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picassosinatra
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Name: Paul
Gender: Male
Interests: Abandoning the Wallowing, Pining, Self-Loathing, Loathing others, and brooding...Paradigm Shifting...
Expertise: I just have a way with words...
Occupation: Militant Dilettante
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
1/28/2003
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| Packing. Washing clothes. Tidying up. Last year, I dragged it out last minute. This time around, I started early just to make sure I don't get myself in a froth trying to recall what I forgot. Nothing shall be forgotten.
I'm not as excited as I thought I would be going back. Last year, I was afraid. This time, I'm ready and it's no longer a big deal. Being afraid was actually very motivating. I looked forward to encountering whatever was around the corner. In the year that came and went, the whole experience abroad became a manageable routine.
Going back again means resuming the routine. I think I might have to cause an upheaval of some sort. More travel seems likely. I need new challenges.
New Xanga format sucks. Posting videos is a chore. I'm nearly almost over it.
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| It's weird. I'm on youtube, which segues towards checking someone's webpage, which happens to be Xanga. Fine, I'm back. I check out what's going on. Many haven't posted in months. Upon further inspection, even more on my subscription list haven't written jack in years. In the name of efficiency, I've cut the fat; all the ones that haven't posted in the last six months are effectively eradicated.
So now what? Am I posting again? I guess I'll just stream of consciously post.
I've got two weeks before I head back abroad to Hong Kong. So far so good in the sunny state of California. The food has been great; I've been eating everything that I haven't eaten in a year. The highlight would have to be the hefty heaps of junk fast food like Mexican truck burritos. Korean BBQ was nice as well. All you can eat...I have new found fondness for thinly sliced cow tongue.
I'm reading more. I think I want to write some...something...something meaningful...something semi biographical...need to read more. I need to practice. I guess this is what this is.
I've spent time with friends. That has been great too. It feels nearly complete. There's still a contingent that I haven't spent time with. These are my college friends. I hope we can put it together and make a memory or two. If it doesn't happen, then I'm still satisfied.
I mostly wanted to spend time with my brother and mother. That has happened in spades. Two more weeks. Endeavoring to enjoy it all.
Summer of Protest
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| HK Anecdote
Real Hong Kong people don't respect stoplights. They've got shit to attend to; they can't be daunted by a bright reddish hue. They will look about, and if the coast is clear, they get on the go, because quite frankly, something needs attending to, and 15 seconds of standing around will just fuck shit up. It's logical if you consider that if you had to stop at every crosswalk for a red light multiplied by 15 to 30 some odd seconds, multiply that by a year's worth of days...you'd effectively lost a lot of seconds...perhaps a lifetime has passed you by...
I didn't even bother calculating because I'm on Hong Kong speed, and I can't be bothered...I'm blogging on the go here. So anyway, the other day, I'm at a crosswalk, and I need to say at this point that I'm almost completely acclimated to the Hong Kong speed. Frequently, I'll just book it through a red light at a crosswalk once I've quickly glanced both ways. Occasionally though, I'll stall at a red light at a crosswalk because my law abiding slave indoctrinated ways bubble up to the surface...and I will simply see if anyone else is walking through the red. If I see someone, I will immediately go behind their draft and proceed towards something pressing.
SO on this particularly occasion (that I've built up for two paragraphs) I stalled at a red in Tsim Sha Tsui. In fact, the whole lot of us do. A ten foot crosswalk and we're all being pussies to a red light, even though there were clearly no cars passing through. Then a brave guy, almost as if seizing the moment, proceeded to cross. I was apt to follow; I remember lifting my right leg prepared to follow suit, effectively be color blind.
Then I noticed said brave guy walked with a rather pronounced limp, which stopped me in my tracks. I literally put my foot down and a full body sweat flashed over me. It dawned on me at that moment that there's probably a good reason why this guy was afflicted so. And so, I decided, I could wait that extra 15 or 30 seconds for the green. Don't get me wrong; I can go Hong Kong speed, but something was just not right. I liken it to going to a dentist with bad teeth, or dating a girl who likes Justin Beiber...
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Wow. I'm not on Facebook, but I'm glad these guys are. It's like I can read their minds, and apparently, I crossed theirs...barely. Apparently, "Good question" is where the road ends because my birthday came and went, and the both of them never sought the answer. And did you notice the lazy lower capping of my name? Robb cared enough to reply to her question, but with it's really a wasted response, wouldn't you agree? She decides that using Caps wasn't worth her time, but decided punctuation was necessary (well, the elipses implies contemplation perhaps (...am I missing something here?), and it is proper to define with an apostrophe that it is MY birthday we're talking about, and she is posing a question afterall, but I gather a moron could guess from context that a message written "hey whens pauls birthday" would've been clear as to it's meaning). But humously on the flipside, Robb decided quite the opposite; punctuation (and substance, for that matter) be damned, but I will start my sentences appropriately!
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"I love you too."
I called my brother today to tell him thanks for the package he sent me for my birthday. He bought me two pairs of shoes, a pair of retro Nike Basketball shoes and the new Jordans that had just come out. I had told my brother in a prior conversation that I was playing basketball in Hong Kong quite frequently and that I was wearing an old pair of basketball shoes. They were the T-Mac IIIs, which are effectively my favorite basketball shoes. I've been so attached to these shoes that I haven't been able to bring myself to buy a new pair of shoes, even though the T-Mac IIIs are worn and literally busted. Unabashedly, I've taped my shoes with black PVC tape because I love these shoes so much. I had endeavored to wear them until they completely fell apart.
And they did...a couple weeks ago, I played basketball in Yau Ma Tei and the tape ripped off the right shoe as I was playing; I was effectively playing with side of my right foot partially exposed. I felt a twinge of embarrassment, but I simply was going to retape my shoes afterwards.
The story made my brother sad. He thought it was pitiful. I told him that I could buy new shoes, but I just loved these shoes that much...and quite frankly, T-Mac IIIs aren't made any longer.
Long story short, my brother felt bad for me and shipped me a new pair of basketball shoes, which coincidentally are remakes of shoes I had worn in a prior monogamously until the T-Mac IIIs came along.
Which leads me back to the beginning of this story. And so I thanked him and I talked about how nice these shoes were and how I'd wear them all the time. He sounded happy to hear that I was so happy. And finally our conversation got to the point were it felt like I didn't have much more to say. He wished me a happy birthday for the nth time. I sighed and said "Oh man...thirty-two...thirty-two..."
And my brother replied, "I love you too."
He thought I said I love you(!!!!)
Of course I do of course, but I've never said the L-word to my brother. And so, rather than ruin quite a wonderful moment, I didn't correct him. Let him think I said something I've never said aloud, but quite surely felt.
I love my brother.
There, I've written it too now. Two-thirds of the battle, done.
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| I guess I should post, because suppose I don't, perhaps I should dispose of this account, on the account of its inactivity.
I think I'm finally in love, finally. Although it pains me to put such verbiage out there for it could be the "famous last words" type of outcome, I'll say it because it feels quite right. She doesn't crowd me, but she is concerned about me. For the first time in my life, I'm not allowing my career trajectory be a detracting aspect of a blossoming relationship; actually if my career were going nowhere, I'd imagine with her, we could thrive.
But she is younger to be sure, and perhaps due to her youth, nothing like finances, "where we're going to be", what job I will hold in the future, etc. matters to her. And yet if it should matter, I've got it under control.
What seems at the forefront for her is the time we spend together. What I realize is that i trust her, and that means more than i can say. When I'm around her, I can be myself, though it's uneasy to be so readily disarmed. It's because she is too. And we've met halfway.
And ultimately, I don't care if these are said "famous last words", because I don't want to blog to broadcast my business; i used to care that people cared, and now that I don't blog most of the time, I don't want to care that someone might care about the words I put out there.
I just want to focus on living my life to the present and the there before me, and forget about the modicum of fame and the broadcast of progress reports to the "who knew me when" that blogging was supposed to afford me.
And this roughly thought out, impulsively typed out couple of paragraphs just might be my last words. | | |
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