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Safe

A letter to my grandmother

 

Dear Grandma;

Went home last night because mom wanted to talk. She told me stories I already know but wanted to hear again, mainly because they’re so hard to believe.

Like how your mom sold you for seven dollars when you were three because she had no money. And that when you heard your mom died three years later, you ran away to change her clothes because you didn’t want her to be dressed in rags when they buried her.

I think when I was six, all I wanted in life was more food. I’m 35 now and I still think of food way too much. Well, you remember how fat I was…

Mom cried again when she got to the part where you came back and they beat you. She said you didn’t deserve such a hard life. No one does.

But you were tough. Mom’s tough like you. She thinks I get my temper from you, which, by the way, I’m working on. I told her it was probably more from my lack of sleep. Speaking of sleep, I thought of a line that goes: We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. But I digress…

I do think that I got my eyes from you. Oh, and Aki and I have this weird talent I think we get from you too; mom says that if you ever saw anyone knit something, you could recreate it. well, Aki can play any song he hears on the piano and I can do something similar with a sword – which is admittedly pretty useless but is good cocktail conversation.

Been meaning to say I’m sorry – again. That I broke my promise to you. It keeps me up at night, the regret. It eats me. As does the fact I couldn’t go to say goodbye. Yours was the only promise I’ve broken in years, I think. I had a really good reason – I’ll tell you about it some time.

Mom says that your funeral was packed – even your real father’s entire family came. Because you loved them even though there was no reason for you to. I meet a lot of wealthy people here in the big city but they’re all labels and show. I know it’s wrong, but I feel it’s somehow cosmic justice that you ended up more successful than all of them.

You know, mom made the right choice coming here, she really did. The best thing about this corner of the world is that no one ever asks what we come from, only where we’re going. But I don’t forget what I came from. Who I came from. In fact, I don’t forget anything.

I guess the main thing is that I wanted you to know that your oldest daughter’s safe. You can rest because mom’s safe. We’re all safe.

Really.

You would have been 87 today. I pray that you get the grace and mercy in the next life that you didn’t get in this one. Happy birthday.

L

Location: home
Mood: indescribable
Music: All your grief At last, at last behind you

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personal

Blessed are the forgetful

Her: I forget a lot of things.
Me: I envy you. Nietzsche once said, “Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.” I never forget anything.  But I’m working on that.
Her: I’d never want to remember everything. That’d be terrible.
Me: (nodding) It’s why I’m an insomniac.

Caligirl’s getting married.

For my longtime readers, she was also the girl in this entry. She’s everything I’m looking for in a girlie. Yet I don’t love her. Least, not in the way she wants. Dunno why that is, but that’s as it is.

As a kid, I remember reading about Soma in A Brave New World and wondering why anyone would wanna forget stuff. Not a kid anymore. There’s no Soma in NYC. There’s no River Lethe. That part I knew. But I’m also finding that there’s no SING. No girl on the east side missing a heart.

There are, however, any number of fine (and not so fine) drinking establishments in the big city where they’ll serve me my favorite poison on the rocks with a big slice of orange for $14 a glass.

I know cause I went to two of them Wednesday and Thursday nights with any number of girlies, some very random, some very specific. The weekend forecast looks similar. They’ll have to do.

Suspect I’m not invited to the wedding.

I’m an insomniac cause I lie awake remembering. I’m so talented at it that I even remember things that never happened, people that never existed.

Location: 10:00-14:00 yest, all over Manhattan
Mood: calm
Music: Why so scared of romance?

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personal

Talk. I’d listen

Everything here, I say to my friends in real life; it’s why Jill thought I was giving her lines when I was just being myself.

One thing I tell people all the time is: drink rum. Seriously, do me a favor this weekend and one night do nuthin but pound rum. Mojitos, Captain n Coke, aged rum on the rocks with a slice of orange, whatever – just don’t drink any other type of alcohol.

Drink one glass of water with a multivitamin fore you sleep and see how you feel the next day. No hangover. Plus, note that you’ll feel “happy” versus “angry.” Those same two chemicals I told you bout last time not only give you that nasty hangover but also make you an angry drunk.

The beauty of rum is when you go on a bender, it only lasts that night. The next day you’re just as productive as you woulda been had you not been on a bender at all.

Rum. It’s nature’s perfect drink.

Another thing I say to people all the time is Proverbs 27:17, which goes Iron sharpens iron, so friends sharpen friends. The people you surround yourself with are your mirrors to the world. It’s also why it’s painful when people leave your Venn Diagram. You dull a little when they do.

Interestingly, that bible quote was in an article on relationships in the NY Times. The article notes that more marriages are killed by silence than by violence. It’s harder than you might think. The talking.

Her: My thing is that I just lose interest in people. You know how when you just want someone gone and you don’t even want them to say anything? Ever? I hate how that feels.
Me: (slowly) More than you know.
Her: Yes. So that’s why I wanna go slowly. I’m getting ahead of myself by trying to stay behind. Does that make sense? (pause) We don’t have to stop talking yet. You could talk. I’d listen.
Me: OK then, let me tell you a story…

Location: 8:19, trying to figure out what to clean first
Mood: excited
Music: so few come and don’t go

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personal

Harvard

Not everyone gets in

Here’s a post I did on the fire in my hood.

Her: I don’t understand. Why do these things keep happening to me?
Me: Cause you give your blessings away too early. I think of myself like Harvard: Anyone can apply, but not everyone makes the cut.
Her: I’m not like that. I fall quickly and hard; I’m very passionate. I like falling in love.
Me: How’s that worked out for you?
Her: (pause) Touche.

If your life isn’t as you want it, I submit that it’s that way cause, whether you’ll admit it or not, you’re getting something from it.

If you’re the victim, the doormat, the outsider, I submit that some part of you wants to be that way. Cause you know your lines, you know your cues. You know the role. And there’s a comfort in that.

Change is tough. Sometimes it’s easier to be the victim – to blame things outside your control. But it’s a crap role.

There’s this saying that goes, If you keep doing what you do, you keep getting what you get.

Expect more from yourself, then you can expect more from others.

Look, why don’t you give yourself permission be the person you wanna be already? Then this stuff’ll stop happening to you.

Location: 6:15, awake in my bed
Mood: content
Music: my tongue is sand until the iridescent band begins to play

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personal

My corner in and of the world

Happy Birthday!

 

No lie, this video chokes me up.

Sometimessome and I both agree that it’s often the foreigners, the outcasts, that love this country the most. I’ve been to other countries and young people that rant about the state and the past of this joint have got to travel somewhere and see how lucky we are here.

A dude named Anthony Walton once said that, America’s greatest strength, and its greatest weakness, is our belief in second chances, our belief that we can always start over, that things can be made better.

This country has treated my family well. Not by handouts (we took none) but by chances. We only ever wanted the chance. I’ve made so many horribly stupid, stupid mistakes in my life. And each time, it’s like I get another ticket to ride. Quite something, this joint.

I’m always forgiving people their stupid mistakes. Cause I want so badly to be forgiven mine.

This place suits me just right.

It’s a fantasy. The hope that my better day around the corner is at a corner in Germany. Or China. Elsewhere. Still, this is home.

Yeah, I wanna spend some time elsewhere. But I can’t imagine getting old anywhere else.

Happy Birthday.

Location: 15 mins ago, leaving a gin mill
Mood: sotted
Music: Let them say of me, I was one who believed

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personal

McGuffins, Caterpillars and Pepe le Pew

I’m a bit like Pepe le Pew

With nods to a friend.

According to Hitchcock, a guy on a train sees something above and asks another dude what it is.

Guy2: It’s a McGuffin. It’s used to catch lions in Scotland.

Guy1: There’re aren’t any lions in Scotland.

Guy2: Well then, a McGuffin’s nuthin at all.

Used in stories or film, a McGuffin’s just a device that the characters place meaning onto to move the story along, like in Ronin where they’re all chasing after some briefcase but we never find out why it’s important. It’s just important cause they made it important.

With the exception of health and family, I submit that a lot of what you put your heart and soul with, it’s nuthin at all. A lot of what I put my heart and soul into is nuthin at all.

At the end of the cartoon above, the characters are the same; the situation’s the same. The only thing that’s changed is each character’s perception of reality. But, man, that’s everything, that’s the whole nut, yeah?

Heard once that, On the day he thought he died, the caterpillar turned into a butterfly. It’s dorky, overly sentimental and hopeful. Like me.

Speaking of which, y’know, I pretty much am Pepe le Pew when I’m out and about. And ’bout as successful.

It’s ok, I have fun…Bonjour Week-end! Où sont les filles?

Location: home
Mood: beat tired
Music: tell your white knight that he’s handsome in hindsight

Categories
personal

Remembering Snow Angels and Lynda

Location: 10:00 PM, yest, fencing in Manhattan
Mood: contemplative
Music: and I say goodbye na zai jian

My college English teacher, Stewart O’Nan was a good fella and an amazing teacher. He once said to me, “Your stuff is good. Just…work on it.” I still remember. His novel, Snow Angels was just made into a film with Kate Beckinsale. I was lucky, I think, because I had a string of really good English teachers people in my life.

Paul used to have a B-Team of friends that were fun but he learned that you should only have an A-Team because you only got so much time and energy.

Remember when I said that your friends are mirrors to yourself? If you’ve changed and your friends haven’t, maybe it’s time to start cutting. Or call the ones that matter.

I should have called Stewart. Had his digits – just never got around to it. He was a good guy. Probably won’t remember me now.

But I remember him.

———-

Thomas Mann once said that A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.

Lynda was murdered ten years ago by a guy in my college circle of friends. My friends who knew her well never talk about it but it’s always there.

She and I only met a few times so it was more consoling my friends than anything else. But I did want to write something – if only to confirm that what the reporter wrote was true. She was beautiful.

Yeah, call your friends that matter.

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personal

Mike

We live in a Cliff’s Notes society where we think we know things

My friend Mike passed away; I just heard the news this weekend. Very sudden.

An older guy, he looked like he was 45. He had a six-pack! Paul and I joked all the time that he looked better than botha us. He was a student in my fencing class; 65 years old and still training hard.

I remember that when everything went down with me, so many people said, Well, the only way is up. Which is yet another one of those sayings that only has the air of truth but no real truth to it – dude, there’s always more room for down. Always.

Mike didn’t say that; he said: I’m an old man, I’ve seen a lotta things. You never know what Life will give you, but good or bad, you take it anyway.

We live in a Cliff’s Notes society where we know the punchlines, but never the whole saying:

  • Fools rush in (where angels fear tread)
  • Curiosity killed the cat, (and satisfaction brought him back)
  • Speak of the devil (and the devil appears)

Y’know the sayings: for whom the bell tolls and no man is an island? They come from a John Donne poem:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Mike, you bastard, you made a room fulla grown men with pointy sticks and aggression issues cry. We’re diminished.

I hope when I go, I’m half the man you were.
Location: writing this with a glass of rum for Mike
Mood: grateful
Music: Well, if it rains, I don’t care Don’t make no difference to me
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personal

Music Week Day 2 – Not quite yet

Location: 15:30 & 19:00 yest, walking about the hood
Mood: disappointed
Music: you only want what everybody else says you should want

If you miss Freddie too, you’ll like this kid – he’s got pipes. Here’s another killer vid from him.

———-

Kemidra posted an interesting question in her blog and supported my parents’ theory that I’m attractive (bringing the total number of people that think that to three).

I wrote in my very first post that, for almost two decades, I wasn’t so much Logan as I was Loganandliz, or what have you – like Samanderic in Lord of the Flies. I was a unit as in: Let’s invite Loganandliz – they’re a cute couple!

It’s been 19 months and I gotta say, I like being single.

I don’t think you can have a good relationship with someone else if you’ve never fully fleshed out who you are. I mean what do you bring to the table if you’re defined by someone else?

Having said that, if I did meet the right girl at the right time for both of us, I’d stop being single in a heartbeat. Cause it doesn’t matter if you’re the disappointer or the diappointee – it’s fulla suck either way.

But sometimes, that’s how it’s gotta be. To quote St. Augustine again: da mihi castitatem et continentiam – sed noli modo

Give me chastity and continence – but not quite yet.

Categories
personal

Safe

Insomnia is wretched misery

When my four-year relationship finally disintegrated, my sister came to see me. I hadn’t slept in days. She brought food and told me to go to bed, then sat quietly in my living room and read. I slept for hours. When I woke up, she was still there.

Over Xmas, I wasn’t sleeping causa the work drama. But my brother came to visit. I remember laying down on the floor where he was working and passing out. It was the first poison-free sleep I had in two months.

I suppose you’re all sick and tired hearing about Heath Ledger. I liked his films, but that’s about it. He might have been a prince or a scumbag, I dunno.

But I had myself a little freakout when I read about how he died. Cause he’s the same type of insomniac as me; his mind was “always racing,” he said and “pills failed to work.” That’s me.

Good god, it’s wretched misery.

There’s this line that goes, Everyone dies alone. But that’s just horses___. Most people don’t die alone. But what a way to go if you do. Poor bastard.

Sorry, I’m sick and moody. On a happy note, it was Chinese New Year yesterday (xin nian quai le!). I took the day off, saw the family and ate my weight in dumplings.

On an even happier note, it’s the weekend.

Location: in my apartment, cleaning
Mood: cloudy
Music: oh, how I need Someone to watch over me