Tag: writing

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personal

Breaking up is hard to do

Location: home all day
Mood: coughy
Music: just can’t keep on running away so it stops today

Building on 42nd Street

Posting on Tuesday and Thursday mornings starting this Thursday (yawn).

———-

Her: (backing away) Please don’t eat that.
Me: It’s fine.
Her: I’m begging you not to eat that. It’s got to be rotten.
Me: It’s fine. I’ll microwave it, it’ll kill everything.
Her: (gagging) I can’t…I can’t…
Me: (pressing buttons) What? I’ll put mustard on it. It’ll be fine.
Her: (exiting kitchen) I’m gonna be sick…

Me: (opening microwave) It’s fi..whoa. Maybe that is bad. (thinking) Nah…

———-

Windows;

Yes, it’s true. It is Mac. Didn’t mean for it to happen. Just did. Your suspicions were right, we were together those times when my brother brought her by the place.

If it makes it any better, dunno why it might, it’s not like I traded in for some younger model as she’s older than you. Say this cause I know that her looks have made you jealous in the past and wanted to tell you that you look, honestly, as good as she does or even better now. The work that you had done late this month was really stunning. Really.

But – it’s not been your looks. It never really has. It’s just the times you left me hanging. Waiting. Hoping that this time, this time would be different.

And it just never was.

Gave you everything y’asked for: RAM, done. Bigger Harddrive, there. Speedier videocard, bam. Never enough.

And a relationship’s not just about the parties involved, it’s also what they come with, their family’s. The Dells, the Toshibas, the HPs – the HPs were the worst – they were, to be polite, never what they seemed to be.

We spent almost 20 years together – 20 years! Defended you when everyone was against you. But y’never did the same for me.

Can’t take the constant disappointments. Waited until now, after your latest operation and, like I said, you look and work amazingly. Sometimes, a relationship’s too damaged to repair. too little, too late.

Y’still have your admirers and your new looks. But I gotta go and do right by me. Not outta your life forever, though. Y’can’t just walk away from two decades of shared memories just like that.

But you’re not my number one gal anyone and for that, I’m sorry. Can’t spend another two decades waiting for you to get it right.

Logan
YASYCTAI: Back up your data – it’s your digital life. (60 mins/1 pt)

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
personal

Details in my eye

NYC nighttime skyline

 

Spent last Friday bouncing around a farm in upstate NY in the rain. Funny thing was that the price for 3,441,240 SF farm is about the same as my 1,700 SF apartment.

Came back to hit up a birthday party for my bro at a karaoke joint. Friends, pizza, rum – what’s there not to like? Afterward we went to this rooftop bar in midtown. My liver and I’re on speaking terms again so took it easy.

Feel bad that I didn’t have enough time to spend with my bro but was glad to see him when I could.

Told onea our close friends and favourite people that when I was 14, I was 5’3″ and 185 pounds.

And she told us that she had a little sister that she lost when the sis was 19.

Dunno how y’make it past something like that; how do you overcome that blow?

Let’s you and I never find out, yeah?

———-

I can only hope

that Some day, some day,

not quite so far away,

the contrails in the sky

match the details in my eye

and I’ll be who

I’m meant to be.
Contrails
NYC stop sign
 You see,

I do believe I would be free

if only these memories would leave.

But then the places of my past

contrast the faces of my mind.

So then I think of them,

and they of me.

Well,

silhouette
I can only hope.

———-

Just screwing around with HTML, folks.

And now, a duck goose:

Upstate duck

 

Location: my pad all day
Mood: melancholy
Music: We stood so tall we caught a plane by the wing and held it

Categories
personal

Hardboiled

Decided to play some hooky today

Kuma Inn, NYC

Me: Can we tell people that I’m good at math? They’d believe that cause I’m Asian.
Her: What are my people known for?
Me: Um, colonizing minorities, spheres of influence, plying my people with opium, the usual.
Her: Not my people. We were too busy dying of potato famine.

Killed a fly today by kicking it as it landed on the wall. Felt very proud. I’m sure it means little to you, but I’m 36. Being fast enough to kill a fly on the wall with your feet is a big thing to me.

Really gotta get out more.

Speaking of getting out, and to continue from the previous post, last night, took Heartgirl to Kuma Inn where we downed some excellent Filipino food – if you’re gonna go, you need reservations, then you got 90 minutes to eat. If you’re going on a date, bring your own bottle of wine (no rum allowed, I’m afraid) and ask for the corner table.

She and I played hooky today and we sat in the sun for some Mexican food. Later that night, saw Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist.

The real Nick and Nora were based on a old book/movie called The Thin Man. If you like how I write, consider reading some hardboiled crime drama. It’s what I actually write when I’m not writing this blog.

Dunno if I ever told you that.

Been working on a novel for eight years. Really should tie that up. You’d buy a copy, yeah?

Kuma Inn, NYC

Location: 14:00 yest, 86th and Columbus
Mood: oddly hungry
Music: minutes, it’s been days, it’s been all I will remember

Categories
personal

Hoops

 

Saw my parents the other day and my mom was still outta sorts. So, she picked herself up a hula-hoop.

She said that she hadn’t used one in like 40 years. But she’s proud cause she can do it like 200 times. Gotta say, I was impressed.

As I write this, my mom’s singing What A Wonderful World in the other room. I smile cause she’s getting better and I shut off the TV to listen.

Read all the comments from my last post and Sarcasticserum said that I have my own little internet cheering section. That made me laugh.

It’s a fair trade: I give the you spectacle of my ridiculous life and you sit and read. A comment or two couldn’t hurt.

Still, what’s more boring than a non-womanizing, womanizer? But, hope you stick around anyway. Cause it’s always the supporting cast that really makes the show worth watching living.

Hazel: Good luck, Logan. I’m hoping that whatever you have with Heartgirl is…exactly what you want it to be. (pause) You should put away my toothbrush. You need to make room for hers.

Blue: I wish you were my person…mostly because I want to meet him already. But if you’re not my person, maybe you’re my people. It’s hard finding good people.

You can never have enough good people. And it’s worth going through all the hoops to find them.

Thanks for reading and being on my side.

Location: 19:23 yest, Riverside Park doing taiji and not picking up a blonde
Mood: grateful
Music: on the faces of people going by I see friends

Categories
personal

We know…

Location: 22:00 yest, walking down Broadway
Mood: still in pain
Music: And now I’m never gonna get to sleep

Me: Wait, did I make a pass at you the other night?
Her: (thinking) No.

Me: (relived) Thank goodness…

Her: I know!

Meet a pretty German girl Monday night on the way home. Woulda asked for her info but, as I said, I’m distracted. Naja, I say, angenehm…tschüss.

Get home, shower and run out the door to meet up with LisaV. We’re supposed to go to a church function but she can’t get outta work so we meet up at Mooncake Diner. It’s packed so we bounce to Excellent Pork Chop House for take out and head back to her place where her roommate’s painting. We inhale it all over conversation and a glass table. Surprisingly, it’s actually excellent.

Head out to meet up with an old friend but we can’t coordinate so I swing by Rain’s for some scotch. A photoshoot’s going on with some models so I take a few pics of them and his new canine friend before taking the long walk home.

Tuesday? Tuesday was a whole ‘nother story.

Too many faces and places in my head.
Some I wish would stay away.
Some I wish would stay this way.
With my luck, the ones I want to stay will go.
And the ones I want to go…we know…

Categories
dating personal

All good things come to an end

 

Him: What’s the point of dating her if it’s not going anywhere?
Me: All relationships end. Some just end sooner than others.

Anthropologist Ernest Becker once said that Everything that man does in his symbolic world is an attempt to deny and overcome his grotesque fate.

All relationships end. And all relationships that matter end in tears. It’s just the way it goes. There’s nothing you adore now, that you can hold now, that you won’t lose at some point down the line. Either because it goes – or you go. It’s all ashes and dust and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it.

And it doesn’t matter how you go, yeah? Someone’ll wish you didn’t.

Writers try and cheat the end we know is coming. It’s our sad way of staying longer than we should. Because I’ve tricked you, you see. I’ve made you think of me.

My grandmother passed away. I’m heartbroken.

Please don’t say, I’m sorry. Tell me something funny or interesting. Cause I gotta go home and dunno what to say to my mom.

I’m a crap writer. I’ve run outta words.

Location: my office
Mood: heartbroken
Music: the sun was wondering if it should stay away for a day til the feeling went away

Categories
personal

It’s better my way

My fear is my only courage

In Marley’s “No Woman No Cry,” he’s got a line that goes:

My feet is my only carriage.

But if you listen to it, it sounds more like:

My fear is my only courage.

Since I was a kid, I misheard it. Figures. My life as a kid was all wrong.

You know, back then, I was so poor and so fat, only really had four shirts. It’s all we could afford. All my fat ass could fit. Red. Yellow. Brown-striped. And this god-awful sky blue velvet one.

Hey – betcha I got more clothes than you.

I got more clothes than anyone I’ve ever met. Anyone. And I meet a lotta folk. Statement of fact, that’s all.

Cause when I made some scratch, I bought clothes. Like 200+ ties. Not cheap ties, the good stuff. Man, I don’t even wear ties. All I do is wear jeans and tee-shirts, now. Finally grew outta it, I guess.

But you never grow outta that deep fear, do you? That deep fear that makes no @#$ sense. The fear that I’ll wake up and be this fat, poor, lonely dork in sixth grade again.

You know, my classmates threw rocks at me? Seriously, rocks.

No lie, this latest drama’s no fun. But when you’re in sixth grade and your classmates think stoning you’s high sport, well, that preps you for pretty much anything.

Don’t want pity. Don’t want charity. I just want a sec. Just gimme a sec – catch my breath, get on my feet. If you wanna do something for me, buy me some rum when you see me. Otherwise,

I’ll share with you – you see, my fear yeah? Is my only courage.
Well, yes, I’ve got to push on through.
But while I’m gone, everything’s gonna be all right.

 

Location: my apartment, all day
Mood: hopeful
Music: don’t shed no tears

Categories
personal

A Day in the Life

Was in the paper this past week and a HS friend recognized me and shot me an email. Then Paul and I grabbed a drink around then way with Stephen Phillips. And then I got home and spent the night talking to the Sexologist I met this past weekend. And I still need to come up with $26K.

NYC’s a funny place.

———-

Bedroom 7:00
Radio snaps on. McCain, Clinton, Obama. War. Housing market. Sigh. Six hours sleep. Very good. Situps (auf deutch) …48…49…50. Rub eyes. Check computer next to bed. Geek, me. Stretch. Stumble outta bed, stumble to kitchen.

Kitchen 7:08
Two cups coffee. Peanut butter & marmalade sandwich. Spoonful of ice cream. Protein shake. Gag.

Living Room 7:14
Push-ups (yung zhong wen)…48…49…50. 10 minutes of fencing. Sumbrada three, four & five, right handed. Double-handed. Left-handed. Espada y daga. Wonder why they never made a sequel to The Princess Bride.

Bathroom 7:35
Wash hands. Brush teeth. Consider combing hair. Don’t.

Living Room 7:38
Blue jeans. Black shirt. Grey socks. Good Morning America. Shut down computer. Pen. Wallet. Money. Mobile. Headset. Computer bag. Goodbye George, Goodbye Harold, and Goodbye Sydney.

Outside 8:00
Shut door. Lock gate.

Deep breath…

Blue skies, above. Concrete, below.

Troubles, behind (for now). Weekend Life, ahead.

Location: three hours ago, Dive 75
Mood: sotted
Music: I read the news today, oh boy

Categories
personal

Happy Xmas / Holidays

Location: saying goodbye on 75th and Amsterdam
Mood: sotted
Music: She looked at me and said you’s a baby right?


A Charlie Brown Xmas as performed by the cast of Scrubs.

———-

I kissed a woman tonight who was lovely. I wish I got her name. She smelled like vanilla and thought I was gay. And I met another woman who said she was good. We’ll see.

———-

Someday, I’ll Flow

You know the drill,
peace and goodwill.
We know it but don’t show it,
we want it but can’t find it.
There’s a sign up above,
that maybe it’s love.
Or maybe it’s just
something ’bout us.
That, I dunno,
I’m just lettin’ it go
praying to God,
that someday, I’ll flow.