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personal

An artist or a nutcase with a notebook?

Cave painting; Photo copyright of French Ministry of Culture and Communication

Have a few days to myself this week so was planning on doing what I always do when the wife’s away, which is to stuff my piehole, just like I did in the last entry.

Unfortunately, the doc just told me that my cholesterol’s up, which I find shocking but it’s onea those things about getting old. It’s still better than the alternative.

The doc says I’m in fine health but it makes me think.

Been alive for 14,235 days and am guessing that I’ve got about 12,045 days left if I’m lucky. And the thing’s that my mind’s racing with all of the stuff I wanna get done. As a writer, there’re stories in my head that I need to get out before they drive me starkers or they just fade away.

There’s this news that cave paintings thought to have been painted 10,000 years ago were probably painted 35,000 years ago – or, put another way, 12,775,000 days ago.

Put yet another way, back when life was hard, brutally hard, and people were lucky to make it to 25 years of age, they somehow found a time and a way for art.

And art that survived their petty differences, their politics, their beliefs, their wars and even their good and evil; art that survived way beyond their moment on the planet.

That’s what’s been keeping me up at night. Alla my stories I think I need to tell before my expiration date.

Real artists ship. Until then, I’m just a nutcase with a notebook. Even a cave man found the time to ship.

So I get up, flip on my glowing box, and I write.


Just watch the first minute, see if you don’t watch the whole thing.

Location: about to run to the post office (again)
Mood: pensive
Music: I need another story something to get off my chest
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personal

2012 Project 1 – MMA in NYS

MMAinNYS

The above is onea my pet projects.

Did y’know that in Utah, drinks can be served but not seen until the customers get them. This means, no joke, that alcohol must be poured behind a curtain in a bar so the buyer can’t see the alcohol being poured.

Is that pure idiocy or what?

It’s onea those laws I like to call: laws cause someone’s got an opinion. Supposedly, it’s because it’s protecting someone. But really, it’s making a value judgement as to how Person A was brought up against how Person B was brought up.

Mixed-Martial Arts is something I enjoy as a spectator. It’s simultaneously one of the oldest and newest sports in the world and available on BROADCAST television, meaning you can turn on any old set in America and catch a match.

But you can’t go to a live event in NYS. In fact, if you hold or participate in a live event, you can go to jail. All this cause one guy thinks it’s wrong.

Lemme put it another way: someone could go to jail because someone else has an opinion on something that is totally legal in 45 other states. If you cross the river to New Jersey you’re an athlete; if you don’t, you’re a criminal. Moreover, each of the sports that make up MMA is totally legal in NYS but if you combine them, it becomes illegal.

Does any of that sound right to you?

It doesn’t sound right to me. It makes me want to ask what’s real and what’s for sale. In a time of dire economic striats, should even a penny be lost to another man’s opinion?

As a rule, I don’t suffer bullies well. But bullies, coupled with idiocy is beyond the pale. It’s offensive to me. It should be offensive to you too.

Sign our petition and say something.

Location: about to have breakfast with the wife
Mood: offended
Music: Don’t give me that do goody good bull____
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personal

All of your life’s problems can be divided into health, wealth, and relationships

LED snowflakes on a building in NYC

Her: (cleaning) Do you know you have a can of chili up here behind the dishes?
Me: Yeah, that’s my emergency stash.

It’s a funny season for relationships – at least three couples I know that “broke up” are back together again, while my FB feed is exploding with “XX is now in a relationship with YY.” Assume that’s the Lockdown effect and it’s contrapositive.

Health, Wealth, and Relationships – all of your life’s problems can be put into onea those buckets.

My relationships seem to be stable, with the occasional hiccup. As for health, nothing major – thank goodness – although I think I’m coming down with something or just run down.

And the reason I’m run down is because of that wealth part: on the negative side, it’s been a busier Nov/Dec than it’s been in years.

On the positive side, it’s been a busier Nov/Dec than it’s been in years. All this means less time for side projects like this blog and the other things I’m trying to get started.

Since we’re talking about wealth, been thinking of that formula mentioned a while ago, which I’d like to slightly modify. Think that scratch and time have an inverse relationship that shifts as you age.

When you’re young, you’ve got a lot of time, so you concentrate on making scratch. When you’re old, you hopefully have more scratch but you’re running outta time. Then there’s that place in the middle, which is where I am and mosta the people I know. It’s a tug-a-war between conserving one and making the other. And we’re all hoping, in some small way, it’s important somehow.

Suppose there’s time for more philosophy later. Right now, got deadlines.

In case I don’t see you until next week, and if you read the same book as me, wish you Happy Xmas. If you don’t read the same book as me, wish you happy holiday.

If you don’t read any book, not sure what I wish you, but assume it’s something positive.

Location: getting dressed to go to the post office
Mood: sick maybe?
Music: I am a seeker, I seek both night and day
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personal

Thanksgiving 2011 – it’s always darkest before the…?

Man walking in front of a church off Times Square, NYC

You could skip this entry altogether and just click this entry here instead.

———

Danger – slightly religious post below:

Had a really strange day. A owner in my building refused to fix an $11 toilet handle resulting in hundreds of dollars in damage to the rest of the building. She’s a self-professed “good but misunderstood person.”

I submit that if you ever have to say the words, “I’m a good but misunderstood person,” you’re most likely neither.

Speakinga stuff y’say, there’s this saying that it’s always darkest before the dawn. But I think it’s always darkest before the storm. Meaning that no matter how dark it gets, it can always get darker. Still, figure that if you know this, you can outlast it.

Saw my friend Johnny in the middle of the night – this Thanksgiving he didn’t physically punch me the gut. But he still hit me there.

Cause he’s onea the people in the hospital I told you about. In the middle of an empty room save the two chairs we occupy, he says he’s gonna be ok. We’ve known each other 20 years, I say.

Me: You gotta be ok. It’s hard having friends for this long in this life.
Him: I’m ok, man. (pause) Been reading the bible. Trying to understand stuff.
Me: No kidding. (thinking) In all these years, we’ve never talked about God, yeah? Cause I figure that we all meet God on our own terms. But can I tell you what I think?
Him: Sure.
Me: The point of the bible, I think. Is that unlike any other religion I know, the people that live good lives – the best lives – get ____ed. Jesus get nailed to some planks to die in agony, John the Baptist gets decapitated as a party favour, Job loses everything just so God can tell a good story. It goes on. I think it says we’re promised nuthin but misery and if you get any little bit of joy, you should be grateful, because it’s still more than we’re promised.
Him: If that’s the point of the bible, what’s the point of it all? Life?
Me: (thinking) Maybe – and what do I know – we’re no different than the rocks and trees and there isn’t a purpose. Or maybe it’s that we can choose to repay the aether somehow and that both makes us different and gives it and us purpose. Maybe the point is that we do good things to make the world a little less unfair and we do it to give our own lives meaning. Maybe nonea us own anything, we’re just supposed to take carea everything for the next guy. We’re supposed to leave this joint here better than when we arrived. Maybe that’s the point, Johnny.

Say it every Thanksgiving – that it’s about making our lives better by making life better. I think that’s the meaning of it all.

Have a Happy Turkey Day, all.

And if you’re reading this from a place without a Turkey Day, you should still have some turkey.

 

httpv://youtu.be/WbN0nX61rIs

Location: home
Mood: good
Music: am done with my graceless heart so tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart
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What you’re lucky enough to get is never enough

No matter how much time you get, you always wish you had more

Pumkins in the Village, NYC

Him: Wait, how old are you?
Me: 38. Why, how old are you?
Him: 23.
Me: I think I hate you.

I own some Apple stock. And when I say “some” I mean a pittance. Like enough to buy a really good dinner at a five-star restaurant in the City.

Whenever my stocks go up, feel that greedy urge in me go: Man, I should have bought more. There’s always that feeling that what you’re lucky enough to get, is never enough.

Was wrestling the other day with some Asian guys. The thing with Asians is that it’s always hard to tell how old they are – even for ourselves. While we look young, though, it’s just the appearance. Time just keeps on going.

Which goes with my formula that Time¬=Money; Time>Money. And here the greed’s even greater cause no matter how much time y’get, you always wish you had more.

Read the eulogy that Steve Job’s sister wrote for him. It’s very moving – if y’get a chance today, you should read it. His last words I find especially profound in their honesty and simplicity.

I wonder, then, if there’s a time that we become ok with the amount of time we’re allotted.

Hope so. Not afraid to admit that it scares me. The not knowing.

November 2011, already. Where does the time go?

———-
And now for some levity – think the same is roughly true for Asian men:

How Asians age

Location: surrounded by blueprints and surveys
Mood: slightly anxious
Music: My scarecrow dreams When they smashed my heart into smithereens
YASYCTAI: Read that eulogy. (10 mins/0.5 pts)
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business personal

Socialism for banks, capitalism (and arrests) for the rest of us?

httpv://youtu.be/S6svA6Qvq1U?t=1m32s

We both know that it’s rarely political here. But every once in a while, gotta say something.

Got mixed feelings about the Occupy Wall Street protests. On the one hand, agree with the core tenet of it, which is capitalists cannot assert socialism for banks and capitalism for the resta us. On the other hand, just let people get to work and make a dollar already. There’s definitely an element of whiny in it to me.

Having said that, the above video enraged me. Fast forward to 1:33 where a woman outside a bank protest and not actually protesting – she’s wearing a business suit – appears to want to leave the bank. She’s then grabbed by someone in regular clothes, physically tossed into the bank and then either locked in and/or arrested.

Clearly, something is wrong with this picture.

While I don’t agree with the protesters, their right to peacefully protest is something the cops should be defending not making worse. Far worse, IMHO.

———-

Mentioned it in passing in my last post but there’s a seasonality to my work; summer’s usually pretty quiet and right around October, work picks up dramatically.

Last year, this was kinda true – this year, it’s definitely true. Keep wondering when the economy’ll finally turn around but this year is shaping to be onea my best outta the past three.

Which is not really saying a lot looking back at the last three years.

———-

 Gonna be tweaking this blog over the next month or so; don’t mind me.

Former LJ’ers, changed the comment system so (I hope) you will be notified if you leave a comment and someone responds to me – like me.

Leave a comment so I can test our a few things?

Location: this past weekend, out in Queens
Mood: busy
Music: had no idea of the state we were in
YASYCTAI: Leave a comment and I’ll response – let me know if you get an email? (10 sec/1.0 pt)
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The world limits us enough, why do it to ourselves?

Train arriving at Columbus Circle

Her: It looks worse, you should go see a doctor.
Me: Nah, I’ll be fine.

Wonder how many people died saying those as their last words.

Been going to the gym like crazy cause summer’s usually my slow time and I wanna get in as much gym time as possible before things start getting mad busy. So I was rolling with my buddy Car when we got onto the topic of MRSA (pronounced “mer-suh”). If you don’t know what that is, do NOT google it, instead, just believe me when I tell you that it’s gross and deadly. I’m a germaphobe by nature – to the point that no less than a dozen people remarked why I’d wrestle since that’s so unlike me. Which goes to show, that as much as I hate touching stuff, hate not knowing stuff even more.

Feara ignorance > OCD hand-washing.

In any case, had just shaved earlier that week and rolled and had gotten some razor burn. After a week, it started looking bad. Like real bad. After HG put her foot down, went to the local medi-merge where the lady doc walked into the room, took one look at me, and said, “You’ve got staph, man.” It wasn’t MRSA – thankfully – but it was something dangerous and gross. She gave me some meds and told me to go home and shave, which I did for the first time.

Lemme tell you: (a) it was insanely painful and (b) it far worse than I thought.

Killed all of my weekend plans. A weeka antibiotics later, about 90% back to normal.

The psychological scars’re gonna take a bit to get over though.

Do you know I’m scareda flying? Was the international sales manager for a Fortune 500 company and terrified of flying. But I board that plane every damn time.

Cause the world limits me enough; don’t need to do it to myself.

So Thursday, back in the gym.

Course, gonna be covered in plastic wrap from head-to-toe but that’s really neither here nor there.

 

Location: in fronta piles of papers
Mood: better
Music: rolling in the deep the scars
YASYCTAI: Do the uncomfortable things. (always/3 pts)
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My dull life / The Real F-Word

Wall Street subway station stop, downtown New York City NYC

Spent the day yesterday trying to track down a leak in my building that was causing a mini-waterfall in my lower bathroom. Stressful.

Water’s the single biggest danger in a small apartment building but finding the causesa water leaks are Sherlockian adventures. Traced it to a clogged main drain somewhere between the first and second floors. Waiting for the Phoenix plumber now.

Also, despite my best efforts, may end up the condo president again. It’s like the mafia. For serious.

Before that adventure began, broiled a flank steak for dinner last night. Never really ever broiled anything cause we didn’t have a working broiler until last year. Gotta say, it’s probably the easiest way to cook a steak. May never go back to any other way.

Reading this, realized how dull my life’s become.

Thank goodness.

———-

Seeing as how I rarely curse, rather enjoyed this.

And it’s totally true, it’s a offensive thing to have famine in this day and age.

Location: my pad, waiting for Godot and a plumber
Mood: insanely busy
Music: Talking bout if you had love
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That the North Americans speak English

The little things we do have big impact in our lives

View of New York City's City Hall from Chinatown NYC

Him: I’m unemployed and live at home again. How’s this good?
Me: You have a college education, speak English, live in New York City, and were lucky enough to be born here. (gently) You’re doing better than mosta the world.

A quote that’s stayed with me my entire life’s from Otto von Bismark towards the end of his life. He was asked what he felt would be the most significant shaping event of the 20th century.

Rather than replying that it would be electricity, or firepower, or any of that, he said simply, That the North Americans speak English.

Speaking of which, there’s this interesting theory that part of why English, not French, is the world’s dominant language is because of barnacles on ships.

See, the English plated the hulls of their ships with copper, which stopped barnacles from growing. This meant they could move just slightly faster than French ships that had none.

The French lost control of the seas,  England became the a superpower by the 19th century, and I’m more Bugs Bunny than Pepe le Pew.

A fella recently asked me how I get so much done in my life. Thought immediately about the barnacle story. Cause big things happen with slight changes in trajectory. What’s a small change today can make a huge difference later on.

As a fat 13 year-old, decided to drink a cup of water before each meal. A slight change. Lost like 10 pounds that year. Then changed over to skim milk, lost another few pounds. Always tell people that I look young because of a combo of Asian genes and constant maintenance.

Anywho, back to my friend. He wants to know how to get things done. Told him that it’s all about fighting the inertia. He’s super talented but he’s held hostage by the fact he’s good enough. And good enough is enemy of great.

There’s no one huge leap from good enough to great, just lots of little steps – your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to take those little steps.

On that note, it’s a busy week for me. Nuthin big. Just lots of little things. Let’s see what happens.

 

Location: apartment, getting ready for the week
Mood: cheerful
Music: thinking about the good things to come and I believe it could be
YASYCTAI: Do one small thing today. (2 mins/0.5 pts)
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What you think is true, what you hope is true, and what is actually true

An apartment in the UWS, NYC

Had a really interesting few days.

Firstly, randomly walked by a buncha workers and tossed them few hundred to paint my apartment. Totally spur of the moment. Looks great.

Anywho, dunno if I ever told you but I’ve had a real estate broker’s license since I was like 19. Some years, used it a lot; other years, not at all. Just rented a place less than 24 hours after the first showing. About half the people I showed it to said that the unit looked just like the pictures in my ad and that it was accurately described.

Which brings me to my other occupation; I work for a litigator who recently told me that, A Few Good Men jokes aside, the truth is the most powerful thing in a courtroom.

If all of my random dating has taught me anything, it’s that people sense and want truth. They crave it.

They know, on some level, what’s true and what’s for sale.

Which then brings me to an issue I’m having with one of my oldest and dearest friends. He’s got two email addresses, one personal, one work. He’s asked that I use one over the other for work related matters, which I’ve obliged.

However, the issue’s that emails to that address are never answered in a timely manner – in fact there have been several times where he’s dropped the ball completely. So another email has to be sent saying, “Did you get my email?” which also goes unread resulting in a phone call. Thus a one-minute question becomes a long drawn out affair.

After the very last time he promised me that he’d set up a forward to make sure he gets emails. And again it happens. So I told him that I’d never send another email to that address.

Now he’s upset with me.

Which’s odd, cause he takes no responsibility for failing to follow-through, it’s my fault that I now, a year later, refuse to write him there any more. He’s essentially saying, “All those other times I said that I’d read them? I was totally not being honest with myself or you. But this time? This time, I’m gonna read them.”

But there’s a difference between the lies you tell yourself, wishful thinking without action, and the truth.

Put another way: there’s a difference between what you think is true, what you hope is true, and what is actually true.

The three are not the same.

———-

My oldest and closest friend turns 40 today. I wish you courage.

Cause with courage, coupled with hope and a dash of empathy, you’ve got mosta what you need to get through this life unbroken.

Friends, cold hard cash, and rum do not hurt either.

So I guess what I’m really saying is that I wish you courage, hope, empathy, friends, cold-hard cash and rum.

Actually, rum will help with most of the above.

Lemme revise my thought then; I wish you rum.

Happy getting one-year-older-but-also-one-year-better day!

 

Location: sitting next to Diego
Mood: less busy, finally
Music: Come listen to my truest thoughts, my truest feelings
YASYCTAI: Pick up a new book; how are you on your reading schedule? (2 days/1 pt)
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