Zero hits to this blog since I changed the url! That's success in my book. All of the usual web searches from before still go to the old url, dead blog. It's kinda liberating. I've been feeling this blog has lost the plot, that it's come off the rails, that its wheels have left the road. It's like a conversation with myself that's been lost.
Acquaintances, friends are ongoing conversations. What and how you communicate with different people is sourced in previous conversations and interactions. It's hard to be motivated to instigate contact with people when that conversation is gone or has been disrupted: I think of trying to write to Sadie, Madoka or Delphine, but the conversation between us is just not there. The last thing they said to me doesn't inspire response and any contact would have to be a cold start.
I did meet up with both my cousin Audrey and my old Mandarin teacher recently within a two week period. It's much easier to reestablish a conversation in person. Audrey recently went through a crisis with an end result that she is separating from her husband and taking her kids and moving to California. When she first called to tell me what happened, we couldn't establish a conversation. We couldn't close the distance that way.
My Mandarin teacher also contacted me with an emergency regarding a situation with her Master's program and asked to get together. Although I don't think the urgency was essential to the conversation as was it being in-person to discuss a situation.
I guess the pattern suggests the long-distance conversation is out. The nature of my relationship with people is that there is too much to "not get" over distance. On the "getting" part, Sadie, Madoka and Delphine all don't. And I don't give a crap. That's not a negative not giving a crap, I'm not judging nor have any feeling about it. That's just observation of the way it is.
I guess it's possible to meet up with someone in person and still miss successfully having a "conversation", but my relationship with my cousin and teacher are substantive enough that if we're sitting across from another, it's pretty easy.
Fortunately, I'd say, too.
Showing posts with label Delphine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Delphine. Show all posts
Thursday, January 20, 2011
I have no tag for "friends"
Delphine was a good friend.
Sadie was a close friend.
The person who just visited is not a friend, but an acquaintance from back home.
Blah, blah, blah. I was legally trained, so everything has to be defined and categorized. These aren't meant to be judgments on the people, just a defining of who they are in relation to me in an overly anal manner that no one else does.
Intended to define how far away I keep people beyond "arm's length".
Actually, my defining of friends was largely inspired by a song by Stephen Sondheim, "Old Friends", from his musical "Merrily We Roll Along", which although is now a fan favorite, it was a commercial disaster, running on Broadway for only 2 weeks.
Part of the brilliance of the musical, although perhaps also a contributing point towards its failure by confusing the audience, is that it moves backwards in time. And by moving backwards in time, that's how the musical arrives at its happy ending, because the musical starts with the friendship of the three principal characters in tatters. But moving backwards in time, we get warm and fuzzies with the youthful characters looking forward to their lives and all the potential they had having just graduated.
And earlier in the musical is the song "Old Friends", which juxtaposes "old friends" with "good friends" (Good friends point out your lies/Whereas old friends live and let live/Good friends like and advise/Whereas old friends love and forgive), whereas later in the musical when they are younger, there's a song with a reprise of "Old Friends" (preprise?), but they exclusively refer to each other as "good friends" that they're "still good friends/nothing can kill good friends".
So old friends are the best that there is. They've been in your life so long that they tend to become old habit. And everything else keeps changing, but old friends get continued next week. They're the ones you don't have to explain yourself to and who you forgive more easily than family.
Madoka is an old friend. I still haven't replied to her email, but she friended me on Facebook and I accepted, but we haven't made any contact there, either. But once we start making contact, all should be more or less fine. If we don't, it's still fine.
Nobuko is an old friend. Unlike with Madoka, we've had a big falling out, but then got reconnected after a few years and since then we haven't been in constant contact, but we're always there if the other calls, I shouldn't wonder.
Old friends take each other as they are. There aren't expectations anymore.
Sadie is not an old friend. She was a close friend. We're currently not talking because we still have expectations and get pissed off when they aren't met. We've had at least one breakage before because of that.
She once used this blog as ammunition against me and I chased her away from this blog, and I still use that as ammunition against her. That was years ago.
But she graduated from being a good friend and became a close friend because we really enjoyed each other's company, made each other laugh, helped each other out, casually called each other, called each other to come out and play, felt comfortable discussing all sorts of things – just about nothing was taboo.
We psychoanalyzed each other and still enjoyed each other's company.
And I miss her when we're not talking or even when we are talking. The problem with close friends is that you want more. I wanted more from her. I think she wanted more from me. And neither of us was giving it. It still gets complicated with close friends, not so much with old friends. You still love your close friends, though.
Delphine was a good friend. She didn't become a close friend because there were still points of contention in our conversations that we couldn't get through. Many of the criteria of a good friend are the same as close friends, but lacking the intimacy of when you connect well with someone else and just get them.
Lisa and Chris, band members in San Francisco, I think are old friends. Just from the band experience, they skip over the good friend/close friend stages, because we regularly spent so much time together, worked together, strove together, and through it all I got to know them really well.
Then after the band broke up, I didn't think much of them. I didn't think much of the band. It was only after reconnecting years later I realized that I appreciated what I had gotten to know about them so well, that they are very caring human beings.
I realize now I would really love it if I were back in the Bay Area hanging out with them. I don't know if they hang out with each other much, but I would be trying to get us all together whenever possible. Maybe. I would be a much better friend to them now, and they never turned their backs on me or judged me when I wasn't such a good friend; I was very standoffish. Stealth old friends.
Anita was a friend I met early in my time in San Francisco, but despite the amount of time we knew each other, she only got as far as close friend.
We met in a theater group and eventually determined that I knew her brother from college. I remember she was wearing an Oberlin shirt one day and I said, surprised, "Hey, where did you get that shirt?!" "My brother went to Oberlin". Then after retrieving her last name from my memory banks, I said, ". . . You're Neal's sister?!" (Indian last names tended to stand out back then). That was a great starting moment for us.
Anita was great, I loved hanging out with her. She was a pot-smoking, howl-at-the-moon, rogue attorney who was doing everything she could to not practice law. She had a killer CD collection that I would have totally raided doggy-style had the iPod been invented back then.
She was the one who got me my job at the law firm when her best friend Ritu moved to the Bay Area. I don't think our friendship lasted much longer after Ritu melted down and killed herself. We never got our old rhythm back. Sometimes people change their ways. And sometimes stories end that way.
But Most friends fade or they don't make the grade/New ones are quickly made/And in a pinch, sure, they'll do, or Some of them worth something, too. I've had friends in Taiwan. Hyun Ae was just a friend. Pierre's a friend. They are moments. They don't span time. Then there are acquaintances. Co-workers. Ex-coworkers. Internet friends (you never know when they're gonna disappear). Language exchanges. Family . . .
Sadie was a close friend.
The person who just visited is not a friend, but an acquaintance from back home.
Blah, blah, blah. I was legally trained, so everything has to be defined and categorized. These aren't meant to be judgments on the people, just a defining of who they are in relation to me in an overly anal manner that no one else does.
Intended to define how far away I keep people beyond "arm's length".
Actually, my defining of friends was largely inspired by a song by Stephen Sondheim, "Old Friends", from his musical "Merrily We Roll Along", which although is now a fan favorite, it was a commercial disaster, running on Broadway for only 2 weeks.
Part of the brilliance of the musical, although perhaps also a contributing point towards its failure by confusing the audience, is that it moves backwards in time. And by moving backwards in time, that's how the musical arrives at its happy ending, because the musical starts with the friendship of the three principal characters in tatters. But moving backwards in time, we get warm and fuzzies with the youthful characters looking forward to their lives and all the potential they had having just graduated.
And earlier in the musical is the song "Old Friends", which juxtaposes "old friends" with "good friends" (Good friends point out your lies/Whereas old friends live and let live/Good friends like and advise/Whereas old friends love and forgive), whereas later in the musical when they are younger, there's a song with a reprise of "Old Friends" (preprise?), but they exclusively refer to each other as "good friends" that they're "still good friends/nothing can kill good friends".
So old friends are the best that there is. They've been in your life so long that they tend to become old habit. And everything else keeps changing, but old friends get continued next week. They're the ones you don't have to explain yourself to and who you forgive more easily than family.
Madoka is an old friend. I still haven't replied to her email, but she friended me on Facebook and I accepted, but we haven't made any contact there, either. But once we start making contact, all should be more or less fine. If we don't, it's still fine.
Nobuko is an old friend. Unlike with Madoka, we've had a big falling out, but then got reconnected after a few years and since then we haven't been in constant contact, but we're always there if the other calls, I shouldn't wonder.
Old friends take each other as they are. There aren't expectations anymore.
Sadie is not an old friend. She was a close friend. We're currently not talking because we still have expectations and get pissed off when they aren't met. We've had at least one breakage before because of that.
She once used this blog as ammunition against me and I chased her away from this blog, and I still use that as ammunition against her. That was years ago.
But she graduated from being a good friend and became a close friend because we really enjoyed each other's company, made each other laugh, helped each other out, casually called each other, called each other to come out and play, felt comfortable discussing all sorts of things – just about nothing was taboo.
We psychoanalyzed each other and still enjoyed each other's company.
And I miss her when we're not talking or even when we are talking. The problem with close friends is that you want more. I wanted more from her. I think she wanted more from me. And neither of us was giving it. It still gets complicated with close friends, not so much with old friends. You still love your close friends, though.
Delphine was a good friend. She didn't become a close friend because there were still points of contention in our conversations that we couldn't get through. Many of the criteria of a good friend are the same as close friends, but lacking the intimacy of when you connect well with someone else and just get them.
Lisa and Chris, band members in San Francisco, I think are old friends. Just from the band experience, they skip over the good friend/close friend stages, because we regularly spent so much time together, worked together, strove together, and through it all I got to know them really well.
Then after the band broke up, I didn't think much of them. I didn't think much of the band. It was only after reconnecting years later I realized that I appreciated what I had gotten to know about them so well, that they are very caring human beings.
I realize now I would really love it if I were back in the Bay Area hanging out with them. I don't know if they hang out with each other much, but I would be trying to get us all together whenever possible. Maybe. I would be a much better friend to them now, and they never turned their backs on me or judged me when I wasn't such a good friend; I was very standoffish. Stealth old friends.
Anita was a friend I met early in my time in San Francisco, but despite the amount of time we knew each other, she only got as far as close friend.
We met in a theater group and eventually determined that I knew her brother from college. I remember she was wearing an Oberlin shirt one day and I said, surprised, "Hey, where did you get that shirt?!" "My brother went to Oberlin". Then after retrieving her last name from my memory banks, I said, ". . . You're Neal's sister?!" (Indian last names tended to stand out back then). That was a great starting moment for us.
 |
| November 3, 1996 - Anita with her Oberlin "People Becoming Fish" t-shirt. Negative unflipped so the words are discernable. |
She was the one who got me my job at the law firm when her best friend Ritu moved to the Bay Area. I don't think our friendship lasted much longer after Ritu melted down and killed herself. We never got our old rhythm back. Sometimes people change their ways. And sometimes stories end that way.
But Most friends fade or they don't make the grade/New ones are quickly made/And in a pinch, sure, they'll do, or Some of them worth something, too. I've had friends in Taiwan. Hyun Ae was just a friend. Pierre's a friend. They are moments. They don't span time. Then there are acquaintances. Co-workers. Ex-coworkers. Internet friends (you never know when they're gonna disappear). Language exchanges. Family . . .
Hey, old friend, how do we stay "old friends"
Who is to say, old friends, how an old friendship survives?
One day chums having a laugh a minute
One day comes and they're a part of your lives
Saturday, December 13, 2003
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Weird space. So much going on in the mundanity.
After doing laundry, I did a 42 mile ride, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and climbing Mt. Tam. Mt. Tam was a bitch, but I'm starting to feel slightly back in condition on climbs. Coming down, I passed someone which was odd since I consider myself pretty scared on downhills.
My top speed on the day was 38.5 mph, and I don't think I hit that on the Mt. Tam descent! It was a beautiful day in Marin, and a beautiful ride. The worst part was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, which was totally fogged in, and on the return trip I felt like I was riding in a storm, hanging onto dear life to keep from being blown over. Condensation from the fog falling like rain.
I got home (back in the sunlight) to a message from Delphine asking me if I wanted to go to Bottom of the Hill since she had a plus one for the Earlimart/Elefant show, neither bands I knew anything about. At first I thought no way after that ride, but I ended up going and enjoying her company. I'm driving down to Orange County with her in a couple weeks for her friend's wedding. Somewhere along the line, Delphine and I have become comfortable friends.
All so normal. But I will hold the line. Not wanting to leave is just more reason why I should.
It actually makes me smile. It's also really hard. The detachment and attachment struggle against each other, but it's an academic struggle. It's a visceral struggle. This going through daily life, this going through normalcy, infused with a mental cancer no science will recognize. No, not mental, this existential cancer.
When I lie in bed every night, my thoughts are bombarded with this. Every morning, I awake to an emotional gripping despair that I don't want to go. Fear is the only thing stopping me. And if fear ultimately stops me, what am I worth? It would be the biggest self-betrayal possible. What would I be worth, and what would I do about it? Live my life?
July 23, 2003; 1:08 P.M. - Morning Glories. Valencia Street, Mission District, San Francisco.
After doing laundry, I did a 42 mile ride, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and climbing Mt. Tam. Mt. Tam was a bitch, but I'm starting to feel slightly back in condition on climbs. Coming down, I passed someone which was odd since I consider myself pretty scared on downhills.
My top speed on the day was 38.5 mph, and I don't think I hit that on the Mt. Tam descent! It was a beautiful day in Marin, and a beautiful ride. The worst part was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, which was totally fogged in, and on the return trip I felt like I was riding in a storm, hanging onto dear life to keep from being blown over. Condensation from the fog falling like rain.
I got home (back in the sunlight) to a message from Delphine asking me if I wanted to go to Bottom of the Hill since she had a plus one for the Earlimart/Elefant show, neither bands I knew anything about. At first I thought no way after that ride, but I ended up going and enjoying her company. I'm driving down to Orange County with her in a couple weeks for her friend's wedding. Somewhere along the line, Delphine and I have become comfortable friends.
All so normal. But I will hold the line. Not wanting to leave is just more reason why I should.
It actually makes me smile. It's also really hard. The detachment and attachment struggle against each other, but it's an academic struggle. It's a visceral struggle. This going through daily life, this going through normalcy, infused with a mental cancer no science will recognize. No, not mental, this existential cancer.
When I lie in bed every night, my thoughts are bombarded with this. Every morning, I awake to an emotional gripping despair that I don't want to go. Fear is the only thing stopping me. And if fear ultimately stops me, what am I worth? It would be the biggest self-betrayal possible. What would I be worth, and what would I do about it? Live my life?
July 23, 2003; 1:08 P.M. - Morning Glories. Valencia Street, Mission District, San Francisco.
Friday, May 30, 2003
----- Original Message -----
From: Delphine
To: K
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: brave combo june 20th
I think you'd like to think that you've achieved total indifference to your family. Sometimes I just wish you admitted how true that isn't. Don't ever write off your family like that; you will see maybe not sooner but later that burying everything 2000 feet under isn't gonna solve any problems for you; they will surface in some way shape or form in the most important ways that seem completely unrelated when you get older and have your own family. You just watch... Sorry to be so harsh, but it's true, and I have this secret yearning to "save" you and show you the light because I've been there to some extent. You don't have to embrace them with warm fuzzy sunshine (the way I embrace my mom...and my bear) but just admit the truth about things, even if it means saying that you have really been hurt by your family and are living in its aftermath. You just have this huge wall and I really shake my head at it. Sorry to be so narrow-minded, but I guess I'm so the opposite that anything I hate that much, I confront (not very much to the liking of whatever is being confronted), and you run away? Would that be fair to say? I don't know. I just don't understand I guess. And I also believe that we are very much to blame for how we interpret things; we choose our own bitterness and denial of it.
Delfinator
----- Original Message -----
From: K
To: Delphine
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 12:59 AM
Subject: Getting here from there #5
Delfita!
No reason to be sorry about being "narrow-minded", not that I think that you are, we all have different experiences and come from different places, especially regarding touchy issues like family. But it is indifference. Lack of positive or negative; I'm not happy my brother's getting married, nor would I care if he told me not to come to the wedding. All my family's interactions are about "good form", and with our family's history, the only way to reach that dynamic is by rendering the whole shebang irrelevant. I honestly don't think my brother cares whether or not I'm at the wedding either, but it's "good form" for him not to say that, and it's "good form" for me to assume I go. It's unspoken.
When I was considering driving across the country to the wedding, I was thinking of taking my spare acoustic guitar that's at Sadie's apartment for my father, who had mentioned interest in taking up guitar to complement his mad karaoke-way. Sadie went, "Aw, you do love your family" (overly sweet, semi-sarcastic, ever-joking-as-everything-between-us-is). And me, knowing my history with my family, recognized a huge range of possible responses to Sadie, albeit innocently, saying that. In worse years I might have blanket rejected her complete misunderstanding of the situation and left immediately without a word. I would have been offended. In looser times, I might have tried to explain how it had nothing to do with "loving my family" and let her continue to joke about it. But as it was, I think I blinked a couple times, smirked, and that was that.
It's also interesting to me that my reaction didn't impress Sadie as much as someone who knew me years ago; another by-product of recycling friends every few years. Years ago, I don't think my friends could get the words "Aw, you love your parents" out of their mouths at me, even in jest. I don't mind the way it is now or that people I know now don't know this foundation of my identity. I've actually already dealt with people who tried to "save" me, pushing me to plummet for more substance in the relationship, and I went along with it; it was uncharted territory and I don't consider myself closed-minded. One woman got me to get a Fiction CD to my parents, which at first was so unthinkable I couldn't even consider it. Considering it would have been like thinking about playing an 8-track tape in a cassette player. Months later, I did and they were supportive (good form), but in the end there was no point or meaning in that act. I wouldn't do anything like that again, but not as closing them out as it once was, but it's a 'there's simply no point'. They got what they got out of the act and I got what I got. And flatter myself not, I can't think of anything as exposing or brave as doing what I did. As for the person who urged me to give the CD to my parents, if I ever saw her again, I'd probably just walk away.
Of course you and Sadie don't know what happened in the past, and, not having any facts, don't have a template of what things are like in the present. That's fair, and bring it on, it keeps the issues turning in my hand. But it would be wrong to think that there is something there, when there isn't. I'm not proud of it, if people feel sorry for me, I understand that, I consider attaining indifference one of my character flaws. Indifference is arguably as low as it can get (although people who watch daytime court TV might disagree), it's empty, and the ocean of hate is so wide to cross to get to indifference that it's alright by me when people assume I couldn't have possibly crossed it. After all, most people drown in their hate first. Personally, I prefer being indifferent to them than hating them, where "loving" them isn't a possible or conceivable reality.
Really, the suckiest part of being indifferent is that I can't even blame them for anything anymore, and I don't. There's no more attention to why I'm like this. It's just finding yourself in your skin and dealing with 'I am this'. But it's also refreshing and liberating to know that my personal growth no longer has anything to do with them.
k
From: Delphine
To: K
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: brave combo june 20th
I think you'd like to think that you've achieved total indifference to your family. Sometimes I just wish you admitted how true that isn't. Don't ever write off your family like that; you will see maybe not sooner but later that burying everything 2000 feet under isn't gonna solve any problems for you; they will surface in some way shape or form in the most important ways that seem completely unrelated when you get older and have your own family. You just watch... Sorry to be so harsh, but it's true, and I have this secret yearning to "save" you and show you the light because I've been there to some extent. You don't have to embrace them with warm fuzzy sunshine (the way I embrace my mom...and my bear) but just admit the truth about things, even if it means saying that you have really been hurt by your family and are living in its aftermath. You just have this huge wall and I really shake my head at it. Sorry to be so narrow-minded, but I guess I'm so the opposite that anything I hate that much, I confront (not very much to the liking of whatever is being confronted), and you run away? Would that be fair to say? I don't know. I just don't understand I guess. And I also believe that we are very much to blame for how we interpret things; we choose our own bitterness and denial of it.
Delfinator
----- Original Message -----
From: K
To: Delphine
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 12:59 AM
Subject: Getting here from there #5
Delfita!
No reason to be sorry about being "narrow-minded", not that I think that you are, we all have different experiences and come from different places, especially regarding touchy issues like family. But it is indifference. Lack of positive or negative; I'm not happy my brother's getting married, nor would I care if he told me not to come to the wedding. All my family's interactions are about "good form", and with our family's history, the only way to reach that dynamic is by rendering the whole shebang irrelevant. I honestly don't think my brother cares whether or not I'm at the wedding either, but it's "good form" for him not to say that, and it's "good form" for me to assume I go. It's unspoken.
When I was considering driving across the country to the wedding, I was thinking of taking my spare acoustic guitar that's at Sadie's apartment for my father, who had mentioned interest in taking up guitar to complement his mad karaoke-way. Sadie went, "Aw, you do love your family" (overly sweet, semi-sarcastic, ever-joking-as-everything-between-us-is). And me, knowing my history with my family, recognized a huge range of possible responses to Sadie, albeit innocently, saying that. In worse years I might have blanket rejected her complete misunderstanding of the situation and left immediately without a word. I would have been offended. In looser times, I might have tried to explain how it had nothing to do with "loving my family" and let her continue to joke about it. But as it was, I think I blinked a couple times, smirked, and that was that.
It's also interesting to me that my reaction didn't impress Sadie as much as someone who knew me years ago; another by-product of recycling friends every few years. Years ago, I don't think my friends could get the words "Aw, you love your parents" out of their mouths at me, even in jest. I don't mind the way it is now or that people I know now don't know this foundation of my identity. I've actually already dealt with people who tried to "save" me, pushing me to plummet for more substance in the relationship, and I went along with it; it was uncharted territory and I don't consider myself closed-minded. One woman got me to get a Fiction CD to my parents, which at first was so unthinkable I couldn't even consider it. Considering it would have been like thinking about playing an 8-track tape in a cassette player. Months later, I did and they were supportive (good form), but in the end there was no point or meaning in that act. I wouldn't do anything like that again, but not as closing them out as it once was, but it's a 'there's simply no point'. They got what they got out of the act and I got what I got. And flatter myself not, I can't think of anything as exposing or brave as doing what I did. As for the person who urged me to give the CD to my parents, if I ever saw her again, I'd probably just walk away.
Of course you and Sadie don't know what happened in the past, and, not having any facts, don't have a template of what things are like in the present. That's fair, and bring it on, it keeps the issues turning in my hand. But it would be wrong to think that there is something there, when there isn't. I'm not proud of it, if people feel sorry for me, I understand that, I consider attaining indifference one of my character flaws. Indifference is arguably as low as it can get (although people who watch daytime court TV might disagree), it's empty, and the ocean of hate is so wide to cross to get to indifference that it's alright by me when people assume I couldn't have possibly crossed it. After all, most people drown in their hate first. Personally, I prefer being indifferent to them than hating them, where "loving" them isn't a possible or conceivable reality.
Really, the suckiest part of being indifferent is that I can't even blame them for anything anymore, and I don't. There's no more attention to why I'm like this. It's just finding yourself in your skin and dealing with 'I am this'. But it's also refreshing and liberating to know that my personal growth no longer has anything to do with them.
k
Saturday, March 08, 2003
I can't do another yesterday today. I didn't get out of my apartment at all yesterday, except for late in the evening to put out some recycling and check my mailbox. Empty.
At least I had some human contact when Delphine called in the afternoon. We didn't stay on the phone too long. She ostensibly called to tell me she couldn't come into the city tonight. We were thinking about going to the Great American Music Hall, but hadn't confirmed anything. She didn't have to call, but she did.
I only realized this morning that maybe that wasn't the only reason she called, maybe she wanted to chat. I shouldn't have gotten off the phone so quick. I thought she was just calling to tell me that and had other things to do, so I got off the phone. Did she want to chat? Does she want to move our friendship beyond the casual and into a more confidante? Did I just screw up? That's OK. I resisted responding to her most recent long email last night, because I don't want our friendship to get too deep. Flat-line where Sadie is would be good.
For the first time since quitting, I had trouble sleeping. That might kill the theory that work was the primary cause of my sleeping problems. But for almost three weeks, I've been sleeping beautifully, even having some very nice dreams. I need to start recording them.
My sleeping hours have reverted to their natural patterns, which is going to sleep around three or four and waking up any time between 10 and noon. But last night I went to sleep early, a little past two, and then I woke up at five and couldn't get back to sleep. Actually, the night before wasn't a great night either; I kept needing to get up for more and more water. Bit strange. But after waking up at five, drinking water and orange juice, and not getting back to sleep, I was filled with a sense of foreboding. I still don't know what that was about.
It might just be knowing where my life is headed, having quit my job, having reached my target age, having realized a target date. This time it's gotta be for real. Yea, right, real, that's why it's still more than five months down the line.
At least I had some human contact when Delphine called in the afternoon. We didn't stay on the phone too long. She ostensibly called to tell me she couldn't come into the city tonight. We were thinking about going to the Great American Music Hall, but hadn't confirmed anything. She didn't have to call, but she did.
I only realized this morning that maybe that wasn't the only reason she called, maybe she wanted to chat. I shouldn't have gotten off the phone so quick. I thought she was just calling to tell me that and had other things to do, so I got off the phone. Did she want to chat? Does she want to move our friendship beyond the casual and into a more confidante? Did I just screw up? That's OK. I resisted responding to her most recent long email last night, because I don't want our friendship to get too deep. Flat-line where Sadie is would be good.
For the first time since quitting, I had trouble sleeping. That might kill the theory that work was the primary cause of my sleeping problems. But for almost three weeks, I've been sleeping beautifully, even having some very nice dreams. I need to start recording them.
My sleeping hours have reverted to their natural patterns, which is going to sleep around three or four and waking up any time between 10 and noon. But last night I went to sleep early, a little past two, and then I woke up at five and couldn't get back to sleep. Actually, the night before wasn't a great night either; I kept needing to get up for more and more water. Bit strange. But after waking up at five, drinking water and orange juice, and not getting back to sleep, I was filled with a sense of foreboding. I still don't know what that was about.
It might just be knowing where my life is headed, having quit my job, having reached my target age, having realized a target date. This time it's gotta be for real. Yea, right, real, that's why it's still more than five months down the line.
Monday, March 03, 2003
More on the relationship theme.
You fall out of the relationship loop. You get used to your independence and solitude. You get antsy when you spend too much time around other people. You tell yourself you can never be in a relationship again. You know you will never be in a relationship again.
And then reality hits. You're hanging out with someone. You're chatting into the night. You're going through her photos, and she's close. When your hand incidentally touches her hand, you feel the warmth, the softness, the skin. Just for a moment. You feel the power of being inches away from a person. You notice the fabric of her clothes. You trace the outlines of her hoodie. You look at a photo of her, and then look up, startled that the person in the photo is her(e). When you're leaving, you hug her, and when you release you give a quick extra rub on her back, hopefully to let her know that you really had a nice time hanging out with her.
You get into your car and tell yourself you can't go there. You're finished with relationships.
You fall out of the relationship loop. You get used to your independence and solitude. You get antsy when you spend too much time around other people. You tell yourself you can never be in a relationship again. You know you will never be in a relationship again.
And then reality hits. You're hanging out with someone. You're chatting into the night. You're going through her photos, and she's close. When your hand incidentally touches her hand, you feel the warmth, the softness, the skin. Just for a moment. You feel the power of being inches away from a person. You notice the fabric of her clothes. You trace the outlines of her hoodie. You look at a photo of her, and then look up, startled that the person in the photo is her(e). When you're leaving, you hug her, and when you release you give a quick extra rub on her back, hopefully to let her know that you really had a nice time hanging out with her.
You get into your car and tell yourself you can't go there. You're finished with relationships.
Saturday, May 25, 2002
Pinback
Incredible show at Bottom of the Hill. The bass player is amazing. I didn't realize that on their latest record, what sounds like low-end guitar is really the bass playing really complicated shit in the upper registers and is the main support instrument.
I got to Bottom of the Hill early. Sadie and Bob also had tickets but were coming later, so I got a drink and went to the front of the stage to stake my claim. There was also another woman there right at the front. I'm not one to talk to strangers, I'm awful at starting random conversations, but she dropped something and so I said, "Hey kid, you dropped something", only I didn't say "kid". So she said thanks, picked it up and asked me if I knew any of the opening bands. We got into a conversation, talking about bands, work, our backgrounds, Taiwan, our childhood, our siblings, blah, blah, blah.
And then Sadie showed, smiling and waving and looking so fine, and she came over to say hi and I introduced them, "This is Sadie, this is . . . sorry, what's your name?". She says her name is Delphine. Upon learning each other's names, one of them, it could have been either, says to the other, "oh, you know Han?".
This city is so small that I've developed a look on my face for occassions such as that. It's a sort of "break-out-of-the-scene-and-look-into-the-camera, oh god, can you believe this?" look. It more often than not involves peering into the imaginary camera over the top of my glasses.
So Delphine knows Han through the personals at Salon.com. Sadie and Han are in a band together. Sadie and Delphine didn't know each other prior, but knew of each other through Han. Me, I'm just a catalyst, not a player in any of this. I close the circle between Han, Sadie, and Delphine, and go off on my merry way. I've done my job. Actually, it's not like that at all, but I wish it were.
I got to Bottom of the Hill early. Sadie and Bob also had tickets but were coming later, so I got a drink and went to the front of the stage to stake my claim. There was also another woman there right at the front. I'm not one to talk to strangers, I'm awful at starting random conversations, but she dropped something and so I said, "Hey kid, you dropped something", only I didn't say "kid". So she said thanks, picked it up and asked me if I knew any of the opening bands. We got into a conversation, talking about bands, work, our backgrounds, Taiwan, our childhood, our siblings, blah, blah, blah.
And then Sadie showed, smiling and waving and looking so fine, and she came over to say hi and I introduced them, "This is Sadie, this is . . . sorry, what's your name?". She says her name is Delphine. Upon learning each other's names, one of them, it could have been either, says to the other, "oh, you know Han?".
This city is so small that I've developed a look on my face for occassions such as that. It's a sort of "break-out-of-the-scene-and-look-into-the-camera, oh god, can you believe this?" look. It more often than not involves peering into the imaginary camera over the top of my glasses.
So Delphine knows Han through the personals at Salon.com. Sadie and Han are in a band together. Sadie and Delphine didn't know each other prior, but knew of each other through Han. Me, I'm just a catalyst, not a player in any of this. I close the circle between Han, Sadie, and Delphine, and go off on my merry way. I've done my job. Actually, it's not like that at all, but I wish it were.
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