Northern Exposure quote of the day:
“Because in a sense it’s the coming back, the return, which gives meaning to the going forth. We really don’t know where we’ve been until we’ve come back to where we were, only where we were may not be as it was because of who we’ve become. Which, after all, is why we left.”
(Bernard Stevens, upon returning from a 3 month sojourn to Africa)

A.M. e-mail hilarity: (NB: "E" sits two cubes away from me)
K: Who the hell is Tom Morrison? I'll definitely try to make it if I can't get into Modest Mouse, if for no other reason, just to hang out with you guys.
E: hanging out with us, isn't that reason enough??! i'll buy you a cape cod and bring my girl scout cookies. i think tobin is trying to make a joke, he's tom morrison. his jokes are obscure at times.
K: But who is the real Tom Morrison? Who is he referring as to being?
E: hmmm you should email tobin and ask him....?!
K: I'm not hip, cool Asian enough for social intercourse with Tobin.
E: hahaha neither am i really...... we are BAL lamers.....
K: Get working on guitar, we'll form a band with Jenny and Brian and call ourselves the Lamers. To counteract the difference in experience, I'll play drums left handed.
E: if I gave you an orange would you eat it?
K: OMG, I think I just attained enlightenment!!
E: i'm being serious, it's a literal question.

Joycee factoid of the day: Leaving work at 1:30 for Rx appt.

Just in Case:
Just in case it wasn't perfectly clear, that previous blog was a joke. I know they would get the joke if they saw it, but for the casual voyeur, I don't want anyone to think I'm really psychotic or homicidal or blah, blah, blah. I don't even know or think either of my work teammates would care to be surreptitiously checking this out, flatter myself not!, but just in case . . .

So anyway, today, I didn't do much, just ran some errands, went to Target, went to Beverages & More, bought a Swiss Army knife, went to the rehearsal studio to get my snare, drum pedal and sticks for an audition.

I'm going to Colorado
to unload my head
I'm going to New York City
and that's in New York, friends
I'm going up to Alaska
I'm gonna get off scot-fucking-free
And we all did!

Do you speak the lingo?

Brow furrowed:

According to my high school alumni magazine, Brian Aschinger, music director when I was there, died last year.

He never knew, I'm sure, that along with Ann Crawford, they probably saved my life by providing the musical guidance that my non-present parents never did.

They didn't even do that much, truth to tell. They just provided me with the opportunities, asked me to join orchestra when I had never even touched an upright bass prior, then asking me to join the pit orchestra on string bass for all school musicals and the summer stock they directed in Ridgewood, three or four shows per summer. It was a stability that not even participating in and/or directing "Jazz/Rock" provided.

Senior year, I was awarded the "Joseph Erwin Award" by Brian and Ann for excellence in music, which was an anomaly because I was not a great musician. In fact, I don't think I left high school any better a musician than when I entered. There were at least two other people who were fully trained and far more accomplished, but I think they gave it to me for the range and diversity of my participation and enthusiasm in the high school community. Enthusiasm - isn't that what recognition in high school is all about?

I remember when my parents showed up at the awards ceremony, I refused to go up when my name was called. It was so hypocritical of them to be so uninterested in my doing music, and then showing up when I win an award for it. I remember being furious that they showed up (I wasn't the one who told them about it), and then hiding among friends when my name was called, as they prodded me to go up. At the time, Brian and Ann were far more to me than my parents were. That's probably wrong, but that's what it felt like.

Would I really have succeeded in killing myself if not for Brian and Ann? I don't know, it's hard to say straining to look back at high school years through a telescope. What is certainly true is that I'm here now, and my life was enriched by the guidance they gave and the music they exposed me to.

Thank you to Brian:

"Ain't each man alive got the right
To stray just a mite from the straight and narrow
Shoot through the night like a flaming arrow?
Turning back should the highway bend
Turning down every chance you're given
Takes the risk out of life, but friend,
How the hell can you call that livin'?"
"Out There" - Barnum

For her lunch break, Joycee went to the doctor because she kept going snowboarding, even though she had a minor injury, which was, predictably, exacerbated each time she went.

Did she listen when I told her to rest and let it heal? Of course not. Ah, to be young, stupid, and indestructible. Like the time I decided to run a marathon a month prior to it. 42K? No problem, I'd been doing 10K's regularly. A marathon is like running four 10K's. In a row. And then 2 more kilometers (which, to me now, is the very definition of adding insult to serious knee injury).

Am I really going to pass another weekend without seeing a single soul I know? I really need to stop this anti-social thing, but I can't figure out if it's me who doesn't want to hang out with them, or if it's them not wanting to hang out with me. Probably both, so isn't everyone happy?

Serves me right moving across the continent to get away from the family. After eight years and a dubious reconciliation with the 'rents, it might be nice to have family around. Well, Mimi now lives here, but if I don't call her, she won't call me, and I'm not about to chase my baby cousin for company, geez.

Mix CD for Cass (co-worker):

1. The Plan (Built to Spill)
   
2. Heart Cooks Brain (Modest Mouse) (The years go fast and the days go so slow)
   
3. Harnessed in Slums (Archers of Loaf) (Side to side with the tired smile cut into your face)
   
4. Underground (Versus) (So sell your future, bet your past)
   
5. Scarlette (Unwound)
   
6. Ceremony (Rainer Maria)
   
7. Without Fire (764-HERO) (And you're so damn disappointed, castle without any fire)
   
8. Turn it On (Sleater-Kinney)
   
9. All-Night Diner (Modest Mouse) (The sign said "XXX", but they were talkin' bout root beer)
   
10. Deceptacon (Le Tigre) (Wanna disco? Wanna see me disco?)
    
11. Lowest Part is Free!/Freezing Point (Archers of Loaf) (Always the East Coast, always the asshole)
    
12. Double Suicide (Mercy Killing)(Versus) (<- this song is for all the couples out there)
13. Carry the Zero (Built to Spill) (I was trying to help, but I guess I pushed too hard)
    
14. Out of Gas (Modest Mouse) (Opinions were like kittens, I was givin' them away)
    
15. The Contents of Lincoln's Pockets (Rainer Maria) (How can you deal with that kind of information?)
    
16. 3rd Planet (Modest Mouse) (And the universe is shaped exactly like the earth, if you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were))
    
17. Noogie (Versus) (And if you feel like killing yourself, I need to be there)
    
18. Memorize Your Lines (Sleater-Kinney) (Won't you tell me what we're fighting for?)
    
19. I Love the WB (Versus) (You are the ship, I am the sky, I'm over you, but you couldn't fly)
    
20. The Frug (Rilo Kiley) (She cannot do the "Smurf")
    

I'm trying to drink away
the part of the day
that I cannot sleep away
- "Polar Opposites" (Modest Mouse)

Couldn't have said it better mahself ;P

{{{Happy Birthday, Ritu}}}, I wish. Kinda. I guess.

This might be a bit depressing, but more weird shit surrounding Ritu, which might be totally unrelated, and this might be showing my superstitious stripes that I didn't think I had.

A co-worker, who was also a member of Ritu's team, had some seriously shocking bad shit happen to her this past week. Now, she was a great worker, don't get me wrong, and Ritu had nothing bad to say about her in earnest, but from what I know about their two personalities, they could not have been more diametrically opposed.

When I say that maybe Ritu hasn't totally moved on, I don't mean she's a conscious, wandering ghost, haunting people she didn't like.

I think when you die, you are stripped of the materialistic forms and trappings that identified you while you were here. So whatever part of Ritu still remains because of an inability to move on, ghosthood, it's unfocused, blind, and not a conscious entity. Whatever remains, remains like magnetic attraction around what was familiar on this planet, the people she knew, the places she's been, all of them.

It's not like Ritu was out for revenge or anything, but it's the way the energy interacted that totally fucked with this co-worker's life. And it hit her in the worst way possible, not her, but the people around her. Hearts out to her.

Talking to Zenaida today, she mentioned something I wrote a month after Ritu died, and it occurred to me to post it here to put the sentiment onto the vast circulation of the internet. I wrote it because I got a horoscope the day after she died, telling me not to be jealous (which I was) of other people's accomplishments and write thank you notes instead. So, ladies and gentleman, positive vibes out to Ritu so she can get the hell out of here and on with her journey, here goes again, double Dewars on the rocks:

October 14, 2000
Dear Ritu,
This is a thank you note, the intentions of which I hope will reach you in some form wherever you are.

I want to thank you for being who you were, as you were, and for entering my life. That is all. That is all that is needed for me to thank you and to be thankful to you.

I didn't know you that long or that well or that deeply, nevertheless your presence through your absence is deeply felt. And that, perhaps, is the value of having been alive, having lived.

Having touched my life by having been in it, I miss you. I miss your presence, I miss knowing that you are somewhere out there in a form I would recognise, a form in which I could say, "Ritu?" and you could say, "what?"

I will remember your face, your love of orchids, your love of orange, of Eddie Vedder's voice, your passion for the music that touched you, your tactile appreciation; you loved life more than I ever will and you touched it more deeply than I ever will.

I will also remember your pain and your struggle for compassion. I had very little good to say about you in the last month, but now that you're gone, it has all been placed into perspective.

We all have our pain, we all have our struggle, and we all deal with and express them in our own individual ways that may be perceived differently by other people. I didn't understand your struggle, but now I recognise it for what it was, and that it was just yours, not for me to understand or solve or resolve or cure.

So thank you and godspeed. Go on your journey and always come as you are. In whatever time or place I meet you again, if I recognise you on some level, know that I will welcome you.

On behalf of Josefa, Barb, Cass, Wayne, Angela, Lorena, Zenaida, Jeptha, and anyone else who shares the sentiment but I don't know about, thank you. Take this burned candle, this incense, and this song for you and go. If we are to meet again, insha'allah, in this I believe.

"The evidence before the court is
Incontrovertible, there's no need for
The jury to retire
In all my years of judging
I have never heard before of
Someone more deserving
The full penalty of law
The way you made them suffer
Your exquisite wife and mother
Fills me with the urge to defecate
Since, my friend, you have revealed your
Deepest fear
I sentence you to be exposed before your peers"
Pink Floyd - "The Trial"

Why am I so resistant to anyone knowing me? I think that is at the heart of my existence. Maybe the fear is once they start scratching below the surface, they might start digging, and once they start catching a glimpse of what's there, they'll turn tail and run, and there can't be anything worse than that, or they'll keep digging to find out more, and there can't be anything worse than that.

So maybe a sentence to be exposed before my peers is the best thing for me. Ha ha! Just kidding, I'm not about to risk being put into a hospital again. Or rehab. Or facing the 'rents. Or any type of scrutiny whatsoever.

da cycling cul-cha
When I moved out of Noe Valley, I swore I would go out of my way to go to Noe Valley Cyclery for my bicycling needs, because it is simply *the* best cyclery in the City. But I got a flat just two blocks from a popular, hip cyclery on Valencia, so practicality dictated that I go there.

I roll my bike into this cyclery on Valencia and ask for an inner tube, the guy behind the counter goes, "what size?", and I'm standing there looking stoopit because I don't know off the top of my head what size inner tube my bike takes (and if I did, I wouldn't have rolled my bike into the bleeding shop!). So I have to find the imprint on the tire of the size, and he's standing at a distance not even looking for the imprint, and then finally goes, "oh", and gets me the tube. This is opposed to NV Cyclery, where I could walk in and ask for an inner tube, and anyone there would be able to eyeball my bike, turn around and pick the appropriate tube off the shelf.

The rules of the young and stupid:
To be cool and hip, you must be somewhere in the "attitude equation". That is, you must be giving it or receiving it. It doesn't matter which. I was cool and hip being in this cyclery on Valencia, having "attitude" dished out at me. People go to this cyclery on Valencia to have these lame-o's dish out attitude, because that automatically makes you cool and hip.

Lexington Street, Mission District, San Francisco

I forget if this coming Friday would have been Ritu's 35th or 36th birthday. Oh, she died when she was 34, so it would be her 36th.

Something of her might still be lurking around. I was in a movie theater this afternoon, and I randomly thought of her, how troubled she was, how compassion completely vacated me, what I should have done, and when I imagine her, what a beautiful face she had.

After the movie, I was wondering where to ride next to eventually end up at Amoeba, and Turk St. was right there, so I decided to head up Turk. It didn't occur to me until I crossed Divisidero that it looked like the street Ritu's apartment was on, and, lo, a couple blocks later, there it was, no question about it.

Maybe it was my unconscious, knowing that her birthday is coming up, but maybe she still hasn't fully moved on after more than a year and was "influencing" me.

She may be a ghost. She was such a tortured soul. She was passionate about social injustice, and I regularly saw her give dollar bills to the homeless, but then I also heard how she treated her boyfriend, and I saw how she treated the other assistants on her team. She even went off on me once. She knew I was pissed after that, I wonder how she felt. And then there is the lingering question of how it happened . . .

For the rest of this week, I will concentrate on her, send good vibes or whatever, imagine trying to have helped her instead of abandoning her. I can't justify myself by the context, I was defensive and callous, and if I don't have any friends now, character faults like that probably have a huge part of it.

On Birthdays:

"as for those things that act as markers in your life
but in-between you can't remember
and so it seems that you've grown up and over me
and these silly things I like to dwell on

test sites keep me up at night
chainlink + meters, I talk to you
it's cold out there but I'm telling you
i'm lonely too"
(Rilo Kiley - "Science vs. Romance")

I love Rilo Kiley. Not a single person I know has even ever heard of them. Indie-pop from L.A. with hints of twee and maybe a country twang in the vocals, but some of the finest song-crafting I've heard of late. www.rilokiley.com

We initially celebrate birthdays to mark progress, maturity, and accomplishment, but then we keep on "celebrating" birthdays even after progress, maturity, and accomplishment have dried up.

Some people say it never dries up, and they boldly go into advanced stages of life with dignity, reverent of old age. Good for them.

I think it would be nice to know what day I'm going to die and start celebrating that day each year as an approach to a goal, the day when everyone can raise a glass and say, "congratulations, you made it. godspeed, whiny bastard." (wipe away a tear and smile a whimsical smile).

But no, we live our lives not knowing the day we are going to die, so that on the day before we die, we never live it like it's our last day here.

On the Last Year:
Today, I'm going to live my life like I'm only going to live for one more year. Tomorrow, I'm going to live my life like I'm only going to live for another 364 days. The day after that, I'm going to live my life like I'm only going to live for another 363 days. And the day after that I'm going to live my life like . . . you guessed it, 362 days. And so on. And by the time I reach the day that I'm going to live my life like I'm only going to live for another day, I'd better have everything that I want to get done, done.

On Bad Karma:
People who have developed bad karma, spread bad karma. If they want to better their karma, they face an uphill battle. It is a struggle to even truly understand and accept their karma. People who have developed good karma, spread good karma. They perpetuate what they have sown and earned.

The force of karma is in its perpetuation from one lifetime to another. People who have developed bad karma are not born into the world with a clean slate; with a neutral ability to develop good or bad karma.

They are re-born pre-disposed to continue developing bad karma and spreading it. If they want to better their karma, they must have a self-awareness of their bad karma, and work and suffer to overcome it. The number of lifetimes it takes to undo bad karma is not for individuals to know. Undoing bad karma must be selfless.

It's official, we fired Berry as the drummer of the band. What a freako nut she turned out to be.

So it's back to just Lisa and me. I'm not really motivated to jump right back into the search for new members. At least I have a choice to switch back to drums or stay on bass. It really don't make a difference to me.

It was Katie's birthday and I got invited out to dinner to celebrate. Now I know another crowd to stay away from.

I so did not fit in. I felt like a piece of dirt to them. I was a greaser to their soc. I was a punk to their arena rocker. I was denim to their chic leather.

Individually, I liked most of the people involved, I had met all but one before, but as a whole they constituted a "scene", and I was so out of my element. Something comes out of one of their mouths and it's so clever and everyone laughs. Something comes out of my mouth . . . crickets and stares, silent dismissal.

I couldn't help but be amused.

What kind of firm do I work at? It's a place that executes a series of Godfather-like lay-offs between 9 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon with no warning whatsoever. I hear the Godfather theme playing as I imagine HR going around whacking people. Sometimes entire teams, including attorneys.

When they realized that there were going to be lay-offs, they should have announced it. They could make it as vague as hell, but give some warning. The Sword of Damacles hanging over the entire staff for a month is worth the feeling betrayal of the few who ultimately get the axe without any warning.

There were some people who survived the lay-offs who make a fat salary, and people were wondering why they didn't get it (there were good workers with high salaries who got whacked). It's because they're made. They're untouchable. Me? I'm like Joe Pesci in "Goodfellas", I get to the verge of being made, and then they friggin' WHACK me!!

I'm too old to be doing this. I feel kinda stupid. I don't know how to be all clever and hip like the young, clever, hip kids who do this. Maybe I just need to write LiKe tHiS and type stuff like this: >><<***, which apparently mean something, and I'll be cool. Not that anyone I know accepts me as an adult. I'd feel pretty stupid acting like an adult, too. 401K, buying property, calling this job a career, finding someone to marry and create a family, blah, blah, blah. On the inside I feel like I'm nearing retirement age.

Growing old means things that you might be passionate about get watered down. A bunch of people got laid-off last Friday, a lot of friends, a lot of people who I felt didn't deserve it. I had called in sick that day, and then on Monday my boss called in sick. So the first time I talked to her about it was this morning. She's pretty high up, so she knew all about it before they happened. But our team is close, communications are pretty open, and she's looking out for us. And instead of complaining about it and standing up for the little people on principle, I just kept an even keel and talked about it objectively, which in that context was pro-management. I didn't condemn it because I know she's part of the structure. No outrage, no raging against the machine. If I'm a grown-up, I'm a pretty pathetic one. Or just lazy.

The Seer:
An Indian man, perhaps a Sikh, came up to me on the street last week. He saw me and walked up to me saying, “Lucky face, lucky face”.

The Past:
He said by the shape of my forehead, I had been a monk in a previous life.
He waved his hand in circles over his face and said I have very good karma.
Strange what he said about being a monk, since pursuing that has always been unrealistically in the back of my mind. To be told I was a monk in a past life explains the attraction in this life.

The Future:
At first he said something good will happen to me next month, later he specified it would happen in April. He said that the past two years were bad for me, but something good would happen soon. The last two years bad? I hadn’t thought about it, the past two years I’ve been working. Working? I’ve been working to live, living just to survive, a life that I had always considered not worth living. The past two years I’ve been doing what I’ve always feared and despised. God have the last two years sucked!!

On Money:
He said I was good at making money, but not good at saving money.
When he said that, I thought he was dead wrong. If anything, I’m not so hot on making money, but I’m plenty good at saving it. Later on, it occurred to me that the 'rents brought me to a Chinese fortune teller in Queens a year an a half ago, he said the same thing: that friends would take advantage of my generosity, and I wouldn’t really make money until I was 42. Or was it 44? Not that I intend to live that long, but strange that two people said the same thing.

On Temper:
He said I have a bad temper, and I must control it. Bad temper? I don’t think I have a bad temper now. But who am I fooling? I was socialized to have a bad temper from my family, I’ve just learned how to control it. That’s not to say it’s not there, I just don’t act on the feelings that lead to what can be described as a bad temper.

On Bad Luck:
He said that Tuesdays were unlucky for me and I should not cut my nails or cut my hair on Tuesdays. It was Tuesday that I met this man, and I had been needing to cut my fingernails for three days but kept forgetting. I was annoyed by the thought of having to wait another day to cut my fingernails. I ended up waiting until midnight that night, and then cut them.

On What To Do:
He said that I must wake up before sunrise everyday because the sun is my master, and that I must pray to God everyday. I took pause at that because of the ambiguity in the terms “pray” and “God”, but at some point, he paused and said, “to Buddha”, and I was just like “whoa!”. (I equate Western "prayer" with "meditation", or sitting).
He said that on Sundays, I must buy food to give away to people who need it.

The Gimmick:
He scribbled something on a small piece of paper he had, and he crumpled it up and put it into my palm, he then told me to name a flower. I thought Chrysanthemum, but I said Rose. He then asked me how many brothers I had, I said two. He then told me to open up the paper, and on the paper were written “Rose/2”.

The Catch?
He then asked me how much money I could give him and to write the amount on a piece of paper. I wrote $2. He implored me to give $20, I told him I could not afford that. He told me to give him $10.
He wrote down the name of his temple in Hong Kong, and he told me if I went to Hong Kong, to go to the temple, and at the temple I could give him the remaining $10. For some reason that impressed me.

On the Chance Meeting
And it was totally just by chance that we were on the same sidewalk at that time. The time that I left from work to go to lunch and where I went was determined by outside intervening sources. All morning, I had been thinking of getting a salad from Specialty's. A bit before 1 o'clock, Eric stopped by my cube, and the end of our chat determined when I left for lunch ("I guess I'll go get lunch now"), and then he said something about Quizno's, and that put that in my mind. When I got to Quizno's they didn't have what I wanted so I turned around and headed out. I was there for less than 30 seconds. I turned right out the door to go to Speciality's and I saw an Indian man in a turban. I felt sympathy and compassion towards him, thinking that it couldn’t be easy being in this country at this point in time, looking like that, with all the terrorist scares and all, but then he approached me saying, “Lucky face, lucky face.”