recollections.

sometimes memories catch you most unexpectedly. sometimes you go back to get something and stumble and stub your toe on something else entirely that you had forgotten in the darkness. the funny thing about recollections is that even when you gather up everything you can find, you still don't feel whole - you're collecting these parts of you, and when you try to put them altogether, they don't create what you want, even if you're not entirely sure what it is that you want.

memories are our way of aging our lives. when you dehydrate something, you completely change the nature of what you started with. you lose the messy juiciness and vibrance of flavor and are left with something with only enough resemblance of the original product so you vaguely remember what it started as. it's a muted version of when something was alive, pulsing, vibrant.

sometimes i like the aged version of foods - like raisins. i'm not a fan of grapes, but there's a tinge of sadness contained within raisins.

i know i don't like to remember some things just because i miss the messy boldness of what it was to live those moments. i resent the muteness. i resent the lamination of real life to protect it enough to carry it around with me. so i pretend i don't carry those memories - not because they were bad moments necessarily, but because there's a hint of melancholy involved as i also remember what it was like to be alive in those moments. and that's in the best memories.

the thing about recollections is that it's rarely re-collecting anything. it's re-creating, trying to force the life back into something that was left for dead long ago. and there's a part of me that remembers just enough to know that there were these times that filled me so that i could no longer contain it, and i know that every time i write, i am yearning for definition, for precision, but sometimes, the more i write, the clearer it is that the moments have oozed beyond the barriers of any container i thought to put them in, and the more i write, the more sullied they become, the more i re-create rather than re-collect.

i like to think that i fight for truth every day. but what is true is often fiction, or so we're told. so i just tell myself, just as long as it's not false, that's all that matters. maybe facts are never true without a little fiction. and so i busy myself with recollection, trying to mute the emotive responses that accompany my re-creations.

fortune/desire.

fortune:

Maybe you can live on the moon in next century.
- last fortune cookie

desire:

and in the brief moment that is today
wild hope this dreamer jars
for I have heard in whispers talk
of life on other stars.
- Audre Lorde

quote of the day:

"shoot to kill in order to protect policy" - Sir Ian Blair

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4159310.stm

i thought that *pre-emptive war* won the prize for tautological logic, but i was wrong.

excitement.

http://www.walken2008.com/index.html

profiling.

sometimes, i read commentary, and i cringe at the display of imprecise thinking being presented as truth, the disingenuity presented as self-awareness of the most honest sort. it is hard work, this providing commentary struggling with troubling issues in the world justifying one's own bigotry. the struggle for most paid commentators, it seems to me, is one of how best to present the irrationality of bigotry as the objective truth. it is so convincing, that i have to remind myself sometimes that i am not crazy, that my friends have to remind me that what is crazy is what is being presented as truth.

i was told recently, "all muslims aren't terrorists, but it is unfortunate that all terrorists are muslims". this is, of course, what we are being told on a daily basis, sometimes with subtlety, most of the time not. to question this very basic assumption is to raise suspicions from those around you. although i expect very little from people of either the right or the left variety, the discouragement compounds as i realize that courage is so loosely defined as to be rendered effectively meaningless - as in, does a rubber band have a purpose if you take away its elasticity?

courage these days is used to describe questioning of not the fact that we are engaged in policies of systematically taking away rights of members of certain groups, conceiving of more and more laws that can be used retroactively, hoping to assuage the fear of the powerful majority by exponentially increasing the fears of everyone else. rather, courage these days is defined when people thoughtfully consider which profiling is acceptable in which circumstances. which is to say, thoughtful people seem to agree that as long as policy is not intentionally racist, racism as a byproduct is something that no one has to like, but must be acceptable considering the circumstances. to disagree is to be hopelessly naive, or even worse, a traitor.

in other words, there is a price to be paid for security. many people seem to be willing to accept that price, but i wonder if they would hesitate a bit more if they were the ones actually paying that price. in britain, a brazilian man was shot 8 times in point-blank range because he looked like he could have been a terrorist. no one asked him if he was willing to pay that price so that others could see that anti-terror forces were doing their jobs, shooting to kill, and sometimes mistakes are made, but that is the price for white security. in a world of majority rule, the majority has dictated that that price is acceptable. indeed, the fact that he tried to run away displays his guilt of something - of what, we're not quite sure, but certainly he was no ingenue.

on the other hand, white men find the us-canadian border conveniently porous for their purposes; post-war stress explains civilian violence for this marine of the year; trying to smuggle a bomb onto a plane is emptied of the symbolism of hate if it occurs in oklahoma, a reaction that seems incredibly mild considering the state's experience with the boy next door; the most outrage we've managed to muster around the eric rudolph case is the supposedly unfair implication to supreme court nominee john roberts, jr; and shooting a gun is a good way to let off some steam. how much more evidence do we need that profiling is just bad policy?

i wonder how much it will take before we demand an interrogation of white male privilege that serves to legitimize the highest incidences of violence internationally. when are we going to hold white men accountable for this violence that is systematic? when are we going to stop pretending that violence is radical?

forgiveness.

it seems that we all have many lessons to learn in how to live, and they keep recurring in our lives until we've learned them well, every new lesson adding more nuance to that which we already know. i like to joke sometimes that i'm a slow learner. the thing about humor is that the best humor is subtle - it has enough truth in it to give one pause. an obvious joke only elicits a groan at best, and in my residual attempts at being the smart-ass kid that can make everyone laugh, i know that most of my humor is a bit wry, a bit edgy, a bit dark, and lately, a bit more self-deprecating. my friends who know me the best do not appreciate much of my humor these days. but getting back to the matter at hand, the concept of forgiveness has been something that keeps coming back in my thoughts, no matter how far i push it away, never satisfied with this or the other cliche, attaching itself, rather obtrusively i might add, to other conversations.

awhile ago, i read an article about the rwandan genocide, and paul wolfowitz in his new position at the world bank issued a formal apology stating something to the effect of "well, there's really not much we can do about it now, but we should at least say we're sorry for what happened". the thing about formal apologies is that they are rarely, if ever, real apologies. real apologies happen face to face, in moments of intense vulnerability. real apologies are perhaps the most intimate we can ever become with another human being. i have a hard time imagining wolfowitz allowing for that sort of intimacy and vulnerability, but i have also been told at times that i lack a certain capacity for imagination. the thought that i've been holding on to since reading that article has been "let's not confuse an apologist for an apology". i'm pretty proud of that line. but taking that line from the macro-critique of the crazy world in which we live, to the lives which we lead, is another thing altogether. suddenly, it's a lot less poetic and a lot less clever. now it's just damn judgemental. that's just mean.

but i want to talk about forgiveness because i yearn to understand it, viscerally. none of this talking around it that i've been engaging in for the better part of a year now. i wonder sometimes if we ever really forgive others in our lives for slights, real and imagined because intent to cause pain is really beside the point. it may be imagined to you, but it's real to me - that sort of thing. it occurred to me recently that perhaps we never really forgive those people who have hurt us the most - at least not in the way that all the self-help books tell you you should be able to forgive. you know, be the bigger person, practice love, let it go, move on with your life. no doubt, i'm a mover. i move quickly and often. but in my interactions with people, i know that my guardedness stems from not being able to forgive somebody else, in some other time.

and sometimes, i am so thoroughly convinced that i have managed to forgive somebody for that thing that happened however long ago that i can't even remember now what exactly happened and who said what and who did what, but then something happens that triggers the memory, and you can't always control what happens after the trigger is set. one of the most perplexing paradoxes seems to me to be the fact that those you love the most, can also be those you just cannot forgive. because it's the most hurtful things that are the hardest to forgive, but also the most necessary to forgive.

the trick about forgiveness is that i think that real forgiveness occurs when i can say that in those moments that i have such a hard time letting go, things did not go as i would have liked, setting me in a slightly different direction than i intended to go, but looking around now, i like where i'm at and can appreciate it enough to say that whatever got me here, was worth experiencing to get me through that which allowed me to be exactly here. it is, i think, perhaps one of the most difficult tricks we have to learn. it is also about forgiving one's self enough to really like her.

i like to think of it as a sort of method acting. there is always a space between who we are and who we want to be, and in order to get from here to there, we do our best to pretend that that space doesn't really exist. the more we can disappear into the role of who we want to be, the more convincing we are, and at some point, perception becomes reality. much like hegel's concept of thesis, antithesis, synthesis process on a personal level. i think the people i admire and respect the most are the best method actors. they have an uncanny ability to disappear into that role, such that there is no role.

i forget sometimes that truth is always simple. i like to pretend that forgiveness is complicated because it is difficult to execute, and i lose sense of content for form. but i think it's this simple: forgiveness is about practicing love until you can just live lovingly, because love demands acceptance of others and the self for who we are, in this moment, not who we want to be or wish others could be. forgiveness is about being able to see the difference between what is and what is possible.

image.

the power of image lies in its subtleties, in what is hidden from first sight, in the possibilities that remain after the immediate gratification of what is known. the best images present more questions than answers - a sense of intrigue. the best images make us reflect on the spaces between the parts that, together, result in what we consider the image. the less imagination required, the lesser the image.

image seems to be placed somewhere in between mirage and truth. maybe the best images achieve both. i was told recently "you are not the laura i fell in love with". it kind of blew me away for a lot of reasons, but i've been trying to hold myself accountable to this idea of emotional honesty, considering my various rythyms, and i know that, in fact, i am a horrible dancer, and i try to hide it by posturing from one end of the room to the other, with a shiny something or other in hand for diversion. when it comes to emotional honesty, i've got some very convincing moves. so i wonder about the nature of this other laura.

i am so intent on trying to prove my invulnerability, my brashness, my strength, that i position the pieces so that they are jammed up against each other, as a sort of dare for anyone to try to see past it. i don't like to leave anything to the imagination - i'd rather tell someone who i am, rather than have them figure it out on their own. maybe because i like the image i can present better than the unfiltered version of who i actually am. and i dislike ambiguity so the spaces between the contradictions and uncertainies and loves and whatnot, all hold something that will betray the woman i want to be. i am sure of it.

i said once that i consider myself to be a smiley person. the laughter was deafening. i forget sometimes that most of my smiling is done out of sight. after all, as any thai person could tell you, smiles are subtle.

hanging on

because i read something like this, and it renews me. rhian, i'm not sure that your words would have meant anything to that man or his children, either, but keep writing, sister, because this is the reason why i keep reading. because there is always the possibility that i might stumble across something that is worth reading, and most often, the things worth reading are those things that people write because they need to write it for themselves. have your freeze-dried strawberry ice cream if you must, but you know that it is not sufficient to sustain you. and it shouldn't be. astronauts have the luxury of ignoring gravity so can survive with lighter fare. let's not pretend that we should be able to do the same. there are things we know exist, even if we can't see them. things we feel, even if we can't touch them. your words mean something to those who can listen to what you're saying, and know enough to sense what it is that you are not saying.

Waste nothing, chica, not even pain. Particularly not pain.
- Eudora in Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde.

Terror?

this is a draft version that came from lack of sleep for many reasons, of which this is only one.

Last week, Tony Blair announced an ostensibly new policy of deporting "extremists", regardless of the human rights policies of the country of origin, defying international law. Ostensibly new because this is actually the de facto policy, justified by this extended War on Terror, now made de jure. Forgive me if I am a bit reticent in accepting that this is what must be done to protect ourselves and each other from terrorists. I question the ethics of governments that so narrowly define terrorism as individual acts, except for when referring to an entire group that they can now conveniently vilify since they did not agree with them anyway.

When I think of things that I am truly terrified of, it is not the possibility of a terrorist attack so narrowly defined. I realize that this is partly a luxury of knowing that where I live, what I do, who I am, doesn't make me the most appealing target. But mostly, it is because what terrifies me are my everyday realities.

I am terrified that my nephews are growing up in a world that encourages them to disown me because of who I may choose to date and partner with. I am terrified that my stubborness in acknowledging the truth (on my best days), will someday be the end of me. I am terrified that another man I know will choose to see me as an object to be assaulted. I am terrified that the last question I will ever be asked will be "Did you live ethically?" and my response will not be an unqualified yes. I am terrified that people will continue to refuse to take my experiences as an East Asian woman seriously. I am terrified of not knowing reciprocal love. I am terrified that my various addictions and ways in which I cope with the world will reduce my ability to be an actor in it. I am terrified that those I love carry these and other terrors that prevent them from falling asleep at night and make them reluctant to wake up in the morning. There are many many things that I am terrified of, but most of all, I am terrified that all of these terrors I carry around with me, will never go away. Will have no reason to go away.

As Blair and Bush continue their asinine strategies to maintain lies as if they were truths, it occurs to me that policies rooted in terror of what would happen if one were not the oppressor have never been, and never will be, ethical. I like to think that eventually, what is right has, and will, prevail. This, I know, is optimistic to the point of hurting.

But let us each hope, for the sake of letting go of at least some of our terrors, that this is true. And that this will happen sooner rather than later for those whose terror is the terror of waking up, knowing that one's very existence is enough of a threat to justify one's nonexistence.

the perfect set.

last night, as i was belting out my best renditions of a gritty, world-weary, southern whiskey-drinkin', pall mall smokin' throaty voice, trying to keep up with lucinda williams, i discovered a new dream. maybe someday, given a little time to work on my voice to get it to the point where perfect pitch doesn't matter, adding in a little inflection, i have dreams of being among the elite east asian country singer-songwriters. i figure it can't be too hard since i don't really know that there are any right now, and maybe somewhere, there are some more east asian lucinda williams-philes, but still. i think i have a good shot. my birthday's coming up, so if you must get me something, my wishlist is a a carton of pall malls, unfiltered, and a bottle of scotch. just so you know. i'll start slowly with the alcohol - perhaps beginning with a nightcap. and i think i have enough practice with cigarettes to make a real go of it. at that point, i might have enough songs about *beautiful losers*, as she so eloquently put it last night, to make a full length cd. she was so wonderful that a man screamed out a marriage proposal to her in the middle of her set. a gay man. that's how good she was. i was trying to think of something similar that i could yell out to her, but i couldn't come up with anything shorter than "lucinda, i love you. if i believed in marriage, i'd propose, but you can best believe that this offer is as close as i'll ever get to a marriage proposal!". for some reason, i thought that that would be a bit hard to fully comprehend. it's amazing to me that someone is able to write for themselves, and yet still be able to make everyone in the room feel as if she were having an intimate conversation with her.

hence the marriage proposal. and hence the consideration of the non-marriage proposal.

and her songs were all about brokenness and loves she had and lives she's lived and all of that stuff that you know if you just thought about all of that hurt and nostalgia and melancholy, you'd be kicking your own ass or your friend would or whatever, for being so deeply self-involved and self-indulgent, but somehow, she makes it seem as though that's the only reasonable thing to do. and she wasn't missing the idea of anything - she was just missing that which she once had or thought she knew.

me, too, lucinda. me, too.

but she sang it all in a way where you just knew that she was alright. that maybe she was tapping into a lot of anger and bitterness and resentment about what various people wanted her to be to them, about people asking her for things she was unwilling to give, about people unwilling to accept her on her own terms as she stood in front of them, about not being enough for the various people she's loved, about fucking up and not being forgiven, about not getting somewhere quite fast enough to make it work, about desiring herself to be somebody she knows she isn't, about desiring someone else to be someone she knows they aren't, about all of that that we all carry around with us all the time, but her wryness and honesty were enough to make me believe that she knows she has more living to do and more songs to write. that she saved the hardest things for last - that writing love songs is harder than writing any other songs.

i'm getting there, lucinda. i'm getting there.

what i mean when i say i'm a writer.

i said that i'm a writer, an aspiring one at that, and offered to write some words if that's what she wanted. she looked at me hard for a minute, reached into her pocket and pulled out a dollar. she said that she'd pay me five cents a word, so they'd better be worth it. and maybe if they were good enough, she'd see what else was in her pockets. i looked at her for a second and told her i'd probably be able to come up with something. after some thinking, all i could come up with was three words. she asked for her change, and while smoking my cigarette, i muttered under my breath that some words are worth more than others - there's no change left. i wrote "fuck this shit" on my 7-11 receipt and walked away.

i guess i'm not a paid-by-the-word type of writer. at least, i'm hoping i'm not.

sometimes, someone will look at my work and comment that it's great. they loved it. except for this one thing, you know, just change this one thing, and then it'd be perfect. then it'd be what they've been wanting to read and wishing someone has written. i've wasted too much time trying to make what i write what someone wants to read. what i write is who i am. if there's something that someone's wishing they could read, they should write it their own damn selves.

working.

laura asked me a couple of times yesterday if i'd read the news of the day. i hadn't because there's something very freeing about not sitting in front of a computer all day looking at news that all looks the same, no matter where you're looking. but this morning, i walked outside to have a cigarette with my first cup of coffee, sitting on the stoop like i like to do, sweating, but blissfully enjoying the hot hot sun, in a way that's only possible when you know that you can go back to your air-conditioned apartment whenever you want, and there was the saturday new york times at my feet. i'm a sucker for the news - i can never go too long without it, so i picked it up, and just reading the front page was enough for me to be disgusted and unwilling to read the rest of the paper. my resistance. haha. as if resistance can ever be feigned indifference, deliberate ignorance. but then i worked out and worked up a sweat, pulling my mind back to where it left my body. i'll let the outrage simmer for a bit, just to boiling, and see where it takes me.

but at the moment, there's shopping and cooking to be done. because lindsay and josh are in town!!!

sinking.

slowly. not so slowly as to be preventable or controllable. just quick enough to assert the futility of resistance. it's more of an added weight; increased inertia. but sinking only earns its negative connotation if you're below sea level. otherwise it's just another mode of transport. not necessarily the most efficient perhaps, but the most solitary, yes?

getting home after a long day, longer than any day has a right to be, stripping myself of clothing and other gratuitous trappings, stumbling to that well worn chair that knows the slight curving and sloping of my body, the parts that never seem to relax, the things i can never let go, and i sink. sinking into that comfortable space that knows me so intimately, cradling my imperfections, somehow discovering those parts that have managed to be unsullied in my encounters with the world. sinking. and my jaw slowly starts to unclench for the first time, my fists unravel. and i'm laughing with my entire body at the absurdity of it all. i had thought that i needed to jump in order to get from there to here, but i've never liked heights. at the end of the day, all i want to do is sink. it's not glamorous, i suppose, this sinking thing, but it's hard to jump with this chip on my shoulder and baggage in hand. today, i don't need to jump. i just need to sink.

reading material.

so, i'm just curious, uh, why do you always have newspapers here?

umm...so people can read them...

oh, okay, just curious.

right. what's up with people? god, i can be a really big bitch.

today i finally finished alphabetizing the office library of one of the senior fellows who is currently on vacation. it took me so long because i'm a horrible procrastinator. i must say, i'm impressed with some of his books, and i wonder if he's read all of them. there's something very intimate about going through someone's book collection, but i'm saved from too much intimacy because i'm sure that the books that tell the real story are probably at home. the ones that are in his office, though - i wonder about those. it's a collection of an academic who takes the idea of rationality and balance and objectiveness seriously, it seems. and then, all of a sudden, there's a collection of poems by june jordan. hm. a bit incongruous. interesting.

anyway, whenever i have a chance to look at the books people deem important enough to own, i do wonder about that space between having a book in one's possession and having a book in one's mind. and then i think, maybe this guy has read all of these books. hm. which then presents the interesting question of how we read. as someone who checks out books at various libraries for him, i would bet that he's a hard-core skimmer. he goes through too many books to actually have digested all of that mess. and i don't blame him - most of the books i've seen him reading have looked rather uninteresting and uninspiring to say the least. i wonder what he actually enjoys reading.

i have dreams of a large living room lined with bookshelves. my very own personal library. not so concerned with projecting an image of detached objectivity as opposed to confrontational subjectivity. that seems to me to be the only rationality worth attaining.

when i was a kid, i'd disappear for hours, only to emerge for brief periods of forced niceties, after which i would escape again to various worlds that were not my own, but which often felt more real and definite than i ever imagined mine could be. the difference now is that i escape within books that reinforce my reality in various ways. i have grown up to be much more of a critic, but what is it that is so addictive about reading a story that is not your own, and yet, you can imagine it as if it were? reading, i think, was my first real addiction. the monkey on my back that i've never been able to shake. i have to cut myself off from the constant access of online bookstores that make searching for books so simple, buying them with just one click. and what? there's a recommendation for me! how thoughtful. and so it goes. and then i remind myself of the stack of books by my bed; the books on my shelf that i haven't gotten to just yet but have every intention to do so soon; the books that i'm currently reading and have been reading, but with the attention span shorter than i am, the delicious possibility of yet another book is always waiting, gently pulling, feigning patience for my attention, as i think, yes, well, this book, this book could be the one i've waited my entire life to read. this is the book that will grant me clarity. purpose.

right on, k.

i've fallen in love. again. and yes, k, it would be amazing if coffee came in flavors of music. in your imagained coffee house, i just ordered a large cup of shelby lynne. with a refill. i'm just waking up. her subtleties linger on my palate as only well-written verses can. at the moment, i'm convinced that our crises of identity not be contained to a particular moment, but rather a track that comes up in the shuffle again and again. or maybe that's me projecting. heh.

sometimes the bus ride is too short.

i figure i should put this down before i lose the receipt i wrote this on (it was a long-ass receipt related to the new jack nicklaus 5 pound notes put out by scotland, which by the way, are a bit difficult to acquire.)

i am forever criticizing this, that, or the other. there was a woman reading Lolita at a bus stop. beyond wondering what the allure is of reading about a supposed love affair of an old man with an adolescent girl (rave reviews notwithstanding), seeing this woman made me think of the conversations i've had with friends about Lolita in Tehran. rather, not much conversations about that in particular, more than a reason to speak more generally about representation. for much of what is written, my question is whether or not the writer has questioned power and privilege deeply enough. is something really feminist if one is still holding on to the ideal of white bourgeouis womanhood (consciously or no)? is something really radically anti-racist if one is silent about the oppression of women or explicitly women-hating? i think not. is something rational merely because it assumes, without acknowledging, white male power? i misunderstand rationality if that is the case.

when i write, this is one of my greatest fears; one of my greatest impediments to writing - that reading something i've written, if reading from my critical lens, will cause me to frown at the end because of its incomplete/dishonest attempts at truth. my insecurity about writing that others see has everything to do with my ego, but it's really my criticisms that are the most debilitating. those are the ones that cause me to set down my pen.

so i remind myself to always be cognizant of my roots and where my relative privilege comes from. and i wonder sometimes how that is possible, having spent most of my life deliberately dis-engaging myself from memory. it is unclear to me still what parts are mere imaginings, and which are memories. as in, this happened at this particular time, i felt this at this particular time, i did this at this particular time, etc. and i wonder what the difference is. how to delineate that difference. and i question my ability to see myself in the lives and experiences of others. which lives and experiences i choose for myself. i fear my co-optation of someone else's living so that i can better understand my own. or perhaps, so i don't have to understand my own on the most intimate level of self-awareness. i fear that i use others as a metaphor for myself. this is, of course, beyond forgivable.

plodding. plotting.

dc is uptight. for real, uptight. more uptight than i am. even in clothes that fit a little too well for my comfort. conversations about love are in my head - real and imagined. last night, in between deep inhales and extended exhales, i caught myself wondering if i had walked away from the few people i have been in love with because i've never really believed that my capacity to love them on their own terms was as much as they deserved. i had a moment. with myself. but then i thought, well shit, i've only been in love with 2 people anyway. and i might've walked away from one, but they both walked away from me in one way or another. just, i didn't really fight for either one of them the way i could've maybe. the day love can be controlled is the day i won't want it anymore, but the day that the compulsive part of me might finally join in on the ride.

speaking of which, here's a wonderful new joke (thanks, molly!):

knock, knock.

who's there?

control freak. okay now you say control freak who!

haha. i'm chuckling on the inside just writing it out. sigh. it's hard to find good jokes like this anymore. speaking of which, i managed to come home from cleveland with 3 new books and - wait for it, wait for it... - that's right. a 2-in-1 game board. on one side is candyland. flip it over, and it's chutes and ladders. it doesn't get much better than that.

better thought than mine

"If I want anything, it's to know what's possible to want". - Amy Tan, The Bonesetter's Daughter