Tag: discussion

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personal

Lovely Tupperware

Location: 23:00 yest, with a large knife in my small bathroom
Mood: ill
Music: Too late for the young gun This is the year of the knife

(c) bernard chatreau

Old NYC graffti subway car by bernard chatreau

Me: That’s not how it looks.
Her: How does it look?
Me: At dusk, the 7 train would be packed with Asian teenagers. That’s totally fake.

Just saw the remake of Pelham 123 – the last scene shows someone riding the 7 train pretty much by his lonesome. The 7 train, in the early evening, is never that empty. Moreover, even when it is slightly empty, there’s always a dozen or so Asian teenagers on board at any given time.

I should know, I was onea them growing up.

1 hour 14 minutes into the film, there was a single shot of an Asian for a second.

Not onea those Asian activists – in fact this may be my only post in three years that even discusses what I am and not who I am – but it does bug me when we’re completely figuratively whitewashed outta of a movie.

Then again, it doesn’t really matter to me. Cause film’s all fantasy anywho. Reality is, we’re all up in this joint.

Funny thing is, who’s fantasy is it where you see onea us for only a second?

Have you met us? We’re lovely.

And when you order food from us, we give you tupperware.

———-

Me: Got a small abscess in my leg like last time and just spent the last 20 minutes digging it out with a knife and toothpicks. Question, do I have to keep hacking at my leg until I see blood?
Him: You may be the dumbest smart person I know.

Word of advice: If you find yourself low on rum, with a painful wound, a large hunting knife, several toothpicks, some gauze and alcohol, it’s never rarely a good idea to do self-surgery. A conference with the Professor indicates that perhaps the wrong course of action was chosen.

I’m my own worst enemy, a danger to myself. In other news, I’ll be visiting the pharmacy tomorrow. Purpose: Painkillers and antibiotics.

Said we’re lovely, never said we’re particularly bright. I mean, we’ll stomp all over that curve but still…

YASYCTAI: If you had to, would you know how to take care of a wound? If not, pick up a book. (120 mins/1 pt)

Categories
personal

Clear

 

Went for a walk with my girl downtown this past weekend. Maybe that’s what made me sick again. Was worth it though. There’re few things in life as a walk down Central Park and Broadway on a nice day. Saw a girl in a cat costume with a hula hoop.

Been taking all of the junk I found cleaning my cellar and selling it on ebay, craigslist, you name it. Found this one dress with a price tag that said $14,000 in there and more computers than y’can shake a stick at.

Some things I remember, some things I have no idea how they got there. Story of my life, yeah?

In A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes said to Watson that the mind’s like an attic – you can only have so much crap in it before you run outta room.

Einstein echoed this when he said that, Never memorize what you can look up in books.

But I digress, point is that I’m tossing a lotta old stuff to make room for new stuff.

Still sick – my head’s stuffy. But I’m trying to clear things out. Wanna unclutter my mind and suppose that starts with uncluttering everything else.

Location: 16:00 yest, Grand Central
Mood: still @#$@#$ sick
Music: Singing to my pillow, I woke up out of tune.

Categories
personal

Words

Location: having a gyro with my pop east of 11354
Mood: still sick
Music: lemme light your candle, cause mama I’m sure hard to handle


Her: You getting closer to normal.
Me: You mean, “normalcy.”
Her: (shaking head) Well, you just took a step back.

Woke up this morning and fixed myself a killer filtered ground bean soup with cow-baby food. But just cause I can’t go a day without it, also had some roasted mashed peas with pre-digested insect vomit and baked wet flour along with it. Big fan of insect vomit. Especially when I’m sick. Wish I had liquid from a citrus reproductive unit to go with it but no luck.

Heartgirl just boiled some water with vegetables and dissolved insect vomit cause my cold’s coming back.

Stupid cold.

———-

Agree with Obama’s assertion that the phrase, Just words, is insulting. Words’re how we organize the world around us, not just to other people but to ourselves.

Was out with my girl the other day and we heard a guy just screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs in middle of Columbus Circle. And the people around him were visibly uncomfortable.

Look, sometimes few things match the situation better than expletive. And sometimes, y’gotta cut some people slack cause it’s the only vocabulary they got.

But what if it’s not? Cause, sometimes cursing’s just cursing, and that’s fine. But sometimes cursing’s showing the other person how y’process the world.

And that might not be what y’want.

———-

Woke up this morning and fixed myself a killer cafe au lait. But just cause I can’t go a day without it, also had some peanut butter and honey on a biscuit with it. Big fan of honey. Especially when I’m sick. Wish I had some lemon juice to go with it but no luck

Heartgirl just made me some tea with honey cause my cold’s coming back.

Damn cold.

YASYCTAI: Clean up that stack of magazine: read or toss. (240 mins/2 pts)

Categories
personal

The Pigtail Ordinance

Sweep the leg

A daylight shot of NYC buildings

Kreese: Sweep the leg. (pause) Do you have a problem with that?
Johnny: No.

In three years, never really discussed politics. Having said that, always considered myself a moderate conservative. Believe in small government, free markets, few social programs, meritocracies, etc.

This judge once wrote of the Chinese, “[t]heir dissimilarity in physical characteristics, in language, manners, and religions…prevent the possibility of their assimilation with our people.” He hoped that “some way may be devised to prevent their further immigration.”

Here’s the thing though, he wrote that while striking down this law called the Pigtail Ordinance.

Why? Not cause he liked the Chinese (he hated us) but cause the law itself was unconstitutional.

It was a law that was innocent on it’s face – if you went to jail you had to get your hair cut – but clearly it was an end runaround meant to harass the Chinese and their queues. Even the authors of the bill acknowledged this.

So the judge struck it down. Cause, as much as he hated the Chinese, he respected the law. And a law that singled out one group of people – and he grudgingly admitted we were people – was unconstitutional. And thus, he had to strike it down, making him seriously unpopular in Cali.

This health care issue troubles me. The whole tenor of it bugs me. Cause people don’t seem to want a fair fight.

The judge’s view was this, “Despite my personal feeling, my personal hatred, I’ll put that aside to do what’s right for the country. If we’re right – that Chinese’re second class people – then we don’t gotta break the law to prove it.”

Course, he was wrong on that point but that’s neither here nor there.

Look, if y’really have a strong point, use that. Don’t make up things like death panels and resort to things like heckling.

Don’t people, liberals/conservatives, just get tired of just making crap up to win? Like the idiots that genuinely think 9/11 was by the Bush administration or a Jewish cabal.

It’s sad when you have to point to a racist and say, “Even this $@#$@ guy…”

It’s a sad state of affairs, is what I’m trying to say.

Location: 18:20, yest, adjusting watch on Broadway
Mood: annoyed
Music: I’ll soon be back again That’s what I said in China

Categories
personal

Public Service Announcement 2009

How to learn a foreign language as an adult

Workmen fixing an escalator in a metro station in Washington DC

For those of you that speak geek: Spent the last 96 hours figuring out why I only got three clear QAM channels – turns out a weak signal and a kinked coax cable will waste four days of your life.

Picked up a signal amplifier, and some new cable and now I’m in business.

Knee-deep in cables, chili and rum. It’s the only way for a geek to spend Labor Day

———-

Speaking of speaking in a foreign language, Federico Fellini once said that, “A different language is a different vision of life.”

As promised and as a supplement to last year.

One of the things about being Chinese-American is that a vast majority of my friends are at least bilingual. Heartgirl and KG Betty speak several.

Me? Was always crappy at languages. My French teacher gave me a good grade for the effort. Hate pity so decided to learn how to be a good language student in college. Didn’t work.

Funny thing’s that the guy that teaches me how to break people’s arms also told me how to learn a language way back when.

Part 1 – from R. Dreifuss (doctoral candidate at Columbia U. and general bad-ass)

See, he said, they always teach language the wrong way in school. Every language’s has the same things, the same patterns. Once you learn the patterns, you just need the words to go into that pattern.

Once you have the patterns down, you need only learn the vocabulary that goes into the patterns.

English: “(noun) is better than (noun).”
German: “(noun) ist besser als (noun).”
Mandarin: “(noun) bi (noun) hao.”English: “Rum is better than beer.”
German: “Rum ist besser als Bier.”
Mandarin: “Rum bi beer hao.”

 

Part Two – From Barry Farber

Believe, truly believe, that language isn’t the words you read/write. It’s the words you hear/say.

Take the word Knife.

We say, nigh-feh but it’s supposed to sound like, ka-ni-fee – cause that’s how it’s spelled. Put it another way, the letters k-n-i-f-e just makes a picture that prompts us to say nigh-feh.

More eloquently, the written word is merely the symbolic representation of the language – it is not the language itself.

So stop learning how to read/write and concentrate on learning how to communicate.

I’m illiterate in Chinese, German, and, if you read this blog, English. Doesn’t matter. You understand what I’m trying to say. Which brings me to…

 

Part Three – From me/NLP

Language isn’t what y’say. It’s what the listener hears.

If you want to learn a language, pick up the Pimsleur series and supplement it with the Living Language series six months after you’ve started the Pimsleur series.

Good luck.
Viel Glueck.
Jia yo.

Man, all of this talk about rum…

Location: my front room
Mood: rum-obsessed
Music: Pour rentrer dans les soirées célib à 30 ans

Categories
dating personal

Gone Fisher King (but coming back)

If only we could just pay the bill and go home

A red door from the East Village

 

You ever kinda just space out while walking or driving and just magically end up on your doorstep? Hold that thought.

There’s this great line from The Fisher King where the lead, who’s destroyed a buncha people’s lives, wails out, “If there were some way I could just pay the fine and go home.”

It’s never that easy. Did you ever complete that sentence, The purpose of life is?

My answer I actually told you once a while ago, except, I didn’t tell you. It was my dating philosophy: Leave people better off having met you. Note that I never said “women.”

Did it to try and help the world out; turns out it helped me out.

Thought I’d take this time to tell you some things, because I still get the occasional email asking.

  • The PCD is doing very well; we chat every so often. She’s one of my people, even though we never see each other. She’s also Beatrix from an old entry and you can read up on her love life here.
  • And the HEI is doing well too; she’s packed up and gone to see about a boy and a life out west. She drops me a line here and there.
  • Caligirl got married and that’s a story in itself.
  • Elle’s finding her way through the big city and finding herself along the way.
  • The Italian Lawyer, GES, the writer, human resources girl, and others I run into from time-to-time.
  • It was the SX’s birthday recently but she’s MIA. She, like most of them’ve left my Venn Diagram. Suppose that’s probably for the best.

Finally, there’s Heartgirl. She’s asked that I not write about her so I don’t but I think it’d be amiss if I didn’t. Because I’ve set her apart.

Spent the last hour trying to figure out how to tell you about her. I’ve decided that she’s my receipt.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still hustling for scratch, several items on my body are broken and/or bruised. Lots of fail.

But I think she’s my cashed check from Life saying, OK, you did some horrible, _____ things in your life. And I still promise you nuthin but pain. But all of that stuff you did? For that, we’re square. You’ve paid your fine…and you can go home.

It’s been almost exactly three years – August 17, 2006 – since I left who I was to figure out who I wanted to be; three years since my feet were pointed home.

Tonight, while talking to her, looked up to realize that I was almost there.

Was thinking that this was gonna be my last entry. Was gonna put down: Gone Fish’n and be off.

But this blog helped me find my way. So even if there’s only one person that still reads me, wanna say “Thanks” for taking the time. (Mom, if it’s you, “rum” is what kids call “apple juice”).

Gonna take next week off while I try and figure out a few things and spend some time with Heartgirl. But I’ll be back Sept 1st round midnight, like always.

See you then, yeah?

Categories
personal

No, not that Matthew Perry…

Location: 14:00 yest, melting at 14th Street
Mood: still #@$@#$@# hot
Music: Callin all nations To put it on the line

Police cars near the PATH station in downtown NYC
Her: Cruise’s a good actor. I mean, when he plays a character, he’s that character. Not like…like Claire Danes or Matthew Perry, who just play themselves every time.

Obviously I’m a history nerd in addition to being a tech one. It’s the truest expression of egalitarianism, cause people do the same thing over and over regardless of race, creed or religion.

People’re people, world around. And people’re not sane, world around.

People think that Asia didn’t have guns way back then. They did. The Japanese has it as far back as the 16th Century but they pretty much banned it around the 17th century. Which woulda been great except fast forward to March 31, 1854, when Matthew Perry (not that Matthew Perry) sailed into Japan with a crapton of guns.

Last Thursday, the Hiroshima mayor backed Obama’s call to get ridda all nuclear bombs by 2020. Which would be great if everyone was sane. They’re not.

Scarier is that these not sane people find each other and toss their not sane ideas back and forth. 1970’s Cambodia, 1930’s Germany, Saudi Arabia, North Korea – these’re whole countries with people not operating with a full deck at the helm.

Look I’m a pacifist. But the problem with most people is that they think, “Well, I wouldn’t do that.” That’s a dangerous thing to think. Cause most people don’t do what you’d do – they do what they’d do.

———-

Finally feels like August in the big city; I need a slip-n-slide like below.
Cannot wait for the fall…

YASYCTAI: Have you been in the water yet this summer? Y’gotta…(40 mins/0.5 pts)

Categories
personal

Beautiful plans

Trying to be better

woolworth building, solitary man

 

Him: Ran into your ex the other day…she didn’t really want to talk about what happened with you two.
Me: Don’t blame her – wasn’t our best moment, if you will.
Him: You don’t hate her?
Me: (thinking) Put it this way – if you were a 31 year-old chick in a happy, stable, relationship, would you throw it all away on some meaningless flings? In other words, how much of a ______ would I have to be for her to do that? Wasn’t our best moment. Wasn’t my best moment. But I’m trying to be better.

Her: He and I were married 10 years. Now we’re not. I had all these plans…
Me: Yeah, you had all these beautiful plans. Now you gotta come up with new ones. And you will. Right now, y’think of them every minute yeah? But in a while, it’ll be every other minute. Then it’ll be every other hour. One day you’ll realize, y’didn’t think of them, or him, all day. Then someday months’ll go by when you don’t think of them.
Her: I can’t imagine that…
Me: That’s what I thought.

Since I’m probably older than you, two random thinks I’ve learned:

———-

Had a condo board meeting today. Tried several times to resign as president. Nope. It’s like being in the mafia. Damn that Asian work ethic…

Location: 20:00, yest, leather couch on 73rd
Mood: still hot
Music: I was following though with my beautiful plans

Categories
personal

…you’re speaking Martian?

 

BBQ picnic with glass of wine

Buddy once told me this story once, maybe it was on SNL, where this really lonely dude had this affliction where he could only talk in a really sarcastic voice. Yet everything he said was in earnest.

Her: Do you wanna play?
Him: Oh puh-lease, I totally wanna play with someone like you. Like I’m so lonely…
Her: Jerk…

And yet he did. My buddy, who’s not a sentimental fella, said it was poignant.

Consider this, it’s said that: Communication isn’t what the speaker says, it’s what the listener hears.

And my weekend sucked cause…don’t it feel like sometimes that everyone’s speaking English and you’re speaking Martian?

Me: How much longer till the food’s ready?
Him: (laughing) Shaddup and drink your girlie pink wine.
Me: Oh, I’m drinking it…y’watch…I’m drinking it…

OK fine, it didn’t totally suck; saw a lotta old friends the past two days. Lemme give you the Zone Improvement Plan version:

  • Drive up to 10804 to have some rosé and, possibly, an entire pig.
  • Wanted to stay but had to drive to 07030 deal with some baggage.
  • Then drive to 10024 to discuss my sinful life I enjoy a bit too much. Fella stops by and I tell him to take his chances while he can.
  • Crash and then wake to walk to 10023 and mail something to 91326 fore saying goodbye to the HEI.
  • She’s leaving 10001 to maybe make a go with fella around 94117. Tell her to take her chances too. She’s leaving my Venn diagram after all, but she says that she’ll send me an email from time to time.
  • Can’t chat for long though; have to dash to 10018 to meet up with a friend for an Irish Breakfast.
  • Pat him on the back fore running down to 10010‎ to get a kiss and a cuppa joe.
  • Want to stay longer but take the bus to 10019 to get x-rayed. Lady asks me to give her the finger and then laughs when she realizes what she asked. But I do anyway.
  • Happened to be by my old law school at 10023 so walk there and sweet-talk a girlie into letting me into the school for the first time in 10 years.
  • Was a nice day so stroll up to 10024 where I meet up with WM for 20 wings and a pitcher of beer.

Saw no less than 20 people in two days but…don’t it feel like sometimes that everyone’s speaking English and you’re speaking Martian?

Or that y’keep saying the same things over again but no one ever hears?

Buddy once told me this story once, maybe it was on SNL…

Fordham Law School Atrium

 

Location: giving her the finger on 59th Street
Mood: full
Music: maybe I’m the broken one

Categories
personal

Clean

Location: 15:30 yest, the 66th Street B&N;
Mood: over-caffeinated
Music: Always wanted to see the colours of your destiny

A pan of read corned beef hash from Nonna in the UWS

Her: (laughing hysterically) When did you do that?
Me: Breathe mom, breathe…

Had dinner at the Telephone Bar the other night before catching Paul for a party at the same place as this entry. Same people, same discussions, worse weather but good all around.

Spent mosta the night trying to pick up this one girlie Paul mentioned he found attractive; that is until he saw her up close and decided wasn’t his type. Oh well, at least it kept me busy.

The next day I had myself brunch around the way at a joint called Nonna where I had real corned beef hash; like not from a can.

It’s these little things that make my day.

———-

Been working on the manuscript again; this’s now year seven. Should really just finish it now that I got the time.

Y’ever pick up something you wrote before and think, What the hell was I thinking when I wrote that? Literally, every single year I work on it, have that same thought.

Speaking of older stuff, my mom somehow found Bachelor Cooking, which I think is the best thing Rain and I’ve done together. Maybe we should dust it off again. Cept we can’t stand working with each other.

In close to three years of writing On (or close) to Schedule, never mentioned why I don’t curse or why I’m deliberately vague. It’s cause I assume that my mom’ll, or someone from RL’ll find it.

It’s made me a better writer, I think.

Pound-for-pound, the funniest comedian out there is Brian Regan. And he’s beyond clean. And the pinnacle of television comedy, IMHO, is The Contest; which is both completely filthy and completely clean at the same time.

That’s really hard.

Don’t get my wrong, my manuscript’s nuthin like this blog; it’s pretty salty. But all of this stuff I put up online, put up knowing that online stuff’s forever.

This blog could have easily gone the way of a sleezy, douchey, caricature. Instead, went the way of a clumsy nerd who ends up looking like an idiot as much as he doesn’t.

Realized also, wasn’t so much offended by raunchy, filthy, foul-mouthed posts, myspace/twitter musings and blogs – was just kinda bored by it.

Started wearing white again after bout 15 years of not. Cause, being as clumsy as I am, it’s near impossible to keep something clean. But, for me, it’s just better that way.

Me: (a minute later) So what did you think of it?
Her: (still laughing)
Me: Ok, I’m gonna go now…
YASYCTAI: Try writing something a completely different way. (30 mins/1 pt)