my ones so couldn’t give that up. I felt terribly embarrassed that I had about fifteen stacked twenties all saying hi to her. She asked if she could have two more dollars. I then thought, now bitch, I just gave you five can’t you go ask someone else for two more? I couldn’t fathom who would have given some stranger five on the streets to begin with. So having stupidly said I wanted to keep my ones, I had to come up with something else. I started to dig for change. This process was now too much for me. I should have just given her the two dollars and moved on and spare my pained fingers who were yelling at me to get out of the cold. I now regretted on breaking my rule. Why did I pause, what was wrong with me? She wasn’t even cute. I started to pull out change with my frozen fingers. I handed her quarters, dimes, nickels. Then I dug down further into my bag for more change. I managed to collectively have two dollars worth of small change. While this was going on, she did compliment me on my jacket, liking it and saying how it looked thin, but at the same time, looked like it kept the wind off. Small cheap talk I thought, and all I could think about was how miserable I was at that moment. I was weak and gave in to this girl and now I was paying the price. I was having difficulty getting the change out with my numb fingers, and I was thinking yeah bitch it’s a thin jacket and I’m fucking cold. Then I actually started to shiver. I told her yes it was a thin jacket so you just need to keep moving to stay warm. The trick to being outside was to not stop moving. Did she get it? After she collected, she just said thanks and moved on. As I moved away I didn’t know what came over me and why I gave her money. I didn’t feel sanctified as one does after they’ve done some good dead. I didn’t feel like I got closer to accessing heaven, more like hell for all those beggars I’ve been refusing for the last four years. I felt confused at my behavior more than anything. The only thing I could come up with is that no one has ever asked me for that much money, so it had to be genuine, right? They always asked for spare change or a dollar, but never seven! Then I started playing number games and “what if” situations. If she had asked for a dollar, I would have straight out said no. If she asked for twelve, I would have looked at her like she had three heads. Seven was perfect! Then I started to play the gender and age game. I wondered if it wasn’t a young girl, would I just have kept moving, a man, or an old lady. Something was special about her that made me stop, and it really cost me very little, a few frost bites, some shivers, but perhaps it meant the world to her or maybe it only meant seven bucks to her, either way, lucky her. Would I have done it again knowing what I know now? Yes. I would. Nothing made sense to me, so I made a copout conclusion. I was vulnerable after a long day, and she got to me with her soft smile and her nice comforting voice.

History

2008-11-04T19:25:00.000-08:00

11.04.08

The day started with trying to focus my attention on work activities, but I could not. I was counting down to the evening’s event. Everyone was psyched-up and so ready for counts to come in. I expected nothing but a landslide for Obama as the polls’ percent was six ahead against McCain's for many weeks. The margin was so wide that it would have taken an earthquake to prevent everyone not to get to the polls and generate the inevitable win. We were told to leave the office early because of activities that night, meaning they thought there was going to be riots on the streets of Chicago. More eloquently the message could have been something more dutiful like, get out and vote and make a difference, do your duty to your country and leave to office at 3pm to do so. I got tickets and was going to the event, thinking somehow this was a special event only for the 65000 who got the tickets, but little did I know, just about anyone could sneak in, in addition, knowing that a lot less would probably show up with actual tickets while those who didn't have tickets would be the ones storming the place. I left the office as early as I could before the sun went down and did my long run outside. The weather was perfect, and I finished in the dark as usual. It was probably one of my best runs ever. I had too much energy, too much adrenaline, and too little patience in doing a leisurely run because I needed to get my ass to Grant Park as fast as I could. When I got back, I turned on the T.V. and knew that it was going to be a long night. No one ever talks about final results anymore until they have all the facts. They only give projected results. I was getting nowhere with the blabbering news and with these projections. The polls were closing on the east coast in four minutes. Don’t tell me projected counts, just tell me Obama won! Eventually after a quick shower and a quick glance back at the T.V., I made my way to Grant Park in my Obama gear, so politically charged and unable to retain my excitement. I met up with my co-worker and joined the mass of people all out in the streets trying to find the entrance. The energy was high and everyone was exhilarated. No one who supported McCain came out publically that night. They would have been lynched, tarred with feathers, dragged down the streets, and forced to wear an Obama sticker on their foreheads. We didn’t know what the hell we were supposed to go and ended up on the longest line in the world, somewhere on 8th street. I’ve never been on 8th street in my life and we didn't moved one block up in the hour we stood there. I called some people who were locals and they never heard of 8th street either. People all around us were wondering if we were standing in the wrong line. After some time, like an hour, some people went up and promised to call back with information about the non-moving line, but they didn’t call back nor come back at the end. So we decided to jump the line too. It turned out the line was bogus and everyone just entered all at once in the front. Typical and obvious, we weren't using our asian instincts. We got in, and I did my part by calling back to the people still waiting in line who stood behind us to come and come now! We picked up another co-worker on the way up, and I gave him my other printed, copied ticket. I printed two at work. Before we all headed out, he was fretting that he didn’t have a ticket and didn’t know what he would do. I told him we’ll figure something out and not to worry. Well, we got in all three of us on the same printed ticket. They weren't checking but just acting like they were checking. Bunch of goofballs dressed up in reflecting, yellow gear. No one was turned back nor asked to show proof, and everyone who had the balls to show any paper got themselves in. I found out the next day another co-worker just picked up trash on the sidewalk and got him and his wife in. The crowd was heavy and we started to push our way up. I was determined to get to the front. We moved up slowly for a long time, and I felt we were near the stage based on the growing overhead light coming at us. Eventually we hit a wall of people. They surrounding us, and I could not see above the shoulders and heads. I was too short in this particular section. Damit, my co-workers were short too. We were all the same height. I told my co-workers to lift me so I could see how far we were from the stage. We were nowhere close and it looked as far away as the moon. When they lifted me I just couldn’t believe how many people there were at this rally. It was impressive and breathtaking. Somehow it felt like time stopped and everything was moving in slow-mo as I looked forward at the small stage and the mass of people in between me and the stage. I slowly viewed everything taking it all in from right to left. I didn't want to be let down. I just wanted to sit there on their shoulders forever looking at the screaming crowd. It was somehow peaceful and very warming.

Well during all this, I was text messaging non-stop four people at once and constantly taking calls to see how the counts were going. My brother texted me asking if I was one of the million people in the park. I told him I was one of the million and one and he had to give me election updates. My best friend called and asked me where I was standing. He expected to locate me on TV.. Isn’t it obvious? He gave me updated stats and said that more people were on the right side of the screen and less on the left. We were on the right, so we moved our butts to the left hoping for better views and a closer position to the stage. It turned out there were two sections, one for the ticket holders and one for special people like Oprah and Jesse Jackson, campaign affiliates, high donators, the press, and probably those who got there hours beforehand and had a proper pat down to make sure there weren't carrying weapons, passed the lie detector test, and was drug free. We chanted, we cheered, we listened, and we relished in this historical moment. We screamed our hearts out, our legs were in total agony, and we needed to urinate badly. The text messages kept going all night long, and I kept trying to find people and arrange a gathering afterward. We actually did see Obama despite the fact the stage was perpendicular to our view. Throughout the night, all we got to look at was the gigantic TV. screen. But for one brief moment, he walked to his right and raised a waving hand to us all and we saw him. He was a centimeter big. We left amazed, elated, too moved to even know how to express what we just witness. 260,000 people all cheering for the same thing, celebrating the same thing, all crazed with delight, all looking at the new road ahead.

Afterward, we hooked up with an old friend of mine, an ex-co-worker, who decided that morning to fly into Chicago to be part of this rally. I don’t know if my silly idea started it all, but in the morning she texted me at 8am saying “Rock the Vote!” I replied “Totally” and wrote that I was going to the rally in Grant Park. She texted, “I’m so jealous” and I replied, “Join me!” and that's what she just did. That morning after 10 text messages and then after 20 text messages in the afternoon and various phone calls with me, she got out of work, voted, got herself on a plane, and arrived at Grant Park. We had drinks and food till 2am at Rock Bottom Brewery, talked, caught up on everything including our feelings of this incredible day, what lead up to this day, and what we foresee the future to be like in the next four years. We were still high on energy, pumped with adrenaline, and could do nothing but think how lucky we were to be part of this historical moment and witnessed it all. It was good to be with my co-workers, old and new. It was good to be in Chicago. It was good to win. And it was damn good to be a part of history.

Copy Function

2008-10-12T18:22:00.000-07:00

10.12.08

Right before leaving the office for the day, a coworker of mine said that life was like a copy function, in particular a BPS copy function which we use for configuration in SAP. He said you copy yourself from L.A. to Chicago each week. We have the same meetings each week. We have lunch at the same time each day and get to work by a certain hour each morning. You run every day and he takes the same train back and forth each morning and evening. He said all this to create some laughter, which we all smiled and agreed with nods, but little did he know these things torment me all the time. I end up with another year that has passed without knowing where all my days went. The only time I’m not copying myself in daily routines is when I travel, and only when I travel for fun. Each day is different from the next and what I eat and see varies tremendously. There are no routines when traveling and everything is made up as you go.

When I first started out from college looking for my first job, I interviewed with a lot of companies, but only a handful did I actually do an office visit. I had an interview with a company called Morton-Thiokol, the company that makes propulsions and missiles, the company that blew up the Challenger with their faulty O-rings. While there, I interviewed a lot of employees, and they were very knowledgably and seemed extremely shrewd. They were also in their fifties. While sitting having lunch in their cafeteria, I felt like I was in a senior citizen’s housing center. I was drinking chocolate milk and they were all drinking coffee with their meals. I grew very alarmed and very troubled as I saw myself sitting there one day just the same.

So here I am today doing my mini-copy functions each day but my career hasn’t always been the same copy functions. I feel like I had a good run and my work locations have been more like Ben & Jerry’s flavors. Even though I have been working with the same application since the very beginning, I have grown into an expert in my field and extended my original skills to beyond what I started out as. Even still, what is really mundane is really at the micro level. There are too many daily copy functions and I do feel the drag sometimes. I have the questioning thoughts of my existence, my purpose, and the question of: have I given it all that I have to my life or have I just wasted most of it. What exactly is there to give anyway? The only way to get rid of these copy functions is to travel and see the world. It’s the only time in my life I feel really free and alive. There are new things to see, other cultures to experience and learn from, other types of food to taste, and different terrain to unearth. Your stress level should be around whether or not you’ll make the next train or bus schedule or where you will have your next possible shower or next possible place to sleep, do you have enough toilet paper, or where you can find the next public bathroom. It shouldn’t be about getting an excel document out before the deadline to leadership who can’t even bother to open it up, and if they did, they couldn’t understand the damn thing anyway. Your stress shouldn’t be centered on people seeing you walking in late in the mornings or worrying about if people will question your time entry when you take long lunch breaks. Not sure how things should change or could change, but the mini-copy functions are everywhere, and I wonder if my coworker knows how depressing and dreary his statement really is. It’s not something I can change either by sprucing up my days, but I do lose sight of the copies because it is a routine we all do and get comfortable with, having each day merge together, having each day just roll onto the next day, and unfortunately, having every cell in my body age with time and many are dying and falling off, their spunk lost forever. A different coworker wrote ‘There’s just not enough hours in a day to do everything’ in an apologizing email sent out to people fearing that he sent something out too late that he thought was vitally needed. It was neither too late, important, nor was it desired to begin with, and his comment about not having enough time in a day to do more work than he could possibly do, just shows you how focused people are with this useless crap. I find that there’s not enough time in the day to go for my long ass runs or to surf the net or read books or do music or eat out with friends or just do the basics, living! How I would like to practice cooking or improve my French or pick up my art again or workout for 3hrs straight! Ahhh, how nice that would be to workout for 3hrs straight! ....sigh.... They all do copy functions and extend beyond their normal schedules and routinely work overtime, which are super copy functions. It’s a disease, which I am staying far away from, and I can only look longingly towards my next traveling vacation.

Accident

2008-10-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

10.06.08

I got into a car accident a couple weeks back. I was running on four hours of sleep and about ten hours of direct interaction with the business users pissing on practically everything they could think of, and in a place where every corner looks like every other corner. Even with the never lost navigation system, I lost myself every time. The place is plagued with divided highways shrouded by trees on both sides, and there’s me, lost in thought and not gone for my run with pent up frustrations and endless anxiety and stress. When I got hit, taking my entire car front completely off, I was moving only 1 mph. I just let my foot off the brake and looking stupidly to my right when there was only one way the cars could possibly come from. Flying straight down a curving hill going about fifty or sixty was a SUV driver. I was on unfamiliar roads and was only fifty yards from my hotel which sat right in front of me. Right when I got hit, I shut my eyes not believing my stupidity. I didn’t think about my safety, of damages to myself or to the car, nor about the laborious paper processing that would take place soon after. I thought about how I’ve made such a lame mistake. On any given other day, my alertness and my sense of reasoning would have been clearer. I sat there for about fifteen seconds with my eyes closed thinking what a dumb fuck. During the filing and police incident reporting process, I was still in a daze. I admit that it was my fault but from any third person’s point of view, one would have thought it was the other person’s. Someone watching would have seen my unmoving car being hit, ripped open as I sat at a stop sign. Little did they know I had my nose out too far and was slowly inching forward. I had to apologize to the woman who had just come out of work still wearing her nursing pajamas and on her way home. I felt really terrible and as if someone foreign and very unlike me took over the wheel and did what was unheard of by Anny. I asked her if she was okay, she nodded, and we both looked at her car. She only had a flat tire and small foot long horizontal slash on the bottom side of her car door. She was driving some old SUV that was very boxy, old school style. She said to herself out loud, too loud, that thank god she didn’t have her children with her. I thought I made it clear that it was my fault and begged for her forgiveness already by apologizing endlessly when I got out to go see if she was okay. Well at that point, I felt like I should have told the police that it was her fault. There was also a witness sitting across the way at the hotel, the hotel I was trying to get my ass to, who would have backed me up 100 percent. He came up to me before the policeman came and asked if I was okay and needed a witness to the event, and when the policeman arrived, he made the same comment again to the police. I so could have closed the lady out. In reality, it’s not like I did what I did on purpose and certainly I didn’t act defensive about the whole thing when being questioned.

Well it took a long time for the cop to do all the paper work and she was trying to change her tire. She was having problems getting the tire off of her back, where some jeeps have their spare sitting on the back outside exposed for everyone to see while driving. I could have helped her but after her comment and after such a defeating day, I couldn’t lift my soul up. I sat there thinking what I needed to do next, which was to find another Hertz rental place and change out the car. The light was dangling and some sort of liquid was leaking. I didn’t want a tow truck to come either. I could only think of all the cost and time that would come with it, especially when I declined the insurance waver during the initial rental agreement to begin with. Finally the whole thing was over, and I tucked the wires into the car so they were not going to drag on the floors as I drive, and the cop pushed the dangling light back into the car and nothing else was on the front on the bottom, no grille, no nothing. It was naked. The bumper and the entire front were on the side of the road. The lady all of the sudden turned extra friendly and looked at me all concerned and told me to drive safely and that the roads here are very dangerous and hoped I'd make it to the airport okay. She helped me with directions to the airport. The cop also along with the lady gave instructions making sure I knew how to get where I needed to go. I drove at most 30mph on the interstate highway with my hazards on. I was getting nowhere at this speed and going any faster could make the car explode, especially when I didn’t know what liquid was coming out of it. It made terrible sounds the whole way and if I tried to go faster it would only rattle louder telling me to chill out with the pedal. I made it there alright and had to do a left hand exit on the interstate. I was thinking ohhh shit as I was crossing the whole highway going around 25mph for that left hand exit. At least it was around 9pm at night so that was my only benefit.

It took over an hour to get another car, and believe it or not, all they had left were vans! How low could my day possibly get. They then found a suv that I could rent, so I took that and that was a monster when I finally got in. It was so big, I could have fit Willy in it. It also had a never lost navigational system in it, which I used for the next five days, and each time getting lost still the same. I was too embarrassed over the whole incident that the next day at work, I didn’t mention it to anyone but one other person. The other people were all new people I just met, but soon enough gossip spreads, and they all found out. The whole thing was embarrassing because it was after a long discussion about my failure to find the Kensico Dam, the place where I wanted to go to for my run. I had already mention how I couldn't find the dam, which they thought was too funny since it was just down the street. I went up the street. So I couldn’t possibly bring up the car accident after that. They would think I’m a ditzy driver. A local woman there said that the 9A road was a terrible, dangerous road, and I’m like “Hell YES, let me tell you about it!” They all knew before the day was over what happened that previous evening and categorized me as a ditzy driver.

After the accident, I don’t think I went above 40mph anywhere I went. I was driving like a paranoid old person, a soccer mom, and always taking the far, right-side lane and going super slow. Traumatized, yes, but this time I got the full insurance package and everything I could think of adding to the damn car just to make sure that I was covered even if I drove the car off a bridge.

Big Baba

2008-03-31T21:44:00.000-07:00

03.31.08

The big baba was in fine form this weekend displaying all kinds of erratic emotions. She talked a lot to herself as if she was her own best friend, very Gollum like. We had lunch in the same bagel, breakfast joint we normally go to each time I come to Atlanta, only because we don’t know where else to go being no longer an Atlanta dweller. They ordered breakfast food, and I grew faint at the thought of breakfast food. Nothing appeals to me here, and I always have the hardest time figuring out what I could possibly order and also be willing to put down my throat. They both ordered coffee, caffeinated for the big one and decaf for the little one. The big one kept saying that it was strong coffee, really good strong coffee. We chatted and covered the basics. There was nothing to talk about really, and I hate revealing anything about my welfares to them because any info I give to them might as well go straight onto YouTube. I end up hearing it later from random people I don’t even know. I kept the topics generic and tried to get them to talk more by asking endless questions. Unfortunately their stores were always the same. They have only a past and not much of a future. There’s always tension between both of them. I know they would much rather have lunch handled separately, far away from each another. I can’t understand why they still continuously act so juvenilely girlish with one another. You’d figured at their age all those female games would seem rather pointless. If one started to say something, somehow the other one would cut in with a totally different story to make the other one feel inferior. They would go back and forth endlessly, and we’re put in an awkward situation not knowing whose side we should take, obviously neither one’s. After the devastating lunch, the little one decided to walk back to her house on her own, probably totally pissed off, annoyed, and irritated, and wanting to get the hell away as fast as she could from the other one. This little one is so frail and small with osteoporosis, you question if she could make it across the parking lot, yet all the way back on her to her house. It seems like she could hardly lift her arms to open a car door but she always manages, she always manages. She can also drive on her own, walk far distances, get her own groceries, entertain people, and go to parties on her own. She is still very much alive. The big one has physical problems with her shaky hands, hearing problem, and vision. She has aliments all over, had colon cancer, and is in chronic pain, which I’m sure the little one feels also, but the big one isn’t shy about airing hers. You’ll see the big one for the first time after a six months hiatus, and you'll ask her how she’s doing. She'll tells you she’s lost half her vision, her lower right back hurts, shows you her wrist, which is tied up with a wrapping brace, and tells you how old she is, and tells you that she wonders if she will die tomorrow. It breaks my heart to see her in such a state and know that she works so hard each day to stay alive. She goes and buys flax seed oils to prevent colon cancer, gets shitake mushroom pills for another anticancer remedy, endless pills of this and that, and spends hundreds of dollars each week on promise pills. She reads everything, believes in everything, and is willing to try everything regardless how ridiculous it might be. She fills up notebook pages of what to mix of this and that to help an aging sick body live longer. She is disillusioned by health magazines articles that promise her ultimate vigor and what she sees on the TV about miracle pills and what she hears from the other elderly folks in her building. She tries so hard and is beyond obsessed with what she believes is the cure for cancer. She wants to live so much and has so much hope in her research, and I just don’t know how to help her because we are all aging and losing in this battle.

We took her to Kmart to return shoes she bought the other day. She insisted on going to Kmart and refused to go to target the other day. She bought five pair of shoes. She doesn’t get out much. One time shopping at any store could be all the shopping she would get for the entire year unfortunately. She made a comment about her shoes as she was in the checkout line. She said that she didn’t know if she would live long enough to wear all these shoes she's about to buy, but they are so cheap. They are only five dollars! Her eyes were wide and had goofy grin on her face. There was only one shoe out of the batch which was in the twenties, and she spent a long time deciding on this pair, sniffing them, touching them, thinking about them, and perhaps licking them a bit. Anyway, those were the shoes she returned back to the store. The next store was whole foods where she bought two bottles of flax seed oil and some bread since the little baba commented on how good the bread was. She had to see what she was missing out. Then we went to Publix to do her grocery shopping. I was thinking how she normally walked slowly and had her wrist pain going on, so I took it easy pushing the cart slowly on her behalf so she could keep up. Next thing I realize she commented on how slow I was going and she took the cart out of my possession and pushed the cart down the aisle really fast like a completely possessed old lady who just got an adrenaline shot. Must have been the strong coffee. She was lifting milk gallons on her own, bagging things on her own, careening down the aisles, zigzagging all around. She knew where everything was and told us to go get this and that on aisle three and aisle four. She looked on her list and saw that she was missing something and was not sure where it was exactly. There was a pause and we all held our breaths. She guessed on aisle four, and when she got there, she was correct. She gave a giggle-laugh saying how she was right and that goofy grin came back. I love her smile. She does it so rarely, but when she does, it’s like sunshine. She was in a really great mood and we attributed all the hype up energy to the strong coffee she had earlier. Anyway, we were in the milk aisle, and she really wanted the Mayfield milk. Apparently it was her usual purchase brand. She associated the yellowness of the carton with the brand. It was a lot more expensive than the Publix brand, and we kept trying to get her to go for the Publix brand. She insisted on Mayfield but then there was a date problem. Mayfield expiration was April 13th. She couldn’t deal with the number thirteen. She went through every single gallon in hopes to find one that wasn’t thirteen. They were all thirteen, and only the 1% milk had a different date. She ended up with the 1% instead of the 2%. We must have been there for ten minutes, looking for a suitable gallon, debating the date issue, and the pricing of each brand. We did a shit load of shopping and the grocery cart was totally filled to the rim. I don’t’ think I’ve ever filled up an entire shopping cart before. I’ve seen others do it and don’t know how it is possible for someone to eat so much, but she’s packed up the cart completely.

After all that shopping and while finally back in the car, she sighed and said “I waited a long time for you to come back to Atlanta. Oh, how long I’ve waited.” She had two full days of shopping and god knows how long she’s been dreaming of getting those shoes from Kmart. In the car she started to ramble on about how the other baba could walk and drive and do her own shopping. She started to become Gollum again. She rambled on and on about her physically handicaps, her hands, her eyes, and how she relies so much on her children and grandchildren to buy her necessities and take her places. She talked about her age over and over again and how she used to be young, how her hands used to work, how she could see and read better. Abruptly, she came out of her gollum state and said, “Oh what has happened to me. Oh god, oh god, what has happened to me?,” as if she just suddenly realized how old she really was. There was a pausing silence. My heart was breaking. All I wanted, more than anything right then and there, was to give her that magic pill.

Laundry Lady

2008-02-28T21:42:00.000-08:00

02.28.08

I met an interesting lady yesterday while doing my laundry late at night. I usually do the laundry as late as possible to avoid people and this lady was there behind the other side talking to herself when I walked in. I couldn’t see her but could only hear her babbling about something. After giving up on trying to see who was and who she was talking to, I went about my business of putting the clothes into the washer. I found out that she was trying to purchase something from the vending machine, this only after hearing the bottle fall down the shaft and onto the bottom catching device. She finally came around the corner and I finally got to see the anticipated unveiling. She was an overweight black woman in her late fifties and handicapped. At first I thought her disabilities were due to her weight problem and irregularly shaped body. She had an oversized ass that stuck out like ears on her hips. She was wearing all black clothes which stuck to her body because her body was bulging out everywhere. She had black tights on but her thighs were like wall columns and she had folds of fat folding over each other almost oozing out of her pants. She shuffled along as she walked passed me and it looked terribly burdening for her to move from one side of the laundry room to the other side. She said hi as she walked by and I greeted her also. I placed all my stuff in and closed the lid, and picked up everything around me and took a glance at her as she moved around her area. She occupied what looked like three washers or four washers. I went out of the room and into the next room where there is a small gym and got onto the elliptical machine and started peddling. The television was on but the sound was very low, which I preferred anyways because I was going to listen to my music. The remote was on my machine and I changed the channel around so that I ended on Conan O’Brian’s show. About ten minutes into my elliptical ling, the lady came into the room pushing what looked like her laundry cart but without any laundry in it. I didn’t blame her because I took my laundry basket and washing detergent into the gym afraid that it might be stolen. She started on some physically machines working her arms and I just went about elliptical ling and looked on at Conan. Eventually she started to approach towards my direction by pushing her black cart along with her. That was when I noticed that it wasn’t a laundry cart at all but a stroller walker for handicaps. She came next to the machine to my left and was looking at the television. I offered her the remote saying that I wasn’t watching anything and she could do whatever she wanted. She said she just wanted the volume louder. It took her awhile to find the button and then she started changing the channel and going through the channel display menu to find out what was on. I helped her with the page down button showing her how to navigate the channel display menu pages. All this time I was still peddling on the elliptical machine and she settled into a recumbent bike next to me and also onto a news station channel. When I looked up I saw that it was FOX news, damn! Why did I let her change the channel. The news broadcast was talking about the primaries and candidates again. Being FOX news, I wanted to get out as fast as possible and wished that my wash was over by now, but unfortunately, I still had ten minutes. She started the conversation. She asked if I liked it here. I thought she was talking about the apartment and said it was okay and that I’ve been here for three years. What she meant, I later found out, was if I liked Chicago. She first asked if I lived here, and I said yes, and then asked if I liked it here. So I assumed that she was referring to the apartment complex. Anyway we got much further on because she was that talker type, and I was just the person who made grunting sounds and nods. Apparently for the last year since April she was paralyzed with both her legs and her arms. She was in a terrible traffic accident and was now having physical therapy along with medical help and surgeries at Northwestern University. She had all kinds of problems allergically reacting to medicines she was taking and also not being able to lift her arm passed a certain level. She talked about how difficult it was for her to brush her hair and when she talked she had a croaking, somewhat, crackling voice. It turns out she had to go through speech therapy too to get her voice back, which was now stronger and better. It must have been a terrible accident and it took place just last year. What I found out was that she was from New York upstate near Buffalo. I did a double take and wondered why she was here in Chicago, since traveling must be difficult with her disabilities. Her accident and health cost were being covered by her auto insurance and not by her health care. The health care in Buffalo was terrible she said, and she told me horror stories about how they mistreated her symptoms and caused her more issues so now she is in Chicago for proper care. The television showed a picture of Hillary Clinton in action, talking about health care and the Nafta program. She said that that women (Clinton) did nothing for health care. The health care was so poor in Buffalo where she lives at, and the city was poor in general and needed a lot of state funding and help. She’s a New Yorker and knows what Clinton did as a senator, or as she said, didn’t do as a senator. I couldn’t figure out how she could afford living in Buffalo while also living in Chicago in a pricy apartment in River North, getting medical help, and having a child in college living in fancy apartment in Westwood California. She has a daughter in film studies almost ready to graduate this year, who also lives in the most expensive part of Los Angeles other than Beverly Hills or Bel Air section. As I gather more and more information from her, or she voluntarily gave them to me, it turns out that she is pretty well off. You couldn’t tell by what she was wearing or how she was acting in general, but her husband is a medical doctor and she used to live in Stanford Connecticut, another ritzy place. What finally impressed me was who she was affiliated with. She said that she was at Hilary’s fund raiser and how she was involved with it and all into that political stuff, but she ended up not voting for Hillary at the end, but her husband did. She did vote for Hillary when Hillary was running for the senate seat. She also was invited to the second inauguration of Bill Clinton, and get this; she receives Christmas cards from Al Gore. I was impressed. I looked at her stroller walker and on it was a little blue book that was titled “The 10 Minute Bible.” I felt sorry for her, thinking that she was trying to become a quick believer now that situations were rough. She could have always been a believer, as well, and this was fun reading material. My time was well passed the wash cycle 30 minute allotted time. I got off the elliptical machine, and she slowly followed, getting off of the bike. I opened the door for her four times in total: out of the gym, into the laundry room, out of the laundry room, and back into the gym. She’ll be doing laundry all night till two in the morning she said and looked puzzled at me as she saw me carrying my wet, washed clothes out the laundry room. She asked if I wasn’t going to dry them. I told her I didn’t dry my clothes in the dryer and just spread it all over my room and it all dries up by the morning since the temperature was set in the mid seventies in my room. She nodded and said good idea and moved into the gym pushing the walker slowly forward. I said goodbye. Her name was Marianne. She lives on the eighth floor. I live on the seventh. Hopefully our paths will cross again.

Air Travel

2008-01-27T19:14:00.000-08:00

01.27.08

I spend a large part of my life on planes and in airports. It also feels awkward if I’m not heading towards the airport or sitting on a plane. Often people ask how can I stand it, the waiting, the delays, the hassle, mechanical failure, snow storms delays, rain storms delays, drizzling rain delays, congestions, holiday traffic, etc. I’ve grown so accustomed to it so that now I’m surprised when I do actually come in on time or when things go absolutely smoothly or when I get in early, where pilots make it a point to tell you this in bold letters. But if I felt so strongly each time a delayed occurred and let my emotions take over me, my blood pressure would be sky high and I’d probably had hundreds of heart attacks by now. I guess I’m a beaten dog and just waiting patiently thinking how I can get my revenge later, which is soon forgotten with thoughts of hunger and food problems. People wonder how I do it. I don’t even realize that I’m doing it and just go along with it, but one thing that pisses me off more than anything is when I end up with a seat where the overhead light doesn’t work. I’ve been shafted so often in this situation now that before I even sit my ass down, I press the button to see if it is functional. And if it is not, what can I do but just sit in the dark. I once rang the flight attendant to see if they could help out and really not sure what they would actually do. I imagined they would have a spare bulb, but now that I’m so aware of the overhead apparatus, I see that it involves a screwdriver and not just a bulb exchange. Screwdrivers are weapons now. They just do what I do and push the button in and out relentlessly over and over again, but what I want them to do is do some electrical engineering work, get down to the root of the problem and rewire it right or ask the pilot to push that imaginary special button that I know they all have hidden somewhere in the cockpit and turn on the backup generators to fuel the secondary bulbs. That should be one of the qualifying tests for all flight attendants is to fix light problems besides trash collecting and dishing out useless food and drinks to people. I doubt they even report it in because I swear I ended up in the same damn seat with the same damn overhead light problem each time I sit in this section or particular spot on the plane. This is what my problem with flying, truly, is being stuck in a seat without a light. People next to me are usually sleeping or watching some movie and I feel bad asking them to switch the light on for me. There are limited things I can do in the dark, like sleep and twiddle my thumb around basically. Another problem with traveling is when I plan or schedule engagements with people to do once I’ve landed and cannot fulfill them. It pretty much happens all the time because 90% of the time, I’m delayed. It’s not that terrible if I can minimize the error beforehand but if it is a situation in which I’ve landed and we’re stuck still on the plane and just hanging out like mindless cattle in a large crate, that’s the worst. I feel like slamming through the walls of the plane like the incredible hulk and running through everything, steel walls, concrete walls, just to get out. That would be so unprofessional of me, but I can see myself smashing through the plane and jumping down from the plane and landing with a huge thud sound, shaking the earth around me, cratering it somewhat with my hard landing, then stomping forward and bouncing through the heavily congested runway with people screaming and security going chaos all around and then climbing myself back up to the jet way to make my final escape. But of course, I sit as everyone sits, obediently, but I feel the rage building up and there is absolutely nothing I can do but repeat over and over again in my head how unfair everything is. It’s just unfair. It’s just unfair. You get the pilot’s intercom announcement saying something that doesn’t help pacify you but just makes you groan more. You just keep saying, why me, why now, just go, just move, go, go, go. You could be inches away from getting to the gate and it’s just feels like agonizing torture and you endlessly keep checking the time wondering when it will ever end. Every minute feels like two. Eventually they set you free but only just for you to stand up. No one moves and everyone seems to take their own sweet time, like aging isn’t a problem for them or something. I imagine climbing over all the people and walking on their heads like Crocodile Dundee did at the end of the movie as he moved towards his girl. I almost certainly end up behind someone with too many overhead luggages who struggles to get each one thing down or someone who’s so obese it’s like squeezing toothpaste out a tiny ass hole or someone with thousand of kids. In all cases, they are breathing hard as they walk forward as if they were climbing kilo man jaro, and I’m taking what only seems to be like baby steps towards to front of the plane and counting the number of rows I have left on the plane for me to exit. Once in the jet way you would think you could make a fast break through it all, but the large assed ones or the too many luggaged ones would weave back and forth like a drunk driver that takes both lanes, and I’m still starring sadly at their backs the whole way through the jet way and still being tortured slowly by their slowness. It gets worse if they drop something or if something unbalanced slides off their carefully stacked monument they created so carefully, and I must emphasize, created so slowly. Then at last you finally hit the open space and feel what one must feel when one is about to drown, out of air, out of breathe, and burst openly to the water surface gasping the sweetness of air of freedom. You start your manic fast walking technique, but then it’s more like the movie Back to the Future with the flying cars everywhere, where everybody has their own way of flying, or in this case, walking and their own willed directional paths. You end up dodging and changing tempos and almost doing acrobatic tricks to get around people, strollers, those damn stand stiller creating human road blocks! The escalators are the worst. If you are not the first one on, you might as well be the last one. No one moves on those things because America, in all, is totally lazy. They are willing to be lifted, pushed forward by machines because they probably think effort is a sin. Then when everything is all done and you are back in your comfort zone surrounded by familiar things and people you know, you forget it all. You forget all the drama you just had, the pain you felt, all the pent up anger and heads you wanted to rip off, the spiteful words you wanted to scream out, the rage you wanted to show the world but had to show civility instead for fear of attention, and of course, the police. You end up normal again, relieved, slightly tired and exhausted, and the blood pressured is much lower than before. And again as if it was only a bad dream, which is soon forgotten, your thoughts move towards food again and hunger strikes your belly hard.

New Member To Our Family

2007-09-23T21:41:00.000-07:00

09.23.07

Today my brother had his first baby. He stayed up probably 30hrs or more from Saturday morning till Sunday early afternoon waiting for the end to come and for the start to begin. I still can’t believe he has a kid now when just yesterday I remember us being kids ourselves. The impact of it all isn’t about the new life that has just arrived for us and not about how he is looking out into the world with different eyes now, but it’s about us being no longer two retarded Asian kids battling out our pathetic whims with our imaginary games and our pretended play wrestlings everyday. It’s about me closing my eyes and seeing just yesterday - what seems so recently for me - of him practicing shooting basketballs and me being jealous of him riding off on his new moped or us at Myrtle Beach swimming or us trying to catch crabs on a bridge somewhere in Charleston, S.C.. We were just kids and now he has a kid himself. He used to create all these imaginary worlds for me when I was little, where I was Fredric Hollings in the army and we would run army drills or battle scenes with our water-filled Windex guns, or when we would play catch and he would create a whole game where the batter would hit the ball and I would be the catcher, and if I missed, he would vocally reel off about how the batter was rounding first and going to second and he would physically run from base to base as if he was the batter running. I would then have to throw it to him as hard as I could, being so small, and he would then automatically turn from being the running batter into the base catcher and would choose my ball’s fate. Exciting times for me were when the bases were loaded and he would throw the ball as high as he could and it was up to me to make it an official out or a huge loss on my end. We used to toss the football around too and played similar scrimmage games with football as we did with baseball, but that was harder to deal with, figuring out how to handle tackles on the asphalt ground, which always tore me up, so we ended just playing catch with the football at the end. We used to play wrestling where I was ‘Nature Boy Rick Flair’ and he would change characters as he felt. Sometimes we would be tag team buddies and we would be the ‘Rock-n-Roll Boys’. We would reenact what we watched on the WWF that previous night. He created all these fantastic worlds for me and I fell into them passionately and wanted it recreated everyday again and again. And we played everyday too. And now, I wonder how he did it all, how he created all those wonderful, imaginary worlds so that everyday it seemed like something new and fun that I never did before. Maybe I was easily convinced or maybe he was just very convincing or maybe he really believed in it like I did and we were really part of a different world when we played. Somehow he never created one where we didn’t win the ball game at the end nor ever created an army battle where we didn’t come out on top. He was either careful not to upset a small child’s fun, or overall, just caring about me and my psychological state. Whatever talent he had creating for me all those wonderful worlds when I was not yet knee high in height, he’s got it in him so that he’s going to create a beautiful world for his new baby girl, Jaela, to live in. And most likely, she will forever cherish it just as I have. He’ll be a good father and I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t cry or get teary eyed when he first laid eyes on her too, as I did when he called me to tell me he was a new father and I’m a new Aunt.

Good Luck Charm

2007-08-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

08.21.07

My walk to work is still the same, and each day, I’ve been looking for my favorite bum. About a week and a half ago, he finally showed up sitting on the bridge just as I expected him. He was sitting on the upper end in the shade, very unlike his character based on the other times I’ve seen him last year. He used to sit at the lower end of the bridge basking in the sun as if in total bliss, welcoming the morning sun rays. Now he didn’t look very bliss and sat in the dark shade. He had cuts and sores all over his face, and he was looking at people as they crossed by with sad, pleading eyes. He didn’t look comfortable and didn’t carry that happy glow he used to, but looked on desperately with a mangled, bruised face. Before he sat in the sun and smiled, just enjoying the early morning, not caring about people around him walking about, but just enjoyed being there, alive, and if someone happen to give him some money, all the better for him. There wasn’t ever active begging that took place. That was what made him special. I knew from this situation that this was a bad sign for him and for me. As I walked pass and onwards I could only imagine what catastrophic events would occur in my life now. I always funnel it to job related themes, but it could hit anywhere, anybody, or anything. I’ve seen him now several times, each time with the same desperate look and cut up face that seems to be healing ever so slowly. No more happy, sunshine basking days anymore, and each morning I’m afraid to walk on that side of the street where I know he’ll be on, and I’m relieved when the lights direct me into the other side of the street. I was going to give him twenty bucks at the end when I left the project and Chicago for good because he represented a bum that was content and alive, feeling free, being carefree, and a symbol that everything in life would be okay. If a bum with hardly anything could be content, and be pleased with just being out in the morning sun’s rays, why couldn’t I. He was my charm, my inspirational hope, my morning strength, my morning coffee, my good luck bum. Now I’m terrified of seeing him.

Gnats

2007-08-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

08.21.07

The temperature has finally heated up in the city of Chicago, so much that it feels like you’re living in the tropics during monsoon season, and every day threatening to rain hard with endless humidity that makes you feel like a dog had just licked you all over with their sticky, slimy tongue. Each morning I attempt to go for a run to beat the humidity and the on slaughter of the late afternoon showers. Each morning I fail miserably and end up running in the evening’s much loved, humid weather. I end up with bugs stuck all over me which are swimming in all the sweat that can’t evaporate off of me. It’s worse when they start to crawl around your skin and move around your face. You end up picking them off of you while you run and then wonder how many have fallen into your hair. They must be walking about, laying eggs in there. Your scalp starts to itch perhaps by your own imagination of gnats possibly making love with each other using your hair as bedding material. You can’t seem to keep them off of your face and no matter how many you pick off, there will be another bunch that lands on you in a few minutes. There must be a huge platoon nesting in your hair by the end of the run. I swallow at least one each time I go running or accidently inhale one up the nostril. I can't call myself a vegetarian. I have to start all over again.

Get-Up-And-Go

2007-03-20T21:03:00.000-07:00

03.20.07
Yesterday I joined a crowd protesting the Iraq war down Michigan Avenue in Chicago. It went from Michigan Ave to Wacker and down Clark to the Daley Plaza. I left the crowd when they hit Clark. I wanted to be part of it and wanted to be uplifted in some sort of spirit. I ran towards the crowd to join them, glad that I caught it in time, and hoped I didn’t miss too much that had already passed. It was cold outside and I was still somewhat toasty from my nine mile run outside by the lake. Before I joined them, I went back to my apartment and changed into dry clothes as quickly as I could and darted right back out towards the crowd still heading down Michigan. Helicopters were everywhere taking video shots and probably news broadcasting the whole event. I was monitoring them as I was running north by the lake for the whole hour and fifteen that I was running wondering when the protest would start or break and if I could make it in time, funny how I value my run over the protest and wouldn’t dare consider giving up my run and had to finish it first. The police force was everywhere too. Seems like there was one for every protestor, even though the turn out was about 4000 people marching. Most of them seem to cluster around the banks with shields over their faces, helmets, bulletproof vests, and long black sticks poised. Someone handed me a poster when I stepped into the mass. I took it and held it up. I chanted softly with the few chanters around me who were faint and barely audible like me. I didn’t know what I should be doing, screaming or acting civil. What were the rules? There were a lot of cops around. There must be rules. Life is full of rules and with cops with big, heavy clubs ready, I would have hoped that someone would have explained to me the rules. Have it posted on one of the millions of banners for Christ sakes or something. I could have done something wrong, terrible, and been put in jail! Anyway, Chicago is a city filled with meek people and I was too self absorbed with myself and analyzing the entire event. The people are dead. Rocks have more energy. Yet their buildings are bursting with energy, full of so much strength, beauty, and originality. It gives me chills and freaks me out when I take a good look around me sometimes. You feel like those building are giants possessing some mystical powers as they hover over you. But the people are dead as sticks. Some protestors around me were giving tours to other people around them about which building was what and what they called the street they were on as magnificent mile, etc... People were walking forward only because the person in front of them was walking forward. If the crowd in front came to a stop, they did so as well. It was like watching one of those bad movies where you’re totally out of the movie world and just complaining the whole time about the movie and the unrealistically of the whole thing. I was standing there, walking at crawl pace wondering what I was doing, how was this helping, and wondering if the temperature was really dropping, as it felt like it was with every few feet we moved. I didn’t realize until half way through the march that my sign was upside down too, making the whole dead people in Chicago more deadly real. I wasn’t helping the cause, just embarrassing myself and the entire event. The crowd was depressing to look at only because it was so type categorized and had no real motley feel to it. The majority were either old folks, destitute people, or young hippy groups. These were people you’ll find in one of those reenacted woodstock concerts. The crowd was so foreign to me after spending hours in a corporate office setting with anal ass people with clean cut faces with sharp hair cuts and clothes that looked freshly bought all the time. Even on Fridays, their jeans looked pristine and never scruffy. Almost everyone in the crowd look scruffy or worn down either from age or from poverty. I didn’t feel uplifted or inspirationally changed from the event. I felt pathetic and left the crowd to continue on without me after about 40 minutes in the cold. Maybe I was looking for a riot of energy coming from these people or a riot to join in and get myself put in jail so I’d have a legitimate excuse for missing work tomorrow, but all I got was just zombies walking forward with signs, mine was upside down by the way. There were many of them shouting, some microphoning and raising chants, drums were played, etc., but the overall effect wasn’t right because it was all too low profiled and muffled, like a noise cancelling, filtering screen was placed over the whole event. I know it was a nonviolent protest, but you’ll see the same bunch of people having more passion and displaying more vigor when the SOX won the world series in 2006. That night was filled with people celebrating past 3am honking their horns and screaming like they just contracted mad cow disease. So what’s the difference? No beer this time?

Chicago Winter

2007-03-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

03.19.07

The winter in Chicago was rough. I basically counted my days down while in-flight from Los Angeles to Chicago as to when I would get back to Los Angeles. This coming from someone who hates Los Angeles too! There’s no sun in Chicago or at least 6 hours of it or something like that. During the day you get a hazy grey sky and it’s too damn cold to even think about going outside. You’re cooped up all the time and wondering when mother nature will let up. There were two or three times where I ventured out for a run, desperately needing to get outside. Even though I was extremely careful about the ice patches and walked through them, I still slipped and fell hitting the back of my head on the concrete and then as I came back around fell again in the same damn spot, but this time forwards on my hands. Then I tried nonchalantly to get myself up as if nothing happened and tried my best to retain the look of a professional runner while all the time cursing at the damn snow everywhere and feeling stupid at my attempt to defy a frictionless surface and my stupidity of having premature, good thoughts about outside conditions. There were so many L.A. weekends where I would spend hours outside sitting in the sun, like those sea lions I saw behind the fish market in Chile, just to try to catch up on my sunlight. Every weekend, I made sure to avoided all shady areas as I walked around outside. I’m actually still doing the “avoid shady areas” routine now. It’s counter intuitive for me since I normally avoid being in the direct sunlight, hence the hat and long sleeves all the time. During the summer, I complain endlessly about Los Angeles’ burning sun and force myself to go running at 6-7am to avoid the blazing sun, and no matter what, I can’t cake enough sun block on and somehow end up still getting darker each time. Now all I do is just bask in the sun like a desperate plant. Ironic isn’t it. Then at the low point, I start to question my existence and all that shit, sitting at my work desk asking myself what’s the point and all, and then wondering how much money I need to retire. But then I don’t think I’ll enjoy a retired life either. I picture myself as a retiree. Waking up late, staying up late, eating all my meals late, going to the gym late, playing tennis at night, running at night, reading into the night, only consuming, wouldn’t my brain rot? What I think I need is a change. I need to get onto a different project or something. The galore is all gone here at work. The first year of any project is exciting and challenging, full of unknowns and possibilities, a chance to make great impressions and big changes in a company’s procedures. In about a year, things become routine and you’re on autopilot, doing nothing meaningful but just attending meetings, discussions, and writing emails all day. You start thinking about the world around you and how you’ve totally dropped out of that world. The market has changed, you’ve changed, everything has moved forward and you have not. A year and a half, you’re questioning your value and itching for something new to happen, anything to happen, lightening to strike, anything! After two years, you’re about to slit your wrist from the boredom and mundanity of the entire corporate world and start hating everyone around you, even the innocent ones. (I’m at two years.) Then you look at all the slobs there, who have been with this company for 12 years or have been doing the same shit forever, or worked with this SAP product for two decades now and wonder what the fuck is wrong with them. Don’t they see that this entire thing is rather pathetic? Then it goes a full circle and it comes right back to me. There must be something wrong with me and not them, right? You know, writing this is rather therapeutic, not that I’m getting a light bulb suddenly appearing over my head or anything now, but at least I can attempt to try to figure things out. Anyway, I then start thinking about my family, at least just my dad’s side. It’s inside of me, to do what I do, to continue on and have no reason but just a desire to make money, but no real use for the money at the end, but just to have it and have more of it. Sometimes laziness arises from my mother’s side here and there, actually quite often more than I like, but I understand why my aunts and uncles and my father are the way they are, and hence me. There’s no logic behind it all but just a powerful desire, which I question every so often when I’m bored and have too much time to think. Best not to think right? Kids are in the best situation. They just go about playing with no worries and no responsibilities to fill. Their troubles are fleeting and soon forgotten. Does this all make any sense? I don’t know what I’m saying anymore because what ARE my troubles? I don't think I have any real ones, just mental drama. Think I’m experiencing midlife crisis too soon in my life. I should just focus on the next hour of what I should do and forget about the next year of what I should do. I think I need to go for a run is what I think! Sorry for all this writing. It was entertaining for me at least.

Superbowl Frenzy

2007-02-02T21:56:00.000-08:00

02.02.07

What’s going on in the U.S.? Why it's the superbowl this weekend and everyone and their brother should know that! Unfortunately, I have to hear this shit every minute, everywhere I go, even in the bathrooms where I thought it was safe! I'd rather have reconstructive knee surgery than have to put up with this everywhere I go. It's the Chicago bears versus colts and I’ve no freaking clue where the fuck the colts are from. Alls I know is that I'm stuck in Chicago's territory where I can't show any disgust over this overly dramatic event. And of course it's being sponsored by PepsiCo at half time with Prince doing the show. I guess one neat thing is that all the buildings at night are lit up with orange and blue colors and the view from my balcony is wonderfully different than the usual white lights and occasional red, white, and blue patriotic symbolism.

One of my co-workers got a ticket for the game from his roommate who works for the bears and paid face value of $600 bucks. Then the airfare to Miami was $400. Plus hotel, food, everything, I’m sure it all came about $1300 for the whole thing. He goes on and on about it all the time. At a certain point it in the conversation, it struck me that I’ve never met someone who actually went to the superbowl. None of my friends are that retarded. Even they would sell it on eBay for $4000 (what it was going for) if they landed with some tickets, which I would certainly do myself. So I actually told him and others around me that I've never known, in my whole life, a person who actually went to the superbowl. Then I said that I might have to have his autograph. I couldn't really tell them how lame I thought they were because I was really the lame one who stood out of the crowd then, who couldn't feel the excitement nor understand what was so special about the last football game in the season when there would be another one next year and the following year after that. I tried to explain to the girl next to me that my friends aren't into this stuff and really wanted to tell her that they wouldn’t give a rat’s ass, but instead I fumbled around and couldn't give a good reason why without insulting her lifestyle. I don’t remember what I said, but I’m sure I tried my best and still insulted her lifestyle. On the last day, right before I was heading home for the weekend, she sent a team email saying that she and the superbowl guy was going to walk over with their digital cameras and photograph themselves on front of the art institute with the stone lion out in front which had on a Chicago bear’s helmet. Surely they were joking. Later on, they sent a link to everyone so they could see the results of their proudly taken picture. When I got the first email, I accidently said OMG really loudly and blushed for my outwardly, uncontrolled response. At these points in my life, I don’t know whether I ought to cry or laugh.

Just Another Weekend

2007-01-21T22:23:00.000-08:00

01.21.07

So I spent one entire day on the weekend hanging out with a friend. She seemed down so I tried my best to play the cheerful part. We had a late lunch at a trendy place near Venice beach after some people came to take some pictures of her work at her studio. Actually I ran to her house then to her studio and back to her house, 7 miles total. We went to the Marina Del Ray beach area and hung out some before the sunset. It's a terrible beach with oil tankers in the waters at a distant view and then an industrial plant further down southwardly in the horizon with air planes constantly taking off and flying overhead out of Los Angeles' airport. But she loves the beach and talks fondly of it way too much, so I suggested that we go there hoping that she would temporarily forget whatever was bothering her that day. In between, we drove everywhere looking at some neighborhoods and magnificent houses around the beach. We got back and made dinner over her place after walking down the street to get some groceries at Trader Joe's, and the day ended around 10pm. About 5 years ago she was really down and I wasn't there for her. I didn't think it was a serious thing and didn't think much of it at that time because everyone has their ups and downs, but it was actually something. So ever since then, I feel guilty, too guilty, and spend my time or any opportunity I can to trying to mend what I felt I should have done then.

In addition, this weekend I also found out that I’m going to be an aunt. My brother's wife is pregnant. I’m happy for them since this is what they wanted and planned for. It also freaks me out and makes me feel lightheaded and somehow sickly frighten inside. When I came back from Argentina, Yimei had her second baby, which I was prepared for. But what shocked me more was that my other friend in Vancouver had his second child, which I had no clue about whatsoever. Pictures just came to me and the realization of time passing horrified me. How long can I pretend I’m 22? Will I still be wearing teenage clothes when I’m 40? How the heck did I get so old so fast? Can I find that yellow liquid flask and drink it as they did in Grimus? Somehow I cannot see myself taking the yellow potion. I think if the yellow and blue could be mixed and a green liquid formed allowing prolonged existence but not infinite life forever, I could do a bottoms up on that concoction.

What Can I Say

2006-11-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

11.08.06

Today’s a great day. We won both the house and the senate. I’ve waited six years for this day. Now will president Bush work with the congress he has or continue work only with the congress he wants. There were discussions about impeachment, which I greatly wanted, and I mention this topic to a co-worker of mine. She said it was a waste of time because after all the investigations, questioning, and legal processing were over, his two year term would be up. I just stared at her and despised her even more than I originally despised her to begin with. This Friday was her last day on the project, and it was due to her negligence and stupidity that put her in that position. We regrettably looked down on her because of her lack of knowledge, non-existing skill sets, and poor project management tactics. She was in a position of power and she was ineffective. Putting all that aside and at this point in time and with that statement of hers, all I could think about was how she could make such a comment and knew in my gut that she voted for the bastard to begin with. I told her it’s not about time, it’s about setting things right, to bring out the wrong, to show the public how the GOP abused their position and took advantage of the situation. How Bush acted like a dictator rather than a leader. How one sided everything was, how negligent their party was, how vice president Cheney’s ex-company reaped the benefits of all the drillings, post-war revivals, and dishonestly won the bid. It’s showing that when one or many does wrong, they don’t get away with it. They should pay for the mess they created, repent, suffer, be ashamed. Time is not a factor here. It’s the wrongness. She then cocked her head, looked at me, and then agreed, but only agreed superficially. She just wanted to end the conversation and not start a battle with me. I just looked at her and then away and knew I should have known better than to have talked to someone who lives in Texas.

China

2006-08-24T19:55:00.000-07:00

08.24.06

A week from today, we will be flying to China where we will be eaten alive by a country filled with people who gets only three grains of rice a day: one for breakfast, one for lunch, and then one for dinner. Good thing we are not fat looking. I plan on slimming down some, so they will look at Arthur with more interest.

L.A.

2006-07-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

07.30.06
I’ve been so busy with the move to L.A and never finding time to take time out and enjoy the good life of internet postings. I’m still out of internet access over the weekends because I’m still in the process of setting things up in LA, and trying to squeeze in my personal stuff during corporate work time is just against all work ethic policies, which I follow with strictest regimen. I don’t like the west coast and am planning on moving back to the east, not so long if I can will it. The people out here are terrible. I don’t even know how to describe it, but they generally just suck. I find this to be truer as you move more and more west away from the east. They are not nice and hardly friendly and just plain awful. I’m going to China in a month, and I hope an earthquake takes place and knocks out most of them before I return. There’s so much money out here too! Somehow I need to get a handful of some myself or milk them out of it. I don’t know where they get it all from, but my guesses are from people who likes to go to the movies a lot and people like me who purchases random music all the time. The secondary market is filled with lawyers, agents, advertisers, etc., who make way too much money as well. I feel so poor out here. Actually, that’s probably a fact not a feeling. I definitely don’t like how they dress. I’m more the grungy New York type, lower, east side. I can’t possibly wear black all the time. It’s freaking sunny all year round and it’s stifling hot these days. The palm trees are just for show and don’t provide any relief or coverage anywhere. The food is excellent though. Even the lower rated places are pretty damn good and the fruits are to kill for. They are all so health conscience here. You can get brown rice sushi. Traffic, as you know, just helps out Bush’s war and driving a manual is making me have big calves. All the soccer players will soon envy me! There’s construction everywhere on L.A. highways', especially around santa monica. Don’t you just love state road work. I’m living near this awful mess - santa monica, westwood or lower beverly hills and I’m always stuck in traffic, and the road work just makes everyone drive so much faster. I see Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Lotuses, everywhere, all stuck in traffic showing off their 0-10 acceleration speeds. It kind of makes my Honda look like mother teresa, but at least we all go the same speeds, and I normally win, since I've no fear of scratches, dents, nor having my bumper being ripped off. So, I’m trying not to get a tan and trying not to get plastic surgery, but instead I’m going to get a tan and going to get plastic surgery. Before you know it, I’ll have big boobs and blonde hair and look like pamela anderson. You all will freak out for sure.

Monkey Days

2006-03-26T22:13:00.000-08:00

03.26.06
It’s weird that all you need is money to go places, see places, and to do pretty much anything you want to do. I’m on the way to LaGuardia airport in the Connecticut Limo, and it costs me ten bucks to get to the Limo office center using the local taxi and then sixty-five dollars for the ride to the airport. Sixty-five here, ten dollars there, it’s just money spent to make my life easier, and it’s not even my money to begin with! Somehow by some means, I feel that something terrible is going to happen to me. I’ve been fortunate for far too long and feel that my time is about up, that my dues are about to come, that some sort of life payment will be asked of me. I feel like I owe someone or something something. I look at my colleagues and their wastefulness, their lives being too easy, their spoiled manners and habits, and I wonder how far off I am to them. Something has to give, and days like this one in particular, I wonder if I’m pushing my karma buttons even more than I should, testing the limits, and ultimately causing greater problems for the end for me. I’m becoming ridiculously more superstitious as I age, and yet, I hypocritically ridicule those who act the same. I even challenge them, but then I’m the one carrying around a monkey with me to ward off evil spirits from this Dog year that we are in. This monkey business started one day after the New Year when my mother called me up and said that I needed to surround myself with monkeys. I started to laugh and she said in that stern motherly voice, “you laugh now and you’ll see….” Then there was an eerie ten seconds of silence. So then I asked what kind of monkey. She wasn’t too clear, which is normal coming from her as she probably only heard the gossips around her work. She only knew that the Dog Year was a bad omen for me, and I needed to surround myself with monkeys. Great! So that weekend, I spent some time in toy stores looking for a good monkey. I had to look at the monkey for a whole entire year so it had better be cute. I didn’t realize that there were so many foul looking monkeys out there, some rather menacing and very scary. But eventually I found a Curious George one that was super cute. Then I printed out pictures of monkeys and placed them up at my desk and in my apartment. I also put a picture of a monkey on my cell phone, so every time I got a call and opened up my phone, I’d see the monkey. I put Curious George on my work desk, and he stared at me in delight. Later on my mother gave me a jaded monkey necklace to wear. I attached it to my inner book bag’s compartment knowing that I pretty much carry that darn bag everywhere I go. I had little interest explaining to people why I had a monkey around my neck. Later on, I thought about listening to the band, Monkees, but thought that was going way too far. The thing is if it won’t hurt or require too much work on your end, so why not just follow the nonsense and take precautions? It could only help, at least it could just be neutral overall, so why not. At the very end of all my monkey business, it did do what it intended to do, which is protected me from the evilness of the world. Well so far! But when too much good comes along or when nothing bad has come about for awhile, I begin to wonder if it can continue on like this, especially when all your life you’ve been on the losing side or the side that barely breaks even. Which reminds me, so I found a dollar yesterday or maybe it was the day before, but it just came rolling towards me like an ordinary piece of paper blown right into my paws as I bent over to pick it up. It came right into my hands, and I deposited it right into my pocket just as quickly as it came to me. Then I looked up the street expecting more and thinking how great it would be if it were like in the movies where money just starts coming down from the sky because some bad guy, that’s newly turned good guy, decides to dump a bag of money off the tall building to prove the point that money is meaningless and their ways have changed, and I’m on the bottom collecting and saying “yes, money means everything” and greedily stuffing my pockets in glee. For the next two minutes I anticipated someone to holler about their missing money, a dollar in this case (lets not get too upset here), but no cries heard, and not much time after that, I spent it on a hot bowl of soup at Ivy Noodle. You know, I think I’m going to really like these monkey days.

New Haven's Winter

2006-02-13T22:39:00.000-08:00

02.13.06

Yesterday I was suppose to fly out but was completely snowed in in Connecticut. The snow started on Saturday night and continued on till Sunday evening, gathering up to anywhere from fifteen inches to over twenty-four inches. My brother called to say that he was shoveling snow nonstop from ten in the morning until way past noon. At the beginning, the snow went up to his knee caps. My brother is six foot three, and he doesn’t have stubby legs.

It was the nice fluffy snow that blew around lightly, and it endlessly kept pouring down. It was easy cleaning the snow off the Volvo because it didn’t harden, but instead, it lightly stacked on top of each other. It was wonderful to look at especially with the blanket of white everywhere and the calm silence that comes along with it. Somehow snow deadens all sounds, partially because cars aren’t around driving around anymore and all the birds and animals are all tucked away hidden. The snow covers the windows, the roofs, leaves, trees, and everything becomes hushed. You get a sense that time has stopped and everything has come to a frozen halt except for the white speckled snow that still lightly floats down around you. The only thing you can hear is the wind, your breathing, and your steps. And also the wind is only the air around your ears and not the air cutting across the trees or buildings. Everything has been deaden with a carpet of snow. Everything is super duper white, clean white, almost pristine. The air is extremely crisp and fresh. You get a sense of awe when you look around. You’d never thought there were so many shades of white all around you. Somehow everything that used to have rough features becomes automatically soft and innocent in style. The old buildings look priestly as it hovers over you, and the big pine trees look like edible sugary powdered trees all sprinkled head to toe with snow. Unfortunately, this will probably the last time that I will ever see such a fine beautiful thing in New Haven. This will probably be the last time I will see Yale covered so finely white ever again.
Yesterday was New Haven at its absolute winter’s best.

Bowling

2005-08-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

08.10.05
So I went bowling yesterday with some work people. The combination of people, bowling, and my social inhibitions should set the mood already. They served table food hot dogs and hamburgers that made me felt like toxic waste afterwards. They had free booze and wine but that was the last thing I needed, to be tipsy and surrounded by bunch of bowling co-workers. I just might say something nice. Drinking makes me feel less agitated around people and more tolerable towards them. As the famous saying goes, I drink to make other people around me interesting. They were playing music videos on big screens above the bowling pins. It went from late seventies to current day music, so I had a bad Elton John songs coming from his old days when he wore those big red framed glasses of his. They played Weezer’s Buddy Holly and some Simple Plan song, Peter Gabriel’s Shock the Monkey, and other various good and bad songs. I drank water and ice tea and ate non-stop to kill my boredom. I started to bowl with my left hand, which then I became interested in the game. I knew I’ll be frustrated if I tried to bowl and tried to get a good score and only ended up with something average no matter how hard I tried. I’m never going to bowl again unless some obscene, forced, networking event makes me feel obligated to attend another social event as glamorous as this one. So, I had no will to play as well as I could, and I definitely didn't want to leave the place as a frustrated bowler. That’s always the case with me. But, being lefty really made things fun for me. I actually didn’t expect to do well and that created an interesting challenge for me. I even got a strike as a lefty, but the catch was, was that I couldn’t do it again, well not with my right either, but at least my conscience wasn’t connected to my arm as I threw the ball down and out with my left hand. While throwing with my right hand, all I could think of was how it would be better to be undergoing reconstructed knee surgery at this point. Everyone there was really having a good time. There were cheers, high-fives, screams. Everyone played in paired teams two against two. My partner was such a lousy bowler. I can easily crush him with my right hand, eyes closed, feet tied together, and gagged. Together, we were sensational at being the lowest scoring team. My partner was really trying too, which was sad. He was sweating profusely like a pig, trying so hard to get nothing but gutter. Everyone else was doing swell and full of laughs and cheers. I was morose and wondered why I couldn’t connect with these people, ever, and just continued to gain weight by the minute eating toxic waste.

Watermelon

2005-08-03T20:19:00.000-07:00

So, I worked out last week, Wednesday night, and finished sometime after 8 and was really thirsty. All I could think about was getting a watermelon to quench my thirst. So I started walking back to my apartment and knew I would pass by a used bookstore in which I had been meaning to go to since Monday. I joined a book club here at work, like your roommate did in HD, and I'm forced to buy and read a book by Hadden or Haddon, "Curious Incident of a Dog....." I know I got the title wrong. The book blows so don’t bother. Anyway, so I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts and it was chilly outside and my clothes were still sweaty-wet from working out. I got the book, unfortunately new, and didn’t have a chance to browse too much around the store because I was starting to lose feeling on my right thumb. Then I walked on and up a couple of blocks to a grocery store. I'm already frozen by this point and looked at all the watermelons they had. It cost 4.99. I had my computer bag with me on my back, my extra gym bag with work clothes, shoes hanging from me, and a pretty sizable container of unfinished leftover lunch in my hands in a brown paper bag. There's no way I could carry a watermelon back with me nor even bring it up to the counter to pay for it. They were all big and sized like a 30lb dog, probably 2.2feet in length. So, I decided to buy grapes instead because they were on sale. I didn't really want something as sweet as grapes with so little water content comparably to the all watery watermelon, but I was there already. As I was checking out, which seemed to drag on forever, I had three people ahead of me and was irritated by the slow process. The third person was a little Chinese man holding a huge watermelon. He was all grins. So I finally checked out, still freezing, and walked towards my apartment like a battered block of ice. I got there and threw everything down and took a hot bath. Second round, I was still determined to get a watermelon. Went to a different grocery store hoping I would get a better bargain. Watermelons there were 5.99, bad luck, and not many to choose from. I thumped them like a professional melon picker not knowing what sounds I should be hearing that would say it was a winner. I picked one up and didn’t realize how heavy they really were. The little Chinese man didn’t seem to have any problems, with all grins too, but I had some trouble because it was on the upper self above the cantaloupes. I finally got one into my hands and brought my outstretched arms closer in to me. The thing slipped and I believe I was trying to save it by lifting up one of my legs to kick it or something. Sort of like how soccer players bounce the ball around their thighs and front top feet. Well the thing split on my right thigh and went everywhere on the floor and on my cargo pants. A worker there saw the whole thing. And I said, “Oh No!” really loudly……but the “Oh No” was for the pain of paying 5.99 for a watermelon I was never going to eat and the bloody stain created on my cargo pants. He said it was alright and picked up the pieces and took it back for, I assume, trash or for warmer feelings to feed the homeless. Now I had even less watermelons to choose from, about five. I started thumping again, this time more experienced. I picked up another watermelon and put it, this time, into a shopping cart. My original plan was to carry the watermelon out to the check out counter with my bear hands, but I didn’t want another crazy incident to occur. They might just force me to pay for all the smashed ones. That would be my bad luck, too embarrassing, and I’m cheap. So pushing the cart around which just provoked me to buy other things. So the next thing you know, I’m shopping for other heavy things like two carton quarts of orange juice and got myself some chocolate pudding, all liquid purchases. Never go grocery shopping when you’re thirsty. Carrying it all back to my apartment in my book bag was quite a strain on my shoulders and back. I’ve forgotten how weak I am compared to those muscular girls in the muscle magazines. I had to lean forward most of the time to counter the weight of the watermelon to balance myself, otherwise I would have flopped over on my back and most likely make another messy watermelon show on the sidewalks of Chicago or stupidly look like one of those turtles helplessly forever on their backs, legs flailing, hoping for a miracle to happen. The leaning was really apparent when I wasn’t moving, especially when I had to wait for a light to change in my favor. I made it back to my apartment and carefully unloaded everything, treating the watermelon like a sensitive dinosaur egg. I washed it and cut the thing into two and then the half into fourths and then the fourth into chewable slices. The other half I wrapped up in plastic bags and the fourth, I put it into a tupperware and with both, into the fridge. I finally sat down with my plate full of watermelon and reaped the rewards of its content. Disappointedly, I had better melon, but my wait was too long, so I wasn’t going to complain. Was there a point to all this, no, but I’ve got nothing to do at work but write stories.

Saying Goodbyes

2005-02-09T22:22:00.000-08:00

02.09.05

Chinese new year is today. The year of the rooster. I'm still at Company X where in about three weeks it will all come to an end and I will start another life somewhere else. It's been about a year and a half since I started, had two birthday pass, two new years, Chinese, Jewish, and the World's new year. Life is so unpredictable and so is my fate no matter how hard I will it. How incredibly dark it looks ahead from where I sit, no break in the clouds, just darkness. Dark simply because there's no light, no hint of what will be coming ahead for me. I might be sitting around for six months doing absolutely nothing but hoping that something good may happen. Waiting is torture. It's like a girl waiting to know if she's pregnant or not, looking constantly at the test indicator for it to tell the results to her. It's not about the actual outcome that's killing her, then. Whether or not she's pregnant is just the next stage to take care of. It's about the waiting period, the constant looking at the timer, the countdown, the heart digging deep into the lower chest feeling, the empty, staunch stomach feeling. You can move forward after the results come out. You can act on it, resolve it, build on it, or do something about it, but before that piece is secured, everything is bleak and pure pain and your hands are tied till the time passes. So my time to wait is longer than the test indicator's and each day is worse than the next. I tried not to get emotionally attached to anyone at Company X. I've made acqaintiances, of whom I've maintain as co-workers, only, and never allowing them to cross over into the world I live in, but only into the world I'm pretending to live in. This way the goodbyes will be easier for me and my last steps out of the building won't be so heavy.

Testing Days Are Over

2005-02-06T22:08:00.000-08:00

02.06.05

I received a phone call from an unexpected person the other day. About six months ago, I worked with her and probably went out a total of four times after work with her, but always with a bunch of people and never alone. Even so, I felt that her focus was mainly on me, partially because she always sat next to me or right in front of me where she could always keep an eye on me. When I started to fade out into my own thoughts, away from the conversation, which I often find myself doing due to boredom with boring people about boring subjects, she would pull me back in to make sure she was still the center of my attention. She would simply use my name somewhere in her long energetic spiels, and I would instantly snap back into the conversation wondering what I missed. Our eyes would quickly lock; generally acknowledging whatever was said about me was indeed true. Though I have no idea what was said about me, I was sure it was alright and I took it in agreeably. Besides, I was sure that someone would object if the statement didn't hold water, in which all my other consulting buddies would gladly do in a heartbeat. They were not shy of words nor relenting when it came to verbal attacks on me. To describe her though, she was a high strung, energetic, fast talker who was fond of using the word 'like'. Without looking at her and just listening, you would think she was a preppy cheerleader chirping away endlessly about nonsense. She was thin as a rail and towering around six feet, about one hundred twenty pounds, and to top it all off, of Indian decent. You don't find those often, if ever. You could break her like a twig, but her height would frighten you from even thinking of such a thing. Spending ten minutes with her made you feel extremely exhausted. It might even make you feel like you've been living a life at a retarded pace. Then you start thinking about what things you might have missed out in life or what you could have accomplished if you lived at her pace. You can't help wonder what goes on in her mind when she's completely alone without any interaction with people to transmit that energy to.

So last week she called me up randomly and was in even higher spirits than I've ever experienced with her in the past. It was about passing a test that she's been fretting about for weeks or maybe even months. I congratulated her and wondered why the heck she would call me of all people to declare her great victory. Prior to this unexpected call, I also bumped into her unexpectedly. She showed up for a consultant’s party after work. I was very surprised to see her there since she wasn't part of the project anymore nor was she related to the consulting firm that was picking up the bill. I, as usual, sat next to her and she was rabid with energy, laughing, clinging on my arms, shrilling with delight to about every small thing that was said around the table. I must admit, I was generally glad to see her again. It reminded me of the good times when the entire Canadian clan was still around. They all made it seem that working at company X was secondary compared to our after hour get together, which became the primary focus of our days in Atlanta.

So, that week on my flight back to Hartford, I was thinking about the whole process of studying, exams, college, high school, etc... So when the call came with her test results the following week after our meeting, she seemed so pleased with her passing, but did she realize what she had to go through to get to that point? Did she enjoy it, the win as well as the process of getting there? It turns out she passed barely with only two points over the threshold limit, getting a mere seventy-two by squeezing by on a seventy point passing zone.

During my educational period, I didn't think much about the process. It was something that I did, something that everyone did. My brother went through it, my father, my mother, and my friends. I did the same. I went to classes, studied, worried about exams, took exams, and got good marks, graduated with honors because that was the whole point, right? School wasn't ever hard for me nor was it pleasant, but at that time I couldn't think of anything more to do but stay in school as a professional student. Out there, in the real world, it was a menace filled with grownups that acted unnatural, talked unnatural, moved and even smelled unnatural. Even in school, where I thought I was isolated, I got a taste of them everywhere I went. The administrative offices, the health services, the bursar's office, those secretaries where the worst of the lot. Other than these annoying bad spots on campus which everyone had to go to and deal with, I couldn't fathom leaving such a free bohemian lifestyle where the rules were mainly set by me. As for the exams and homework, I did them because they were asked of me to do, but now as a veteran of the educational system, I can't understand why I went through those small tortures of exams, studying, and worrying about the finals. I hated them then, and now I abhor them even more. As for the structure, it's pretty much the same. You are still surrounded by idiots everywhere you go. People who have provincial beliefs, who can't see further than the length of their arms. You still have the diverse people to work with and different administrative people to deal with. The only difference is the structured eight to five o'clock job as opposed to the twenty-four hour job you have as a student. You could probably isolate yourself more as a student, but at the end, you are still measured by the same way, by some stupid result, a useless performance review by someone absolutely unaware of your position or some useless test that you won't ever apply to anything in the future, and you still have to deal with people that you probably don't like, or in my case, people I hate. So my unexpected caller went through studying, testing, and the old standard process to ineffectively evaluate someone's ability to cope with others because her company required her to do so to prove that she's able to function out there as a consultant.

So if my employer asked me to take an exam, what would I say? I would probably consent and do it, but why? Why wouldn't I tell them to fuck off and that my testing days are over and done with, take me or leave me alone. I'm not going back to doing things that I didn't appreciate in the past, so why do them now. Everything I did or learned in college, I have not applied one thing from them at work. I had to really recondition myself coming out of college to cope with people outside the academic world. It was one of the hardest things I had to work on. Even today I still have tremendous, detrimental relapses here and there that creep up unexpectedly, and I have to hold myself back. Sometimes my natural old college self flares up unexpectedly, and I say inappropriate things that would make me feel really good at that moment, but at the same time, makes me feel ashamed for allowing myself to show my emotions. The schools need to have courses to help transition people from one world into the next, not history tests or health courses.

While in college, I once challenged some dozen or so deans over useless courses that were required by the state of Georgia at the expense of other courses that I was actually interested in, but I didn't get very far with my words. I was drowned by all the other useless people there who reassured the deans that the academic process was doing the right things in all the right ways. I left disgusted, but slightly content by having a free lunch and another reassurance that I truly hate people.

We do things because it's standard practice or just do things because normal people say it is a normal process, but no one questions standard processes. No one challenges standard procedures. If someone says there's a qualifying exam to take to see if you could work for them, you'll go on and take it. How sad. Why did I act like such a zombie back then and how disappointedly and disgracefully I would probably still act today if someone asked me to take a test just to prove absolutely nothing worth proving. I guess it's all about giving up something small for returns of something greater. We do it every day, why not the next day and the next?

Goodbye Friend Hello Music

2004-05-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

05.18.04

A closing grey day, a day that ended by seeing and saying goodbye to a newly met friend for the last time. How sad is it to have something good come to an end? Ideally we would want to work, experience, entertain, and live our entire life with great people that we get along with. We want it all, but all roads do not cross one point and you can only hope that the points you do pass through will contain interesting people who can understand you, appreciate you, and accept you. Being a consultant on the road, you create a temporary family while being away from home. You build a replaced local family unit with people you can trust, people that you can have fun with, people that you can learn from, and most importantly, people that you can relate to. I lost sight of one of the greatest things in my life that I once loved so dearly, music. My newly departed friend brought that back into my life and introduced me to far more diverse music than I would ever try to dare branch out to. I must thank him for bringing back that spark which gave me so much thrill and peace once in my life. It was something that would always put a smile on my face, something that gave me an unconditional high. As a form of entertainment, I love listening to music more than anything, but with the long working habits and as years go by, I have unconsciously devoid my ears of anything pretty and placed a slow death to my ability of choosing good music and blanded all my taste buds of anything swank and interesting. I embarrassedly funneled myself into the popular pop music that was endlessly played on the radio, and unfortunately, forgotten to channeled my ears elsewhere, especially when there are far more goodness out there with far more variety than my current ignorance could ever have known. Basically I listened to what was there and sought for nothing else but what was placed in front of me by the media over the frequency waves. He introduced me to great things and expanded the music world and knowledge for me. I totally got back into music and now can't go one day without listening to something, even if it isn't swank, it's music that my heart swells to with each beat and my soul sways with the rhythm. I bought myself a five hundred dollar i-Pod just so I can have continuous goodness in my ears at any instant desire. The smile is there and I completely drown myself in my tunes, his tunes, but my tunes now, and to that, I tip my hat to him and hope we'll jam to music one day, once again.

More People You See

2004-01-25T21:33:00.000-08:00

01.25.04

The lady started with a two pound bag of chex mix snack and now is on oreo cookies. She’s eating them like a possessed child that has never tasted a sugar-lard mixture. She’s doing the classic lick the lard and eat the cookie last process. She could be married but the ring could be a cheap imitation - don’t fuck with me - ring. Either way, the ring was poorly sought out for, tasteless, styleless, and in no way elegant nor pretty. She begins to put all her food items up and is now just checking out what she has. She has tons of magazines in a reusable, cloth handled bag, the kind grocery shoppers normally put their groceries in to save on plastic and paper. She started with a Ben and Jen breakup magazine and that’s about where I lost my interest. From this angle I can only tell that she isn’t shabby at all compared to her rustic eating habits and is rather neat in nature. She’s constantly eating something and just now pulled out her laptop. Big, as usual, the American way with everything here, and it includes a big frontal head shot of a golden retriever, tongue all hanging loose and everything as the background. No kids I’m guessing, a woman in her late thirties or early forties. It’s hard to say with American white women, especially those with brownish blonde hair. What do I know about non-Asians. Well I can't tell Asians either. People like her motivate me to go on diets for weeks or just makes me want to be anorexic, but that notion only last about, at tops, ten minutes or until my stomach starts to growl.

People You See

2004-01-22T21:22:00.000-08:00

01.22.04

I stepped onto the plane and there she was, a goth looking flight attendant that greeted me with a smile. Everything was dark about her, dark mini-shirt, black hose with grayish to black top, even a smoky dark gemstone ring while the other hand had various small silvery rings covering almost every finger but her thumb. I’m surprise she didn’t have a silver chain coming out of her pocket and a tongue stud. What she did have was jet-black chin length, straight hair with a small but noticeable slight bend one inch from the ends, probably from a ponytail hold. Even though she was somewhat petite and had well fitted clothes suited for her, her shoes had their own personality, which must have also contained all her total weight. She wore black heel boots, which pounded the floor making hollow thud sounds everywhere she went. No one could sleep and everyone knew her exact location at all times.

She was the lead flight attendant and spoke gracefully on the intercom without any southern, northern, western, or funny accents. She always had a determined look on her face, an agenda or a point, something that stated she was going to keep everything in order and in lined. She was the anal type, nice outside but a total bitch if you fuck up your part of the deal; the type that wants everything done her way with absolutely no mistakes. If there was a mistake, she would send off a high pitch scream, unearth the dead, and grab a blunt object and beat your head to a bloody mush. She walked around a hundred times making sure everything was in order, that everyone was completely bloated, and also that no one could get any sleep with her pounding boots. Despite her militant personna, she had pretty features, perfectly shaped nose, delicate curved lips, angular chin, dark penetrating eyes, slender thin arms, and feminine slim body.

I always wonder where these people live, what kind of lives they live outside their occupation cell, and how they look like in their own preferred clothes. There is a whole story behind each of them, and it can go as wide and wild as anything, yet I can only make up stories to my own preference. Not knowing is probably the enchanting part, but knowing can be just as delicious.