for now, a moment of creative respite. the past three weeks, i have been in forward motion, leaving not just human dust and hairs behind but whole chunks of me are cracking and splitting off, leaving me to momentarily forget who i am and where i came from, why i am here, and what i am doing. work is slowly becoming an extension of my personality, a transmogrification. this work that i am currently involved with, the internship, and the more dulling flat-iron, the restaurant, or should i say, two restaurants--they are worlds apart in culture and resource but one in the same in regards to ownership. they are me and i in them. my mind has retrogressed, is still devolving into procedural frame-setting, the practice of protocols, strategies, and business plans, losing brilliance and thrill as if it were air and i had held my breath a month ago, which i had; a figurative joke of course, an exaggeration, a thing i am most apt at, nevertheless, i am tired and i have lost weight which the fat of luxury wouldn't have allowed if i had stayed obedient to it. for time equals luxury: the more and more i have less of it, the more precious it is.

the thin line between love and crazy

to tell you the truth, there is no such thing as a normal person. we’re all crazy somehow, just some more capable of it than others. minutes before taking our final test, i chatted with the girl next to me. she had a european accent so i asked where she was from and what brought her to the states. julia virden was german and when she told me why she moved, she had this euphoric look on her face. she looked up at the ceiling then slowly at me, a hint of giddy-ness and nostalgia in her eyes, and replied, "love." simple as that. several years back, while walking around nyc on vacation, she crossed paths with an american boy. with a gleam, she told me it was love at first sight. “it’s crazy, i know,” she kept repeating, still somewhat incredulous. she ended up extending her stay another week; they kept in touch, tried the long-distance thing, had many ups and downs, and finally made the jump to marriage.

it’s hard to say if given the same opportunity, i’d be crazy enough to change my whole life on one chance encounter with someone completely foreign. what i do know is that the get-up of a relationship is tough—but it should make you want to try. to be sure, "love" will make you not want to be yourself. it'll make you walk five hundred miles or learn french. it'll make you write “bad checks.” love screams YES! and you couldn't agree more. but will you do something about it? this is the dividing line that makes love stories, crazy. your intentions with anyone or anything could make the pope weep his eyes dry, but if you don’t do anything about them, what good is that? i can’t appreciate a girl who has a lot of interests yet doesn't have anything to show for it. a girl with a hundred different hobbies or things-she-wants-to-get-into tells me that she'll take up something but when it gets tough or perhaps boring, she'll drop it. for example, i know a lot of girls who want to be the next feist or priscilla ahn, but the moment a guitar needs to be re-strung, suddenly photography becomes a passion of theirs, their flickr site up and ready. there's nothing wrong with being curious and trying out new things–i'm like this myself and i encourage it–but to be able to struggle and work through something is what counts. i don’t know about you but i wouldn’t want to end up like the pile of rachael ray cook books she hasn’t gotten to yet or her half-made scarf still in its crochet.

julia was twenty-six at the time of our conversation, he was twenty-nine, and she claimed their relationship was never stronger. it took them seven long years to figure out if things could work, even with that first, miracle-sparking glance. stories like theirs exist but it’s only because they were crazy enough to keep trying. einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. i don’t know a single person who isn’t insane to a degree (if they weren’t, they’d be some sort of machine-man like the terminator, then we’d be in trouble), which in some weird way, gives me some hope about the possibility of more love stories that defy circumstance. i mean, c’mon, normal is just plain boring. why have an eight-pack of crayons when you can try for the one hundred twenty-one? maybe i’m just ambitious. or maybe it’s because i want passionate, make-you-sweat…bed-time storytelling. whatever the case is, in the end, i want to be able to say that i at least tried.

but then again, i could really be crazy.

birthday again

i'm twenty-six now. according to some, i don't really know what i want in life and thus, i will only bring trouble, probably confusion, and most likely heartache. twenty-five with all its ups and downs was a good year. twenty-eight and thirty seem like potentially good years too -- the ones in between not so much. twenty-six sounds like middle-child syndrome, like peter or jan brady or sophmore year in high school. it doesn't sound too glamorous. we'll see, i guess.

stuck

it's been a strange morning and for some reason, i feel compelled to write it down, knowing that at some point in my life, i'll re-read this entry and it'll make me chuckle. first, the red lights. i hit every red light to the freeway which is always frustrating for a commuter. not too big of a deal yet. freeway traffic was normal and i got to my parking structure without a hitch. trying to catch the bus to my work though, was difficult, and i ended up walking the nine or so blocks. i get to the elevator of my building with no one accompanying me, which i always enjoy especially as i needed to poop and i wanted to writhe in pain alone, without disturbance. i often wonder what i would do if i ever get stuck in an elevator. well today i got stuck. somewhere between the thirty-seven floors up, my little box called it quits and after a minute, i called in to security. it was a bit exciting as i told the not-so-attentive attendant that i was having trouble. she asked me what floor i was on. i told her i didn't know because i was in the express, which she should have known when i reported the elevator's number. so here i am, gassy beyond toleration, and as she rambles on about something, i start to move again. i yell out "thank you," because apparently these push-to-talk help boxes lose reception.

i get into another elevator but this time with our receptionist. i can't really find the adjective to describe her so i'll settle for self-absorbed idiot. after an awkward thirty-five seconds of silence (and yes, i did count the trip a number of times, averaging them out and arriving at thirty-five), i get to my cubicle and settle down. weird morning i repeat to myself. just then i hear a quaint, "hi." it's the girl whose cubicle i invaded. wonderful. i get up to introduce myself, start packing up and my boss comes out to help me find another space. the window office is nice, i guess, but my back is turned towards it and the automatic sensor shuts off the light every five minutes because it doesn't seem to get that i'm its new occupant. however, i am glad for the move; i'm farther away from my boss so she can't creep up behind me. and since i face the door, i no longer have to alt+tab with a judo chop quickness, which means i won't caught looking at my facebook every ten minutes.

go west young man

in my original statement of reasons, i declared to four army generals my intent to go to westpoint. i was clear: i wanted to lead the country's finest men into battle. "to lead." that was almost ten years ago and i think it's safe to say that i didn't really know what i meant back then because i think i would make a poor officer. today, jackie reprimanded me for being wishy-washy. i had my reasons for the way i had responded to a particular situation, but in the end she plainly said that i wouldn't be a "good leader" by being the way i am. i was stunned. almost immediately, i asked in my mind: what if i didn't want to be a good leader? or even be a leader? what is it about being leaders that everyone should aspire to be?

when this country was in its infant stages, men moved west when disputes arose. to go towards california was the "safety valve" of the country. in other words, the mentality was escapist. it's been awhile since i felt this way and earlier tonight, as i sat in my car, trying to hide a few tears, i wanted to do just that: quit. i wanted to quit everything -- friendships, relationships, ambitions -- because i'm just not capable of being everything to everyone. i set more fires with my tongue than i can put out using my hands, and it's demoralizing. i'm tired of failing. i'm also tired of using the tired excuse over and over.

i don't know if it's ironic or coincidental but i told pastor jae yesterday that my pessimism wants to find and admit that there is a bottom, so that my optimism can figure how to get out. at this point though, i don't care if i'm being a good leader, i just want to survive the rest of the week.

it's always disorienting to walk out of a theater in the middle of the day.