the end of..

this is the last post for spare change. i think a new home for my thoughts will help it bluster to some new regions unknown. pax dharma. ciao.

I saw two men on the subway yesterday night and they were funny. Tall and skinny fellow was sitting erect, eyes boggling and poring over the faded magazine, folded legs with shined boots caressing the grimy floor. Eyes sliding left to right in their slitted grooves, their rapid fire intensity accentuated the the burrowed eyebrows, creased into the deep crevasses of his broad forehead, glinting pale underneath the glowering subway lights. One empty seat away slouched Tall and Skinny'sTweedle-dum. His red sweatshirt folded over a rotund belly that gasped for air and a pair of jeans scruffed and muddied. Slackened jaw. His eyes that stared at nothing, at the millions of nobodies that stood in the empty possibilities of the swaying car, at the instant replay of his uneventful day and the tired night that was to come, at the walls of New York expectations come crumbling down and the thousand of voices from a fed up generation of rabble rousers, rising up against the dull mediocrity of a conventional life. Hair like wheat matted over and legs splayed out. Oh the delirousness of a hazed-induced New Yorked night.

Something to do

If my friends are now bankers and doctors and lawyers – engineers and account executives and consultants and real estate developers and business owners, what can I be?

Dot-com researcher, without knowing anything. Litigation consultant, without trying anything. Banker, without living at all. But all that ca$h! Break. Jumpstart, jump jumplivinglibertyclimb-swim-dive-walk-release. Unemployed, without motivation at all. Advertising producer, without understanding at all. Banker again, greed-moneyconfusionpride---thrill, without truth at all. But the ca$h! Website developer, social networking evangelist, salesperson, project manager, hired worker, uninspired businessperson, temporary recruit, without regret at all, without glory at all, without money or creativity at all. With time. Time to think to decide to move.

A policy maker? A social entrepreneur? … A writer. Without guilt without motivation without assurances, at all. Just a need.

one more day

Williamsburg. Billsburg. Tip-toeing on the edge of Brooklyn, the motherfuckin’ cooler stepchild of Manhattan. I never thought I’d move out of Manahttan. But here I am, saddled with a less paying job of my own choosing, with roommates in a sort-of barrio, 5 minutes across the river and a thousand miles away from my previous year/life/thoughts/self. I’m living in hipster central, in the nexus of a Manhattan-derived inferiority complex, trying to show those braggarts how cooler life is here. Low rising tenements and shops and pubs and boutiques-cafes-grocerystores run by immigrants jostle for position among sad forlorn sidewalks splashed by bits of graffiti (gorgeous renditions, actually, from jumbled and disturbed geniuses). The streets are cracked and places to frequent are frequently spaced apart. But there’s a wine shop around the corner and a take-out Chinese place with $4 hot dinners.

I talk to people less now. Probably because my cell phone does not work – my place is located awesomely just underneath ground on the first floor so that it’s out of reach for Verizon (great service!) networks. But even so, I talk less to people now, divided by the invisible wall that is the Williamsburg Bridge. I enjoy this new freedom. Unencumbered by social obligations and the distractions of city lights and city life I can hear my thoughts again. It’s like my brain has been released from the vise of trying-things, of schedules crammed with eating out and drinking out and lazy nothings.

And the first thing I noticed was that my thoughts were starved for ways to express themselves. Words, for so long, have been escaping from my mind. In the city, talking had elbowed thinking out of the way. Talking with clients about work --- the meaningless chatter of sales, talking with friends about the same shit and concerns... my dialogue was a game of round-robin… round and round of repeated concerns and regurgitated plans and recycled dreams. Any newness, any creativity was suffocated by my lack of words. Talking simplified thoughts. It relies on habitual use of words/phrases/slang. Shortcuts are made because a steady stream of sounds is needed in good conversations. My want to recognize dharma in my life: to experience the lush thrill of joyous thanksgiving and wonder and excitement/expectations for things to come and the things that are here and now --- seeping into my pores at this very moment; to revel in the simplicity of my life, of waking each day and feeling samsara course through my body, to love and be loved and feel that it’s enough, that breathing is enough, that eating a bowl of cereal in my PJs is enough, that making music, making stories, and making art is enough… those thoughts were crushed underneath the weight of my talking too much. Those thoughts were marginalized and expressed as “I want something more.” Something more? Of course I wanted something more!

But now, across from the concrete jungle of the “greatest city in the world”, perspective comes back. My brain has time to reflect, to react, to question and to want again. The coffeehouses aren’t that far apart. And there are great cheap ethnic restaurants. And people here say “Hi” one another. They smile! And they’re working on movie scripts and digital art projects and new additions to photography galleries. It’s a poorer life for sure, but so far, it’s a truer life. It’s a meager life -- it’s a fuller life.

Marvelous... city?

The trip to Rio is a big unknown. Since deciding to go 8 months ago, I’ve pushed it out of site/out of mind until now. Asked for time off last week and got it after some bull-shitting. “It’s a present from my GF, ya know, and well, she’s leaving NY in the summer and this is our last trip together --- I know, it’s 11 days, but I can check emails at night and.. and I won’t be completely gone.” And so it’s now in ink, etched into some future memories of mine (as well as the office calendar): Rio and Carnaval and the temptations of the southern Continent. Girls in fio dentals covering their asses and beaches surrounded by mountains, punctuated by opaled lakes and the freedoms of a people infused by a thousand different genealogies.

I bought a guide the other day and asked some people about this city Marvelosa. “Ever seen City of God? The movie?” – “Nope” – “Well, watch it.” Then the email from Vinicio, who’s planning the trip from his outpost in Chile. “Stay in the tourist areas when you get there and wait for me. Don’t bring a camera on the streets. They’ll kill ya for your sneakers. Don’t be adventurous and try to explore the favelas. Don’t wear jewelry or nice clothes. Take cabs! We’re gonna have a lot of fun!”

What the fuck.

Another person and another story. “Yeah, I was in a group of guys backpacking through the city and we were getting on a public bus. A group of guys came up to us and demanded all our stuff -- By the way, don’t carry anything valuable on ya. Keep your credit cards at home. Take, like $15 and divide it between your pockets and socks. Don’t take your IDs with ya. You have a nice SLR? Don’t pack that. Actually, don’t even wear your watch. If you have some crummy watch, that’s ok. So anyways, we all handed our stuff to this gang except for this Brit. And now, we were pretty big guys, so the Brit was acting tough for these young punks. And he had in his backpack a video camera. And all the people on the bus, the locals, were saying, ‘Give them the bag, give them the bag! Don’t mess with them! And the look in their eyes were wide open with… something. And this was on a public bus!”

“If you go swimming on the beaches --- and fuckin’ Jesus Christ, they’re amazing... and the girls!—if all of you go in the water, they’ll just rifle through your stuff man...Oh yeah, and down Impanema and Copacabana, ya know, the touristy spots during Carnaval, if you see hot college looking chicks, and they’re fuckin’ hot man, they’re all prostitutes. You’re going with your GF? Well, tell the guys you’re with... they’re all for sale -- but don’t do it cause it can get you in some nasty shit. But the beaches man… they’re real nice. Check out Barra – it’s pronounced ‘Baja’, double r’s are like the Spanish ‘j’. All the locals go there and it’s really great…”

So I’m reading the guide and thinking, “What the fuck.” I’ve traveled to a lot of places but have never heard the amount of caution reserved for Rio. Can’t be worse than Cambodia or Thailand, can it? I mean, these are just tourists talking. Every city has its shady spots. What about Carnaval? The Bacchanalian festival of Whatever the Fuck we Wanna Do we’ll Do It? The colors and the women and the food? The jungles rising from the mountains and the blue sweeping ocean stretching out from the curving beaches? The history plus architecture? I’ve heard so many good things about Rio before I hunkered down and looked at the logistics. There are those good qualities too, right?

Put on a backpack and grab my boots – everything will be fine and lovely and beyond stupendous, darling.

the images of music

it's a brisk new york january night. i walk past the pink and yellow and blue glowing stores - past the warm huddled masses of dreamers and wanters behind oak counters sipping their lattes, their venetian coffees and their earl grays. tonight i don't notice them as much cause i see myself, 7 or 8 years ago, in my red corolla winding my way around the empty streets with the boys of Texas. the Ipod is set on random and a tune washes to the shores of my forgetting. DJ Sammy - Summer "i'm driving by your house, tho I know you're not home and i can tell you my love for you can still be strong after the boys of summer have gone" [cue effervescent pop dance beats] the words don't mean much to me, they're vapid and meaningless. but the music, the music calls out and it's high school again. i'm struck at the oddness of it all. i'm listening to the most common of music compositions: regular drumbeats mimicking the heartbeat, regular lyrics copying the stupidities of youth, and regular melodies evoking nothing but the most basic of teenage thoughts. the singer's voice was impetuous and undeveloped. but yet somehow, i'm caught -- the song washes over years of growth and rips away the layers of college discoveries and adult dissappointments. and i'm back in 1996, dancing to euro technobeats that were so popular with the asian kids in school. i'm back to a time of indiscretions devoid of real consequeneces, of fun in its raw form, of silly high school romances and sillier declarations of forever and ever. and it's great. before the greendays and brubeck and weezerness. i'm walking past the blinking streetlights, far past the waning day and into the untouched years of remembering, where everything was possible because possibilities have yet to be fully grasped. i'm there - with mary and lionel and quyen and lisa - with college brimming full of grand goals and a life of romance and penthouses and promises of fulfillment. it's funny why i like techno: not for it's inherent value but for its ability to unlock my long forgotten treasured memories. i can tell you my love for you will still be strong after the boys of summer have go-ne.

it's been a rainy week

Wow. I read that last post and what a maroon. What a schmuck. What loads of crap was that? Am I that sniveling and cliched? I sound like a college advertisement. Actually, more like a community college ad, half torn and scratched up on a subway during rush hour, something no one takes seriously at but because it's such a sad state of hilarity and tripe, you can't help but notice. "I want to be inspired, excited, successful.." Pffft. "I'll go get a fuckin college degree and accounting and come out and be a corporate drone so I can succeed! And then maybe I'll get to don the uniform of the elite -- blue shirts and gray slacks and rise above the proletariat... have a corner cubicle and work on intellectually stimulating things.. like financial models and the Internet and policy!" Yeah. I came to work early Monday morning, before all the goobers got there when it's silent and I can feel samsara coming on, when the city is still drowsy from its work and revelry and crazed sex the night before --- I came cause I wanted to be alone, without roomates and co-workers and the nagging worries of an involved life. My office is constructed out of glass. Glass walls, glass windows, glass doors. But I had never looked through the glass before, never really looked outside. A slight drizzle was tapping against a window on the south side and a glimmer of light was shining through. It was just the right time of the day, where the haze of the morning can be seen elbowing through between the ashen clouds. The view is amazing. I'd never looked at the buildings outside before. Never looked up at the concrete trees before. Never really saw the utopian neoclassical friezes nor the sweeping curves of the baroque facades; never saw the gargoyles sleeping on the roofs and the praying steeples of the gothic cathedrals. I've worked here 8 months and have never really looked out the window. Ever since coming back from traveling around Oceania, I've never really looked. Didn't think to notice. The city waking up reminds me of the mountains waking up. The sun casts the same shimmer over both concrete walls and granite slopes. I saw the adjacent building turned gold then tangerine and then pink - cascading joybreathlessdharma(awe) into the canyons below -- where ants are slowly beginning to march, up from the tunnels of the N/R/Q/W. Oh, if I only had my backpack and no entanglements. I walked to lunch today. Didn't want to order in. It was sleeting outside, slightly, but wrap on my scarf and slide into my mittens and everything was ok with the world again. I walked to a pizzeria and ordered spaghetti. Everyone walks so fast in the city, head down, weaving between carts and traffic signals and manholes and a thousand lives crashing together but never meeting. I wanted to slow down and absorb everything. Slow down and see the city. I wanted to love the honking cabs and the glittering shops - the manic movements of delivery boys and the sashaying of girls in their designer coats. It was fucking cold. And my meeting was in five minutes. I walked back to the office -- head down and straight ahead. Through illimitable saints and countless fallen souls.

the book of samsara

Some people achieve illumination when they're young, fresh to the battered and wearied world. Others grow old and touch the glimmer on their deathbeds. And some, like me, search for it, tantalize by the promise of knowing, touched by it like the melting of the sun on your face. It so happens that I'm wriggling out of the cocoon at the age of 25. Quarter-life and I'm finally beginning to see, to have the courage to realize what's always there. I don't want to go against the tide. I want to be satisfied in what I have, because I have more than what a lot of people have. A great job. Enough money. A place to live. But yet, there's this dull pain. A frustration. A tumor of want spreading in my insides. I can't help but feel the movement towards something other than what's here and now. There's got to be more to living then making money, earning enough to live, to purchase. Self worth is not measured in things. I seemingly have everything a person can have in their twenties. Good friends, good potential, good health. But I want more. I see friends settling down and working their way to greater positions and salaries and living standards. And I don't see the meaning in it all. I'm happy for them, the ones that have started businesses and will have made their millions in the next few years --- but yet, I can't be happy for myself. I see myself in 10 years, with a place of my own, with a senior position at a company somewhere, with family and the comforts of the 21st century... and I find no meaning in it. And still I'm looking for the grace of satisfaction, of being proud and happy with what my life is. 2005 was a year of stalling. If I didn't think about what I'm doing, maybe the questions will go away. But they didn't, and a job change and the acceptance of my place in the City didn't fill the gaping hole inside. So 2006? It'll be a crazy year. A breakout year from 20 years of thinking a certain way and behaving a certain way. What people feel is important is not so important to me. It only took my 25 years to find that out. To accept. I want to feel the joy of creating, of teaching and helping others. I want the excitement of new faces and places and ideas. I want the fulfillment of growing and learning, of self-completion. I certainly don't know how things will turn out, but maybe it's time to turn inwards and see who I am --- and not see who I should be.

dammit to hell

so my friend, that punkass kid, just informed me that he is going to the SI Swimsuit shoot in Honduras for the next week. yeah. that punkass kid. sitting at home cause he found it convenient to quit his banking job (not that i blame him), playing ball and going to the gym everday, is gonna be in the same suite and on the same beaches and at the same lunch tables as scantily clad gorgeous supermodels.. the most beautiful women on earth. yeah. that scrawny ass no good punkass is gonna talk and oggle at these lovely creatures all week. and he's not paying for the trip cause SI is covering the tab. just cause his girlfriend is a journalist for Sports Illustrated.. and she's cool enough to take his fat ass along. Dammit. some people have all the luck. fuckin eh. at least he'll take lots of pictures for me and maybe introduce his buddy cur.ve to some people when he gets back.

all things considered

There is impermanence to all things. I can live in this city and be happy. Running with my dog in the park. Beagle? First dog? No, a labrador. Big but not stupid. Strong but not overwhelming. Autumn in Central Park. An apartment with an elevator. Yes, I can settle in this city and go out from Thursday to Saturday, jog on Sunday mornings, and lounge in the afternoons. A big living room with a rug and the paintings that are framed. She is nowhere in sight. What of it? Job that pays in time -- sands floating in its own flesh. Evanescence be dammed. I can stay in this city and meet new people all the same. What’s the use of going anywhere when everywhere comes to you? Fall becomes winter becomes spring and summer returns. Can someone ever really change? Lucretious or Ovid --- does the wax really ever change with the seals when you still know that it’s wax---gooey and metamorphosing. Ovid. Nothing ever really changes despite the intransigence thrust upon us. Do soulmates happen or do they occur. One at a time once upon a time. There was her, but she was changing also, see?

When all things have run its course will I have changed? More importantly, will it have mattered, at all? Wine grows better with age but humans, we grow weaker with time. That is the ultimate joke.

There was a time, far back, where everything was the afternoon and the afternoon was only green and pale. Pale pale blue of the village sky stretching into the illimitable distance. Into the oblivion of being and forgetting. You’ll be safe here—don’t run off, okay? Yes mom, I promise.. can I just stand here and watch the cars in the road? Come as they may, one by one, sometimes in two, all disappearing into the unequivocal silent distance. Mattering wasn't spoken and importance hadn't been learned. It was all the same if you haven’t really thought about it. Clouds crashed into the land and the dark grass brushed the pale blue face. Wait here while I go get the fish ok? Catfish and trout. Buxom and thin and round and flat fish, flopping in their barrels, silvery scales brushing swish swash, eyes wide open -- while women in dark dresses called out their doom. No, no that’s too much. Lower, I’ll only pay that much. Fine, fine, I don’t need fish for tonight --- let’s go, son. Now, run along, you go play at the edge and don’t stray yes? And the road blurred into the everything of being. Gray, winding, and undulating, caressing the bosom of the still innocent earth. I can smell the ending of day, the musky odor of the afternoon wind hovering through the village stalls; meats and poultry and their bloody aroma, fish and their signatures from the sea, vegetables coming from the gripping hands of dirt and steaming stews of star anise, the musk of garlic and tang of lemon and slow cooked broth and pungent fish sauce. The wind gripped me and held me in that lost moment of my life, that cocoon where emptiness deleted emotion, where life ceased to tug and pull and ask you questions. Being four years old and having the world opened to you and you not knowing it was the most wonderful time of my life. It was the long tall stalks of the uncut grass that I remember. And the thatched roofs of the village market, set among the highway that ran to eternity. Oh that country, where innocence was lost to war but redeemed each day, each minute by the sheer determination and will of its people to continue. To live without remembering because remembering was too real. We all lived in a dream world. We were all four.

Can we all be young? Can we hold on to our youths as our bodies decay, one cell at a time, each second bringing us closer to the impermanence of death? I don’t know what propels me to continue, to travel on; perhaps it is the desire to resist, to rebel against the comic circumstances in which our frailty is always reminded. Tick tock. The seconds pass by and each moment, I am reminded that we are all sons and daughters of time. Fuck you God, prankster, trickster, beguiling us with the promise of better things that never come. To exist, only to know that we will not continue to exist is the cruelest joke. It is the greatest joke to be ever played in this insignificant universe, born by chance and willed on by nothing. Months blur into years and years disappear with the passing of days. So I travel on and mask my fears in the distraction of new scents and sounds and bodies. Continents are mere land masses crashing into each other, reflections of smaller bodies and their lives. If there is any magic in this world, it is the empty space, the non-physical and purely divine connection that exists between two bodies. The existential Look, the hedonistic touch, the energy that flows between souls of different temperaments and feelings…

Was that it? she sat up and looked at me. She pulled up her underwear. Crimson lace and dark nipples erect still. I looked down at the fuzz between her legs, matted and askew. I guide her hands towards mine and leave the silk cloth on the couch, cool from the brush of air conditioning. I kiss her on the mouth and tried to taste her desire, my desire to remember the instant moment when our souls left our bodies and crashed into each other. She had given herself to me. Salty and sweet and fumbling all the same. She fucking gave herself because you can’t get what you don’t give. Was that it? Fuck. My first time and she is still looking at me. She kissed me again, hoping to revive the already depleted energy. Grab the air, if you can, I wanted to say. Hold the air in you hand, cause that’s what you really want. Hurry, cause that thin strand of life is vanishing. I remember my first time. I remember her eyes more than the electric physical ecstasy --- cause her eyes were shooting out webs --- false webs that tried to imitate---imitate the thrill, the magic and wonder of sex in all its innocence.. where she was trying to make me live and I was living through her and inside of her. Fuck. Everything is impermanent. Transgience....

[continued]

separate similarities

So the candidates are plunging into the Midwest to scour for votes. Presumably the Democrats are getting the coasts and Republicans are securing the South. That leaves the interior states. Bush is accusing Kerry of trying to be a conservative while Edwards, on his first solo trip, is homing in his shared values and humble roots with the very same people. Shouldn’t the politicians bring the country together? Instead of focusing on our differences (urban populations are forward thinking/immoral and suburbia-country populations are moral/backward thinking), shouldn’t we emphasize the common goals that we all have? Physical security, personal liberties, the ability to take care of our families? Why all the smokescreens? Politics is a joke.

Dollars and Sense

By my calculation, if I paid rent this month, I will have roughly $200 in my bank account. In New York, that’s a cheap date. Two years of banking, and it comes down to this? While my friends are buying apartments and cars and boats and whatever else it is, I’m worried about the rent. Go figure. I am spending entirely way beyond my earning bracket. It’s something I’ve never been good at, this spending thing. I always spend on a deficit, always waiting for that trickle down. Unfortunately, I don’t really spend at all that much on the everyday stuff for myself. It’s usually for other people. Really. Birthday presents and drinks and lunches can add up. Not that I’m complaining (well yes a little bit) ex facto. I’m complaining because I know that I’ll have to curb my spending from now on if I want to take off in two years. I’ll have to go out less – and by going out I mean to the places that my peers go to for the sole purpose of blowing wads of cash – I’ll go to the free shows and whatnot. No more restaurants and those nice Sunday brunches. Movies? At $10 a pop, they’re not exactly the way I remembered them either. Clubs, bars, concerts, shows? Ha. I suppose that’s it. My conception of reality is really fucked up compared to what reality is. Especially in the realm of money. I’ve always been fortunate enough to have a job that masked my inability to be cost efficient. After all, with a $40-$65K year-end bonus, I can afford to spend beyond my means during the year. Now all those lessons from Dad are catching up to me. Gasp. I’ll actually have to watch what I buy, what I eat, where I go and whom I hang out with. It’s somewhat frightening, to see your buying/living power so close to zero. Zero. Like the masked executioner, the silent grim reaper, zero is grotesquely frightening – so permanent and resolute. I hit that zero and it’s like crashing into a wall. I reach that zero and it means I’ve failed. I can’t handle myself. I’m not mature enough to be independent, too naive to succeed in the real world, too emotional to constrain myself – too undisciplined to be responsible. It’s the ultimate male fear of inadequacy (besides the other one). I can’t provide for myself. If I can’t do that, how can I provide for anyone else? Oh fuck it. Ramen and rice ain’t that bad. It’s funny how three years out of college and I’m learning to live like a student all over again.

16 minutes

Ok. Stop it already. Stop. Stop supporting, stop buying, stop paying attention. You. Yes, you, stop. It's done already -- stop adding stupidity to the world - stop contributing to our worsening gene pool, stop giving the spotlight to all this crap. Stop letting these losers continue on their rampage! Vin Diesel - ok, your voice makes you sound tough. We get it. You're a tough guy with big muscles. But do you think that putting out crap like this justifies your existence in hollywood? your movies are worse than that fucking car alarm that goes off below my window every morning at 6 am. It's like reading a manual on how to use the phone. worse than that. just stop. stop making dumb movies. stop letting people use your steroided muscles to serve up big piles of shitty movies to us any more. we get it. you're that fierce misunderstood outsider who's gonna save the day - and blow up half the set in the meantime. William Hung - Stop. Stop putting out albums You were funny cause you sucked at singing. But to get rewarded for your self-delusions.... What the fuck is wrong with all these people who buy your album? Are they retards? Seriously. You can't sing. You can't dance. You make a mockery of music... you're like the joker that doesn't know whne his time's up... yeah yeah, it's so funny that even though you're a loser you get all these records deals blah blah.. you're such an inspiration to other people... inspiration for what? for being losers? are we so insecure and lazy that we reward people who suck? who suck with a smile? who cares? you still suck Hung - stop putting your grins out there. smile, go do your engineering like you want... and stop all the publicity stunts... stop feeding the ignoramuses who will keep buying your god-awful music. And to all the others: Ashton, Ashlee, Paris, Bow-Wow, Dubya and Dick.. just stop. Stop sucking. Stop lowering all of our collective IQs. Please. For the love of God.

quilted

i've noticed that only small dogs bark for no apparent reason other than to show that they're there too.(well, yap is more like it). and they bark at both smaller dogs and big dogs -- the big dogs usually don't notice these little yapping dogs. is it just the kids with nothing to say that make a big racket of saying nothing? seems to me that people with actual things to say only say it when they need to, and that's saying something. i love new york. came home from having a photoshoot with jun on the 1/9 train and there was a pretty good band playing at the 42nd station. the girl had a warbly voice - beats creed and blink182 and whatever the hell is on the top40 any day. i love the gorgeous girls of new york in their tank tops and hip hugging pants. their oversized sunglasses and their bronzed complexions. the loungers on sidewalks, the cafe crowd, the skateboarders, the upper westside moms, the graffiti artists... what happens when you think the person that may be the right one is maybe the right one except not for now? do you do something? do you let go knowing that is a forever goodbye? or do you work it out and hope that you're a better person than you are now? am i too old to have crushes? yet to young to have innocent crushes that knowingly are just that...

more odds than ends

Is anyone surprised anymore at the sheer stupidity of the Bush administration? I'm incredulous at the actions / inactions of Bush-Cheney-Rummy axis. Squandering away world goodwill, lack of plan for postwar Iraq, lack of plan for economy, lack of plan for the abuse pictures, lack of plan lack of plan lack of plan. They're like the bullies I knew from grade school - they don't have good answers for mistakes, making leaps of judgment by ignoring the issues, and repeating the same stupid mantra over and over again. We get it. Rid the world of terrorism. With you or against you. Americans. Rah rah. "So, what happened at Abu Graihb?" - Huh. We're Americans. What do you think war is? Let soldiers be soldiers civlian. "So, where's the evidence between Al Quaeida and Saddam again? - Huh. Evil terroooorists. "So, we're in a mess now, soldiers are being killed, the Iraqis hate us as occupiers and oil is sky high..." - Huh. We're making the world safer. "But.. the world isn't safer cause not only are our enemies hating us more, but our allies don't really want to be associated with us...." - Huh. We're making the world safer, daggumit. Are yooou with the terrorists? We're right. We're on the right track. Bringing democracy.. yeeeah. "So..." - I believe what I believe and what I believe... is that we're making the world safer from the eviiil terrorists. Eviiiil. Ok, this is over. I have to go play with my dog.

morning commute

mornings suck when you're stuck waiting for the express 2/3 train and when it comes, there's no space to get on after some old lady pushes out of the way with her cane and then you have to wait for the next train to come, and when it does it's so crammed with people but you push on anyways and squeeze in... and for the next five minutes you're face is in some guy's pits, or if you turn around, you're smack dab next to a moldy jacket or someone's morning breath. and then you change to the N/R and get on the wrong train cause they switch the express/local lines. not to mention that it's raining and humid outside... so it's cold enough for a light jacket but definitely hot enough so you're uncomfortable in the said light jacket.

leap

new job new place. faces and dreams, refigured examined dissected. life is too short too sweet, too melodious not to love. i wanted to live and not to dream, to act and not ponder. walk the talk and freely see. leaving banking (with all of its gory prestige and rewards) was a no-brainer, no looking back, no regrets. i was indecisive, yes... but for the years that i was in banking, i felt like i wasn't living in reality... that i was play acting a part, and that my future... those dreams of wealthy independence, of excess wealth and the love of things that money can give, they were all a part of me but not me. like i was living in a shadow world. and so leaving aside the guilt (brought on by a religous upbringing) and the raw ambition, i've making baby steps into my life. it's a reality infused by such optimism! that i can do anything! go anywhere because i've made this decision purely for myself. the kid inside. it's an ego a selfish a loving thing. cause whatever crumbles around me, whatever dies and fades away, at least this is my life. finally.

3/10/04. 911 days after 9/11 - Al Quaeda claims responsibility for the attack on Spanish trains which killed: civilians, the elderly, children, babies and commuters. Great job on changing policy there. Great way to get people to listen to you. Pitiful. What sad lives these terrorists must lead, with so much hatred in them everyday. I went on an interview today and the subject of Friendster came up with a partner. I didn't think about it much until I got back to the office and out of bordeom checked out Friendster and lo and behold, he was on there. Which is cause for concern cause what if he did the same thing? If he read some of the testimonials he must think I was a freak. Perhaps this will increase my job chances.

politically speaking

It’s the groove it’s the spiraling twisting ying-yang nuts and bolts of it all. Conservatives come crash crashing into liberals – traditions overwhelmed by indecent progress (in the eye of the beholder). It’s the joys of known comforts being uncomfortable with the rip roaring head-thrown-back ecstasy of the hazy heavy heady unexpected unpredictable newness. It’s politics – it’s 2004 where the apolitcal can't help but be politcal and the country is teetering on the edge between different oblivions, drunk with sorrow from a singular loss, stupid with anger, illogical with resentment, struggling to find the inner child with inner resolve to revive the inner reason – reason for it’s breathing living transcendental identity. Ho, it’s the majestic power of the individual pitted against the karma consciousness of the group. Singular liberty (my money, my earnings, my country, my beliefs) talking, blathering, pontificating, going back – way way back and inside – to its own pack while the multitude of multilateralism and groupspeak: economic class and racial class and political class speak to its own herd – of sharing (or is it redistribution) health care and taxes and education. And oh, irony is laughing, that bitch irony is cackling cause it’s all so silly and utterly illogical. The two sides are raising their voices and rising from their haunches. It’s our money and we’ll party if we want to, say the corporate Jesus followers – but no, it’s not your body and that’s not love. It’s our country (fight for freedom and our way of life!) but it’s not your country cause each life is precious (except yours if you want an abortion) and marriage is between two normal people, and we mean a penis and a vagina, and that’s what it is you sick bastards. So take your mumbo jumbo definitions of equality and liberty and shove it cause we’re all about equality and liberty (to keep our earnings and fuck taxes). We’re not paying for your laziness (don’t worry, it’ll trickle down cause once we have enough, it’ll all trickle down) - tough luck cause you weren’t born into a three bed&bath-two cars-working mom&dad-35% tax bracket household. Don’t make us feel sorry for living on treeless streets named after trees while you (need we say it again, get off your lazy ass) lounge around on numerical cement blocks. The American dream! There are no cracks to fall through – except if you happen to fall into the wrong minority group or economic group - excuses! Get your own health care, and if you worked harder your kids can get the same education as our kids. Don’t be resentful! Work harder! Work harder and you’ll be fine. What would Jesus do? Don’t be selfish! screams the misty bleary eyed idealists. Think of the children! Where’s the love at? Why can’t you share the wealth? Think of the infirmed aged, the uneducated children, the single moms, the abused - the NEEDY. What? Why did they get there? Understand? What’s there to understand? Family values? Family values have nothing to do with a child is starving (never mind his single mom household or his “classroom” on the streets or how he’s brought up) Think about this country’s workers – jobs jobs! We’re losing our jobs to more efficient cheaper more productive populations overseas! (never mind our heightened standards of living and our requirements for high wages that strangle corporate livability) Let’s care for the environment! Sign those treaties, cause we care about other countries (but let’s keep the jobs here, ok?) It’s not your fault that you were born rich, but it’s not fair that we weren’t. Subsidies! Where are the subsidies! Social security, health care, public schools – inner cities and fine arts, wildlife groups, wetlands and highlands and bushlands - what about GFU? (geeks for UFOs) and mom and pops and those farmers… there are so many deserving group that need money! Where’s the money at? Sharing is caring! Look at all the problems – oh won’t you help (but let’s watch out for that deficit ok?) Wars without killing. God without love. Everyone in the pot but hey.. we want our privacy! The best of both worlds. Down the rabbit hole in search of moderation has led to extremes. The nation is tilting and twisting, the right hand circled round the back while the left hand clutching at the front, faltering leaning, swaying, left to right, walking backwards while wanting to move forward. Guilt has gone bellyup. Cursing shadowy external forces has tired us so that we resort to flinging insults towards ourselves. We're mad with impatience mad with rage mad with impotence mad mad mad with confusion in a confused world. We have luminous ideals that don’t quite reveal the unpolished reality – our fences are painted and the garden tended while it’s a mess inside, of doors unhinged and faucets that leak. We’re in love with liberty but too much of it is fearsome – in love with patriotism but hate the jingoism, welcoming of diversity but more comfortable in conformity. It’s a ying yang thing, don’t you see? The black circling the white, circling so much and so fast and so strong that it’s twisted into a knot, a tangled web of half truths and distortions, of statistics and polls and empty debtates – of oxymorons as babies are being kissed and frothy ads invade the television... we’re unraveling, with tired messages and weary senses. And who cares?

i miss my a normal day like a lover misses his beloved.

there are certain movies i still get choked up about. i painted my living room this weekend (wheat), but had a 3 hour interlude cause the lion king was on. damm that scar--and his hyenas too! i still get the sniffles when mustafa bites it and little simba pushes his furry head under his dad's great big paws. i've decided. i ain't doin anything for valentine's. i tried to make reservations for 3 different places today to no avail. everything was booked until sunday morning. bah. i'm too lazy to make plans.

saturday afternoon

two. "send this document to sherri. she's the fuckin' attorney. she should revise this. too bad she's an ugly chick. once in a while you see a decent law chick.. but there's not too many of them. they're like banker chicks. she doesn't mind me calling her a chick. she got through law school just so some guy like me will call her a chick. sometimes you'll meet a decent looking chicks. but then they hit thirty and they go to shit. just like us. they become men." three pm. 42nd floor board room, windows overlooking the Manhattan skyline with Central Park sprawled in its snowy splendor below. the sun crashed against the pink high rises and orange branches. a single associate, gulping his lunch down, alone. "just gimme two minutes, and'll i'll take a look at it. jesus, i haven't seen my wife in a week. i go home and she's sleeping and i'm here before she wakes up. just gimme a couple, will ya?" he stares at the sunset with the lights dimmed. the french fries hangs heavily for a second before receding with the hum of the air conditioning. exit right.

it's snowing like mad. like mad i tell you. i wish some could fall on me and cover everything white. She's going. She's going to Bulgaria for two years. She's fuckin leaving me to go grab her dreams - she's been talking about the Peace Corps all this time and yet, today it's real. She's going into something unknown and yet she wants to do it. Stupid stupid stupid! But who's the silly one here. Corporate boy who takes the safe known experience or artist girl risking a good chunk of her twenties doing something she believes in. sometimes people can still surprise me pleasantly. it's times like these that shakes my tired senses and awaken them to the full and depressing possibilities of my life. God, what have I done and what the hell am I doing? Perhaps selfishness is a good thing. godammit.

reality break

I sneaked out today and got some ice cream. and found a bookstore on the way. oh man. just reading the book jackets and titles makes me happy. "babies and their sinful lives" "sleepy dogs" "tired places" "interior decorating: choosing the right colors" "american chumps" "purple musings"... ... i could have spent hours in there while it started to snow outside.. books crammed together and people slightly shivering in their thick coats, bumping together politely, an unspoken contract between all of us, guilty glances at each other, knowing that we were here on personal pleasure while next door the corporate types typed away on their brand spanking machines using their broken brains...

I’m listening to Underworld and I like it cause techno was the thing back in high school and now I’m back to where I began and I like techno again. I got the CD (1992 – 2002) as a present from my friend April when she first dating her boyfriend last month but today she told me she broke up with him because there wasn’t communication and she’s losing her self respect for him – and I find it cool that my CD has outlasted her relationship – maybe I should get more CDs. April also said that she wanted someone who’s at a similar stage in his life as she is in hers – by hers she means thinking longer-term and being fixed on a career and thinking about marriage and babies and such cause what else do 25 year old girls think about besides going on 26-7-8-9-woa! 30? Do the math she says and I say geez I’ve been doing the math and it’s some fuzzy math right there. But then April says she might just stay with him cause they like to f—k (yeah, I’m writing this at work and combined with their censors and Ashcroft eyes everywhere---) but no the other night she got mad at him and used teeth. Ouch I say why don’t you finish that burger. I wanna start a movement. God is OnlyGodisloveGodisjusticeGodisdeadThereisnoGod. What comes next? And Underworld is saying, “you got a velvet mouth youre so succulent and beautiful shimmering and dirty wonderful and hot times on your telephone line just god and everything on your telephone and in walked an angel…” Woa. A shimmering movement – I see kids walking and running, by plane and boats and boots, moving all over the world in droves, moving because ideas are coming out like mad, like rivers gushing from the silent mountains, grand ideas and it’s crazy ideas but that’s ok cause, oh what do I see but ideas come crashing together, like waves foaming and loud, ideas lapping against the dry sandy desert of human laziness. Woa. “let your feelings slip (boy) but never your mask (boy) random blonde bio high density random blonde (boy) blonde country blonde high density”

"Do you ever feel that even though you get what you ask for, it's not all it's not what you wanted?" Thus spake one of my good friends today. Geez. Way to make a gray winter day even more cheerful. I always get CDs I think are good, but then I listen to them for a couple of days and then don't really bring them out again. I guess my attention span is slipping. I can't concentrate on just one band/one kind of sound anymore. And I'm too lazy to make my own mixes; so I just resort to launchcast and get my music fix. I did get some new CDx by Switchfoot - I just love their song Innocent Again it has that funky bassline that's really the heart of SoCal. Well, we'll see if the band has replay value after I put it through endless repetition for the workday tomorrow. The Superbowl's gonna suck this year, even if it's gonna be in my hometown. C'mon. I mean, Panthers and Patriots? I woulda love to see Manning and McNabb go at it. I can betcha that the boys in H-town are gonna party it up come game day. Man, I'd love to go out that night and see all the players and stuff. Talked to one of my buddies tonight and he said that he bought tickets to the club where Jay-Z and Halle Berry are gonna hang out. Speaking of Halle Berry... grrrrrrrr..ufffff gruff! Yum.

Monday morning blues

Monday morning, first day of work after the holidays. I see bleary eyed people all around. Cramped in the subway like sardines squished together. Squish squish. My crotch is frighteningly close to a gentleman’s bald spot, my fingers desperately inched for the railings, my elbow is hitting someone’s stomach and my back is pressed against the door. Open. Close. Openclose. Open. For the love of God, please let this train move. A burly man rushed onto the train, a couple of cars ahead of mine. You can hear shoving. Then shouts. “Get the fuck off!” The doors won’t close. The big fellow is pushing his way in. “Listen prick, get the fuck off!” “Shut the fuck up!” he replied, but some people had pushed him out of the car. There was no room. I can smell the deodorant on the girl next to me. “What the fuck! Screw you guys!” he screamed, and a stream of profanities followed, like lava oozing from the mountains. Someone called for the police. The people around me groaned and glanced at their watches. To no avail. The car stood still. Then shrill whistles came from behind and the people further inside my car craned their necks to see. Two uniformed security guards jaunted slowly up towards the yelling, but when they got there, the interloper had already left. A couple of moments passed, then the subway slowly creaked and pushed its way into the gaping tunnel. Monday morning and I climbed up the slick stairs at the Columbus Circle stop. It was raining, and you can see the puddles on the ground, rainbowed by the oil and waste of the city. Four blocks. Four blocks and it starts again.

What’s there to do on a Sunday afternoon besides watch crappy TV, sex, or drink? I’m not quite sure but I’m hooked on Spaten. Good hops and it goes down so nice. Ha. Sunday afternoons always depresses me; it makes perfectly clear how boring my life is. It’s raining outside and there’s nothing to do except to settle down with a good book. Perhaps that’s what it is. Since I started work, everything has been so sedentary. I’m either sitting at work or sitting at a restaurant or sitting at home. Sit. But really. And now that it’s the middle of winter, daylight fades fast and at night who wants to be active outside? A run through Central Park at night isn’t exactly thrilling. I’m restless. Restless and not very good company since everyone is annoying. Bah. I guess sex is activity. But damm, I do miss hiking and oh, the feeling you get on a road trip, all tingly, opening car doors and running towards something you’ve never seen before. I want a basset hound. Oh man, I think I can just pick up one of those fat, wrinkly, droopy faced (slobber and all) dogs and love him silly. We’ll have walks – him on dumpy short waddly legs – and I’ll let him romp and chase squirrels (those varmints) and he’ll sniff and sniff and smell everything and it’ll be awesome. Of course, when I’m writing or reading he’ll be there, plopped on the bed sleeping, or when he’s really excited, pop his head up and give me a sad stare. Except his tail will be wagging (thwap thwap thwap) and I know he’s happy. Brown and white and I’ll make up a cool name for him. Like Nefarious or something cause one look at him and you’ll just laugh cause he’s the most lovable dog you’ll see. Oh, and of course he’s a stud cause he’ll attract all the chicks. Yeah. And I’ll say things like, “Dude, Nerf, your breath stinks” and thwap thwap he’ll lick my hands and go “Aahooooo…” and go pee on a tree. Or something. And on those lazy summer days when I’m not working, we’ll just have a nap in the park, but not after he has rolled around in the grass and bark at smaller dogs (just for fun). Then he’ll sit his fat butt next to mine and I’ll look up at the blue sky and he’ll look at the stupid pigeons, eyes between his paws, cause they’re silly little things. Oh you may think I’m just imagining things but you’ll see.

There it is. I’m home. Love. I remember my first crush. Well, my first exciting and thoroughly maddening crush. Freshman year of high school and I met her through Adam; two years older than me and I thought she was perfect. A small girl with slanted marbly eyes, like liquid pools of sunlight. An alto voice that rose shimmering during a talent contest and a body that held secrets I could only secretly dreamed about. When we held hands—it was thrilling and dangerous and non-contemplative. It was a love that made me mad because I wanted to know what to expect, what to do. I had no idea that those first pricks could be so fatal, so intoxicating that I would do anything for her. It was a stupid love, a love without fear, like driving too fast, reckless and unwitting. But I didn’t care. When the words came, I was devastated. I acted like foolish boys did and fumed and wrote her letters and quoted from Billy Joel and didn’t know how to deal with the hurt because I had never felt the hurt before. It was a stronger love in college; the culmination of high school crushes and disappointments, of boredom and thoughts of “how things ought to be”. She laughed infectiously and stared straight into my eyes unflinching. I used to brush her hair with my fingertips as we coyly dreamed of our futures and talked about the silly things that college kids expounded upon. We kept it secret because it was beautiful that way. I looked at the stars and got drunk when we hugged for the last time and went our separate ways. I got drunk again when I thought of our perfect arguments and her small hands and how she was the ultimate love of my life. It was a giddy love. Expected love. She loves me now and I’ve settled into the silent cocoon. We talk about our dreams but they seem more like dreams now. We hold hands and I think nothing of it. It’s a love strung together by tiny happenstances. A walk through the park with nothing on our minds, sitting through a movie that goes nowhere and yet we laugh because we don’t have to get anywhere—dinners where she orders for me because she already knows what I want. I wake up next to her and get dressed for work and she turns over and mumbles, “Have a good day” and I leave quietly lest she wakes up. As I get older and love matures, it becomes familiar. I’m not singed by it any more, I’m afraid, because the warmth is steady now. I’m less likely to jump into the abyss and more likely to wade in, left foot, then right, then let the familiar feelings soak in. I do miss the heady days of love abandoned, of those terrible feelings, ripping my insides apart, and can’t help but feel a bit sad to recognize the familiar face of love. Somewhere along the way, I’ve gone and become sensitized to it all. I’ve been hit with the disease for so long that I’m partly immune to the fever. It’s like a puzzlebox that’s infuriating to figure out, but once you’ve smashed it and put it back together, it’s not as fun to solve any longer. I think I must be a fool, and yet, love waits and doesn’t tire.

attempts to fan the flames

“josh, after you make enough $$ to pay of your school debt, will you be free? you are too beautiful to hold yourself captive in a game that is not sincere to your heart. choose a different game. sincerity in thought, word, and action ...” Back to this. It’s always back to this. What’s in loving hating living breathing learning. Kaput. [twenty minute splayed at work] I wanna do the right thing if the right thing means I won’t need ya – It’s only cause of this, of this only cause it hurts. Tear a bullet through it all, rip down my sky Cause all I’m waiting for is the word I wanna be what you want me to be but why does it come down to me. We’re all talk but talking is all I wanna do, I’m leaving tomorrow, leaving this place this time Flying on a plane, going insane, cause it’s just us two Cause messing up aint hard if all I can really see is me Losing my mind, going in circles it’s all cliched But I’m running to you anyways cause you’re a fake Cause they all don’t know what they don’t mean to say C: It’s all really loud in here And I can’t hear anything Cause you, you’re so clear [dear] Wanna be free and it’s crazy I’m all that’s left of me

It's not about faith or luck or joy or hope or truth. Cause truth endures luck and luck receives meaning from faith and borrows the memory of joy and well, joy revels in luck and luck, well, what is truth if not lucky - if not?

Oh I love women. Not girls. Women. I love their hourglass shape… how they walk like so, sashaying through the halls, floating on something sugary delectably sweet – how they flow from side to side in slim pants and smoothed cardigans; their swaying hair – I love their scents, perfumed intangibly sexual and sweet - makes me think of bubble baths and springtime orchards and sex. But aromatized, genie in a bottle pink-purple cotton candied poetic sex and not the squirming sweaty grunting biological sex. I love their femininity, those girlish ways of using exclamations, those pouty loaded questions and vague intent answers. I love their smoothness and the lotioned fingertips, the nape of the necks and the lean lines of their legs. Legs and thighs and wrists and ankles and shoulders. Fluttering eyelashes and peekaboo darling eyes and peach tinted lips, lush and lascivious. I love how women retain their “it thing”, their charm even under duress, when stressed they still glide like so… like swans. I love their whispers and their irrationality. Of course, I only love certain kinds of women. To quote my buddy M, “Fat chicks need loving too, just not from me.”

So the plans for this weekend are somewhat complicated; if not complicated then at least it will take some planning. I’m planning to slowly move into my new apartment, which means, I have to get the necessary supplies for moving first. And then it’s the fun process of painting and all that jazz. But I don’t really know when I can move in because I don’t know when the girl living there right now will move out – I think her last day is Saturday, but she might be out by Friday. Friday there’s a Christmas party at the advertising place where I last work, and for some reason I’m invited. Free drinks. But then, if I go, it’ll be with this girl I worked with, but I haven’t spent time with the gf in two weeks. But if I start the moving/buying process, I won’t really spend time with her anyways. And also, besides that, I have to set aside time to find some furniture, if only so I have something to sleep on. Which means Saturday will be a bore. But then, I also need time to pick out gifts for people – although I doubt that will happen since work has already been pushed back to the weekend; which means I don’t really have time to move or spend time with anyone after all. That and an ex gf is coming into town and she wants to meet up. In actuality, it’s not that difficult. I suppose I just want to…. I hate it when I have nothing to do except to recount what I don’t have time to do.

A lil' of spark won't ya please

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.

string theory

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?

Part One

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!!!

Midnight thoughts

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

Nick-Ack

10 am. Palace Hotel. I'm sitting at the Lenders Meeting while my powerpoint is on the big screen. The CEO of Company X is speaking from memory and I hope to God that what's he is saying fits the facts on screen. He makes a joke. Polite laughter creeps across the crowd, dark suits and subdued ties. The horde of creditors flip along, fingering the 100 books that I put together - waited for production to be finished on until 4 am today. The sole woman in the crowd takes a sip of water and writes down some numbers. My numbers. The speaker halts and makes another joke. Except this time, it's about a typo in the graph on screen. My graph. Oh shit. Polite laughter again. I guess it wasn't that serious, but my stomache is squirming at the mistake. It wasn't trepidation that struck - it was annoyance. I don't care if the senior guys are going to make that one small snide comment that stamps their seal of disapproval on the mistake. I cared about the mistake itself. One typo out of 65 pages - mulitplied by 100 times and projected onto the screen. The typo stared at me - it was a blight on my entire week's worth of work.. throwing a wrench into 20 hour days and rendering 64 pages almost irrelevant. For the next 10 minutes, maddening thoughts crept into my system. What a waste. It didn't matter if all my work was spotless if there was this error. Not error with the numbers or figures mind you, but presentation error. I don't make mistakes, at least not in business; but then again, what's in it for me? Polite laughter. "I'm not crazy just a little unwell, I know right now, you can't tell. But wait a while and maybe then you'll see, a different side of me." -MB20.

A winding weirded place

There is a place where the sun forgets to come sometimes and lets the stars play a little while longer. There is a place where the road goes not beyond but with the horizon, like friends on a summer afternoon, going along chattily; a place where days are spent dreaming, fishing rod in hand and feet stretched out beside the babbling brook. My dog, that big ol’ lug himself, plops next to me, pink tongue lolling out and head in paws; no doubt he is dreaming of something too. It’s a place of earthy grass perfect for wiggling toes and of penetrating skies with milky clouds, so low that you can touch if you stand tip-toe with outstretched fingers. There are humble little daisies shooting out of the ground without cares cause they don’t know any better; gnarled trees droop cause they are curious forlorn creatures, while roses blush not for vanity - they laugh instead at their silly pretty dresses ------------------ I am here though. I’m here in my cubicle at 5:20 am and not anywhere near that place where the sun laughs and pieces of my childhood I carry in my pocket so I can smile when I want to. I’m here in my cubicle because at 1:20 am the file crashed and so I’m here staring at a Snapple bottle again, dragging itty-bitty numbers around pie charts. And yet I am not miserable or depressed or angry or anything like 2001. I’ve exhaled. And besides, it’s no mystery to me what my life is – and the expectation of pain (the back is killing me) is not all that exciting when I know what the consequences are… And so there is the emptiness of feeling, of movement or anything that resembles passion. I have segregated my life outside of this place from my work inside this place. I suppose the two don’t like each other very much, but I have to keep both of them all the same, like little brats throwing wussy punches at each other. I make myself believe that I’m doing something that is worthwhile; no, not worthwhile, but at the very least, productive and supportive of my great desire to be at liberty in the future. I think I’ll go home and sleep for an hour; but sleep is overrated isn’t it, cause once I’ve awaken I have already forgotten all about the delicious desire to sleep more and more; but this, this I will remember forever. When I’m old and beyond repair and advice, I will remember only a few things, and this great misery of sorts, (but also of satisfaction because I know this is easy and not all that very cumbersome) will be an icy prick on my feeble mind. There’s something about leaving the office at 5:30 am and coming back at 8:30 am that is wickedly funny.

Ticket Stub

I took the train to Philadelphia yesterday to visit a couple of old college buddies. There is still a distinct socio-class difference in America; you can see it through the railway system. New Jersey Transit costs $14 (peak fare) to go from NY Penn Station to 30th Street Station. It takes 3 hours for the trip. It is used primarily by security guards, educators, unkempt mothers with crying babies, and loud rude people who blow their noses, scratch their armpits and proclaim loudly at the “Gawd lordy the lack of room in the cars”. The passengers are overwhelmingly black. The train screeches and lurches every time it slows to a stop. Amtrak trains are sleek and faster (somewhat). Amtrak costs $48 to go from Philadelphia to New York, off peak fare. It takes approximately 1.5 hours to zoom the same distance. The passengers are primarily businessmen, lawyers, girls who squawk over their cell phones, “Like, my mom won’t give me money to get this delicious purse…”, and fat balding men who stretch out like sea lions on open seats. They are overwhelmingly white. The train smoothly stops next to the escalator in the station. I took NJT to Philadelphia. As the train chugged along, I find that the rail tracks are beautiful. Brown rough steel inlaid with gleaming blue-gray metal; two straight lines parallel, stretching out without comment to the endless horizon, always keeping the same distance between them. If only relationships were like that. Bespeckled gravel playing with the afternoon sun, lying carelessly between unflinching uncaring boundaries. Vanilla beams crossing the tracks, like steps going somewhere, steady steps that don’t break a sweat or shed a tear. The track, with its individual colors and parts, stubbornly refused to be roused by speed, and soon its details, those lines and colors, were blurred. Brownblue-graybespeckled|vanilla. Like a swirling soup of colors, or dreams, or something undefined, lighted aglow by the clouded sun. I suspect that’s what I needed to do with my life. Stop breaking it down to individual parts and let it blur. Who is to say that the blurred picture is less desirable than the clear static image? Blur my career and my loves and my people. My spirituality, my yearnings, my hates, my everdays, and my goals. Blur it all, and maybe the speed of life will make it beautiful. The boys were still the same. Rob is living with a girl but not really dating her. Henry is seriously dating someone but not living with her. And they act really gay when they get together. There is a rush of judgment among people my age to get engaged. I found that Norman and Kristine are engaged and that he spent his entire year’s savings on the ring. It seems that Kristine went with him to choose the ring. Perhaps I need to get on this engagement wagon, before all the prospects dry up. I mean, at this rate, by the time I’m twenty-six all my friends will have been hook, line and sinker. Time to get in while the getting is good. Besides, it’s an insurance thing. Who said engagement necessarily has to lead to marriage? Perpetual engagement, that’s the new paradigm. You gotta back up your files, right? And if engagement is a serious ploy that results in marriage, it’s a stupid idea. Basically, you’re making a commitment to being committed? I think it’s just a ploy for women to get an extra piece of jewelry. Rob mentioned that each year, the girls in college are getting younger. Or was it that we were getting older? ‘It seems like we get older but nothing has changed,’ Rob said. ‘Well, except for the fact that you’re increasingly bitter and want to quit your job,’ I said. ‘Fucker,’ he said. ‘Maybe you need to date younger women,’ I said. ‘Makes you less bitter.’ ‘I can’t even look at girls under twenty-one,’ he said. ‘Yeah, just the talk of midterms and studying zones me out.’ ‘But maybe it’ll be good for me,’ he said. ‘Don’t you have a girlfriend?’ ‘She’s twenty-three.’ ‘Yeah, having an eighteen year old girl will solve all your problems.’ I took Amtrak back to New York. By the time I got back, I realized that all my friends are leading lives. Lives! We all have actual lives now, meaty with unique expectations and heavy with responsibilities. Gone are the days of dining halls and football on the green, of homogenous experiences in the petri dish of academia and the solitude of the ivory towers. And as we burden ourselves, we increasingly separate our paths. Rob is doggedly living the slacker way. Henry is moving up the corporate ladder, securing his comfortable middle management lifestyle. Dan is in his third year of med school. Yas is heading off to the Peace Corps. And everyone is looking inward to find something that will fulfill and inspire them, although right now, they call that careers and relationships. Oh, to be twentysomething and not afraid!

d. drivel deviant dead dumb dread dreary dry drone didditydid dastardly dinged damn dammed dog-gy done dangerous drag damp dimpled dolores dang. ee cummings i shall imagine life is not worth dying,if (and when)roses complain their beauties are in vain but though mankind persuades itself that every weed's a rose,roses(you feel certain)will only smile

on the road again

taking a weekend trip to new england with carolyn. open roads, open skies, turning of summer, leaves, brooks, forestsbeacheslighthouses - hills and bridges and man it's going to be walden.. weee..

these are my...

porn n' ice cream. don't need em. don't really want em'. they're kinda bad for you. but fun? eh.

N-Train

"What would you do if you had all the money in the world?" "I'd snap out of my reverie." _________________________ There was an incident yesterday. On the N train, heading uptown. North to home, to dinner, to another normal night of whatevers and whatnots. Jun and Paul were making "stupid faces" and I was taking it all in with my Palm camera. Bugged eyes. Pouting lips. Gansta pose. We stood next to the door as blue streaks passed by on the outside and the train deposited and picked up passengers. "Step all the way in please. Step all the way in." Passengers packed together like matchsticks, sharing oxygen and frittering, ready for the end of the workday. My arms flailed and banged against the metal railing as Jun crushed against my neck. The car lurched, shuddering for a couple of seconds, then slowly screeched to a stop. 23rd street station. Men started for the door, checking their watches. Women smoothed their skirts and rose from their seats. The door stayed shut. Crossed eyes. Paul smirked and I laughed as Jun giggled. The door didn't budge. I peered out the stained windows. Normal. Parents with toddlers, a smattering of chattering teenagers - men and women milled about, waiting for the train to open its doors. Our fellow passengers slowly sat down and waited patiently. Two minutes. Short minutes because we three were still within hazy conversation. Long minutes in retrospect. A group of girls, not yet matured, were crying outside our window. Men with briefcases and women with purses begin to exit the station outside. Fingers pointed one way, then another. What was going on? Down. Look down. Below the tracks? Jun tapped the windows, motioning for another observer. What happened? We filed out of the train. I stopped and looked back, wondering if I should get out since this wasn't my stop. Something was happening. Some people stayed in the train. Others exited quickly. Still, some were like me, standing haltingly on the platform. Oh my God. Jun clutched her mouth and gestured to the door that just spat us out. Crimson. Blood on our door. Shining and bright dripping - like paint or jam or wine. Not yet congealed. Much lighter than the stuff in the movies. Blood on the platform, red on yellow, ketchup on mustard. Blood on the side of our subway car, a lazy streak, eloquent, curving against the silver frame, like a Nike swoosh or a Nerf football. Paul said, "What happened?" I think we hit someone. Shit. "Everyone please exit the station. We have a passenger incident. Stations from Canal Street to 34th Street will be closed until further review. Please exit to 23rd or 28th Streets." The metallic voice spurred a dazed population to action. People streamed out of the station, turnstiles spinning and heavy swinging doors grunting at the effort. Jun pulled Paul and I against the flow of traffic. "I wanta see. C'mon." You're so insane I thought, but she threaded her way down the platform. I followed with morbid curiosity and petulant indignation at my wasted minutes on the way home. Paul protested. Dirty indigo jeans and a dirty green T-shirt. A clean white towel. A bloodied mangled arm. Right arm. The towel was draped over a cocked head. To the right side. Face down; it wasn't even a body anymore. Not human. To me, it was now just a mass of flesh, bloodied and still. It was a news item, a story invention - it was not real. It wasn't a man. There wasn't a story to him. He didn't really live, have a life. It was just parts, medical and biological parts. Bloodied lateral tricep brachii muscles. Twisted phalanges. Crumpled cranial cavity. Zygomaticus muscles pressed to the pavement. I grabbed Jun and Paul and climbed up to the streets. He wasn't real. Faceless, kin-less, probably jobless. Who did he love? What did he do? How was he as a child? What were his dreams, his lusts, his failures? His life? People stopped to ask us, what happened? "Can't go there. Subway incident. Lines not working." They walked on. Cars blared their horns and people chattered on the way home from work. An elderly woman crossed the street as the light turned green. A couple of tourists snapped a few photos of buildings against a darkening blue afternoon sky. Normal night, with normal dinners and it's normal going home, except for the distant sound of sirens, as the ambulances and firetrucks made their way towards us, towards the incident.

if only girls knew

if only girls knew what went on inside the testosterone-addled malfunctioning male brain. if only girls knew that half the things they think guys think about don't ever really occur because that space in the brain is filled up with such thoughts as: "wow. look at that butt wiggle." "i think i see pantylines" "wow. she's fat. she could be a decent lineman." "can't believe those raiders choked." "that was a good superbowl party, with them chicken wings." "i'm hungry." "man, look at that butt wiggle, like two buns. mmm. buns." i wish i knew what girls were talking about half the time.

hrm

"happiness is like peeing in your pants. everyone can see it and you can sure feel it." "josh. call your girlfriend. you're her gatekeeper." "'scuse me?" "creak. open. close. gatekeeper." "you big perv." "asians have a good way of relieving stress. tai chi. meditation. inner awareness." "what are you talking about? i'm all substance abuse. smoking. drinking. if i can't release stress on someone else, i release it on myself."

and you?

i punched my hands in my jeans pockets today riding down the elevator to another monday morning and out came a wrinkly crumpled receipt; it musta been important cause it was in my left pocket (that's where i keep important stuff), but there was nothing on it. just a blank white void staring back at me. it musta been through the wash a couple of times, cause the edges were frayed and the fabric brittle but oh-never-mind, it had nothing on it. like me. worn out by another cycle, another time through the wash. rehashed. nothing to say really anymore because it's all the same shit. same same same like so. you hear people who chase their dreams and succeed all the time (never give up or give in! you can do it, too, just take the risk!) but when do you ever hear about those poor losers who chase their dreams and fail? those dumb blokes who are blinded by the sugary misleading (evil) dreams of being happy! who's really happy? for every single person who've made it, who are at the top of their games, there are thousands who fall by the wayside, dropping through the cracks, who become jaded and resentful at the lives they gave up for their dreams. burnt-out musician sitting on the a cardboard box playing to a testy audience waiting for the subway. snarling waitress with her plastic boobs, sagging now, waiting on pimple faced boys snorting ketchup through straws. balding writer writing copies for a radio jingle about lugnuts and a "new season for home improvement, clearance prices!" - all have chased their dreams. but at least they did it, huh? they tried, they know, they failed. no regrets, i'm sure. there are 8 million people in new york city, all trying to make it, to make something out of their measly gray lives. doormen, mistresses, students, bouncers, waiters, prostitutes, hairdressers. so what? cooks, valets, performers, writers, musicians, artists, models, bankers, accountants, tailors, butchers, delivery boys, pimps, politicians, thieves, oh and on and on. and how many, out of the 8 million, will realize their dreams? it's a cruel vicious world with only so much happiness - so much success - to go around. it's a zero sum game and not everyone is playing fair. who are you to say that you're any different than the defeated souls hovering on the crooked sidewalks? you're smart? thousands, millions of smart brains ready to shoot up your neurons up. sexy? models struggle to get by each day, hungry for a chance to show their breasts and their hips and their talents to producers for two-bit exercise infomercials. ambitious? humorous? there are thousands just like you, better possibly. it's all a game of luck. you're dealt the cards, and the it's all about ante up. it's about the risk of losing the house, of cutting yourself to the marrow, take what's given to you and shove it back at all the fuckers who have better hands, of throwing your chips on the table, of bluffing your way to another round, another day to play the game - it's about random acts of mercy by an ironic God who looks down at his folorn creation, wondering how the heck things are so fucked up, it's about the unexplainable, unidentifiable voice inside that tells you to keep on going and not look back or around even when everything is meaningless and pointless. or, it's about folding and taking that nice cubicle with an option for a office in five years, then perhaps that mortgage in seven years and so on. life is a big itch that i can't scratch.

When I wake up.. I wanna be...

Why do girls alienate other girls as a [sub]conscious social tactic? What is it about group mentality/belonging that drives them so? ___________________ I miss it. I miss the quiet unpredictability of each morning. The lucid sun clamoring to break free from the horizon, hazy sometimes, pallid and hidden by indignant rain clouds at times. The randomness of a strange bed and stranger views outside the window; the newness of carefreedom, of people milling about, getting ready to go places and do things and see everything. The pale clear nights with the universe opened, shining down twinkling revelations onto shimmering cool sand, waters lapping in a hidden bay, fireflies fluttering carelessly. The sizzling of sausages on a makeshift gas stove next to the silhouette of the tent next to gnarled trees, interrupted by the herky-jerky flash lights bumping into grass and leaves and logs at night. I miss the clear mountain air, the debate of ideals and the murmurs of ideas on a lonely trail; the burn in my calves climbing over boulders and streams, the vistas of glacial valleys and distant seas and craggy teenage peaks, the soft flowing yolky grassland set against azure skies and cotton clouds, and the dense mossy forests with silent springs and forgotten ponds. The religious sunsets burning purple and pink into the afternoon, the impatient waterfalls rushing somewhere, running over bedrocks and valleys and cliff faces; the warm sleeping bag thwarting the cold cold night. The weight of backpack and camera and dreams in a lively city; random cobblestone alleys and the ubiquitous botanical – the curved bridges - and the everdayness of people chugging along their paths, their lives set in the particular pattern of the city, waiting, wanting to be observed and so normal. The old cathedrals with its dusty memories, the lazy cafes and foodstands with strange delectable foodstuffs, the clamoring plazas and town squares and marketplaces – I miss the eyes of traveling, the ancient wizened eyes of grandmothers who’ve lived through weddings and funerals and events of their town, the exuberant eyes of teenagers wanting to get away, to start something new, to be like Amerika and MTV and New York, and the tired eyes of dads and moms coming home from work in their sad briefcases and sad meshed bags and lovely shoes. I miss the vividness of my dreams, of thoughts and ideas; on long bus rides and longer waits for a willing car – by the silent sea and the whirring train station, in meadows and valleys, on unbelievable hilltops and random uncaring girls – I miss the sights and sounds, smells and tastes and randomness of it all. I miss how each day is different and new, living isn’t confined to schedules, purposeless is forgiven, and purpose is in your hands and feet and the landscape before you. I guess I miss traveling.