Monthly Archives: May 2006

Dreams For Cash

Thumbnail: March of the elephants
Thumbnail: Floor design
Thumbnail: Grass angels
Thumbnail: Iron circle
Thumbnail: Journey tablet
Thumbnail: Ring table
Thumbnail: Paper bird

There’s some­thing about these small-town stores. They car­ry every­thing; books, art sup­plies, fur­ni­ture, can­dy.

The baubles, the African stat­ues, the organ­ic cat­nip tins, the eso­teric wire sculp­tures, they all go home with some­one. Some of them will be thrown out in less than a year, oth­ers become heir­looms passed from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion.

In all their tiny beau­ty, they make a dif­fer­ence.

The peo­ple who work there are nev­er the same, but there’s always one thing that’s con­sis­tent. You can see the inno­cence in their faces, a warm feel­ing of rus­tic integri­ty. They all say hi, and go back to what they were doing, nev­er mind­ing your wan­der­ing pres­ence in the store. I think I’d like to be one of these peo­ple some day. Maybe when I retire.

Selling dreams.

Sex Drugged

Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that some­times he has to eat them.

—Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

It’s after din­ner, and while her par­ents are putting the dish­es away down­stairs, she’s going down on me, lying on her pink sheets, pants pulled down to my knees. Her broth­er’s in his room next door, and I’m pressed up against the wall that sep­a­rates us. In my quick­ened breath she hears that I’m on the verge of moan­ing, and keeps me in check with an embar­rased shush.

Without a means to express my plea­sure, all I can say is that I love her.

It was­n’t true. I was just lost in the moment, addict­ed to the heat of her tongue.

A week lat­er, we broke up.

This is why they have the insan­i­ty plea. When you catch your wife in bed with anoth­er man. When you tell some­one that you love them, because you’re intox­i­cat­ed, get­ting the best head you’ve ever had in your life.

And to this day what I regret the most was­n’t the con­flict I caused in her fam­i­ly with my even­tu­al absence, or the tak­ing of her vir­gin­i­ty, or dat­ing some­one else the day after we broke up.

It was that I could­n’t con­trol my words for those ten lit­tle min­utes.

This Is How They Love Me

Thumbnail: Shirt and tie

With presents that come fold­ed to per­fec­tion, boxed in white wrap­ping paper, and spe­cial wash­ing instruc­tions. This is the safest gift for some­one my age, unlike the guess­ing game that music, toys, or games has become.

This spe­cial­ly processed, pure cot­ton fab­ric is designed for easy care and a crisp, con­fi­dent look that lasts. The soft­ness, absorben­cy and breatha­bil­i­ty of cot­ton, enhanced with inno­v­a­tive care fea­tures, ensure opti­mum wear­a­bil­i­ty. Engineered for no-fuss, express han­dling. Requires almost no iron­ing. Today’s quin­tes­sen­tial busi­ness shirt: time-sav­ing, ener­gy-sav­ing, trav­el friend­ly.

We rec­om­mend using a mild deter­gent. Spin briefly, then hang to dry. Gently pull col­lar, cuffs and seams into shape. Touch up with a medi­um iron.

Not that I’m com­plain­ing. If it’s one thing my par­ents have been able to give me, it’s finan­cial free­dom. Never hav­ing to wor­ry about how I’m going to pay for rent, or board, or edu­ca­tion. It’s not easy for Chinese par­ents to show affec­tion, an influ­ence of the cul­ture they grew up in, so they buy me things instead.

I’m the fam­i­ly pet.

The dog they can love and take care of and want around, but not have to actu­al­ly talk to or spend time with.

These are my treats.

Thanks, And No Thanks

I’ve offi­cial­ly switched from Movable Type to WordPress, the lat­ter of which I’ve decid­ed is a far supe­ri­or plat­form. This involved man­u­al­ly copy­ing con­tent from the old data­base, includ­ing every entry, com­ment, time­stamp, and ip address logged. Even though it took me near­ly a month, I was able to go through my old entries and make the thumb­nails, links, quotes, and for­mat­ting con­sis­tent.

Thanks to the expe­ri­ences of every day life, for the peo­ple I hate, the peo­ple I love, the ones I respect, and the ones who inspire me to do more. It’s these that make sure I nev­er run out of things to say.

Thanks to Trolley, who reminds me with his com­ments that I always have at least one read­er.

Thanks to Aaron and Pat, for show­ing me that they care when they tell me that they keep up-to-date with my life through this.

Thanks to Bronwen, with whom I’m the per­son I’ve always want­ed to be.

Thanks to Number18, for giv­ing me hope with her dai­ly life, and her über cool input jacks.

Thanks to Tina and Aurora, for their enig­mat­ic entries that inspire me to write bet­ter.

Thanks to Winston and Barb, for let­ting me know that I, in turn, could inspire some­one to start writ­ing for them­selves.

Thanks to Sikander for being the guy who shares music with me, even though we’ve nev­er met in real life.

Thanks to Sophia, for intro­duc­ing me to music like CocoRosie, and quot­ing my own old archived entries back to me.

Thanks to Dru, a design artist I’ve admired for years, for unof­fi­cial­ly steal­ing from me, an unspo­ken com­pli­ment I hold dear to my heart.

No thanks to the stalk­ers, who say they’ll nev­er vis­it, yet con­tin­ue to read on a dai­ly basis. The ones who hide behind ser­vices like Anonymouse, naive­ly believ­ing that all their http requests are masked. The self pro­claimed hyp­ocrites, who have the FUCKING AUDACITY to tell me about the vices of blog­ging, yet blog them­selves. The exact rea­son why I nev­er answer my phone any­more.

No thanks to the sequa­cious com­men­tors who say stuff but don’t say any­thing, or those who com­ment for the sake of per­son­al adver­tise­ment.

No thanks to the hotlink­ers, who con­tin­ue to steal my images, and in turn, my band­width and mon­ey.

When I was con­vert­ing my data­base and going through the old entries, I could recall each and every emo­tion that drove them. My writ­ing has become less ram­bling, less depress­ing, less cryp­tic since I start­ed back in 2002. As time goes on and the entries become more recent, there seems to be a sub­tle, bur­geon­ing hope, a reflec­tion of the expe­ri­ences I’ve gone through and a chang­ing world­view.

And from the begin­ning of this blog to the entries I write now, the most impor­tant thing is that I always have more peo­ple to thank.

Moving And Growing

Thumbnail: Aaron and Karen at their threshold
Thumbnail: Bronwen's belt design
Thumbnail: Pat's bird
Thumbnail: Bronwen smiles
Thumbnail: Lacey licks herself
Thumbnail: Glass shower stall
Thumbnail: Hot chili oil
Thumbnail: Karen's corner
Thumbnail: Chaos in the shelf
Thumbnail: Staples
Thumbnail: Toy guns

Moving is often a task I avoid at all costs. The mess of pack­ing, book­ing ele­va­tors, orga­niz­ing rides, and phys­i­cal­ly shift­ing dirty box­es around becomes a lot more com­pli­cat­ed than I care for. Being approached to help move by a close friend is a dif­fer­ent sto­ry, how­ev­er, as it becomes one of the few times that I can prove how much I’m will­ing to do for them.

It thus becomes a rather gal­va­niz­ing scene to arrive with a par­ty of friends at a doorstep, ready to help bring some­one else into anoth­er phase in their life. This week­end was no excep­tion, when help­ing Pat and Jen set­tle into their new place, a new­ly built four bed­room house out in the west end. Through most of last week, Pat and Jen had already moved the small items them­selves, so the only things that were left were the bulky fur­ni­ture. There were only eight of us, but we were fin­ished before we knew it.

Pat and Jen paid us in beer, piz­za, and wings, but giv­en the fact that they had already done most of the work, we hard­ly deserved it. The rest of the day was spent play­ing Mario Power Tennis, Donky Konga, and table ten­nis.

Helping them mov­ing was a reminder of how we’re all grow­ing up. Getting mar­ried, get­ting old.

I once asked Darren, the only oth­er male cousin with whom I share a Generation name, whether he thought we’d end up like our fathers, two broth­ers who also share their own. Our fathers who are moody, wast­ed old men who work too hard, and don’t get enough sleep. Before we real­ized it though, we had already turned into them, sur­viv­ing the days on most­ly rest­less sleep.

Look at us now. Pat and Jen are engaged, start­ing their fam­i­ly here. Aaron and Karen are one block away.

And the cou­ples take home left­overs the way the par­ents do at all the Christmas par­ties dur­ing the hol­i­days.