I need to get out of the country more often. Whenever I have a window seat arriving in another country, I peer down at the lives going on as my plane lands.

I don't think of it as much when I see planes landing, but when I'm on the plane, I think of the people on the ground, whose lives have been going on, in a time zone when I'd normally be aslumbered, oblivious of my little life going on somewhere else. I'm arriving, I'm the outsider. They are the usual lives going on, and my arriving has absolutely no impact on them.

Madoka makes me feel like I should be doing more with my life, that I shouldn't just be this existential entity floating around going from reason to reason why not to kill myself. Especially when I ran out of them a long time ago and I'm obviously not going to do it.

And yes, she knows this about me. And it's true, I don't have to leave, I may never leave and live out my natural life, but I can't be caught dead ever living my life like that.

Why I've been blessed with someone like Madoka in my life, I don't know. She would say the same about me, but she has no idea. She has no clue.

Chunk of coal vs. refined diamond.

We may be made of the same stuff, but I'm still the chunk of coal, and she the diamond. I'm not putting myself down, it's just the way it is, and her diamond will always make me shine.

I may not do anything with my life, I may die next year, but having her in my life makes all the difference in the world, and I will make the most of what I have, I will continue appreciating every breath of air, the colors, the smells, the sounds, the feel of everything on this planet, and I won't leave unless I'm sure about it.

Feel free to remind me I said this when it's not 3:30 in the morning.

Madoka, I thought, was a person I would take a bullet for. But 10 more seconds of thought made me realize I wouldn't. I thought of how she would feel if I took a bullet for her, and I realized I couldn't do that to her.

There are plenty of people special enough to take a bullet for. How special does a person have to be to not take a bullet for? After I related all this to her, she said, "I would also not take a bullet for you". I appreciated that, but probably not for the same reason she said it. I don't think this is accurately conveying what an exceptional human being she is.

"Oh, tell me
Tell me you'll dance with me
Turn me around tonight
Up thru spiral staircase to the higher ground"
"Promenade" - U2

You can welcome me back anytime now. I need to take a nap. Get a haircut. E-mail Madoka and let her know Sadie picked me up and I got home just fine.


November 28, 2002; 12:46 P.M. - On the way to the airport.

I asked Madoka why she thought we might have been twins in a past life. She responded because we think so much alike. Oh yea, that, how could I forget that? I think I noticed it before she did.

We went to college together, but we really didn't hang out until after I graduated and was spending time in Osaka, and she was home in Kobe for the Summer.

There were times when we would be hanging out with other people, and I would say something and no one would know what I meant. When they asked what I meant, Madoka would chime in and explain exactly what I meant, and it never ceased to amaze me how precisely she explained what I meant.

I don't know how to describe it – we speak the same language, we're of the same mind? I know I don't know anyone like Madoka. I don't know if she can do the same thing with other people, she might just be really good at empathizing and understanding what other people intend to communicate.

As for me, that Summer marked Madoka as someone exceptionally special. Our subsequent meetings through the years only confirmed that she is exceptional and increased the love and adoration I have for her that I just can't describe or pinpoint.

November 27, 2002; 3:00 P.M. - The sweetness that is Madoka.


November 27, 2002; 2:27 P.M. - Madoka profile.


November 27, 2002; 2:22 P.M. - Out on a walk with Madoka.

kicking myself for not writing it down:
I was having a dream this morning that I've all but forgotten. I was in a town that looked surprisingly like Noe Valley up near 30th and Church, and Stevie Wonder and Bonnie Raitt were there for some town celebration. Stevie was at a loss, wondering what he was doing there. He then spun off two lines about it, and the rhyme was so funny I laughed. Then I opened my eyes. Madoka, who's futon was next to mine, opened her eyes and said, "What's so funny?"

November 22, 2002 - 10:26 P.M. - Narita Airport, Tokyo, Japan. Waiting for the train to meet up with Madoka. I'm a little confused about the time stamps, but I think this is right.

another self-absorbed post:
What I said a few postings ago about the "act", I guess it's not really an act. In everyday interactions with people, yes, I am always actively hiding something, but don't we all to some extent.

It's more of the degree of cover up my unconscious performs depending on how well or how long someone knows me.

More or less, all the people I know now, I've met in the past three years. They don't know me through the changes that really get you to know a person's character.

I feel one dimensional to most of the people I know now, and if I were to show more than that one dimension, they would start asking questions I don't want to answer (this is to be completely distinguished from people who do actually "get" me, but don't know and therefore ask, that I don't mind at all).

I do have a pretty checkered psychological profile, and so many people just don't "get" how I can go to law school and not become an attorney.

I "act" the same way to Madoka as I do to everyone else. I just feel like she knows much further into however she sees me, and therefore it is not an act. This is all misperception I'm sure.

ROWR!
Extra strong coffee this morning.

I went to check out the Leonid meteor shower last night. It was a wash. No storm, not really a shower. More like a drizzle.

But it was such a gorgeous night, I love being up and out at three in the morning. There was no wind, it was mild, the moon was bright (which certainly did not help the viewing), and it was quiet down by Crystal Springs Reservoir. My skin tingled it was so lovely. Shhh.

Jupiter was high in the sky above the radiant and I was able to see the Galilean moons easily through binos.

I need to find a way to be up all night. Conceivably I could flip my hours like I did in high school, and go to sleep immediately after work. Or I could quit. I should just keep talking about quitting until everyone is fed up and just tells me to shut up and friggin' quit already!! Yup, that might do it.

Or I could stop taking the emotional route about it and, true to my parents, make it a matter of numbers. Once I've saved double the amount of a year's rent, I give notice. I know I need to get out of this, I know I'm not gonna do it on my own accord, so an outside trigger seems just dandy.

Incoherent:
I'm packing ahead of time. I want to be prepared and leave feeling confident I haven't forgotten anything big. I'll be in Japan for just four full days, which I suppose is better than the three full days of the failed previously planned trip.

And in the throes of packing, I'm anxious about the anti-social and isolation I've wrapped myself in and grown accustomed to. I get antsy over four hours with just one person. Four days?

But it's Madoka, I don't need to be on, I don't need to act. Problem is, it's all an act. I don't know what the act is, but it's an act, trust me. If there's anyone I don't have to act for, it's Madoka, but if it's not an act, it's therapy, and I'm not visiting Madoka for therapy. Ergo anxiety.

. . . no, no, I can do this. We knew each other before this mythic "act" was perfected and implemented, and even since then I think I've always just been myself to her. Besides, friendship is therapeutic. I'm not worried.

I'm looking forward to jet-lag and my biorhythms going ape-shit.


November 19, 2002; 10:56 P.M. - In my kitchen.

Yay! I got my passport.
Boo! I forgot to wear a belt.
Yay! My pants keep falling down.
Boo! I screwed up my blog archives even more. Bah!

I was trying to explain to Sadie why my birthday means absolutely nothing to me. I'm practical about it. The earth is in the same relative position around the sun, but what else? My life started that day, but with my outlook on my life, its commencement is no reason to feel celebratory. I get to that anniversary and ask what am I supposed to feel, and . . . nothing.

I would rather celebrate markers that have some tangible meaning. For example, how about the day I started walking? I don't know the date I started walking, do you? Every year I would be celebrating a day that means something personal to me. I accomplished something that day. My birthday is my mother or my parents' accomplishment. That's the day I should have been grown up to celebrate and thank them.

Of course I grew up hating their guts, so I wonder what effect that would have had on the dynamic. Or vice versa.

In my family, maybe it would have been my uncle, our only other relative in New Jersey, who would come over for birthday parties to explain to us we are having a party for our parents because this is the day they had us. If that uncle wasn't there, maybe it would be father and we'd be celebrating for our mother.

As for our own markers, maybe the parents could choose what event to celebrate depending on what they want of you. If they want you to be an artist or someone who expresses or uses words, they celebrate the day you spoke your first word. If they want you to be a doer, then walking. If they want you to be a government worker, the day you were potty trained. The possibilities are endless.

November 15, 2002; 5:55 P.M. - Home commute. 16th Street and I-280, China Basin, San Francisco.

Directly after reading the You Are A Suspect article in the NY Times, I read about Jiang Zemin stepping down as Communist Party leader in China.

It seems that the press can't publish an article on China without mentioning "human rights", and no doubt, their record is dismal. But the "human rights" that the West generally condemns China for are civil and political rights.

With the direction that the Bush administration and the Republican Congress is taking with things like the Homeland Security Act, we will see government actions, and already have mind you, that are safely considered civil or political rights violations, read human rights violations.

Are they going to stand or respond to being accused of committing human rights violations? Of course not. They'll just stand behind duly passed laws by the "will of the people". Summary dismissal.

But if these violations are committed, regardless of how the laws are passed, it's basically the same as the Chinese government. They have their laws, and we have ours. I'm not comparing us with them (yet), but once our government starts justifying human rights violations with our laws, we certainly lose the moral high ground.


November 14, 2002; 5:00 P.M. - My cube. On the very rare occasion of still being at work this late.

anti-pep talk:
After three years of working here, the building is now going to accommodate bikes. I don't have much to say about that, this building is behind the times, what can you do? But the first thing I do is tell the building I'm interested. Mind you, if I'm really gonna quit at the end of the year, I have to give notice early next week.

These mental games I play with myself are sickening. So I'm not gonna quit now because I can lock my bike in the building? That's basically what the logic distills down to. Teeny tiny psychological pebble in the road. The reason why this is disturbing is that this is how I treat my life.

In April 1997, I was going day to day identifying why I would live to the next, and it just got really stupid, like well, Throwing Muses is playing, and I have to return this overdue library book and pay the fine, or I have to pick up photos from the darkroom. Mind you, none of these, except maybe seeing Throwing Muses, was good enough a reason.

So I'm not gonna quit? I'll stay until I get laid off, probably early next year as the economy tanks? I won't get the dignity of quitting, but I'll get unemployment.

I will also live a long life, and in my 80's I will be alone and destitute because of my inability to get into and/or maintain relationships, and because I didn't have a 401K and didn't invest wisely, and I won't have health insurance because I never cared to look into it, and I won't have teeth because I never go to a dentist, and I'll be in a wheelchair because of the numerous knee and back ailments that went untreated, and I'll be near blind because of the all the time I spent staring into the sights of the sun, not realizing that Bruce Springsteen was being figurative!!.


November 14, 2002; 8:39 A.M. - Bay Bridge while riding to work.

Blame this shameless post on Meghan and her post on music boxes and what tune would we like to have in a music box. Who doesn't love a music box?

As a result, I've been listening to this song all afternoon (the website is a collection of, like, every version of the song in existence), until I finally couldn't control myself and got up and did a little shuffling dance around my cube, hoping nobody walked by. The song just gets me and I just have to laugh at myself for falling for it. Little bit happy, little bit sad. Lotta bit nostalgic.

Ue o muite arukou (I look up when I walk)
Namida ga kobore nai yoo ni (So the tears won't fall)
Omoidasu haru no hi (Remembering those happy spring days)
Hitoribotchi no yoru (But tonight I'm all alone)

Ue o muite arukoo (I look up when I walk)
Nijinda hoshi o kazoete (Counting the stars with tearful eyes)
Omoidasu natsu no hi (Remembering those happy summer days)
Hitoribotchi no yoru (But tonight I'm all alone)

Shiawase wa kumo no ue ni (Happiness lies beyond the clouds)
Shiawase wa sora no ue ni (Happiness lies above the sky)

Ue o muite arukoo (I look up when I walk)
Namida ga kobore nai yoo ni (So the tears won't fall)
Nakinagara aruku (Though my heart is filled with sorrow)
Hitoribotchi no yoru (For tonight I'm all alone)

Omoidasu aki no hi (Remembering those happy autumn days)
Hitoribotchi no yoru (But tonight I'm all alone)

Kanashimi wa hoshi no kage ni (Sadness hides in the shadow of the stars)
Kanashimi wa tsuki no kage ni (Sadness lurks in the shadow of the moon)

Ue o muite arukoo (I look up when I walk)
Namida ga kobore nai yoo ni (So the tears won't fall)
Nakinagara aruku (Though my heart is filled with sorrow)
Hitoribotchi no yoru (For tonight I'm all alone)

That's not my translation, I can't understand the lyrics. I can match up most of the words, but that's about the extent of my Japanese language ability :(

I'm serious, I must have listened to the song more than 10 times.

I am SOOOO boring 

Maybe I'm romanticizing it, but when you black out, aren't you supposed to wake up somewhere seedy, like a gutter, covered in vomit and filth? 

I black out and I wake up under my covers, cozy and warm, with the morning sky peeking through the blinds. Didn't get drunk and thrown out of a bar, no fights, no howling at the moon. No falling into a patch of poison oak. Lord god knows that I've been there. 

I guess last night wasn't too bad, I saw clues as to what happened and remembered some things vaguely. I did dishes! Party animal. Someone invite me to your party, I'll get drunk and do your dishes! 

Guitar was lying on the kitchen table so I must have been doing that. I do remember using the wrong rinse before brushing my teeth – no clue to that, I just remembered it, maybe because I've never done that before. And I burned Kateri a Deadweight CD, but that was earlier. And look! no drunken blogging. Yay me. That makes me wanna dance.

"We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey."

I missed the cite for that quote from the documentary "Lost Bird of Wounded Knee" on PBS. It is American Indian Heritage Month. I, in theory, believe that all U.S. treaties with Native American nations, unless abrogated, are valid.

The injustices perpetrated against native nations, the broken treaties, the lies, the deception, the legal distortions, obliteration of cultures and societies, and outright military assaults, are what this country is founded upon.

In theory, if I owned land, and the U.S. government told me that my land, under whatever treaty from a hundred years ago, belonged to a native nation and I would have to leave (with federal compensation, because that's how it works), in the name of justice, I would.

The U.S. did it to them in spite of treaties. The U.S. should be able to do it to us to respect those treaties. It will never happen considering what our country and government are really about. It's just something to think about.

And the media has to stop portraying native societies and cultures as being dead, gone, and past. They're not.

I need to have this scowl bronzed:

November 9, 2002; 1:24 P.M. - That's my apartment building in the background. The maroon building. This is Hampshire Street @ 19th Street in the Mission.

It's the old story of not looking ahead, not appreciating something until it's gone. They say there's nothing more depressing than being at home doing laundry on a Friday night. They're wrong. There is something worse. Being at home looking for your laundry room key on a Friday night. Believe me. It's worse. This isn't the first time, either.

I'm gonna burn a Versus mix for Liz at Liz's request, then I'm gonna turn my apartment upside down looking for that key, and then tomorrow I'm gonna make a copy of that key. Who said I was going to Japan on Thursday? I wouldn't have been able to do my laundry on Wednesday anyway!

I'm nervous about getting a new passport in time. The government website is vague in telling whether by going in person to the passport agency on the 15th, I will have a renewed passport by the time I leave on the 21st. But I have to relax, trust, and believe that it'll turn out alright.

I've had this whelming feeling of relief (not enough to be overwhelming) that I didn't go, like my original planned trip was all wrong. Just an unfounded intuitive dread of what would have happened if I had gone.

The path not taken. But as a result, the fabric of my current reality feels weird, fragile, transparent. Like because of this, the "wall" between illusory physical reality and actual Reality has thinned. And if I look hard enough I can see through it.

It's probably just my mind. One of these days physical reality will assert itself as Reality, and everything about me will fall apart and melt away and be torn down and I'll get committed. Nice. I can't wait.

Ever have the feeling that you want to die? I have. I remember the feeling, but I rarely get it anymore, mostly because I'm kinda like that all the time. It's grown through the years so that it's a pretty regular thing. I understand that it's difficult relating to someone who doesn't want to live. I even understand being mad at someone who doesn't want to live. But I have no problem with living. Living I can do. My beef is with existing.

"You need a noogie to get thru the day 

You need a noogie to make your troubles go away 

You never seem so heavenly 

When you're at home watching TV 

And if you feel like killing yourself I need to be there" 

"Noogie" (Versus)

New paradigm for personal interaction: arrogance reduction

Interact with people like my dog was run over this morning.

"Standing in the middle of nowhere
Wondering how to begin
Lost between tomorrow and yesterday
Between now and then
So now I'm back where I started
Here we go 'round again
Day after day I get up and I say,
Come on, do it again"
-"Do It Again" (The Kinks)

Curse of Josephine?:

More like curse of me. Inopportune time to try to visit Madoka, what else was going against it? Aside from calling it quits with Josephine four years ago on November 11th, November 7th, the day I was supposed to leave, is Shiho's birthday. But Shiho has nothing to do with Madoka.

Josephine, on the other hand . . . what I know about Josephine, and what I know about Madoka, made me think that there was some connection between the three of us in a past life. And it wasn't a good connection. There was no reason for Josephine to react so violently about the thought of Madoka, but she did to my surprise.

Madoka was my best remaining friend from college, but she was just a friend, there was no threat to our relationship. Still, Josephine latched on to it and blew it up and never let it go.

And ironically, not to put too fine a point on it, the very last time I saw Josephine was months after we broke up for good. I was bringing Madoka to the airport to go back to Japan. She had been in the Bay Area visiting a sick relative.

That day happened to be the same day a group of Thais from our Master's program were returning to Thailand, and Josephine was there to send them off. Boy, was that an uncomfortable moment. It's been four years since Josephine.

In the throes of our relationship, I came close to giving up my friendship with Madoka. In retrospect, it's Madoka hands down. Not in terms of love, because they are different types of love, and I don't know how many types Madoka covers, but as for impact on my life and being in my life . . . the best I can do to describe it is Guinan and Picard.

And the evening was going so well.

Too well. Boss-lady pretty much ignored me all day. That means a lot. She has not been happy with my work or my attitude lately, and ignoring me on the day before I'm gone for four work days means something, yo.

I think maybe she's finally as fed up with my work as I've been fed up with this job for months. She dumped off a few things she had signed that I needed to send out, but she didn't hover around to assess the workload before I left as she should have. And I don't care. She can fire me or I can give notice, one of the two are inevitable.

I left work without having touched base with her at all. I went off to gather some last things I'd need for my trip. I ended up in the Mission, thinking of picking something up for Madoka. I ended up in a store called "Encantada" which had crafts from a region of Mexico related to the Day of the Dead which was last week.

I walked in, said hi to the person there, walked around and walked out. Halfway down the block, the images in the store were so bold in my mind that I turned back and went in again. I priced some of the art and struck up a conversation with the person there, Mia, and she talked about the Day of the Dead and some of the background of the art.

I told her about my trip to Japan and she was appalled that I was making such a journey for just three full days there, but then I explained Madoka and she understood and did a faboo wrapping job since she didn't have any boxes.

That wasn't the only thing, everyone seemed to be super-nice to me this evening. But then I check my passport which was issued 10 years ago, around the same time this "thing" with Madoka started, and it had expired.

One of the requirements to expedite passport renewal (through a private company) is: "prior passport is still in your possession & undamaged". I look over at my expired *fricka shrickin frazzle* passport, it is still in my possession, but is it undamaged? Yea, it's undamaged, it's a bit ragged around the edges and the gold embossed eagle is noticably faded, that's all.

That happened five years ago when Madoka and I traveled to a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border. I can't write any more about that adventure/ordeal without going on for a while, but that's a mere cross-section of our history. Our lives are completely separate, but where they meet, they meet with a vengeance.

I think that I clarified my feelings about that "adventure/ordeal" to Madoka last year, but I forget. We confessed a lot to each other last year in a sleep-addled daze that I don't remember. At the time, I had joked about what an ordeal it was, but it really just reinforced my respect for her. And love.

A friendship does not survive sitting in the cab of a truck, blocked on a rain-drenched, muddy, unpaved, mountain road, by another truck that was stuck in the mud and had lost its load of cattle, smelling to high hell of days-old clothing worn in a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border, after walking some six or seven hours that day to a meeting point with the truck because the truck couldn't make it past the now rain-swollen rivers that we had to cross on foot more than 10 times I estimate, without a little love. Period.

Urgh!
I'm not going to Japan tomorrow. Might be able to reschedule. My passport expired in May and I didn't notice since I haven't traveled overseas in four years and I've never had my passport expire before. Got too comfortable about it.

Ooh, maybe it's the curse of Josephine. There is no curse of Josephine, I'm making it up as I go along, but coincidentally, we broke up four years ago on November 11! Josephine was wicked jealous of Madoka from the moment she heard about her, without ever having met her. More on that drama later, I'm surfing the web as I write this trying to find what I'm going to do . . .

So this says a lot about me. I'm careless and cavalier. I miss big important details. I'm certainly not practical. And perhaps worst of all, I take big nasty surprises like this in stride and roll with the punches.

No freaking out. Some people like freaking out. If there was someone more entrenched in my life, they might be yelling, "How could you let this happen, you stupid idiot?!", and I would hang my head in shame. Perhaps that's one reason why I don't have anyone entrenched in my life now. Who needs that?

Me, when my eyes bulged looking at my passport expiration date, I may have thought "shit", but any more than that wouldn't have made any sense to me. I just, by nature, can't beat myself up for things I've done. I already put myself through enough for things I have no idea about and no control over.

So expired passport is fact, a material fact, I screwed up and have to deal with this in the present, what do I do now? I can't say no biggie, because this is a biggie, but first thing is e-mail Madoka and let her know, and currently I'm seeing what needs to be done to renew my passport rightways so I can still visit her in the next few weeks anyway.

I'm leaving for Japan on Thursday to visit Madoka. I arrive on Friday. I return on Tuesday. That's like 10 hour flights for three full days there, hardly enough time to adjust for jetlag (I love fucking with my biorhythms).

Crap. I need find my passport. I'm not worried, though. I'm good about storing shit like that, so even if I can't say exactly where it is now, I should be able to locate it rightways. I need to print out Madoka's directions from the airport to her train station. She offered to meet me at the airport, but she'd have to leave work early, and I want to make sure I can do this myself. And get over this neurosis about the Japanese language, which I have all but forgotten.

I never got a handle on the language despite my parents speaking it to us in our infant years (they're not even Japanese, wtf?), tutoring growing up, 2 or 3 years of college classes, 4 months in Osaka after college, lots of self-study with cassettes and CD-ROM, and 3 Japanese speaking girlfriends. All to no avail. A clear sign I should just give up.

Why going solo from the Narita Airport to Tokyo fills me with fear, I don't know. I had absolutely . . . little problem going to Geneva solo to give an intervention at the U.N. (a Master's thesis thing) and I can't speak a sentence of French.

So seriously now, wtf, I'm going, I'm thrilled at seeing Madoka this year, I'm gonna find my way around, I'll try to dig up phrases from the cobwebs and use them, and make an ass out of myself as much as possible!!!

inspired by Joie: part 3, ghosts, pt. 2
I experienced something bizarre intermittently for several years when I was a teenager and into college and beyond that I could never explain. I described the experience to people, but I've never been able to find anyone who experienced anything like it.

Then I read the book The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston, and there was a passage that described exactly my experience, but told it described in the context of ghosts!! It never occurred to me to interpret my experience in terms of ghosts. I still don't, but it was fascinating.

When I was 14 or 15 years old, one night I was lying in bed having trouble going to sleep. I looked over at my clock and it read 1:21. Suddenly, I saw a bright light like a comet shoot into me from a diagonal trajectory from the right. I was suddenly paralyzed and blinded, everything was just white light, the sound was like the roar of a jet engine in my bedroom. I tried to scream (for my mother of all things) but I couldn't get anything out of my throat.

I was frightened, I was panicking. It felt like it went on for a long time. And then as suddenly as it began, it ended, I was in my bed and bolted up fully awake and conscious, completely freaked out. I looked over at my clock. It read 1:22. That was the first time.

This happened intermittently over the course of the following years. One freaky time it hit me while I was sleeping on the floor in my closet (don't ask – it was a big closet and had a window). When it hit me, in my paralysis, I was able to struggle and force myself onto my stomach. I then pushed myself off the ground. Then it ended. I was lying on my back. I jumped up and ran out of the closet completely freaked out. That was the first time I was able to move myself.

As it recurred, I got to a point of comfort with it and stopped panicking when it happened. After more time, I stopped struggling with it. I would just relax and flow with it and let it happen. From prior experience, I knew it would end, nothing to be afraid of, can’t prevent it, so explore it.

By the time I was in college, it would happen, but then the state would fade into dream-like images. I knew it was happening by the gripping feeling and the conscious state, but it wasn't paralysis anymore, it wasn't just white light, white noise and white panic. I wish I could remember some of the dream scenarios that it faded into. It got fascinating after a while.

My interpretation of the experience has nothing to do with ghosts, though. And it can still happen. I don't remember the last time it happened, but it wasn't so far in the distant past that I'm sure it will never happen again. It still recurrs. It only occurs during the sleep cycle.

inspired by Joie: part 2, ghosts, pt. 1
I believe that ghosts are neither evil or good. To me, ghosts by definition are tortured souls that were so tormented by something in their physical lives that they can't move on in death. The trauma was so harmful that it shook the foundations of their psyche, their psychic being.

Ghosts haunt, but the definition of "haunt" is the same as "going back to my old haunts". It doesn't mean to scare, it's just means occupying where was once familiar. I believe ghosts occupy the same plane of existence as angels, except that angels act as intermediaries between humans and god (fully open to any and all interpretation), and ghosts are souls in stasis. Angels are self-aware, ghosts are tortured and fixated.

Personally, I believe in reincarnation and it crosses my mind that maybe I've killed myself in my past several consecutive lifetimes, including hanging, slashing wrists, jumping, and drowning. (sidebar: I also think at some point I was a Japanese prisoner of war and a horse, go figure).

I think that if I can't prevent myself from killing myself in this lifetime, I might be relegated to a ghost existence. Who knows? I don’t. Maybe if I can keep positive enough, I can do it and still come back human and have another shot at it.

I know that at some point I had some theory about how ghosts were released from that existence and were allowed an opportunity to be human again, but I can't recall it right now. Lame. :p

I need to be put on trial with everyone who has ever known me as prosecutor. Let the accusations fly. There will be no defense. Fortunately, I wouldn't need one since I would be the judge. Sadie pretty much got it right when she said my personal relationships hinge on their entertainment value to me (I take it she only figured that out because she's like that, too).

I think it's because I finally decided that I can't take conflict in relationships anymore. That explains the unilateral reconciliation with my parents (or maybe it's the result of that). Maybe that's why people come and go from my life like a revolving door – most people just don't get how I don't take reality seriously. I understand. Not everyone understands that they're just part of the entertainment. just kidding. or am i?

My friendship of several years with Anita started deteriorating when she started putting pressure on it on several fronts. Our friendship didn't survive Ritu dropping dead, even though the only nexus was that Anita and Ritu were like sibling rivals and Ritu was my boss.

In my last relationship, I had only one problem with it – she kept on finding problems with me. And she would get violent about it. OK, two problems. Nothing else put me off or got me mad or impatient or frustrated or judgmental or etc. otherwise. But after a while of putting heart and soul into the relationship and making it work, change wasn't happening fast enough and the violence didn't end, so I ended the cycle of breaking up and getting back together. I just wanted to be entertained.

So it's hard to get into a relationship now when my expectation is the myopic view that there will be no issues regarding the relationship. I have my issues, but I won't take them out on the relationship. But if the relationship has to deal with my issues, I won't prevent that, either. I don't mind the other person bringing their issues into the relationship, as long as it's realized that this is a collaborative effort. I hope I can take what I've developed in this life into my next life and be able to maintain a relationship. And hopefully I'll be monk.

Sadie: Friends are so hard to raise.

What else did we talk about? Oh yea, a friend of hers had a baby not long ago and he finds child-raising unnerving because it keeps changing personalities on him every few months. One month you're raising this kid, several months later you're raising a totally different kid. thought worthy.

current soundtrack: Seam - "The Problem With Me"


November 2, 2002; 12:04 P.M. - Default shot outside my front door. Hampshire and 19th Street.

wondering if Meghan knows how incredibly awesome she is!!

"for k (in case you miss the note): a cd is wating for you at merrill's 1091 market street aisle 14b bottom shelf black soup pot very left".