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.
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| 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?
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| 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.
