May it not be the last.

Just got home from the feast. I'll probably still be full when I wake up tomorrow morning. In related news, this year might in fact be the first year that I did not get any "jokes" about whether or not Turks eat turkey on Turkey Day in Turkey and its many lame variations. May it not be the last. Today, I am thankful for having hope that Americans' sense of humor is improving.

I am also thankful for my life, with all its ups and downs. When I just go through the simple facts of my daily life and of how I have come to be where I am today, there is so much to be grateful for. One of those things is you.

tk

Thought of the day:

Doesn't it seem odd that we pay money to have someone look at our "private parts"?

I'm thinking Kaiser should be paying ME money for the privilege.

Not forgetting

I don't think anyone's reading this, so I don't have to worry about being inarticulate, right?

Right.

I wonder what it takes to forget. Biologically, psychologically...
Now I really understand "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
Sometimes I want to manipulate time change not the what but the when.
I wish for the chance to fast forward the lives of people I love in vain so they can reach a point where they love themselves at last, and come back to me in the present with that knowledge.
...
Is that too much to ask?

closing

...

I miss seeing your smile, smiling your eyes, eyeing your laugh, laughing your sleep, sleeping our worries.

tk

I have decided...

...that staying up too damn late for my own good is good for me.

Back up...

Such a busy, full weekend. A long dinner with a friend, then a housewarming party on Friday (both activities involved a good amount of sangria/red wine). Saturday, open house for prospective students and parents -- I have to say, surprisingly enough after all that wine drinking the night before, I kicked ass. I taught a mini-lesson that encouraged an amazing 8th grader girl to shut down a rich, white, entitled man with a much more intelligent and articulate comment than he could ever think up in response to a Genny Lim poem we read. The lesson also moved two parents to tears at the end of class (one Chinese born, the other a white parent to an adopted Chinese girl) -- not out of boredom, thankfully, but because it was an emotional topic for both of them. This was the most (the only?) meaningful dog-and-pony show I have ever had in my seven years. They ought to pay teachers more, seriously. Well, they should at least pay me more anyway. Heh.

Saturday night was also surprisingly wonderful. Good cheese, good wine, good friends, etc. Goodness right down to the etc. Went to bed sometime closer to daylight than to midnight like the good times of the summer in VT that I miss immensely. I'll sleep when I'm dead, I guess. Or maybe I will stay up even then, too, seeing how good it feels sometimes not to sleep.

I suppose it's time to get some grading done at last.

I needed this

As much as I can't wait to move out into a one bedroom apartment, I do have kickass housemates. Tonight, Logan made us pozole to observe El Dia de Los Muertos; I helped (him and myself) by cleaning while he was cooking so we wouldn't have a big mess in the kitchen by the time he was done. While we waited for our dinner, we made an altar for the day of the dead in our living room. I finally made myself dig up an old letter Charlie wrote to me so I could put it on the altar. As soon as took the letter out of the envelope, saw his handwriting, and read the first sentence, however, I started crying, so I just put the letter and the envelope (with random shit pasted on it in true Charlie fashion) on the altar without re-reading it all. CJ and Melissa came out and added photos of their friends and family; then, we "introduced" all the photos and objects on the altar to each other. Twenty minutes later, I had an amazing bowl of pozole and a glass of wine in front of me, and I felt deeply happy, grounded, and connected to my own self for the first time in too long.

I miss getting mail that has no form in cyberspace.

I miss seeing an address that helps me locate a handwriting.

I miss seeing the handwriting that helps me remember a smile.

I miss envelopes, which I sometimes open gently, with the care of a woman from a different time and a different place, or which -on different occasions- I tear open with the anticipation of what is enveloped.

I miss stamps touched by a loving hand, sometimes a tongue (so much love to bear the contact between tongue and unsavory glue).

I even miss postcards that reduce the rituals of reading to a mere act of turning over a picture.

Maybe I even miss your handwriting, your smile, your hands, your love, your words, you (turning over, with anticipation).

The teachings of Dolores Park

Ever notice how dogs just cut to the chase? When a dog passes by another dog, it just walks right up and sniffs the other dog's butt. It's simple. No games.

For a split second, I admire the approach; then, I decide I kinda like our games. I like "courting"; I like the (self-)denial, the daydreaming while waiting for the right moment...

Cómo es posible que sienta nostalgia por un mundo que no conocí?

How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?

Motorcycle Diaries

Last week's epiphany

Last week, while I was missing the friends I left after my grad school program was over and wishing they were here, I finally was able to articulate how come I have been in so many (too many) long distance relationships, which are not relationships at all — it was so satisfying to look at my life through someone else's eyes. Doing so made me appreciate the little things I take for granted in my life: live jazz shows, knowing a bunch of musicians who let me know about live jazz shows, literary events, spontaneous chats with complete strangers, great coffee shops...too many things, more than I can count or even realize and appreciate right now.

The challenge now is remembering how I was able to see my world through a tourist's eyes.

Soneta XVII, Pablo Neruda

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,

sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.


I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Tomorrow...

I want to fly a kite. I want to run without doubting my knees. I want to make a sandcastle, begin without doubting my imagination. I want to read a poem I have never read before. I want to say Yes. I want to find Neverland.