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Happy Turkey Day 2007

I’m at my parents having a pre-Thanksgiving Day dinner. My mom travels a lot for work so I don’t get to see her as much as I would like. We were catching up.

Me: …so if all that works out, I should be out of this hole in about 30 to 36 months.
Her: But what about your priority?
Me: (puzzled) My priority?
Her: Marriage!
Me: (laughing) That’s really like the last thing on my mind.
Her: What about kids?
Me: OK, I was wrong, that’s the last thing on my mind.
Her: It’s your priority!
Me: It’s really not, mom.
Her: OK, it’s mine. (long pause) I mean…you’re not getting any younger….

You know you’ve reached a new point in your life when your mother says the words, You’re not getting any younger to you and you’re wearing a Pink Floyd – The Wall tee-shirt eating a third helping of carbohydrates.

Yes, a new point.

Happy Turkey Day guys.

Location: 19:23 yest, having the conversation below
Mood: full already
Music: They say people in your life are seasons And anything that happen is for a reason

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personal

Where you need to be

I’ll C U When U Get There

The thing about relationships is that you develop shorthand. Like calling up your girl and saying, Hey, it’s me.

For years my brother was torn whether or not he should go to Cali. I told him that that I knew he’d get there someday and when he did, he should listen to the song above for me.

Then one day, he up and went.

That week, I got a call from a Cali number and when I answered, it was just the song playing. And I knew he was where he needed to be.

I woke up today with it in my head. I think about it every so often cause there’re so many good lines from it:

  • Life is a big game so you gotta play it with a big heart, somea us gotta run a little faster cuz we gotta later start
  • I’d be a fool to surrender when I know I can be a contender
  • if everybody’s a sinner then everybody could be a winner
  • wrap up your pity and turn it to ambition

Now I know I have at least five people that read me that sound depressed. Real depression.

So I interrupt my usual tales of complete randomness to say that you should take it seriously. It’s such a hateful thing because in the best case, you lose time. At the worst – well the outcome is like any other terminal disease.

The line that I particularly like from that song goes:

I’ma scuffle and struggle until I’m breathless and weak

To get to where you need to be, you gotta. And you should, until you’re breathless and weak.

Then you should do it again, yeah?

Back to complete randomness tomorrow.

Location: 8PM yest, showing the apartment to rent
Mood: concerned
Music: you gotta face responsibility one day, my brother
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Semper Fidelis

All bad things start from disloyalty

 

To continue from my last post, there’s this movie people either love or hate: Bride with White Hair. In it, the protagonist jokingly promised his chick that he would get her a flower one day that only bloomed once every twenty years on a snow-capped mountaintop. Later in the story, he betrays her.

To make amends, he sits in the snow, alone, in front of this plant for ten years, waiting for it to bloom. For her. Fool boy.

A friend recently gave me a drunken compliment: Logan’s got his issues but he’s f___ing loyal. If I was locked up in a cell in Panama and I had one call, he’d be it.

High praise.

See, anything bad that could happen starts with disloyalty, yeah?

Cheating, lying, stealing, it all starts from there. You can’t get there without being disloyal first.

The goods? Love, respect, trust – you can’t get there without being loyal first.

That’s why I’ve never cheated on anyone. It’s also why I never speak ill of anyone after we break up. At it’s most basic, it’s disloyal.

Unless the reason we broke up comes from disloyalty. Then, screw it. Screw them.

Yeah, I got my faults. I got a whole blog of faults. But what he said made my drunken night.

Cause the people that know me, they know I’d sit on a mountain top and wait. It might be a mountain of brick and mortar, but there I’d be.

Cause they know that I’m on their side. I’d wait.

And for my family, a good friend or a chick I loved, I’d never move.

Location: a bed with flowers on it
Mood: sick
Music: on this mountain thinking to myself You’re a fool boy
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personal

Fathers and sons

For my dad on Father’s Day

Couldn’t celebrate father’s day because of the wedding. I saw him though.

My dad graduated from the second hardest law school in Japan – the equivalent of Princeton here. I graduated in the top third of my class; he graduated in the top 5%.

But, when he was younger than I am now, he came here to wash dishes and chop fish to feed his family. He didn’t want us growing up there.

Realize now how hard it must have been to be 4,000 miles from home, not know the language and work at jobs far beneath you.

Can barely make it outta the Upper West Side.

He said my mom cried when he came home stinking of fish guts for the first time. She was the local beauty queen; he was now a fish monger.

I thought I married a lawyer, she said.
You once believed in me enough to marry me, he said, just wait.

She did and he became the man he knew he could be.

He says that he believed in himself even if no one else did.

He says that he believes in me. I’m actually a bit surprised he’s still pulling for me.

At least you’re not gutting fish; you’re already doing better than I was.

I’d like to be the man I think I could be. I’d like to be the man he thinks I could be.

He doesn’t know about this blog (don’t tell him). But I wanna say, Thanks anyway.

I’m very grateful.

Location: 1PM, yest., doctor’s office
Mood: sick
Music: daddy’s rich And your ma is so good-looking
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business personal

She got married

My sister got married!

My kid sister got married recently. I guess she’s not a kid anymore. Two weddings down; two weddings to go.

Short version: She got a letter one day from a boy she’d known years ago. He told her he wanted to meet up with her. She didn’t know why, went to see him, and he said he wanted to date her. They married less than a year later.

My insomnia has made my recent history a bit blurry. Feel slightly cheated that nothing in life is very sharp or clear.

Names, faces and events all blend together to a dull, soupy grey.

But for just a little bit, it was as if someone turned up the volume and brightened the picture; I could see that she was happy.

In the scheme of things, it’s more than a fair trade.

Location: -20 mins, saying goodbye something on the UWS
Mood: grateful
Music: in my youth or childhood I must have done something good
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business personal

Teaser Too

Today is Easter and I should be off to church but I’m not feeling well. I’ll try to make the evening service. Easter is all about renewal and I could use some right now.

It’s my own fault for not feeling well; I went out last night with my brother and friends, mainly because things are going on with me that I’m trying to sort out. Too much to go into now and I’m in no condition to elucidate but I will. I always do. So last night, I both bent time and caught a cold.

Ooooh, my aching head.

In the meanwhile, Rain and I shot another teaser for the other night – we’ll be archiving them at: www.72canal.com.

I’m back to fixing mode with my life but all is good OK.

::fix, fix, fix::

Location: @4:23 AM, stumbling home
Mood: Thoughtful
Music: Do you wanna come over and kill some time?

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personal

The River

Where does the name “Luo” or “Lo” come from?

Yesterday, I met a couple going to Beijing and a boy studying Chinese. It made me remember my younger days.

There was a time when your last name told something about what you did or where you came from.

I once briefly saw a woman named Zelle, meaning cabinet in German. She figured some ancestor made cabinets. That, or hid bodies inside them.

My name was won by some ancestor who did some great deed and was asked by the emperor what he wanted. Like all good Chinese, he said, simply, “Land.”

So, 1200 years ago, he was given a tract of land in northern China in the Bing Province with a river on it – the Luo River.

Fast forward to 20070402, and I’m Lo/Luo version 120b.

Imagine if we started over again today.

We’d have names like, “Pete Accountmanager” or “Mandy Producer.” Or names like, “Edward Google,” “Sandy Fresh Direct” or “John Morgan Stanley.”

OK, maybe that last one works. You get my point.

1201 years of work and I’m the result. It’s humbling and laughable.

I know where I come from.

But where am I going?

Location: @3:00AM, in the 80s, looking for a cricket
Mood: tired
Music: You should turn yourself around and come on home

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personal

Clear Blue Skies

I’d like to move away – but I’d miss my family

The funeral I went to has been on my mind. It’s made me pensive and sappy.

I have no death wish – far from it. I have a master plan to live until I’m 100. But the plans of mice and men…

What I think about is whether or not I’ll get to find out if my father is right or wrong.

My father, you see, believes me in. I don’t know why, especially in light of my dismal track record in, well…just about everything. Yet, he thinks that I am capable of things I don’t think I am.

He always says, The race is long, one day you’ll fly.

Maybe he’s just like every other dad in the world. Maybe he really believes it.

I like to think he believes it.

That’s the real reason I don’t just pack up and leave to Beijing, Berlin or someplace where no one knows me, you know?

Because it would be nice if I could prove him right.

And I’d miss them all.

Location: sick in bed
Mood: sick
Music: So, all alone I keep the wolves at bay
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personal

The Sweetest Thing

The Sweetest Words in the English Language

I humbly submit that the poets are wrong when they say that the sweetest words are, “I love you.”

The way we use it these days (“I love that place;” “I love that show;” etc) cheapens it a lot.

December 2006 has been a horrid month for several friends of mine – some suffered the worst shock one can get, others had lesser shocks that still brought them to their knees. Five days ago, I got a call from a girl I only met once who said that she found out her boyfriend cheated on her. I got the call only because I was close by but I’m ok with that.

Four days ago, I got a call from a very close friend of mine who told me his mother passed away.

The time from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day is usually the best time of year for me. The best time. It’s so sad.

When my breakup happened, I called my brother, my sister and my friend Tommy.

  • My brother lives 1286.44 miles away but he caught the first flight here.
  • My sister is nearer and caught the next train.
  • Johnny, who had just returned from four months in China that morning, arrived at my place first.

I’m surprisingly toungue-tied at times where people’s hearts eat them up from the inside out. I think I’m at my best when I keep it simple and say what my brother, sister and Tommy said in one way or another:

I’m on my way.

Now I submit that those words…those words will make a grown man cry.

Location: @7:20 on Rt. 3, going home – like old times
Mood: sad
Music: Baby’s got blue skies up ahead but in this I’m a rain cloud

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