Wish my weekend could look like this

Susan Sontag

“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art. ”

Jack Gilbert

“It’s not a business with me . . . I’m not a professional of poetry, I’m a farmer of poetry.”

Together

On Monday, October 24th, B. had udon for lunch and I had the pork 'n egg fried rice, cooked cabbage and broccoli, and soup vegetables that he'd made for me.

That day he wore polka dot socks. I wore his ankle socks, which were too big for me so I had to fold them down in the front, but for a while now I have been wearing his socks more than mine and it's not that I don't like my socks, it's just that I like wearing his.

On that evening as we sat in his living room, me doing homework and he on his laptop, he asked me a very special question. Then I rose up from the rug to the big grey couch where he was so that I could kiss him after answering Yes.

It was our 21st month anniversary that day, a very very happy day.

This is why

van Gogh at 13

Gasp

Dreamy hair

Too bad 1) I've got black hair 2) it's incurably straight 3) the insufficient real estate on my forehead does not allow for any sort of bangs or side-swept coverage.

Although I take back the "too bad" on number 1.
Black hair rawks.

Let's have Christmas lights

like this year-round.

On that frame

Woody

Hugs are better this way

Charles Bane, Jr.

"Isn't it amusing that they think
we're too old for... and don't see
when our passion stirs?
They don't notice your hand
reaching over to arrange my letters
in the middle of the game.
Do you know I love those hands
most tenderly when they're making
tea? You know, I think making love to you
starts in the music of steps in snow
or your look into your purse for a lozenge
when my mouth is dry. Yes, that's the flag,
that's the pointing daystar."

Pen Clip

Carey Mulligan

Can't wait to watch The Great Gatsby, starring her and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Oh, and Gemma Ward... that should be interesting.

Moms texting

Uncontainable

Psalm 55:22 "Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you."

Philippians 4:4 "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, Rejoice!

Dried mangoes

are my new favorite.

I always looked forward to these dried mangoes from the Philippines whenever I stepped into a 7-11 in Taiwan. I wouldn't always buy them though... in fact I rarely ever did. Usually I was lured to the chips aisle (garlic pea crackers! star-shaped potato chips! squid chips! seaweed flavored Lays! chips made to taste like fried chicken!)... but once in a while I'd opt for these dried mangoes and then feel smug about my healthier choice.

Breakfast essential #1

"Let me tell you a story while you're still in love with me. My mother had a son who died on the day he was born. They buried him at the door of my father's church. I was born one year later to the day. I used to read his gravestone every Sunday.

His name was the same as mine. 'Vincent van Gogh, died March 30th, 1852.' I'd stand and read until they pulled me in to hear my father preach the sermon. Then I'd think about the amazing fact that I'd been born, and buried, and born all over again. That God had given me all my second chances rolled into one."

Happy 20 months with Bear

He tells me that I'm stubborn, like when it's raining and he tells me to wear my rain boots instead of my hole-y converse sneakers. but i look down at my feet and shake my head no, no I won't wear my rain boots, i don't need to. Then after sitting in a three hour class wriggling my toes inside my squishy-squashy socks, I think: I should've worn my rain boots.

When I tell him this, he smiles and says, "So what does that tell you?"
That Bear was right, I say. And inside I'm thinking how lucky a stubborn P. like me is
to be with a Bear who knows best.

Happy 1 year 8 months, hunny! <3

Always an adventure

From Summer 2007, right after we made a stop at 7-11 after a movie night at Tiger City. That same summer, we went bike-riding at Metropolitan Park with Kellen and ate "frog balls." Once Harry hid in a giant cardboard box upstairs (one of the boxes used as luggage) and waited for Tina. When she climbed up the stairs, he bursted out of the box and screamed "SURPRISE!!!!!!!"
She nearly shat her pants.

Really miss hanging out with you, Harry. Happy birthday!!!!

From, A Beautiful Mind

Nash: Alicia, does our relationship warrant long-term commitment? I need some kind of proof, some kind of verifiable, empirical data.

Alicia: I'm sorry, just give me a moment to redefine my girlish notions of romance.

Her face

was as broad and innocent as a cabbage.

-Flannery O'Connor

Favorite pizza

is without a doubt, Papa John's. and Dominoes when I'm in Taiwan. Here are three things about my preferred pizza:

-jalepenos should be on there
-the cheese should not look like elmer's glue (i.e. it should not be ALL OVER THE PLACE, runny and undercooked)
-the crust should be a nice balance of crunchy + chewy, but that's only if it's a regular. thin crust is always awesome when i'm in a crunchy-only kind of mood.

p.s. I hate when a slice wasn't separated thoroughly enough from another slice, and i have to pull it apart, and when i do, a glorious glob of cheese/pepperoni slides off the tip of MY slice while staying on its neighbor slice (or in the worst case, remaining on the damn cardboard). I think of it like a wishbone-pulling kind of deal, except with pizzas.

Do the flying move again

I had a super wonderful weekend with Bear
who likes me even when I'm whiny
And from whose plate I get to eat bright red tomatoes
as well as little cartoon-like mushrooms.
From whose body I get to hold onto as I sit on the back of his motorbike thinking
nothing gives quite the same feeling as this.
Which is a thought I often have when I'm doing any sort of anythings with B.

Seneca

"I ask you, wouldn't you say that anyone who took the view that a lamp was worse off when it was put out than it was before it was lit was an utter idiot? We, too, are lit and put out. We suffer somewhat in the intervening period, but at either end of it there is a deep tranquility.

We are wrong in holding that death follows after, when in fact it precedes as well as succeeds. Death is all that was before us. If there is any torment in the later state, there must also have been torment in the period before we saw the light of day; yet we never felt conscious of any distress then. It will be the same after me as it was before me."

-Seneca, "Asthma"

What's your issue

Think outside the lunchbox

One day when Drew and I go on an outing, we will pack the following for lunch:

His: A Beary Cute Meal!

• BabyBel cheese with a beach umbrella cupcake pick
• Carrot sticks with dip in a plastic shot glass and
a bucket cupcake pick
• Drink
• Teddy Bear Cookies
• A bear sandwich dressing in a swim suit
made from Air Heads Sour Belts, sprinkles and icing eyes
• Red-seedless grapes with a beach ball cupcake pick

Mine: Kisses for Piggy!

• A piggy shaped sandwich with an icing eye
• Hershey Kisses in a heart shaped silicone cup
• Heart shaped carrots in heart shaped silicone cup
• Pretzel snaps
• Strawberry slices with a pink kiss lip pick

...And I'm throwing in this last one just because.

Octopus Lunch!

• Sun chips
• Octopus sandwich with icing eye & sprinkles for the mouth
• Cheese cubes with starfish pick
• Blue m&m's
• Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries
• Cucumber slices with an octopus pick

Why I was a grouch this morning

When you are wearing rain boots, you MUST make sure your socks are tight. Because the worst thing is trudging about in scrunchy socks that scrunch down even more with each step, till in the end they've slid off your ankles and gathered all at the forefront of your boots. And if you happen to own boots with a rather scratchy interior, torturous chafing of your bare ankles will ensue.

Also, if this is taking place on a day that you thought would be all thunderstorms and rain, but that actually turned out to be screechingly sunny, you'll feel even more like an idiot as you glare enviously at rosy-cheeked passersby skipping about in Havianas.

If you ever undergo this unpleasant experience then keep in mind that the one and only antidote for it is to head to your nearest Dunkin Donuts and order a Tropicana Coolatta. You will feel instantly better. Even in your pathetically scrunched up socks and inappropriate rain gear on a garishly sunny day.

I'd like to

perch right here with you.

"Simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end."
-Steve Jobs

"Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty;
but learn to be happy alone."
-Saul Bellow

Know it well

"There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice."
-F.Scott Fitzgerald

"She mumbled that I was peculiar, that that was probably why she loved me
but that one day I might disgust her for the very same reason."
-Albert Camus

Oliver Twist

I think people often forget how much children can feel. Not only how easily they hurt, but how deeply. Perhaps it is because they are very small, and so adults often brush aside their agony as displays of juvenile impudence over petty matters. This passage in Oliver Twist pulled at me. I hate imagining any child being ill-treated or dismissed, and I don't think there's anything sadder than a child who is lonely. It seems like such a failure on the world's part. Children shouldn't feel lonely ever.

--------

"Oliver!" said Mr. Bumble.
"Yes, sir," replied Oliver, in a low, tremulous voice.
"Pull that cap off of your eyes, and hold up your head, sir."

Although Oliver did as he was desired, at once; and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes; he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolled down his cheek. It was followed by another, and another. The child made an effort, but it was an unsuccessful one. Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumbles, he covered his face with both; and wept until the tears sprung out, from between his thin and bony fingers.

"Well!" exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity. "Well! Of all the ungratefullest, and worst-disposed boys as I ever see, Oliver, you are the --"

"No, no, sir," sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; "no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so -- so--"

"So what?" inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement.

"So lonely, sir! So very lonely!" cried the child.

Playful space

A part he knows you can break

Snooze marathon

Oomph!

Down at the Dinghy

Woke up and made myself some of that exquisite coffee that Vera gave me. In a fancy french press like this one... which always makes me feel more sophisticated than I really am, hehe.

Meet Larry, my all-season mug from Target. I don't care that there's nary a spot of snow outside, my Christmas penguin does just swell in 82 degree weather drinking hot coffee with me. See he's even got a cheerful drop dribbling from his beak.

And for now we'll hang out reading Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger till Drew wakes up. Here's an excerpt from "Down at the Dinghy" --

"They found him at a quarter past eleven at night, in the middle of -- my God, February, I think. Not a child in the park. Just muggers, I guess, and an assortment of roaming degenerates. He was sitting on the floor of the bandstand, rolling a marble back and forth along a crack. Half-frozen to death and looking--"

"Holy Mackerel!" said Mrs. Snell. "How come he did it? I mean what was he runnin' away about?"

"Some child in the park that afternoon had come up to him with the dreamy misinformation, 'You stink, kid.'"

Frozen grapes for breakfast

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.

Gold Rush

I do not want to be
a flash in the pan
I want to be
an entire movement
a reason to head west and create
a new frontier
dear God i know that it's sinful
to pray for such things but
please, just please
make me worth mining.

Popeye shirt

"Just in case you decide to send me a survival package from Taiwan. The survival package would usually include: 1. Instant noodles. 2. Pea Crackers. 3. Hi-Chew. 4. Dried Sea Weed. 5. Milk tea."

I know

Today I was cutting a watermelon, thinking about summers in the past. when i was in grade school, my mom signed mike, jeff and i up for YMCA summer camp, our first and only summer camp. one of the most anticipated events there was the water balloon fight. i can't remember if i had a good time; can't remember if i was pelleted by water balloons or if i was the one scoring all the points; can't remember if the camp counselors participated or if it was just us kids.

all i see now is the dark green cement court where scraggly leftover bits of water balloon skins floated in pools of water. and hearing that my brother -- the older one -- had taken a fall, had slipped, had landed on his head. unconscious, i was told. in the hospital now, parents on the way. hours later, more than six, more than seven, more than........
"in a coma," they said. "when a patient fails to be awakened after six hours, they're in a coma."
someone told me, an adult in the family -- i can't remember who -- that the doctor said there was a risk, a very small risk of him not waking up.

"it was a water balloon fight," i said, "a game. how could he be hurt from a game? it was just a fall." and then i thought about another time, breakfast morning, jeff's head bleeding at the table. and a time after that, the first time he fell unconscious on his head. this time it was just a game but it wasn't the first anymore, wasn't the second.

he woke up. and i can't remember what i felt when i heard that my brother was coming back. but somehow it was like -- all that waiting, all the worrying -- well, the whole time i knew he'd wake up, i had known he'd be okay. i had known i'd see him again same as he always was.

By the creek

Is it real

Self awareness

is hard to deal with. Strange because being self aware is probably more of a blessing than not. But sometimes it feels like you're just perpetually stuck.

Maybe it's true that the more parts of yourself you can afford to forget, the more charm you have.
More carefree
unstudied.

Maison Martin Margiela

I'm ready

Throw anything my way, you can bet i'll deal. Winner's the one with elbow pads on!

I saw it

"Here’s how to check yourself out in reflective windows and mirrors without other people noticing.
You are not fully beautiful, but you are beautiful. You are not fully ugly, but there is some ugliness to you. You need to accept this. It is crucial to being alone."

-Frank Hinton

And if you're lucky

you hit all three.

“A writer,” said Mann, “is a person for whom writing is more difficult than for other people.”

Just how close to the bone

"Maybe the truth does not matter, but I want to know it if only so that I can come to some conclusions about such questions as:
whether he is angry at me or not; if he is, then how angry;
whether he still loves her or not; if he does, then how much;
whether he loves me or not; how much;
how capable he is of deceiving me in the act and after the act in the telling."

— Lydia Davis

Looking

big scarf big sweater. <3 can't wait for fall

this looks so dangerous it makes my heart flip

a desk without legs and chairs without backs (stools). not sure i could get used to this as my workstation but maybe someday. everything about this picture looks fuss-free.

crayons = childhood = nostalgia

Pimp survey

What is the first thing you do when you get home?
wash my hands

What was the first thing you did this morning?
Exercise.

How long does it take you to shower?
5-10 minutes oh yeaaa. i'm a spiffy scrubber.

Do you wear your seatbelt in the car?
only if there's an annoying "beep beep" sound if i don't.

Do your grandparents have a cell phone/computer?
cell phones. my grandma's is pink, with diamond-shaped buttons hehe.

Most disgusting thing to put cheese on, in your opinion:
Cookies 'n cream ice cream.

Do you still talk to your first love?
yep

Who was the first person to text you today?
Drew, from Pennsylvania, telling me about some berry yummy bluebelly pancakes there.

Who is the first person you thought of this morning?
My brother.

Do you secretly like someone?
of course, life's more interesting that way. and you stay younger.

What do you tend to dream negatively about the most?
I'm back at home in Taiwan, and I suddenly realize I unknowingly did not see my grandparents in x amount of days. I'm running out of time and it becomes imperative that I go to them and never leave.

How often are you angry for no reason?
Hardly anymore.

Are there any stains on a favorite item of clothing that you just can't get out?
There are NO STAINS i can't get rid of.

Who was the last person you said you loved on the phone?
jeff

If you're having a bad hair day, do you wear a cap of some sort?
No. My bad hair days are just days when my hair's especially straight/flat/limp, so caps don't help.

Favorite television character is played by which actor/actress, and why are they your favorite?
Sandra Oh/Cristina Yang in Grey's Anatomy because she kicks ass.

Do you look more like your mom or your dad?
can't really tell. got my dad's nose; both of them have bulbous cheeks.

What are you listening to?
Lily Allen's cover of "Naive" by the Kooks

Is the last person you kissed older than you?
yeah. though sometimes he is 12.

Do you have a favorite item of clothing?
my William the Parrot shirt from Kmart. 'Cause I'm not just smart, I'm Kmart smart.

Last movie you saw in theaters?
Cowboys & Aliens, which was better than expected.

Last thing you ate?
Half a pickle, dipped in mustard + Tabasco + apple vinegar + salsa. And leftover pizza.

What was last thing you drank?
cold green tea

If you could have one thing right now what would it be?
Plane ticket to Taiwan

What were you doing at midnight last night?
Watching a documentary on b-boys. I recommend it! Look it up on Netflix: "Planet B-Boy."

Immortality

INTERVIEWER:
Finally, a fundamental question: as a creative writer what do you think is the function of your art? Why a representation of fact, rather than fact itself?

HEMINGWAY:
Why be puzzled by that? From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality. That is why you write and for no other reason that you know of. But what about all the reasons that no one knows?"

— Ernest Hemingway, The Art of Fiction No. 21 | The Paris Review

Moostache

Perfect side braid