sweet nothings

2002-08-01T00:21:00.000-04:00

dude. talk about a long silence.

2002-03-29T02:54:00.000-05:00

a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. good stuff!

i just got back from my trip to LA, and it was awesome. it couldn't have been better. i got a chance to really relax, to get away from new york city and experience space, nature, and quiet. i also had good food, met good people and really connected with them, gained perspective on me and my life, saw the beautiful sights that california has, and spent quality time with my sis and got to witness firsthand how happy and well she is. nirvana, truly. i won't have to worry about romanticizing this experience, because the actual was far better than any dream.

before i left, i told my parents that i'm not graduating this year, when they thought i was. they flipped their shit and then came back to earth, only to surprise me that they didn't die of shock or disappointment or anger. completely unexpectedly, what my parents were most upset about was the fact that i didn't feel like i could trust them enough to tell them the truth. that i thought it was better to hide and lie and force myself to eat the lies that ripped apart my insides for [5] years, rather than face them with the truth. man, i'm still such a little kid. and this is true evidence that i haven't grown up yet. but it's ok. i'm realizing how far negativity and fear and lies can be recycled. i'm realizing that bad karma has to be broken. bad karma can be broken, once it's recognized.
i thought after telling my parents that i'm not graduating this year, it'd all be over-- the five years of lies and pain would be over. but it's not. i have so much more to tell them, and so much more to come clean about. my best friend helped me realize tonight that the love my parents have given me could help me so much more if their love was honest and real and inclusive of all things Me. contemplating what it would be like to be truly free, truly clean of all past lies, and to have my parents know me the way my friends know me, and to understand all that's happened... i've imagined how things could be, and now i don't want to turn my back on it.
i've been clear to my parents that i haven't had an easy time since college started for me (and actually before that). they know that i went through a very long period of self-hatred, self-doubt, and intermittent depression. but i've never been clear as to why. i know they don't question it-- they could sense that i wasn't happy, wasn't stable... but they couldn't for the life of them understand Why, because i've never clued them in on what's inside of me. i know-- I know, that everything would all make sense to them if i just told them the truth. if i went thru all the series of events and emotions that led me to the point i'm at now, they'd undeniably see the progression and the result. and i know that then they'd finally understand. i know sometimes it's not necessary or beneficial to rehash the past, but in this case, i think it is both necessary and beneficial. for reasons like not wanting to recycle karma, and also to learn from mistakes that went previously unmentioned. they've made mistakes with me. i've made mistakes with them, but i've been in the 'know' whereas they've been in the dark, so, really, how can they learn from mistakes they don't really know they've made? i have to give them that chance.
they've never done anything without the best intentions in mind. i know that more clearly than i know that about/for myself. and i know there's no use thinking of how my parents could've been different, because they weren't. and i'm trying to tell myself there's no use thinking of how i could've done things differently, because i didn't. if it's not my fault then it's not my parents' fault either. and if it was my parents' fault then it's my fault too.

i guess things'd be a lot more clear if i were more specific. i will... i need to pen it.
not now though, i'm really tired.

2002-03-14T02:59:00.000-05:00

what was once there just isn't any more. i'm speaking of brain waves here.
all i know is that i gots problems. family, health, school, money, image, romantic, social, career, work, blah blah blah.
fuck man, i know i'm in bad shape when i hear myself sayin things like, "i wish i could be a professional food taster." there are just so many things wrong with that sentence, in subject, spirit and structure.

i'm going to la next week, pretty happy about that. i've been so lazy going to the bank with my checks, i've managed to save up a grand so i'll have loot to toss when i'm on the left coast. amazingly sometimes laziness pays off. so anyway my sister called me yesterday on her cell and left me a message, i guess she was driving to go meet someone and drove past some beautiful beach spots, so i am instructed to bring my bikini so we can get baked on the beach. maybe the sun will activate some of those brain waves i just mentioned.

it's depressing to have a list of "To Do's" with nothing checked off. it's damaging to the psyche, really. for my own sake, i think i should write some things i've done in the past just so i can cross it off. heehee.

so my latest project has been to write a letter to my parents, telling them that i'm not going to graduate this year. so far the letter is 6 pages long, and surprisingly it doesn't consist of, "Mom and Dad, i'm not graduating this year. i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry......" you get the idea.
it's really the first time i've looked back at the past 5 years. and you know what? it wasn't as bad as i feared.
i was afraid the only thing the last 5 years would say about me is that i'm a fuckup, cuz i fucked up without reason, cause or purpose. but actually, the revisitation of my past allowed me to see that i understandably fucked up. there was a path that i followed [that led me to the shitter], elements and currents which influenced me to take the steps that i did. and now i'm here, looking behind me going, "so that's how i got here!"
the hilight of my week.

i've been smoking entirely too much greenery, goin to bed at 7am again, and rather surprisingly, going out every night. unsurprisingly, it's mostly local stuff.
i do need to find a way to extract myself from AV though. i realized the other day my primary role in social situations has been The Third Wheel, cuz her sometimes-boyfriend-and-always-roommate frequently accompanies her. not to mention that she's always down on her knees for him.
but, work is going well, i've gotten into the favor of the general manager so i'm riding pretty high. i figure by may i'll be waiting tables, which suits me fine, cuz as it is i can barely manage going to school and doin my host thang. by may the coats are back in the closets, my pay goes way down, and school will be out.
shit in my mind i've been postponing my life until may. not just with work, but other things...

oh yea, i'm addicted to ebay. the cameras i bought arrived and i've done nothing with them because upon first glance i couldn't figure out how to work them. i did some research and asked some photographer friends and the cams both have funky features that to some may be novel, even possibly cool, but to me they just made me re-bubble wrap them and put em aside. i'm now in the market for a pentax k1000 and a minolta srt. how like me to act first, and then ponder.

2002-03-04T23:00:00.000-05:00

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Moderate
Schizoid:	Low
Schizotypal:	Moderate
Antisocial:	Moderate
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Moderate
Narcissistic:	Moderate
Avoidant:	High
Dependent:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Moderate
-- Click Here To Take The Test --

2002-02-23T13:47:00.000-05:00

3 nights off. niiice.

i bought my plane ticket to LA on wednesday. i'm goin in a month, pretty much, march 21-27. i'm excited, especially because i bought the ticket myself. and since i bought it with plenty of time left, i can plan my trip well. my sis moved into her new place and she's lovin it, so this time i go it'll be a much more comfortable situation. something to look forward to...

recommendations: the movies scratch and pinero.
http://yesmoke.com for cheap cartons of cigarettes.

i bought 2 cameras off of ebay recently, and i'm waiting for them to be shipped to me. they're both old school vintage cameras, so who knows if i'll even be able to figure out how to work em, but i'm looking forward to being able to learn. ever since i was with rice and we played around with cameras, my interest was piqued. i took a photography class in high school my freshman year which was kinda neat-- we did the whole pinhole camera thing and developed our own pictures, but i ended up barely passing the class with a 65 or something like that cuz the teacher hated me cuz my friend and i would always go into the darkroom with the senior boys and fool around. not sexually, just stupidly and playfully. haha, but the teach was a paranoid pervie who thought we were doin worse things. anyway, i enjoyed the class but at the time my attention was more devoted to boys than taking pictures. not now though, aint got no boys to distract me.
one of the cameras is a zeiss ikon ikomatic f camera.
and the other is a graflex graphix 35mm rangefinder camera.
none of the fancy words mean anything to me, but the pictures make the cameras look promising. shit i'm a sucker consumer.
i was thinkin of giving one of the cameras to my sister, but now that i think about it, i think it'd be cool to give one to my dad. he's got an amazing eye for framing and composition, and he loves taking pictures. that would be a great xmas present. haha, i'm still collecting stuff for my family's xmas presents. i've been collecting for so long now they're all gonna get some goodies...

anyway, time to start my day.

2002-02-18T19:17:00.000-05:00

woohoo. good karma.
i was scheduled to work thurs sat (of last week) and tonight, but then picked up a shift on friday, and then worked 5 hrs last night in the lounge cuz it was extra crazy due to the no-work holiday today. i'm also scheduled for tomorrow, so that would be 6 consecutive days of working. i was doing alright but tonight i really really didn't want to work-- it's my 1 night workin upstairs which gets boring, especially on monday nights, plus i have a full week of school starting tomorrow, and i have massive cramps of the female kind. so i grudgingly went into work after having called everyone to see if anyone would cover my shift, and of course no one would-- i swear i always pick up other people's shifts, but can never get anyone to cover mine. anyway, there were 3 hosts scheduled tonight and we really only needed 2, so i asked if i could go home. but the other host tiffany also wanted to go. i begged and begged, without shame, but she wouldn't relent, and we couldn't come to a decision so the GM (general manager) cut a straw and the other host who didn't want to go home said the shortest straw meant the ticket home. i really didn't want to draw straws cuz i never win those stupid games-- flipping coins, rock paper scissors-- but i agreed, hoping i have good enough karma to win the stupid thing. i picked blindly and i won! winning the game felt better than the prospect of going home... well, almost.
so i'm so excited to have the night off. i'm gonna go to the Pink Pony and loiter and do my reading.

i took the straw home with me. i'm gonna tie a flag to it and write "victory!" on it. jeez i'm jubilant!

2002-02-16T03:47:00.000-05:00

i feel a lot better today. went to class, enjoyed learning, then went to work and enjoyed working, more or less.
i'm trying to give up my anger for lent.
being nice, being "good" makes me feel good. and happy.

gotta pee.

2002-02-15T01:50:00.000-05:00

crying on valentine's day. what a fucking cliche. i tried not to let my depression coincide with this man-appointed 'holiday', but it did, for a variety of reasons.
yesterday was ash wednesday. i realized this in the afternoon when i noticed people walking around with the cross on their foreheads. i called 5 different churches to see if any had any evening masses, but none of my calls were answered, and no answering messages provided me with the information, so i didn't go. i felt bad, because i wanted to go. i've been feeling something missing in me, in my life lately, and i think my neglected relationship with God is what's missing.
last night i had a hard time falling asleep, so i started praying. it's weird, but when i pray, it puts my life and me and the world radically into focus. during those moments i feel like i know what's really goin on. it's been a very long time since i last prayed, probably the last time i went to church, which was christmas time, and just having those few moments with God last night changed my perspective.
i realized while praying that i've become a not-nice person... most especially at work. and i've adopted an US against YOU mentality, US being the staff at bond st, and YOU being the customer. with upscale restaurants i think you'll find a lot of that sort of self-imposed snottiness. anyway, i deal with so much shit-- customers treating me like i'm stupid when they're the ones lacking any common sense, customers treating me like i don't exist (no eye contact, no direct words), customers who just bitch and bitch and bitch, and then of course there are nice customers, but usually the nice ones are stupid so they piss me off anyway. it's just fast making my nerves wear thin. and standing at the front podium with the manager, hearing him say something rude or snide or sarcastic or insultory about the customers after they leave (ALL managers are passive-aggressive), it rubs off on me, and i start doing thinking acting the same way, to the point where today, after i shut the door to check the things belonging to this girl that annoyed me, i was talking to myself, cursing and saying stupid ass shit about the girl. i had a big reality check. i was pathetic, spiteful, not-nice, and just unhappy! the difference was that today i caught myself doing this, and then apologized (to the air), took a deep breath, and vowed to try not to do it again.
patience is such a virtue. so is tolerance. i thought i had both those things, and i still think i do, in certain arenas, but in other arenas, my supply has run dry. i feel like it's really important for me to fix this though. i'm not happy with myself acting this way.

after work, the staff was all drinkin champagne and talkin, and someone was talkin about facercise (face exercise) and how it really works. so i made a joke that all the kids who used to take their fingers and spread their eyes slanted in imitation of my eyes must have strong face muscles. to which my manager said, "well then i'll bet you have a really strong middle finger." to which i vehemently shook my head and said that i never fought back, i just internalized everything. everyone was so shocked! they all see me as this strong girl... i guess my abrasiveness, my tomboyishness, my hard attitude etc all creates this image that i'm a solid person. and i am. but i'm also really sensitive, and i think most people can't see that, because i don't... show it? hmmm. i guess i don't expose my vulnerabilities too much, but i distantly remember a time in the past when i wore all my vulnerabilities on my sleeve. what happened to that era i wonder? i can't remember. just another thing to think about.

yea, i'm lonely, but it's no different today than it was a week ago. what's got me depressed is that i'm not living life as a good person. i don't know if i'm violently fearful of being a "bad girl" (catholic girl syndrome), but i do know that it's extremely important to me to feel like i'm a good person. if i have that, then i can't hate myself. truly.
aghhh. that's all.

2002-02-09T14:26:00.000-05:00

mah shit is all fucked up. i'm just fiddlin around on my computer, and i was gonna record one of my poems and post it to my music page in mp3 form, but when i went to go find the poem in this blog, i couldn't find it. argh... it's there, but it's not publishing for some reason. how fitting-- one of the only times in this damned blog that i wrote something meaningful, and it doesn't show up. pooh on this!
anyway, i've been a crazy person this week. to all of a sudden add on another responsibility to my unaccustomed-to-responsibility person, it's hard! but i'm adjusting. whereas before i'd start off strong and rapidly dwindle, i think i'm now gaining steam as time passes. a good sign, trust me.

i've been moody and self-obsessive lately, yet pretty happy. i guess that's cuz for me, moody & self-obsessive defines my status quo anyway.

don't tell anyone but i've been missing my long hair and cursing my short. i'm growing it out again, and it's just outta control! it's like puberty on my head. ew that picture was painted a bit too brightly hahahah. later dawg.

2002-02-01T19:21:00.000-05:00

i've got a new hunger, and for once it's not food. it's reading. words. learning.
school has started for me and 3 days in, i'm getting more and more excited. nervous, too, of course, cuz i really really don't want to screw this up this time, but the overriding emotion i'm feeling is excitement. excitement for the future, for when i'll know more than i do now.
i'm taking a basic acting class-- out of curiosity, and out of hope that it will help me in creative areas of my life. and i'm taking Migration and Immigration from the Perspective of 20th Century Women Writers. my professor seems really cool. worldly, intelligent, tough, compassionate. since it's an english and women's studies course and also in many ways an asian-american course, it satisfies a lot of interests of mine. the first book we're reading, Bread Givers, by Anzia Yezierska, is about an immigrant russian jewish family, dirt poor in the '20s, living on the lower east side of manhattan, which is where i live! the writing is really beautiful, perhaps because it's been translated from its original yiddish. english transliteration always seems to give more meaning than just english. i'm so thorougly enjoying the book, and i'm so grateful to just be reading something. lately i've been wanting to read, but there's so much out there it becomes quite difficult to choose what to read, so i'm thankful that it's being chosen for me. i think later when i develop more confidence and a better idea of my tastes, i'll have fun in picking out my own reading material.
and today i went to my linguistics/women's studies course, Language, Gender and Sex, taught by this feminist linguist who's a total hardass but so accurately so, since she speaks with such authority and comprehension of the spoken and written word. she's a hardass in the sense that if you present an idea, she'll make you question it all the way to the source, and she'll always ask "why?". i freakin love people who are driven by "why?". this course will be tough, i believe, just the rhetoric of the discourse alone is difficult and tedious, but i know she'll teach in much the same manner (in difficulty). i'm looking forward to this class being a challenge for me, because the reward of the knowledge i'll be granted will certainly be worthwhile. dude i'm such a nerd-wannabe.
the last class i'm taking which i haven't gone to yet is an anthropology course, Ethnicity and Nationalism. those two issues right now are of great interest to me, in light of personal events like moving to manhattan, and also of global events, like september11th and the politics of the war going on right now. i also realized that i really like the discipline of anthropology. it has a lot of theoretical background, but as applied to reality and concrete things.

i went to barnes and noble yesterday to buy the book for my migration and immigration class, and i ended up buying two other books as well. one is the anthology written by and for asian-american girls, Yell-Oh Girls. i flipped through it in the store and read a few pieces, and i really liked it. it gave me chills to feel such connection with all of the contributers.
and the other book i bought was a collection of spoken word poems. all of the poets that contributed are all well-known and established, which just fuels my dreams of becoming a 'famous' spoken word poet.

i'm feeling really great about things right now. all of the errands i needed to do last week i took care of, except the security deposit thing... still gotta do that! but so i'm feeling now ready and able to move forward. i've paid off all my debts with my own money!!! and with money left to spare, so i'm saving up for something, probably a trip out to LA.

i'm living my day-to-day life but i feel inspired and excited.

shit i grow sappier every day.

2002-01-22T03:07:00.000-05:00

i spend a lot of time doing things that come easy to me. everyone does, i guess. it's comforting, familiar, and it affords me with a sense of ability. it also makes me feel pathetic. i thought about this today when i was hanging out with AV's ex-boyfriend/good friend, neighbor for most of the day. he's 32, japanese, and a writer. he shared with me today the new novel he's working on, and it just got me thinkin about myself and the challenges i take on... (not many). i was trying to recall the last time i felt smart, and my mind went all the back to 4th grade, when the vice principal of my school summoned me to his office once a week during math class to sit with him and do math problems. i knew i was smart because of this special treatment, and i felt smart sitting in his office doing math all class period long. i think that's why i always liked math-- it made me feel smart. in junior high, when i was on the 'math olympiads' team and went to competitions, and then in high school, always the first one finished and always one of the highest scorers in my accelerated math classes and AP calc... i guess that's why i started off in college as a math major. i was all gung ho about it, joking to everyone when they asked what i was gonna do with a math major that i was gonna start a 1900 math hotline number, where callers would phone in with math problems they couldn't solve, and while waiting for the answer, the caller would get an operator talkin dirty to em in the meantime. 1-900-sex-math was gonna be the number.

anyway, the things i spend my time doing now... surfing the internet, going out to eat, working, shopping, going to open mics... these things all seem too easy. i remember when i was younger, i had a whole laundry list of things i wanted to do before i died. writing a book was one of them. this mental list i had was long forgotten until recently, when i was home for the holidays, i picked up a random book i had read a while back written by an asian woman author, and while reading it, the sense of familiarity with her asian voice gave me a spark of inspiration and remembrance of the desire to write.

i think i've got things to say. i mean i do, but a lot of times i don't bother to figure out what. and i know i have the ability to write, and the desire. so this is a goal i'm setting for myself. who knows if i'll really write a book, but i know i want to write something. so i will...

i've been waiting for my life to get 'exciting' for me to derive inspiration and creative ideas. but i think that's an excuse for me to just live day-to-day without any perspective. i want to be ME always. i don't want to just be.

school is starting for me next week, and i'm only working 3 days this week, so i want to get my shit together. i can't be bothered once school is in motion with unfinished business. you know i'm sick of possibilities, i want actualities. i want action!

anyway, tomorrow is a big day for me. it's been weeks and weeks since i've had 2 days off in a row, and today i spent it chillin maxin relaxin. tomorrow i'll spend it taking care of business and errands, so that wednesday i can work with a free mind, and then thursday i can register for classes.

my goal for this week is, like i said, do what i need to do to clear my slate for school.
my goal for the next month is to maintain stability and gain momentum, with school, work, and personal time. and my goal for this year is to maintain momentum, stability, multi-tasking and equilibrium... to not let one aspect of my life suffer for the sake of another, and to just feel full.
yea... my goal is to feel full!

aite enough of this inspiring crap. i'm gonna watch a movie i rented and then hit the sack. tomorrow i gotta hit the post office to send back my 2nd pair of puma rollerskates (i've put it off since october!!!), mail a card and some money, do laundry, go to hunter to pay my tuition, call my old sublettor for my security deposit back (put off since august!!!), go to the bank, have dinner with dc at this new restaurant Theo, and call my parents. hmmm i need a reward if i get all that done... ooh i know, i'll splurge on some greenery.
haha, that's sure to help my momentum.

2002-01-20T03:53:00.000-05:00

soundtrack for today:
James' Laid

been a rather blurry week. monday was my day off and at this point i don't remember what i did. oh yes, i met up with my friend gimp and we had dinner in the city after he got off work. he's just recently acquired a job and so now he's a big breadwinner. such a change for me to see him in that light. not because i can't imagine him employed, but because i can't imagine him blending into the 9to5 pack. i still want to see him doing something creative with his art skills. he should be pimpin and exploiting his talents, not the business market. oh well, whatever he does, i sincerely hope he derives happiness from it. i know sometimes having me as a friend means less support, more 'let me tell you what to do' talks, but i can't help it...
anyway after dinner i rode the train with gimp to queens and met up with my oppa (<-- means 'big brother' in korean). he's not my real brother, but an older guy who i used to feel like was a surrogate older brother figure to me. anyway, we just hung out with his friends. they drank and i braided the tassels on my scarf... the rest of the week was a blur, working tues wed thurs and fri. tues was ok, cowboy was workin but i wasn't feelin him that night. i think my conversation with harmonica still had me dazzled. wed i can't remember anything about. thurs cowboy was workin again and i was feelin him more so that night. but i left early, so there was no time we had that wasn't on work time, and lately management has cracked down on hangin around the service bar, so every interaction i did have was colored by a paranoia of getting reprimanded...
fri morning i woke up at the ass crack of dawn (6:30) to help AV and this korean bartender at bond st, G, with the shoot of his short film. AV is basically G's line producer, and i spent the day doing craft services and being an extra in the film. i had a lot of fun with craft services, laying out the meat, cutting up the lettuce haha... it was a good time though, everyone on the set had personal relationships, mostly thru bond st, so it was more like a hangout session at apt. after the cleanup, this guy and i stepped out onto the balcony of apt and smoked a lil greenery. it was a good time but totally screwed me for work. i was dazed and mighty confused for 3/4 of the shift. finally went home and collapsed in bed into a deep sleep.
woke up this afternoon and cursed cuz i wanted to wake up early to help AV out again on the shoot. finally made it to apt at 3:30, in time to say hello to everyone and help cleanup. afterwards, AV, her xboyfriend/good friend (i'll call him neighbor cuz he lives a block away), and i went to Go sushi on st marks and had a feast. during dinner we somehow got on the subject of the film 'Starship Troopers', and then went to 3 different video stores lookin to rent it, cuz i hadn't seen it, and AV and neighbor were adamant about inducting me into the ST fan club. it was pure hilarity, i might add.
so that about brings me up to speed. i've had a lot of weird moments throughout the past few days, but i'm too tired to engage in any sort of meaningful thought or writing. i was supposed to go to the asian american writers' workshop open mic tonight, which is why i originally got the night off, but it was so snowy i didn't feel like moving much. the snow to ny'rs is so wondrous, but to me, a buffalonian, it is such a damn nuisance. ah, where's my seasonal cheer. probably in the same place as where i put my desire to exercise and be healthy.

revision: my poem 'eyes' is now called 'shallow eyes'.

another revision: my new rap name is anime. i think this one will stick.

i rented 'Wet Hot American Summer'. gotta return it by monday morning and i'm workin tomorrow, so i'm gonna pop it in now.

2002-01-14T05:57:00.000-05:00

soundtrack for today:
Zoot Woman's Jessie and Losing Sight

i rolled over in my bed, just enough for my right eye to see that the clock read 4:55. pm, that is. then followed a big "SHIT!", then another rolling over to phone work and confess that i am the biggest lameass not yet awake 5 minutes before i was to report to work.
remarkably i had a good day, even though my 'morning' sucked a big one. i got to work without any calamities other than too much sleep making my eye folds two different sizes (God i hate that!), subsequently forcing me to wear my hair down enough to cover one eye.
after work, i stuck around, chatting with the 1 white sushi guy as he waited for one of the waiters to finish doing the money so they could share a cab together. continued to stick around and ended up talking at the bar with the bartender harmonica, the one i had a crush on cuz he's sweet and gave me a hug when i needed one. we talked for about 4 hours, about everything. i haven't enjoyed a conversation like that in a while. it wasn't catching up, it wasn't shootin the shit, it was just getting to know each other, without being interrupted like usual when we talk during work hours. he's really a standup guy. i mean he's cute, but that's the bonus to him being smart, witty as hell, interesting, sensitive, compassionate, talented, and just really unique in a quiet sort of way.
i always say that my dreamboat guy is someone i can take with me anywhere, and let him loose and not have to worry about him. someone who can handle himself under any circumstance. cuz really, people like that are hard to find. to be able to trust someone enough that you don't have limitations, man, that would be a beautiful thing. he's one of those guys, and really, i can only think of 1 other guy who's that way, and i won't get into that mess... anyway, harmonica is just a special guy, which is odd for me to be sayin cuz i don't usually say that about people.
it makes me a bit sad to know that he has a girlfriend, but i'm happy to just know him. being his friend is an awesome thing, unlike some guys who strangely you'd only date, but never just be buddies with. but as he was talkin, i found myself totally interested in the things he said, about his background and growing up. he's quite different from me, being from atlanta, white with a bit of native american, an actor/bartender, son of divorced parents, middle child between two other brothers. and pretty different from any of the guys i know... it's just been awhile since i've really gotten to know a white guy. i know that sounds so bad to relegate it like that, but for real. in college, i remember thinking on a number of occasions that i hadn't spoken to a white guy in months! living in buffalo, is that possible?! i remember knowing that it had been 4 years since i had had a white male friend, or female friend really, for that matter.
it was so odd. now that i think about it, other than rice, i really haven't been close to any white guys since moving to nyc, and i feel like in a lot of ways, i know harmonica, but i don't really know rice, didn't really ever know rice.
something harmonica and i were talkin about tonight just made me think that maybe the reason why i stick so closely to asian people is cuz they're the only ones who have been accepting to me. growin up with white people, i never got treated well by them (on the whole, of course, i'm talkin about here). so maybe, subconsciously, i stay loyal to my asian friends cuz i feel like asians on the whole have been good to me. just a thought.
anyway, the 4 hours went by like a lightning bolt, even though we both knew by the time i looked at my watch that we had been talkin for more than a few hours. i was left with the feeling of looking forward to allowing our friendship to grow. and also the feeling of relief, that it is possible for people to be interesting to me, enough that i reach out and genuinely want to know them.

do i end every entry, or end every thought in my head, coming up with a gross overgeneralization or hypothesis? god i hope not.

2002-01-13T05:26:00.000-05:00

sountrack for today:
Toya's I Do

heehee. cheese city, but that's ok. it's a feel good song to me, and slightly more intelligent than the average pop song.

so anyway. just been working. working and playing. went out the last coupla nights, after work. yesterday AV and i went to milk n honey, a bar on eldridge and delancey. very cute place, it's gotta speakeasy 20s type feel to it, recognizable to me even though i'm not really familiar with that whole culture. the door is unmarked and there's a camera that you look into-- the only way for passage other than calling ahead, which is the usual protocol, except they're always changing their number. normally, deals like that wouldn't appeal to me, but this place is so small, dark and quaint with really great drinks that the whole concept is charming rather than typical nyc obnoxious. anyway. things with AV haven't been so exciting since i've been back in town, but last night we had fun. i think a lot of our fun depends on her-- namely, her mood. sometimes she acts a bit aloof, unaccomodating. i can relate because i have those tendencies as well, but i think i used to be that way a lot more. now, i think i'm a bit more easygoing and ready to handle most social situations/environments.
tonight after work my queens friends were hangin in the city so i went to meet them at bar XVI. it was ok for the first hour, but i got kinda tired of the scene and got antsy, so half of the 12 of us went to choga, a korean/japanese restaurant in the west village that's open mad late. the other half was supposed to meet us there, but some other friends ended up showin up at the bar, so they stayed and drank while we stuffed our faces. had i known, i would've hung back at the bar, cuz the 2 people i really wanted to chill with didn't go eat. 1 being gimp, my best guy friend twin, and the other being this japanese guy (we'll call him uni cuz we both loooove uni). uni goes to berkeley and he's leaving for school tomorrow, so i wanted to see him before he left. i've got a crush on him. mostly because he's like, the nicest guy i've ever met?!! and he's cute, intelligent, cool, tall hehe... he has a girlfriend in california, but call me crazy, i get a vibe from him that he kinda digs me too. i think what's between us is really innocent. it feels kinda like two kids who just wanna be around each other. it's really cute actually, well, probably not so cute that i'm the one pointing out the cuteness of us.

seems like there're a few boys around lately to keep me stupid. at work today, this guy came in with another guy and an asian girl to eat. they were walk-ins waiting for the sushi counter, and so the manager tonight said it'd be about an hour wait, and i said 30 minutes at the same time, so they put their name on the list and i told em we'd seat them as fast as possible. usually we seat parties of 2 at the counter, but there were already 3 people eating at the sushi bar, so we were just waiting for them to get up to seat the new party of 3. while the 3 people were waiting at the front bar for the counter, i went over and asked if they wanted to check their coats. the asian girl said they weren't sure if they were gonna stay, and then the cute guy said, "no, we're staying, i know you'll take care of us." i literally winked at him and said i would (so uncharacteristic of me!), and then took their coats. less than 10 minutes later the 3 at the sushi counter got up, so i went over and sat the 3 new people. i kept making eye contact with the cutie, and i just got the subtle vibe that he was into me. so i kept walking back and forth through the sushi room while they were eating, and thru the mirror i could see he would look at me pretty often. i was wearing one of my new shirts that's pretty sexy and shows my stomach, so i felt kinda sexy tonight.
after they were done eating, the cutie guy went to the bar, and sat down on the chair by the window, directly facing the podium where i was standing. i guess the other 2 people he was with were in the bathroom, so the entire time he was alone, i felt his eyes on me. i looked at his eyes once or twice and made direct eye contact and it freaked me out, even though i smiled. i dunno, there's something about straight-on eye contact that's so affecting, you know? so the other 2 finally joined him, they hung out for a little while, i got their coats and we exchanged pleasantries. as they were leaving, the cutie hung back ever so slightly so that he'd be the last one out, and i said my usual, "goodnight, take care." and he turned and looked at me and our eyes and smiles lingered.
i got so giddy. my manager who's a cute gay guy was totally diggin on him too, so we were both swooning after he left. the other host and the manager were teasing me the whole time he was there, saying that he was givin me the eye and whatnot, and i was so delightlyfully surprised. i mean, it never, rarely ever, works out for me that they guys i'm attracted to pay any attention to me.
such a minor inconsequential teeny tiny experience/encounter it was, but i felt like it was progress. i didn't cower or pretend that i wasn't into him or ignore him, things that i normally do, i actually showed a bit of interest, shy as i was. but seriously, with every little experience like that, i feel like i'm making teeny steps towards being less stupid/silly about guys. sure, my verbosity probably makes it seem like i'm obsessing or savoring moments too much, but i don't really think i am. it's just when something like that happens, some little experience that's all positive and none negative, it just kinda shocks me. i don't think i'm bein clear. anyway.
even with cowboy, the bartender, i've gotten a lot better at not backing down from what i feel or how i want to be. before, the stuff goin on inside of me was not at All apparent from my exterior, and quite different. maybe i'm jumpin the gun, but i think now i'm gettin more comfortable with guys.
i know i'm still not too comfortable with myself though. i mean, i said once to AV, after the whole kissyface xmas party incident with cowboy, that i'm totally attracted to him, but i would never want him to see me naked and stuff. things like that. my nudity. my naked body. it just kinda freaks me out. i feel like it's not womanly, not sexy. i dunno. i'm just not comfortable with my sexuality. or maybe i'm comfortable with my sexuality, but not my body. i'm all confused. i know i'm a sexual person, more so than the average girl. but my sexuality? that's another thing.
these ideas are all so convoluted and confusing. how does one clarify them?

clearly i'm not in a cerebral mood. clearly i haven't been in a cerebral mood in a long time. but that's ok. during the month of january that i have off from school, i'm being really really easy on myself. it's kinda nice.

i was lookin at my webpage yesterday and i forgot that i wrote this. i kinda like it =).

my birth broke a record/ longest baby of the herd/ this title i held/ from my first day in this world/ what began as a win/ became much strife within/ my long limbs didn't fit/ with my Asian skin/ freakish i was seen/ by moms and dads and other teens/ "how you gonna find a man to marry?" they would speak/ as if at fourteen/ enough didn't trouble me/ i was supposed to relate/ to the stick figures in magazines/ knobby knees/ emaciated beauty/ not really a mirror of me/ aint nobody on those glossy sheets/ who sipped barley tea/ while eatin kimchee/ cuz it wasn't chic/ to be in the foreign scene/ unless it was to be foreign/ to the foreign scene/ thru chinky eyes i could see/ the disparity between/ the speeches and the real/ was i supposed to agree/ was i supposed to know the deal/ cuz the hand
outstretched to me/ wasn't one that would feed/ please/ it was a gamble really/ but at stake wasn't just green/ it was yellow like my skin/ and it was deeper/ my bet came from within/ layin myself on the line/ hopin there were ropes for me to climb/
find my way to the top/ so i could shout "the only blocks are mental blocks!"/ but i was stopped/ and i knew i'd never reach the top/ i was bein used to prop others up/ i was bein used/ as a prop a decoration/ but i was so fucked up/ that it didn't matter/ cuz i was on the ladder/ and i thought that that was the only plan of attack/ seein it like a battle/ shoulda been enough to hold me back/ but i was just
one of the pack/ of the masses/ saturated by purse straps/ invested in the business/ of makin young girls feel like crap/ wrapped up in image/ happiness in visual/ invisible individuals/ just dividends for corporate trends/ so i took out my pen/ and decided to use my fuckin head...

i dunno if i conceived this in my journal, meaning that it's been written in here before, but whatever.

goodnight, i'm so pooped. !!!

2002-01-10T02:54:00.000-05:00

i've got a decent connection so i feel obliged to write.
i had a long day, even though it wasn't so productive. i ate a huge breakfast at barrio99 and the cute boy wasn't there, then went to head over to the bank to deposit 4 weeks of paychecks that have gone undeposited cuz i've been so lazy and late-waking. on the way i stopped at a boutique in my 'hood and bought 2 really great shirts, 1 kenzo and 1 alaia for 80 bucks total, which is a steal for real. one's for my sister for xmas. a little late, i know. so i hit the bank and cruised down broadway for some easy shopping and it ended up being too easy... i bought myself 3 more tops, my sister another top, my mom a jacket and my dad a sportshirt for golfing. oh and a pretty neat bag for myself. i'm so damn selfish... i can't resist buying myself clothing. but i'm vowing to stop. i want to buy my dad another little something and maybe another thing for my mom cuz i didn't get a chance to buy any xmas presents. my whole family's style is all very similar, so when i shop for them, i look out for things that are appealing to me. hence, i end up buying myself stuff.

after the shopping spree i stopped at lotus cafe and had hot apple cider, then went home and called my model friend dc finally... after a coupla months of no communication on my part. we had a nice talk, but it was weird cuz talking to her makes me think about modeling again. right now i'm at a point where i have to make a decision. go for it or forget it forever. i told myself i'd make the rounds at the agencies one more time, and if i didn't get an agency that actually did something for me, i'd throw in the towel. but i haven't even thought about actually going to the agencies, much less making steps towards action. but dc keeps tellin me i should go, especially back to boss who offered me their commercial division that i stupidly rejected and which apparently has taken off, so it's bringin the idea back into the forefront of my mind. also, this one photographer from awhile ago that i thought lost interest in me called dc's place a coupla times trying to reach me, so not only am i surprised, i'm contemplating the opportunity.
i just feel... extra scared this time around. i'm pretty comfortable in my life, pretty settled in. i've got a good job, friends, a decent social life, cash flow, my open mics and my music/poetry, and come the end of january, school. i feel like getting back into modeling could really screw everything else up. but i guess that's the risk. it could also enrich everything as well. well, that's me thinkin positively i guess. not only all that, but i'm getting older, so it's now or never (unless i get celebritydom and do that kind of modeling pshawhahhhh). when i first moved to ny and did the modeling thing, i was scared, but it was more out of naivete than knowledge or experience. ah shit i dunno. if i do go to the agencies, i'm gonna go in like 2 weeks, so i guess i have a bit of time.
i know i still have the desire, but that doesn't seem to be the question anymore.

work was fine. i made off with 155 which makes my spending spree today a bit less painful.
tomorrow i think i'm hitting flushing with av and my queens friends. she's never experienced flushing so i'm excited for her, and i think it'd be good for her to hang out with some korean homeboys. hopefully we'll get back to the city in time to hit apt cuz phallic is spinning tomorrow night. should be fun...

imma bout to drop dead i'm so exhausted. natural exhaustion is a beautiful thing. too bad i got a load of korean food in my stomach from 30 minutes ago, wendy's fries, a few pieces of sushi, some chocolate and some bond st chilean seabass. hotdamn i'm an eating machine!

2002-01-09T10:09:00.000-05:00

soundtrack for today:
J Lo and Slick Rick's remix of Play

i dunno what the hell has been up with my internet, but over the past few days and gazillion tries, i've only been able to get connected at less than 20000 bps. right now i'm on a 53.3k connection, the only thing i can surmise is that at night when i try to log on there's been a lot of traffic?
eh.

anyway, life has been rather quiet lately. since i've got no school, the only real responsibility i've got is work, and i've got that locked down. haven't messed it up yet, and i don't think i will, i'm proud to say. after that crazy breakdown i had at work, things have been better. my damn pms was making me so emotional, and it was one of those nights that never seemed to end...

the reason why j lo is my song of the day is cuz my friend, phallic, produced it! the deal went thru and i don't think the song has been released yet cuz i tried searching on numerous sites and came up empty, but when it does come out it'll be pretty big. he's gettin .13 cents off every copy sold which could turn into a whole lotta cash. i'm happy for him even though he's a music snob and i know he's a bit embarrassed to be doin poppy stuff, but when you hear it, it's pop done well, so at least he can say that.

i went to an open mic at bar13 on monday night. it was awesome! i made new friends =), big george, the big dreadheaded white guy whose style i absolutely love (and who told me i wrote his all-time favorite rape poem... weird compliment, i know), and this other girl mo who's also freakin awesome. i read my 'eyes' poem, and when i went up, they were all cheerin for me. i gave a better performance than the first time, but i was a lot more nervous this time around, i think cuz i didn't feel so anonymous. but it wasn't a judged open mic cuz they had an invitational slam and a spotlight poet, so it was a more relaxed vibe for me.
the spotlight poet was this asian guy by the name of Beau Sia. midway thru his first poem i recognized his face from somewhere, and after a minute my mind came up with the reference of 'Slam' the movie. beau sia was the asian inmate who bugs the fuck out and then gets dragged away to be sexually assaulted by the guards. he had a really bit part, but it was really memorable to me, cuz i felt like his performance was really spot-on. anyway, he gave a great performance at bar13 as well. as his finale, he took random words from the crowd and freestyled a poem, and it was fabulous!!! everyone was totally impressed. he weaved together words like 'parade' 'girl' 'pants' 'calorie' 'orgasm' 'danky' etc etc. there were about 12 words in all and he used each word at least 2wice. it was really impressive. so after his performance i went up to him like a dork and bought his cd for 10bucks, and then asked him to sign a flyer for his show that's actually tonight. i talked to him for a few seconds about his part in 'Slam' and then he told me he really enjoyed my poem and that i should keep writing cuz it's important stuff for people to learn about and whatnot. how lovely! this asian girl also came up to me and invited me to an asian american writers' workshop open mic in a coupla weeks, so i'm considering going. i'm definitely interested to see what/who's out there, even if i am a bit skeptical. i'm supposed to be working that night but i'm tryin to get someone to pick up my shift. shouldn't be too hard, cuz it's a great shift, and lately i've been makin decent money, anywhere from 110-180 a night. it sucks though, when you give up a shift, not only do you lose the income, but you also spend money, which is doubly painful in a way.

so i saw cowboy last night at work. it was his first day back, after being in brazil for a few weeks. he looked great with that tan. mmhmm haha. i hadn't seen him since i went to his play and saw him briefly, so i was a bit excited and a bit nervous. he definitely makes the time at work go faster. anyway, we flirted and he kissed my cheeks a few different times, but it was all pretty innocent. there was unexpected drama though... his ex came in to eat last night and though i was workin downstairs and runnin around so i couldn't really see what was goin on, i know he was buggin out somewhat. i got a glimpse of her and heard her ask my manager if he she could smoke at the bar, and boy was she hot. she had a foreign accent (spanish maybe?) and a total penelope cruz appeal. i was checkin her out to see if i could make some conclusions about what kinda girls he goes for, you know, just outta curiosity (not), but i really didn't get anything out of it. hey but i'm happy cuz the anticipation has been broken and now it' s back to regular time. it's nice to have a crush... gives me something to look forward to.

this is the first time in a really really long time i've been up so early. i got off work really early last night and came straight home, so i took a coupla sleeping pills so i could go to bed at a decent hour (bad, i know), and it actually worked. woke up at 8 this morning. i didn't want to get too much sleep so i'll be tired again tonight so i'll fall asleep early tonight too. fixing my sleeping schedule is so hard for me, so i gotta really put this much thought into it.
well my stomach's startin to growl so i'm gonna hit barrio99 to get some breakfast. i hope the cute waiter boy is there so i can do my usual smooth routine of acting like a shy dorky idiot and not making eye contact.

hopefully later i can get online again at a decent connection speed. i'm seriously considering roadrunner.

2002-01-06T03:11:00.000-05:00

soundtrack for today:
Organized Noize's Set it Off

i broke down into tears today at work. i was on the 2nd floor of the restaurant, seating a party, and this guy approached me with his coatcheck stub, so i took it and told him to meet me downstairs. i got the coats and handed them over to him downstairs at the front of the main floor. his friend took out 5 bucks to give to me, but the other guy stopped him and said [to his friend] that he had something smaller. now, to me, that's tasteless. anyway, his friend gave me the 5 anyway and i thanked him "very much" and they left. less than 30 seconds later the [original] guy came back and said, "where's my hat?" in a supremely bitchy tone. i went back to the coat check and combed it for his hat, but came up empty. i went back to him and apologized and said i didn't find the hat. at that point, i didn't know what else to do. i looked, and it wasn't there. i asked him who he had checked his coat with and he said, "some girl." he could've spit on me and it would've had the same effect, he was that condescendingly rude. i offered to take down his number and told him if i or anyone came across it, i would call him. at that point, the manager stepped in and said he'd go take a look, so he told me to just stay at the podium. other people came up and were handing me coatcheck stubs, and giving me coats to check, but since i couldn't leave the podium unattended i was left to just stand there, with this guy steaming in front of me. i couldn't look him in the face, until he said to me, "i'm fucking sick, and i'm not going anywhere without my fucking hat." his tone of voice was the kind you hear only once in a great while, and even then only by someone who you've really really really pissed off. he just sounded so bitchy, and so mad! so so mad, and i couldn't believe that i had made him that mad!
my manager came back, hat in hand, and he left the restaurant. and then i lost it. i went to go get the coats for the tickets i had in my hand, and by the time i reached the closet, my face was swimming in tears. the other host came in to get other coats, and saw me crying. i couldn't stop crying. i gave the other host the coats i had gone in to get, and then closed the door. i stood in the tiny tiny closet, chock full of thick winter coats, crying my eyes out for 10 minutes. i couldn't stop.
ugh, i can't think about it any longer. if i bothered to explain about work in-depth i would probably sound more justified, but i can't bear it for another minute.

2002-01-03T05:45:00.000-05:00

soundtrack for today:
Radiohead's Talk Show Host

2001-12-28T20:02:00.000-05:00

things have not gone as planned.
still in buffalo. the fucking snow...
am leaving in the a.m. by train. hopefully a smelly person won't be sitting next to me, i know amtrak is very popular right now.
narrowly escaped riding 8 hours with an american priest who speaks korean fluently. my parents wanted me to catch a ride with Father Joseph since he is making the drive tomorrow to nyc. i said i would rather x-country ski the distance. really.

as punishment my parents refuse to drive me to rochester to catch the next flight outta there, hence the train. both parties compromised i suppose.

have had a strangely eventful visit in buffalo, can't explain now, i'm on a 14k modem haha i laugh at the primitiveness.

will be noticeably relieved once back in my apt in the city.

2001-12-24T05:55:00.000-05:00

oh... what a blurry few days.
i worked thursday friday saturday and sunday night and now it's late sunday night/early monday morning and i'm heading out to buffalo in 8 hours. i feel like now, now, i'm able to take a breath.

3 nights ago i was settling into bed circa 4am and the phone rings. it's my sister calling from la. it felt like it had been so long since we last spoke by the way we were talking. catching up, talking seriously, being sisterly... i told her what i've been going thru, how i've been feeling, and she did the same. it seems like us sisters are doing well. and it makes me so happy.

sometime surreptitiously, over the past few weeks, i've become... solid. now this solidity is probably something that will turn liquid again, but i've passed some sort of marker in my experience. hard to explain. i guess i just feel different. or like, i am different, but now i know it. uh yea somethin like that.

2 nights ago i was settling into bed circa 3am and the phone rings. it's my ex-boyfriend calling from georgia. i hadn't spoken to him in 4 years. he was my boyfriend from freshman year of college, and i had it pretty bad for him. he was 3 years older, charismatic, cute, and we had a lot of fun together. we also had a lot of shit. right before we starting dating, he had broken up with his longtime girlfrend of 3 years. but as we started going out and our relationship progressed in time, she slowly became a part of his life again, unbeknownst to me. to put it blandly, i was cheated on and lied to. i knew in the back of my head, but i hoped, prayed, that he would realize that he didn't want all the madness he had with her, and he would want me.
i had heard about their relationship before i dated him because their reputation was legend. they had all-out fist fights, psychotic public episodes, the works-- all the drama you can imagine that 2 college kids could muster-- so when i started dating him, i made a vow that i would not be anything like her. so when i got angry, i just spoke slowly. never did raise my voice, never did i overreact. i underreacted, and i communicated everything, everything, thru words. but i guess he wasn't used to that, so it didn't work. it also didn't work because behind all that wasn't me. behind all that were my fears, my insecurities, and yes, my affections.
anyway, our whole relationship ended rather messily. we broke up. well, i think i made him break up with me because i didn't have it in me to do it, and then we continued to have a relationship without the structure or boundaries of a relationship. towards the tail end of everything, i knew that he was moving to georgia, so i think i just did the time, thinking that no matter what, the same outcome would be produced... he'd be gone and i'd still be there.
i was hurt. for the entire latter half of our relationship i was hurt. there were so many things that he did wrong, to me. i let him. but he committed them. after he was gone, safely tucked away many states away, he still called me. and he still led me on, because of course, i was willing to be led. but at the end of the school year, before he left, i met another guy. he was just a friend to me, but i was more than that to him. and 6 months later, he became my boyfriend. and yet still, georgia boy called me, led me on, asked me if he could come visit, and stay with me so he could have me all to himself, etc etc. and it created a lot of problems for my new guy and me. cuz i was willing to move on, but i was also willing to stay stuck in the past if georgia boy allowed and encouraged me to. eventually, we lost touch. and eventually, i got over it all.
then, a coupla months ago, i got this bizarre email address showin up in my inbox. and it was him.
hi mina, i hope this e-mail reaches you somehow... I came across your website by pure luck and enjoyed everything in there... you were always creative and good with words... i guess all those years of hip hop and massive literature paid off... anyway if you get a chance e-mail me... i am curious of how you are doing, besides what you have wrote on the internet... hope to hear from you soon...

James

p.s. give me a phone number so that i may get in touch with you...=)

i was shocked. i emailed him back and i was going out of town when i got it, so i wrote a quick reply and gave him my number. he called once, it showed up on my caller id, but i never called him back. and then 3 nights ago, he got in touch with me.

it was so weird to talk to him after 4 long years.
we chatted awhile, caught up on things, which feels really silly when you're asking each other about vague tidbits you remember from 1997, and then of course we eventually got on the topic of us. which was weird, because i didn't necessarily want to go there, but i felt like he did. and then he told me about regretting so much, and wishing he had treated me better, and thanking me for who and how i was with him. and i believed him. it was so unexpected. he went so far as to promise me that when he comes up to the city in march, he's gonna take me out to wherever i want to go, dinner and whatever else i want. the thing is, i don't want anything from him. i mean, i don't think that's so noble or kind of me, that's just me, now. after 4 years, i'm not holding on to anything relating to him anymore, other than (surprisingly) fond memories of our experience, and a few lessons i learned cuz of him.
it's just so weird, funny, surprising to me that i've gotten closure, and he hasn't. i dunno if that's because he may have somewhat of a guilty conscience, but regardless, it's so odd to me. i don't want anything from him. at all. you know, it's like, if he's gonna pop back into my life, even for just 1 day, i don't want that day to be spent living in the past, i want it to be spent enjoying each other's company again, making the most of it... it surprises me that i feel this way, but i do.
but talking to him, it was good, in a strange way. i tried to really get him to understand that i have no hard feelings, and i don't want or need anything from him. but it's hard to do that without making the other person feel even worse, or insulted, or whatever... but an hour and a half later, when we hung up, i felt good. about myself. his call made me realize that even though i had a lot of problems, even though i was going thru a lot of shit and put myself thru a lot of shit, i was a good person to him. i was proud that i got to walk away from the situation with a clean slate. and with all the shit that life brings, what more can i ask for?
so, i'm happy that he called, and i'm happy that we talked. hopefully he's gotten some closure from it all, and hopefully we both hung up feeling good, or better.

and then on thursday night i got a call on my voicemail from an old friend, tellin me he's in town til monday and he wants to see me. that was really unexpected as well. our history is that our dads went to the same med school in korea and graduated the same class, so we grew up seeing each other every summer at these med school reunions that took place in a different locale each year, for like, 5 days. we also visited each others' houses a coupla times, and our families went on a cruise together like 6 yrs ago to celebrate our parents' wedding anniversaries. so he's just a familiar face, and a good guy, too. he's the same age as my sis, 2 yrs older than me, and though growin up i hung out with his younger sister more than him, as i got older i got to know him more. he visited the city a coupla times when i was there, and he, my sis and me would hang out and just tear it up. he's also devoutly into hip hop and one summer went crazy and burned me like 7 cds of all choice hip hop tracks, each with like 14 songs on em. madness! it took me so long just to even give all the cds a first listen.
so we met up briefly last night, after i got off work, AV and i went to aveA sushi for some grub and he popped in with his friend and we all sat and had an awkward time (mostly because of AV and his friend bein there-- it was a weird mix). he tried to drag me to orchard bar but i ducked out, giving a lame-o excuse and doin my anti-social thing. but we made plans to have brunch this morning and check out the play of cowboy's, fool for love. but i didn't wake up til late today so we met at the theater, and AV, my friend, and AV's boyfriend watched it. that story to come later. so after the play i had to rush to work, so AV, her bf and my friend went to go eat. and then i arranged to have my friend come to the bond st lounge to hangout towards the end of the night, and i planned to go downstairs and hangout and eat some yummy bond st food and whatnot.
so after i was done i went downstairs where he was chillin with 4 friends he had brought, and i was all excited to eat, but the kitchen had closed early so i couldn't order anything. dude i dunno why i'm getting bogged down by the details again. to make a long story a bit shorter, we chilled there for awhile, chatted it up, and then 3 of his friends departed and the other 3 of us just went to 7A for some 24-hr food. his friend who came out with us didn't talk too much, i think he got really tired right after he finished eating, cuz i didn't hear much outta him after that, but it was good, cuz it gave the other 2 of us a chance to really talk.
brace yourself for more narcissism. we had a good time talkin, it was really good to see his mug, and it felt comfortable, yet obviously different cuz i hadn't seen him in over a year. and since we go way back, it was easy to catch up, cuz no matter what, he knows me, and i know him. and when we said goodbye, we gave big hugs and all that stuff, and he said some really nice words to me, as i hope my words affected him similarly.
so i was in the cab riding the short distance home, and i just felt happy. and proud of myself.
when you catch up with someone and are forced to update and talk about yourself, you see and hear yourself in a different light. i wasn't talking my usual day-to-day shit, i talked my Me shit... about the shit that makes me me. and i was so delighted to feel at the end of the night after all that talk, i felt good and proud of myself.
i am so grateful for those moments when i remember or realize or whatever, that i'm happy to be me, and that i'm proud to be me.

(smooth segway) i kinda felt that way this afternoon too, when i went to go see cowboy's play. i was curious to see him again like i wrote previously, and kinda excited and possibly (which means definitely) a bit anxious too. but it was fun to see him in his element, and to be able to observe him undisturbed. and the play was pretty good too-- i'm glad i went to go see it, cuz i definitely don't take advantage of the city enough (who does?), and it was good to support him.
the theater was really small, occupancy of no more than, i'd say, 40, so he was in the hallway as everyone was leaving. AV went up and gave him a hug first, and then he saw me and gave me a hug. he kissed my cheek and asked me how i was doing, and i introduced him to my good old friend and AV introduced him to her boyfriend. i couldn't stick around cuz i had to get to work so i told him i had to leave, and i gave him his scarf back. and then we hugged again and left. and that was that.
as we were walkin down the street AV asked me how i felt about seein him again, and i really just felt good. it was nice to see him again after the xmas party. i didn't expect him to be all intimate or really affectionate with me, nor did i want that, nor did i want him to treat me like it never happened, and i wasn't presented with either fear. i felt like he acted appropriately, like acknowledgement was in the hug and the kiss and the few words we exchanged, and of course the scarf, and it wasn't too much, or too little. and that sealed the deal and closed the door for me. i officially feel great that we kissed. and now i can pass it off as another cool experience i've had. the kiss was so nice, and so in the moment, which was most of the reason why it was so nice.
but i can proudly say this is the first time i've ever experienced a kiss just being a kiss.
in the past if this had happened, i woulda been daydreaming and naming our kids (i'm exaggerating). but i guess now it's safe to say that i can handle it, and i did.

so. in a fuckin huge nutshell, that's been my past few days.
it's been a ride and it aint over yet. now i'm goin home to buffalo to spend the holiday with my parents, and i know the doom that's impending there with a confession i have to make to my parents, but i feel like things have wrapped up rather nicely and appropriately here, so i feel ready. at least i'll be going home feeling good, even if i won't be returning with those same feelings!

off to bed so i can rush around like a madwoman in a few hours.

2001-12-20T03:10:00.000-05:00

the feeling must have stayed with me all day somewhere, cuz i had a really wonderful day.

funny things happened today that i noticed. 1, as i was rushing out the door to meet AV and the rest of the gang for the movie, a package was laying on the ground for me in my building. i opened it up and it was a carton of cigarettes i bought online a coupla weeks ago for dirt cheap. http://www.yesmoke.com sold me a carton of marlboros for 14.95. so i tore up the box and stuffed 3 packs in my bag, even though i had a full pack of camel turkish gold's with me. i figured i'd pass em out to the fellow smokers at the movie, which i did. and then just a lil while ago, when a few of us were parked in a local bar, this random girl came up to me and asked if i regularly smoke turkish gold's, so i nodded. so then she asked if i wanted to get 2 coupons for a free pack of any kind of camels, and me, being the freebie junkie that i am, nodded emphatically. so she put my address down on a form and said i'd be mailed either more coupons or just plain free packs of turkish golds (cuz they're apparently a new brand). so i thought to myself, "self, how awesome is that? i just gave away 3 packs and got 2 back!" and then a friend who was part of the group also signed up for it, and then gave me his 2 free coupons cuz he doesn't smoke camels. so, i gave 3 out and got 4 back. good karma!
and 2, the idea i got this morning for a new poem i wrote about earlier, is focused around the letter 'F', and tonight for dinner we all went to doksuni's, where over the bar they have a banner of words that all begin with the letter 'F'. there's no rhyme or reason to it, just that they're all F-words. eg: fetish, font, freak... i just thought that was interesting.

so, lord of the rings was pretty quality, i enjoyed watching the film though my ass was hurtin halfway thru. sittin is a tough job sometimes. but the girl or the romantic or the lonely part of me fell hard for viggo mortenson. perhaps a bit of what got me into him was a similar quality he shares with cowboy, since the past few days i've been thinkin about him somewhat. but oh, viggo! haha. the friend who gave me his coupons knows viggo, cuz he worked for a literary foundation that viggo was active in and participated in a lot of poetry readings and whatnot, where my friend and viggo got to know each other. my friend is a very very intelligent guy, but one who has a tendency to wield it as a weapon. an intellectual snob of sorts. his nickname is "the ghandi of smug assholes" if that clarifies anything. so i was suitably surprised to hear him give respect and say that viggo is really cool given his snobbery. anyway, so that's that. i'm also really into adrien brody and funnily enough phallic knows him personally as well too. and adrien is really into music, specifically hip hop, so i'm torn between viggo and his poetry and adrien and his hiphop and homemade beats. moving on...

so my morning-after impressions about playing kissyface with cowboy at the xmas party took a bit longer to settle in, but i think i have a grasp on what i'm feelin. i feel proud of myself, and good about the whole thing, cuz it was very new to me, and i freed something inside of me. i let go.
i've always been intrigued by him, though quite reluctantly so, particularly because of qualities he possesses which i would translate as playerish, non-committal, superficial, intimidating, scary, scary, scary, powerful. but that i know is me and my issues, and not him.
i usually work tuesdays with him, so yesterday night i was expecting to see him. i brought his scarf to work and took special care in my appearance for him, though this is the only place i'll admit that. but he wasn't at the service bar. his play is running this week, so he's not working at all. so i didn't know what to do. i wanted to see him again mostly out of curiosity-- to know what i feel in the environment i'm accustomed to interacting with him in. but a lot of bond st'rs are going to see his play to show support and cuz it's supposed to be quality, so AV and i decided we're gonna try to catch the last show on sunday afternoon. i hope i get a chance to go cuz it'll be interesting to be able to watch him without having to talk to him, and also to see him do his actor thing. the play is sam shepard's "Fool for Love", which is well-known and rather celebrated, as is the playwright. anyway, i'm not getting carried away with him, nor am i even thinkin anything will develop, but in terms of me, and what i was thinkin and feelin and what i did, all of that carries weight with me.

anyway, i'm tired, it's been a fun and social yet really long day. i think the 1/4 glass of veuve clicquot(sp?) that i had (strangely champagne agrees most with my alcohol allergy) has made me tired, and i want to watch the score before i have to return it to blockbuster tomorrow. oh, i want to get my hands on the crimson kimono and indian runner, note to self.

i feel good. tomorrow morning i shall write more here and get things accomplished. imagine that, i'm actually lookin forward to tomorrow!

2001-12-19T13:45:00.000-05:00

soundtrack for today:
Pharcyde's passin me by.
Slick Rick's all alone (no one to be with).

i just had a dream... a wondeful wonderful dream.
i'm going to watch lord of the rings with a buncha people for AV's bday so i shouldn't be writing, but i need to get this down.

the best part of the dream? right before it was interrupted by AV's phone call. i was sleeping in my dream, near this boy, and i felt him pull me close into his embrace. we were both warm with sleep, so when our bodies made contact it was like melted chocolate. i whispered to him in a voice thick with emotion and sleep, "why do you want me now?"
and he was about to answer.
then reality hit.

i have to come back to this dream later. the boy in my dream was this boy that i fell in love with in 1995. and i fell so hard, in a 16yr old kind of way. awww, i feel so special right now. i wonder what i did to make my subconscious dream my dream dream.

so after i got off the phone i stayed under the covers, willing my dream to stay alive and fresh. and i started thinkin about something else, an idea for a rhyme or poem or something. my juices are flowing *wink*.

gotta go, we're meeting at 2:08.

if this feeling stays with me all day i know i'll have a wonderful day.

2001-12-18T06:52:00.000-05:00

i've adopted(kidnapped?) a new practice...
soundtrack for today:
Zoot Woman's it's automatic.

if you can, get your hands on this song, it's wonderful. it's a feeler. and if you haven't yet, download LimeWire to fill napster's shoes and then get it.

a matter i haven't dealt with... rice.
ever since he's been back and i saw him that first night, i haven't spoken to him since. he hasn't called me either, and i know cuz i've got callerid. so. what conclusions to draw? i dunno. when we parted ways, i specifically told him i'd call him, so it could be that he was letting me do what i said i'd do, but after all this time, i doubt that's the case anymore.
it's rather awkward now. call him after all this time so i can break it off? i could find myself in a "Duh" situation. but to just never call him or see him? i'm not down with that, really.
i never had such a desire to communicate with him that i actually overcame my silent tendencies. perhaps a more suitable guy would lead me to act differently. my point being not that i need to go find someone who will do that for me, but that he didn't.

i fear this journal is now corrupt. i'm not writing anything that means anything. this shit is just documentation.

my stresses right now? in no particular order, other than the one my subconscious dictates:
my sleeping habits
school
my parents
money
job
my music
my modeling
my friends
romances
my body
my future
my credit
the phone

me
me
me
me
me.

that's the truth. i'm a narcissistic fuck. how can i be cured? i'm so fucking narcissistic about my narcissism, too.

i rarely answer my phone. there isn't a single person who calls me that hasn't been a subject to my screening. i know i have real problems when i won't pick up the phone and it's just a friend callin to say wassup.

funny how usually what gets me talkin about this shit is some real depression or desperation, but i'm really neither right now. i guess i'm having a reality check, a self-honesty check. i just watched light it up on hbo, and i know of its downfalls and whatnot, but i still really liked it and was moved by it. it made me wonder what i feel that passionately about in my life.
i dunno.
my passions change from day-to-day. my views change from minute-to-minute. my feelings change from second-to-second. that's how time works for me.

this is what i'm gonna do today.
after i'm done writing here, i'm gonna pop in scent of a woman, which i saw a long time ago halfheartedly, but now feel the desire to watch for real. after that's over i'm gonna go do my laundry. finally. then i'm gonna go have breakfast at either life cafe or wait a lil while longer and have brunch at aka cafe. then i'm gonna go to h&m and look for some cheapie cute baggy pants i can wear to fit my ass that has expanded so much that none of my current pants accommodate me. then i'm gonna mail a letter. i have to mention this in the hopes that it will actually happen. i've got a serious complex about mailing things. i still haven't mailed back my extra pair of rollerskates i have, and that's 130bucks tied up. man who the fuck wants to hear about this shit?
anyway, i'm workin like a maniac this week, i worked sat sun and now today, thurs, fri, sat and sun. and tomorrow is AV's birthday. and monday i'm leaving to buffalo til the 27th. i know it'll be the longest 4 days of my life in buffalo. my parents and i are gonna be livin some serious shit down. mark my words.

how horrible is it that i'm pretty certain that i have an anxiety disorder (mild though it may be), and i have 1 pill of xanax(zanax?) that my sis gave me and i'm saving it like a miser. i bet i won't ever take it. shit.

ok, i feel better. just cuz i'm fuckin BALLS OUT!!!
hope whoever is reading my bullshit right now has a BALLS OUT!!! day.

2001-12-17T05:15:00.000-05:00

party party party.
saturday night i worked in the lounge, and damn did it pay off. i made 165 in tips, and on top of my shift pay, i made like 250. i'm not used to that kind of bank dude, and boy is it intoxicating. the work was actually easier than in the restaurant, except that it was more boring cuz i didn't have other staff in close proximity to talk to and pass the time with. when it wasn't busy i chatted with the 2 bartenders, but when it got nuts, i was boxed in at the door, which kinda sucked. anyway.
after work AV and i went to apt cuz phallic was throwin a special party for this dj's 1yr anniversary party or something. so we checked it out and actually had a good time. it's cool being hooked up by people behind the scenes, cuz going out becomes low-maintenance, and free! haha. i'm a sucker for the cash lately it seems.

i just got back from the staff christmas party at apt. all the restaurants one of the owners owns were there-- republic, bond st, apt, and theo. so there were tons of people, and now that i think about it, tons of good-lookin people. i guess that's what happens when the owner is a cosmopolitan gay male all about face. anyway, i worked tonight, which i thought would suck, but it turned out to be cool, cuz work didn't seem like work at all. we closed really early, and since the staff was all anticipating the party, everyone was in a festive mood. so after work we all changed and spruced ourselves up and cabbed it over to apt. it was fun!
i was a bit anxious about the whole event, cuz i'm a relative newbie compared to others who have been to xmas parties past, and also cuz my attitude is weird about highly social events. but it turned out to be a really really good time. so good, that i can't remember the last time i had such a good time. i let loose tonight, and it felt damn good. damn good. the music seriously could not have been any better, and i danced like i haven't danced in so fuckin long, excuse my strong language!
upstairs people were civilized and chillin and talking and exchanging secret santa gifts, but downstairs people were goin nuts dancing and shedding repressed work selves. after awhile i headed downstairs with AV to dance, and things got crazy. the busboys were all tossing all the girls up in the air a la cheerleading basket tosses, one of the sushi chefs stripped and started doin a wacky dance a la Can't Buy Me Love, etc etc. it wasn't obnoxious at all since i knew all the people. instead, it was fun as hell cuz it was exactly what it was-- one huge party with everyone you know, work with, and see everyday. uhh, did i say how much fun i had? =T
and of course there was drama, and gossip. i may have been one subject of the latter. i got down with this bartender from bond st, this guy who i don't know what to make of. he usually works as the service bartender on the 2nd floor of the restaurant, which means he supplies drinks to the waiters, but isn't ever seen by the customers. and since i'm usually working on the 2nd floor, and the only place me or any of the waiters can escape the floor is to the service bar, i have frequent but brief exchanges with him.
he's an actor. ewww. and he's totally an actor. apparently he's actually really good-- other waiters have seen him do his acting thing on sex and the city and other shows that i can't remember, and they say he's impressive. and of course he's really hot. he's got longish dirty blond hair that always looks kinda matted down on his head and sorta covering his face, and these ice blue eyes and a really hard body, which i discovered tonight when AV took his shirt off and wouldn't give it back. to me, yea, i'm attracted to him, but i was always put off by how insanely flirty he is, and how actorish he is. put off, and also intimidated like hell.
as the cab i took with two waiters pulled up to apt, we saw him walkin towards the entrance, and he was wearing this matching tweed suit jacket and pants, a light blue buttondown and a camel colored scarf. hilarity. i was most impressed with his outfit tonight, i must say. so everyone was downstairs dancing like maniacs, and somehow he and i kept ending up together (i'll call him cowboy, cuz he's doin a play where he plays some badass cowboy or something). so cowboy and i kept dancing together and it was just a good time. i didn't take any of it seriously, just more like an excuse to be a lil audacious, but as the dancing progressed it became kinda obvious to me that even though we were all dancing with everyone, he and i were more together than separate. i guess the clincher was when this cute fellow by the name of diego came up to me and asked if i was alone and i said yea, so we kinda started dancing and then cowboy came up behind me and made his presence known, which prompted diego to say something (i couldn't hear) to cowboy that in turn made cowboy say (i could hear), "she's with me."
am i a sucker cuz that made me feel good?
i definitely felt a bit bad to diego cuz he seemed like a good guy, and he may've walked away thinkin i was some sort of cocktease, but selfishly, i enjoyed the attention.
i know my weak spot is guys. psychologically and historically i trace it back to growing up and having a lot of guys torment me and make me feel really really really ugly and really really unaccepted. and for awhile, to some degree, guys who liked me, i always thought to myself that i should like them back because i wasn't one to be choosy.
i've improved my mentality a lot since those days, but i know the tendencies i have, definitely.
i guess my thinking that i don't feel experienced socially and experienced with boys goes hand-in-hand. i'm sure if i went out more and was better about just meeting people, i wouldn't derive such meaning or place such emphasis on the encounters that i do have, but God help me, that's me.
tonight with cowboy was a new experience for me, even though i know it's a normal experience for a lot of people. it was an experience of partying with someone where there's attraction involved and acting on it. so after awhile of dancing like crazy, some random partiers started spraying each other with champagne, so i took it as a signal to take a breather. i went upstairs and chilled out for like 15 minutes and then went to go downstairs again. then i heard cowboy call my name. he was at the coat check attempting to claim his scarf, which he had checked with my things. i had the ticket in my bag in the other room (talk about a minute-by-minute recap), so he said to the coat check girl to forget it and i told him i'd give it to him, but the coat check girl was being rather nazi-ish and made me go get the ticket. but even with the ticket number she still couldn't find it with my things, and the whole thing was getting ridiculous cuz cowboy didn't care about his scarf, and i had already told him i'd give it back to him, but she was making a big hoopla over it. anyway. all that was unnecessary but whatever. so i attempted to give him a hug right there but he asked me to walk him out so we ended up being in the entrance way to apt, but not outside. and then we kinda both leaned in and kissed. and then we started really kissing and backed up against the wall. after a lil while i broke it off and said i should go back in and we parted ways abruptly, but in a good abrupt way. the way i see it a drawn out goodbye would've been awkward and dramatic.
so then i went back in and partied with the rest of em until AV got so out-of-hand drunk i knew i had to take her home. interestingly enough, she was gettin down with the other bartender dude that i spoke about a while ago, the one who gave me a hug, the one who i developed a mini-crush on. i have to admit i had eyes for him too, but knowing that he has a girlfriend, i couldn't commit to the crush. his girlfriend was there for the early part of the night, but obviously when he and AV were getting as close as cowboy and i were gettin, she was long gone.
so about an hour ago, i rounded up AV and took her drunk ass home.

that was one longass longwinded recap.

i guess i'll leave tomorrow to morning-after impressions. 'til then.

2001-12-14T03:50:00.000-05:00

so this was my wednesday.
shopped with AV all around the city searching for xmas presents. my biggest priority was for the bond st xmas party where everyone's doing secret santa. my person is this girl who only works saturday nights, but as a captain (which means she oversees the floor, a step up from being a waiter). so i don't know her too well since i haven't been working saturday nights for too long, but i really like her, so i want to make the gift good. there's a 20$ cap for secret santa, which makes it even more challenging. how the hell do you buy something good for someone you don't know too well for under 20 bucks? walkin around the city didn't help any either. i didn't really find anything, but i did buy this nice daily journal for 18 bucks. i'm not sure if i want to give it to her though, cuz it seems kinda lame. but i thought i'd dress it up with pretty pens and stationary and maybe little hair barrettes or something from opane on 32nd. all that cutesy stuff that morning glory makes will help a lot, i hope.
while shopping i got this cute short winter skirt for 50 bucks. that was my purchase of the day. it looks great with my leg warmers and boots. AV bought a crapload of makeup from sephora and MAC, she threw down a coupla bills for all of it, but she hasn't bought any makeup in years so it seems like it was due time. AV is really really beautiful. sometimes she's a conventional beauty, but most of the time i think she's quite unique. she's got a captivating way about her, especially when animated. dude i probably sound like i'm in love with her, but nah, she's just a really interesting person. it's kinda weird that she and my sis were so close when my sis was living in ny and working at bond st, and now AV and i are spending a lot of time together. i know we've got a totally different relationship, especially since i'm a bit younger than AV is. AV is turning 26 next wednesday, and my sis is 24, and i'm 22. anyway, i've never had a girl friend who's older than me, other than my sister. i don't think i've even had a girl friend who was even like a year older than me or anything. now that i think of that, that's kinda interesting. well to me anyway...
so anyway. i didn't get home from shopping until right around 9, and i wanted to change and freshen up to go to the nuyorican cafe. it started at 9pm, so i knew i had to hurry and i was also worried that it'd be too late for me to sign up to read. i got there at like 9:30, and i asked the guy at the door if it was too late to sign up. he said probably cuz there were already 25 poets signed up, but told me to talk to the host. so i went inside and sat at the bar for awhile, waiting for AV to show up who also went home to freshen up. so when i wasn't being too rude, i crept up to the host and asked him if it was too late to sign up. he whispered back that it was full, so i asked him to write my name down on the side in case someone didn't go or left or something. then i sat back and listened and waited. AV showed up a lil while later and asked if i was gonna go up, so i told her the situation. it didn't look good for me, but for some reason, i had hope. even though i knew they had their limit of 25 poets, i just had hope, i had a feeling.

i know i'm being overly verbose but i like re-living that night. =)

so anyway, midway thru the night, i went to the bar and got another ginger ale, and on the way back, i saw the host sorta look at me. so i went over to him and he asked if i still wanted to go up, and i said "yea" and he said he'd make it happen. i thanked him and then sat back down and all of a sudden my heart started racing. i haven't felt that racing heart in so long!!! i whispered to AV that i was gonna go on, and she got all excited too.
ok. so then it was time for me to go. i was the very last poet, i think the 27th person to go. when i got up there the host said "first time?" and i nodded so at the count of three the whole audience yelled out, "virgin!" a ritual for anyone's first time reading. so i read my "eyes" poem. i was nervous, my hand was shaking lightly, but it wasn't uncontrollable or embarrassing. just exciting.
it was over before i knew it. and everyone clapped and i sat down. and then came the scores. i got a 9.8 and two 9.9s. and then the host announced the top 5 poets who were gonna get to read a 2nd poem. there was a tie, so there were actually 6 poets, and i was one of them! after my first time was over and done with, i felt wonderful, i felt excited to get back up there again.
so the 2nd round was done lowest to highest score, so i was the 3rd person to go up. i read my "sex with shoes" poem. and the audience's silence was deafening. they were really listening. i felt it. the room was listening to me, and it was great. so i got 3 9.9s. =). i didn't 'win', this guy got two 10s and a 9.9 and he won, but i didn't care. it was my first time and i did well, if i can say so myself.
i'm most proud that i just got up there. over the past coupla months, i was working towards that moment. i went to see a lot of open mics, i thought about it a lot, and i wrote. i did work. and then i put myself out there and actually got a warm reception. after the whole night was over and the lights came on, i went over to the host and shook his hand and thanked him for letting me go on. and he was so nice and said he was so happy that he did cuz he thought my poetry was 'beautiful', and he told me to come back. i wanted to give him a big bear hug.
and then there was this guy, big george. i've heard him read before, he was a spotlight poet one night i think, and i really like his style. he's a huge white guy who's funny, yet sensitive and has a different perspective from what you usually hear. when the lights came up he came over to me and said, "i really really enjoyed hearing your stuff," and reached out his hand. i shook it and told him i really like his stuff which probably sounded like obligatory reciprocation, but it wasn't. he asked my name and i told him and we said 'nice to meet you' and that was it. it was awesome.
the scorekeeper also came up to me and said i was great and then whispered to me that she thought i should've won.
seriously, all the love i got was really surprising.
i mean, i know i think i'm good, but that's cuz it's ME. it's only right that i have faith in myself, in my work. but i haven't had much outside support. i mean my friends and my family support me, but that's because they care. most of my friends haven't even heard my stuff, and when they have, of course they're gonna say it's good! so in that respect, the feedback i got from other people, even the damn scores, the acceptance i felt... i can't describe it. all i can say is that it was what i needed, and i don't know if it will ever be any better than that, because wednesday night was the first time. the first time that i was a performer, and i got love and respect.

now. where to go from here. i got my first reading out of the way, and now i know i can do it. so i want to relax, and just work. i guess my next step is to do a hip hop open mic and spit a verse, but that will happen when i feel ready.

i remember the first time i went to the nuyorican cafe, i wanted to be a part of the whole community. and it's slowly beginning to happen now. it's funny, but on wednesday night, there was this guy that i recognized from my hometown. i recognized his face immediately. he was one of the orientation aides when i was going into my freshman year. and when i was up on stage and recited the line about being from buffalo (i guess my code name of blo is useless now haha), he gave a shoutout. so when i got off stage, he came up to me. anyway, we exchanged email addys and he's gonna fill me in on events that are goin on. i found it so funny that i came across someone from buffalo at the cafe, and on the one night that i performed.

so that's that.

afterward, AV and i went to a bar to celebrate, and i had a coupla more ginger ales. i felt such gratitude and love that AV came out to support me, and she had really interesting things to say about it all.
as a poet, or a hip hop artist, or whatever, i have an advantage, cuz i'm not packaged the way most people think poets or hip hop artists are packaged. throughout all the open mics i've been to, i've never seen an asian person perform, much less an asian girl. so that difference means that when i go up there, people are curious to see/hear what i have to offer. and being tall and thin and attractive, it affords me that much more attention. i see it as an advantage, but also a pressure, and one that i don't take lightly. the good thing about being from buffalo is that i feel like it makes me easily understandable to all people, because the language, the accent that i speak, is very standard. kinda like television english, except a bit more urban.

the night stayed wonderful. at the bar, AV and i talked a lot about family, school, and ourselves. i really enjoy her company. sometimes i feel like i'm with my sister. not necessarily the sis i have that's out in LA, but a sister nonetheless. i get the feeling that i offer her things as well, too. i think sometimes my sis and her had barriers because of numerous reasons, but those barriers don't exist in our relationship. and AV doesn't have the korean connection in ny, which i think is kind of important to have. besides that, she's not too experienced in friendships with girls, having grown up with an older and younger bro, and having had a lot of drama with the girl friends she did have. i feel like we've got the beginnings of a really good solid friendship, and that's always exciting to me.

ok. i've got to stop writing. i could go on forever tonight. i took a huge nap so who knows when i'll go back to sleep. harold and maude is on tv, this really eccentric film that i strangely like, so i think i'll watch that. good night!

2001-12-13T15:55:00.000-05:00

i did it!
i read my poem. i actually got to read both of them because i made it to the 2nd round!

my lord was yesterday an experience...!
will write more later when i go home.
i slept at AV's again.

2001-12-10T14:32:00.000-05:00

so, i got off work a bit early and met up with AV. we ate (i ate again blahhh), then went to a local bar we frequent occasionally, had a coupla drinks (i had a cran-pineapple juice), then went back to her place to do a lil smoky smoky. we watched bottle rocket but fell asleep midway. i swear, i think while sleeping i thought i was in hell. i was wearing my ass-tight jeans, and my leg kept goin toward the heater for some reason, and then i'd wake up briefly to the sensation of being burned. so i'd move my leg and what seemed like minutes later, wake up again on fire. i also woke up feeling like AV's lesbian lover hahaha. it was rather funny.
phallic, as i said before, lives with AV, so he's here, and when he discovered me here too, it was embarrassingly funny. i can't remember the last time i slept at a girlfriend's house for fun.
anyway, so i'm on her computer (God bless roadrunner), and she's got windows XP (God bless microsoft). i could stay here forever.

2001-12-09T15:18:00.000-05:00

i entered my 911 rhyme on poetry.com. that site has all these regulations, like your poem can't be longer than 20 lines, and no more than 70 chars per line. so it was one of the only things i've written short enough to post on the site. not that that's any explanation, but anyway. so i got a letter in the mail saying it was gonna be published in one of their huge anthologies, which is cool, but it's also quite a gimmick. i'm sure housewives from iowa would be thrilled at the idea of a published piece of work so they'd probably shell out the 79.99 for the anthology (the offer that of course they include in the notice of publication). but me, i'm no fool, i'm not buying it! haha how smart i am, huh?
seriously though, i think it's a pretty great thing what they do. they find a way to keep in business and probably make a lot of people happy in doing so.
then i got a letter a week or two later saying my poem was being entered in some $60,000 contest or something. damn could i use that money. and then just last week i got another letter saying that my poem is gonna be featured on an audio CD of 33 artists that poetry.com thinks are poems worthy of being spoken. now i think that's kinda cool. i guess cuz 34 poems were chosen as opposed to the 73,000 poems chosen for the anthologies, i feel more special. but more than anything, i'm kinda thrilled that someone out there read my poem and recognized the audial, lyrical appeal, since i wrote it more as a rap than as a poem. but enough about me haha.

next wednesday i'm gonna read at the nuyorican cafe, and i'm so serious this time. it's high time that i do it, and i finally feel ready. since i have 2 poems under my belt, if, and i mean, if, i somehow made it to the second round of poets, i'd actually have something to read. my friend AV is gonna come out and support, and i think a couple of my friends from queens are gonna come out as well. how great is that?

winter break is fast approaching and i have no clue what i'm doing for christmas. not goin out to LA, so it's either here or blo. but it makes no sense for me to be here alone on christmas like an orphan when i have two loving parents not too far away. so i probably won't be spending it like an orphan. but who knows man.
ehh i got work today. i should get ready.

2001-12-06T09:57:00.000-05:00

a rough draft of some ideas that have been swimmin in my head for awhile...

eyes
he sees me walkin down the street
and he says, "nee how ma, dayam you lookin sweet!"
i know he's talkin to me but such wrong words he speaks
so to the street i keep walkin as he keeps talkin his talk:
"konichiwa china doll you all that!
now tell me my oriental princess did i get your native tongue?
i wanna run mine all over your skin that looks as soft as silk and rich as milk, since we're speakin of tongues."
i exhaled, thinkin he was done tryin to fit me in one box marked "other."
but he wasn't.
"hey chinkbitch! what, you speak no english?"
he spit, seein no response he was gonna get.
"come suck this, huh? me so horrrny, you sucky fucky!"
it wasn't bad luck that placed me at the scene
nothin but routine daily deeds
like cleanin my duds and buyin groceries enough to last the week.
i thought movin to the big city
would mean bigger minds bigger hearts better times
but it seems no matter where i go
the rainbow colors don't blend, melt together to make gold.
i walk the streets
and though i see all skin tones and hues
the truth is this city has diversity
but it don't mean shit without harmony
and harmony isn't something government money can fix.

yea i speak english
i should hope so growin up in buffalo
i know that my skin my eyes
is gonna make inquiring minds want to know
but it gets sooo old
"where you from?"
"buffalo."
"no really, where you from?"
it's almost as dumb, as redundant as "what are you?"
shit, i'm a lot of things but i know the reply that escapes my lips
isn't the one you're lookin to get
so you'll ask and you'll ask
til my exasperation surpasses my pride
and i reply "korean" to satisfy your prodding eyes
and i'll feel like i lost this lame game
while you got to walk away with the prize...
my foreigner eyes.

2001-12-04T04:46:00.000-05:00

breakthrough!
after work i went down to the lounge where AV was workin tonight, and i chilled there until she was done. so after everyone cleared out, i put on one of my new cds that i bought today. and then i realized that in my cd case, i had my demo. so i popped that in and turned up the volume. i was really curious to hear how it sounded in an establishment, on loud booming speakers. AV has already heard my demo, so i didn't feel shy. but the busboy and the late-night staff who does the cleanup heard it and they were all jammin to it, not knowing that it was me. one of the clean-up guys went so far as to ask me how much he could buy it for when i told him it was me. =) man, how good did that make me feel? i don't care if he was bein serious or not... man, i was trippin to hear myself so surround-sound like that! it was an adrenaline rush, and it made those pangs for my music come back.
so the awesome dj dude (i don't remember if i gave him a name, but i'll call him phallic) was managing the lounge tonight, but he was in the office when i played my demo. but AV was so sweet, i was touched, cuz she purposely waited for him to get done with all his shit and come back up to the lounge so he could hear it. so he heard it! it was a big step for me, cuz i care so much what he thinks, bein that he really knows music and i just innately trust him as a person as well. and he liked it! well, that's what he told me hehe. since AV lives with him she's gonna get the lowdown on what he really thought, but i feel like it was a positive thing...
i feel great. i feel alive!

work was fun, half-days are so painless. it's only after the 5th hour of standing on my feet non-stop that i get tired and achy, but tonight i clocked like 4 hours, so it wasn't bad at all. and chris kattan came in, which made me happy, cuz i really like him. a lot of celebrities come in, but most aren't worth mentioning. but chris chatted me up when i took him up to his table, and we had a funny conversation in the elevator. anyway. that was fun.

hohum i saw rice tonight. and i didn't break it off with him. it didn't come up, which is such a Duh thing to say cuz it's not like he was expecting me to break up, or gave me an opening for me to say bye to him. it's so weird. i dunno, like i must be really lonely or something, cuz he still fills the space he did before. i mean, we met at the restaurant and after dinner i went straight to work, so we didn't spend any private time together, which could quite possibly make me feel very differently, but when we were eating and talking, it was kinda the same. and i don't mean to be sound or think like a sucker about the whole thing. and i don't feel like one... yet...
i feel like i'm less restrained now with him, cuz i feel less like i have something to lose. so in that one twisted sense, things got better.
i'm ok with everything in my head. it's like, when i break it off, i break it off. plain and simple. more than that, who cares.

so... i feel different tonight. i woke up feeling really crappy, sick, depressed. but i'm gonna go to bed feeling good, energized, and hopeful for things to come. i'm grateful.

2001-12-03T16:29:00.000-05:00

maybe the holiday season is depressing me.
or it could be that i feel pathetic, cuz i'm positive that i'm sick. and it's the shitty kind of sick. like, head-pounding, chills, fever, dizziness, nausea, and an overall feeling of weak. maybe i can squash it before it gets really bad though...

i'm having dinner with rice. would i be a foolish foolish girl if i didn't break up with him today? and waited til the next time i see him? auuuggggh. i'm a bonehead.
change of subject.
i bought cds today. i got pharcyde, prince, everything but the girl, and some beats. if i ever get really rich, i'm gonna hook myself up musically and have a whole library of every genre. delusions of grandeur i tell ya.

i watched "my girl" last night. it made me cry. what a well-done film. it was kinda funny, right after it was over i went to the bathroom and i saw that my roommate had been watching it too on her tv. i felt a bond with her haha.

let's see, what other random shit can i talk about...
i still daydream about the boy i fell in love with on the 6 train. i dunno if i ever wrote about him in here... but i'd gladly write about him again. it was one of the best/memorable experiences of my life. does that make him sound really great? or me sound really dull?

something to think about:
the word "motherfucker".
that's what the male slaves would call the masters who would rape their mothers and other female slaves. and then used to mess with the minds of the male slaves... masters would give male slaves an ultimatum: have their mothers be killed or have sex with their mothers. and then the masters would call the male slaves motherfuckers.
what an unspeakably horrible method of domination.

how eerie, but i've got deja vu.

well, that's enough for me to discontinue the use of the word. if it's been perpetuated for this long, then obviously the word is powerful, and i don't want to be one to give power to the meaning of that word.

2001-12-03T01:14:00.000-05:00

sooooo tired. if i had someone massaging my feet right now, i think i'd cry for jubilation.
i think i'm getting sick. my head feels too heavy, too pressurized. every time i bent down at work, i got a huge headache. yuck.

anyway. i've been feelin really blah lately. i thought thanksgiving break would be a pick-me-up, but it wasn't. somehow i gotta muster the energy within myself to get straight, or else the consequences i'll be left with will haunt me for months to come.

rice is coming back tomorrow. he called me yesterday and i actually was home to pickup the call. i almost didn't, but i figured i'd have to face him sooner or later, and i was curious to know what he had to say. well, it was kinda funny. he was like, "**myname**, is that actually you? do you know who this is?" it made me laugh. so he said he was comin back tomorrow, and then asked if i'd be around. i said yea, and said that i wasn't working. but i agreed to cover someone's shift tomorrow, so turns out i am working. but i only agreed to 8:30pm, so hopefully that'll give me enough time to breakup with rice and then go to work. something threw me off though. something stupid... he said that he got me a souvenir, and that if i wanted it i'd have to see him. for some reason, that made me feel weird. the thought of him being away in hawaii and having me enter his mind enough to get me a souvenir makes me feel weird. now please, i'm not giving him too much credit, cuz it's not like he said he got me a gift or anything. a "souvenir" is like, a hula girl paperweight or a postcard of him lyin on the beach or something tacky like that. but still... i dunno.
i haven't thought about him at all, but now that he's comin back i'm dreading the whole confrontation and it's makin me kinda panicky. ugh. it's been so long, i haven't seen him in over a month, and i'm over the whole nude photos thing, so i don't think i'll bring it up. i just hope i don't sound so lame when i'm like, "it's been great, but you know, i've gotten used to you not being around and i've got finals coming up and stuff..." what a line to feed to a 33-yr old haha.

so i'm gearing up for collabos with my music. the dj in the bond st lounge is having some really big things happen to him, and now he keeps buggin me for an a capella track of me so he can produce a track for it. and his roommate, my friend AV who i've been spending a lot of time with lately, she's also talkin a lot about getting something going. only problem is... i'm not feelin it...
i'm not feelin anything, to be honest. not even shopping or eating, which are two pastimes that 99% of the time make me happy.
what's wrong with me?! i dunno if i'm supposed to just let it slide, and wait for me to feel energized, or if i should be on my ass about getting things done and being upbeat and shit.
i'm not really depressed... i'm just feeling really unmotivated.
i think maybe i'm going thru this tacky "what's the meaning of life" phase. because seriously, everyone i see, encounter, has their own routine to their life, their own rhythm. and it all seems so... redundant. repetitive. boring. i wish i could do something different everyday. and you know what?? i've never been one of those people to say something like that. but i feel that way right now. routine is getting on my nerves man...

maybe i'll have a new perspective tomorrow.

2001-12-01T03:59:00.000-05:00

the flow of this blog has been interrupted again, but i'm tryin to get it back.

so lemme backtrack:
thanksgiving in blo with the family was great. it was quality time you know, the kind of time so well spent you can't imagine how it could be spent better. and we had fun. family fun, though very g-rated, can be the best kind of fun, cuz it's so comfortable. so comfortable and familiar.

my sister my brother and me went to go watch a movie. i voted for "the one" with jet li, cuz i knew it would be action-packed and entertaining for all of us. so we saw a 4:20 showing (heehee) at one of the local theatres. my bro was quiet all throughout the previews, and the start of the film, but once the first action sequence came on, he got really excited and started reacting loudly. my sister was sitting next to him and told him he'd have to be quiet, and he nodded his head, but the next time something exciting happened he forgot and got loud again. it didn't really seem to be a problem, except that there were 3 dudes sitting a few rows in front of us who not-so-subtly turned around..
it was a weird moment when i realized our situation was problematic. i could see the way my sister was reacting, that she was getting really stressed. everytime he got loud, my sister just gave me this look. i think i know what she was feeling. i felt kinda sad, like bringing him to the theatre was our (my sister and i) fault. not that we shouldn't have taken him out in public, but that we should have known he would get too excited watching an action movie. i felt kinda guilty, like a bad sister, because i didn't know better, and i should have.
my sister was sitting in the middle, so she was the one who tried to calm my brother down. but he was so into the movie, he didn't want to leave. when my sister tried to take his jacket that was hanging on the seat in front of us, he stole it away and put it behind him so we couldn't get it to it. he really didn't want to leave. my sister wouldn't push it, and so she'd turn around and give me a pained look of what am i supposed to do? my brother kept sayin to my sister and i, "i'm not mad, i'm not mad," and then he'd turn his attention back to the movie.
i didn't know what to do either. neither of us wanted to get ourselves in a situation where we'd have to force my brother to leave, especially because we weren't even sure if he would agree to leave, but we didn't know if we could all make it thru the movie without annoying or pissing off everyone else. those 3 guys didn't turn around just once.
we made it thru an hour of the movie, but just when everything was coming together in the story, and the drama was building to its peak, my brother's excitement rose too and he started getting really loud. we knew definitely that we had to go. so my sister and i stood up, and it kinda surprised me but my brother got up too without saying anything and walked out with us.
we were walking back to the car and my brother kept sayin again, "i'm not mad, i'm not mad."
so i said, "good! we're not mad either... why don't we go rent a movie and go home, watch it and eat dinner?"
and the stress was gone.

my brother understands us. we just don't understand him.

i guess next time we shouldn't go watch such an action-packed movie. =P

so we went to blockbuster and he picked out "swordfish", which was pretty bad, even though all the computer-hacking was really interesting to me. i think my bro enjoyed being able to get as loud as he wanted at home.
my sister and i also went with my dad to go drop him off at his new group home. he moved out of his last home because he didn't really fit with the other people he lived with. everyone else was so much older, and a lot of them had disabilities a lot more serious than my bro, so it was too restrictive for him too. his new place has people more his age and more similar to him, and is less restrictive.
he's lived in 3 different group homes, and i've seen all three of them now, but i don't know how i feel about this new one. he's only been living there for a few months so i guess he's not completely adjusted yet, but it bothered me that the workers didn't seem to know much about him. one woman asked if someone speaks to him in "vietnamese or something," cuz appparently my brother says a lot of things people don't understand. i felt like she should know that he's korean, not vietnamese. and then this other guy asked my sister and me if we were older than him, and so we said no and told him my sister's 24 and i'm 22, and he was surprised. he didn't know that my brother was 29. i dunno, isn't that something he should know???
it all got me thinking and worrying about him. you know you see on the news sometimes and you've seen exposes about nursing home attendants and how they abuse their patients and no one knows... i started thinking like that. i wondered if my brother had ever been subjected to fucked up treatment by anyone, and in all probability, he probably has... i mean maybe i'm thinking pessimistically...
but man that thought just makes me crazy.
am i wrong in thinking that the only solution i can think of is to make a lot of money to ensure that he gets treated properly?

in the car ride home my sister my dad and i were talking about my bro, and my dad said that my brother does have an extra chromosome, which means he has down's syndrome. this confused me, after hearing what my sister told me. she brought it up to my dad cuz she was confused too, but his answer was unclear. i don't think he really knows for sure either. i don't know how that makes me feel.
but something i do know is that what i feel for my bro is something real. and i feel like it's real kinda for the first time. like, i think i get it now. i dunno if that makes me a fucked up sister, a fucked up person cuz he's been my brother for 22 years now...
but something feels kinda comfortable too, a kind of comfort that's new to me. like i'm really his sister. he's always been my brother. but i think i'm only now becoming his sister.

2001-11-20T04:06:00.000-05:00

maybe i do feel like writing.
i had a nice talk with my best friend, bf, tonight. it's the first time since we've been in the city together that i think we've come together and connected. and what brought us to that point was conflict.
it's interesting how people think of friendships as friendships, and romances as relationships. friendships are relationships too, and though we all know that, i don't know if everyone acknowledges that. cuz it seems to me like friends don't really talk about the relationship the way lovers do, but they should, when it's called for. if anything, friendships should be treated with more gravity because they're generally less impermanent than romances.
bf and i talked about our relationship, and it really helped. i feel great about things, whereas before i didn't really know what to think. we're going thru a transitional phase, where we're updating our relationship after four years of being apart, and trying to establish a structure to our friendship, so there have been some awkward times, and there'll be more awkward times, no doubt, but now i know that we both are invested in the relationship, so i don't feel scared of talking things thru with her, or scared of getting upset about things. cuz if we fight, or if we have differences, conflicts, it's ok. we're in it for the long haul. that security brings a priceless peace of mind.

i think i'm learning to be more social, in the ways that i want to be more social. i used to be and wanted to be in the middle of all the action, all social and outgoing and interacting with everyone. i used to never be alone, and i never wanted to be alone. i think i was scared of myself. it's strange to think about, because i know that i really was intensely against being alone, but now i can't remember the feeling of hating to be alone, cuz it's not true anymore.
i spent a good year in relative solitude, where i learned to be alone, and really got to enjoy the time with myself. i discovered that when i'm alone, i'm happy. that's been a big accomplishment in my life.
so then i came to new york, and being thrust into the modeling world, where the entire industry is in the 'scene', and working at bond st, where i witness on a nightly basis customers throwing away thousands of dollars on a few hours of food and drink, i guess i equated being social with being in that whole scene. so i started to detest being social, and started to detest the scene. the last thing i wanted to be was in the center of all the bullshit.
the nuyorican cafe gave me the first glimpse that the city has other things to offer on the social front besides banal conversations and brandished money. and then hanging out with AV, and doin fun low-key stuff, i'm really starting to develop my own sense of what Fun for me is. what i like to do.
i guess now i'm starting to develop my own life in the city.

2001-11-20T03:34:00.000-05:00

i haven't really had the heart to write lately.
i've just been feeling listless. stressed. and solitary.

hopefully thanksgiving break will bring a welcome change of pace and rejuvenation.

here's a photograph i took of rice. i wanted to capture his tattoos, especially the dog on his stomach. it's such a goofy lookin tattoo, and in the most randomest spot. he drew it and then inked it himself. literally, this tattoo made me like him more, i found it so cute.
he was lying down, and so was i while taking the picture, in case the angle is confusing to you.

taking photos is really fun, and a good release too. too bad it's such an expensive hobby. i think for christmas i'm gonna buy myself a camera. cameras always seem like worthy investments. i've been wanting a digital camera badly, but i think i'll go old school and get a manual camera. some things, technology can't fuck wit.

2001-11-16T05:21:00.000-05:00

i had a lot of frustrations today but my night made up for it. but, my attitude is a lot to blame for the shitty day i was having. when you get frustrated, and then you get pissy, the negativity just magnifies prolongs and causes more frustration. i'll be damned if i can control it though. i totally think when you're having a bad day in new york, you're having a really bad day. the city can compound every little thing.

i picked up my pictures from the shoot on monday. i got only 2 or 3 usable photos. i'm rather pissed, actually. i'm gonna call the photographer and speak to her about the situation and how i feel about it. hopefully speaking to her will make me feel better. even just understanding the process and what happened would make me feel better. i'm still new at the shooting process, and i know i read into things a lot sometimes, so i have to feel like i have a grasp on the psychology of the whole process before i can let it go. i'm being vague with the details but i really don't care to get into it. pooh.
i'm shooting again this saturday. because of my last shoot leaving a rather sour taste in my mouth i'm not really looking forward to it. but i'll do it, cuz i need to. and the photographer has been tryin to track me down for months now, and from what i know of her she's a cool person, so that eases my mind and nerves a bit.
and a funny thing happened today. this photographer who during the summer stopped me on the train and gave me a card of his work and told me to call him, i ran into him again today, on the train. talk about good timing. we met up once or twice and were supposed to shoot back in like september, but then i moved and i lost his number and he didn't have my new one, and i got lazy and it just died. but i gave him my number and if he calls me hopefully we can set something up. his work is really good. very fantasy-like. big productions, i like that...

so i just got back from hangin with AV and her semi-boyfriend/roommate. we met up really late, almost 1, and had drinks at a neighborhood joint, orchard bar. dude the ginger ales there were sooo good! they were extra sugary sweet. yumm haha. and then we decided to go karaoke-ing, so we went to village karaoke and sang our asses off for an hour and a half. it was so much fun! it was pretty much the first time i've gone to a place that actually had fairly current american songs, instead of only linda ronstadt and the like. my favorite songs i sang were "thank you" by dido, this cheesy korean power ballad, and "stan" by eminem. that one was pretty challenging, but i got really into it haha, so i feel like i nailed it. AV sang "yellow" by coldplay which was great, and "my way" by frank sinatra (i think?) and it was so awesome! she's a great performer. she can ham it up and be so entertaining, but manage not to be bad cheesy or annoying. there's such a fine line... totally.
afterward we went to around the clock and just had some finger foods. that sounds pretty disgusting huh. it was pretty disgusting. call me ghetto, but sometimes disgusting is the greatest. you know, like pouring random sauces over rice, taco bell, shit hot dogs off the street?
i love AV cuz i can get ghetto with her and it's cool. she's like that too. her boyfriend's a cool guy too. we're all gonna jam sometime really soon. i'm so excited! they've got all this music producing software on their computer cuz he's really into music, producing beats and tracks and whatnot, and of course they live with the awesome dj dude from the bond st lounge, so we could seriously come out with some awesome shit. they've got a cd burner too so it could be tangible productions. niiiiice...

it's not the full moon and i'm not pms-ing. why am i so moody lately?

rice is gone haha. i didn't even see him the 5 days he was here. he left wed at like 8am, so i guess i'm waiting til he gets back to break it off. fine with me, i don't have to think about it for another 14 days.

my parents got back from korea, and i spoke to my mom tonight. it felt so good to hear her voice again. i really missed my parents, and i feel safer, more right, now that they're back at home, where they should be. =) i didn't have the heart to tell my mom about my hair. i think i'm gonna wait til i have good pictures scanned of my hair so i can email it to my dad and sorta soften the blow before i go home and my mom freaks out. i'm crossing my fingers i can get some good pictures from this shoot on saturday.

ugh, i'm disgusted by this late hour...
i've got so much schoolwork to do too, and i need to exercise and get some last minute firming up done before saturday. ha, like it'll make a difference. but, for piece of mind, i hafta. too bad i have all this damn fried calamari and guacamole just sittin in the bottom of my stomach. love the mental image?

ooh yea, one other interesting tidbit from today. on 1st st, between 1st ave and 2nd ave, there's this store called True Mirror i think. it has mirrors that do a double reflection so that when you look in the mirror, you see yourself as the world sees you. it's a really nuts thing, cuz at first when you look, you feel like you're all lopsided and you look weird. it takes a lot of getting used to to be able to really see yourself, but apparently, AV says the mirror actually builds self-confidence, because it allows you to see yourself how others see you. weird, huh? the mirrors are kind of expensive, but i think it'd be an awesome gift for practically anyone. the mirror's in the window so even though it was closed we could check it out, but i'm gonna go back during store hours and check out the prices. a mirror like that would make neat gifts for christmas and stuff.

anyway, that's all.

2001-11-15T01:37:00.000-05:00

i dunno what's wrong with me.
like, i want to know, but i can't tell. for real. i think to myself, "what's wrong?" and nothing. silence. a stillness of emotions, thoughts.
how frustrating is it when you feel like you can't get there?! when you can't get deep down to where everything's cookin?!

i should have read my poem tonight at the open mic. i shouldn't have gotten there so late that i couldn't sign up. there was a black girl who performed who blew me away. so much so that i wanted to be her. how many people do you think would say they'd rather be a black person than themselves? even if the choice was between a $25,000/yr white guy or a $2mil/yr black guy. i remember when my sister said she wanted to be venus and serena williams (yea, both). these colored eyes that i've got afford me a different view/experience of this world. being asian is weird. i often feel like it's in relation to black, in relation to white, but not really on its own. sometimes we're seen as better than blacks, sometimes we're seen as worse. we're 'smarter', but we have less power. we're 'sexier', but we're invisible. the closer to white the closer to heaven? the closer to black the closer to hell? yellow is in the middle. what is yellow? yellow is slow down... yellow is the sun... yellow is teeth when lazy, dirty... yellow is urine... yellow is puke... yellow is school buses...

for a really long time, up until junior high, i wished i was white. i only stopped wishing it, thinking about it, because i knew it was an impossibility, i knew it was stupid of me to even think about.

2001-11-14T03:47:00.000-05:00

i have a brother who's 29. up until august, up until i was freakin 21, i was told that my brother had down's syndrome. then in june, before my sister moved out to la and was visiting me in the city, she told me the truth. apparently my mom, shortly before she was married, developed a facial tick of some sort. her parents got nervous about it, so she took some medication that worked... her facial tick disappeared. she got married, and then got pregnant, and my brother was born, in korea. the exact details are fuzzy, but my mom later found out that the medication she had taken for her tick caused birth deformities. i guess it was easier to say that my brother had down's syndrome, especially since developmentally, there were a lot of similarities.
my whole life, i never understood really how my parents felt about my brother. especially my mom in particular. it seemed like she could never let it go-- i always felt that my mom couldn't accept him, that she felt like a huge failure, that she felt so guilty for giving birth to a disabled child. and learning the truth, in retrospect, it makes it easier to understand.
but it doesn't change anything, really.
i remember learning in 9th grade about down's syndrome in biology class. my teacher said that typically people with DS die at a very young age-- 20s to 30s-- because their nervous systems have to work so much harder to maintain, they often have numerous other health problems. i started shaking, sweating when i heard my teacher talking. i couldn't imagine my brother dying, or dead.
i went home and waited until dinner when my dad was home to tell my parents what i had learned. my parents laughed it off and said that my brother wasn't going to die early, and he was perfectly fine. which he was. and he still is. he has no other health problems-- the only medication he takes is to calm him down, because he's too happy, too hyper.
the role my brother has played in my life has been so... unclear. he's the oldest of us three children, the only male, and there's a fairly large age difference between him and i. by the time i was born and somewhat conscious of life, my brother was already gone, to a group home with children of similar disabilities 45 minutes away from home so he could attend school with a great special education program.
i always kind of assumed that my sister and i had pretty much the same experiences growing up, being that we're two years apart, both girls, and obviously we have the same parents. but when we talked in depth about my brother, that was when i first realized that our experiences growing up were radically different, even though we existed in the same domestic sphere. she has a lot of memories and experiences with my brother, because they had time to spend with each other. and when they were both little kids, the differences in development weren't so obvious. i didn't exist yet, and when i was born, i didn't exist much for a few more years, so they were playmates, brother and sister. so my sister now has a lot of emotions about the fact that one day he was there, with her, and the next day he was gone, pretty much forever. for me, he never really was there.
it makes me so sad. it makes me feel guilty. it makes me feel angry. and then i wonder if these emotions do me any good. i wonder if i should do something, instead of during my off moments, think about him, and our relationship, sitting here just feeling. and then the moment passes, and my life picks up again and i get swept away in the center of my universe.
there's no protocol to follow, no standard i can use as a reference point.
when i went to la, my sister and i called my brother, and i was so happy to talk to him. we promised to take him to see a movie when my sister and i go home to blo for thanksgiving. i'm eager to do that. but my sister and i realized that it's unfair to just call him up whenever we feel like it. apparently, after we called him and talked to him about seeing him over thanksgiving, he got confused and packed up all his stuff and refused to eat, telling everyone at his group home that he was going home and his sisters were going to pick him up and take him home.
it broke my heart.
no action, action... either way it doesn't seem right. i just don't know.

2001-11-13T17:16:00.000-05:00

if i stay with rice i'm just being complacent. that i know for sure.
so i'm gonna wing it. however i feel, whatever vibes i pick up from him, that's what i'll go with but he's leaving tomorrow for another two weeks. hmm... should i break it off on the day of his departure? i don't even know what time he's leaving... and i agreed to check his mail for him while he's gone. but if i tell him that i looked thru his stuff he may not want his apt keys in my possession.

on wednesday i'm gonna go to the nuyorican cafe and perform my poem at the slam open after the showcase. i haven't worked on my music in a couple of weeks now, and i feel more un-alive. but the good thing is i'm starting to talk about it with other people and i'm thinking of doing some collaborating. i actually get some pretty decent offers by people who hear my stuff online, and people i meet in real life, but i never really follow thru. i don't mean to be so picky with working with other people, especially since i suppose i'm in no position to, but the prospect of working with other people often just makes me envision frustration. lots of frustration.
but AV and i are gonna hookup and work on some stuff. i know she's got a different agenda from me, but that's ok, because i think we could both learn from each other. i trust her to hear my music, to hear me, and i'm assuming she does as well, since she asked me to bring my mic over to her apt so we could play around. and her roommate is the dj dude who works the lounge of bond st, so it'd be neat if somewhere down the line we could all collaborate.

the connections i have are scary. i guess they're there to be used, especially since they've all offered to help me, but it's still scary. it's like, nice to know that they're there, but i dunno if i could ever make use of them. my sister keeps telling me that that's what they're there for, and that real people who get to real places do so by using their network of contacts, and i believe that's true, but... the prospect scares me. i think instead, in my head, i use the connections i have as an excuse to not really reachout to people, which is stupid, and doubly stupid because i'm sayin right now i can't imagine actually using them.

man i gotta go to work in a lil while.
school was great today. i give my professor such respect. she's this korean woman who teaches at barnard and hunter. my sister actually had her when she was at barnard, so i knew before going to the first class that i'd probably like the professor, and i do. it's so great to have people in my life whose minds i respect. a lot of the people i encounter on a daily basis don't have that. i wonder if they know what they're missing out on.

2001-11-13T00:40:00.000-05:00

whatta day.
it was spent shooting, basically. i woke up at 12:30, not bad compared to yesterday, and considering i didn't fall asleep 'til 5:30am. i fell asleep with the tv on, and awoke to see flames and mad reporting and chaos on the tv. it was much like sept 11. queens... rockaway... i heard these words and thought, nyc again??? planes, again??? i called my friends in queens and made 100% sure everything was kosher, even though i know they don't live in rockaway.
terrorist attack, accident, terrorists, accident, terrorists, accident...
i feel numb.
is it gonna get to the point where these things happen, and we can't feel it anymore? like we're so busy trying to keep on that we can't won't don't stop to feel it anymore. or is it gonna be like we can't go on because we're so consumed with fear. there's a middle ground, but i think a lot of people are falling into one category or the other. we're supposed to go on "business as usual" but what the fuck does that mean? i guess it's just something to say in a situation where nothing is the right thing to say, and nothing can really be said.

so how am i to switch gears and talk about modeling without sounding like a self-centered ass?
...
the shoot went pretty well. it was a distinctly different feeling, shooting with all women. the photographer, MU(makeup)/hair, and stylist were all female, all japanese, and my model friend who first referred me to the photographer (i think i gave her the pseudonym dc) shot today too. so with all of us girls there, and dc having shot with the photographer 2wice before, it was a fairly comfortable atmosphere.
i really liked the makeup artist. she did some amazing shit on me, and she really liked me. i hate to be like, 'she liked me so i like her', but i need some damn positive affirmation when it comes to modeling, and even if she didn't like me, i still would like her. blahblah blah what am i babbling about. anyway, she did this awesome lightning bolt type makeup and got me lookin really hard, sexy, and yes, butch. the stylist had a great eye, and cool clothes, and of course, the photographer is really talented.
i'm picking up the film on wednesday night, and i'm really nervous. we did three different looks, and they were all fairly different, so hopefully i'll get some usable photos. i want to hit the agencies before thanksgiving. that way by the time my semester break rolls around, i'll be up and running with modeling and will be using the month off to my advantage.
haha. that's my plan, but of course it won't be like that at all, i know.

i didn't meet up with rice today. he called as i was leaving for the shoot, and i told him i'd call him after. we ended at like 7:30, but dc and i were starving so we went to life cafe and had dinner. i called rice at 10:30 and he was sleeping from bein jetlagged (phewwww), so i told him i'd call him tomorrow. i keep vascillating between what i'm gonna do, but the last i decided, i'm gonna tell him the truth. dc says i shouldn't feel bad about looking thru his stuff but i do. i don't want to be one of those people to violate others' privacy like that. sometimes i really feel like i shouldn't have looked at his photos. moral dilemmas...

i'm watching "to die for" on hbo, with nicole kidman, casey affleck, and joaquin phoenix. it's a good film, freaky as hell. nicole kidman plays the psycho kewpie doll so perfectly it's really scary. nicole kidman scares me, really. the way she can just lose her accent so perfectly, and play psychobitches so well... it's kinda freaky. am i the only one who finds her kind of sinister? joaquin phoenix is so good too. he's one bad mofo, sexy with his intensity. anyway, this movie freaks me out. i feel weird.

i'm gonna go drink some tea. maybe i'll come back.

2001-11-12T02:24:00.000-05:00

i really missed writing in here. it gave me some sort of piece of mind... made me zero in on my thoughts a bit.

it's been nuts. i've been nuts.
lala came and went, and towards the end it got a lot better. we had a chance to get to know each other better, and it helped, a lot. her trip did me some good. i mean, i was forced to go out, be social and shoot the useless shit, which is beneficial to me just cuz i've been so resistant to going out ever since i moved here. her visit has made me more in the practice of socializing, so after work i've been chillin out with some of the staff and unwinding, and it's been good. as a result, i feel closer to the people at bond st, which has made work a much more pleasant experience. i think i have a small crush on one of the bartenders. it's funny, i Never would have thought about it, but last night, i went out for drinks (i had a pineapple juice) with a few of the waiters and i was talkin to this one girl, we'll call her AV (because she's both audially- and visually-oriented, which i find to be really uncommon). so i was talkin to AV and she was recounting all the past romances that have gone on between staff members at bond st, and so it got me thinkin about who i find attractive and whatnot. i remember the first night i worked, this dude trained me, and while i totally thought he was gay, he was jonezing and was tryin to put the moves on me. my first thought was that he was gay, but then my second thought was that it was work-- i had a separatist mentality that work and play shouldn't be mixed. so ever since then, i've never thought about any of the staff in a way other than workpeople, and now, some as possible friends.
but i remember when the horrible manager was working at bond st, it was actually the last night that i worked with him before he was transferred, and it was the night before i went to la, i was in tears, twice, because of the awful manager. and after work, i was bitching a bit and everyone was givin me support by talkin shit about him hehe, and when i was leaving, the bartender, harmonica (he plays the harmonica), came up to me and gave me a hug and said he just thought i was in need.
in retrospect, that was really really nice of him. and workin with him tonight, casually talkin to him, he's a very nice dude. and he makes me laugh, which is great. and he's cute. but, i so shouldn't be wasting space talkin about him, he's just a nice boy that i'm glad to work with cuz it's always pleasant. nuff said.

since i'm on the subject of boys, rice is back. he called me friday afternoon, and i didn't get the message til the evening, and i didn't know what to do so i didn't do anything. i went out with my friends in queens that night and didn't get back til pretty late. yesterday (on saturday) he called me like 3 times, to the point where his messages were like, "are you in town? maybe you went away..." i was gonna call him, i mean i was freaking out cuz i knew the longer i waited the more stupid i was being, but i couldn't bear to call him cuz i had no idea what i was gonna do. i worked on saturday and was gonna call him from work, but they changed the stupid code again so i didn't have a chance. so this morning, well, actually this evening, when i woke up at a pathetic 4:15pm, i just dialed his number, without thinkin about what i was gonna say. we had a fine conversation, i apologized for not getting back to him, told him i've been really busy cuz my friend was in town (o'course i didn't say at his place), and that i've been working and whatever. it was all normal. it wasn't like when i heard his voice i thought of him bein naked with a girl haha, it was just regular. i'm guessing i'll be meeting up with him at some point tomorrow... and i'm so not looking forward to it.
i'm gonna break it off with him, i know that. i just don't know how. i don't know if i can 'fess up to the fact that i snooped, even if it was unintentional. i realize that pretty much nothing he could say could change my mind, not that he'd necessarily try, so maybe i shouldn't even bother telling him. the issue here is me confronting him. i've never had to do anything like this before, so it's hard. especially when he and i are coming from radically different places. to him, he left for japan and everything was fine between us, to me, he left and then everything changed...
i'm trying to figure out the right thing to do. a big part of me just wants to be honest with him, since i've been nothing but from the beginning. but i feel like i'll be risking so much by telling him, not because i looked through his photos, but because then he'll think i'm breaking up with him because i'm hurt by what i saw. and i am hurt, but not too much so. i'm just kind of disgusted. those photos made me feel like one of many; un-special. and that's one of the worst feelings you can have when you're in a relationship, for real.
i think more than anything i'm scared of just talking to him. of getting into a deep conversation with him about our relationship. we've never had one before, i know, that's so lame, so it's so weird to imagine us having one. and we will, most likely. i'm guessing that when i break it off with him he'll want to know why, since it's coming out of nowhere to him. and that will probably launch us into the whole deep conversation thing. ugh.
i just have no idea what his reaction will be. if i told him i saw the photos i have no clue what he'd do or say. if i told him i just wanna breakup i have no clue what he'd do or say. i guess what that all means is that i have no clue what he feels for me. and finding those photos... just makes me have even less of a clue than i did before, which wasn't much, to say the least. hopefully i'll learn in my next relationship to COMMUNICATE! and be VOCAL! shit.
i think i shouldn't date older men. it takes a certain vitality out of the relationship. i think i'm probably compatible with a lot of older men in general, but in terms of what's good for me, i don't think big age gaps is one of them.
so that's that i guess. chapter closed? we'll see. tomorrow...

i'm shooting tomorrow. with this awesome awesome awesome photographer. i'm really excited. i spoke with her and she's gonna submit the stuff we shoot (granted if it turns out well) to magazines, so that's added incentive. i'm nervous to be in front of the camera again after so long, but at the same time, i am excited, cuz what the fuck, i can't think too much about it, it's only the visual. overall i've totally gained weight since the summer, but i don't think i'll ever be that size again. too bad, cuz i have a pair of freakin awesome jeans i can't fit into anymore haha.

OH YEA!!! i cut my hair. CHOPPED it ALL off. the back of my hair is all short and spiky, and the front is longer, cut in bizarre chunky pieces. it's really funky, and i really like it. my hair has never been this short. 95% of the people who have seen it like it a lot better than it was before. so that's cool. it's a big change, but at the same time, i don't feel like it's that big of a change. i'm sure i'll feel differently when my mom freaks out and yells at me. and i'm curious to know how my appeal has changed with men. it must have been affected... i'm afraid that because it's so funky and stylized, people are gonna see me as more high-maintenance and less approachable. but the bartender harmonica said i seem more approachable now. aw what do i know i'm not a guy. i'm sure my dyke appeal has risen greatly though.

i could write forever... but i won't. i have to wake up early tomorrow. i have to get out of this freakin horrific sleep cycle i'm in. and i gotta prepare for my shoot. my body needs a scrubdown bad.

i spoke with my exboyfriend last night. he might be coming down to the city tomorrow. dammit, he needs to come, he has to go see the doctor.

sigh.
i've been feeling really irregular lately, and i'm not talkin about my bowel movements. a lot of it is lala who came into town and was a whirlwind of frenetic energy, but mostly it's me. i don't feel stable. but i can't ponder that right now.
i'm looking forward to thanksgiving when my whole family will be reunited in blo again. i look forward to being able to recharge my batteries.
goodnight.

2001-11-06T02:33:00.000-05:00

if you could see me now, you'd see me breathing a deep, heavy sigh.
it's been a nutty few days.

thursday, i picked my guest up from the airport. we'll call her, lala. so, the lowdown on lala is that she's my sister's best friend's roommate in la. she's also friends with my sister. she's 22, like me, and half-korean half-japanese and columbian, but pretty much 100% korean-- there aint too much about her that don't look korean. she's born and raised in la, and she's an actress/model. she's really beautiful, very standout attractive.
in late august when i was moving out of my sublet to i-didn't-know-where, lala and i contemplated living with each other, because one of her friends had a place in manhattan he was trying to get housesat while he lived in la for a while. so lala and i were gonna move in together to her friend's apt, cuz it was a sweet deal 3br for $700, but we didn't end up taking it because the location wasn't good. anyway, because of that deal, we talked on the phone a lot-- my sis had told me about lala, and thought that her moving to ny would be good for her (lala) and good for me. cuz lala needed a good friend, someone she could trust, someone who wasn't sooo la, and i needed someone to go out with and get me to socialize and not be so... anti-social. i needed someone who could be my 'partner in crime', so to speak.
when lala and i talked on the phone, we got along fine, and we experienced little awkwardness. we didn't know each other, but we were comfortable talking to each other, so everything was cool. but the deal fell thru, and i moved into my own place. but ever since sept she's been calling me, and being really cool to me, and when i went to la, i hung out with her and my sis and my sis's best friend, and we got along great. when she called recently, talking about visiting new york, i was all for it. i thought it'd be fun to show her a good time, and get to know her at the same time. and i'd finally have someone to do all the things i've been wanting to do but had no one to do them with... but it hasn't really been that.
i dunno, her trip wasn't what i hoped for. i was hoping to have a friend, not a responsibility. i just feel like i'm taking care of her.
i mean, it's been hard. she got here thurs late night and i worked sat sun and tonight. and she's never been to nyc or even to the east coast, so she's completely disoriented and has no idea which way's north. she's actually run into a fair number of people she knows from la, but she came here not really knowing anyone but me. so i felt bad to leave her to fend for herself when i went to work, but lala can provide for herself, that's for sure. she's gone out every single night, and is concluding that la is the same as nyc.
but dammit, it's not.
i know i'm so not being clear here, about what about this girl is driving me crazy, but it's hard to explain, being in the midst of all the madness right now... she's out and i just got back from work.
i mean, it's not a madness of this awful, horribly insulting kind. it's just... madness.

i'm a little foggybrained, after work i chilled out with my waitress friend at bond st and the lounge manager, and we ended up smoking a j and then shared a cab home.
i made an extra 80 bucks tonight. wheee! i deserve it though, there was only me hostessing tonight, with both floors open and a private party of 25 to deal with, and maaaaaad coats to check cuz it was so freezing tonight.
so i'm happy, cuz i bought these cute half-gloves half-sleeves thingies today impulsively cuz my hands were cold, and though i'm so happy i have them cuz they're really cute and warm, they were 33 bucks, which i thought to be a little steep. but anyway, my tips more than made up for it, so i'm happy. dude, how many times did i just say "so i'm happy"...

i'm not workin until saturday night, so i'll have tomorrow and wednesday night to hang out with lala before she leaves on thurs. i'm taking her out to dinner both nights, so maybe then we'll get to know each other?
maybe i'm asking too much, i dunno. i dunno.

i'm shooting with this great great photographer on monday, and another photographer called me today wanting to make arrangements to shoot. so it looks like i'm getting my model groove back on. too bad my ass is so out of shape.

rice is coming back on friday. i dread the day.

my exbf is coming to town this weekend, last time i spoke to him. i'm looking forward to that.

i'm living at rice's place with lala until she leaves, and it's hell on earth. the last thing i want to be feeling is that i'm being so intrusive, and constantly surrounded by all his things, and not living in my comfortable apartment that i cleaned so spic-and-span. no wonder i'm getting nightmares and pimples. i feel oooooold. seriously lala makes me feel old, and like i want to study. what an unlikely good influence.

ok, i'm going to bed. i'm sharing useless boring thoughts. ah shit i have to stay up to let lala in. damn.

2001-11-01T03:25:00.000-05:00

i'm feeling buoyant right now. it's a feeling that comes to you when you meet someone new. by being exposed to a new personality, a new experience, a new life, it makes you see things, the world, a little differently. with this person, kguy, i did a lot of talking, and so right now i'm seein myself in a slightly different light.
i think i'm anxious to move on from this situation with rice. i just know that my relationship with rice was contextual, circumstantial, and convenient. and it satisfied me for what i was looking for. but after this crap has happened, the terms have changed, and i'm not willing to go with the flow like that. i still have a lot of mixed up thoughts regarding the whole relationship, but i don't think i'm ready to untangle em.
i learned the process of pain from the breakup with my last boyfriend, last summer. the process is this. first, you feel pain. you just feel it feel it and feel it and you let yourself feel it. this usually means being kinda moody-- happy one minute, sad the next. gradually the happy moments dominate over the sad ones, and you feel less pain with less frequency. when you get to the point where you feel like you have some distance, that's the time you take to think about what happened. at that point, hopefully your mind won't be clouded [so much] with feelings of hurt or anger or whatever.
i'm sure the way i described this process of surviving pain sounded stupid, but it really works for me, and it makes sense.
so right now, i'm in the 'feeling' stage. as much as i know i'll get over this and it isn't a huge chip off my emotional block, i've still got emotions for it all.

tomorrow my friend from LA is comin into town for a week. i know i'm gonna get stressed about showing her a good time and whatnot, cuz of course i feel a responsibility over her happiness and entertainment, but hopefully things will work out ok. i haven't even devoted much thought about what we'll spend our time doing, but i've got vague ideas about calling up certain people and doin some things. i hope she doesn't expect one big party, or to go out a lot, cuz i don't do either. i really don't. i realized i don't like to go out unless there's a specific reason or event. i won't go out just to go out. sometimes i wish i would, but i know now that i won't, and i don't wanna give myself a hard time about that.
tomorrow, i'm gonna aim for a productive day. hopefully i'll wake up at a decent hour, cleanup, organize myself and my thoughts, go to school, and then go to queens to chill with gimp, and then head over to JFK to pick up my friend. i suppose i should go over to rice's to prepare for her visit or something, but i'm kinda dreading going over there. i'll be staying there with my friend, cuz i can't just leave her there by herself, but i'm really not looking forward to it anymore. oh well.

i'm craving granola. i think i'm gonna have to act on that craving.
the past coupla days i've been giving in to my whims and fancies. i don't have the heart to be hard on myself. see, this is what happens when someone else mistreats me... i spoil myself!

2001-10-31T01:04:00.000-05:00

you wanna know what? i just feel crappy today.
warnings being issued for a possible terrorist attack this week have got me completely on edge, because i'm convinced if new york were to get hit again, it'd be the subway system. and i'm sorry, the idea of calamity happening when you're underground... shit that's more than i can handle. maybe i should bust out my skates and skate everywhere. not.

i'm feeling disconnected from this world again. i dunno why i say 'again', cuz i don't really remember the last time i felt this way, but i'll leave what i wrote alone. my sister is doing well in LA, she's got a job, possibly getting another one, and she's got a lot of big projects, tricks up her sleeve. i'm happy for her, but sad for me, sadly. that's very narcissistic of me. my parents are in korea. they haven't called me yet. i'm gonna have to yell at them when they do finally call me, for making me worry. winter is coming. i'm tired, bloated, and craving sugars. work was rather sucky. i felt lifeless.
i dunno where this heavy-heartedness is coming from. i guess from the whole thing with rice? i don't even know, i feel like the last few days i haven't had any time to think. or the energy. uyyy, i refuse to let personal crap get me off-balance again. as a libra, equilibrium is so important.

sad. depressed. melancholy. heavy. slumped shoulders. droopy eyelids. downturned mouth. foggy brain. slow motion. slow motion. sloooooow motionnnnnn.

"depression hits you like a ton of bricks what can you do 'cept roll with the licks and the punches can't fuck with the fucked up shit the way time ticks the way life's a bitch..." a stupid rhyme i wrote a coupla years ago.

2001-10-30T04:40:00.000-05:00

jeez. i feel like i've been out of my mind since sunday morning, 7:45am. but strangely, at this late hour of the night, watching Family Ties on nick at nite like i have been recently, i feel normal. regular.
after that last entry i wrote, about finding incriminating photos, i walked to life cafe and ate by myself. i was writing, scribbling so much random shit down, i had to hold my fork with my right hand so i could have my left hand free to write. so many issues are swimming thru my head, making me feel dizzy, heavy, numb. i'm not so upset, so emotionally torn, instead i just feel like i've got a lot to think about... and feel about too, i guess. i keep telling myself it's not a big deal, because we weren't so committed, so serious, so whatever. but, yea, it hurts. it hurts me, my pride, my memory, my self-confidence, my body... and my eyes.

but i'll get thru it. and in the end, i think i'll walk away from this whole experience un-regretting (if that's a word) of everything that happened.

today was actually a good day. it was my day off of work, of school, and i used it appropriately. i woke up really late, talked on the phone for awhile, and then met up with circle and went to an open mic at bar13. it was pretty good, but i think i'm more into the nuyorican cafe vibe more. i feel like the work presented there, the crowd, and the whole atmosphere is more my thing. but it was good to see another take on the scene. i enjoyed our time afterwards much more. we went to eat at this korean-owned japanese place in the east village and ordered waaay too much food. it was kinda funny. and then we went to get coffee (i got hot apple cider yummm) and chatted for awhile.
i really like her. we've only hung out twice, but the vibe is cool. she's someone i feel like i could get down with, talk seriously, have fun, go shoppin, do whatever with. and tonight it was good to have her company. i think next time i'll invite her to chill out during the day. it's a whole different vibe from hangin out late at night when it's all dark and shit.
speaking of dark, i totally have SAD-- seasonal affective disorder or somethin like that. with this new time change, and it getting darker an hour earlier... it's stifling.
i was on the phone today with my ex-boyfriend, we'll call him... oh man there are so many names i could call him... well, we'll call him, gizmo. anyway, talkin to gizmo, who's in blo, having a nice conversation remembering the past but not living in it, wishing him a happy birthday, feeling sad about my stupid situation, and having the familiarity of his voice be the only thing piercing Me... it made me really miss blo. really want to be in the peace and quiet of Home. new york city is not home to me. i dunno if i should say "yet"-- if it will be home to me at some point, but it's not now... it's comfortable, and it's happy to a degree, but it's not home.
my parents left for korea today. they're only going to be gone for a coupla weeks, but i miss them already. it's so silly, cuz they live in blo, which is far from here, so it's not really much different, them being in blo, or them being in another country. but i feel it. i feel that they're not there. i can't call em, get in touch with them whenever i want, whenever i need to. it surprises me every time they go on vacation and i get a little bit sad. perhaps it's selfish of me to feel like they're my roots, and i should be able to reach out to them, touch them, feel them whenever i need to.
it makes me be scared for when the time comes when they won't be on this earth anymore. aw shit now i'm really sad, really missing them.

i feel like falling asleep in a fuzzy state of mind. i feel like listening to everything but the girl and tapping into this mood i have, this time of night, this moment.

good nite.

2001-10-28T10:58:00.000-05:00

i'm still at rice's.
i got bored, so i started looking through his photos.
i saw things i didn't want to see.
when he went away for 3 weeks from late aug to mid sept, he gave me his keys, just like this time. i stayed here most of the time during those 3 weeks, because at that point i didn't have a place of my own and was just staying at my friend's apt, which turned out to be pretty uncomfortable.
i could've looked through his photos then. but i didn't.
i didn't want to look, i didn't want to know more about him that what he showed me.
but i guess somewhere between then and now, that changed. because i looked.
and i saw.
and what's worse, i saw things through his eyes.

a photographer leads a dangerous life. he lends his eyes to other people to see. through his eyes you can feel his feeling, read his mind. he also is obsessed with documentation. with voyeurism. with beauty. with exhibitionism.

i am sad.
a lesson has been taught to me.

i'm trying to make sense of the purpose of all of this. the things i'm to take away from this.

i know on his part, i wasn't supposed to look, i wasn't supposed to know.
should i know?
was i supposed to know?

now, i know something he doesn't know i know.
now, i feel something he doesn't know i feel.

secrets & lies begin the trouble that's gonna divide.
on my side, i have a secret.
on his side, he has lied.

i have a little less than 2 weeks to make sense of things, for myself. i hope that's enough time.

2001-10-28T08:45:00.000-05:00

rice is gone. i'm at his place, he left for the airport about 30 minutes ago. sucks too, the driver was supposed to come at 8, but came early, just as we were goin to go get some coffee.
so i said goodbye to him and got coffee by myself. can you believe that in the 30 steps i took to get to the pastry shop, i got hit on?! at 7:45 on a sunday morning, with my day-old makeup and hair and clothes, this dude is comin up behind me sayin shit in my ear. jeez. i don't think it's a reflection of me, for real i just think it's so crazy that even though it's ridiculously early, it doesn't stop him from thinkin with his ahem, genitals.
anyway... it's so freakin early. what am i gonna do with myself?

work yesterday started off really crappy but ended up pretty cool. one of the last tables left a huge untouched plate of sushi that the staff chowed down on after the restaurant closed. damn, i've eaten more free sushi workin at bond st than i probably have paid for in all my years of eating sushi. there are some definite perks.

hmm. what to do? i can't decide whether i should try and go back to sleep even though i'm not tired? i'm workin tonight and i don't wanna get up and do shit if by 2pm i'm just gonna crash and burn, or worse be really tired all throughout work.

rice is comin back nov 9th - 14th. he's got time in between his trip to japan which is where he just left to, and his trips to hawaii and italy, which is where he's goin on the 14th. i guess that's good. from now til the 9th i'll be busy with my LA friend, from the 9th - 14th i'll be busy with him, and from the 22nd - 26th i'll be home in blo for thanksgiving. before i know it, he'll be back. that kinda stinks.

aite no more wasting space, i'm out.

2001-10-27T15:58:00.000-04:00

i went on a bit of a shopping spree yesterday. i bought a darling two-toned navy sweater, a pair of super super comfy diesel boots, and... tada... rollerskates! i order the puma skates online a few days ago, and yesterday while i was on broadway lookin for some puma sneakers i had seen and was diggin, i ran into the skates... and get this, they were on sale! 69 bucks. so i'm gonna send back the skates when they're mailed to me. just by luck, i saved myself 70 dollars. shit i love a good bargain.
so now i've got these rollerskates, and i dunno what to do! haha, i need to practice before i hit the streets or i'm gonna kill myself and possibly others. i'm mostly concerned about other pedestrians, and the rugged terrain. the sidewalks of nyc aren't like the smooth surface of a skating rink, and the last time i put on skates was like 10 yrs ago, which was obvious when i was wobbling around the store yesterday.

i slept at rice's. we didn't do much but sleep cuz i went over there so late. but given that he's leaving town tomorrow for a month, i guess i felt obliged to spend the time with him that i could, since i'm working tonight. but it was nice =). we cuddled and all that mushy stuff. this morning we woke up early, and had brunch at this wonderful little restaurant. it never ceases to amaze me the wealth of tasty foods in the city.
at brunch, after i was talkin about my music and my artistry and stuff, he urged me to really get moving, and to begin assembling a body of work. so, my "assignment" is to have 2 songs/arrangements completed by the time he gets back, showcasing my skills. haha i dunno about that, but i appreciate his interest and his desire to push me forward. he's always rippin stuff out of magazines and papers that he thinks is relevant to me, like articles about other rappers or song competitions and stuff. now that i think about it, that's sweet of him.

things are good.
rice is leaving tomorrow, and he gave me his keys (yay!), so i can secretly house my friend who's comin to visit me from LA. i feel kinda guilty not telling him, but it's easier that way. she's not gonna cause any trouble, and if my gramma roommate weren't so into the whole "no overnight guests" rule, it wouldn't be necessary to stash her somewhere.

i'm planning to go to an open mic on monday, hopefully with my new friend circle. my desire to perform is getting stronger. in the back of my mind, i'm thinkin of what i'm gonna present. funny though, i still can't decide if i'm gonna do a poem at a slam open mic, or a rhyme at a hip hop open mic.

aish i should go, i wanna get some things done before i go to work. i wasn't plannin on seein rice again cuz i get off work rather late, but he asked me to call him after, so maybe i'll get to see him before he goes. am i sad? kinda. but that's normal.
in a way i'm lookin forward to bein able to really get things done when he's gone. no matter what anyone says, boys are distracting!

i'm testing with a coupla photographers in the next coupla weeks, and i'm gearing up to go to the agencies again. my only time frame is to do it before thanksgiving, but not immediately before, because bookers are notoriously not in the mood for work around holidays. midterms are also approaching for my classes, so doin the day to day assignments isn't gonna be enough, i'm gonna have to dedicate some serious time to the books.

i feel, right now at this moment, like my life is slowly coming together. my discipline, hard work, and focus are the glue that's holdin all the pieces together. it's up to me. it's not like i'm there by any means. but i feel like i've got a clearer picture now of the things i need to do if i want certain things for myself. it feels good to have direction.

shit, when i think about me now, and me 6 months ago... what a difference. on my birthday, my best guy friend aka twin told me how happy he is to see that i'm living the life i talked about for so long... how far i've come. that thought hadn't occurred to me, but i was so glad he pointed it out. i was able to feel a sense of pride about myself that i haven't ever felt before. that was probably the best moment of my birthday.

pssst. i revised my poem again. scroll down, it's the next entry.

2001-10-25T14:14:00.000-04:00

sex with shoes
cursed with pain that didn't hurt
my wounds weren't the kind that could easily be nursed
in turn left with self-worth that didn't work
and worse, my self-destruction within
burned fires of sin
yearning to be purged
to feel real hurt
i searched for the kind of pain
that had a name
John. James.
they enabled me to continue the game
to further ingrain self-loathing and shame
but when the days became too dark
even when lit by my fire's spark
i tried to take my car outta "park"
to embark on a new journey
but my keys weren't on me
they were on you--
probably stuffed somewhere deep inside your pocket
like your dick was stuffed somewhere deep inside my crotch.

since you asked me to stop
i stopped
my boot still propped on the brake
waiting for something i thought you had to say
i listened
your response was to take the keys from the ignition
i think i thought that was strange
i think my boot pressed down harder on the brake
that's when my mind halted recording time, for sure;
i wasn't in the driver's seat anymore.
both my boot-covered feet were flat on the floor
my elbow pressed tightly against the door
facing north
seein traffic pass back and forth
i suppressed the panic.
it was my safety blanket
my gaze fixated straight ahead
staring at the status quo
on the other side of the window.

when did my heart stop recording feeling
maybe around the time you laid your hands on me
you were sitting in my seat
the seat that came with the car that my parents bought me
i guess cuz i'm skinny
i could fit in the space between the dash and your knees
lucky me
my knees squeezed between the dash and your knees
my head crushed up, bent against the ceiling
still staring out the windshield
tryin not to physically feel

seated in the front
yet fucking me from the back
each thrust pounded punches to my soul
with no pause between attacks
obliterating a little girl's world
but it only sounded like little slaps
your balls lapping against my thighs' backs

cursed with pain that didn't hurt
i still wonder why my virginity
didn't weep red tears for me
i still feel guilty
like my body betrayed me
why didn't i rip and tear
why didn't i leave evidence anywhere?
evidence that you had sinned against me
was only present in the absence of feeling
the unaccounted for recorded time in my mind

your mark is gone
and the spot where you came
i washed away with my innocence
in no sense was i the same
and i try to tell myself i'm not to blame
but i guess cuz i stopped,
cuz i propped my boot on the brake,
i expected you to do the same...

to stop.

2001-10-25T13:42:00.000-04:00

i had an amazing dream. i was on vacation with my entire extended family, eating korean food (i was in korea?) outdoors around a huge patio table. i got into a tiff with my sister and left the table to go wash my hands. it must have been the first moments of my vacation, because as i was walking the sandy path to the bathroom, i just stopped, and smiled to myself. the sand felt wonderful between my toes, and the air smelled so fresh and so clean.
as i continued on the path, all of a sudden i realized i was on a cliff, and for as far as my eyes could see, the rest of the world was these beautiful mountains. peak after peak after peak, i was on top of the world! i continued along the path, and looking down, i saw microscopic people scaling the sides of the mountains, climbing the mountains, and standing at the peaks of the mountains. somehow i dropped down, and became one of those microscopic people. from the vantage point of down, looking up, i had no idea what was left, right; where i came from, where i was going to. but i just started climbing, moving, going. it was so scary, but i knew if i stopped, it would be even scarier, cuz at least putting one foot in front of each other meant i was headed somewhere.
i passed people along the way, but i just kept going, and somehow eventually, i got to a point where i climbed back up to the path, to the cliff, and i was back to where i had come from. from the vantage point of up, looking down, i wondered in amazement how i had done it. i felt so jubilant, so filled with light and pride, so filled with wonderment as to how i had done it. heading back to the patio tables where i had last left my family, i passed people again, who were lacing up their sneakers getting ready to go where i had gone. i let out these screams that i think only i understood, but i knew the people knew the feeling-- they were in search of that feeling too.

not knowing where you're going is one way to get somewhere you've never been before.

yesterday night my model friend dc and i went out to dinner and to the nuyorican cafe for a poetry slam to celebrate my belated birthday. it was a great night. we went to torch, this supper club on ludlow between stanton and rivington, just a few blocks from where i live. the sublet i lived in before i moved in to my current apt was even closer-- i lived on rivington between ludlow and essex. from my roof, i could see the restaurant, which is how i first discovered it. it's a weird place with these huge doors that slide, so that when the restaurant's not open, it looks completely unassuming. i saw it open from my roof, and then when i walked by it, it was closed, so for a little while i was so confused as to where this restaurant actually was. again, i guess from my different vantage points, i couldn't make sense of it all.
when i was first lookin for a job, torch was one of the only places i really wanted to work at, but when i went in, they don't have hosts, so employment wasn't possible. but it was cool to get a good look at the place. the decor is really dark, low-key, and gives off this mood like you're in a different era, and most definitely a different place. in the middle of the restaurant is where the live music is. a girl singin jazz and blues and old ballads, a bass player, and a xylophone player. they're really good, managing to find a good balance between not playin too loudly and playin loud enough. the noise of the restaurant is really great... being audially oriented, i'm really sensitive to sound, and torch really does a great job with that. the music and the crowd is loud, but muffled, so it feels a bit removed from you. it was never too loud to carry on a conversation, which is so important in a good dining experience, and the decor mixed with the lighting just went perfectly with the muffled atmosphere. the food was great as well and the service not so bad. i'm so glad i finally went there to eat. i haven't been to enough nice restaurants in new york, and finding one that is nice, but without the "scene", comfortable and a 5 minute walk from my apt is awesome. gotta love certain aspects of new york.

our eating experience took a lot longer than we expected, so we got to the nuyorican cafe rather late, at like 11:15 or so. the slam showcase was clearly over, but the open mic had just started. i think i mentioned before that in a way, i'm more interested in the open mic segment anyway, so i didn't care. but the open mic'rs were amazing!!! all of them. they had the blend of personal, with artistic, with universal all mixed together. a lot of the subject matters spoken about i couldn't personally relate to, yet i felt it thru them, thru their words, their bodies, their voices. some of the topics covered-- aids, teen pregnancy, crack, beauty, society...
the poetry slam was in a way more enjoyable for me than the hip hop slams. and yet i could imagine myself more readily going up to the mic at a hip hop slam than a poetry one. i think for me, part of my message is in the music. or maybe that's just where my passion lies. i dunno.

i've been to the cafe 3 times. i'm gonna keep going back and back and back. it's something i'm doing for myself, and it makes me feel good.

i wrote this ditty yesterday about how the relationship between me and rice is one of convenience. that's what i've decided.

2001-10-25T03:18:00.000-04:00

arhghghhrhghrhghrhg
i just spent the last 45 minutes writing a long entry, and it's gone.
shit.
the pitfalls of technology...

2001-10-24T13:38:00.000-04:00

i've added a comment feature. i'm curious to know if anyone's reading this, and if so, what you're thinking. feel free to be anonymous. anonymity is empowering in many ways.

2001-10-24T13:19:00.000-04:00

i've woken up the last two days before 9am. part of the reason is cuz i've spent the last 2 nights at rice's, but i willed myself to wake up. he usually lets me sleep in and does his thing until i wake up.
last night i completely assed out at 10pm at rice's after we got back from dinner. fell asleep with my shoes on and everything... i had been planning to go home. i've gotten used to sleeping alone again, so when i slept with him 2 nights ago, i didn't get a good sleep. it sucks that my roommate won't allow overnight guests. that strips me of having rice come over to my domain and be on my turf. always having to go to his turf sometimes really annoys me.
i think i'm feeling relief at the thought of him going out of town next week. don't ask me why, i don't want to think about it anymore.

tonight the nuyorican cafe is having a slam open mic. i think i may go and check it out. the last event i went to was 99% hip hop, whereas this will probably be 99% poetry. half my artistry is poetry, the other half hip hop. so it'll be good to compare/contrast and experience.

i realize how lucky i am, to have the freedom to do what i want. there aren't many obligations in my life that i need to fulfill. i'm going to school because i have to, but also because i want to. but mainly, i'm a dependent of my parents still, and i have the freedom to go after my music passions, and my modeling passions. and at this point in my life, i'm not driven by money, or pragmatism really. i'm just driven by impulse, desire. i'd like to think that i'm pragmatic to a degree, so that hopefully my desires will prove to be profitable capitalistically speaking, but if they don't, it won't stop me. well, at least in terms of my music.
i used to want to be a commercial success-- i thought that was the only way for my message to be heard widespread. but i don't think that's the only way to be heard, first of all, and second of all, if i just create and perform good music with messages that actually say something, i'll be content. i'm sure as i get older, my perspective will change again-- i'll be more monetarily driven out of the necessity to provide for myself and survive, but as of now, i guess i have that luxury to be more... impulsive.

shit it's so humid outside. the temps are warm, but i'd rather have it be 10 degrees cooler and less humid. when it gets sticky like this, i feel so gross. my hands are always sticky clammy, and my hair ugh my hair. i have no choice but to wear it up.

now that i have my new debit card with the MC symbol on it, and can shop online, i'm having doubts again about the rollerskates. i'm gonna check out all the puma dealers in my 'hood and see if they carry them. i need to try them on in-person to decide if i can make a commitment to them. i only want to buy them if i think i'll really get use out of them. puma.com has a return policy, but i dunno... besides, i'm fast getting broke now that bond st is suffering and subsequently cutting back everyone's shifts. i think i should look into finding another job...

even though i wake up so early i still don't start my day 'til really late. gotta improve on that, gotta improve on that!

2001-10-21T03:18:00.000-04:00

had a good day today.
did laundry, took a shower and shampooed 4 times to get all the gunk outta my hair from last night, did my exercises, ate lunch with rice, and then ate dinner and went to the nuyorican cafe with my best friend (aka bf) for an mc showcase and open mic.

lunch was nice. i was in good spirits, and i just enjoyed myself. maybe cuz i got to spend time with rice in the daytime? i dunno i'm feelin pretty content with the way things are between us. i was talkin to bf at dinner and realized that the relationship rice and i have suits me pretty well. if i were to feel any stronger than i do now, i think i'd get too attached, too distracted, and too sad when he travels.

dinner with bf was good too. it's so nice to hang with her, because we can talk about pretty much anything and understand each other, and really speak to each other. it's so nice to have her in the city with me now. it's about time!

i'm gonna wake up early tomorrow and do some shoppin. i'm debating whether to get some puma rollerskates-- not rollerblades, rollerskates-- i dunno if i really have the balls to skate around the city, even though i want to. it just seems so... kitchy (sp?) in a way. rice thinks i'll get a LOT of attention that i may not want. i can understand his point, especially cuz i know he's not sayin it cuz he feels threatened. the idea of a tall attractive asian girl on powder blue roller skates? maybe that'd attract too much attention. or who knows, maybe no one would bat an eye. i've also got reservations about safety. i always adamantly preferred rollerskates to rollerblades, but it's been years since i've been on skates. sure, they've got 4 wheels so i can't really topple over, but i wish i could brush up on my skills before shellin out 125 bucks for em. and what if i get hit by a car or somethin? or i could imagine if there were a lot of people on the streets, they'd be more of a hindrance than an aid. i dunno, somethin to think about.
that's not the shoppin i'm plannin on doing tomorrow. i'm gonna visit the big flea market on 26th street. rice is gonna be sellin stuff tomorrow, so i thought it'd be cool to visit him and check it all out. buy some useless shit haha. flea markets are awesome for that. i'm also on the search for a nice cool pair of baggy wide leg jeans. i wouldn't think it'd be so hard to find a pair, but it is. it seems all jeans made for women are supposed to be ass huggers. shit i have enough of those.
i'm workin tomorrow too. YAY my first day workin a sunday with the peace of mind that my horrible manager isn't ever gonna be there next to me, loomin over my shoulder givin me the creeps. i'm so lookin forward to it. i wonder who i'll work with?

i feel like i have a lot to say, but only the surface useless shit is comin out. i think it's cuz in the back of my mind i'm thinkin about rhymes. goin to the nuyorican cafe and listenin to 2 1/2 hours of different rappers has just got me in that mode. at the end, when they did the open mic, all i kept thinkin about was what it'd be like for me to be up there. someday, maybe even someday soon i'm gonna get up on stage and do it. MCs are limited to 1 verse, so that takes the pressure off of doin this comprehensive big long song.
i feel like it's such a big deal, and not a big deal at all. i feel like it'd be so hard, and so easy. i can totally picture it, and not fathom it at all.
maybe i'll try and write a verse appropriate for an open mic occasion. i should have material before i even think about gettin up on stage huh. i have shit that i'd like to share, but i feel like every line should be killer, a zinger, and i don't have anything like that. i have strong parts and weak parts of my rhymes, but none that i feel really goes for it, line after line after line.

fuck stereotypes i'll give you stereo hype

some think i got slits for eyes
only able to see if i open em wide
some think i'm an asian mistress to guys
layin flat on the mattress
or perhaps straddling your ass
with my hands clasped massagin your back
some think i'm just another wicked bitch
no distinction
just a pair of tits and a clit
some think i'm docile and submissive
slavin in the kitchen in oven mitts
some think i'm a brainiac maniac
sittin at the front of the class
wavin frantically with my hand...

...but the truth is i got rhymes as tight as you think my pussy is...

my mind's jumpin all around.
whoa, i'd better stop befo' i get in too deep. gnite i'm off to some much needed sleep.

2001-10-20T10:41:00.000-04:00

yay i woke up early today.
called rice, turns out his party was kinda wack, but once he was there he couldn't really leave. he also got drunk.
i feel better haha.

well, nothing has really happened since 4 this morning, and my brain is convoluted polluted with sleep. so i'm gonna do some laundry and have breakfast with rice. ta ta.

2001-10-20T04:08:00.000-04:00

welp, today was a good day.
i woke up at a decent hour, 11, went to the cafe on my block and ate and had coffee while forcing myself to finish writing my paper. proudly, i finished it. just in the nick of time, too, for my class at 2. i think words flow better for me when i'm not staring at a computer screen, cuz i had been tryin to write this fuckin paper for a coupla weeks with no luck, just sittin in front of the comp, and eventually goin for Minesweeper or FreeCell. or maybe it was just that i knew that i had to hand it in today, so i just did it. whatever the reason, that satisfaction alone was enough to carry me thru the day.
after class, i had to rush to brooklyn to go to the fashion show. i was supposed to be there at 3:30, but i got there at a little past 5 cuz my class didn't get out til 3:30, and i ended up stoppin along the way at bloomies to buy underwear i thought i'd need for the show. (i felt the need to clarify because i don't want to seem like a scrub). anyway, i was all freaked out cuz i was late, and the fact that i didn't know anything about the show i was gonna be in didn't help.
the designer had a fitting two weeks ago which i couldn't make, so i ended up just going to her house to do the fitting and didn't meet any of the other girls. and then on wednesday of this week, she held a run-thru to make sure everyone knew what to do, which i didn't go to because i was so tired from getting back from LA that morning and then having to go to class that evening. so basically, i was totally clueless. all i knew was the address of the warehouse where it was being held at, and once i got in the building i asked random strangers if they knew anything about a fashion show.
so i was directed to the top floor of the building, and it led me to this huge loft space that had all this craziness goin on. people everywhere, a huge runway stage, weird art pieces all over the place, music blasting... it was a madhouse. a creative fashionista madhouse.
i didn't know what i was expecting. i didn't know if the show was gonna be this cheesy thing that i'd be embarrassed to be a part of or what, but i hadn't been lookin forward to it at all. but once i just saw all the people, and the whole vibe of the setup, i knew it was a cool gig. anyway, i wore this really crazy white dress thingie that was slit up and complicated, with this crazy red scarf-type thing attached to the back... it's so hard to describe, and i lack the proper vocabulary. but basically, it was pretty transparent, totally skimpy (i couldn't wear underwear or a bra), but really funky cool. my hair was done all back from my face, totally teased up in this outta-control-yet-controlled way, with this crazy white and red headpiece and matching arm band. the makeup was done all space-agy, with this white line goin across my face and eyelashes with feather tips.
i felt like a real model. like i kinda felt professional. and once i was on the runway, doin my thing, i really liked it. i mean, really. it was sorta like acting-- the designer wanted us all to act sorta space-agy and alienish; the music, clothes, accessories, hair and makeup all gave off that vibe-- so we were supposed to act kinda freaky too, in a subtle way. once i had all that crap on, it totally was a transformation.
there was lots of press there. before the show when everyone was frenzied gettin hair and makeup done, photographers were goin back and forth takin photos of everyone. that definitely contributed to the whole professionalism i felt. and on the runway, when all the snaps were goin off-- shit call me superficial but it was really fun. after the show, i ran into a photographer i know who was covering the event, so he took a lot of photos of me. hopefully i'll get to see them. i don't give a shit really about having them be usable photos for my portfolio or anything, i'd just be glad to get some documentation of my radical transformation.
surprisingly, the whole thing was an ego boost. i dunno why, exactly, but it was. and it was also an experience i was glad to be a part of-- the other designers who showed were really awesome too, and the other models were for the great majority, pretty impressive. so i'm glad to feel like i was in good company.
i guess my desire to model still exists. now i want to exercise, stay faithful to my 'lifestyle diet' (no more coffee, not too much breads, sugars or salts), get good sleep and hit the agencies again. my runway agency is useless to me. i need editorial. if that doesn't work, i'm out! for real man, it won't be a big loss. i'll still be happy with myself, if not more so. now that i know what the industry is like, i [hopefully] won't hold myself accountable for things i've no control over.

aite, enough talk of that shit.
i just had to indulge... it really has been a looooong time since i've felt back in the swing of things.

after i came back my friend gimp picked me up and we went to queens to hang out with our friends. it was really fun and relaxed. i truly enjoy and look forward to hanging out with the whole crew we hung out with tonight. they're all so friendly, so entertaining, and so unassuming. they embraced me from the first time we all met thru gimp, which is a rarity for me. i think because i'm so tall, i'm intimidating to other asians, and i'm often paranoid about my height, so a lot of times i won't stick my neck out first. anyway, i had a great time.

this entry is so boring, isn't it?

tomorrow is gonna be a R&R day, my day to catch my breath and take care of shit. loookin forward to it man.

the only cloud of today is rice. the company that he shoots for was having their one year anniversary party of their store in soho, so he had to go to that, but he said he was gonna come to the show. not really to see me (i Totally hadn't wanted him to come, although once i got there and saw everything i thought it would be kinda cool for him to see me), but to make connections and shit with other fashionistas. he thought he'd be able to leave the party by like 10 and then make his way over the the show, but the show didn't last that long, it only ran from like 7-8:30 or so. so i figured he didn't make it. i called him on his cell after i finished the show and left a message and told him the show was over and to page me later, but he never called. wonder what happened to him? technically it doesn't matter cuz i went out, and it doesn't, really, but since we were supposed to have gotten in touch with each other, i'm wondering what the hell happened.
don't you hate it when shit like that bothers you? little stuff that you know probably means nothing, but you still can't help but wonder because you just don't know?

i think i'll leave it at that.

shit this was a wack entry... or should i not place value judgements on my thoughts?

2001-10-19T02:38:00.000-04:00

well, my birthday is officially over. i feel a sense of relief, in all actuality. after you hit 21, birthdays don't seem so exciting. i mean even though i don't drink, turning 21 was cool cuz it meant i was legal in just about everything. but 22? what good does that do me? although i rather like the sound of 22. anyway.
i woke up really disoriented, because i just totally assed out yesterday without warning, at like 9:30 or something ridiculous. so i woke up to my mom leaving me a message on my machine, wishing me happy birthday. how nice, right? so in a state of half-sleep i got the phone and dialed rice's number. i thought it would be nice to have coffee or something, even though i've cut coffee from my diet. so anyway when i called, his line was busy, so i gave up and fell back asleep. oh well, i tried.
i woke up for real at like 11:30 or something, and felt really out of it at that point cuz i had slept for so long. i drooled onto my sheets hahaha. i grossed myself out. anyway, i didn't do anything useful until like 4:30, when i started exercising. :) i get a smiley face for that. then my best friend called me and wished me happy birthday, and then said, "it is your birthday, isn't it?" haha. so i made plans to meet up with her at like 7, cuz my best guy friend gimp and a few other friends were gonna be in the city to go to happy hour. gimp and i share the same birthday, we're twins... =) isn't that great?! i love that, he's so cool too, there's no one else i'd rather share my birthday with. anyway, so we all met up and hung out for a bit. i got there late, and had to leave early to go have dinner with rice. but i didn't really want to. it was fun to just chill out, hanging out with those guys is so great, cuz they're all so chill, and i always have a good time. but it was also nice cuz my best friend got to meet my other friends. hopefully she'll get to know them and become comfortable with them. i think they'd all get along and really like each other probably. i think my best friend is in need of some good friends, maybe even good asian friends, not to sound racially elitist or anything.
i was so not lookin forward to leave, but it only seemed right that i hang out with rice on my birthday. and he had wanted to take me out... or expected to? i dunno, either way, it had been discussed before, and so i had to go thru with it. but i was really reluctant to go. so anyway i finally went to go meet him at like 9:30. it was the first time i'd seen him since before i went to LA, so maybe that's why i was so reluctant? i dunno... i've been goin thru some weird times, that's for sure.
but it was actually really good to see him. we went to blue ribbon sushi, which was his favorite sushi place, and it was really cool, great architecture, good sushi, but bond st is better. rice said after we left that he thinks bond st is better. i'd have to agree. conversation was ok. we're so... calm together. we don't laugh hysterically, we don't argue, we just chat. it's so weird. so anyway we left and then went back to his place, where we inevitably had sex. it's the first time we've had sex in like, over 3 weeks. no wonder he felt like i was being unaffectionate. anyway, it was good. it was nice. ?! how bizarre for me to say that. sex with rice has definitely gotten a lot better.
so then i opened my present. i really wasn't expecting anything, i was mainly hoping for a card. but instead he got me something. no card though. he said he's not good at cards. but he promised to draw me a card of the cartoon he always draws, hillbillyrobot. anyway, i was really afraid i wouldn't like it, but i did. it was perfume. it's funny too because this past week i ran out of perfume and kept reminding myself to go buy some more, but i didn't want to go thru the hassle of picking out a scent for myself, and i also was thinkin i shouldn't be spending too much money lately on non-necessities... but i really like the smell, and i really need perfume, so it worked out great. i just wish he spent more thought on it. took more time. i didn't really need the perfume. i didn't really need the gift. i really would've been satisfied with a card or something. some kind of personal touch. yea, perfume is intimate, but... it's so generic. i guess in a way it's really special because he Never buys anything. everything he owns is literally vintage, so he never goes into like regular retail shops like a normal person.
so i'm happy, but i'm not happy. but i guess that's the way it would be no matter what.

after coming back from LA, i've decided i want to clean up my life. like for Real. organize, confront, and correct bad habits. this means facing debt, trying to live more responsibly, taking good care of myself, etc. i'm sick of living by appearances. yea, i have money to live from day to day and i work and go to school, but that's not shit. that's just maintaining. i'm feeling the need to excavate, from the inside out.

i thought i was capable of having a committed relationship. and then finding myself in a relationship with rice, where we're not so committed or serious, i thought it to be odd, cuz i figured if i was capable of having a committed relationship, then i would. so i just chalked it up to Dating in New York City... life is so fast-paced very few people have the time to commit to a person seriously. or something like that. turns out i was TOTALLY wrong. i've come to the realization that i am completely incapable of having a committed relationship. and being with rice, where i don't think he's really looking to have a committed relationship, he doesn't give me a hard time about it. so it conveniently all works out, but whether it really works, i dunno. in my head all along i've been thinkin, 'who knows how long this will last', and i've realized that it's been ME who has done most of the distancing. i avoid him, i leave at night and go home to sleep at my place, i don't usually call him.
so should something be done? rice is going away october 28th for a month. he's going to japan, hawaii and italy for some catalog jobs he booked. i'm really happy for him, and proud, but obviously him going away is a huge disruption. it's hard to have a relationship when we're not around too much. the thing is it's gonna be a welcome disruption, in a way. i'll be able to really devote time to myself (like i need that any more, i'm such a fuckin narcissist in so many ways), and get myself on track without any distractions. i would end it, but i dunno, it's like, why end it when everything's going fine? we don't have any real problems, if i left him, i'd probably just miss him.
what a weird situation i'm in.

2001-10-17T21:08:00.000-04:00

back in the big apple.
feels good, other than the biting wind and cold.

i'm feeling depressed today. my mood is so connected to my sleep schedule. for the past coupla weeks, i've been goin to bed super-late a la 6ish, and waking up late and lazy. as a result i've been in a baaad mood lately. yesterday 3 hours got lost due to traveling from the wc to the east. those 3 hours were particularly important because they were sleep hours... so that is definitely a factor in my blue mood. but another factor, a BIG HUGE factor, is the fact that i have a serious body image problem. and an eating disorder. this eating disorder that i have is called gluttonimphoma. it means that i'm addicted to food, prone to sensory temptation (if i smell pizza, i go and get pizza, if i see bread, i go and get bread), and whatever time spent not eating, i spend thinking about eating.

2001-10-12T07:26:00.000-04:00

what the fuck. it's 7:08am right now. still not sleeping and there's no point now. i have so much shit to do before i leave tonight, and i've got work and school to take up most of my day. ahh well, somehow everything will get taken care of, right??

i had an ok night. went out to dinner with rice. our relationship is so based on food. luckily, we're Really compatible when it comes to food. most of the time when we look over the menu, we want the same thing. and he has no problems sharing, so i like that. unfortunately, he doesn't eat meat or chicken (he almost died from salmonella poisoning a long time ago!), so sometimes when i'm craving meat, i don't get it. it's not so bad really, i've always said i'm practically a vegetarian, i love green veggies so much. anyway, at dinner he said i've been weird for the past coupla weeks. i asked him in what way, and he said that i've been more serious lately. serious and studious.
i am more calm around him. i think generally with my other friends, my school friends, i'm a lot more ridiculous and goofy. but around him, i'm a bit more reserved. it could just be that that's the way it is, cuz you know how around some people you just don't get riled up. but then sometimes i get afraid that it's cuz i curb myself when i'm around him. i don't know the answer to that. i don't ever really feel like i'm supressing anything, so perhaps that's not the case. i dunno.
then later at the bubble tea cafe, i asked him if he's ever really aware of the age difference. he said that sometimes, yea, but that it wasn't a big deal. that got me worried for a minute, but then i got over it. (ah shit i have heartburn?!) cuz the fact is, there IS an age difference. i know he's kinda used to being around younger girls, and i know he doesn't ever look down on me because of it, so i can't complain. and besides, there are plenty of instances where i'm aware of the age difference, so it'd only be weird if he wasn't ever aware.
we went back to his apt and talked for a lil while. i've been wondering why he pushes and supports me with my rap thing, but doesn't really know what i sound like-- he's listened to a coupla tracks, but only once-- i thought it was cuz he just wasn't really interested. or worse, i thought he wasn't impressed with it. but when i asked him, he said it wasn't cuz he wasn't interested in hearing, but because i've never volunteered. i guess what we have in common is that we're both artists in a sense, and with him, if he wants to share something, he will, so he assumes i'm that way as well. i think i am, to a degree. but, i also probably didn't share with him my stuff not because i didn't want him to hear-- i think secretly i did-- but because i just assumed he was uninterested. a lot of assumptions flyin around huh? well, it's all straightened out now. now i know that he liked my music, and now i know that he's interested in hearing it. so i think i'll take advantage. just the thought of him hearing my music makes me want my music to be better.
and he clarified about the me being serious lately comment. basically, he means i've been really unaffectionate lately, which i have. i've spent very little time with him, we haven't done it in well over 2 weeks, and i've only spent the night there like 1nce in recent history. a lot of it has been me being busy and consumed with my own stupid shit, like writing in here, and a lot of it has been how shitty i've been feeling about myself. so shitty that i avoid confrontation with him because i feel unworthy and unattractive. it's been months since i've exercised, and since when i did exercise i always did it at night, i would never plan on staying over at rice's place so i could go home and exercise. i suppose i could do it in front of him, but he's got hard wood floors which really hurt, and i need to get into my kicks, and in general, it'd just be weird to exercise in front of him. but anyway, that's how stupid i've been acting. cuz it's not like i've actually gone home and actually exercised-- hell no...
but anyway, i felt bad, because i know i've been rather unaffectionate and unavailable lately. it sorta makes me happy though, to know that he noticed and cared. but duh, of course he's gonna notice and care, right? i can be so dumb man.
i think in my head i keep tellin myself that i'll ride this out for as long as it lasts. i think the uncertainty of how long our relationship will be sustained is an excuse for me to be really non-committal basically though. i know i'm afraid to really like him, afraid to get to close, afraid to need him, afraid to get hurt. afraid to trust him. it's ridiculous really. "so non-committal i be, avoidin the possibility of not bein free. to stay or to leave, however i please..."
man that could be a rhyme about him.
i need to think. just, not... now...
i'm talkin such nonsense, huh?
well, i'm just waiting til my roommate leaves for work so i can go pee and start my day and pretend like i spent the night sleeping like a normal girl.
ugh. it's gonna be a long day.

2001-10-11T15:48:00.000-04:00

i'm getting depressed. waking up so fuckin late, getting very little done. what the fuck??? the only knowledge that i can seek solace in is that i'm going to LA this weekend, so my sleeping schedule will be right on track.
i can't believe i'm going to LA?! it's a pretty big deal for me. i'm not one to spontaneously do anything, really. i think i'm getting out of that though, and become a bit more adventurous. that makes me happy. sometimes i feel really unexciting.

i think rice thinks i'm boring or something. or just really... calm. well, i know he thinks i'm calm, he's said so before. it's funny, because i don't feel calm. maybe he's not stimulating enough for me? maybe i don't stimulate myself enough? maybe it's both?

ah shit. i've been talkin to this dude on AIM lately-- the one who sent me that funny note on [10/4/2001 4:27:16 PM | yellow tale]. we'll just call him... kguy. anyway, a coupla days ago, kguy was totally questioning my relationship with rice. and i guess since then i've been in a bit of a weird mood.

damn what's wrong with me?? i so don't feel like internetting right now. fuck this shit.

2001-10-10T06:18:00.000-04:00

i'm revising...

my birth broke a record longest baby of the herd
this title i held from my first day in this world
what began as a win became much strife within
my long limbs didn't fit with my Asian skin
in a time when fitting in was all that mattered
i had braces glasses and a chest that was flat
coulda patented my bra padding techniques
inventive attempting to avoid my tormentors
but they didn't have it and sadly,
neither did i. another day another test of survival
bringin this shit up is like a revival
all too vivid all too real all so silly but all i could feel...

2001-10-09T17:37:00.000-04:00

damn, i think i'm all internetted out. i've spent so much time the last few days updating my website. i feel good though, i'm almost done, and the really really tedious parts are over. i'm startin to like my website again! yay!!! after payin the money, even though it was so little, i felt obliged to make it worth something. now i feel like it could potentially turn into something pretty cool.
i also started me an artist's page on lycos, so my music is online now!!! i'm so happy, i tried to do it back in may with mp3.com, and after waiting weeks without anything happening, i went to farmclub.com, which dicked me over as well. so i'm thrilled that in a matter of a few minutes i got my music online, with my own page, for FREE. it'll keep me motivated too, to produce music and get it online so i can ask other people's opinions. yay! i'm filled with jubilation haha.
so maybe i'll type more later, but i feel obliged to get out of my chair. i bought some shoes yesterday that i want to find pants to go with. this is what happens on my days off. i spend money like water. at least the internet keeps me at home, away from money exchange...

had a nice night last night with rice. we ate indian food, and i was just in a good mood for some reason. so much of our relationship is me. haha. it's not a big realization, really. but at the same time, it is. i mean, 50% is me. i should do more to have a good time. because i really do with him when i put in the effort.

ok, bye!

2001-10-08T15:11:00.000-04:00

i managed to get my ass to the fitting.
it was weird to be back in model mode after so long.
she didn't laugh at me, she didn't make grotesque faces of disgust, as i knew she wouldn't.
i have such a shapeless body. no boobs, no hips, no ass. maybe that's what contributes to my appearance of being skinny. i'm sure being shapeless doesn't help my success as a model.
but then again, what success?

i'm at easy everything again, the internet cafe. this morning i spent a ridiculous amount of time updating my website. minor changes, but on a 56k it took forever.

i'm feelin so moody. not much brain activity goin on, just a lot of emotional currents runnin through me.

one thought that did occur to me today when i was walkin the cold streets of new york: weather is an act of God.
i remember one summer afternoon, i confessed one of the biggest secrets of my life to my sister. once i expelled all the guilt and emotions from my system, i began to hysterically cry, mostly as a release i think. at that precise moment, it started to rain. HARD. i felt like, and i said this to my sister, that it was raining for me. and then i wondered that each time it rains, it rains for someone.
i recall, as many do, that on september 11, it was a beautiful day. i mean, beautiful. not a cloud, not a cold wind, just sunny and clear and warm. it lasted for a few days, and then all of a sudden it rained really hard. though i couldn't make a clear connection in my head, viscerally i felt God's presence.
yesterday, and today, coinciding with the commencement of the US attacks on afghanistan, it's been coooold. and it all makes sense to me for some reason.
sure, humans have the ability/tendency to justify everything and attribute cause-and-effect to different things for coping purposes, but still, i stick to my gut feeling.

2001-10-08T09:35:00.000-04:00

damn i'm fuckin groggy.
i fell asleep last night in my chair, in front of the computer, curled up like a freak. it's not even like my chair is comfortable-- it's a plastic chair, the ones you put outside on your balcony or something cuz you don't care what happens to them. eventually i woke up and moved to the bed, but it's not a good feelin to wake up in a contorted position, staring at the artificial lights of my computer screensaver.
the heating has been turned on in my apartment. i'm guessing because it's been awhile since it was last turned on, the pipes or something are getting settled, but it's producing this smell that makes me think my whole apartment is about to burst into flames any minute. i came home last night, opened my bedroom door, and began frantically checking all my appliances, tryin to find the culprit of this burning smell. anyway, the air is so dry now. my contacts feel like they've been stapled to my eyeballs-- no movement whatsoever.
i have a fitting today. i'm doing a fashion show on oct 19th for this event, it's called DUMBO. it's a pretty big deal, some show and awards type thing for up and coming talented new york designers. i think they've got different awards for jewelry, clothing, accessories, or something like that. anyway, it's my first foray in modeling in a long time, like close to two months. it's freaking me out. i feel fat and flabby. i was supposed to go to the fitting on saturday, but i just couldn't summon up the courage to go, especially because i was bloated like a cow. i'm still bloated, two days hasn't done miracles to my figure, but i can't put it off any longer. i'm scared the designer's gonna be like, "uh, actually we don't need you," even though i'm pretty sure that wouldn't happen.
perhaps it's because it's an ungodly hour for me that i'm talkin such nonsense. or maybe the heater is releasing weird gases into the air, cuz i feel drugged.
i need another 3 cups of coffee. damn my lifestyle is so unhealthy-- coffee, cigarettes, late-night snacking, and tons of sugar and salt. i'm gonna get old fast. dude i'm such a waste product right now.

2001-10-08T00:58:00.000-04:00

i'm tired. and sad.
i got off work early tonight, and i've been online for a while now, surfing news websites to learn more about what's going on in the news right now.
the more i read, the more tired i get.
attacks are underway in afghanistan.
"the united states are a friend to the afghan people." -george w.
were we friends to them when we bailed, after using them to win a 'war' against the soviets?

so tired, i am.

2001-10-07T15:10:00.000-04:00

"[10/7/2001 2:26:22 PM | yellow tale]
...a painful lesson i learned was that issues never go away. you just realize that you have them, and find ways to work with them so that they don't hold you back... "

the following is what i was talkin about in the preceding. just thought i'd share.

a year of change came a place of born-again innocence. everything made sense, finally off the defense. the fence came down, proud to be poised, ready to go so soon. everything was roses and i was ready to bloom. eager to grow, eager to see and feel, but the notions in my head weren't even close to being real. i thought my struggles were over, i thought i knew what was up, 'til disaster struck-- surprise attack, stuck face down in the mud. the shit that happened in the past that i passed off and didn't look back, didn't need me to turn around, a blinkin target i was, askin to be found. issues buried and long lost came back with a vengeance. tension and stress, i was surpressin them at all cost. thought it meant i was weak to succumb to familiar feats, so i conceded defeat to retreat back to sleep. solace was in the safe knowledge of dreams deep. afraid of pain, i hadn't risked enough to gain, no way of breaking even even, no escape from all the fake. painless survival was my only goal, i felt beaten up and old, what to do i wanted to be told. but before this whole thing gets old, lemme dole out the gold wisdom. in any person lies issues within, scars from injury, guilt from sin. the point to be taken, everyone's got baggage in tow. whether it stops the show though, is whether you can weather the cold. the same shit shakes us the same, but don't take it as cursed fate. train you to know what makes you feel how you do, relate it to the now, uncover the hidden clues. attribute what you think goes with what, cuz everything's linked. but admitting personal truths is so much harder than you think. harder than being true to who you are.

it sorta gets wack at the end, but that's always the way it is with me. i totally lose steam.

2001-10-07T14:26:00.000-04:00

yesterday was interesting. now that it's today, it doesn't seem like such a big deal.

i didn't have fun. but it wasn't so bad. the people there were all nice-- there wasn't anyone who pissed me off or anything. i just knew it wasn't my kind of scene. all white people, all in their 30s, the birthday girl was turning 35, and her boyfriend, rice's mentor, is 39. some of eric's friends were there, and at one point, when this guy was saying about how he was in a band, he said 1979. dude that's the year i was born. he was 20.

facts: i was the youngest by far, i was the tallest (girl) by far and almost the tallest person, i was the only person 'of color'. i also didn't know a single soul. so you can imagine the factors working against me.
i realized when i was back at rice's place, that a big part of the reason why i didn't have a good time was probably due to the fact that rice isn't so socially saavy. so, give him the responsibility of being the buffer between me and all these strangers, and you're not gonna get much success. i don't hold it against him. i think towards the end when i just wanted to leave, and was pretty tired of being 'on', i got kind of annoyed at him. but it's not something i can really get upset about. had i cared about being social with these people, i probably would have had reason to say something to him, but being that i didn't really want to interact with everyone, it wasn't a big deal.

i wonder about our relationship. we're most successful and happy when it's just the two of us. is that bad? am i supposed to seek out relationships that can survive any environment? rice, in general, is a loner, and prefers to interact with people on a one-to-one basis, i know for a fact. and being that rice is so different from the rest of the people in my life-- he's white, 33, a photographer, and my other friends are my age, and mostly all asian-- i don't think i'd ever attempt to bring any of my worlds together, nor would he. so we're safe. but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not an issue. does it?

i am his girlfriend. it's become 'official' thru roundabout references. a part of me feels a bit of relief to know, even though on my own i was coming to terms with his boyfriend-status. we seem to be on the same page, but being that we don't really talk about our relationship, i don't know for sure. this morning, he said our relationship is more than sex. it was in response to something i said, so it wasn't some bizarre thing he randomly said. it was a response, a reaction to my action, that made me feel better, which is only a testament to the fact that i have problems. seriously. i've come to realize, by being in this relationship, that i have a lot of issues. it's not a big surprise, i've always had issues when it came to guys and relationships, but now i'm seeing i also have a lot of issues with myself, the kinds of issues that only manifest in relation to another person.
if anything, my relationship with rice is good for me, in the sense that i become aware of issues i have. i want to know these things about me. i want to work thru them. a painful lesson i learned was that issues never go away. you just realize that you have them, and find ways to work with them so that they don't hold you back. rice is a nice guy, and he cares about me. there isn't much danger in that. i don't know how long this will last, but i can't imagine it ending so badly that one of us departs scarred. we're both really peacable people, way more so than the average joe, so at least i don't have that to worry about.

we had a nice morning today, and a nice night, actually. it's the first time i spent the night at his place in a long time, and it was nice to just cuddle. i've got my 'monthly visitor' hahaha, so it was all very innocent. eww i feel funny writing this shit in here. anyway. this morning i had a craving for mexican so we went over to benny's burritos which i love, and sat outside. it was cold, but the sun was rather strong and kept us warm. the green habranero hot sauce kept me pretty warm too =P. then we walked over to the flea market where he was on the hunt for vintage clothes, and i picked up this really cool lighter. i'm not experienced at all with vintage/antique shit, but the lighter sure looks old to me haha. it's an old school flint lighter with the 'camel' brand on it (it's got the picture of the camel and the words engraved in it). the best thing about it is that it can suit left-handed or right-handed people. being that i'm left-handed and i get dicked over by many of the ways of the world, that excites me. see, normal zippos, you can only put them in the case a certain way, because the hinges on the lighter are on one particular side, which only fits into the zippo case one specific way. the camel lighter can go in both ways, so that whether you're left- or right-handed, you can use it comfortably and still have the design facing you.
some things shouldn't be explained in words. haha.

i feel content. it's a nice crisp sunday afternoon. sometimes weather like this is great. especially when you work at a restaurant and make extra bucks checking coats! hope i make bank tonight off of hypersensitive new yorkers out and about with their hats, scarves, and winter coats on. last week i made 45 extra bucks off of like 10 coats (one guy tipped me 20, and a girl tipped me 10), which might be pocketchange for some people, but it's a lot for a brokeass like me.

2001-10-06T18:32:00.000-04:00

i so shouldn't be writing right now.
i'm going tonight with rice to his mentor's girlfriend's birthday party. weird. his mentor is this well-established photographer who has sorta taken rice under his wing. i really really really really don't want to go. his mentor is old, like older than rice, who's 33. i'm afraid i'm gonna feel like a stupid kid (i'm 21). i'm also afraid that i'm just gonna look like some stupid model out to get something from her photographer boyfriend. ewww. at the same time, when i try to look at the bright side (hah), maybe it'll be interesting (hah).
it's not that i'm afraid i'll embarrass myself or anything, i've got faith that i can handle myself, i just think i won't have a good time, or worse yet, i'll be put in this awkward situation with rice that will make me feel uncomfortable with him. we don't know each other that well. i mean, we're comfortable around each other definitely, but in terms of having been in a variety of environments with him, we haven't. we went away to the beach together, which i was freaking out about beforehand, but turned out to be really great, and we've gone out to a million restaurants (in our neighborhood), and spent a lot of time in his apartment hehe. but that's about it. the few times he asked me to come with him to do errands and whatever, even that seemed odd, just walkin all around the city with him, riding the train and shit. not bad, but odd.
i can't tell if this is one of those instances where i don't want to go out of fear, or i don't want to go, period. i know i'd be perfectly happy not going. but that doesn't mean much, huh? well, i also know i totally don't need to go. there aint nothing that's making me feel like i'll be missing out. i'm just going cuz rice wants me to go with him. and who knows why he wants me to go anyway, cuz he said the whole shindig is like a date- thing. a couples thing. uyyy... the dread is just filling up inside me the more i think about it.
i don't even know what to wear. that's not my biggest worry, but it ain't helpin.

to change the subject, i cleaned up my room finally. i didn't even do it all the way, but it looks MUCH better. i feel like i can be sane now. my shit was all over the place, so much so that it was grossing me out.

ok, i'm totally just procrastinating. i gotta take a shower. wahhhhhhh.
you can betcha azz i'll be updating and probably talkin mad shit about tonight. i'll be sure to document things in my head.
am i freaking out over nothing?
no.
yes.
no.
yes.
maybe.

2001-10-06T14:42:00.000-04:00

i updated my rhyme. check it out, scroll down to thurs 10/04/01, my 10:00 entry.

2001-10-06T01:55:00.000-04:00

just got back from work. it was ok, but at the end i got annoyed. i fucking hate this one manager. we'll call him oaf. he's not the main manager, who we'll call cgm, for cosmopolitan gay male. i'm referencing him now cuz i'm sure he'll come up again. but anyway, oaf is such a weirdo. he's not a people person at all, which you'd think would be one of the main qualifications to being a manager at a trendy manhattan restaurant. and he's really abrupt. curt. and i think he's a pathological liar. the staff at the restaurant all knows not to give credence to much of what he says, because it's usually bullshit. uyy you know what? i don't want to get into him. it's not worth it, and it would take much explaining on my part to fully explain the things that i don't like about working with him-- explaining that i don't want to start, because i know i'll go overboard and just waste my brain power. after a long day, i need to conserve my brain power.

let's talk about what i was talking about before, the relationship between my parents and i.
they love me. i know they do. if anything, my sister and i have always said that they love us tooo much, which generally means that they occasionally smother us, or get too overprotective, or care too much about the things we do and what happens to us. but then at the same time, i feel like, yea sure they love me, but that's because they don't know everything about me, my good, bad, and ugly. if they did, would they still? i really really struggle with this question. i know in the past i've thought that if i ever contracted HIV, i would commit suicide. because i wouldn't be able to tell my parents the truth. i don't know if i still feel that way, i try not to think such dreary and irrelevant thoughts, but the feelings in which those thoughts are rooted still exist in me.
see, my family has pretty much always been really tight-knit. my parents showed my sister and i love pretty freely, and at the same time, expressed their opinions and exposed us to their value system in a very clear way. being that their home country is not the united states but korea, when they came here in the early seventies, their beliefs were obviously very different from the kinds of beliefs we believe to be american today.
being that my home country is the united states, i grew up with a different value system, obviously. on one hand, all the time i spent outside of the home made me very 'americanized', but on the other hand, my homelife was my home, and the bulk of my beliefs were shaped by being a member of my family. naturally i ended up with this hybrid of beliefs-- part korean, part american. i don't know if my parents could understand that or not, but they weren't really willing to compromise on what they wanted for me, or how they wanted me to be, or what they expected from me. i think in the beginning, when these disparities became known, my sister and i tried to fight them, and tried to get them to understand. but we quickly learned that though we could defy our parents on a lot of things and get them to negotiate, beliefs didn't fit into that category.
pretty much any time my mom was upset, it was because of something my sister or i did. we witnessed that our behavior was the cause of my mom's anger. so i think we learned to curtail that too, as best as we could. what resulted, was my sister and i carrying on with the way that we were (partly because we just couldn't help it, and partly because we really didn't think we were 'wrong'), but in secret. we just didn't tell our parents. this method seemed to work. my parents gave us a lot of freedom in the sense that they didn't question too many things that we did. i mean, i could stay out late, go out a lot, they'd give us money, send us on trips, etc.
what i couldn't do was smoke, talk to boys, etc...

<<<>>> fuck i'm tired again. i'm not feelin this anyway right now. i'm not feelin much of anything right now. i just wanna catch some zzz's. it's remarkable how uninspired i can get sometimes.

2001-10-05T17:08:00.000-04:00

so i've been freaking out about things between rice and i.
it's the kind of freaking out where i know i'm freaking out, i know what's wrong, but i still freak out. and then something will happen, and make everything 'alright', so i can forget that i was freaking out, and what i was freaking out about becomes a non-issue. but really, things are not alright. well, things are not alright if i gage 'alright' by how things really are. know what i mean? it's like, i think martin luther king jr said something to the effect of, there's no peace without injustice. even though things seem to be ok, if you bother to really examine things, it becomes clear that things really aren't ok. appearances are so fucking deceiving.

my sister called me this morning, wanting to share a revelation she had. she wanted me to know because what she's going thru right now, the lessons she's learning, are things i need to go thru as well, lessons i need to learn.

a while ago, when i was living in blo, i wasn't going to school-- though i was half-assedly putting on the appearance (There's that word again)-- and i wasn't doing anything. so i had a lot of time to wallow in my thoughts. i explored the fact that i've always felt like a big fat liar. i knew it was because i've always kept so many secrets from my parents, that i felt like i was leading a double life. i used to always say that if i died, and all my dirty laundry was discovered, my parents would feel like they never knew their daughter.

<<<>>> i have work, i gotta go. FUCK. will continue later. hopefully the thoughts i have to share aren't the kind that need to be capitalized upon during moments of inspiration. because this shit is really important. crucial to me, my past my present my future.

2001-10-04T22:00:00.000-04:00

my birth broke a record
longest baby of the herd
this title i held
from my first day in this world
what began as a win
became much strife within
my long limbs
didn't fit with my Asian skin
freakish i was seen
by moms and dads and other teens
"how you gonna find a man to marry?"
they would speak
as if at fourteen
enough didn't trouble me
i was supposed to relate
to the stick figures in magazines
knobby knees
emaciated beauty
not really a mirror of me
aint nobody on those glossy sheets
who sipped barley tea
while eatin kimchee
cuz it wasn't chic
to be in the foreign scene
unless it was to be foreign
to the foreign scene
thru chinky eyes i could see
the disparity between
the speeches and the real
was i supposed to agree
was i supposed to know the deal
cuz the hand outstretched to me
wasn't one that would feed
please
it was a gamble really
but at stake wasn't just green
it was yellow like my skin
and it was deeper
my bet came from within
layin myself on the line
hopin there were ropes for me to climb
find my way to the top
so i could shout
"the only blocks are mental blocks"
but i was stopped
and i knew i'd never reach the top
i was bein used to prop
others up
i was bein used as a prop
a decoration
but i was so fucked up
that it didn't matter
cuz i was on the ladder
and i thought that that
was the only plan of attack
seein it like a battle
that shoulda been enough to hold me back
but i was just one of the pack
of the masses
saturated by purse straps
i bought into the business
of makin young girls feel like crap
wrapped up in image
happiness in visual
invisible individuals
just dividends for corporate trends
so i took out my pen
and decided to use my fuckin head.

2001-10-04T16:27:00.000-04:00

i just received this in my inbox.

hi i ran onto your webpage and just wanted to say hi and great page. it`s great to see good looking asian girls out there being asian myself.

anyway just to tell you about me (like you really care haha!)...i`m a 6 tall korean male( really 5`11 and a half), lean athletic build, i was born in korea but came when i was a baby...grew up in white suburbia **, than went to school at **** **** which is the whitest school you can go to..looking back and being in NYC since i graduated, i realized i never interacted or had asian friends, let alone see a hot asian girl, i like your look alot cause you don`t look like the typical korean girl, you have a great look my circle of friends is whiter than the cast of Friends....what am i trying to say, i don`t know myself, just killing time in my office...and i`m a financial professional in the city, i make very good money for a 24 yr old, only 3 yrs out of school...over six figures, but like most people in my age group, there`s always something to spend it on, i hope i don`t come off as arrogant by saying that, cause if the market keeps on going the way it has, i`ll be home watching TRL like a teeny bopper haha, oh yeah, and i`m not a typical nerdy asian guy with glasses and who plays video games all day...i`m told that i`m one of the better looking asian guys out there,,,,,i`m not one of those guys who thinks he`s good looking but really is ugly, i really try to be humble about my looks cause i know i`m not brad pitt, but than again i`m not in a tower locked up cause of my looks...my last trip to vegas a korean stripper told me i was the hottest korean guy she ever saw...if that says anything....but maybe she just saw me hit the ATM, haha, anyway just wanted to write and say hi, i don`t know if you get a chance to read all your emails, but i at least killed a couple of mins in my office, just wanted to say hi and if you ever wanna go out, my friends and i are always partying like rock stars...you can IM me at ******, talk to you later

(**** denotes identifying characteristics i thought he'd appreciate if i left out.) of course i'm sure he'd appreciate my consideration seeing as though i'm posting his note on the internet.

but, how bizarre? i don't know what to make of it all. i mean, talk about being straightforward. i'm tempted to follow through just to see what the deal with this guy is.

2001-10-04T16:10:00.000-04:00

hmmm.

even if i'm just one girl
i'm plural
in this world of rules
i've got the sideline view
cheerin to the field
greetin playas like you
without the gear
i can't get near
the action the satisfaction
the jurassic age this aint
but shit aint changed
chained to the bed
in the home
of your throne
even though you know
that i know
and you know
so what's the age
where i'm old enough
to be trusted
that emotions don't dominate
the space between my ears
it's not about my years
but puttin your face up to the fears
history is his story
and not mine
and it don't define
what's wrong and what's right
just cuz it's common
don't mean you shouldn't question,
comma, pause, stop, period.
menstruatin only means
babies can be made in me
but my tits and my clit
shape the so-called privileges
i'm given but never get
for christmas
get me a knitting kit
and i'll sew up my lips
i'm makin it easy for a submission
of my wit
vocalizin philosophizin
but i still got my eyes
and i'm wise.
-M Innate

2001-10-04T03:23:00.000-04:00

so i'm calling my new friend circle because we went to the same college together, but never became friends until after we both left the town. she's two years younger than me, which was probably why we operated in different circles, but regardless of age, i think we relate to each other on a level that i didn't relate to with anyone, in blo, so i'm happy i made a new [old] friend.
we checked out the nuyorican cafe, spoken word event. it was... amazing. i knew it would be. it actually lived up to my expections, to my hype, and it was all that i hoped it to be, but it was so much more, just because it was real and alive, and animate. circle and i agreed that it was very humbling, and it made me feel like i have so much further to go, but also that i am there, that it is in me. i am going to try to go to as many events as possible. for real, why not? i respected each person so much for going up there and performing, and i was in awe of much of what i heard and saw. it was enjoyment, for me, of the easiest kind, because i know if i go, i'll have a good time. that's the way it feels when i'm rapping. no matter what, i always love it. no matter what, i always feel it.

today was such an awesome day. i learned about so many things, and really used my brain and ears. it gets so tiresome to rely on the eyes as the main source of learning and new information. i feel empowered. i feel different. i feel inspired by life. not death, but life.

good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite.
i'm exhausted!

2001-10-03T19:11:00.000-04:00

i got so caught up in updating my website earlier today, i seriously debated not going to class. i'm such an idiot too, because i was debating this while on my way to the freakin class, not, like, still sitting in the internet cafe. but i forced myself to go, and it was such a wise decision. so wise, in fact, that while i was walking to the train after class, contemplating what a good decision i made, i had to seriously supress the urge to physically pat myself on the back.
hey, it takes baby steps to get to the point where going to class isn't even a question.

but the class was so awesome. i'm in love with my professor's mind. the course is Ethnicity, Gender and Disease, and it's all about the relationship between those three issues. i like it so much because it takes feminist issues and theory, but applies them to real life, so you can SEE the relationship, so you can see cause-and-effect, so it all makes sense because there is tangible evidence. theory is great and all, but it never fully works in reality. and though i consider myself an idealist in many regards, i also think i'm pretty firmly grounded in reality.
so today was the first class we had since the world trade center tragedy. the past two wednesdays were jewish holidays, and the wednesday before that, school was closed due to everything that was happening. appropriately, my professor began the class talking about the world trade.
now, ever since the streets opened up below houston, on fri sept 14th, and rice got back from his re-routed flight from alaska, my life rapidly took on a sense of normalcy. the day before all this happened, on thursday, was my darkest day. i woke up that morning at 7am having an asthma attack (which rarely happens), and couldn't go back to sleep because the minute i was conscious, the smell of the wtc couldn't be ignored or forgotten. that whole day, walking around the city, not knowing what the fuck i was thinking, i was just feeling. feeling bad. i was getting concerned that possibly i was beginning to exhibit post-traumatic stress, but i wasn't sure if it was because i had woken up so early, and with breathing problems. also, i was so tired for the rest of the day, i knew that was compounding my mood on some level. when you're tired, it's almost impossible to be happy.
thursday night, i felt so hopeless and alone. all i kept thinking was that i needed a hug, but i had no one to hug. i didn't have a working tv (didn't have cable and the one channel i did get, abc, went down with the world trade, since the antenna was on top of there), didn't have a traceable phone number, didn't have any friends in my area, was apart from my family, and everything was at a standstill. as i type this, i realize that what i did have was my life, which i should appreciate, but i was so absorbed in all the events i couldn't find many good things to be thankful for.
so i went to sleep, really depressed, wondering if i would wake up on friday feeling the same way.
instead, i woke up to the verizon man coming to install my phone (for once verizon made me happy), and rice paging me on the pager i bought the day before. so i went over to rice's place, and as i said, the streets were open, and everything felt so surreal. like not just that the world trade center didn't get destroyed, but that rice had never even gone away (he had been in japan for 3 weeks). i spent the day with rice, and everything seemed normal. in the back of my mind, i knew that i was not done dealing with everything, but i knew that for the time being, what i needed was the solace in routine, in functioning like a normal person.

since then, i've had moods, conversations, thoughts about september 11, but without a sense that i was making progress-- that i was making sense of it all. but in class today, hearing my professor speak about recent events, it really put things in perspective and helped me to see the reasons why this happened, perhaps even the purpose in it all, and how everything fits together. for once, i truly feel hope, and i truly think that though nothing can bring back the thousands of people lost, positive changes can should and have to be made so that no one forgets this horrible tragedy. this has changed my life, and i believe it's changed most other American lives as well, perhaps even around the world. regardless of personal opinions, the US is the most powerful country (especially if you measure power by money, which to most systems is the standard), and something of this magnitude can have a global effect. life has changed as i know it. that is the one thing i've known since 9/11.

my brain is still kind of swimming from being crammed with 2 hours of learning at its best, so i'll write here what my professor said later, when it's been digested and ready to be recycled.

right now, i'm gonna go work on my website again. i don't have much time because i'm meeting a [new] friend. we'll call her... circle. anyway, circle and i are gonna have dinner and then check out a spoken word event at the nuyorican cafe. did i mention that i'm so fucking excited i'm practically drooling?!

peace.

2001-10-03T14:44:00.000-04:00

wassuuuuup. there's nothing like hi-speed internet to brighten my day.
for an internut like me, a t1 connection is a Godsend.

anyway, i shouldn't waste my time on here. i wanna update my website while i can.

official yellowtale endorsement:
EASY EVERYTHING.
42nd b/w 7th & 8th, 24/7.
it's an internet cafe that charges $1/hr, and it has 800 terminals, so if you aren't initially deterred by the long lines for the register (which move really quickly), then you're basically guaranteed a spot.

ok, i'm gonna go get my money's worth.

2001-10-03T04:32:00.000-04:00

question: dude, what am i still doing up?
answer: sugar is a drug.

i guess since i still haven't decided whether to assume my identity or none, i'll keep up this nonspecific chatter. for these 'nonspecific' purposes, i'm gonna call my sorta boyfriend....... (in the process of thinking up a pseudonym for him, i realized that rice is an anagram of his name. funny! durrr i wonder what his name is.) well anyway, i'm gonna call him... fuck i guess i'll just call him 'rice', since it has already stuck.
the point of all that was just so i could say, rice would kill me if he knew i was up this late. i promised him an early morning date, which i'm still planning on keeping, but no shit am i gonna be tired.

i'm obsessed with banners. i made one for this blog already, and i've had it for what, a couple hours?
my actions lead me to believe that i'm eventually going to go 'public' on this one, if not just to spread the love of my banners, wack as they are. wanna see? looky here.
nice, eh? i'm goin for the asian theme, can ya tell?
rice and i were eating sushi tonight, which we seem to be doing a lot of as of late, and he informed me that 'yellowtail' is a slang term used to describe asian girls. using it in a sentence: "boy i sure am in the mood for somma that yellowtail over there."
it's derogatory in meaning, but it's one of those derogatory terms that's kinda... catchy. does that make me a disgrace to my race to admit?
it's like this one time (at band camp, not funny, i know), when my sister and i were in the mall in my hometown (which i'll call, blo), and these white guys were walking by and one of them said, "hey, i chink i know you!"
i was kinda taken off guard and my pure reaction was laughter, which my sister promptly silenced with a sharp jab to my bony ribs. but hey, racism can have comic value, can't it? =P

anyway, so i guess that's how the term 'yellowtail' got stuck in my consciousness. and being that i had sushi tonight (amongst which, yellowtail), and being that in terms of flavor yellowtail is probably my favorite, the word has kinda just been swimmin around my head. but alas, someone must have had the term swimmin around in their head too, cuz it was taken when i tried to register for it. so the slight modification, to 'yellowtale', had to do, and now that i think about it, i kinda like it better, seeing as though 'tale' is a synonym for stories, and you can be sho i'll be tellin lotsa pointless stories in this blog.

oh, since i'm, anonymous, should i mention that i'm asian? haha.
rice is white. haha, that's funny too.

ok, i think i'm getting delirious, and i'm fuckin tired. my body's breakin down too, i can tell cuz my contacts get really foggy and it's like i'm seein the word through a piece of plastic.
boy, i'm good with words.

hasta la vista.

2001-10-03T01:09:00.000-04:00

i had an online diary on a different site, but i wasn't very faithful to it. and once i got out of the habit of writing in it, the knowledge and guilt of my neglect plagued me to the point that i couldn't really go back. when i would, it wasn't the same. and also, visually and functionally the template didn't appeal to me, which didn't help my motivation any. so basically my journal was wack, in content and in form. and i'm weird. the previous http:// address of my journal bugged me. it was pretty straightforward, but it just didn't flow. now, http://yellowtales.blogspot.com, that sounds spiffy. well, perhaps i'm just making excuses for why my journal was so bad... is there such a thing as a bad journal?

regardless, i promise to try harder here.

i haven't decided if i'll remain anonymous, or if i'll assume my identity. ever since an ex-boyfriend of mine read my real-life journals (that's right, plural), i've never been able to be really free. the absence, presence, whatever, of an audience has become too great. because some of the shit that my ex read was really hurtful to him, some of it was really embarrassing for me, and all of it was scarring, traumatic, and violating.
so i'm torn. even now, as i write this, i know i'm not just writing for myself. is that bad? is that good? is that anything? man, growing up a catholic girl sure has fucked with my head. man, using "catholic" and "fucked" in the same sentence sure doesn't seem right. uy i'm obsessed with value-positive and -negative things, 'right' and 'wrong', sacrilegiousness... but this is a whole other, unresolvable issue to deal with... not now.
but anyway, what to do?
maybe i shouldn't do anything but write, and see where it takes me.

you know, having hidden so much from my parents my entire life, it's made a part of me feel like a big liar and a deliquent. in this scenario, the delinquent association is more important, because i feel like i must remain anonymous because i'm bad, and people shouldn't know that i'm bad. that I, am bad. hmmm. so it's ok to be bad, but it's not ok for me to be bad?

do i really believe in good and bad?

my sister says, "there are no bad people, there are only people who do bad things." it sounded genius at the time of her utterance, but now that i'm thinkin about it, i have to, think about it. she's saying that actions do not dictate a person's value. but doesn't go so far as to deny (not assign) value to people. no wait, that's not what she's saying. she's saying that actions are actions, and people are people, and actions can be assigned value, but people can't. umm is that what she's saying? fuck, i should just call her up and ask her. my brain is mush. but anyway, not to negate everything i've just said, but i think i still agree. well, i succumb to agreement because my brain is a lazy pile of shit.
sometimes, i try to think, and it just doesn't seem to happen. it's like the connectors in my brain are all tangled up, like how the cords on my headphones get (it's string-like, not the normal wire-type cord, so it gets really tangled everytime i take em off and put em somewhere). theoretically (and realistically), i could take the time to untangle everything, but that requires perserverence that i usually don't have. or i could just put it all away and not deal with it, which is what i usually do, or i could deal with it the way it is, all fucked up, which is what i sometimes do.
hey now, that was a great metaphor, huh? it was such a great metaphor my lack of clarity didn't matter cuz of the duality of my comparison. uhhhhh, riiiiiiight.

(( sigh )) i get so bogged down by the little things.