After Awhile

Sister 3 clearly didn’t believe me when I said I thought I was actually over Ass Face.

She thought it was a mistake responding to his email, but the weird thing is, when he replied late this afternoon, I was actually okay. Actually, something he wrote made me realize, “I don’t want to be with him anymore. I only wanted to be with him because I was becoming a desperate hoe.”

Every now and then, you have desperate hoe moments. It’s the whole biological clock ticking, I think. You lose sight of what’s important and you actually lose a sense of who you really are and all the cool things that make you uniquely you.

But fuck that shit.

I’m reclaiming me.


Poem For The Day:

After Awhile

After awhile you learn the subtle differences
Between holding a hand or chaining a soul
After Awhile you learn that love doesn’t mean forever and company doesn’t mean security
After Awhile you begin to learn that kisses aren’t promises and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up
After Awhile your eyes are ahead fixed on the prize a woman’s confidence, not the grief of a child
After Awhile you learn to build your roads on
today for tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain
After Awhile your plans for the future
Have a way of falling in mid-flight
After awhile you learn that even sunshine burns
If you get too much
After Awhile you plant your own garden
And decorate your own soul
Instead on waiting on someone to bring you flowers
You learn that you can endure
That you really are strong enough
After Awhile you learn that you do have value
With every goodbye…
After Awhile…You Learn

In An Elton Mood

I'm listening to "Your Song" by Elton John and it makes me think about him.

Do you know what I wish? I wish I could go back to being who I was before I knew him. How wonderful life would have been without ever knowing him. Not that he's a bad person, per se. He just doesn't love me the way I want him to.

*sigh*

I used to get so impatient whenever other people were like this 'cause I'd just want to shake them and try to knock some sense into them.

But now I'm one of them.

I know time will make things feel less...jumbled up inside of me.

I'm already taking steps to go back to being the me I used to be.

Hadn't taken pictures in awhile and I was in the mood to actually head out. There was a fresh blanket of snow from the night before.

The night before, it wasn't too bad, actually. But as I sat beside my date, my mind was a million miles away, thinking about someone else.


Garage 001
Originally uploaded by Anonymous Writer.

Garage 002
Originally uploaded by Anonymous Writer.

Garage 003
Originally uploaded by Anonymous Writer.

Carpe Diem, My Ass

I’m having trouble sleeping
I’m thinking of what you said
About the tears been shed
Leave me

It’s you
Now and always you
but never me
I’ve never dared to let my feelings free
Why’s it always you and never me?
-The Perishers, “Trouble Sleeping”

I’m listening to The Perishers, this Swedish quartet that I am completely in love with. I don’t even know how I stumbled across their music. Maybe one of their songs was featured on Grey’s Anatomy? I don’t know. But I started listening to them and sometimes, I’m in a mood like this one and I just need to listen to Ola Klüft’s voice. He’s got this sad kind of voice that just makes me feel…well, less bad, I suppose.

Sometimes, I re-read things that I’ve written and I wonder how it’s possible that I’m still functioning, still alive. I would have thought I’d slit my wrists by now…and yeah, I know it’s not kosher to be joking about shit like that, but when you’re depressed, it gets hard to find a reason to wake up in the morning, you know?

I told myself that I’d write about whatever happened and that as soon as the words were committed to the screen, then it’d be over with and I’d just have to move on.

But that’s the thing…moving on is always so fucking hard to do. What is it about the past that makes it so inviting to cling on to? It can’t do anything for us; and sometimes, the memories we’re holding onto are just downright painful. Are we sadists when we hang onto our pain?

Carpe diem, the dead smart ones advise us.

We watch inspiring movies that tell us to seize the day and for an hour or two, we’re moved to attempt this, but in reality, a lot of us don’t. We get lazy. We tell ourselves that there’s always tomorrow and sometimes, we even convince ourselvse that it’s necessary for us to wallow in our self-pity just for this one day before we get on the whole, “live your life to the fullest” routine.

We continue to blunder our way through life, wasting time, never fully believing in our mortality.

And we all know this. Some of us even think about it a lot. But instead of getting off our asses and doing something to make life mean something, we continue to plod along…because in the grand scheme of things, what are we even here for? What’s the meaning of life? Does it matter if there’s a meaning?

*le sigh*

I think way too much.

Quote of the day:
“You hang on to your pain like it means something. Well, let me tell you --- it’s not worth shit. Let it go! Infinite possibilities and all he does is whine.” – Nathaniel, “Six Feet Under”

Hanging On

I feel like House.I really felt for him in tonight's episode 'cause his leg was bothering him to the point that he was asking his boss to give him a shot of morphine to his spine. Hugh Laurie does pain so well. God, I knew how his leg was feeling. My right knee's always felt slightly twisted up. I rub it a lot and today, I applied direct heat to it, but it still throbs a little. I feel like I should go around with a cane or something. It probably didn't help that there were two fucking fire alarms at work today and I had to walk down 16 flights of stairs...twice. Holy shit.

The Best Friend in California asked in an e-mail today about the guy I was seeing. She asked me if I was interested in him for the sake of being interested in someone ‘cause there was no one else around at this point.

She wrote, “The worst mistake we can make is to date guys that we click with, have fun with, like, but we're not madly in love with. I want that pull, that I can't live without you fire. I also want that I'm so comfortable around you pull too. What will become of us, Jo? Will we find love?”

It just made me think about today’s Quote of the Day:

“Sometimes, when you hold out for everything, you walk away with nothing.” – Ally McBeal

Trust me. It’s not like I haven’t been running this through my head non-stop lately, either.

It makes me think about what I read in Anne Tyler’s “A Patchwork Planet”:

“I know couples who’d been married almost forever --- 40, 50, 60 years. 72 in one case. They’d be tending each other’s illnesses, filling in each other’s faulty memories, dealing with the money troubles or the daughter’s suicide or the grandson’s drug addiction. And I was beginning to suspect that it made no difference whether they’d married the right person. Finally, you’re just with who you’re with. You’ve signed on with her, put in half a century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself, or even better, and she’s become the right person. Or the only person, might be more the point. I wish someone had told me that earlier. I’d have hung on then; I swear I would.”

Eleanor Rigby

I’ll never get into your heart
I’m just happy to hang around
-Travis, “Happy To Hang Around”

The thing about feeling alone is that it’s so easy to think you’re the only one who feels like shit and that nobody else out there could possibly understand just how bad you feel.

And then, there’s a site like PostSecret, where people anonymously send in these beautiful, sad postcards with their deep and darkest secrets and it’s strange thinking that there all these people out there who feel just as lost and alone.

It always makes me think of that old Beatles’ song where Paul McCartney asked, “All the lonely people --- where do they all come from?”

When I was in university, I remember how it always used to surprise me that someone would remember my name. I always felt pretty invisible --- like nobody could really be bothered to truly see me. And of course, I was too shut off from the rest of the world to make the effort to be the one to reach out.

So, yeah, I know a thing or two about being lonely.

The thing is, someone recently said to me that it was hard to imagine me ever being lonely. Yeah, I’m close to my sisters and to my family --- I’m lucky in that way. I have sisters who are like friends and I always know that I can go to them about anything.

I’m lucky because I’ve known my best friend for 22 years and we’re still really close.

I actually have friends that I can count on in an emergency because I’ve had emergencies and I never found myself alone in those moments. I always had someone.

But I guess when we talk about loneliness, we’re really zeroing in on that vacant space in our hearts reserved for “the one” who will come along and be by our sides through thick and thin, going to sleep beside us at night, brushing their teeth next to us in the bathroom in the morning, sitting across from us at the kitchen table, talking to us about the kids, the bills, the job, the vacation, whatever.

That’s the loneliness that’s hard to endure because most of us don’t really want to grow old alone.

In an episode of Sex and the City, Carrie asked, "Why do we let the one thing we don't have affect how we feel about all the things we do have?"

Good question.

Maybe it's because we allow ourselves to believe that this missing one thing means so much more than everything we do have. Maybe we lose sight of what's great about our lives because it's human nature to always want what we can't have.

Who knows?

Quote of the day:
“Four hundred years ago, another well-known English guy had an opinion about being alone. John Donne. He thought we were never alone. Of course, it was fancier when he said it. ‘No man is an island unto himself.’ Boil down that island talk and he just meant that all anyone needs is someone to step in and let us know we’re not alone.” – Meredith, “Grey’s Anatomy”

Snapshots From An Uneventful Saturday

When I checked out the books I had on hold, the teenaged Chinese guy mentioned the library was doing a fundraiser and would I like to donate $2?

I was ready to say "No thanks" but I found myself shrugging and saying, "Why not?" which seemed to surprise him.

"I guess most people say no, huh?" I asked him.

He smiled and said a lot of them made excuses but the money was going towards buying more books and DVDs.

He gave me a card of coupons and a bookmark and said I could write my name on a placard and it would be pasted on the wall with the other donors.

So, I did.

I'm such a philanthropist.
*
Oh my God.

Mom told me I had to cook, which was no big deal, 'cause I hadn't done it in awhile and I felt a little like Giada De Laurentiis, chopping up shallots and garlic and cooking it in butter and chicken stock with tomatoes. But then, when I was ready to lay out the fish, I saw the friggin tail moving. Like a slow flip-flop even though I'd just cut slits into the side.

I was so FREAKED!

I yelled to mom, "It's alive! It's still alive."

And of course, she didn't believe me. She came over and we stared at the fish, waving its tail at us.

A Meantime Girl

If I had the nerve, I'd send him this so he'd know how it feels. How, it's torture pretending that I'm okay with just being his friend and having to hear about the other girl who gets to be the one he actually wants.

But a part of me wonders if he'd even care?

Reading this on Angry Korean Girl's blog broke my heart, because I know what it's like.

Did some digging and I think the original author might actually be wild_magnolia. (Further digging reveals that this really is the writer and her name is Lisa Andrews.)

What’s a Meantime Girl?

She’s the one you call when you’re bored because she makes you laugh. She’s the one you talk to when you’re feeling down because she’s willing to lend an ear and be a friend. She’s not the one you call when you need a date to your company’s Christmas party, or to go dancing with on a Saturday night. She’s the one you spend time with between girlfriends, before you find "The One". You know, the one who you keep around in the meantime.

She’s not one of the guys, not a tomboy, but you don’t look at her as a "real" woman, either. She’s not bitchy enough, moody enough, or sexy enough to be seen in that light. She’s too laid-back, too easily amused by the same things your male buddies are amused by. She’s too understanding, too comfortable – she doesn’t make you feel nervous or excited the way a "real" woman does. But she’s cool, and nice, and funny, and attractive enough that when you’re lonely or horny and need intimate female companionship, she’ll do just fine. You don’t have to wine and dine her because she knows the real you already, and you don’t have any facades to keep up, no pretenses to preserve. You’re not trying to get anything of substance out of her. She’s not easy, but you know that she cares about you and is attracted to you, and that she’ll give you the intimacy you need. And you know you don’t have to explain yourself or the situation, that she’ll be able to cope with the fact that this isn’t the beginning of a relationship or that there’s any possibility that you have any real romantic feelings for her. It won’t bother her that you’ll get up in the morning, put on your pants, say goodbye, and go on a date with the woman you’ve been mooning over for weeks who finally agreed to go out with you. She’ll settle for a goodbye hug and a promise to call her and tell her how the date went. She’s just so cool . . . why can’t all women be like that?!

But deep down, if you really think about it (which you probably don’t because to you, the situation between the two of you isn’t important enough to merit any real thought), you know that it’s really not fair. You know that although she would never say it, it hurts her to know that despite all her good points and all the fun you two have, you don’t think she’s good enough to spend any real time with. Sure, it’s mostly her fault, because she doesn’t have to give in to your needs – she could play the hard-to-get bitch like the rest of them do, if she really wanted to. But you and she both know that she probably couldn’t pull it off. Maybe she’s too short, or a little overweight, or has a big birthmark on her forehead, or works at Taco Bell. Whatever the reason, somehow life has given her a lot of really great qualities but has left out the ones that men want (or think they want) in a woman. So she remains forever the funny friend, the steadfast companion, the secret lover, and you go on searching for your goddess who will somehow be everything you ever wanted in a woman.
You’ll joke to her that she should be the best man at your wedding, and she’ll laugh and make a joke about a smelly rental tux.

She doesn’t captivate you with her beauty, or open doors with her smile. Mainly she blends in with the crowd. She’s safe. She doesn’t want to be the center of attention and turn the heads of everyone in the room. But she wants to turn someone’s head. She wants to be special to someone, too. We all do.

She has feelings. She has a heart. In fact, she probably has a bigger and better heart than any woman you’ve ever known because she’s had a front-row seat to The Mess That Is Your Life, and she likes you anyway. She obviously sees something worthwhile and redeeming in you because although you’ve given her nothing, absolutely no reason to still be around, she is.

Anyway, yeah. I’m a Meantime Girl. Been one more times than I care to admit. I don’t know the reason, really, and at this point I don’t even care. I just want to let every guy know who’s ever had the good fortune to have a Meantime Girl that we may be a lot of fun, but we cry, too. A lot. And someday we won’t be around.

Plus One Is The Loneliest Number

That was my favourite episode of "Sex and the City" --- because of that one scene where Carrie and Charlotte are sitting at the bar and Charlotte muses, maybe we don't say certain things out loud because we don't like the way they sound. And then Carrie says, "I'm lonely. I am. The loneliness is palpable."

It was that word --- "palpable" -- that got to me because it meant more to me than the word "lonely" did...if that makes any sort of sense.

It's that sense of loneliness that throbs throughout your entire being that makes you hurt in some undefineable way that makes you ask yourself why you haven't died from it yet --- it's like a slow torture that propels you from one day to the next, never really letting up.

It makes your heart hurt and your soul hurt.

And nobody likes to admit this --- being lonely, that is.

It's, like, "God, what's wrong with you?"

I don't even really want to go down this road, but it's like I can't help it. Valentine's Day just brings that out in me, I suppose. It makes you wonder, "What's wrong with me?" when all sorts of people manage to find love every day. Sometimes, it's a really horrible person --- someone selfish, demanding, stupid, and mean. If someone like that can find love...then what's wrong with me?

You'd think you'd get used to it...this loneliness. But it surprises you sometimes. Just when you think you've finally learned how to cope, something will come up and make you feel that emptiness again.

God.

I know I sound pathetic...but I need to write this out of my system. I need to write about it and then wake up tomorrow and be okay.

'Cause, really, what choice do I have?

Don't Let It Bring You Down

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning
Find someone who's turning
You will come around
- Annie Lennox, "Don't Let It Bring You Down"


My guilty pleasure is lying in bed and reading good chick lit. (As opposed to bad chick lit, which can easily be found in Harlequin's Red Dress Ink series. Such sub par writing and contrived, tired, recycled, predictable storylines!)

Right now, I'm slowly wading through Emily Giffin's Something Blue. I'm soaking it up little by little because a truly good slice of chick lit deserves to be drunk in guiltily, little by little.

There's no better feeling than lounging around in bed with a good book as the sun's rising and you can't help but feel a bit of hope that maybe life isn't as bad as you thought --- in spite of a rough few weeks and a spectacularly bad start to the year.

Tonight, Brain Transplant friend is having her birthday thing at a lounge downtown.

Now, I'm not really the type of gal who lets loose on the dance floor and who loves nothing more than to kick back several drinks, but every once in awhile, I don't mind it.

I hope tonight's good.

The Warning

I think that every Asian person who enters into the world of interracial dating will, at some point, reach that stage where they have to issue their significant other the warning.

What, pray tell, is the warning?

Okay, there's no way around this, but most Asian parents are downright racist.

At some point, you'll find yourself giving a variation of this speech:

"My parents will hate you. They hated you before they met you. They'll hate you when they meet you. And if we wind up together for the next 75 years, you can bet your ass that they'll hate you for the next 75 years."

Oh, sure, they'll be all nice and polite to your face, but that's more out of discomfort than anything else. Some of them might even pretend they don't speak all that much English and they'll yabber on in Cantonese or Mandarin about that "devil" sitting across the table from them.

Sister 2's friend, C, is dating a white guy.

She's heading up to Ottawa this weekend with him and when her parents asked her who she was going with, she automatically said Sister 2's name and then proceeded to call our home number two times, Sister 2's cell phone four times, and e-mail three times to give her the head's up that she was going to be her front for this weekend getaway.

She's been dating this guy for over a year and her parents have yet to acknowledge him. Instead, the mother gives him cold, icy stares full of withering distaste while the father outright ignores him.

You want to know something weird?

I come from a huge family --- at my grandmother's birthday last April, there were close to 100 people there. There's 10 kids, 42 grandkids, and 33 great-grandkids. Add spouses and significant others to the mix and a few cousins and in-laws and you've got yourself a mini-village.

The weird thing is that there isn't a single person in my family who has married outside of the race --- well, there was one.

One of my cousins married a Saudi Arabian who was a year old her than her mother. She didn't live with him, though. It was a very strange arrangement where they lived apart for years and he came to visit her every now and again. Eventually, they got divorced and she settled down with a nice, "appropriate" Chinese man.

You'd think that, living in Toronto, one of us might have married a white person at the very least.

But nope. That hasn't happened.

God have mercy on the one who brings home the first "coloured" person.

My cousin's sister-in-law married a white guy she'd been dating for over 10 years. She had to hide it from her parents because they were out-and-out against it. They thought he was uneducated and probably had a million other ill-conceived ideas. They thought he'd eventually cheat on their daughter and one day leave her. They made their distaste for him known. They didn't realize it, but they were the ones who drove the wedge between themselves and their daughter.

I remember the summer that they got married, my mom and I were out for an early morning walk and she told me that whoever I wound up marrying, she'd accept it --- no matter who it was. She said she trusted my judgment.

But I'm beginning to see all of that was just bullshit because it's pretty clear that the mere notion that I might be dating someone who's not Asian just puts a bitter taste in her mouth.

The Asian parents' version of the warning is chock full of racist stereotypes. They actually believe that this will knock some "sense" in their child's head.

Some days?

I think my mom would rather have me be alone and lonely for the rest of my life than to see me settle down with someone she'd "worry" about for the rest of her life.

You Don't Know Me

And anyone can tell,
You think you know me well,
But you don't know me.

No, you don't know the one
Who dreams of you at night
Who longs to kiss your lips

Oh I am just a friend
That's all I've ever been
'Cause you don't know me

My heart aches with love for you
Afraid and shy
I let my chance go by
The chance that you might love me, too
- You Don't Know Me

One of the things I loved best about watching Northern Exposure was the philosophical ramblings of John Corbett's DJ Chris Stevens.

I even used to copy down the stuff he'd say.



Tonight? There's one thing that he said in particular that kind of goes with how I'm feeling:

"...here's music to go with that special moment in life: when you just want to crawl into a hole, shrivel up and die. Why? Because, sometimes, you've gotta just lie down with your pain. Like Carl Jung says, 'There's no coming into consciousness without pain.' Let's get conscious."

My music to go with this special moment in life when you're way past being heartbroken and you're kind of dull to all emotion? A whole selection of songs from "My Best Friend's Wedding".



The song, "Always You" by Sophie Zelmani, especially, hits right at the heart.

And the sad thing is that in spite of your head accepting the truth of the matter, of fully understanding the way things are playing out, your heart always feels differently.

You still hope...you still hope that you're wrong and that you'll be proven wrong...that the kind of love you want and deserve, will prevail in the end...that the one you want will want you back.

Doesn't happen that way in real life, does it?

Time has a way of making things hurt less...making the days pass...making you move on whether you want to or not.

The Perfect Guy

Okay, so maybe the Perfect Guy really doesn't exist, but the kind of guy I think every smart girl should want to be with is like George O'Malley from Grey's Anatomy.

I know. I know. Everybody's supposed to gush over McDreamy, but George is the one who makes me sigh, "He's so cute!" every time I see him.

What's not to love about George? He's the sweet, insecure type who's miserable with women and who has the misfortune of being seen as the "let's just be friends" guy or the "I think of you like a brother" guy.

And you can't help but wonder why the women in his life don't wake up and realize what a great guy he is.

Granted, there are probably tons of guys like him out there, but why is it that we don't realize this? Why do we continue to bemoan the fact that "good men are hard to find"? Maybe they're not hard to find. Maybe we're just too busy chasing after the McDreamys of this world because we don't realize that the "perfect" guys aren't really the guys with perfect hair and perfectly chiselled chins, but rather, the sweet ones who will always look out for us no matter what.

Don't Let It Get You Down

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning
Find someone who’s turning
And you will come around
- Annie Lennox, "Don't Let It Bring You Down"

Someone sent me this quote from Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Mastery of Love" today:
"If you tell someone you love him and that person says, "Well, I don't love you", is that a reason to suffer? Just because someone rejects you doesn't mean you have to reject yoruself. If one person doesn't love you, someone else will love you. There is always someone else. And it's better to be with someone who wants to be with you than to be with someone who has to be with you."

And it just made me think that it's probably stupidest thing in the world to say that there is always someone else, because sometimes, there isn't. We've all heard the saying that there's plenty of fish in the sea. But if that were true, so many of us wouldn't have such a bloody hard time finding that one true love that we've been taught by Hollywood to want. There wouldn't be shows like Sex and the City or books like Bridget Jones Diary" or the advent of online dating. We wouldn't all be trying so desperately heard to find someone to help us escape the loneliness of our lives.

Or is this just me?

Have A Nice Day

Early PM
Can't remember what time...
Stuck at the red light...
It's a night just right...
Let's take a holiday,
Is that what you want?
To have a nice day?
Lie around all day...
Have a drink...
- Stereophonics, "Have A Nice Day"

I'm just so grateful that I can hear a great song like this.

Music just plays so a huge part in my life. It has the power to lift me out of a bad mood and make me smile; it commiserates with me in my worst moments; it's like a comforting blanket that helps me get to sleep; it's a companion to make a boring moment pass by quicker.

I asked an LJ friend to recommend a whole bunch of songs with an "I'll Survive" theme, but as I was going through my own list of MP3s, I found all sorts of songs I hadn't listened to in a long time...like this one by the Stereophonics.

The very next song on the list was Daniel Powter's "Song 6", which is the perfect transition. It builds on that whole "Have A Nice Day" theme...or at least the cheerful music does.

I Know

My mama said to stay away from guys like you
She said they were nasty
Made me do things I don't want to do!
Stay away from bad boys
They've got one thing on their mind
They're hormonal rages
And they want it all the time...
- Save Ferris, "I Know"

So, I asked someone to compile a list of songs with an "I'll Survive" theme because I have a shitload of songs now that only serve to remind me of a certain someone that I'm better off never thinking about again.

But like the song "I Know" says...I just can't let you go.

Chalk it up to a moment of insanity, which I will no doubt look back on with a certain degree of fondness in years to come. Just not right now.

So, I've downloaded "I Know" by Save Ferris and I'm not listening to Aretha Franklin crooning, "Mr. Big Stuff". I love this kind of music. It really does make me feel like I will survive.

I mean, naturally, I know that I will. I think I just like wallowing in misery right now.

You know...a huge part of me realizes that I have no right to expect anything from the guy. What are we to each other? We're nothing.

I guess that's the problem. I don't want to be "nothing." I want to be someone to this guy. I want to be "the one."

Maybe We Like The Pain

So, here's a quandry:do you pursue a relationship with someone you know you could have the sort of steady, solid relationship that most successful marriages evolve into or do you take a risk and see what may or may not happen with the person you're irrationally, passionately, madly in love with --- in spite of all the hurt and pain?

Stupid question, huh?
*
What is it about love that turns even the sanest person into an idiotic fool?

A friend called me at work to see how I was doing. "What is it about that one person you fall in love with who screws you up so completely that you're willing to overlook...everything?"It had me wondering, indeed.

Melodramatic moments aside, I think I've reached that plateau where I'm starting to feel okay again.

But then, I have my moments of insanity and wonder, "What the fuck is wrong with me? Am I a glutton for punishment or what?"

And a small part of me wonders why I can't be irrational and insanely stupid?
*
Grey's quote for the day:
Maybe we like the pain. Maybe we're wired that way. Because without it, I don't know; maybe we just wouldn't feel real. What's that saying? Why do I keep hitting myself with a hammer? Because it feels so good when I stop.