You Cannot Choose the Roads that Take You Home

Chapter 1:

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.
I travel for travels sake.
The great affair is to move.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson

I have a feeling this will be my last blog written in Vietnam. Haven't been so good on the thought publicity or free-flowing creativity as of late. Inconsistencies seem to breed that. Inconsistencies of mood, routine, life in general. I'm finding it a struggle now, listening to Brett sing about pee-soaked benders in Minneapolis and babies ruining Good Will Hunting.

I went to the bank the other day and closed my Vietnamese bank account. Weird. Started making me think about expiration dates. I indirectly touched on this a while ago when Stu was giving me crap about all my writing lacking conclusions. I wrote that they're unnatural; nothing in life really ends concretely -- relationships fade, questions go unanswered, beliefs slowly morph. Having this concrete date marking the close of one book ('book' feels more appropriate; chapters can't stand on their own) and the opening of another seems...wrong. We walk around day to day not knowing when we're going to die, when our relationships will end, what cup of cocoa will be our last because the machine at our favorite cafe finally called it quits, etc. Hell, we can even ignore the dates in our refrigerator, and we do. If I wanted, I could count down the number of times I'll walk down work's halls, the number of times I'll sleep in my bed, the days left I have to butcher this language. I could take a gander at how many more times I'll see the people that have made up my entire life here, how many more times I'll be paid to sing. You'd think that would have some effect on my outlook, but most of the time, it doesn't. Our brains really don't let us consider too many things at once, do they?

Only the curious have, if they live, a tale worth telling at all.
~ 'Curiosity', Alistair Reid

Chapter Two:

I have absolutely zero regrets about moving to Vietnam. Sure, there are plenty things I would've done differently or, more aptly, done at all, but all in all, win. I'm so grateful Charlie prodded me as much as he did and so grateful I shut off that fucking relentlessly pesky worrier in me and balls-ed up. While I'm consumed with the 'end' I'm facing right now, all of this was really the beginning. In my attempt to brighten up this blog post, I'm becoming cheesy. I could go for some gouda. I think I'm cheesy by nature and I just...I just got this image of me punching a girl in a cheese costume. It was pretty great, apart from the fact that both girls were me and the cheese one was on the cement about to apologize for whatever it is she had done, lips a-quivering.

I had a very intense Billy Joel period.

The wonders of a journey consist far more of such intangible experiences and unexpected situations than of factual things and events of material reality.

~ 'The Way of the White Cloud', Lama Anagarika Govinda

Chapter Three:

People talk about soulmates but people never talk about soulplaces. If soulmates exist, surely soulplaces do and vice versa. And since everyone probably agrees soulplaces don't, there you have it. We become someone we weren't around new people and we become someone we weren't in new places. Sometimes I feel like a fake here. I mean, I buy fucking soy milk now. I can't finish a beer to save my life. I yell at poor people when they're rude to me. I write existential blogs pretending to be intellectual and lightly depressed when really my mind is twenty feet away playing a rousing game of Bejeweled and loving it. Surely this is only a Jackie that exists in Vietnam. Sometimes I feel like I became someone else here for the purpose of fitting into the group I was kindly ushered into. Now I sit outside of bars preferring the sidewalk to the inside. I'll never know if what I see is an adaptation or a release. Yeah, I'm aware of how this entire paragraph (blog) is existential crap. It still manages to interest me, as if there are clues out there waiting to be found if I just think hard enough.

"You take a girl when she really gets passionate, she just hasn’t any brains.”

They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,

They have soaked you in convention through and through;

They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching -

But can't you hear the Wild? - it's calling you.

Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;

Let us journey to a lonely land I know.

There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to guide us,

And the Wild is calling, calling...let us go.

~ 'The Call of the Wild', Robert Service

Chapter Four:

'From a certain point onwards there is no turning back.

That is the place that must be reached.'

I really don't want to have a car ever again. I don't really ever want to see snow. I don't want to work for anyone. I don't want to raise my children in a place where the neatest thing to see is a clock museum (that shit leads to drugs). I should move to Holland. Slight segue: my new favorite word? Apophasis -- the mentioning of something by saying it will not be mentioned. Reminds me of every time when someone says, "I have something seriously awesome I want to tell you, but I can't and/or won't." To which I reply, "I have something seriously awesome I want to do to your face, but I can't and/or won't." I hate that shit.

Take a Latin word and cut it off after the stress. If the last sound is an alveolar stop, turn it to 'dz'. 'Viaticum' -- 'viat' -- 'viadz' -- 'voyage'. Fuckin' bitchin'. Etymology makes me toes curl. Here's a neat video (if you're me). I really don't like how by chapter 3 it's already on Shakespeare -- the definition of the birth of Modern English. They cover Old and Middle in two chapters and dedicate an entire chapter to Internet Speak, or whatever it's called. It focuses far too much on the modern, IMHO (that just looks like IHOP to me), but it's still interesting:



Strong ending, no? I wonder if/when Chinglish will become a creole language. Shan't be long, methinks. ('creole' being any language that is spoken by a generation as their mother tongue. Pidgins become creoles with new babies. Not to be confused with 'Creole'. )

There's a race of men that don't fit in,

A race that can't stay still;

So they break the hearts of kith and kin,

And they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood,

And they climb the mountain's crest;

Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,

And they don't know how to rest.

- The Men that Don't Fit In, Robert Service

Lately I've been seeing coconut carts wherever I go. And I've come to realize that it's things like that that I'm really going to miss. ...The exoticism of the coconut cart, you know? Maybe when I move to Holland I can replace the coconut cart in my mind with unreasonably tall women. At least in Holland I won't have to jump out of elevators to prove a mathematical, logical point.

Maybe I'll come back to Vietnam, who knows (I doubt it)? This place is a vacuum. Maybe I'll go see the pyramids and work at the McDonald's on the Nile. Maybe I'll go to South America and snort cocaine in the San Pedro prison and hone my amazing Spanish pronunciation skills. Maybe I'll move to Cedar Falls and get knocked up by a middle-aged John Deere worker. Worse things could happen,  I guess.

People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think this is what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive.

~ The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell

Chapter ?:

Lastly, you who read; aye, you 

Who this very line may scan: 

Think of all you planned to do . . . 

Have you done the best you can? 

See! the tavern lights are low; 

Black's the night, and how you shrink! 

God! and is it time to go? 

Ah! the clock is always slow; 

It is later than you think; 

Sadly later than you think; 

Far, far later than you think.

- 'It is Later Than You Think', Robert Service

She laughed when I tried to tell her, "Hello only ends in goodbye."

I recently finished "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"; it started out as a chore and ended beautifully and soul-probingly. I'd like to put a few passages in here, just for old times' sake.

But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself., rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There's so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.

This, my friends, is why I will not be stressing over obtaining an absentee ballot. But if Obama loses by one vote, I will feel guilty, admittedly.

In all the Oriental religions great value is placed on the Sanskrit doctrine of Tat tvam asi, "Thou art that," which asserts that everything you think you are and everything you think you perceive are undivided. To realize fully this lack of division is to become enlightened.

Notice he doesn't say "everything you are" or "everything you perceive".

You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

Yes, sir. Sort of like that one guy in that Saigon Singles article that said his only con was "too much awesome" -- only completely different and totally obnoxious.

The material object of observation, the bicycle or rotisserie, can't be right or wrong. Molecules are molecules. They don't have any ethical codes to follow except those people give them. The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed. The test of the machine's always your own mind. There isn't any other test.

Well, I'll be. And I hope you've made it this far, because I've saved my favorite for last:

He read Kant's esthetics with disappointment and then anger. The ideas expressed about the 'beautiful' were themselves ugly to him, and the ugliness was so deep and pervasive he hadn't a clue as to where to begin to attack it or to try to get around it. It seemed woven right into the whole fabric of Kant's wold so deeply there was no escape from it. It wasn't just eighteenth-century ugliness or 'technical' ugliness. All of the philosophers he was reading showed it. The whole university he was attending smelled of the same ugliness. It was everywhere, in the classroom, in the textbooks. It was in himself and he didn't know how or why. It was reason itself that was ugly and there seemed no way to get free.

Too bad the test is always your own mind, eh?

Pococurante

"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them to tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Part One: Just a come-on from the whores on 7th Avenue.

Singing is awesome.

Ostensibly, ILA is paying me $15 an hour to listen to videos on YouTube. Here is one I want to show you for two reasons: 1) The guitar player sort of looks like my cousin but with a thicker, darker head of hair and 2) the caption. The harmonies are a bit off sometimes, but if you're like me and you grew up wondering why you couldn't be a Coleman™ cooler player, you'll appreciate it.
                                                     

                         "Oh, so what instrument do you play?"
                                 "Uh, I play the tree."
                                  Bitches love trees.

 I've had a draft of a blog on here for the past two months or so, but most of those thoughts are no longer relevant. Fortunately. It seems like all the people here are changing -- luckily for me, it's people I've kept on the periphery. Eventually, it'll be me and it'll be the people I love, but more on that when I feel like being a complete parasite on my own happiness (neither of us will have to wait too long). It's weird how you are not your thoughts. How you can monitor thoughts. And then how you can monitor the thoughts that are monitoring your thoughts. And then how you can monitor the thoughts that are monitoring the thoughts that are monitoring your thoughts; how is it that some languages aren't recursive?

Saying you like Fight Club is like saying you like breathing or looking at Brad Pitt with his shirt off or voluntary pooping.

Sometimes I build a blog around pictures I've found and sometimes I find pictures to round out my pre-existing blog but most of the time it just does itself. It's like each blog is a puzzle and sometimes it takes me /məns/ to find all the pieces but they're there even if I don't know it and I will look in the places they are without knowing where I should look because it's Jackie-puzzle time and I just can't fuck it up. The only thing. It's beautiful. There is a 'me' that isn't monitoring my thoughts but exists in my choices and she's consistent as hell. Well, in comparision to the fugacity of my moods.



Part Two: Order us some golf shoes or else we'll never get out of this place alive!

I love things like this. Dumbed-down things for dumbed-down people. But the video doesn't fit width-wise... So I will put the video here.

Seriously. I mean, I read "A Brief History of The World" awhile ago. I vaguely remember Alexander the Great being mentioned and some guy named Darius or something -- and I most certainly remember that the book was awesome -- but that's it. I've literally sat down on several occasions to memorize important dates in the rise and fall of the Roman Empire and I can still only give you a loose ballpark. BUT I LOVE THIS SHIT...I just can't remember any of it (am I depressed?). Which is why a sped-up, dorky version is my cup of tea. Those UCBerkeley lectures I've been listening to are a lot more scholarly and I really enjoy them, but with all the pretty colors on these videos my mind doesn't wander off nearly as much. And that professor never did email me back.What a penis.

Now I'm onto 'Through the Wormhole' with Morgan Freeman and I'm to the part where they explain that time travel for us is on the same scale as building rocket ships for an amoeba, but, eventually, we'll have computers so fucking ridiculously intelligent that they can simulate any world we desire (emphasis on the past) and all of us can live like we're in Avatar, only we get to choose and don't have to be blue, so that'll have to do (or it could be right now). Also: back in the day, Stephen Hawking was kind of a babe.

This squirrel and I have a ridiculous amount of things in common.

And then there's this (black...(the ellipses are to address my own racism)) scientist dude who will leave you wondering if you'll ever accomplish anything worth talking about. Apart from all the deeper questions this makes me ask myself, more importantly, I emerge from this YouTube link wondering why the hell my life isn't full of charismatic, brilliant, affable middle-aged men. They've gotta be somewhere.



Part Three:

Here are two things in this life of mine that I will never, ever get over:

I'm sorry.

Part Four: Why HI-Ving an ice cream cone makes more sense than literary trends

I'm now going to summarize '50 Shades of Grey' for you. Please, bear with me. I do have a point.

1. Girl and boy meet. Girl is introverted, young, inexperienced, shy. Boy is rich, ridiculously handsome, mysterious, and has only had this big of a boner for her.
2. Girl and boy are drawn to each other like moths to flames (reiterated verbatim on many occasions). Girl has an ethnic friend who is in love with her and would be better for her, but he stands no chance against boy's magic.
3. Boy is clearly a freak; girl doesn't know why.
4. Girl finds out how boy is a freak. Has to decide whether or not that's too freakish for her.
5. It's not. Because she's so in love with him (after a matter of days).
6. Girl is brainwashed by boy.
7. Girl cannot talk about her relationship to anyone. Subsequently, all her relationships suffer.
8. Girl experiences a tumult of emotion. Eventually they part, because boy is not healthy for girl.

There you have it. OR. WAIT. DID I JUST SUMMARIZE TWILIGHT PLOT POINT BY PLOT POINT?

I THINK I DID.

Other similarities include: horrible writing, repetitive writing, inconsistent writing, implausible writing, etc. Inquire for examples if you feel so obliged.

Which brings me to my question: Why, America? Why do you like the same tripe over and over again? Why is it that mainstream books seem to be mirroring mainstream music now? I mean, "I'm Sexy and I Know It? Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, yeah?" Has this been happening for a long time but it isn't till recently that I've noticed because it's like climbing down a mountain -- at the top it's fucking cold, and in the middle it's cold, but you really don't notice it's that much warmer till you get low enough?

Maybe.

C'est Vrai Je Rêve Trop

'I sat curled up on the sofa, trapped in the dream from which I had begun to awaken, but still lost in the reminiscence of our aphotic rendezvous.'

-- Žakalin Nežić, Goodbye Serbia

Part One: Mercurial; Capricious

It's been a while since I've delved us both into the world of my theorizing. This, however, requires some background. I feel like I never really get that deep into 'background', so I'm sort of excited.

How reality works, too, really.

So, the fashion show people dumped me, right? But they'll still send me the random text every so often that's sort of a backhanded compliment telling me that they love my face and my style and my attitude and they're very keen on working with me if I just were skinnier. So could I please lose the weight? If it worked like that, shit would be great and I would respond to said text messages. Instead, I keep on thinking about why I can't be bothered to give a fuck. Apart from coffee cake and the fact that we're dealing with Vietnamese people, I would think this should be doable because somewhere in my head, the message they're sending me is consistent with everything else I've ever been told. I have this theory that if I were, say, 15 pounds thinner, the world would have no choice but to bend to my will and be my fucking oyster. No one would care that my IQ is about 10 points too low and that my wit comes and goes. You'd think that would be sufficient motivation. The idea of men doing things for me because they simply can't not and women wanting to be me because, simply, they aren't sounds pretty cool. Makes me think I would be instilled with a new-found confidence that would spill over into every domain of my life. Makes me think I would find a happiness in the doors that would inevitably open. It'd be sufficient motivation if I didn't, somewhere, know it was complete bullshit. Whether because it's not true or because it is true...both apply. Both apply and I don't wanna.

Back in the day, I had some serious issues with food. I wasn't anorexic since I'm told that, in order to be so, you must be 85% of what is considered a 'normal body weight' (whatever that means) and I wasn't (so an obese woman who allows herself a few leaves of lettuce and the odd grape each day and cries herself to sleep at night because she's not losing weight fast enough isn't anorexic? Is she EDNOS? Because that's crap.) -- but I was completely controlled by my insane, can't-eat-in-front-of-people diet. For a while, I'm told, I was pale, sickly, and sort of hairy, but luckily my parents have never been photo-takers, so I don't have proof (chicken or the egg?). My friends do, however, and they're under constant surveillance and are aware of the blackmail practices I'm more than willing to employ. Moving on. I lost a bunch of weight and I was pretty goddamn miserable (presumably because Mrs. Jones' coffee cake, the only thing I've ever truly enjoyed, was off limits). I've been 15 lbs thinner (a few times); hell, I've been 25 lbs thinner, and shit sucked. No 17-year-old boys fanned me with palm leaves (they just slept with my unattractive best friend) and no trophies were ever awarded simply for my being present. Yet this theory subsists. I wrote and erased the thought, "can one have a theory that one knows is bullshit?" because I very clearly don't "know" that at all. I'm aware of all the research that says how happy people think they'll be if X happens and then X happens and nothing's really that different and I see that my processes are normal and I know that my happiness has little to do with my outside environment...but it doesn't matter. I yo-yo so much I get complacent in the ups, knowing there will be downs. I have the ability to achieve this theoretical happiness and shit just ain't gonna happen. I've lost weight for plays, I've lost weight for men -- both happily -- but this isn't doable. This is just irritating.

But maybe if it were the 90s it wouldn't be.

Part Two: The world is over and I realized it was all in my head.

I don't know if I'm a little crazy or if this is just what being a human is like. I've found recently that I don't have good and bad moods; that wording isn't sufficient. I have times when I'm on the upswing and times when I'm on the downswing. I'll get in a good mood and then the times following will automatically feel straight-up bad because of the circumstances prior to them. It's like when NBC puts a shitty show on the Must See TV line up in hopes that people will watch it but it just magnifies how much worse it is than the shows you actually like. If I thought about it more, I would probably stop having good moods because I'd be dreading what follows them. Good moods produce bad but bad moods seem to produce baseline moods, it seems. Whatever 'baseline' is. 9.7 with Bradley Cooper and a cat poster? Maybe.


Part Three: Sometimes I give myself the creeps.


Today I was thinking about how I was texting my British friend about the fact that the guitarist in my band is in South Korea at the moment. HOW COOL IS MY LIFE? My twelve-year-old self would be damn proud. She might even faint. She'd definitely celebrate with some easy cheese and some shiny, powder blue eye make-up.

It's like when Chandler sees Joey dressed up as an elf, only more metaphorically.

Part Four: Your silver grin; still sticking it in.


I like thinking about people in terms of past tense; it highlights the good and makes you ignore the bad. Like, that one girl I lived with who was Canadian and possibly one of the nicest, most responsible people I know -- who also kept a bottle of scotch by her bed. It also sorts out the people you can't possibly imagine in the past tense from the people you can.

I also really like my blog; have I mentioned this? I started reading it the other day (again) and I literally lolled and agreed with myself on a number of points. Turns out I'm right a lot of the time and can be quite witty given certain circumstances and an adequate amount of time.


I also really, really like something. What the fuck was it? Watching good movies twice because then you just know the next 1 1/2 hours of your life is going to be awesome? No. Jesus. Not Jesus. GOT IT. IT WAS DANGER PAY. THAT'S WHAT IT WAS. Listen up, kids. I'm about to drop some knowledge.

Completely and utterly unrelated to anything I'm saying or will ever say.

I'm actually taking the FSOT this time around. It's in HCMC and I've no excuse not to. I was reading about all their allowances that are part of your salary and it turns out one is titled 'DANGER PAY'. Uhh. AWESOME. If anyone there asks me why I want to work for the Foreign Service, I'd say, "Well, sir, it's because I'd get DANGER PAY. I would tell everyone I know that I was getting paid DANGER PAY and then I would sleep better at night knowing how much cooler I am than almost everyone around me, aside from the money obviously making me feel safer. That's why, sir. DANGER becomes a solatium when one gets DANGER PAY. What's more, no one pussy-footed around that name and I would like to work for a company I respect. No 'locale-safety' allowance. No 'residency-harm' allotment. Fucking DANGER PAY. THAT IS MY REASON." Clearly, my hopes aren't too high, as that's more truthful than not.

Le fin.

I think of you in colors that don't exist.

"All I need are my typing fingers and a minimal amount of pain." 

-- Charles Bukowski

I can read, Trebek. That says Anal Bum Cover. I've spent five years of my life trying to invent an anal bum cover; failing to do so is my greatest regret.

More often than not, there's more truth in my captions and titles than in my actual blog; have you noticed that? What I’m actually getting at is clearer in those additions. Is that obvious? But even I don’t see it until after I choose them, really – like my mind is operating on some other level unbeknownst to me. I see them later and my own mind is blown by my past self. You go, past self. Self-five! Unless, you know, I just make up a connection after it's written because minds like to make sense out of chaos. And chaos, it is.

So glad that stage of my life is over with.

This part:

Whatever you think you are feeling right now, you think you are feeling it. Whatever you are feeling right now, you're not. This isn't real. Nothing about this is 'real'. There is no 'real'. There is only what you make of it. Is that true? Is that 'real'? Is there truth in emotion? Or is there truth solely because we choose to see it?

At least, probably. How sure can one be?

That part:

You know, I really have no idea how I come off. The other day I found myself wishing I had more girl friends so I could borrow a pair of shoes. Who am I? On one hand, I wanted a pair of shoes that didn't make my legs look so short, so clearly I'm vain, shallow, and insecure; but on the other hand, I don't have any girl friends to borrow said shoes from because I find most girls either boring or judgey, but most definitely vain, shallow, and insecure. Especially most girls with lots of shoes.

I never got shoe borrowers. Or shoe borrowing. I couldn't stomach a relationship just to borrow someone's shoes, even if the shoes did make me feel pretty. I'd be too conscious of the fact that eventually the shoes will either get dirty or get dirty in my mind and I won't feel pretty in them anymore and then I'd start thinking about how I was shoe borrowing and all would be ruined. Too many people are shoe borrowers. But I'd probably dabble if I could.

I just spent 15 minutes trying to get my internet to work to do a solid 5 minutes of internet surfing. I don't want to live this way.

That part over yonder:

Wouldn't want to live this way either.

There's so much shit that I know I should do. I should've taken that hour and a half I had of free time and picked up a book or finished that lecture. I should reward future Jackie by cutting her losses now, when they have less of a chance of ruining her.  I should tell her to get up off her ass and find the next step. I should be planning for her. I should want to protect her. I should stop eating this jar of peanut butter because it won't take away her pain of being judged by a woman with 3-inch long, bright green fingernails which, by the way, clash with her kelly green hooker shoes. Most of the time I feel like I'm pretty good at it. Doing things I should, I mean. Not as of late, though. As of late, I'm dragging my heels. As of late, I don't want to have anything figured out. Spontaneity has always freaked the crap outta me. I'm getting better, yeah, but there's still this residual hesitation. This residual needing-to-have-a-plan-that-cannot-be-deviated-from. I always blamed it on the really pathetic story of my parents springing their divorce on me, but I can prove nothing. But now, I'm taking my precious time. It makes the logical parts of me uneasy. However, I've always maintained, in giving advice, that you're never going to do something you don't want to do -- so until you want to do it, there's no use stringing out about it. There's no use sitting on the pot when you know you're not going to poop. I don't know if this feels different because a lot of it falls on a grander scale. I'm dragging my heels when it comes to life, and that's not a way to live. One has to recognize when one's environment is no longer supplying one with what one desires. Or, you know, there's the option that I'm not dragging my heels at all and all this is necessary and good and being in America for however long would be boring as shit, anyWAYS. I'm doing this, so there must be some reward in it. Some greater reward than doing something else. I'd be lying if I said I didn't know what that was. There's nothing certain in the unknown. No safe bets. Either way, I didn't walk to the market to buy a pumpkin for dinner because I wasn't going to eat and instead I cleaned out this jar of peanut butter whilst sitting on my bed. Fuck you, Jackie! You lose! Rise above these obstacles, I dare you! I've yet to regret it. Completely, at least.

This peanut butter-induced coma begs to differ.

That thar part over that-a-ways:

The spelling bee is coming up again. Time sure flies when you're having fun. Time flies so fast you forget what your interests are. When someone comes up to you and asks you to be in a fashion show, your remarkably homely twelve-year-old self gets first dibs and screams out, "YES YES A MILLION TIMES YES THIS THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR" and slowly but surely your present self comes to the stage and, while it's nice that the growth you've made is shoved in your face, you can't seem to get over the fact that you hate everything about what your pre-pubescent self got you into. You hate women who wear stilettos during the day, you hate people who don't understand that this beauty they're seeking resides where they're being told someone thinks it resides, and you hate how there's this giant system-creature based on expensive plastic, plant fibers and self-loathing that you just can't understand and you really hate how the world plays along and abhor that a part of you necessarily plays along, too. You play along to get assured that you're pretty. Lasts about three seconds, if it happens at all. Has anyone who fit in with the system ever expressed their disdain for it? If I were prettier, would I have less issues with this? I mean, I sort of enjoy getting manicures and pedicures. I'll let my nails deteriorate to farm-girl status, but I always bring 'em back eventually. I like getting fancy on occasion, sure. But goddammit, I'm only going to do it because I feel like it. Or because a hot dude said he'd spoon-feed me pineapple-flavored chocolates whilst reenacting the opening scene from Jaws if I so complied. Moving hyphens is awesome. Not so much here, but in other places. No, no, no, regular ones won't do; my child's a bit slow. I need some thick-baby wipes! Girllllll, you got yo'self some sweet ass-titties! Whatchu got in that trunk? Young black men, when someone steps on your foot, let it slide. There's no use spending the next 10 years in jail because someone smudged your brown-men's slippers.

I would give him a roller coaster and dangle pennies from it
and we would both be happy.

The final part :

If I told you I wanted to start a society where there was no money, but instead, people exchanged hugs and if people got caught exchanging hugs fo' free they'd be executed, would you be on board? You can either be lonely and have things or not lonely and a child of the earth. Or you could own one of these and your life would be satisfactory FOREVER.





I rest my case.

I turn deadly pale at the sight of watercress.

The thing I don't like about iPads is that when you look at yourself messing with yours, you know you're too well-off. I don't like that technology is just furthering the gap between the rich and the poor -- unless you use your iPad solely for Angry Birds or something -- in that learning is so fucking accessible. However, iTunesU is still awesome. Like, seriously awesome. I downloaded a bunch of lectures that I intend on getting to, but I keep on downloading all the lectures from this one UCBerkeley modern world history course (because it's super captivating), so I'm not really getting around to the others. I actually just emailed the professor to tell him how much I dig his lectures. I considered that being creepy but then I realized that if I'm a creeper, I'm a creeper. Might as well start with strangers when it comes to practicing how to initiate unrequited displays of affection (he hasn't emailed me back). I wish I had the balls to email Carl, but I feel like my window of opportunity closed a long, long time ago. Anyway. I'm almost entirely caught up and I would be if I didn't keep rewinding. The cold war is FASCINATING, people! But back to my main point: I get to lounge around in my bedroom, painting ("destroying" would be a better term as of late) and learning about the finer points of the Breton Woods Project and poor kids are at home playing with rocks or making babies. Which brings me to this sweet interactive map:

 



It's shit like this that makes me find America boring. Like, I love America and all, sure, and it will always be home and I totally want to live in California for a bit, but I need more bloodshed or something. More statues. More dysentery on the Oregon Trail. I'll go on the record saying this, sure: Oregon Trail 3 was bomb.com. 4 was good, too, but I always died super prematurely and my cows always mysteriously vanished, which is way more frustrating than them just wandering off. God, there was nothing wrong about the 90s.

She wants to sell me a chicken. And I don't even have any clothes on!

Một: Then I had a drink to Fletcher.

I lent a friend of mine a book to read. In doing so, she highlighted all the passages that she found interesting. Normally, people defacing my property would piss me off. There are some things being an only child does to you and this, this is one of them. But it would not be an exaggeration to say that I was touched. I was touched by a fucking yellow marker put to a page. I would never think to do that, nor think that it was okay. I wouldn't dare impose my opinion without it being asked for. I would set a finished, borrowed book under a pile of heavier books to bend the cover back into an unread, unborrowed shape. I wouldn't dare leave a reminder of my eyes on those pages. But this book. When I pick up this book, I see her thoughts along with the author's. I see what interested her and that she was interested. I have something concrete that tells me that this book that I told her to read, not only did she read it, no -- she gave it thought. I have something tangible and shared. Something tangible, shared, and enjoyed. Rips my fucking heart to shreds. I had no idea that this whole time I was doing it wrong. And here I thought I was being polite. Do you think people handle others the same way they handle books? Would it take you days to clean up after yourself and would you make a racket as you leave or are your bags half-packed, nearly ready, and you'll be real quiet when you close the door?

Like the leaves on the trees or my clothes all over the floor.

That same friend, the one who might only now be grasping the notion of just how intriguing I find her, wrote the following. At first I thought putting someone else's blog content in my own blog wasn't the right thing to do, but like granddaddy used to always say: my fucking blog. And I think it's getting me to a grander point.

it was a beautiful house. its strong brick walls were covered with creepers. its white doors and windows stood tall and brought into its rooms not only light but also gorgeous views of the garden. its rooms were spacious and well-furnished. there were always flowers blooming in the garden.
the other three who shared the house with her were perfectly decent people. in fact, they were so nice that their decency constantly put her oddity and eccentricity in the limelight. even though they were too kind to mention it, there was always a misty sense of misunderstanding and endurance lingering in the air.
“sometimes i wish they were mean to me. physically. verbally.” — she told me one time when i visited her at the madhouse many years later — “so that i don’t regret having let them vanish into the thick brick wall. i could have let myself vanish but there would have been traces left behind. people would've discovered my methods. i don’t want that to happen.”
“the police still haven’t found out how they disappeared.” — i said.
“they never will.” — she said and returned to her piles of drawings and formulas that nobody but she understood.
i took my leave.
i rode back to my house.
her old house.

She's Vietnamese. She's fucking Vietnamese. I wish that didn't mean something, but it does. On so many levels -- I don't just mean the quality of her writing. I have friends who can write as if eloquence were a fountain, but I expect it of them (GET A BLOG. You know who you are). Am I racist? A little, sure. But I hope to Allah that it's clear that's not what I'm getting at. What I more mean is 'the box' she's trampling over with her red shoes and squashing with her bare hands. Westerners don't have that same steel trap. I have one of her books now, a book I bought her, incidentally, and I'm highlighting the shit out of it.

Hai: And then I had a drink to that old bitch.

There will always be something

to ruin our lives,

William,

it all depends upon

what or which

finds us

first,

we are always,

ripe and ready

to be

taken.

 -- Charles Bukowski, Ruin

What or who is your preferred method of destruction? Now there's an interesting photo gallery. This is ignoring the fact that it's you who is destroying you, ultimately. But you get where I'm going.



Ba: And then I had a drink to the old man.

 I wish there were words for levels of want.

Zeroeth level: I should want this, therefore I _______ this. 
First level:  I ______ this like I want a hole in the head.
Second level: I ______ this, but only if someone hands it to me.
Third level: I _______ this and I'm willing to walk across the street for it, but no farther.
Fourth level: I _______ this like I want Bradley Cooper's stubble rubbing across my cheek to wake me up in the morning, but I'm far too complacent with my life to really put any effort forth.
Fifth level: I _______ this like I want my dreams to come true, which is seemingly a lot, but surprisingly little. Mainly because I'm gutless and afraid.
Sixth level: I _______ this and goddammit, not even you are going to stop me because you're just a Chili's waitress, aren't you?!
Seventh level: I _______ this so badly I'm fabricating that I have it in my mind, not sleeping at night and barely showering.
Ninth level: I ________ this so badly that I don't _________ it anymore.

Wouldn't that be useful?! Think of all the stupid words English has and the words that it could have. Like 'pena ajena', or that one cool Portuguese word that Joao told me about that means when you see someone on a bus or something and you share a moment (probably a sexy moment). Like that. Bastard of a tongue, you have failed me.


Bốn: And then I had a drink to me.

Because somehow I manage to straddle the line between extreme self-hatred and pseudo-maniacal narcissism while remaining well-balanced, reasonable, and reasonably content. And I need a conclusion:



You are very, very welcome.

Come forth, Bulimia, and deliver me from my foodcrimes!

Part One: I walked into HKG and greeted 'er with a warm, "Ching chong; ching chong!"

Woah, blog. It's been a while.  Mainly because I've been sans un ordinateur for a bit -- my last one begged me to light it on fire, so I did. Generally people don't understand when I say this, but I don't feel like it's something you kid about. Speaking of computers, does anyone know how I can make Papyrus my default font?

So, let's catch up. Here are all the completely unrelated points that must be addressed and pondered, at least fugaciously and superficially:

1) People don't talk often enough about __________. I did that because I want you to take a second and fill that in. What should it be? Moldova - US relations? United's subpar overseas flying options? The monstrosity that is the food pyramid? NO. It's NONE of those. The correct answer, idiots, is PLATE TECTONICS.

That's right. I'm being serious here. If I could be a plate, I would be so happy! Think of the things I'd see! And cause! The funny thing is...all my atoms, at one time or another, probably were. Digest on that for a hot minute. Or digest on this, if you'd rather:

The connections between modern land masses and those of the past were found to be infinitely more complex than anyone had imagined. Kazakhstan, it turns out, was once attached to Norway and New Zealand. One corner of Staten Island, but only a corner, is European. So is part of Newfoundland. Pick up a pebble from a Massachusetts beach and its nearest kin will now be in Africa. The Scottish Highlands and much of Scandinavia are substantially American. Some of the Shackleton Range of Antarctica, it it thought, may once have belonged to the Appalachians of the eastern US. Rocks, in short, get around. 

[...] The constant turmoil keeps the plates from fusing into a single immobile plate. Assuming things continue much as at present, the Atlantic Ocean will expand until eventually it is much bigger than the Pacific. Much of California will float off and become a kind of Madagascar of the Pacific. Africa will push northward into Europe, squeezing the Mediterranean out of existence and thrusting up a chain of mountains of Himalayan majesty running from Paris to Calcutta. Australia will colonize the islands to its north and connect by some isthmian umbilicus to Asia. These are future outcomes, but not future events. The events are happening now. As we sit here, continents are adrift, like leaves on a pond. Thanks to Global Positioning Systems we can see that Europe and North America are parting at about the speed a fingernail grows --  roughly two metres in a human lifetime. If you were prepared to wait long enough, you could ride from Los Angeles all the way up to San Francisco. It is only the brevity of lifetimes that keeps us from appreciating the changes. Look at a globe and what you are seeing really is a snapshot of the continents as they have been for just one-tenth of 1 per cent of the Earth's history.

See what I mean?! Man.

Trouvez la verite avec NPH.

2) I've recently become a bit more atheist than I used to and/or would like to be. I'll get into it more later, but for right now, here's a reason: pandas. Again with the seriousness. In the Hong Kong airport, there's this sign that says, 'Chengdu - hometown of pandas!' Well, for starters, no wonder they all look the same! Huh. And I thought it was due to some widespread genetic coding. But b), and rest assured this killed my spirit for a bit, instead of the reaction I should've had, or would've had a year ago -- which is, "AWWWW, PANDAS!" -- I immediately thought, "What a stupid fucking animal." To the point. If God existed, there surely wouldn't be pandas. Or, rather, if God were sane and/or not looking for a little sadistic fun, pandas wouldn't exist. Who in their right minds would dump an animal on this earth that can't see for months after it's born, can only eat one food, AND that one food just so happens to grow selectively in one rather shitty climate and doesn't provide enough nutrients to enable long-term hibernation to protect from the wintery climes it requires. It's a fucking wonder pandas are still here, especially with us wandering the same planet. And we think we're evolution's crowning achievement?

(While I am entirely capable of providing you with a caption that links this picture to the content, I am choosing to say this:)
I wish there were more WNBA on television.

 3) We are vessels for our genes. We are vessels for bacteria. I am an ant on this ant hill (human beings are smart by comparison to other species. See later notes on vegetarianism). This is only slightly related; however, in terms of this blog, slightly related is pretty damn good: check out this article by Mark Pagel: Infinite Stupidity. He talks about how the ratio of innovators to copiers used to be, say, 25:1 in the tribes humans lived in (on good ol' Gondwanaland) and now, with technology and whatnot, that ratio can be 2,500,000:1. In other words, in order to succeed, in this day and age, we never have to think. We have to copy. For some reason, this really bothers me. Legitimately makes me uncomfortable. Bothers me so much that I blogged about it a while ago, if you remember. I'm a copier and a result of everything and everyone around me. "I" am simply a distorted reflection of everything that "me" has seen. I know everyone's life is somewhat determined by the people around them. Easy. But like my good friend Malcolm Gladwell explains, while everyone is subjected to this, am I one of those people who gets their life determined and doesn't do other people's determining? Is my life more determined by other people than your average schmuck's is? If I give you an example, will you have to agree with me because you don't have anything to counter it? Why do I find solace in thinking I have that control/influence over others?

You are a power-hungry maneater.

4) I cannot commit to anything (and you know that I know that you know that I know that defecting is a dominant strategy). That's obviously not true. I can commit to wanting the wrong men, procrastinating, and, in general, things lightly detrimental to my well-being. But I can't seem to commit to anything of any substance. I'm pretty sure there's no god, but I'm uncomfy calling myself an atheist. I probably should be vegetarian, but I just can't seem to make the leap. I thought about eating meat like I drink alcohol (if it's free, we're game (it's nothing I've actually given thought to, it's just turned out that way)), but that's conviction-less and I would feel sort of ashamed about that.

I am so glad I ate 6 chalupas.

JSF's 'Eating Animals' promised not to be a moral compass rudely nudging me in the direction of vegetarianism, but I call bullshit. Check it out:

 According to the UN, the livestock sector is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, around 40 percent more than the entire transport sector -- cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships -- combined. Animal agriculture is responsible for 37 percent of anthropogenic methane, which offers twenty-three times the global warming potential (GWP) of CO2. Omnivores contribute seven times the volume of greenhouse gases that vegans do.

What's more:

Not a single turkey you can buy in a supermarket could walk normally, much less jump or fly. Did you know that? They can't even have sex. Not the antibiotic-free, or organic, or free-range, or anything. They all have the same foolish genetics. Every turkey sold in every store is the product of artificial insemination. If it were only for efficiency, that would be one thing, but these animals literally can't reproduce naturally. Tell me what could be sustainable about that?

Technically, TECHNICALLY, eating babies solves the eating animals quandary AND prevents overpopulation. What is sustainable about that? EVERYTHING.

 
 These things being apart from the sadistic slaughtering practices 99% of factory farms partake in, the question of human sentience, and the fact that there will be a day we have to accept that antibiotics will no longer be a tool to prevent human suffering because of what we've been feeding our food. Yet even after all this, it's still not enough. It's still not enough for me to turn down my aunt's chicken bacon mac n' cheese. At least, not right now. Why? WHY AM I A CREATURE OF HABIT? WHY AM I SPINELESS?



Part 2: How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

Suppose the universe is in a state with the Planck density r ~ 10⁹⁴ g/cm³. Quantum fluctuations of space-time in this regime are so large that all rulers are rapidly bending and shrinking in an unpredictable way. This happens faster than one could measure distance. All clocks are destroyed faster than one could measure time. All records about the previous events become erased, so one cannot remember anything and predict the future. The universe is incomprehensible for anybody living there, and the laws of mathematics cannot be efficiently used.

 Just food for thought. Mainly because I lack the cognitive capacity to expand in any humorous or sagacious fashion.


Part 3: If there is applause, let it stagnate.

OH SHIT LATER ADDENDUM: Alec Baldwin is a vegetarian? Who has two thumbs and is sold? THIS GIRL. That's all one needs. A good role model.

Part 4:  AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AR AS AW AX AY

That's a blog.



xoxo.