eating hotdogs at a secret place. maybe not so secret, but I like to think it is. I've been going there for ages! last time I brought Gus there to have a fight because it was more private haha. orange julius = yum. I like but Tammy doesn't. after that, liat starbucks for some talkin' bout anythin'. I like that. doesn't have to be have a crazy fun time at the club (but we'll have that soon), or going on holidays. just sitting there, talking, feeling comfortable. 

today I feel better and worse at the same time. everything's well except that cloud hanging over my head. I wish it'd dissipate into everything I want it to be and rain down on me. I'd collect the raindrops in little cups that I'd drink and I will become everything I want to be. how easy would that be? contentment in a cup. 

"Tigers"
Eliza Griswold

What are we now but voices
who promise each other a life
neither one can deliver
not for lack of wanting
but wanting won't make it so.
We cling to a vine at the cliff's edge.
There are tigers above
and below. Let us love
one another and let go.

today was one of those days where you woke up thinking it'd be okay and it wasn't. and things got worse and worse and worse, and you almost wanted to just give up. go home and take a long nap. but then things got better, and better, and better, and you're right back to where you were in the morning. that's not a bad way to go.

what else made me feel better: filing away all my lecture notes and slides and readings into thick files that remind me of secondary school. it's not that things have to be organized. they don't. many people are productive with sheets of paper littered everywhere, not in chronological order nor according to topic. some of the brightest people are also the messiest ones. no, organization is a procrastination agent. a very good one. "omg I could study so much better if all this was neatly filed into nicely labelled sections in chronological order" BAM! four hours stapling and sorting and hole-punching and filing and making stupid dividers. but it makes you feel so good afterwards, so you decide to reward yourself with some tv or some computer time or worse. a nap. you wake up at 9pm wondering where the whole day went to, eat some dinner, then go to sleep at 11pm.

yes that was my day yesterday.

also, studying is difficult because I don't know how. I'm not sure what to do to prepare for anything except econs. I'm not sure how long essays are supposed to be for each subject, how much time should be allocated for what. everything's still too new... sucks

“Facts About the Moon”

Dorianne Laux

The moon is backing away from us

an inch and a half each year. That means

if you're like me and were born

around fifty years ago the moon

was a full six feet closer to the earth.

What's a person supposed to do?

I feel the gray cloud of consternation

travel across my face. I begin thinking

about the moon-lit past, how if you go back

far enough you can imagine the breathtaking

hugeness of the moon, prehistoric

solar eclipses when the moon covered the sun

so completely there was no corona, only

a darkness we had no word for.

And future eclipses will look like this: the moon

a small black pupil in the eye of the sun.

But these are bald facts.

What bothers me most is that someday

the moon will spiral right out of orbit

and all land-based life will die.

The moon keeps the oceans from swallowing

the shores, keeps the electromagnetic fields

in check at the polar ends of the earth.

And please don't tell me

what I already know, that it won't happen

for a long time. I don't care. I'm afraid

of what will happen to the moon.

Forget us. We don't deserve the moon.

Maybe we once did but not now

after all we've done. These nights

I harbor a secret pity for the moon, rolling

around alone in space without

her milky planet, her only child, a mother

who's lost a child, a bad child,

a greedy child or maybe a grown boy

who's murdered and raped, a mother

can't help it, she loves that boy

anyway, and in spite of herself

she misses him, and if you sit beside her

on the padded hospital bench

outside the door to his room you can't not

take her hand, listen to her while she

weeps, telling you how sweet he was,

how blue his eyes, and you know she's only

romanticizing, that she's conveniently

forgotten the bruises and booze,

the stolen car, the day he ripped

the phones from the walls, and you want

to slap her back to sanity, remind her

of the truth: he was a leech, a fuckup,

a little shit, and you almost do

until she lifts her pale puffy face, her eyes

two craters and then you can't help it

either, you know love when you see it,

you can feel its lunar strength, its brutal pull.

what annoys me: teachers who act like they really detest being there and teaching us. also, lousy teachers. today our substitute econs tutor was acting as if she hated everyone in the room, she hated teaching, and that tutorial was a waste of her time. she was a lousy teacher too; merely giving answers and not really explaining. that's why I don't understand why they put these people in charge, people with no real teaching qualifications or no real passion. because I unwillingly teach tuition, I can spot certain things that teachers do to make time pass quicker/slack off/etc. like delaying off the next question to the next tutorial because it'll "run over time", so the class ends up ending early instead. or assuming that an explanation is understood then zooming on even though it wasn't very clear. AND, accents. I'm not against anyone with an accent, but how do we learn if we can't even understand what the tutor is saying?

otherwise, today was one of the days I can file away as "delightfully fun." swimming with gus in the afternoon, a nice nap, dinner with my family. I can also file it away as "full of procrastination." in the morning after that horrible tutorial I camped in the library and studied for awhile, which ended with my upper arm being a cushion for my weary head to sleep. when I woke up, Gus was in school with Kl and Yijie so I introduced them to ayam panggang, yum :) I love post-ORD Gus so much more than before haha 

another agent of procrastination: been re-watching videos from soccer season time in j1 & j2. 

wondering where all the good days have gone and where the closeness has dissipated to 

wondering who ignited the match and lit that bridge on fire 

wondering if it was just the increasing friction of 

worlds and lives on the brink of change that gave birth to 

an unfortunate spark

on a last note, I miss the way my fingers used to run easily over the keys of a piano. "lost in the music" is cheesy but accurate. the days where I could play for hours and still have something new to play. nowadays I sit down and my fingers feel awkward. I play for 10 minutes and I've run out of things to play. I try to compose something new and feel disgusted. but for 10 minutes, still, it feels good. I should try to play more.

at one time in my life, all I wanted to do was to show up at 6pm every night at an established hotel and play on a grand piano, taking requests from people until the restaurants and bars switched off their lights and cleaned their glasses. I imagined that people would come up to me and ask "do you know this song?" and I would, and I'd play it for them. I decided this when I once saw a pianist and a violinist play an instrumental of 'Let It Be' in Japan. think I almost cried. at that time, didn't care that it probably wouldn't pay much, but it sounded like such a brilliant plan to pursue. of course I wasn't good enough, and probably never will be. but nowadays I'm not so idealistic anymore. people need money. and stable careers. also, there are always better pianists. 

does this look comfortable? because it really is. lying in a room with royal blue walls with the person you love behind you. I like it when Gus is behind me because it makes me feel safe. if there's one area of my body that I've always felt scared to leave unprotected it's my back. so when Gus is behind me it feels safer and I feel protected, like now nothing can harm me.

all it is is that I cannot differentiate what will end up

making me happy and what will end up throwing

me under an eighteen wheeler with a redneck driver

uncertainty is the most disconcerting feeling I think

it is like putting your hand into a black box and someone

telling you, inside there might or might not be a tarantula

like life telling you, if you do this,

ahead there might or might not

be a fucking huge door slamming

in your face