Re: (no subject)

Likewise.

i still think of you from time to time
true story

Contentment

I lack the want to express because I have.

What does letting life happen look like?

My first instinct as a sound bite-loving, modern female, master of the hyperbole, is to say "a hot mess," but that's not exactly true.

It looks more like an untamed rosebush in summer. Its spindly branches droop in every direction lacking the sturdiness and form of a rosebush attentively pruned with purpose. Consequently, the blooms aren't as impressive either. I'm looking at it wondering if it's not too late to start pruning it now, but my inherent apprehension toward deferred gratification has me wary about sacrificing the already existing buds and blooms. After all, no one can argue against the fact that a rose is a rose.

2 & 5

There's something I realized while turning twenty-five:
I've lived about a fourth of my life
and that's if I estimate generously,
but it is honestly a quarter of a century.
At five more than twenty and five less than thirty
I don't think I'm allowed to consider myself,
seriously,
anything less than an adult.

At Twenty-Something

There is something about being twenty-something that makes life seem so substantially overwhelming. It's a restless spirit that's different from that of being a teenager. I always thought that being a teenager would be the ultimate stage of feeling stuck, but the older I get I feel that life is like slogging deeper and deeper purposefully into the mud in hopes of finding solid ground.

At least as a teenager I thought it was just a part of adolesence. It was a phase, a necessary transitional stage in life. I was going through puberty, and as horrific as that was I at least had the belief that whatever was on the other side was going to better. I thought at the end of puberty I would emerge as an adult. As a caterpillar metaphorphes into a butterfly, I thought I too would become this other person that would bear very little physical resemblance to what was. Unfortunately, it was just a misconception.

The First Day of Spring

As the weather gets warmer and everything outside begins to bud and grow so does my anxiety. I feel that tangled mess of emotions begin to coagulate in the pit of my stomach, which I know will only gets worse with the rising temperatures. And I know by high summer I'll feel like nothing is right, but the post-winter anxiety is the worst. There is nothing worse than the fear of the impending feelings of worthlessness, not even those feelings themselves. By the first day of spring it's official, I can't help but dread those coming summer days when I'll feel irritable, inadequate, and completely alone.

This I Believe (written June 2005)

Spring of senior year, it’s what I’d been living for. I must have checked the mailbox almost religiously, everyday, waiting for the one letter that would inevitably give my life purpose. I waited for the meaning of life to settle itself in my mailbox packaged inside an envelope in the form of one word – “congratulations.” I often daydreamed about getting that letter, and every time I did, I could feel the letter paper between my fingers becoming moist with perspiration, I could smell the ink on the page, and I could feel the ecstatic joy pulsing through my veins and spilling out through my eyes. It was so real, more real than the reality of what happened.

Dear Scene Girl,

Dear Scene Girl on the Orange Line to Vienna around 3pm last Wednesday,

I was napping on the train when you got on, but when you sat in front of me I noticed immediately.

I think scenesters are reasonably gutsy for exercising their freedom of expression to their utmost, and I applaud you for that. But you playing your music obnoxiously loud that it assaults innocent bystanders is fucking unacceptable.

I'll be honest. I have no clue what scene you're a part of, but making me listen to the bass line and those rapped lyrics that became indecipherable as they reverberate through your skull is not helping me warm up to it. Whatever it is.

When I woke up from my nap to your ridiculously loud music leaking from your earbuds I thought you were Asian as your hair was that particular shade of brown the Asian girls go for. I thought maybe you were Indian with a killer straight perm, but it turns out you're just white. Anyway, nice hair. And your leather jacket was cool, I guess.

And, gawd, please use less perfume. A lot of things are still good in moderation.

Turn down the volume.

Use less perfume.

Thanks,
Girls who sat behind you on the Orange Line train to Vienna 3pm-ish last Wednesday.

Technologic

I was working on one of my newest drawing projects yesterday, and I was relying heavily on Google's image search for references as I am apt to do. While I was doing this, it just hit me that I live in a day and age where information and resources are abundant and easily accessible through the marvel that is the internet. As I was being amazed by and grateful for that fact, I was suddenly awestruck by the realization that it wasn't always the case.

Reunited with Love at First Sight

It's a wonder to think about the circumstances behind how a book enters your life and seemingly embeds itself in the fabric of your psyche. It's one thing to marvel at how a story enclosed within a book can resonates with you on a deep meaningful level, but it's another thing entirely to ponder how a book even begins to approach you, and I think that's what it does. It woos you.

아메리카노 좋아 좋아 좋아

아메 아메 아메 아메 아메
아메 아메 아메 아메 아메
아메 아메 아메 아메 아메
아메 아메 아메 아메 아메

I've had this 10cm song on loop today and I've realized the more I listen to it the more I love it.
아메리카노 좋아 좋아 좋아

The Long-Haired Male

One thing I've noticed over the many many years of visual media consumption is that I'm a total sucker for long hair on guys. There is something about long locks on males that speaks to me on a level that transcends mere aesthetic appeal. It's the hair. It's the kind of man that wears the hair. But mostly, it's the concept of the long-haired male that has me in a tizzy. I'd liken him to the majestic and mythical unicorn - just because you stick a horn on a horse does not make it a unicorn. (Yes, I have just taken long-haired males to a new level of specialness by introducing a whole host of connotations associated with the unicorn, but I'm okay with that.)

A Material Girl Living in a Material World.

Driving in the car yesterday I heard Madonna's Material Girl on the radio during an 80s playback hour. It is such a wonderfully straightforward and uncomplicated song. It's refreshing to listen to it in the context of modern pop music that is so convoluted and messy with the layers upon layers of sounds and samples, beats and lyrics. (I'm thinking of modern pop icon Lady Gaga.) And while I was singing along unabashedly to the chorus I thought to myself that I was somehow feeling okay if not even good about proclaiming that "we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl." I wondered what that was about...

Sons of Fathers Find Happiness in Themselves.

While drinking Twinings English breakfast tea and listening to the Inception soundtrack, I naturally thought back on the movie and recalled a memory, a particular snippet of conversation, where my sister responded, "like in Inception" and I suddenly re-experienced the epiphany I had then. At the time I had been describing the relationship between Gu Ma Joon and his father in the K-drama "Baker King Kim Tak Gu" and it really was like that of Robert Fischer and his father in Inception. I hadn't made the connection before. (Sometimes I'm dense like that.)

Ogle-worthy Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Inception. The movie started, and I was instantaneously absorbed. Leonardo DiCaprio. A beach. Japanese. Grossly unconvincing movie makeup. A gun and a spinning top. Ken is that you? Leo in voiceover. Then BAM! "3rd Rock from the Sun"-guy! "What Mr. Cobb is trying it say is..."

I spent a good portion of the movie ogling Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Needless to say, little Tommy Solomon with the girlish hair from my youth had grown up into someone ogle-worthy. I mean, even when I had seen him last in the previews for (500) Days of Summer back in the summer of last year, he was still steeped in geekish charm a la Cameron James of 10 Things I Hate About You. That is to say I've always found Gordon-Levitt charming since the days of 3rd Rock from the Sun - I suppose it was my affection for the novelty of long hair on guys that had me hooked from the very beginning - but how did he turn into an appropriate target of ogling?

Diane Matcheck, The Sacrifice

It's been a while since I actually finished reading a book. I mean it's already late April of 2010, and the last book I read cover to cover was back in January? I'm sincerely amazed by how fast the time goes by. I actually finished reading this book Saturday night but I've only remembered to blog about it today at work.

Diane Matcheck's The Sacrifice is a young adult fiction piece, and this is actually the second time reading this book. I read it the first time when I was around 13, and the only thing I remembered about the book almost ten years later was that it had made me cry.

Daul Kim, dead at 20.

Daul Kim found dead in her Paris apartment. Suicide. Hanging. My, what a way to go?

Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse...

The Stuff of Nightmares

I've been looking through all the fall 2009 ready-to-wear runway shows again. I'm looking for inspiration for my own fall wardrobe, since the weather really has taken a turn.

Of course this led me to re-examine Alexander McQueen's f09rtw collection. The first time I saw it I seriously could NOT focus on the clothes. The makeup he had on those girls was seriously the stuff of nightmares.

It is the freakiest thing I have ever seen.

Paper Purge

I have a sickness. I have this uncanny love of paper. It nears obsession. I just have a really hard time letting go of paper. When it's unused it has so much potential. I want so much to use every single square inch of that paper. I want to fulfill the paper's desire to be useful. (I imagine that that's what would make paper happy if paper had feelings.) Maybe it's a kind of vicarious satisfaction. I know I want to be useful to my utmost extent, and I wish God would make me feel as useful as I think I'm making paper "feel." I dunno how to really explain it.

So when paper still has the potential to be useful - a blank side, an interesting graphic, etc. - I can't let it go. It's crazy, I know. An paper that holds specific information becomes like a keepsake, and everyone knows a keepsake is meant to be kept. I swear, I have every single piece of school work since I started school. It's absolutely ridiculous.

I've been feeling recently that really all that paper is a physical manifestation of emotional baggage. It's as if I can't move on with my life because the stuff from my past is weighing me down, literally. And so I've decided to really organize all that paper. It's a daunting task. I don't know when or if I'll finish. I'm hoping that by performing this paper purge I can feel a little less tied down. Of course, it is utterly time consuming. I don't think I'll have the time to think about anything else besides ridding myself of irrational attachments and unnecessary stuff.

I'm beginning to find more and more truth in Goethe's quote, "We are the slaves of the objects around us."