Spare Change

I’m not happy and I’m not sad; not hopeful nor cynical. I’m not desirous of anything really. Work isn’t hard and the relationship isn’t hard, although I know that there will be a lot of work to be done this weekend and that there’s still a lot of relationship that needs working. I’m not tired, not really excited, not inspired, not lonely, not bored, not passionate – I’m really not. I’m living dazed but not confused. I’ve been de-clawed a and de-veined and content in the retirement home of my youth. But I am in need of all these things; I need a wrench to be thrown in this automated schedule, a wall placed in front of my blindness, a virus in this code – water in my lungs. I need a jolt of something to get me going again.

I’ve noticed that I’m so comfortable in the ordinary and the repetition of my life. It’s hard to change, cause I forget once the day begins, with it’s limitless process – it’s the minutiae of everyday life that kills memories. Each morning, I grab my socks first (black) and a clean pair of drawers from the armoire, then place them next to the bathroom sink. I brush my teeth for two minutes cause that’s when the sonicare stops spinning. Then take off the t-shirt and throw it in the hamper before everything else. Step in the shower. Shampoo. Lather, rinse. Softsoap. Squirt. Lather. Left arm, right arm, hands and fingers, left side, pecs and abdominals, right side, the shoulders, right leg, left leg, feet, the back of my neck, both ears and then the arms again. Dry myself, but not completely. That comes when I step out of the shower. Then it’s the boxers/briefs, grab a white tee, then a shirt (pick a blue or white, striped or solid) then pants (some derivation of gray) then always always, clean my ears before I shave – and always shave before brushing my hair, and then it’s to the kitchen where I then pick up my key, then wallet, then lighter and cigs, and then my phone. Black shoes. Door to door, home to the office, 17 minutes flat.

Lunch at 11:45 to beat the rush. Sandwich.

My favorite moments are when I get to leave work before the streets are empty; then I can walk home, left hand in pocket, a slow song playing on the headphones, right hand flicking a cigarette – I and my thoughts, alone together, without the jostle and demands of others. Often, I get to wallow, or I allow myself to step over the edge of normalcy and reason and fall into despondency. Not that I have a desire to be sad, but it’s that the streets of New York in November are so conducive to introspection and thoughts of gray. And it’s at these times that I feel glimmers of living again, because sadness is unbalanced – because with sadness it’s so easy to keep falling into the extreme darkness. It takes some degree of mental toughness to assume the Icarian flight towards genuine happiness. But either or, it’s the sincere deepening of feelings, the richness of experience-soaked thoughts, the poles of want and abandoned emotions, of vivid dreams and excited justifications that appeal to me. Only because they come so far and few between now. I can get excited about a transaction, but it’s not in the same league as scaling a mountain and reveling in the freedom of being 23.

I’m not at all unhappy about my career or my current life. I am, however, conflicted when it comes to my sensibilities.

what? there might be multiple dimensions after all?

i ran across a girl i had such a crush on in college through friendster. so now when it's late in the office i think about it. what we could have been.. the things we could do, trips to take and all that jazz. she's got to have the longest eyelashes of any asian girl i've known.. that and she's witty and smart and musical. too bad we went down the platonic route--that and the fact that i'm totally not her type. it's weird.. it happens to me a lot. i'm totally the "friends" type and not the boyfriend type for all the hot girls. inevitably, i'll meet a hot girl, become friends with her because i understand her so well and blah blah, causing her to say, "why can't more guys be like you?" (which is what this girl said multiple times) while i have this serious crush on her and finally get pissed and throw away the friendship while she gets dissed by a guy totally opposite of me... go figure. but hey, i'm not bitter.. ehh.. just a little, but i guess i just fit in that mold often. i still don't get it. girls say they want a certain guy but totally fall for someone different; i guess guys are the same way: i think i want a certain person but deep deep down inside--yep, a euroasian girl who's somewhat high maintenance with a killer fashion sense and musical ellubience. that's all i'm asking for! ehh.. i should be content. i AM, i am... bah.

but man. goregous body, this girl. but all we ever talked about were philosophy and theology and art and literature and music. bah. should've steered the conversation towards underwear or something. at least the typical boy-girl college hookup stories. maybe in one of the other seven dimension t. and i could've hooked up and then i'll spend my late nights thinking about vida guerra instead.

i think i'm gonna do this next year or within a year in a half... right before my round the world trip... anyone know a good archeological volunteer program i can look into?

www.proworldsc.org

even though i've made a conscious choice to be a corporate kid, do the grad school thing, and make lots and lots and lots of money, i still have this vague sense that my life can be totally different ... like i can still take off and do whatever the hell i want.. it's like i'm toying with myself, deluding myself. why do i do it? cause it's fun--in a masochistic way. here i am, number crunching in the middle of the office in the middle of manhattan in the middle of capitalism and i think i can be a musician | a writer | a volunteer | a social worker | a traveler... with means! it's crazy!


so one of my buddies is ambivalently gay. or at least i think he's gay, he gives off gay vibes and says gay things about himself.. but he's not openly gay. so do i go along with the flow or well.. go along with the flow?

well, my girlfriend is great. still. too bad she's not euroasian. too bad i'm not euroasian. and can speak with a cool brit accent or basque accent or something.

There are cabs in the city that turn on their “off duty” lights so they won’t have to pick up passengers going to Bronx or Brooklyn. Consequently, most of these passengers are Latino or Black, and that figures to be, if not racial discrimination, then geographical discrimination. I saw two instances of that Friday night, when my own cabbie entertained discourse regarding such practices by slowing down and pointing out the offenders. He then ended with, “And most of them just came here anyways, bastards.”

Jun and I had dinner on Sunday after watching Kill Bill vol. 1. And the conversation relentlessly turned to what we wanted in the opposite sex. We wrote our conditions on a napkin for safekeeping. She wanted companionship and I wanted a mixed European-Asian girl who can dress well and dance well and sing well and who’s not fat. I think that people tend to turn on their sex / relationship radar as the weather gets colder. It’s always nice to have someone, or at least the thought of someone close when it is dark and chilly outside. But then again, a kiss is just a kiss is just a kiss, isn’t it?

What, if any, are the evolutionary advantages to monogamy / marriage / fidelity? Or, from the male perspective, why not impregnate as many females as you can if the criterion is for biology reproduction and species survival? (Well, why did males develop anyways? Why couldn’t females have sperm or the ability to bear offspring on their own, unless that means we’re putting too many biological eggs in one basket… and the chances are greater if there were two incomplete keyholders instead of one…) We’ve devised this intricate ritual of wooing and whatnot and then we set limitations on the practicality of those means via shady moral schemes. Has romance gone off its intended track? It’s now decorated with add-ons like marriage and whatnot. Whatever happened to just getting laid?

It’s like I’m living inside a bubble. Impervious to external going ons, but one prick and the fragile womb bursts. I was supposed to meet Michelle at nine o’clock tonight, but she canceled cause of menstruation. Too bloated to talk to right now, she says. Actually, I’m feeling crummy and you’re part of it. So I got in the pickup and drove. It would have been better if I had a boat or a plane or something. But at least roads go somewhere, even if you have to stay on them. I wondered if they have lanes in the sky and if you had to fly in them? Cause the space up there seemed big enough to handle me zigzagging up and over and under and all that. I thought about driving to Callum’s place, but I’m sure he’s with his girl. He’s always with that girl now – no sense in trying to get him outta there. I bet his girl don’t have menstruation issues. It woulda been fun to grab a couple of beers and borrow Ole Jonsey’s rifle to practice on Callum’s dad rusty car. But I couldn’t mess up his fun and I guessed there’s no one around really to hang with.

I made a beeline for Blue Pebble Creek. I hoped the kids are away – there’s this turn around the bend, and drooped right at the corner where the ground sloped down to the water, was an oak tree that I liked a lot. I liked it cause it was a sad sorta tree, like my ol’ grandpappy sometimes when he tells stories of this girl he knows back in the war, how she brought him sandwiches one day and the next day he never heard from her again. He tells that story a lot; usually when I’m trying to get someplace quick. The tree bent over like that, all mopey and such. I felt even though it was rooted besides this creek, it really wanted to be where all the other trees were, in the forest somewhere far off.

I parked the truck right under the branches, sat on the hood, and grabbed a smoke. I got some corn chips out and hummed a little. The moon was like a soft egg, all yolky and droopy. It made the creek sparkle like a million shiny coins, and in the light summer air, I could hear the night sigh. I can hear Michelle sigh too, but in a more exasperated way. She’s been doing that a lot recently, but I don’t know why except that she tells me to stay away and she brings up her period a lot. I mean, I want to figure whatever it is she wants me to figure out, but I can’t compete with the ol’ menstruation routine. And besides Callum and Michelle, there wasn’t really anyone else I cared enough about to hang with. And the town was small enough so that I pretty much figured out everyone I wanted to hang with by the time I was ten.

FAO Schwartz
Trash can game

Endless fun at 2:30 am!!!

12:11 am. So far, today, I've
- rearranged the perspective of pie and bar graphs
- enlarged bullet points
- put together a shell model
- and corrected pagination on a 10Q

That's what a college degree from Wharton allows me to do, insert page breaks in a SEC document. Yippee. But I'm not bitter. The monotony of work kills enough of my brain cells so that I don't really have to think about all the other crap that's going on.

I woke up today to the sound of conversation between my brother and a friend; I kept my eyes shut as they talked about me. It wasn't the accusatory tone, nor was it the topic of conversation regarding my private decisions that pissed me off. It wasn't the untruths - nope, it was the realization that my brother and I do not know each other at all, whatsover. And though I've tried all these years to breach that gap, I realized today that we approached things from different ways - I in my desultory manner that incorporates the worries of those I care about, and he in his invariable self-assuring isolated methods. And I give up. I'm sick of trying to build bridges that ends halfway. I suppose that while I do care about my family and my sibling, there comes a point where I need to find some substance in the things I do, and not in the things that I do for others.

Caroline and I are parting ways, it seems (at least to me). Apparently there's a miscommunication, so this week, I'll have to reaffirm the fact. I suppose that I get tired of trying in this particular relationship also. I am not willing to put forth so much effort for so little satisfaction in return. It's gotten to the point where every week, there's a tear to patch up, an apology to issue, or a talk to identify the glaring problems that is gnawing at this relationship from it's weakening foundations. I get this lump, like a empty stone that weighs me down from the inside, every time I think about her - I listen to Lifehouse and every song belongs to us, and as I write, I think of more and more ways to describe the beautiful pieces of us that remains from the splintered feelings and memories. A part of me wants to give it another try, but the wiser part of me says that it's time to step back, to love from afar where the barbs don't hurt as much, and to keep the memories before they turn to illusions. I think she realizes the same thing, but I don't think that will lessen the sting any. She said she misses me today.


I'm driving through the desert on empty but full of your pain
I'm staring at the sun, and oh it's bright, bright like you
There's nothing I regret, cause there's nothing to do
But wake up tomorrow to find pieces that remain