Tag: human condition

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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

Categories
personal

I’m a hazard to myself / Fiona / The War

Location: on my family couch watching the tube
Mood: slightly poisoned
Music: always in a fight cuz I can’t do nothin right

I almost accidentally killed myself this Christmas.

See, I spent the weekend moving stuff into my new office and wrestled on Saturday. My neck was killing me. So, at the rents, I popped about four tabs of naproxen. Then at night, I took about four tabs of Tylenol PM. I woke up the next morning and popped two more tabs of naproxen cause my neck was still busted.

BUT it turns out my mom actually ran out of naproxen and put Tylenol into the naproxen bottle for reasons she doesn’t remember. So I took 5000mg ((4+4+2)*500mg) of Tylenol within six hours – a potentially lethal dose. Luckily, my brother realized this before I took any more.

Man, I’m my own worst enemy.

———-

Fiona and I aren’t right for each other. It’s not her fault – as usual, it’s mostly me. My hands shake so much that I’m only able to use about 10% of my night shots. She’s already gone.

I need another camera with an anti-shake feature like this, but fast. The pictures I take remind me that the things I write about really happened.

———-

I’m watching The War with my father and brother. Crazy isn’t it? To see how close we are to angels and animals at the same time. I forgot to breathe more than a few times.

Seems like some things never change.

Dunno why, but I find it appropriate for the holidays.

Categories
personal

Gossip Folk / More advice

Location: 16:02 yest, looking at the new office
Mood: contemplative
Music: he went about his business and devised a plan


Continuing from yesterday, someone asked me if there was a lesson to be learned from what happened to me. Here’s my answer:

Avoid gossip folk.

The woman that took my scratch was the local gossip. I thought she was harmless. Lesson learned.

When I’m out and about, I constantly see guys call a girl a hottie one second and a bitch the instant their game goes south. And that’s always when static starts and I get gone. People always cut you down with words before they cut you down with anything else.

Before it became part of WWII, the beef between China and Japan was called the Sino-Japanese War, Shina being being a racist word in Japanese. In fact, all of WWII can be seen as step-by-step escalations of evil starting with simple words.

In this blog, the only person I criticize (relentlessly) is myself. I’ve now made it a point to avoid gossip-folk, even cutting an entire raft of friends. Cause if they gossip about others, they gossip about you. And if they gossip about you, they don’t respect you. And if they don’t respect you, well then…

I think evil people can’t help it. They can hide everything else, but the gossip. The one scene I remember from JHS reading Julius Caesar was where Cassius starts it all up by leaning over to Brutus and whispering, The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

I should have known better. I should have paid attention in seventh grade English class.

Avoid gossip folk. That’s my advice.

Categories
personal

You idiot, you killed it

I’m many things these days, bored is not one of them

Scientists Find Oldest Living Animal, Then Kill It

Well, that sounds about right.

———-

Had to go onto the roof to fix a broken piece of glass (long story) on Sunday so I put on my winter jacket and made my way up.

Soon, I’m standing on my rooftop looking around the city. It’s early yet and cold so most of the city’s still inside. The wind’s blowing like mad and I’m slightly scared as there’s no railing. But as I start to work, I think about the weekend.

One minute, I’m in meetings with banks trying to hustle scratch for my business. Then I’m negotiating percentages in Chinese wearing my best tie (with a girlie secretly printed on the back of it) on a Saturday. Then I’m speaking German to a waitress in SoHo while explaining to a tall blond what an Alsterwasser/Radler is. Then I’m telling a girl in Ray’s Pizza @ St. Marks that I’m not 24. Then I’m watching a chick hang upside down in a train. Then, six hours later, I’m on a roof trying to fix a window and not get blown off.

Later that night, I’m in church (where I bumped Gshok again), and I run into a girl I met a while back but never mentioned and I came this close to asking for her number – couldn’t do it though.

Again, anywhere but church.

Anyway, I’m on this roof and I’m thinking, well, at least you’re not bored.

Yep. Boredom? That I ain’t got.

Location: 20:05, Times Square catching the uptown red
Mood: entertained
Music: Living life too close to the edge hoping that I know the ledge

Categories
business personal

One at a time

I could handle it all, if it only was one at a time

(c) History Channel

 

At The Battle of Thermopylae, the Spartans arranged it so that, despite being vastly outnumbered, they only had to deal with the soldier directly in front of them. One at a time. The thousands of soldiers behind them just didn’t exist. Only the one in front of them.

Affiliate
Her: I’m not sure…
Me: Look, I’m not asking you to trust me. You don’t know me. I’m asking you to give me a chance. One chance. Let me show you what we can do.
Her: (thinking) I’ll send you two deals. Don’t %^$& them up.
Me: We won’t.

Contractor
Him: Why would I do that? I don’t even know you.
Me: Because, I’m young and I’m bright. And if you do this for me, a young and bright (if not altogether too trusting) guy in the world owes you a favor. Ask around, that means something.
Him: I can wait one more week.

Creditor
Him: It’s too late.
Me: If you do it that way, you’ll get $0.65 on the dollar. My way, it’ll take longer, but you’ll get 100%.
Him: (pause) I’ll see what I can do.

Repeat about 20 times a week for six weeks.

Just one massive, career-ending, financially-destructive catastrophe at a time, please.

One at a time.

Location: 12:08, 13:02, 14:24, 16:33: 17:02 – banks
Mood: exhausted
Music: you must be real far gone; you’re relating to a psychopath

Categories
personal

Veterans Day 2007

Three Koreans were captured in Normandy fighting for the Nazis

Some of the first “Germans” captured in Normandy were three Koreans. They were captured by the Germans from the Russians, who captured them from the Japanese, who forced them to fight in the first place.

Crazy right? Fact is usually stranger than fiction. You know, unlike what you might have heard, the average age of men killed in Vietnam was 23 years old; in WWII, it was 26.

That sounds even crazier to me.

———-

Angry over a NATO issue, French President Charles de Gaulle is said to have demanded that all American troops leave French soil. President Lyndon B. Johnson responded, “Does that include the ones buried at Omaha Beach?”

It’s so easy to forget them, isn’t it?

Location: 17:00 yest, giving legal advice off West End Ave
Mood: drained
Music: I’m so tired but I can’t sleep

Categories
personal

Saving the world, or at least visiting

Stanislav Petrov saved humanity once

Dunno if you know about this guy Stanislav Petrov but he saved humanity by pretty much doing nothing. I like Heroes as much as the next guy but this, as real life, is something else.

To make a long story short, due to a bunch of insane coincidences, the Soviet Union ’round this time in ’83 thought the US launched all our nukes at them and he was ordered to counterstrike with all of their nuclear weapons.

He refused. Because he wasn’t insane.

He knew we wouldn’t have launched against them for the same reasons. Then, he lost his career for saving the world. How’s that for a thank you?

I too did almost nothing today but I didn’t save humanity because of it.

Did manage to get a haircut though.

———-

I’m going to Oktoberfest on my own for the last three days and I just spent the last three hours trying to book a hotel.

My German has gone to crap.

Location: mentally, over there
Mood: tired but excited
Music: do the good thing hey hey I saved the world today
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personal

Not enough time, Pt II

Men live on average 26,280 days

 

Yesterday, I was out with Nadi and we were drinking until 3AM. The waitress, Heidi, comped us two pitchers of beer. Today, I went back with two other friends and pounded another three pitchers.

Told the girl I was with that prior to 2006, I only ever kissed seven girls. She seemed to not believe me.

But it’s true.

———-

More fun with math – new numbers for US life expectancy:

  • US citizens live, on average, 77.9 years.
  • Women in the US live for 79.10 years.
  • Men get their ticket punched earlier at 72.2 years.

To put this into better perspective:

  • Women live for 28,871 days
  • Men live for 26,280 days.

Been kicking here for roughly 12,500 days.

In other words, I’m about halfway there to finding out if God’s there or not. If I find out, I’ll try and email you. Maybe less. Maybe more. I guess it’ll depend on how much sleep I get and how accident-prone I’m gonna be.

Regardless, it’s so damn short, isn’t it?

You and I, man, we can’t sit around waiting for our real lives to begin. The race is long, yes but not long enough.

Never long enough.

Location: 12AM, 72nd Street, asking her how her week was
Mood: contemplative
Music: And I was lost for words In your arms

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personal

Birds of a Feather / Circumstance

Your friends are mirrors to yourself

Well, I had both a fantastic and craptastic weekend rolled into one. Lemme sort and get back to you.
Did go to a new church with a girl that had the nicest grey eyes though.

———-

  • Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it. – Ernest S. Holmes
  • Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations. – Earl Nightingale
  • I am no Einstein. – Albert Einstein

OK, I just threw that last one in to screw with you.

I told you I cut a few people recently, yeah? They no longer reflect who I am. The people with whom you choose to surround yourself are mirrors to your values.

I submit that the five things that you wrote down that you admire about someone are five things you respect about yourself, wish you had yourself, or think you can have yourself, if only circumstances were different.

Conversely, the five things that you don’t admire about that other person, you secretly fear you could be, do, or have, yourself – again, if only circumstances were different.

Love that word, circumstance.

You and I are only ever separated from everyone else by that one thing and that one thing alone.

Ah, but what a thing that is…

Location: 3PM yest, upper east side
Mood: disappointed
Music: One time a thing occurred to me what’s real and what’s for sale?
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Categories
personal

You and Me

(c) Derik Leong

Her: You’re awfully self-involved.
Me: It says right there, “logan lo dot com”
Her: Still…

———-

I like you.

The fact you’re reading me makes me like you. That says something about me, I know.

In fact, not only do I know that is says something about me, I know what it says. But that’s neither here nor there.

Let’s play a game, shall we? I play it all the time when I’m out and about. It’s not mine, someone once told it to me. Anyway, I feel we should, cause I like you more than all the people I meet when I’m…doing what I do.

  • Make a list of about five things you admire about someone (or various persons) you love, loved and/or respect.
  • Make a list of about five things that you don’t admire/don’t respect.

Keep it to yourself, send it to me, tell your mom, it doesn’t matter.

We’ll talk about it Monday, yeah?

As always, I’m off to bed to lie awake for a while.
Location: upstairs, studying
Mood: tired
Music: home, only just a few miles down the road I can make it, I know I can