SNAPSHOTS
FEBRUARY 20 2005
I wake up blue after a late night-early morning nap at 5:45 AM when everything is a shadow and electric light from the television screen flickers throughout the room. I sit up in bed and put on a shirt and some shorts and wrap a blanket around me like toga. Then I rub the goop from out of my eyes and put on my glasses to read some text scrolling across the bottom of the screen: CNN BREAKING NEWS - HUNTER S. THOMPSON SUICIDE CONFIRMED.
Before I took my nap vague details began to appear but nothing was final. Now that it has become fact, etched into the history books, validated by reluctant voices of family members at numerous press conferences, I cannot help but contemplate the self-determined act, wonder what he felt at the precise moment of exodus. What did you hear then, Hunter? What did you see, or taste, or smell?
What happens when the spirit is ripped from its shell?
I think that death would be much like an adventure to a carnival where the normal and bizarre converge into one; images cease to make sense, pleasure and disgust blend together, what is human and what is Nature completely indistinguishable from each other.
Hunchback and twisting my body to avoid intermittent breezes, I walk out into the dawn and attempt to light a cigarette. Since it is extremely cold I try to remember Henry David Thoreau and his winter walk, how he would hike in the bitter chill past a frozen Walden Pond, how he could imagine a fire rage within his body, deep in his spirit, enabling him to feel warm, as if he were at home in front of the fireplace. For me, at this moment, it is nearly impossible to warm myself through such deliberate thought, especially as a negative fifteen degree wind collides with my face.
Shy clouds sift soft snowflakes all around me which melt and pass away upon contact with my skin; the construction hums and early-bird bums mine dumpsters for scraps and I do not feel, to be honest, normal at all. The moon hangs around for a bit and it is gorgeous and I think to myself i would like to be up more often at dawn when the moon is up and the sun is up and it is in between night and day and it is night and day at the same time. But soon the moon which was once there is now absent and I think of Hunter, and myself, and look out into the desolate empty streets filled with the orange haze of streetlamps and look across to other apartments and homes where all the lonely folk, disparate and cold, sleep in their comfort, utterly deprived.
NOVEMBER 23 2004
WHAT I WILL MISS MOST ABOUT LIFE:
Definitely Thanksgiving, the smell of it all, the smell of grandma's cooking, scent of her perfume and her white crispy hair; the same tattered checkered tablecloth, the special forks and spoons, the beautiful wine glasses which twinkle under the expensive chandelier; the crème colored apron my mother dirties every year, and the jade and gold rings on her torn and battered fingers; and especially, her hearty laugh; the sound of the doorbell and the beeps of mini-vans as they lock; other familiar doors that open and close with a creak; the piano and banjo and the sound of clothes crinkling upon clothes between close and extended hugs; the sighs, the smiles, the cries; the unheard tune sung by someone at a red-light which is viewed through the rear-view mirror; pop rocks and Rubiks cubes and wrist clocks and roller coasters and hot apple cider on a snow day, funnel cakes and bicycle rides with no hands; watching marshmallows melt into hot chocolate; swimming out to the breakers on the lake; the way a tack moves into drywall as it is pushed in; acting pretentious at a coffee-shop porch melting in an afternoon summer sun, a novel with a broken spine next to a lit cigarette burning in the ashtray by the side; fingers which shake uncontrollably between pauses when writing; but most of all the writing: to write and write kept going by the chirps of birds and the reassuring knowledge that there will be early morning dew on the grass; and then the reading of what was written and not even knowing of what it meant or how it was even written at all.
FEBRUARY 20 2006
On the anniversary of Hunter’s death I have no woman, no real job; I live with my brother and his second wife. My infant niece cries in the room next door and wakes me up every night. But I still enjoy writing.
No; I depend on the writing to exist. But I’m not making any money from it; and I’m depressed, almost never sober, cold and hardened and I think often on it – how he closed his eyes, placed the chill metal nozzle, fit it in the soft area under his chin, locked it in place with the pressure of the shotgun pushing against the lower jaw, took in a long, extended breath of dank cabin air, pulled the trigger and then, the white.
CHECK LIST:
1 – Ask a woman if I can get into her pants so as to receive a painful slap across the face. And, hopefully it leaves a mark.
2 – Brand myself with dots through the putting-out of cigarettes on my arm.
3 – Write a poem on a piece of sharp paper and cut the inside webby parts of my fingers and toes.
The checklist will be here to remind of what transpired on that wintery night, that heroic deed; of the snow which fell light like confetti, and the lone sounds of pine tree boughs bending and creaking under the burden of the snow, and of owl’s hoots, and shrieks of mice as talons punctured soft, furry skin; and the sound of the shot rippling through nerves; the tear of flesh and crack of bone—the penetration and blood which birthed a new life.
UNTITLED
running with it even as
the sauce is spilling even
while a guy is pouring
beers in a procession of
neon cars yes candy
runts and human runts
are bouncing in boxes
making click noises and
the mountain theres always
the mountain and free will
to violate traffic law or fry
some eggs in a crooked
skillet hands floppy yolk
wobbly the sun feels hot
on the right cheek my lips
feel dry plaid shirts
are hanging on the line I’ll
have to bring them inside
I ran into an electric fence
looking for my toothbrush
thats a true story just like
when the wind picked a
wine glass up off the
tiled table it popped into
pieces in the air in space
Jane Shim, UPenn 11'
the sauce is spilling even
while a guy is pouring
beers in a procession of
neon cars yes candy
runts and human runts
are bouncing in boxes
making click noises and
the mountain theres always
the mountain and free will
to violate traffic law or fry
some eggs in a crooked
skillet hands floppy yolk
wobbly the sun feels hot
on the right cheek my lips
feel dry plaid shirts
are hanging on the line I’ll
have to bring them inside
I ran into an electric fence
looking for my toothbrush
thats a true story just like
when the wind picked a
wine glass up off the
tiled table it popped into
pieces in the air in space
Jane Shim, UPenn 11'
LIFE
I figure that worry is pretty unproductive. In some cases, it is good, but most of the time people are restricted by it. They get nervous, or plan so much for the future, or are anxious for something. There's a difference between worrying because you want to do well, and worrying because you think you don't have the ability.
Why is love so important to the matter? It has to do with love as an abstraction that is social, not just individual. Love that goes two-ways, and is dependent, not independent. Once at a Christian retreat I learned that you can't really love an object. People 'love' objects, but they really like them. Or, rather, real love is reserved for sentient beings. For instance: I love this hat a lot. I love this beer a little. I love Turbodog more than anything. That's not true love because love doesn't come in degrees. That's 'like.'
My point is, when someone else is having a problem, a person you 'love,' that you don't want to see upset, let's say a friend who you've known and respected and admired for awhile - what does one do? Well one begins to comfort the other person, I would hope. And in those moments of comforting doesn't one usually look for and suggest alternatives, positive alternatives, fantastic outcomes, strategies to change the topic or lighten the mood, say things that are wonderful and great, help, maybe even physically, with whatever situation is at hand.
Anyway. What happens when people begin to face problems of their own?. I think, sometimes people get themselves into trouble, get themselves into an even more upset and angry and sad and whatever emotional, negative state, simply because they forget about the fact that love is two-ways. In a way it's selfish, and in a way it's not.
Let me elaborate.
It is a selfish thing to continue to be upset and continue to worry. Why? Because remember, a person who loves and wants to help someone else would do all the things I suggested up there, and would find perhaps even more inventive and creative ways to ameliorate the pain, assuage the nerves, you get my point.
Point is, if you loved yourself, you would do the same exact thing for yourself. (That's where it's not selfish). So if you help and make another person feel better during times of stress, then you should realize that you, yourself, are made up of lots of different people, and so loving yourself, as selfish as it seems, should mean you comfort yourself and do the things you'd do for someone else for yourself. Surely it is hard and produces doubts, but it is a good way to live, I think.
Doesn't that seem logical?
Why is love so important to the matter? It has to do with love as an abstraction that is social, not just individual. Love that goes two-ways, and is dependent, not independent. Once at a Christian retreat I learned that you can't really love an object. People 'love' objects, but they really like them. Or, rather, real love is reserved for sentient beings. For instance: I love this hat a lot. I love this beer a little. I love Turbodog more than anything. That's not true love because love doesn't come in degrees. That's 'like.'
My point is, when someone else is having a problem, a person you 'love,' that you don't want to see upset, let's say a friend who you've known and respected and admired for awhile - what does one do? Well one begins to comfort the other person, I would hope. And in those moments of comforting doesn't one usually look for and suggest alternatives, positive alternatives, fantastic outcomes, strategies to change the topic or lighten the mood, say things that are wonderful and great, help, maybe even physically, with whatever situation is at hand.
Anyway. What happens when people begin to face problems of their own?. I think, sometimes people get themselves into trouble, get themselves into an even more upset and angry and sad and whatever emotional, negative state, simply because they forget about the fact that love is two-ways. In a way it's selfish, and in a way it's not.
Let me elaborate.
It is a selfish thing to continue to be upset and continue to worry. Why? Because remember, a person who loves and wants to help someone else would do all the things I suggested up there, and would find perhaps even more inventive and creative ways to ameliorate the pain, assuage the nerves, you get my point.
Point is, if you loved yourself, you would do the same exact thing for yourself. (That's where it's not selfish). So if you help and make another person feel better during times of stress, then you should realize that you, yourself, are made up of lots of different people, and so loving yourself, as selfish as it seems, should mean you comfort yourself and do the things you'd do for someone else for yourself. Surely it is hard and produces doubts, but it is a good way to live, I think.
Doesn't that seem logical?
SLOW EDUCATION
A loud clank sounded off Margeurite’s marquis-cut diamond as her hand slapped the glass which covered our black wicker table at dinner; a small bit of mashed-up blueberries and soft, brown crust squished out her mouth. She made a shield with both her hands in front of her face – mush spewing out – her cheeks bright vermillion; she could not stop laughing. I chuckled, took my eyes off of her for a moment, and watched a frumpy woman with subtle facial hair walking her miniature poodle down the road.
The day started off unusually considering that Margeurite, who typically sleeps far longer than I do, was already up and about early. A hazy light came in through the cracks of our lace curtains; she slid about on the hardwood floors in knee-high socks singing Hey when she sings, when she sings when she sings like she runs moves like she runs with her wet hair wrapped in a blue towel turban-style, cuddled in her Princeton literary society sweat-shirt, sleeves rolled up, taking whispering sips of a cup of fresh decaf Sumatra while I migrated and awoke, abruptly and literally, on her side – the wrong side of the bed.
We spent that evening at a cozy restaurant under a wide red and white umbrella when the sun slathered the sky with a Clementine coat; fat, pregnant pigeons parachuted from the flat tops of tall plane trees which lined the sidewalks every fifteen feet or so, swooping down, causing a loud commotion, eager for a free meal.
While I watched Margeurite eat the remainder of her croustade aux bleu, pausing every few seconds to pat her belly with a satisfied look, I felt that I could picture in my mind with clarity the revolution that took place here hundreds of years ago; the women in Parisian markets demanding that they have their bread; men with garden tools, makeshift weapons and pots for helmets marching through these very streets on the way to Versailles; the birth of a new modern age conceived by the purging of God’s sons and daughters.
Well, that pleasant Bastille Day evening the air was warm and wrapped around my body like a flannel blanket on a cold winter’s day. While we waited to pay for our dinner Margeurite, whose eyes were large and wide, put her hand on top of mine lovingly as we watched two pigeons peck at a piece of old crust, politely, together. Her hair, a mix of burnt rust and sunny blonde, flowed gently like a thick liquid, levitating on the currents of a light summer breeze. She wrote “I love you” in the condensation of her glass and took a sip of her water.
“Going to have a cigarette?” she asked, scooting her chair back so as to recline, “I can wait here for the check. Besides, I don’t think I can get up and walk at this point.”
I said yes and offered her the rest of my crème Brule. She gladly accepted. Taking the last gulp of my glass of Chianti I stepped away from the table and walked towards the front doors, away from the patrons, to smoke a cigarette.
I happened upon an elderly Asian man sitting on the street on top of a bamboo mat with sunglasses on, humming what sounded like the Time’s Are-a-Changin’, shaking the loose change in his cup as if it were a tambourine. When he saw me he stopped altogether and stared up.
“THIS IS WATER!” he exclaimed, in a amalgamation of accents, French, Chinese(?), English.
“Excuse me?”
The man began to rock back and forth violently, pointing at random objects around us (a fire hydrant, a piece of old gum on the sidewalk).
“THIS IS WATER! THIS IS WATER! THIS IS WATER!”
At first, I thought what most people in this situation would think to themselves, This guy is absolutely bat-shit crazy. I remembered, right then, my graduation ceremony at Kenyon in 05’. David Foster Wallace spoke and I remembered vividly his opening remarks, a story. It goes: “There are two young fish swimming, and they meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys, how's the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’”
Everything is water; this is water, all of this – it’s water.
I highly doubted that this French-Asian man had heard of David Foster Wallace, let alone a commencement speech he gave at a tiny liberal arts college in Ohio, and assumed that Foster Wallace had stolen the idea from this mystical Eastern French Asian man.
Leaning against the brick of the building I made a wreck of my cigarette and pondered the morning, the uneasy and unfamiliar feeling which crept into my spirit from deep within my depths, the sudden transformation that occurred to me as I confronted a history not my own, but still partly my own. Taking time to be mindful, I began to imagine all the wide-eyed precocious young American students filing into the Louvre with backpacks and marble black notebooks and red pens behind their ears; tasted the beef and potato stew that was being boiled in a tiny tenement home while young black children wrestled one another; felt the reverberations of waves crashing against the bank of the Seine; and, could even hear the whipping cast of a fisherman’s line as it flung out towards some innocent fish.
I sat cross-legged in a lotus position and chanted with him in a perfect language: “THIS IS WATER THIS IS WATER THIS IS WATER, THIS IS WATER …”
The day started off unusually considering that Margeurite, who typically sleeps far longer than I do, was already up and about early. A hazy light came in through the cracks of our lace curtains; she slid about on the hardwood floors in knee-high socks singing Hey when she sings, when she sings when she sings like she runs moves like she runs with her wet hair wrapped in a blue towel turban-style, cuddled in her Princeton literary society sweat-shirt, sleeves rolled up, taking whispering sips of a cup of fresh decaf Sumatra while I migrated and awoke, abruptly and literally, on her side – the wrong side of the bed.
We spent that evening at a cozy restaurant under a wide red and white umbrella when the sun slathered the sky with a Clementine coat; fat, pregnant pigeons parachuted from the flat tops of tall plane trees which lined the sidewalks every fifteen feet or so, swooping down, causing a loud commotion, eager for a free meal.
While I watched Margeurite eat the remainder of her croustade aux bleu, pausing every few seconds to pat her belly with a satisfied look, I felt that I could picture in my mind with clarity the revolution that took place here hundreds of years ago; the women in Parisian markets demanding that they have their bread; men with garden tools, makeshift weapons and pots for helmets marching through these very streets on the way to Versailles; the birth of a new modern age conceived by the purging of God’s sons and daughters.
Well, that pleasant Bastille Day evening the air was warm and wrapped around my body like a flannel blanket on a cold winter’s day. While we waited to pay for our dinner Margeurite, whose eyes were large and wide, put her hand on top of mine lovingly as we watched two pigeons peck at a piece of old crust, politely, together. Her hair, a mix of burnt rust and sunny blonde, flowed gently like a thick liquid, levitating on the currents of a light summer breeze. She wrote “I love you” in the condensation of her glass and took a sip of her water.
“Going to have a cigarette?” she asked, scooting her chair back so as to recline, “I can wait here for the check. Besides, I don’t think I can get up and walk at this point.”
I said yes and offered her the rest of my crème Brule. She gladly accepted. Taking the last gulp of my glass of Chianti I stepped away from the table and walked towards the front doors, away from the patrons, to smoke a cigarette.
I happened upon an elderly Asian man sitting on the street on top of a bamboo mat with sunglasses on, humming what sounded like the Time’s Are-a-Changin’, shaking the loose change in his cup as if it were a tambourine. When he saw me he stopped altogether and stared up.
“THIS IS WATER!” he exclaimed, in a amalgamation of accents, French, Chinese(?), English.
“Excuse me?”
The man began to rock back and forth violently, pointing at random objects around us (a fire hydrant, a piece of old gum on the sidewalk).
“THIS IS WATER! THIS IS WATER! THIS IS WATER!”
At first, I thought what most people in this situation would think to themselves, This guy is absolutely bat-shit crazy. I remembered, right then, my graduation ceremony at Kenyon in 05’. David Foster Wallace spoke and I remembered vividly his opening remarks, a story. It goes: “There are two young fish swimming, and they meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys, how's the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’”
Everything is water; this is water, all of this – it’s water.
I highly doubted that this French-Asian man had heard of David Foster Wallace, let alone a commencement speech he gave at a tiny liberal arts college in Ohio, and assumed that Foster Wallace had stolen the idea from this mystical Eastern French Asian man.
Leaning against the brick of the building I made a wreck of my cigarette and pondered the morning, the uneasy and unfamiliar feeling which crept into my spirit from deep within my depths, the sudden transformation that occurred to me as I confronted a history not my own, but still partly my own. Taking time to be mindful, I began to imagine all the wide-eyed precocious young American students filing into the Louvre with backpacks and marble black notebooks and red pens behind their ears; tasted the beef and potato stew that was being boiled in a tiny tenement home while young black children wrestled one another; felt the reverberations of waves crashing against the bank of the Seine; and, could even hear the whipping cast of a fisherman’s line as it flung out towards some innocent fish.
I sat cross-legged in a lotus position and chanted with him in a perfect language: “THIS IS WATER THIS IS WATER THIS IS WATER, THIS IS WATER …”
FILLMORE JIVE
instead of being up and awake at four in the morning while a monsoon rain rakes against my windowpane, while i rummage through luggage and suitcases filled with album after album of old family photos, i need to sleep. rather than impossibly yearn to go back in time to the precise moment captured in the particular photo i hold in my shaky hands, of my father when he was ten years old, a stone faced boy in a navy blue school uniform with a cold smile sitting on the steps of a temple in North Korea, i need to be comfortable and cozy, dozing off to dream of snacking on Klondike bars and playing guitar in a fort with a golden retriever who smokes cigarettes and plays the bass.
i would like to not be nostalgic – to not have this deep desire to get dirty and dig into the depths of time, to infiltrate history, to be transposed to the precise moment my father prepared for the snapshot and squinted from the flash of the camera. i cannot help it though; i want to know him then, know what he thought of when he woke up and felt a chilly breeze blow in from the window, when he would dip his legs into a cool lake on a summer day, when he laid on dewy grass in the morning staring up into the clouds. i want to have known him before he gave me a name, before, on lonely days, i would drive in the snow on the back-roads of Ohio forgetting to relish in the beauty of winter because the darkness of my mind put me in a slumber; before i read a poem that told me that we learn the most from what's fallen. he would not have known then, in that moment in 1953, as boundaries were drawn across the land, that one day i would figure out that all life is is an imprint on my brain of a hummingbird who came by to say hello as i rainbow-watched and smoked a cigarette; that would have been before another day of gray sky, when i would happen upon a couple of teary-eyed folk in embrace kneeling in front of a grave and would find myself in wonder and want to feel and know the depths of their anguish, and the reason for their pain; before i would take long walks along the beach for a good while, a mile or two, thinking of all of the lonely aimless souls who walk as well, wondering under the chandelier of night, asking themselves quietly under their breath, how many children want for the love of someone else?
i'd like to sleep but for some reason i can't, not even when i try to meditate. i will try to sleep soon and want to sleep soon and will give up this fantastic idea of transportation to another time and place because it is impossible to actually time-travel – and if i could, i don’t think i would be able to change anything because if i did the photo would not exist in the same manner in the future, and would not have inspired this insomniac state. so i do not wish to go back, after all; i do not wish to change the past—would not even for the chance to see pavement reunite. i just need to sleep.
but i am writing now, instead of searching, rather than sleeping. i write because to write is to be in a kind of sleep; it is free like a dream; you can write whatever and it all has meaning (or none at all). instead of being awake rummaging through paper memories i will write and it will suffice—it is nearly better than sleep.
i would like to not be nostalgic – to not have this deep desire to get dirty and dig into the depths of time, to infiltrate history, to be transposed to the precise moment my father prepared for the snapshot and squinted from the flash of the camera. i cannot help it though; i want to know him then, know what he thought of when he woke up and felt a chilly breeze blow in from the window, when he would dip his legs into a cool lake on a summer day, when he laid on dewy grass in the morning staring up into the clouds. i want to have known him before he gave me a name, before, on lonely days, i would drive in the snow on the back-roads of Ohio forgetting to relish in the beauty of winter because the darkness of my mind put me in a slumber; before i read a poem that told me that we learn the most from what's fallen. he would not have known then, in that moment in 1953, as boundaries were drawn across the land, that one day i would figure out that all life is is an imprint on my brain of a hummingbird who came by to say hello as i rainbow-watched and smoked a cigarette; that would have been before another day of gray sky, when i would happen upon a couple of teary-eyed folk in embrace kneeling in front of a grave and would find myself in wonder and want to feel and know the depths of their anguish, and the reason for their pain; before i would take long walks along the beach for a good while, a mile or two, thinking of all of the lonely aimless souls who walk as well, wondering under the chandelier of night, asking themselves quietly under their breath, how many children want for the love of someone else?
i'd like to sleep but for some reason i can't, not even when i try to meditate. i will try to sleep soon and want to sleep soon and will give up this fantastic idea of transportation to another time and place because it is impossible to actually time-travel – and if i could, i don’t think i would be able to change anything because if i did the photo would not exist in the same manner in the future, and would not have inspired this insomniac state. so i do not wish to go back, after all; i do not wish to change the past—would not even for the chance to see pavement reunite. i just need to sleep.
but i am writing now, instead of searching, rather than sleeping. i write because to write is to be in a kind of sleep; it is free like a dream; you can write whatever and it all has meaning (or none at all). instead of being awake rummaging through paper memories i will write and it will suffice—it is nearly better than sleep.
SUNRISE, SUNSET
wake up in the morning and tell yourself that life is beautiful and it is a new day and although it is a cliche remember that the potential for new things to happen is always around us so take advantage of it, tell someone you think their hair looks nice or that their shoes are cute or that you like their laugh or just smile and let your eyes do the talking. it is good to simply wake up and smell the coffee and know with full confidence that the day you are about to experience has never been experienced by anyone, and has not been planned, and cannot be predicted or determined - at least not wholly and completely. so, who knows, perhaps you will meet someone today who will change your life, or read a poem that makes you feel more than you've ever felt before, or simply find yourself lost for a second or two in the most peaceful state you've ever been in. all that is possible because life is not over at all, it has just begun.
UNTITLED
families are minor keys like Ramadan and honesty is powerful it crumbles like rusks
it sticks like hitchhiker skin just having some laughs during backlit dinners
dusty flat feet deserted and hiding thin wrists under medium weight jackets
lagging speech hesitating in ritardandos which are just that beautiful
letters are pieces peeling tumbling like pumpkins and bobbing like puppets
last year I saw you sit in filtered sunshine the room was like a cave but you
inspired it with flowers once I exchanged email addresses with a complete stranger
who intimidated me I didn’t like it and wished he was still bent and blooming
conviction it settles in an instant in the time it takes hangnails to bleed
in the time it takes to try honesty in the time it takes to go to school and come home
arched eyebrows like bird feathers from the rump while Satchmo’s lips buzz
anxious and psycho just please no more lists or anger or any of that teeth clenching business
only when we are alone and leaning real far away from yellow clouds
I didn’t miss it when you moved away just scratched my chin and slouched a little in my chair
JANE SHIM, UPenn 11'
it sticks like hitchhiker skin just having some laughs during backlit dinners
dusty flat feet deserted and hiding thin wrists under medium weight jackets
lagging speech hesitating in ritardandos which are just that beautiful
letters are pieces peeling tumbling like pumpkins and bobbing like puppets
last year I saw you sit in filtered sunshine the room was like a cave but you
inspired it with flowers once I exchanged email addresses with a complete stranger
who intimidated me I didn’t like it and wished he was still bent and blooming
conviction it settles in an instant in the time it takes hangnails to bleed
in the time it takes to try honesty in the time it takes to go to school and come home
arched eyebrows like bird feathers from the rump while Satchmo’s lips buzz
anxious and psycho just please no more lists or anger or any of that teeth clenching business
only when we are alone and leaning real far away from yellow clouds
I didn’t miss it when you moved away just scratched my chin and slouched a little in my chair
JANE SHIM, UPenn 11'
NATURE
Chiura Obata
There are worlds of experience beyond the world of the aggressive man, beyond history, and beyond science. The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are equally difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit. - Ansel Adams
LOVE VIGILANTE
it has been 7 months since the break-up. how time flies. i am single but it doesn't mean i don't love or care for someone, and it doesn't mean that others don't love and care for me. what is most important, anyway, is to love yourself first before you love someone else. it's good to know who you are, and to be comfortable with all the things that are not you - because what's not you makes you. but i am extremely happy being in Phil's body, having his thoughts, being moved by the things that move him, smiling at the things that make him smile. i am glad that i am here in this body because Phil is a good guy. and the fact that i am happy with myself, confident and understanding of my powers, and limitations, i don't have so much to worry about and so i can truly help and focus on others. if, during a week-span, i have made one person giggle or smile to themselves, or have them think of me in a beautifully complimentary way, i can keep going living life and being happy not thinking about civil war in Somalia, or the endless poverty happening in the ghettos, or the crazy conservative extreme fundamentalist christians bringing down our country, or the fact that i do not have a "girlfriend."
PUNK IN THE BEERLIGHT
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec said it best: “One should never meet a man whose work one admires. The man is always so much less than the work.”
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