Monthly Archives: July 2008

Randomness and Disconnection

So much to say in my head, but when I sit down, it all dis­ap­pears. It’s as if being in front of a blank page, with the all the pos­si­bil­i­ties before me, is cathar­sis enough.

Many things to do has left me with lit­tle time to write. A trip to Toronto for the long week­end means I have to make sure all my bat­ter­ies are charged (one for the dig­i­tal cam­era, two for the HD cam­corder, three sets for the flash­es), and my mem­o­ry cards (two for the dig­i­tal cam­era, two for the HD cam­corder) are cleared.

Thunder has inter­rupt­ed this post. I opened up the blinds to see the rain­fall, and the light from the street lamps has come spilling into the room. This makes me real­ize that the hot choco­late can­dle Shirley gave me for Christmas, along with the glare of my Macbook Pro screen, weren’t doing a great job of illu­mi­nat­ing my writ­ing nook. I had Thrice play­ing, but have turned it down so I can hear the sheets of water pour­ing through the street.

Got a bunch of stuff done tonight. While pick­ing up some gro­ceries, I was served by a book­ish girl with braces. She had a dis­tinct lisp, but car­ried on ebul­lient­ly as if she had the most beau­ti­ful voice in the world. Later on, as I walked through the mall, I caught this Katherine-with-a‑K slouched back in a seat in the food court, eat­ing din­ner with one arm in her lap. It remind­ed me of an entry I wrote about a girl doing the same thing six years ago. How I wish for that kind of peace and seren­i­ty. How long ago that was (uni­ver­si­ty!). How dif­fer­ent I was back then.

Been feel­ing very aloof late­ly. Not sure if it’s me, or some­thing my mind is doing to pro­tect itself. Maybe it’s a way of dis­con­nect­ing myself from the world. I must need it right now. This after­noon I was read­ing from a book of Tai Chi clas­sics Louise bought me, and found one part par­tic­u­lar­ly fit­ting1: “Do not be con­cerned with form. Do not be con­cerned with the ways in which form man­i­fests. It is best to for­get your own exis­tence”.

  1. Listed as the first of the Eight Truths of Tai Chi. [↩]

Blood Work

Vial of blood

This lit­tle vial, along with a few drops of anti-coag­u­lant, is filled with blood. My blood. I need­ed some for a pho­tog­ra­phy project I’m work­ing on, so I got a friend of mine in the med­ical indus­try to take it from me.

Now I’ve both fig­u­ra­tive­ly and lit­er­al­ly bled for my work.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand (In The Car)

When I was young, the only affec­tion my par­ents ever showed for each oth­er was occa­sion­al­ly (maybe five times ever) hold­ing hands in the car. They nev­er kissed, nev­er hugged, nev­er said “I love you”. Aside from sit­ting down to eat din­ner, their lives were com­plete­ly sep­a­rate. They would­n’t even sleep in the same room.

Now that I have a car, hold­ing hands while dri­ving has come to define a rela­tion­ship for me. I leave my right hand on the shifter, tap­ping it to the beat of my music, but I always have this urge to hold some­one’s hand, as if it’s some strange ide­al I’ve nev­er been able to expe­ri­ence.

Questioning Happiness

Last class, Mike asked how I was doing, and as a some­what phat­ic response, I told him I was doing well.

He told me, with a chuck­le, that if he did­n’t know me any bet­ter and went only by my writ­ings, he would imag­ine me to be like Joe Btfsplk, with a per­pet­u­al rain cloud above my head.

So I went home and read through the last cou­ple pages of my entries, and found that they paint­ed a some­what lugubri­ous pic­ture.

I’ve always con­tend­ed that hap­pi­ness is too hard to write. When I feel like express­ing myself, it’s often because of a prob­lem of some sort, inter­nal or exter­nal, that I need to fig­ure out. Writing has always been a way for me to get my thoughts in line, and off my chest. Not much of a peace­ful, detached, care-free Taoist, am I?

Perhaps I’ll always lead a Cohen-esque life, where love, sex, phi­los­o­phy, and depres­sion are the dom­i­nant themes.

The fun­ny thing is that my life has improved tremen­dous­ly after ther­a­py. I used to be a very dark per­son. After gain­ing the sta­bil­i­ty of a house and a career, along with sep­a­ra­tion from my moth­er, not much else has changed. I’ve come to real­ize that it’s not so much the things in my life that’s improved in the last few years (aside from the strug­gle with anx­i­ety), as my atti­tude. To be hon­est, I have noth­ing to com­plain about.

That does­n’t change the fact that my entries have been some­what depress­ing.

Perhaps I’m still not tru­ly hap­py yet.

Or per­haps I’m still not look­ing at things the right way.