FOUR HANDS AND THEN AWAY

New York City with Gary.

ON BEAUTY

"I think vitality is what is attractive to people. 
That's why there are a lot of pretty girls that are kind of boring to look at." 
—Linda Ronstadt, 1977

CLENCHED SOUL

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.


Pablo Neruda

IF I WRITE THAT, THEY'LL THINK IT'S ME

I had no choice but to sign up for a Creative Writing class this semester - a class I've been avoiding for awhile now.

Here's the truth - I am really insecure about sharing my writing. This blogging thing is really funny because I find that I am almost always inclined to share a real personal side of me, when in reality I am uninterested in letting most people get to know me.

So this creative writing class brings about some anxiety, because we are openly sharing our work. And I can take criticism, but there was an incident in a Lit class last year where we were paired up with a classmate to proofread one another's papers, and I was paired with this girl who was terrible at following the college paper format, or writing in general. I went easy on her though, because she had openly admitted to me that she hated writing and was only taking the class to fulfill her degree requirements.

When I got my paper back it was like somebody had violently attacked it with a red ballpoint pen. I stared at the paper I'd spent hours working on and researching, butchered. All the sentences she'd disregarded with a flippant slash, and scribbles of "this doesn't make sense" or "please revise" or "where is the thesis statement?" all over the margins. I was a bit miffed. The thesis statement is in the last line of the first paragraph, shit-for-brains, I wanted to say.

Her paper on the other hand was so unfortunate that no amount of editing could have saved it, and I might as well have just ran one long diagonal slash through the entire thing and written, "please take College Writing 101 again."

But I didn't.

But what would be worse is being the worst in a class of confident wordsmiths and storytellers.

The professor had us do some writing exercises before anything else.

Off to a bad start.

THE LITTLE THINGS

Rough week for many of us.

Writing thank you notes is so old school. Why don't I do this?

I BLAME THIS POST ON EDGAR ALLEN POE

You know how death is certain and inevitable, and so to discuss and acknowledge the subject of death from time to time is completely natural?

It's as though I've been surrounded by death this whole week. Beginning with the last writer we studied for the ending of the summer class, Edgar Allan Poe and the whole gothic genre.

Walking into my roommate's room a few days back for fish feeding time, I notice something a little off as I approach the tank. I peer in through the glass to find that Frank, the large koi, is floating around on his side, lifeless.

This makes me worried, because having someone else's pet die on your watch just raises suspicion. As though it was somehow your fault. This is when I back out of the room and it hits me that I have a genuine fear of dead things. I think it was seeing the life sucked out of it, and its eyes wide open, staring at me in death that made me feel sick. I called my roommate, who is back in DC for the remainder of summer, to relay the bad news. Fortunately she took it well, and then says the part I'd been dreading - "I really hate to ask this, but do you think you could take him out of the tank and flush him down the toilet?"

"Yeah, no problem," I lie.

Frank died on my birthday. I tried to see it as symbolic of something, being the egomaniac that I am. Something totally momentous or foreshadowing, like maybe I was being renewed as a person, reborn with the childlike confidence a lot of us had lost in the growing up process, and something had to die to initiate this transformation.

My roommate's room is reflective of her passion for theater. I catch sight of this framed poster, The Burial at Thebes that I had not noticed before, the fifth century Greek tragedy by Sophocles. From what I know of this play, some major family drama went down which ultimately led to the rebellion of Antigone against her father, the King of Thebes, thus prompting him to punish his daughter by banishing her into a tomb. By the time he had a change of heart, she'd already killed herself.

I recall reading a few blog posts of supermodel Daul Kim long after she'd hanged herself in her Paris apartment last year. In one of those posts, written a month before her suicide, she wrote about remembering what it felt like to be a child, remembering thinking for the first time, who am I? Where is God from? Where do I go after I die?

And then she wrote, in an optimistic tone, that one day when she becomes a mother she would hold her child close and explain all of those things in a reassuring way when she asked those questions.

I walked into my roommate's room earlier today to feed the two remaining fish, Alberta and James (they are named after theater greats according to Liz). James stared blankly at me from the bottom of the tank. He was dead.

IF YOU COULD BE A GENRE

People get married because they love each other more than any other two people in history have ever loved each other. Two, five, seven, or twelve years later, they get divorced because they hate each other more than any other two people in history have ever hated each other. I know what marriage is. It means one day, one person is going to have to bury the other. That's metal. If you're not metal enough, don't get married.

ART IS HARD

Last night I came across one of those retarded fashion blogs littering the internet, and the most recent post featured this photo (used without permission, see below) with this accompanying blurb from the blog author :

"A rad new tee collection...The tees feature prints of [the artist's] landscapes and are then hand-distressed and tie-dyed. The final effect is a unique piece that feels like it has a story to tell. This one is one of my favorites."

 

It took me a moment to come up with a reaction to this. I just stared silently at the screen, the photo of a ratty t-shirt, probably priced at $50 or more, staring back at me.

That somebody has the nerve to put out a collection of tattered t-shirts for sale under the guise that it's art/fashion, with the suggestion that each t-shirt is "a unique piece with a story to tell" is pretentious hipster drivel. Assuming that others are truly dense enough to believe your lazy attempt at creativity should be applauded, is it?

My mom sometimes wears those t-shirts casually around the house back in KL, or when she goes to bed. The only difference is that she's had them for years, overusing each of those t-shirts as she went about her days, but would she ever wear them out of the house now in their tattered condition? No, because she has class.

That would be a worn-out t-shirt with a story to tell.

Why has none of the artist's friends or close associates informed him that those t-shirts are ugly as sin?

Why has no one, his girlfriend/boyfriend/mother taken him aside to gently suggest maybe going down a different career path? People try to pass off every stupid thing as art nowadays. And then a cult following still manages to build up as those who think anything that is repulsive and weird is beautiful and steeped with meaning because supporting it means you're deep. And this immediately sets you apart from all the boring, ordinary people.

And if you give your honest opinion and point out how bad a particular art piece is, they will respond with, "you don't get it, you just don't understand art."

CARPE DIEM

My brother attempts to spread a bit of early morning optimism.

YOU'RE STILL NUMBER ONE

Last week was Father's Day. I forgot. But here is one of my favorite stories about my old man that I like to share with others on occasion.

When I was 18 my relationship with family members was still rocky. I hardly spent time at home, simply because I was the designated black sheep, being the middle child. Which is basically the reason why I chose to attend college in Nilai after high school ended, all the way in Negeri Sembilan. Nilai was only 45 minutes away, but still, I would be living in the dorms.

One weekend my boyfriend at the time (who will go unnamed) called and suggested that he pick me up and then we drive to college together, just so we could be alone. My parents weren't home at the time, so he came by around midnight and we drove off into the night. We were about 15 minutes away from campus when my phone starts ringing. It's my dad. Probably tired of my rebellious antics, he tells me to come home that very instant. I tell him we're almost at the college, stop telling me what to do. He starts screaming on the phone, that if I don't turn the car around right then he would drive out to Nilai and get me himself. This goes on for awhile. He calls my boyfriend's phone as well and calmly instructs him to drive back towards KL.

So this guy turns the car around while I'm sitting there crying incessently. We reach my neighborhood close to 2am. The house I lived in at the time was at the very end of a dead end street. We were at the street sign at the other end, and from there we could make out the figure of my father standing under the street lamp at the end of the street, his arms folded across his chest. I don't know how long he had been standing there waiting, but I remember thinking, "I'm going to get hell for this."

My boyfriend could not hide the fear that had overtaken him, even in the darkness of the car. I heard him mumble finally, "you need to get out here. I can't go over there. You should go." So I get out, and he drives off so fast I think he left skidmarks. I walk down the long, dimly lit street towards my dad, expecting a full blown lecture to ensue, but he follows me into the house silently and doesn't say a word.

The next morning I get a call from my boyfriend who tells me he received a text message from my dad when he got home after dropping me off that previous night. I asked him what it said, and he read it to me, sounding slightly bothered, "if I were you I would have been a gentleman and dropped Zihan off in front of the house, but thank you for bringing her home."

I still laugh every time I think about that now. What had started as an embarrassing, angst-filled episode ended with me looking back on the situation and realizing that my dad had helped me see what separated the men from the boys. He didn't really like the guy, but let me make the wrong choice anyway. And I was mostly to blame for attempting to run off in the middle of the night. But my dad had called a guy out for not treating me like a lady, regardless of how unladylike I can be at times, and that put things into perspective for me.

Needless to say, the relationship did not last. I grew up, and have never settled for just any guy since.

LIFE GOES ON

Last week I received an e-mail from a high school student named Samantha, and though I wont share the entire e-mail, this part really struck me : "And now that I'm about to graduate from high school, I was just thinking back on my life and you were a major part of it, even though we never met."

Wherever we are in life, I feel that the good always outweighs the bad when you let it. Because life will crush you and break you repeatedly when you don't hold on to something that reminds you why you need to keep your head above the surface, and keep treading. A few nice words, an aspiration, a simple gesture, a song, a poem written by a sad thirteen year old on the other side of the world, anything. People will abandon you. Your friends will go down different paths, you'll realize you can't look up to anyone in your family and they don't understand you. Your teachers will imply that you will probably amount to nothing. People who don't even know you will judge you and make you feel small. Those closest to you will be the first ones to betray your trust. 

But it doesn't matter, because you are responsible for your own happiness and peace of mind in the grand scheme of things, and if you trust yourself, that's all you need.

THAT SONG

Gary and I were talking about music back in my apartment one night and turns out we both are fans of orchestral/classical music. Think composers like Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, and the like. Anyway, I suddenly remembered that there was one particular medieval-sounding song that is played in practically every film trailer showcasing climactic battle scenes where some guy is usually swinging his sword wildly at some other guy in slow motion. You probably know the one I'm talking about. I never figured out what that song was to this day, simply because I never knew how to describe it other than what I just wrote above. But it's one of those things that bugs me, and googling it never brought me the right results. So I tried singing it to Gary.

"It goes like this - dun dun dun dun! dun dun dun dun! dun dun dun dunnn dunnnn dunnnnn dunnnnnnnn!"

He nodded in recognition, amazingly, but didn't know what the song was either. So we were both on our laptops trying to find it, before I recalled a time early last year when I went on a That 70's Show binge and watched an episode that actually played the song in a scene with Kelso and Jackie. So I hit up YouTube to find that particular scene and lo and behold, someone in the comments section actually named the song.

The song is O Fortuna if you care to know, composed by Carl Orff in the 1930's. It is sung in Latin and according to Wikipedia, is the "most played classical music of the past 75 years in the UK."

My fascination with this song actually stems from a particular moment two years ago when I slept over at a friend's house in Providence. I was awakened at 6am to the haunting sound of O Fortuna playing on his stereo. Not loudly, but audible enough to fill the dark, still room with a slight eeriness. I was laying there on my friend's bed, him asleep on his couch, and I wondered if I had died and was making some sort of transition to the afterlife, or something that could be equated to the epicness of the song I was hearing as the snow fell outside on that cold winter morning.

I came to learn afterwards that my friend plays a cd compilation of classical songs throughout the night, songs he burned as sleep music. Like a background accompaniment as one slumbers. to make their dreams astronomically awesome? Because to be asleep and dreaming is a momentous occasion for them and calls for total grandeur? Who knows, I never actually asked him why. Because why not?

Received a surprise package from Gary the day after he left, sent as a gift from Amazon. As you can see, it is the extended edition of Gladiator with an additional three hour documentary of the film (!!!), which is even longer than the movie itself. He knows I've been wanting to get it for myself for awhile now. Thanks for that, Gary!

GUEST

Last Wednesday I stood around the arrival hall of Logan Airport, trying to find my old friend Gary in the crowd of people that emerged from the baggage claim area.

He flew over to Boston from Wichita, Kansas to visit me, bless his heart. I would have done the same, if there was actually anything to do in Wichita, which there isn't. I haven't seen him in about three years. This is also his first time on the East Coast so I had to make sure I did good in playing host. I lack good hosting skills, I think. After the third day my irritation with humanity kicks in and I'll say something like, "do we have to go out? People are outside."

Gary gets it though. It's the reason we became fast friends back in Nilai College years ago.

Nights were spent watching episodes of Doctor Who, Law & Order, and Worst Case Scenario. I like Bear Grylls and everything but sometimes I have to chuckle at his enthusiasm for survival tricks. Like when his car "breaks down in the middle of the scorching Las Vegas desert on a secluded road" and he's springing into action energetically. "He probably had three Red Bulls before they shot this," I point out to Gary.

Also, if you're driving solo and choose to take a long, secluded road, you're sort of asking for that scene from The Hills Have Eyes to happen.

LATE NIGHT

Chatted with Fazari the other night. He's based in Oklahoma now.

He's trying to get me to visit him there this summer. It's nice online chatting with Fazari because the conversations always lead to the topic of music and him playing his favorite songs, from Led Zeppelin to Frank Sinatra over the speakers so I can hear them too.

ON BEING REAL

Last week I was re-enacting a hilarious skit I'd seen online to a friend but he didn't laugh. Instead he just sat there and looked at me thoughtfully and said, "you know, you should be this person all the time with other people." 

I had no good response to this because being real is one of the most difficult things a person can do. Which doesn't necessarily mean that you're fake. I have learned that it takes a lot of effort to be real. It takes almost no effort to be a phony. Sometimes you look at a friend and how they're acting and you immediately know they are not being real because you've seen every layer of their personality. You don't feel like a jerk when you call them out on it, because you know they are better than that.

PEOPLE DON'T FORGET

"Maybe it's that I find it hard to forgive the follies and vices of others, or their offenses against me. My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever." 

- Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pride and Prejudice (2005)