APoorReflection

A Foot Condition

2011-11-17T21:05:00.000-08:00

I've been having a thought lately. It's been running circles in my head and it won't come out. Who's to say it ever will? That's the work of a lifetime, I've found: to make it all come out. That's why a lot of artists kill themselves.

Cowards.

Gonna make it all come out before I get out of here.

I think I've given up on happy. It's a race. I've never been much of a runner (I have a foot condition). I'll have to settle for purpose over happy, if I can have that. Most days I fear I'll fail at that too.

I confuse the two, happiness and purpose. If I'm happy, I think that everything I do has meaning. If I'm not, then everything is stupid and I've failed. Everyone else is doing better because they seem to smile when I don't look at them directly.

After all these years, I haven't learned to be direct. Maybe I should try happy?

No. It's a race. My feet weren't designed for that. I'm going to stay.

Maybe I wasn't designed for happy either.

We can't all be happy all the time, you know. It's like money. In order for some to have a lot, most people have to get by with little or none. I don't mind, but it seems like I don't meet too many of the people with lots, and if I'm going to have to do without, I would at least like to know that the people around me aren't going through the same thing.

That's one thing I would ask God. If you must continue in this way, will you take care of the ones I love? I will be satisfied in that.

People talk to me all the time about being depressed. Their arguments usually amount to something along the lines of "I don't like that, so stop it." It's a fair argument, but it's not complete.

You don't know what I've seen.

What I'm able to see. Not yet.

I'm not afraid.

I'm not afraid of sacrificing my entire life to failure for the hope of one success. I'm not afraid of death; I will embrace it when it is my time. I am not scared to be misunderstood. Got to keep breathing. Got to keep writing happy endings because I haven't seen a real one. Got to make it all come out before I go.

I will be satisfied in that.

Umbrella

2011-11-10T20:40:00.000-08:00

I find refuge in the time I have to myself.

I think, at one time I was supposed to find refuge in something(someone?) else, but I often forget who that is, and mistake that identity for someone else. I guess I had better hope that this great thing that I never seem to stop looking for is also somehow inside of me, or I may never find it.

Or perhaps, I'll find it and then I'll just give up because I'll never get my head around it or it scares me too much. That's why we watch movies and listen to music. That thing is out there, somewhere in the real world. Better to stay indoors as much as possible, and always go out with an umbrella.

Actually, I prefer Youtube. Sometimes the movies talk about it too.

I'm in a shop called "Hands Coffee." The barrista is kind of cute. I wonder what would happen if I went up to her and told her that, and maybe kissed her on the cheek. Maybe it would be like a movie, except for the part where it's her turn to react.

That's another thing I like about the movies. There's always a main character. I can never react to anything properly because I'm pretty sure I'm an extra. With the amount of effort I put into my life, I'll be lucky if I'm even credited.

The slogan for this place is "My life, my choice." I'm suddenly worried that there are stem cells in my coffee. I forget why that's supposed to make me angry. It has something to do with Christopher Reeve, but he's dead. Should I still be upset?

Anyway, I'm about finished with my latte and I can safely say that the slogan is the only strong thing about this place.

The PA system is playing a jazz cover of "Tainted Love," This has nothing to do with anything (I wish it did) but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

I think the barrista is smiling at me out of the corner of my eye. I try smiling at her. I don't think she was smiling at me anymore.

What I wouldn't give to be at least a supporting cast member. Like Ron Weasley.

He got Hermoine. How the hell did that happen?

This place is orange. I can see the cold, steel blue of the outdoors through the windows. I've been learning about color temperature online in my free time. Everything we think we know is backwards. All the cool colors come from high temperatures, and all the warm ones come from lower temperatures. Does that mean that the outside is warmer?

Or at least, more heat?

Heat isn't the same as temperature. We learned that in school. Temperature is a number, but heat is motion. A vat of molten steel has nothing on the heat generated by the ocean.

Motion. So many things moving around. Life has no plot that I can find.

My hand is on the door. I wait for the heat to come. THe ocean. It spins around in circles, and no one can breathe underwater. The barrista notices me leaving.

"감사합니다! 안녕히 가십시요!"

I'll bet she says that to everyone.

Candid/Candone

2011-11-08T22:29:00.001-08:00

God is a photographer.

I've been a bit into photography lately, and one of my more willful sins is to think that God is a little bit like me. Perhaps we have a few hobbies in common. I feel the need to indulge in the mood I'm in right now, so you, O loyal reader(s?) will have to forgive me (as He often does).

He put a soft filter of fog down around the whole of the landscape. Spared no expense. The colors are outlined deep against the grey of yet another subtlety that they all dismiss as absence.

He is not seen.

He is behind.

He is gathering exposure.

These days, I am becoming more sensitive to light. I don't understand what it is, but I think that the world is posed; caught in the middle of saying "cheese."

I'll wait until I catch you off guard. I can picture you better that way.

The Easy Hurt

2011-10-11T23:48:00.000-07:00

I'm having one of those "not tonight Korea, I have a headache" moments. Everything is a fight.

The students don't listen.

I can't concentrate.

The teachers can't communicate.

The food smells like death.

To be honest, most days, I like the fight. It keeps me awake. In America, life was too easy. I was fat (in more ways than one). Convenience is a slow and happy killer. All we need to do is relax for long enough to mix with the dirt.

Put down roots.

Soak up the sun.

Never move again.

Today I wish I lived close to my sister. The sound of her voice would be like therapy. She understands me without hearing me speak. Don't know if there are other people like that in the world. I moved a world away from it. I don't even think I was happy when I lived near.

It's not you, it's me.

It's easier to be unknown most days. I'm a little bit famous in my city (my face is strange), but that's not what I mean by being known.

Everyone stares.

No one speaks.

It's easy without people. It's easy, but it hurts. It's when you're alone that you notice all the things that you could care about but shouldn't. Things like crowded buses, cranky coworkers, long work hours, persistent coughs, your Facebook account, and the time difference between Seoul and Los Angeles. Not to mention unapetizing elementary school cafeteria food.

Smells like death.

One of my favorite movies is about an Irish man who becomes a butler for an eccentric millionaire who keeps alligators in the house. I'll never forget one particular part of the movie. After his first day, the butler turns to the cook and asks "is it forever like this?"

"Like what?," she says, confused.

"Like this" is something I want to remember. I want to carry it with me until my dying day. Fight to stay alive. Remember what love is. It is, in fact, love that I want, and not the easy unknown. It is not envious or proud. It is not forever like this.

Dry For Too Long

2011-10-04T19:03:00.000-07:00

There's a weird backward magnetism to rain. It draws everything in and away. I'm looking out at the petals of rain, drumming against my windows on the 4th floor of 해서 Elementary, and I can't help but think that the world within has become enchanted for the disturbance outside.

Colors seem brighter.

Noises louder.

I can hear the students talking as they trample carelessly by my door. They used to speak only as an exotic fog to which I had no clarity.

These days, it seems as though everything is coming into focus.

Took long enough.

Seems like it took just long enough.

The cold air draws the skin tight against my body, and the wind carries with it the scent of air that stood dry for too long. It smells warm.

It will be Halloween. Then Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, but before that, I am going to see home again.

It's such a strange word, in a strange world, and I've been looking for it for longer than I should. It bares teeth, deep down in my soul, and I would fight to keep it alive. I don't now think that I would fit into the shape I held when I was near it. My body is swolen, soaked with a foriegn rain. My actions have accents that are drawn more from love than clarity. Will home take me back? Does love endure all things? Will the prophet find honor in his own town? Have I been struck by something otherworldly, and if she smiles back, should I chase her?

Come away with me.

I came into this world limping so that I could earn the right to run.

Jeju Day 9: Till It's Done

2011-09-26T22:30:00.000-07:00

Literally nothing happened these last 2 days. I tried to rest, and my foot didn't get any better. 미영 called me today, and we went to a place called the "Oriental Medicine Clinic," to give accupuncture a try. The first thing that surprised me is that this procedure is covered by my insurance. I guess that shows how little stock I put in the process.

The doctor came in and touched my wrists briefly. He told me that my injuries were not serious. I told him that it was my foot that was injured. He looked at me like I had just said the dumbest thing in the world. 미영 says that these doctors can tell the health of your entire body just by squeesing your wrists. I rolled my eyes at her pretty hard as I watched this guy poke 2 needles in my hand.

OW! 발이야!(It's my foot.)

I said this a few times, but he didn't dignify my stupidity with a response. He put one more neede in my arm, then two in my right leg (I injured my left foot) and the 2 more on my left foot, but none in the effected area. He then told me to wait for 10 minutes. It was like seeing a real doctor, except that I didn't believe a word he said. They put some weird goo on my foot and sent me home.

After my medical excursion, I got a text message from Cassie, telling me that she and Adean were going to get Indian food, and did I want to come? I wasn't instantly keen on the idea of going out, but I've really got to soak up the time I've got left with these two. I only have a few weeks until they go back to their respectve countries. We enjoyed some 메이블토스트 (toast with cream and syrup) and griped about work for a bit (even though I just got back from vacation, I try to save a few things for emergency gripe purposes). I feel like these two are family, and I've only known them for a year. I'll miss them lots, though both of them are for sure tired of Korea, and need to go home before either of them infects me with home sickness. I still have things to do here.

So there it was.

An adventure.

Confronting my past and using my present to make sense of my future. I often call myself "Lonely Bear," but I'm starting to realize that I've never really had to be alone. Maybe in a strange way, I chose to be alone for this brief time to better understand myself. What good is all this information if there is no one to share it with?

So, to you o' loyal reader(s?), I confess. I am not an artist or a visionary. I'm just some crazy kid who thinks in pictures, watches too many movies, and hears voices in his head. What I have heard and seen, I now relate to you. May it help you to grow, as I myself need desperately to grow up. Thank you for being here to wintness my first awkward steps in that direction. Speaking of awkward steps, I'll be damned if my foot isn't feling better already.

Accupuncture.

go fugure.

That's life for you. You never, ever, know what's going to do it 'till it's done. That's how long I plan to keep telling the story. Stop by again sometime.

Jeju Day 7: Doctor, Doctor

2011-09-25T17:31:00.000-07:00

Feels great to wake up in my home, on a real bed, in a place where I can listen to music and use a computer. I didn't realize how much I missed my guitar either. I should play more often.

I decided not to go on the internet until the official "end" of my vacation, which is Friday. The idea feels pretty good I wait a few hours before calling my co-worker, 미영(MiYoung) to see if she can help me find a doctor's office. I always forget that her name is listed as "cleo" in my phone. I never call her that.

I'm starting to lose confidence in adults as I become closer to becoming one. Doctors, for instance. The doctor that 미영 and I went to. They took x-rays, shocked my foot with electrcity, and wrapped it in a hot bag for half an hour, then gave me pills and told me not to walk around a lot for the next 2 days.

미영 says that accupuncture is better.

Who knows, maybe it is?

All I'm starting to think is that no one really knows anything. Everything depends on what kind of documentation you have. That's what gives you the right to guess about things. Maybe I don't really know as little as I thought, compared to everyone else. I'm going to get some rest.

Maybe soon, I'll get to write about what accupuncture is like.

Jeju Day 6: Go

2011-09-25T04:23:00.000-07:00

Well, this is it.

An abrupt end.

I woke up this morning with an entire body ready for an adventure except my foot. This pain has been constant for the last two days. It has even increased a little. Something is not right. Time to go back and see a doctor. I won't call this the end of an adventure. I still have to find out what's wrong with my foot.

The boat to Mokpo is the same boat I took to Jeju, but I never really took the time to describe it. All of the economy class is just a collection of giant mats. There are two in the room I was put in. They can hold about 50 people each, and they are about at capacity. It's like a giant picnic in the park. Everyone just picks a spot where they can put their stuff and squats down. The ground around each mat is littered with shoes upon shoes upon shoes.

I think I am going to take a nap.

Later, on my way outside to get some fresh air, I ran into a Korean boy. "ran into" is a funny way of putting it, because I think he was following me. He kept smiling and waving. We had a conversation consisting of all the Korean sentences I know. Since that didn't take very long, we decided to just stare out at the ocean, and he kept laughing the whole time, as though life were only a joke, as if miscommunication were only in our heads. It's so good to be quiet with someone, even if it's someone you don't know very well. I drew a picture of his face. He wrote "100%" underneath it.

There's something, something unnameable about the experience of communication without words. About growing close to a stranger while looking out at a great big thing in silence. This is what my life should be about. This is what my art should be about. This is the thing that makes life liveable, that makes faith possible. This is the thing that I've got to show someone or I'll just explode. My life is the pursuit of something big and quiet. Something that communicates without speaking. How will words ever really capture it? Maybe it was never meant to be captured.

The taxi driver at Mokpo Ferry picked up another person with me, but when he dropped us off, he charged both of us the individual fee.

Really?

Whatever, I don't speak enough Korean to argue with him, and the other guy paid it like it was no big deal. It was only 2,300 won anyway.

The train station is packed, and a lot of the seats on the train are booked. I had to upgrade to 1st class. Worth it though, because if I had bought my tickets in advance, I would be making a huge financial sacrifice by coming home early. It's annoying the way these little kids take up the seats, laid down or sprawled out on 2 or 3 of them. I may look young and strong, but I have a bad limp, and I need somewhere to sit. I finally gave up and ordered some food in a local restaurant. I ordered a roll of Kimbap. It came with Kimchi and a bowl of fish broth. I had forgotten that it had been almost a week since I've eaten hot food. I didn't realize the joy of something so simple as a fresh prepared roll of kimbap and a bowl of hot broth. Who knows, I might even have some love for kimchi today.

I always eat too quick when I'm supposed to be wasting time. I've now got an hour to kill before my train leaves, and now I must attempt to look either contemplative or digestive. It's pretty much the same thing, since I'm convinced that thinking is something I do to pass the time between meals. Just like vacationing is something we do to fill the work void. Then retirement, grandchildren, and death. Life seems to be a collection of wastings and waitings. All these little things I've built up around myself 'till death due us part. I say this not as a precursor to depression, but as a declaration that I refuse to feel guilty for all the wasted hours I've spent this week, walking and waiting, sitting, sketching voyeuristic pictures of people and their belongings, wondering at their worth.

That's where meaning is found; in what we waste our time on.

God himself took seven days, just to give us things to waste about on. I have an atheist friend who says that it would make more sense if God made everything at once, to prove that he was God. That's not it though. Six days to work, one day to think, and then go back to working, without worrying about thinking for a while. Besides, who would God be proving himself to? Proving yourself is something insecure people do, Like artists who are too busy teaching English in Korea to get any of their projects done, or atheists who have ideas about God. Six days and one for wasting. That's how it is.

I think I just heard the boarding call for my train...

I want to go home really badly. I'm only an hour away. I'm excited to sleep in my bed, to prepare for the new semester, and to figure out what the hell is wrong with my foot. I hope they really find something, instead of just giving me a shot in my ass and 60 pills, which is the Korean medical solution to just about everything. I want x-rays and tests, and at some point, I want an old man in a white coat to poke my foot with a really weird looking tool. I'm American, damn it. That's medicine as I see it.

Got on the train. Happy happy happy to have a window seat this time. I forget too often what a beautiful country this is.

Jeju Day 5: Stay

2011-09-21T23:08:00.000-07:00

Jjimjilbang, sweet jjimjilbang! I'm really starting to get used to this place. I woke up this morning relatively unsore, except for my left foot, which is starting to develop a sort of limp. My biggest concern is that one day, it will just explode, and then what will I use to walk on? It gets easer to move around as time goes by, because I've been eating my snacks, and that makes everything lighter. think I'm also getting used to sleeping light and travelling all day. I think I'll go to the local E-Mart and buy something to put in my shoes, just to be safe.

I think I'm starting to understand what this trip is all about, but I still have a few more days before I reach my conclusion.

E-Mart doesn't open for another hour, so I'm just going to wait here. Again, I don't realy have any place that I need to be. It's sort of amusing to watch all the people walk by, try the door, look at the business hours sign, then walk away frustrated. I guess I'm not the only one who thought they would be open earlier.

Today, I think I will go to the opposite side of the island. There should be a traditional village over there, and onward to what looks like a big city, where I should be able to find some place to sleep. I think this trip is going to be solidly successful, despite life's best efforts to keep me down.

Update: So, after thinking about it for a while, I've decided to take it easy and stay in the city for today. I really don't like the way my foot is acting up, and I only have three more places I want to see.

no rush.

take your time.

I feel like I keep telling myself that, or hearing it from... somewhere. What's a vacation if you don't relax, anyway?

I found a local tea shop and ordered a 녹차 (green tea) so that I could sit and let the heat of the day pass a bit. The lady that works here gave me my tea which, judging by the consistency, was probably made with instant powder. The joke's on her though, 'cause I'm mostly here to loiter.

There's a man sitting here wearing the traditional clothing of Jeju. Forget what it's called, but it's supposed to be really nice. They dye it with persimmons, and it usually comes out in a light red and dark mud red color. He looks comfortable as hell. I'm a little jealous of his getup. I've buried myself from collar to cuff in sweat. Maybe I should figure out his secrets?

It's actually been quite difficult to stay off my feet. I have places that I want to go, but my body is telling me not to go yet. It's also kind of difficult to find places to hang out without constantly spending money. The sun is brutal today. Outside is miserable. What else is there to do? I just have to wait for healing.

I bought some apples from the grocery store. Daegu is famous for apples. I am of the opinion that Daegu apples could own Jeju apples any day of the week. I'm kind of excited about the idea of going home. I usually feel this way by about day 5 of whatever vacation I'm on. I'm pretty sure this is day 5.

I've got to say though, it's interesting not having access to my usual time wasters (aka the internet et. al.). That's what they all are, aren't they? I think I could pretty much spend my entire life on wasting and never know that I wasn't busy. It's kind of nice to leave space for boredom. A brief waltz with a yawn and a tumbling scratch of the head perhaps? That would be cool. I should chuck my computer (maybe just my modem?) out the window when I get home. I just might save my own life. If I'm not careful, it just might become a life worth saving.

I've decided that if my foot isn't better by tomorrow, I will go home. I've seen a lot here. If it turns out to be enough, I'll go home. If not, then I'd love to keep exploring.

Jeju Day 4: Like Licorice

2011-09-10T06:24:00.000-07:00

I decided to take it easy on my body today and try to make up for lost time by taking a bus. I had wanted to hike the whole way, but I've never been a very stubborn person, and I have no need to be stubborn with my body. A change in plans is much better than a bad injury. Seriously, though, after last night, I have travelled nowhere, and my clothes are all damp and smell like the ocean (see yesterday). I honestly want to give up, but I've decided to be hopeful that today will be better.

Is it just me, or did the attendant at that convenience store really look like Korean John Denver? I guess it is just me. That's the point.

Some super sweet Ajuhmas (old ladies) helped me find the right bus. for about 3,000 won I can travel as far as I need, and I'm pretty sure I can get there pretty fast. Today starts out fortunate. I don't know where it will go from here, but I'm determined to be like licorice... sweet and flexible. I pray the rest works out.

Seriously though, how does anyone travel in a country where they don't speak the language? I can kind of speak, and I am so lost and confused all the time. I don't know how these rich, yuppie, world-travelling types do it.

I arrived at my first destination and walked about 2km (somewhere near a mile?) to the Haenyeo museum. Haenyeo are this group of divers that only live on Jeju. They are all women, which is pretty cool, and they can all hold their breath for over 2 minutes because they dive underwater without a breathing apparatus, which is awesome. I'm going to take a rest here before continuing on. I think it's around noon, but I have no way of knowing. I'm just going to lay my damp clothes out in the sun and see if I can dry them, and then I'll check out the museum and see what I can learn about the Haenyeo. After this, I am going to see if I can find Manjanggeul, the lava caves. That seems like a pretty sweet way to finish out the day. I hope I can find a Jjimjilbang somewhere near where I end up tonight. How brave of me, to hope.

I had to take a looong walk to find a proper bus stop. I wasn't really sure if it was the right one, so I asked the bus driver.

이버스, 만장글 에가요?

아니요, he waved his hand at me. 만장글 입구, and then he drove off.

입구? 입구...I'm trying to remember what that means. Well, 구 means 9, so maybe I'm looking for bus number 9? 입9? 입 means mouth. Somehow that word seems familiar, like I should know it...입구?

Whatever.

I'm just going to get on the next bus I see.

It was when the next bus came that I remembered 입구: entrance. I could kick myself, but I'd rather kick the bus driver. Of course I wanted to go to the entrance. Did he really think I wanted to know if the bus was driving into the cave? Seriously, people.

Once on the bus, I am extremely aware of my smell. I suspect that the gentleman to my right feels the same way. I wish I could care more, but I really don't.

Onward.

I was a bit dissapointed by the lava caves. Maybe I'm jaded, or maybe I'm just a little bit too sore, but I wasn't really into it, and the rocky bottom made my feet sore. Not to mention the smell. If this cab drver is a worthy employee, he's gonna Fabreeze the hell out of this cab as soon as I leave. I have an overpowering smell right now.

Instead of braving the risk of homelessness tonight (since I found a bus that will take me back into the city for about 2,000 won), I have decided to find the Jjimjilbang I stayed at last night. I noticed this morning that they had a laundry facility that I'd love to take advantage of.

Waiting for the bus, I met a vacationing couple from Tennissee. We had a pretty good little chat before the bus came. I came to this island for silence and solitude, yet somehow I keep running into other people.

hmmm....

Jeju Day 3: Commemorate

2011-09-08T20:40:00.000-07:00

I think I am finally getting over my inability to sleep on the floor. I'm excited about that. It means I'm ready to become super Korean this week.
I find that I can also look at myself in the mirror without all that self-loathing I used to feel. I'm just...me. For better or for worse. I'm excited about that too.

Today, I start hiking. I've got a beach to get to. I'm looking forward to some sun, and perhaps a big rock to dry my sweaty clothes from yesterday.

I'm starting to realize what a dfficult journey this is going to be. I'm not being metaphorical at all. It's faaaaaar, and I'm really not good at reading maps. I think this island is like most islands, in that its road system is a little inefficient, swerving, turning into an alley, or completely dissappearing. Originally, my plan was to follow the coast and use the ocean as my guide, but I'm finding that a lot of the coast is blocked to foot traffic.

Further inland, I found a hiking trail that seemed to go in a direction that I liked, so I took it. I'm so glad I did, because this is the Jeju I really wanted to see. Everything was green and the mountain air was cool. At a rest stop, I met these two Ajuhshis who spoke pretty good English. It wasn't perfect, but between their English and my Korean, we got along pretty well. One of these guys was an English teacher before retiring. The other one was a retired police officer, who was fully the Korean Matlock. Looked like him and everything. We arm wrestled, so that pretty much means we'll be friends forever, cause, well, that's just how it works. The two of them had a bunch of really awesome and hilarious questions for me. Sample:

Are you married?
No.
No girlfriend?
No.
What about Korean girls. Pretty?
Yeah.
Commemorate.
What?
You have been in Korea one year. Commemorate by marry with Korean girl.

I hated to leave those guys but I have places to get to today, and I think time is running out (though I don't know what time it is). I found the shore again, and I'm walking along, sweating buckets. Don't really care though, because no one can see me.

The trail led me to a more central part of the island. I probably should be freaking out a little bit, 'cause I can't see the coast right now, but it's hard to be woried when everything is so beautiful. I'm looking for a beach that Alex said was awesome, so I'm just going to keep walking until my mind is blown. So far, it's looking pretty promising, but it's starting to rain. I fear the ink in my pen will run. I must continue on.

The rain ended up being a bit more intense than I'd counted on. I took shelter at a nearby bus stop. It doesn't look like a lot of buses come through here. Oh well, that's life, I guess. When it starts raining, and you planned to hike all day, what do you do? I'm just glad I brought a towel and my gigantic ugly/awesome hat. Just gotta wait till it stops raining. Sometimes I think it's going to stop and it just gets moe intense. That's life. Just try to get somewhere safe, and wait until it stops. A Korean guy with a car drove by and signaled for me to get in. I said thank you and waved him on. There's realy nowhere I have plans to be right now.

It's crazy how a bad situation seems like it's going to last forever, then all of a sudden, the sky opens up and everything is as beautiful as ever it was. Pressing on.

Guys, I really need to learn how to use a map. I have an awesome one, too. Alex found it for me before we parted ways. I was shocked when I learned where I really was. Waaaay off course. I wonder, why do I always wait so long before consulting a guide? Especially when there's one available whenever I need?

Oh well. Sort of makes me laugh, I guess.

My skin is leaking.

All these clouds and not one ounce of shade. I found an exercize area off to the side of the road in some regon of the sland called 신천(Shincheon). There's a tarped gazeebo-type construction in the corner that has a floor of concrete with pebbles imbedded in it. The Koreans believe that walking barefot on these pebbles is good for your health. I've never put much stock in that, but today they realy felt good on my sore feet. Felt pretty good on my back, too.

I can hear chickens in the background as I doze off. I dreamed about home. Chasing chickens around the property with Jon, sharpened sticks in our hands, like mighty warriors of an unknown tribe. Dreaming is the only open door to that version of home these days.

The beach is, in a word, disappointing. Maybe I'm just cranky, but I'm sore, hot, sweaty, and I now have sand sticking to me? My inner thighs are pretty chaffed too. I'm not used to walking this much. I think this is where I'm calling it a night. The beach sounds like it's raining, but I don't hear any raindrops. It seems like the ocean is drawing water from the shore, and the suction is making a sound like raindrops and putting little dimples in the sand. Weird. I'm going to have to fact-check that with one of my more scientifically inclined friends.

In the meantime, I see a strange shape in the clouds that looks like a weird goat-man thing. I'm getting out my sketchbook, because I think this guy is going to be important later. I have no idea why. My body is so sore. I want to give up already, after my first real day of hiking. Not going to though. Gonna finish. I'm already behind. Gonna finish.

Epilogue: (didn't think I'd be writing anymore today, but...) After an incident of high tide (from behind me, somehow) that left me soaking wet with most of my cothes also quite damp, I gave up on finding a Jjimjilbang in the tiny beach town I landed in, so I hailed a cab. The cab driver told me that the nearest Jjimjilbang was 15 minutes away. He then proceded to drive me right back the way I came, to right next to the Jjimjilbang I stayed at the night before. In 15 minutes. Huge blow to my self esteem, as well as a huge step backwards in my plans. I am currently about 5 minutes from the boat dock where I arrived, sore, a little burnt, and I have rashes in places I can't show, for reasons of both propriety and physics.

Now I have to decide which is more important: seeing everything I wanted to see or walking as far as I can around the island. At this point, I don't see how I can do both. I guess I'll see how I feel in the morning.

Found a massage chair in the Jjimjilbang that pounded out a Strauss medley on my back for about 1,000원. Almost gave me a nosebleed, it was so intense. I'll bet something like this would be illegal in my country.

Jeju Day 2: Mokpo and a Boat

2011-09-07T20:13:00.000-07:00

Woke up more than once today. I expect I should be heading out to the train soon, but every time I wake up, it's too early and its pouring rain outside. I keep thinking it's going to let up at some point, but I can't keep waiting around for perfect weather. Sometimes you've just got to get out.

Time for an adventure.

I was a 5 minute walk from Seoul Station. When I got there, I saw the news reports from all around Seoul of all the places that were flooded. It looked pretty bad. Seems like the world is falling apart. "Why fall apart with it?," as a good friend once asked me. She's a lot smarter than she thinks. Maybe its because we forget and start to think that we are the world.

We're not. We just live here. I got on the train.

A dreary, dismal day, for the most part, but as we gradually made our way south, the sky began to open up, and the clouds began to break. "today is tomorrow," as Bill Murray said in Groundhog Days.

I've always loved that movie. Reminds me that I should be grateful that even through the darkest nights, morning comes with great regularity.

I met a guy on the boat to Jeju named Alex. He's returning to Jeju after his vacation on the mainland. Seems like a looking-glass experience. He says he knows of a decent Mexican fod place in the main city. I'm trying not to eat anything but really simple foods and spend lots of time in solitude this vacation, but I keep remembering this scripture about thee being a season for everything. Plus, I probably owe him for talking his ear off about everything from child slavery to comic books for the last 3 hours.

At another Jjimjilbang. I had to take a cab there, because I couldn't find one by wandering around, as was my original plan. I am reflecting on my day. Didn't start how I planned. Didn't end how I planed either, but I'm still alive and I'm doing my best. I guess I'm better at living than at planning, and tomorrow is another day. It's time to start looking forward to all the tomorrows I have ahead. This time, I brought a map.

Jeju Day 1:Seoul

2011-09-06T20:55:00.000-07:00

Got on the train, not too early this morning and headed to Seoul. That expression "headed" strikes me as funny now.

I guess the question it makes me ask is "what does my head have to do with my direction?" I'm sure that's a really stupid question.

Someday, maybe my head will be facing the same direction that I'm going. I'll get there fast. Until then, it's nice to have it turned slightly to the side. You can see a the things you're going past a lot better. It's a beautiful view, especialy since you're leaving it.

Since arriving at Seoul Station, I have been thinking a lot about my past. Probably because I plan to confront my past on Jeju. Probably also because I'll be seeing two important caracters from that part of my life today. Two of my old Youth Group students. I call them this not because they're old (neither of tem is yet 16, if I'm not mistaken) but because I felt like such an old man those years ago. It's not them, it's me. It's always been me.

I stopped at a coffee shop after much wandering. Actually, I stopped at a Cold Stone and ordered coffee. I just realized that I was specifically loking for western places. Is that because I'm on vacation? Do I somehow realize that I don't belong here, or did I stop wanting to?

I wonder if the other people in Cold Stone spend as much time thinking about themselves as I do.

I hope not. How would they get anything done?

People have families by the time they are my age, you know? They are responsble for another human life and they get to have sex regularly. I know for sure that I'm not ready for that.

Children, I mean.

What an insane responsibility to have someone completely dependant on you. What a frightening thing.

Gotta grow up. Gotta learn not to be afraid. Gotta remember that there already are people who depend on me. I'm going to meet two of them now.

First up is a guy who seemed like nothing but trouble. I used to think that he caused a lot of distractions, and then I realized he was trying to get my attention. He started out as a pest. I cried the day he left for Korea. Not a lot of things make me cry (despite rumors to the contrary) but I thought I would never see him again. Now we're going to spend a lazy (and apparently rainy) afternoon in Seoul. We are going to Taco Bell, another place I never thought I would be grateful to see. I am wating for him at the subway station.

Waiting is good. We can only be as grateful as the time we spend in waiting, and I've been saving up patience for something good.

Next up is a sad story of the things a teenage girls' mind can do to her without her permission. My other student. She's in trouble. She knows that she is, but thinks it's too late to save her. It's been a while since I've talked to someone who was so utterly convinced that they were worthless and all alone. The last person was me. She gets used by guys and thinks she deserves it. She's happy baecause she doesn't feel anything for them. It's times like these that I'm glad I'm stupid enough to believe in miracles.

We walked down the street, past the sidewalk corners piled high wth garbage. "My life is kind of garbage right now," she said with a laugh. What else can I do but stupidly hope for a miracle? No amount of arguing or pleading can convince a broken heart to heal itself. If there's anything I've learned recently it's that some lessons have to be learned the hard way. The miracle is if she fgures it out before any permanent damage is done.

Turned in at a Jjimjilbang(Korean bath house)near the station. Don't think I'll sleep much though. I've got an early morning and a lot on my mind.

They call life "the grand narative," something along the lines of a really important story. Sometimes I wish I could skip ahead to the end. I hope it turns out alright.

Something To Sit On

2011-07-21T00:17:00.000-07:00

I've been in Korea for nearly a year now.

I'm trying to think about how much I have been changed by this experience, and to be honest, there's a lot. I still often discover a deep sense of dissapointment with myself and my ability to cope with the life that I have. I'm not too concerned with dissapointment. It's not exactly my first time.

By and large, I've seen me, up close and personal. I find this frightening, baffling, and reassuring at the same time, and I refuse to explain what that means until I figure it out for myself. There's a lot going into me right now, and a lot more that needs to, if I am ever going to become a man.

Good lord, do you hear the way I talk about myself? I need a vacation from me. My changeup needs a changeup.

I want to hear from God. I want the voices in my head again. I can't take a vacation with my friends, and I can't go home this summer (believe me, two circumstances waaay beyond my control)so I guess I am alone.

Alone is a gift, regardless of how I see it. If alone is the gift that I've been given, then I'm going to unwrap it, and play with it for a little while. Maybe even be grateful.

I said maybe.

There's an island a few miles off the coast of South Korea. They call it 제주(Jeju). Women, rocks and horses. They claim to have a lot of those.

I was never much into horses.

Let's just say that I'm going for the rocks. I need something to sit on. I'm going to listen for the mighty wind, and the earth quaking, and the silence after. Especially the silence. I think the silence will take a little bit of time. I have 12 days. They say you can see the whole island in 2 days by car. I wonder how much I can see on foot.

I'm going to walk until I have no more feet. Until they belong to someone else.

I hope that you, oh loyal reader(s?), will stick around. I think that something qhuite interesting will happen this summer.

Little Boxes

2011-07-13T22:17:00.000-07:00

No class today.

Today is the national test. Students will be ranked and filed, categorized, and put into seperate boxes called 중학교. This system of boxing will continue for quite some time. The "civilized" world is a collection of small boxes that we run back and forth between, collecting people to keep inside.

Sometimes we need a bigger box.

Sometimes we go outside just to remember.

The weather is not great right now. I guess sometimes it's good to have a box.

I've got 10 more minutes in this box. then I'm off to a box on wheels, a box underground, a box with a body of water, then backwards through all those boxes to the box I call home. Should I be so affectionate with something that closes over me so well?

I thought I wanted freedom?

I Fail At Making Fists

2011-07-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

It was early when I woke up this morning. Seems like a thousand mornings I have already experienced. Why this one again? I showered, cleaned off and read some scripture. I'm doing a dramatic interpretation of a scripture from Luke at church this Sunday. I hadn't read it until today, and it turns out it wasn't about what I thought. Oh well, hadn't thought much yet.

I wrestled with the idea of skipping swimming today. I had a colission with another swimmer in the pool last night (I've been drifting a bit to the left these days) and my finger is still sore. I can't make a fist. I think I like to imagine problems like this though... I'm going. If I fail at everything else in life (including making fists) I'll at least get some regular exercize.

The 4th graders were positively demon posessed today. Some days I think I am perfectly skilled to be a teacher. These days I wonder if that's true. I've given up on falling in love with my job. I'm waiting for love to find me. It's noon and I already have a headache. I hope against hope that lunch isn't something absolutely fucking weird. It's hardly a valid thing to expect. Some items on the menu at my school don't have an English translation because the western world doesn't consider them to be food. Today is another day, in my own little corner of the world where I don't belong, but I feel like I would run into a similar problem wherever else I could go.

The other three English teachers left on a trip to study other elementary schools' English rooms, in preparation for the new years' program. The office is now empty. I asked them if I should go with them, and they said that the Principal told them that only 3 people could go.

What?

On a diffferent, but related note, I think that the special ed students should not be allowed to wander. They're in my office right now, hitting each other with sticks and saying "Ow, it hurts," in Korean. I'm fighting every urge I have to use some of the Korean yelling techniques I've learned from my co-workers to expediate their exit. The secret of my language aquisition will remain for now, becouse one of my advanced English 6th graders came in and I got him to shoo them out. I've got an hour to kill now.

That's life these days. You kill time until the day that it finally comes back and kills you. It's supposed to pick up at some point. I hear some older people complain that they don't have the time to get done what they used to do in a day. I'm not like them. I have the time. What is it then, that I am missing?

Motivation?

Courage?

Discipline?

Integrity?

Freedom.

Keep

2011-07-08T23:15:00.000-07:00

Pockets are completely useless.

Every time I sit down, my pockets turn sideways and all the coins I had inside spill out. It's like I can only keep my things if I never relax. It really makes one think: how long have pockets been around? Have we really been using them for so long and overlooked this critical flaw in their design?

I think pockets need a beta test group, then we can fix them once and for all.

What shall we call the new thing we make up to replace them? The idea of pockets have already slipped into our subconscious as a society. I think it may be too late to try to give them another name.

I think we're stuck with pockets, actually. Regardless of their flaws, we've come to rely on them. Even if I could come up with something better, I don't think I could really switch over from something I already feel so accustomed to.

Could we just change everything?

I can imagine a world where we worry about what is best before what is comfortable. Where we can change because what we used to do was completely useless. In this world, I don't lose valuable things just because I let my guard down for a minute; because I relaxed...

I want something of value to hold on to. Something that no pocket can keep.

Regardless of my flaws, I've come to rely on myself.

Couldn't we just change everything?

All of my change just keeps spilling out of my stupid pockets.

The Power

2011-07-07T21:52:00.000-07:00

Recently, (not that recently, actually...I'm behind on my updates) I got back from a retreat for the church leadership team that I (against all objections and with great reluctance) have been a part of for the past 6 months. I complain because I care. It's really all I have to offer.

We will return to my poor attitude in a minute. In the meantime, let me give you a little excerpt from my personal life. There was an activity (as there often is at this kind of function) where we were supposed to write notes of encouragement to other people in the team and hang them on a clothesline outside the conference center banquet hall. I'm not usually a fan of cliche sentiments, but I do love me some notes of encouragement. I figure that my South African friend Greg won't mind me sharing what he wrote, since he signed his name, and this is written exactly in the way that he talks. He's from Cape Town (South African Santa Cruz):

"Steve-o!

Dude, you are awesome. It has been rad to the power of sick getting to know you. I love how much you know about movies, and your quirky/crazy sense of humour. Yes, HUMOUR, coz that's how my mom taught me to spell it. Keep on loving Jesus with the passion, genuine desire and hinesty that you do. May you only come to see Him more and more. Love you, bro.

-Greg"

I am genuinely starting to believe that people's love for me says more about them than it does about me.

Or, more specifically, that a person loving me well means (more than it means that I am loveable) that they have developed an ability to love another person. Beautiful that imperfect people (like me) can recieve a love that is bigger than we deserve.I think I'm really ready to give up on being a victim of this world, as though its attitude towards me had anything to do with who I am. I have decided to be known by what loves me.

Rad to the power of sick.

Smile And Say Thud

2011-07-06T18:34:00.000-07:00

I am starting over again.

I would have said (maybe yesterday) that my life has been a series of false starts over a long period of time. This would explain why I seem to be trapped in this perpetual cycle of infancy. Seems logical, but these days I feel like none of my starts could have been false, since I've needed every one of them.

I once heard an artist talking about center of gravity in relation to people in motion. He said that our center of gravity is in flux when we walk, because the basic idea of walking is falling and catching yourself over and over again.

So, when I fall, I should catch myself quickly? Maybe it's only falling if you stay down. Walking is a form of falling down. It makes me smile to think of the way I move, flopping forward and back on top of myself, like a baby or someone with a severe personal problem.

And God? With all my efforts, I hope I at least make Him laugh.

With the world as it is, I'll bet he could use a smile.

Everything I Had

2011-06-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

I think most of the people in the world are narcissists, but I'm too busy to think about those people...

I bought the wrong ticket to Busan today. It's my own fault that my country uses the 12 hour clock and I don't know the difference between noon and midnight. Even on my best days, though, I rarely know what time it is and where I'm supposed to be at that time. The attendant tells me that I have to buy another ticket. She smiles a lot. I think I'd rather blame her, but really I know that this is my fault.

Korea and I are not on good terms today. It's my fault, but I'd rather blame her. Who could know that life is so full of dissatisfaction? Right now, I have money, a vacation, the means to do things with said money, and what do I want to do?

Really, I'd like to know.

I wish I could blame someone else, but the problem is inescapable. It's more than a bad day, a circumstance, or an extra ticket. It's me, and the man I somehow became without my permission. It's the will of God, that I should be something other than my own dreams, and sometimes I wish for everything that I had what I wanted, but every day I know I wish I wanted everything I had. What good is success without satisfaction? Is it knowing that everything you want is wrong? How do I give it up? I just want to do well with my life before it's gone.

That's a lie.

I want to feel like something besides myself matters.

Same Old

2011-06-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

One of my 4th grade girls uses her knowledge of English for evil.

Teacher is woman! You are like girl, teacher!

Can't get her to stop, but she gives herself away. Every time I go over to scold her, she gets a big smile on her face and puts her hand on the arm I rest on her desk.

Teacher is very handsome.

She says it, though the instant I focus my attention away from her, she'll act pretty much in the same way. Are we all so obvious in our quest for significance? Attention? Love?

I think we are, though sometimes the things we are after are being offered to us, despite what we believe about how they should look.

I'm really starting to believe that my biggest downfall is that I take myself waaay to seriously. Every flaw I have is tragic/Shakesperian, and every creative thought I have is (or should be) brilliant, all the things that great literature is made of. That's probably why I don't finish the things I start, and tend to thinkn that I am so incredibly unlovable, when most of Humanity has my same condition.

Calm down.

You're nothing new. Neither Mother Theresa nor Adolph Hitler, you're just like billions of in-betweens who have lived and died, and shall continue 'till death parts up or our Lord return.

I finally feel comfort in knowing that I'm not really anyone.

Little Things From Where I Am

2011-06-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

Went to my very first Korean wedding today. First Catholic wedding as well. I was confused and amused (comused?). Not like it's my first time feeling that. This place usually confuses me, and I've learned to enjoy confusion the same way I have learned to enjoy kimchi: by taking it in often, in small doses and with a smile on my face, regardless of what my face really thinks.

There's an announcement before and applause after every part of the ceremony. At one point, the groom yelled 김소영(bride)사랑해! 김소영사랑해!김소영사랑해! at the top of his lungs. I felt like it was okay to laugh (everyone else did). The audience shouted something back, but I didn't know what, or I would have joined them. Translation (when I can get it) loses a few things as well.

Snippet of the only conversation I had on the subject of what the $&*# was going on:

Me: What's going on?
김미영: The grooms brother maybe will play the piano.
Me: Brother? But that's a little girl up there.
김미영: I can't see. Are you sure?
Me: Yeah, pretty sure.
김미영: Oh. Really? Then I don't know. Just watch.

After the ceremony, there was a buffet (which I'm now convinced is an international wedding standard). It was pretty much the same as an American buffet, except it had more raw fish and whole octopus. I'm starting to get used to things I used to not be. I sat at the same table as my Principal. She asked me how my Korean lessons were going. I needed a translation.

I guess not as well as I thought...

Cultures change, but people are the same everywhere. They are not any more or less dignified or any more plain about what they want. People fall in love, get married, and have goofy friends that put bows on their hair while singing songs. People have little sisters that play the piano. This isn't a hipster rant about how everyone is the same, and nothing is original anymore. Not today. If anything, you can call this one a confession. I don't value these tiny things as much as I now want to. I want to start over again. This time I think I will not care so much about where I think I am going. This time, I want to pay attention to where I am now.

I Can Still Feel Everything

2011-06-21T06:33:00.000-07:00

I'm happier when I'm distracted. I know that. I wan't at all depressed today when I was at work, nor did I think about how many years it has been since I believed that I was really heading in some specific direction according to a purpose.

Strange that I'm not more easily distracted. You would think that I would whole-heartedly embrace it, as an agent to numb the pain of this consistent failure I see in me.

I've never been much for numbing pain. I've always wanted to know the whole truth, and that means no medicine. Medicine is a distraction. Medicine lies to you about how much trouble you're really in.

I was 12 years old, and I had a cavity. Eight of them, actually. I had only been to the dentist once before, when I was six. I remember specifically that he had told me then that I should change my brushing habits or I would have cavities. Six years later, I had cavities. Maybe I am unable to change. More than likely, I just didn't.

They put a needle into my gums and squeezed it out three times. They were trying to find a way to excuse the pain that was coming. It was not working.

Can you feel this?

Yes, I can feel it.

I want us to be friends, she said over a premature cup of coffee. She was scared, I now realize, because she used friendship as a way to define what we were not going to be. I swear, I barely touched her the whole time we were going out. Scared of making her scared.

Is it possible? Will you call me?

She collected relationships like I collected rejections. Heaven forbid that either of us be denied the prize we had rightfully earned.

Yes.

I said it because I grew tired of telling the truth. Eventually I crawled back to truth like a smoldering cigarette on a lonely weekday. I want the pain. It reminds me. Yes, I will call you. Yes, we will meet again. No, we won't be friends.

I lied to them.

I told them that I couldn't feel anything so that it would go on. I needed them to cut out all the bad things so that I could use my teeth again. I lied when I said I didn't care because I felt everything. I wouldn't dare ask for anyone's pity, or wish away any of my memories, because now I know. I know the whole of pain. I know every drop of blood that experience has drawn from me, and I have felt that blood leaving me. Now I can use my mouth in a way that was impossible before the drill. I can speak. I can still feel everything.

Ask me if you want to know.

Swallow

2011-06-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me last week if I loved myself. She asked it making the assertion that no one can love another person more than they love themselves. I agree with that statement, though it troubles me. I like to think that it is possible to truly love someone as a person in my condition. I don't know if I've ever been asked that question before.

I came into the world helpless and distracted. I wouldn't say that I loved myself, but I certainly paid a lot more attention to me. Everything was injustice, and no one could possibly understand how bad I felt. How strange it seems to me now that I could "know" everyone else's experience in a glance and compare, declaring myself Miss Universe in the pity pageant of all time.

I was fat, and socially awkward. I also didn't like the sound of my own voice. These were my qualifications.

Sometimes I really wish that time wasn't a continuum. That the past didn't progress into the present, and then on into the future. Perhaps if there were some other way, some new method of organization for the universe, I might one day wake up and be completely changed. If I could only be just someone, anyone else. 다시, as my students say when they make a mistake. I made a lot of mistakes, and not any of the cool mistakes. I've made loser mistakes, the kind that reveal true character and fault to the world in an astoundingly unspectacular way.

Know thyself.

I heard these words in college, and felt like it was some grand calling in life. If I knew who I was, then somehow I would be happy. I suppose this could have been the opening page to some part of my life, but it became more of a bookmark. It was a stopping point for blame. I couldn't be truly happy until I knew myself, and I didn't want to know myself yet. I wanted to know the me that I had plans to become.

I am post-college, in a singularly literal sense. I am not who I was, though I can't be too sure, because I didn't take the time to know that person, and I am still not quite willing to introduce myself to me yet. I've come to accept the fact that I can only put into the world what I find put into myself. My heart is filled to the brim with the pictures, word, and songs of other people. I think I love them, but how could I, when I use their creations to explain why my words, stories and pictures aren't good enough?

Love thyself.

All of my prayers seem the same these days. They're like diagnostics. A question of-

How am I doing?

Am I better?

Look at all that I have accomplished. Is it enough?

Will I be better in time for you to be proud of me?

I lost 70 pounds, I can play the guitar a little. I had two poems published in a magazine that Mike made. I've held hands with a girl (more than once, actually). I speak a little Korean, and I only pick my nose when I'm absolutely sure no one is looking. I'm better, aren't I?

Would someone love me if I was just a little bit better?

"This is my commandment, that you love one another, that your joy may be made complete."

Love thyself.

Truth be told, I'm afraid to love myself, because if I love myself, then maybe I won't ever change. What if I'm always this way? I don't know how to love myself and still admit that I have a long way to go. I've come so far, and I am someone else to the best of my knowledge, and I have accomplished everything by hating myself. I had hoped that now that I am a more respectable person, I could start to love again, but everything is built on the foundation of that phrase that I've programmed into my head.

You aren't good enough.

There's no such thing as good enough, I know that. Love is hard work, but it's not a job, because you can't earn your pay. I feel like I've put myself on time out, and now I'm crawling back to God, holding the sorely patched pieces of my identity in front of me, begging.

Has it been enough time? Did I learn my lesson?

When God looks at me, I think I find only a puzzled expression on his face, and his only response:

What were you doing?

Did you think that I put you there?

Swallow.

I think that God wants me to love myself. The myself that I am, and not the myself that I'll be. When I say love, I don't mean that I believe in hippie Jesus who is referenced by philosophy students and is compared to Ghandi and John Lennon. Sometimes I forget which of them said "all you need is love," and which said "if you love me, you will do as I command." I don't believe in hippie Jesus with catchphrases.

Can't we all just get along?

The world as it stands simply does not make sense if that's what God is. I believe in a world where people are starving and dying, scattered and frightened, without hope, and still God is love. I believe in the difficult love, the frustrating, hard to swallow kind of love. Hippie Jesus only loves as a concept. He cannot love you while seeing your flaws, because they would make him wrong. You can agree with hippie Jesus all you want; his love can not change anything about you, because it would have to occupy a considerable distance.

I want to believe again in a love that has dirty hands, because it touches everything. I want to take a bite of something and chew on it, never knowing if I'll be big enough to swallow.

The foundation of my life up to this point has been loathing and self-hatred. I who claim to be a child of God. How can I love, when I am only motivated by hatred, screamed at a mirror daily? I swear, I thought it wouldn't hurt anyone else.

I don't want anyone to tell me that I am good enough. I won't exchange one lie for another. The house must be rebuilt if it is to have a new foundation.

Eat me alive.

Every doorway I left unlocked, every window open far too wide. Every fixture, appliance, book I never read. I will be loved as something that is not good enough.

다시. Time to start again.

When I Was God.

2011-06-03T01:06:00.000-07:00

When I first discovered I was an introvert, I was shocked.

Being one of seven children in (at the time) a three bedroom house, I'm not sure if being alone had ever crossed my mind. Every day, from my morning alarm to brushing my teeth before bed, there was someone. Someone was my friend, someone was my partner, someone was my video game opponent. I loved it, and introvert seemed like such a dirty word.

I had no idea how tired I was.

In college, there was also someone, and my life was such a mess. Dirty dishes, cluttered appointment books, and clothes on the floor. We were all going somewhere, and we would figure ourselves out when we got there. Never alone, always asleep or wanting to be. The world could not make itself worthy of open eyes for me, and I was alone.

It's really the worst feeling I've ever had; to be alone when surrounded by so many other people. What is the cure for what you're feeling is all around you, but you just don't know how to access it?

I was terminal.

I left my home, the one that I had set up for my self in the state I was born in. My home country, to trade for another one full of people that I have no access to. Their lives seem good enough. No more or less dignified than the people I left them for. I could live here forever. I could live there forever. I've got to live somewhere forever.

It's really daunting to think of the immortality of the human soul. Our inception was an act for which motive has no answer, and is completely eternal, or, in a less spiritual wording, irreversible. Once life has been made, no matter what its reason, it cannot be unmade. Is such a high placement and judgement of finality worthy of this shell that I occupy?

I really do wonder sometimes if there are things in this world that should come to an end. I'm not God, so I'll not make that decision. There was once a time when I thought I was, but now I know far too much about the both of us to make that mistake.

And so, as God has decided that I am to be an introvert, I am now learning to be alone. I sit in coffee shops for hours by myself, and I ride the subways in silence. I eat alone, and at home I am given the keys to unlock the worlds that He has laid out for me inside my head. The lonesome babbler's compensation, where I can have community with God and with myself.

I am learning to be alone and not lonely. To speak when there is someone to speak to. As for these beautiful, shimmering worlds that have been given to me for my benefit? I have learned to be at peace with knowing that there are some things about me that no one on this earth will understand, though I, by virtue of what has been made for me, am understood.

Sin

2011-06-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling a lot better today.

I've been sick.

Sick enough to miss Korean class. I never miss Korean class. Sick enough to take medicine. I never take medicine. Sick enough to mention it.

I usually don't mention it when I'm sick, because my co-workers (even though some of them are younger than me) tend to be motherly towards me. I haven't lived with my mother for quite some time. When I'm sick, I prefer to be left alone. Now, I share an office with three mothers. They're also a little bit paranoid when it comes to illness (for which they use the word "disease").

"Are you sick? You must come to the nursery (school nurse's office) with me."

"After, we will go hospital. After work, let's together go."

"Do you have the allergy? Yellow dust, I think. It comes from China."

"Yesterday we were playing yut nori. The mats were dusty. Maybe that?"

If anything, I'll bet it's the fact that I have to high-five each of the 6th graders as they leave class (right before lunch, too). Call it a cultural exchange. Hand washing and general hygene is a bit of a rough concept for that age group. Sometimes this country makes me laugh. Sometimes it makes me sick. Always, it makes me think.

Last night, I barely made it to the "hospital" (it was actually just a clinic. Koreans tend to abuse the word "hospital"). It was all I could do to stay awake, when just a few hours prior I was on my fee entertaining my 4th graders. It would seem that in life, we are only able to muster what strength is required of us. Oh, impardonable sin, that we should want just a little bit more. That's where both confidence and laziness come from.

I used to be lazy, but not because I was confident. Now, I'm neither. I'm sick, and I took medicine, though I rarely look for help with whatever is wrong with me. I prefer to be alone, but I mentioned it, and I took medicine.

I'm feeling a lot better today.

Training Wheels

2011-05-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

There's a space just below my colar bone that has been acting up with the warm, humid weather. My copious body hair combined with the heat wave, which dries my skin, has made everything itchy. I often catch myself scratching it, though I know I shouldn't. The result of this is a bright red patch on my chest that is extremely sensitive to touch.

I did this to myself.

I've caused myself physical pain in the persuit of temporary relief. Now, I must be vigilant, and avoid this behavior before I make things worse.

It's remarkable to think how the body heals itself. To think that we can make mistakes (which we often do) yet we are not stuck with the consequences of these mistakes forever. We have been given bodies that want to return to a state of health, should they be given the chance. It's free will, and the fact that we weild it so clumbsily that makes everything so difficult. I had heard it said once that without human interaction, the Earth would return to a state of ecological equilibrium within 50 years.

That sounds crazy. Absolutely insane. I believe it.

"You have been faithful with a few things, I will now put you in charge of many things."

Maybe we weren't paying attention.

I'm an adult now. There are no other words I can attach to my life like training wheels for what I am. This is my life, and I am trying to avoid the temptation of temporary relief, so that I can be healed. The decisions I've made are still evident, like bright red patches on my skin. I had a plan to fix my life, but it seems I've made a lot of mistakes. Give it time. Someday, I will want, more than temporary relief, a longer story.

Does anything feel as good as freedom?

On Strange and Strokes

2011-04-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

Another day at the pool, where for the promise of improved health and better-fitting clothes, I sacrifice and evening, 3,000 원, and (swimsuit) my dignity. The strategy is, if I can't get anyone to love my socially backward, talk-to-myself-in-public, mismathced socks personality, perhaps someday I will have a fantastic body, and someone will love me for superficial reasons.

I'll still be hairy though.

I'm a little clumsy in the water today. Distracted. I keep accidentally running into the 15 other people in my lane. I tell myself that it's hard to see, since I have my head underwater and everything, but that's a lie. When you share a body of water with other people, you don't need to look for them. Once you're close enough, you can feel them. When my fingertips pass through the water near their tread, I can always tell (if I'm paying attention, that is) how fast the other person is going, the strength/quality of their stroke, weather they cup their hands as they cut into the water or splash flat, finger-spread. I don't see a lot of people's faces, but I know everyone here by their strokes and their swimsuits.

I can feel Ms Awkward-Stroke coming up soon. I prepare to pass her. She's really slow. Actually, she's probably Mrs. Awkward Stroke. Her flailings seem to be the result of the kind of exhaustion that only on old woman can feel. The particular shade of pink swimsuit she is wearing also appears to be the result of either color-blindness or 시장 sale/being old enough to not give a rat's ass who sees your fat ass in ugly pink. She flails, and is, quite unfortunately, finger-spread. I have a difficult time respecting that stroke as I pass her.

From the opposite side, I feel a hand go under my chin and slightly nick my groin. The gentleman grandfather. This particular breed of 아저씨 is difficult to find. He always looks so regal with his swim cap resting on his head in an almost yarmulke-like fashion. Regal is not a word I would use to describe most older Korean men. The word I would use is...intoxicated.

Nevertheless, he does strike me as a creature of high class. I have a little trouble with the fact that he always smacks me in the face/back/crotch whenever he swims by. It's because he does the backstroke.

I've never wanted to do the backstroke. People who do the backstroke always accidentally injure other people in the process. Can't really blame them. How can you see where you're going while always looking the other way? Strange position to find yourself in.

Sometimes I feel like the pretty girl at the bar. We have to take a break every 10 minutes on the hour, and now everyone is looking at me, and then pretending like they're not looking at me. Some point to their friends and argue about something between sideways glances. Sometimes, I will try to stare back at them, just so that they know that I am aware of their leering, but that only gives them the courage to finally turn to their friends and say (I assume) " wish me luck, boys. I'm gonna go talk to her."

Shouldn't they at least buy me a drink first?

I should point out that I am niether the fattest person at the pool, nor am I wearing the smallest swimsuit. That prize goes to the fellow who has braved the length of the half meter deep swimming pool where I am resting my muscles and whose rotund thigh is now pressed against my ankle.

"Your name Suh Ti Bun, right?"

Not his first time. Perhaps the last time we talked, he was wearing clothes. It really changes your look.

"Where are from?"

America.

"America?"

You can always tell who has had a Canadian 학원 teacher. Canadians hate that we refer to ourselves as "Americans."

USA.

Oh, USA! Are you married?"

No, I'm single.

"Oh, that's good. Better. I have two childrens. One daughter and a brother-ummm son. Son. My life is very noisy."

I live in my own. My life is very lonely.

"Oh, hha. You are very funny."

I really hate it when people tell me how great my life must be (usually because of my age) as a segue into why they are unhappy. I like to tell my younger siblings about all the great things that happen after you go to college. I think we should always have something to look forward to in life, though some people can only see what's behind them. The further you get from that spot, the harder it is to see what it really was. Strange position.

The number of big naked Korean guys that I can justifiably share a sauna with went to a record-breaking 9 today. This is up from a previous record of 4. What can I say? I get sore from all that "going somewhere" I was doing, and I'm not sure if I remember what it was about my naked body that was so worthy of shame. Maybe I'll remember it someday, but I haven't the energy for shame these days.

I used to think about what it would be (will be?) like to have a family. Maybe a daughter and a brother/son. I used to think that these days were the worst kinds of days I would ever endure, or that there was something wrong with me, and how I talked to people, or often didn't have the courage to. I used to think far too much, but that was a while ago. I've never wahted to do the backstroke, and I've just come up out of the water after a long time with my head down, going somewhere. It's best to just towel off and go see what the world looks like in forward motion.

Spangled Is Kind Of A Funny Word Too...

2011-04-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

I've just realized that although I've been telling people for quite some time that I have been in Korea for 7 months, it has actually been 8 months (and about halfway through with that as well). If I had gotten a girl pregnant the first day I got here, I would almost be a father by now.

I have no idea why I say things like that.

Anyway, life is strange and wonderful these days. I live in a completely different country than the one I was born in. It hasn't been easy, and in fact, I have had some of the most difficult days of my life here. Despite that, there are actually a few things about living in Korea that are easier than back home, and I'd like to take the occasion of my 8 month anneversary (longest relationship I've ever been in)to highlight a few of those things.

I've found, first of all, that public transportation is a lot better here. I don't have a car in Korea, nor do I have the ability to drive one, but I know how to get from one end of the Daegu to the other in less than an hour. As soon as I figured out the busses and their routes, I was able to navigate the city with relative ease. I can even get to Seoul (about a 6 hour car ride) in about 2 hours via the KTX rapid train. Busan and the beautiful Korean coastline are about an hour south and just as accesable. I can pretty much take a day trip to any part of the mainland. Planning one this weekend, in fact.

Second of all, I'm a lot more eco-friendly in Korea. The Korean garbage system is really different than the US. You have to buy these tiny bags and put all your garbage in them, or you can't throw them away. It's really annoying. These days, I do everything I can to avoid accumulating garbage. I don't buy as much, and often when I do, I shop for only a few things at a time, taking my trusty bookbag along to avoid having to use shopping bags.I prefer smaller packaging in general, and I patronise restaurants and coffee shops that use washable dishes to serve their food and drinks. I used to fill at least a garbage bag per week, but these last 10 days have seen only a half. Feels great.

Finally, it's a lot easier to be health-conscious here. The Korean diet is low in saturated fat and cholesterol, consisting of mostly rice (and other rice-derived dishes), Vegetables and seafood. As a salad bowl native, I found the vegetables a little difficult to get used to (Koreans like to pickle everything), but after a while, your body does get used to it, and it's quite good for you. Coffee shops, fast food restaurants and bekeries aren't shy about the calorie content of their foods either. Did you know, o loyal readers(s?), that if you eat a fruit pastry and a cafe latte you have consumed about 500 calories? Calculations like this are easy once you've been exposed to them.

another reason I have been able to remain healthy in this country is the refreshingly blunt nature of most Koreans.

"Stephen, you must exercize a lot to lose weight."

I heard this quite often when I came here (I have some really funny stories about it that perhaps I will share sometime.) I don't hear it as often these days (10 kilograms and counting!), but I know I would never hear anything like that from an American, because it is considered rude to comment on someone elses' personal habits (unless they are smoking or talking on your cell phone). If you think about it, it's actually a pretty good friend that will tell you to take care of your health. Other subjects that are not off limits: religion, income, age, spending habits, and the presence or absebce of a girlfirend (often the first thing strangers ask me)

I know what you're thinking, o loyal reader(s?)

"What the hell is a kilogram?"

Don't worry about it. Just put your fingers in your ears and go "blah blah blah" to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner, and it will all go away.

The point of it is, there is so much life, and so much good to be had outside of the California coastline. I had no idea. I miss home, and I'll always be an American at heart, but this has become a bit of a home for me as well. Good to know you Korea. I can tell the we are going to be friends.

Minor

2011-04-26T17:06:00.000-07:00

I've decreed that I shall live as a hermit this weekend. Not a lot of people. I've missed people, but often enough I don't know what to do with them when I have their attention anyway.

New laptop this week. I will soon have access to all of the internet at home. I suppose that will make this my last productive weekend. Say farewell to being somebody. I suppose that lifestyle casues too much trouble anyways. All appeal and no satisfaction. I wouldn't really want to be an important person. I just like to imagine it.

I'm starting to think I might have become too intelectual for my own damn good. Who has time for fun when I have all this thinking to do?

Is it really worth it?

To sit and think, to have very adult conversations with very calm people who drink coffe and read books? Does it matter that I write all my thoughts in this blog that probably almost no one reads? Is it worth it if I never run around in circles in the park until I'm dizzy and fall on the grass laughing?

And if my laugh is the only one I hear, did it really happen? I haven't laughed myself sore in so long. Nothing is that funny anymore. Either that, or I've lost my sense of humor to all this overthinking.

Is this what it means to grow up?

I try to cinvince myself that everyone feels this way. That used to make me feel better, but now? Why isn't it better? How did I become so bored with a world that is far from boring.

The woman who owns this restaurant keeps bothering me with questions.

여자친구있어?

아니요, 없어요.

왜? 여자친구만들세요.

어떻게?

Perhaps it's the absence of God, and I finally have the attention span to feel it. The joy of the Lord is my strength, but I am weak.

What is it?

Overthinking?

I've run all the way to the other side of the world, and still cannot escape my problem, because my problem is me. To the world I used to love: One of us has changed, and it isn't you.

I'm sorry.

I just couldn't think of what to say until it was too late.

Easter last weekend. Maybe He came to save us from the drinking, and cigarettes, gambling and porn, but I hope He hasn't overlooked my biggest sin.

I don't know how to love anything well.

Oh come Emannuel.

Mourn in lonely exile

Until the son of God

rejoice.

I always did like songs in minor keys.

I Want My Two Cents Back.

2011-04-25T23:50:00.000-07:00

I like looking at time-lapse photography for the same reason I like reading books and watching movies. Everything happens faster. It really takes a lot of patience to appreciate the things in life that are beautiful as they are happening. This is how I know that God is so much bigger than all of us. It takes a greater understanding of life to be more in awe of a flower as it is blooming, or a sun as it is rising, soaking up all the hours, minutes, seconds and parts therof given it. That's another reason: These things don't just take their time. They take ours as well.

Seconds and minutes are our currency. Where will we spend them? We are only paid once.

This sun is rising, as it has since time began. That's what time is, after all. It's the room with all the frames. Time is the space given for all the pretty things to hang as they pass through, spread out yellow and orange on my skin. I hope it covers every centemeter, and I hope I'm on my last breath when it finally takes me.

I'm in church right now, on the far end of 대구 from my home, after breakfast with a good friend that I have missed so much, and a connection over and over with the people who love the same things I do. Things that exist outside of books and TV and the occasional sunrise to which we only pay a half-attention. You never see the things that are not given their proper space. I think I can almost see it burning through this insignificant window in an insignificant building insignificant country, tiny world. What more could I say about the eyes that gaze upon it as my friends prepare to spread themselves out in this place?

Everything orange and yellow. My heart is beating slower.

Was my life a waste up until this point, or did I never really stop? Can I see it? Will there be time left after I have spent it wrongfully for so long?

today, it seems as though all my questions are nothing more than a hole in my pocket, leaking spare change as I walk.

My Mess II: It's What's on the Inside That Counts

2011-04-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

I've spent the entire day cleaning and studying (I'm taking a rather ass-kick difficult Korean class). Just like high school with the addition of cleaning. I have never been a very clean person.

I say this in a very general sense, meaning so much more than a messy room, or in my case, a messy room and a messy kitchen/living room and a messy shoilet (shower/toilet[my life is a bit weird these days]). It's a messy life, really. It's being overweight, and having no time becuase I've cluttered up my schedule with things-I-have-to-do-to-be-taken-seriously-as-an artist/adult/Christian/taxpayer/Borders Rewards card-holder. It's my torn, crinkled notebooks filled with half finished poems and "really great ideas" for novels and short films. It's the half empty (half full?) sketchbooks and canvases that encompass my "body of work" which will always bear the title "work in progress."

I've always seen myself as rather a work in progress anyway. I've been trying for so long to make something new and fascinating with it that I'm afraid I've lost my taste for fine lines and clean edges. My life is built up of tremendous possibilities, each one more astounding and breathtaking than the last. The beautiful clutter in my brain. I'll stretch myself apart if I try to grab at each one.

Oh well, another thought for another day. Tonight, my clean appartment makes me smile. Tomorrow...

...the possibilities...

Eye Contact

2011-04-23T03:36:00.000-07:00

Another week. It seems like the days all blend into one massive stream, just like a river is made up of nothing more than little drips. Just little drips of almost nothing that somehow combine into this great big thing that is life. That takes life, if you're not careful. I don't know how I got here except that I was pushed by days upon days, all of them running after each other as those behind spill into their absence. That's how rivers are made, and that's what turns boys into old men. Will I be a wise old man?

God only knows.

I've come to this coffee shop in my neighborhood called "The Place to Feel Coffee." I was put off by the name at first, but in reality, the place is really about as cute and charming as the syntactic error that it is called by. The lady that owns it smiles at me every time and greets me in Korean. She doesn't try to speak English or ask me who I am or why I'm here. Most of the people here treat me like I'm some sort of celebrity, always pointing, gasping, or trying to ask me a million questions. I love that I'm just another customer to her. It seems like she lives a life of very simple ambition. I think that's where peace comes from. I wish I was a person of peace, but I've never been able to simplify my ambitions. She has a sort of plump face (rare in Korea. Everyone is apallingly thin) a bright smile offset by the plae colors she wears under her apron. If I was 10-15 years older, I'd be crushing hard.

The young lady at the table opposite says something about 왜국이 (forigner) and sneaks a picture of me with her camera phone. I am avoiding eye contact.

Recently I told a complete stranger that the curse of being human is to be continually stuck in the present, with no indication of how our story would end. All we have are questions and trust.

I am not very good at trust.

Am I moving, or are these tiny drips pushing me? If I try to stop, will they find their way over my head, and pull me down with them?

The Moon's Response

2011-04-19T21:50:00.000-07:00

First off, an apology: This is something that was promised a while ago, and my camera is broken, so you'll have to make do with a camera phone picture. I would say that I've been hard at work on it, but... well without giving anything away (or implying that I am trying to say anything deep) I guess sometimes when you are waiting to hear back from some great big thing... you have to wait a while for your response. If any of this confuses you, oh loyal reader(s?) check this first.

Do you mistake me yet again,
this deep violet you call black,
and all the simple scurriers
scramble underneath
whatever stones could throw
my evening music back?

I no longer take measurements.
As though one were small
because it is not two.
Count the stars for me.
Dare to say
that they outnumber you.

I will not.

This world is made of tiny things
though few have noticed, like
the particles of light
that paint your body as we
dizzy ourselves with abandon.

The whole of darkness cannot hide it.

I am silence because of noise,
the winter cold because of fur,
and some are naked for the same.
Would you breathe a little longer
when I'm gone? Just like every
dawn follows it's inevitable
sunset, I will find you if you stay.

Yes, let us dance once more
into wonderful, wrecklessness, wondering
weather the night is cold,
and you are small, and I
am hanging by a curtain behind
the world, waiting to wake up?

A Sweater

2011-04-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

I have had two glorious days of time to myself. Once, I was too insecure to enjoy time to myself. That's what we call loneliness. These days, I realize that alone is the hand I've been dealt for the time being, and it's actually not a bad place to be.

I'm starting to live like an old man. I go to bed before midnight and wake up before 8 no matter what. The crazy free spin of the weekends makes me long for the starched regularity of the midweek like I long for my morning cup of coffee. That's another habit I've taken to lately. Some days I don't recognize me. I'm not sure now if that evokes a positive or a negative feeling. I use to love not recognising myself, but I think that was because I hated myself. I'm currently developing a mild tollerance for me, that I am hoping will develop into a real friendship. Who knows... maybe a little something more...

I have decided that for as long as I live in Korea, I will brush my teeth while showering. Given the fact that my shower consists of my entire bathroom. I just think it's best to do as much as I can before I turn off the water. Otherwise, it's just cold and wet. Shaving is also difficult, since the steam from the water fogs up the mirror. I think I am going to grow a mustache again. This is my way of saying that I am going to be single for a while longer.

There's a grocery store that I have to take two busses to get to. It has a lot of the sorts of things that Americans expect their grocery stores to have. I am considering a trip there on the offchance that they might have some coffee creamer.

Spring is beginning to show its face here in Daegu, after what seems to be the longest winter I have ever experienced.

I am speaking in purely literal terms, of course. Don't mistake my ramblings for metaphor with any amount of depth.

Anyway, spring is a sort of new development here, so you never know when the weather is going to revert back. I don't know how to dress. I'll just take a sweater and hope for the best.

There will be a wedding this afternoon.

Meredith anf Kayoo.

A birthday this evening.

Tiffany.

I know what insecurity it is that makes me feel lonely, but what is it that makes me feel so strange during all this celebration and living that keeps happening all around me? I have only so much time to figure myself out before I miss it.

Day Of Fools

2011-04-01T06:01:00.000-07:00

Today is a day for fools,who duck in and out of coffee shops, Chinese restaurants and libraries, shirking every work responsibility and sacred duty. I have decided that I am a fool, and I would do well to celebrate myself on this day, as a monument to the great inactivity that rests on the souls of such creatures as will spend a third of their lives dreaming.

And if their waking life appears to be no more than a dream? So much the better. That we could travel and attempt in this life for so long, and be at the end presented with our diploma: a blank page.

To have loved. To have lost. To have found because of loss.

Does God love us seperately from our lives, or can He love in spite of them? The very fabric of this world dangles by a delicate string, fluttering in the wind. How strong will it blow? Will we come apart at the end? Why so downcast, O my soul? We have only so long to wander as fools.

My Mess

2011-03-29T23:33:00.000-07:00

My desk is a mess of all the things I thought I was going to need someday. I do need them.

Do I need them?

I need them.

The books and teacher's guides for the 4 grades of English I teach. Two sets of Jenga blocks with English words (one is 5th and one is 3rd grade appropriate) for when they get too tired to learn. My coffee thermos. Don't even get me started about that one. Need. Notebooks.

I have so many notebooks, one for each of the things I am trying to be.

A poet.
A musician.
A teacher.
A Writer.
A prophet or a saint (I'm not really sure which anymore).
An artist.

Can I be all those things, or is there just too much clutter on my desk? I'll never know until I start to clean it off, and someday I might look back at my sparkling clean workspace, no pressure but to sit on it and think...

Wasn't there once...

... something?

Of course, that's a silly thing to think, for there to be something. Not when desks can be clean, and people can go home not wondering with all their whats and wasn't theres.

Maybe I should leave it for another day.

Thursday

2011-03-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

I have some questions.

Most of the time, they go unanswered. It's usually pretty simple stuff.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where..."

"What time do we start..."

"What is this? Do I eat it?"

I don't mind when the simple questions go unanswered. I'll find out soon enough anyway, but I have some other questions, and when I'm through asking the first lot, I expect to hear some answers. Clear answers.

I'm not quite sure who from though.

I'm waiting for the subway again, rolling through the dark underground, trying to write by artificial light. When does the next car come? 지하철? 언제?

Soon. It's coming soon.

3 more days. I am counting down on my planner every day. Perhaps in 3 days, something really will happen. Maybe not. Maybe it will just be thursday. Maybe the world will end. Maybe it will begin.

The man sitting next to me notices that I am trying to write something while standing in he crowded subway. He makes space and motions for me to sit. He is staring over my shoulder the whole time, as if he can read what I'm writing. I would think that he can, except that he seems so interested.

What do you want?

3 days.

Soon. It is coming soon.

I Have Always Lived Here

2011-03-27T05:51:00.000-07:00

I feel like Diggory from The Magician's Nephew. Trapped in the world between worlds. If you asked me, I would tell you that I've always been here. Perhaps that's not even a lie.

Of course, I'm in a real place. I'm in South Korea. I live here. I'm a public school English teacher and a taxpayer on two continents (I still have to figure some of that out, I fear I must do paperwork). There's a glass, a sheen to this world though. I only see it as a casual observer, like through one of those mirrored glass cases where they keep all the deserts. I'm not sure which side of the case I'm on though, or for whom the obvious myrth of this interaction is intended.

The texture and sparkle of this place (or perhaps the sparkle of my eyes as I look at it) excuses me from so many things. I have never had to discuss religion, sign a petition, give blood or even perform complicated banking procedures. It is not expected that I should interact with this world in such a way as to change it, nor that it should change me. I get paid. They built a Mc'Donalds. That is all we will hear on the subject.

My eyes get a little warm and misty at night on the bus. It's not sadness or depression rearing its ugly head again. This is what happens when you're tired and you ride the bus a lot at night, routes you could never navigate during the day. Some places only exist at night with blurry eyes.

This fog spills out of me and into my world, slowly filling it to the very top, where the people would go to breathe if they saw the way I look at them sometimes. And all the words painted on the windows bleeding behind neon light join in the mist so happily, their meaning obscured to everything but the simplest of phrases.

That is a motel.

A Chinsese restaurant.

A PC room.

A bar.

I'm drowsy from the rumble of the bus; the slow, steady, bobbing up and down with the indestinguishable divets in the long winding road that somehow never quite seems to stop anywhere I would call home. Maybe that's my fault, though I know I'm not the one driving this thing.

If I squint my eyes just right, everything numbs and sparks, blurs to a soft red. When I open them again, will the world have dissappeared? Or, will I suddenly find myself transported? Perhaps to that elusive place that I keep chasing, though I am constantly leaving things that I had sworn embodied it? Does it even exist anymore?

To Mom, From Korea, On Her 60th Birthday

2011-03-25T22:58:00.001-07:00

She:
a collection of stories.
The fox who stole the cookied man
and mouse who played the violin.
The tortise/hare she said "My son,
have a thick shell, and steady pace.
Life is not a thing you win
by racing through."

Time:
would find us both
on the opposite banks
of an ocean, waving, but still she would
reach the other side, after all
the peices, floating, smallest, insignificant.
The pretty ones who never noticed.
"A bleeding heart and waterproof skin," she said.
"Time and her aged toothless grin
will make lovers of us all before we end."

She:
A collection of the peices smallest,
greying hair and wrinkled eyes,
the very corner of what love had done.
Undone- the dishes, taxes, laundry.
Every compounding expense of time
for which there was no interest.
And the test came back, it was
positive, but so was she,
that life is not a thing you win
unless you're willing to give it up.

The More You Tighten Your Grip...

2011-03-23T18:44:00.000-07:00

Classes cancelled today. The parents are coming to see thier children at school, and I am supposed to dress up really nice in case one of them sees me. I always dress up nice though. It's a pretty rare occasion these days that I'm not wearing a tie. Sometimes even on the weekend.

My office is empty, though anything but silent. I don't think I believe in silence anymore. The outside world is gushing with the babble of laughing children, pouring in and out of the doors. If there is a method to their movements, I do not know it. Tall and straight, like trees beside the highway, I can see the other teachers rushing past my window, the click-clack of their heels on the concrete floor a constant reminder that they are, in fact, human, and not as tall as they seem. You would never mistake their height if you saw them in real life, but that was not what they wanted, straining to see even the slightest bit of the road ahead of them.

I can almost feel the trepidation of the mid-morning sky, intermittently split by the penetration of a passing jet. The opening closes as the sky rejoins itself with thunderous applause. They will tear apart again. They will join together again. The earth will rejoice.

The air pressure squeezes a wave of mollecules that gently tap at my door in aftershock. Say hello. I stand and I knock. If I hear voices, should I answer? I shift in my seat, and the floorboards rally together in a groaning complaint against me, joined soon by the backrest in my comfortably aged desk chair. I don't think it was ever meant to recline as much as it does, but I'll have no complaint. The cream brown liquid in my coffe thermos splashes against the walls as I drink it. The sound, shifting, distorted notes spilling over the top of each other. Music to greet the gaining sun. I hear familiar voices, chattering in a language that I don't understand, though I recognize it.

No. I don't believe in silence, and I am no Athiest. It takes more faith than I have to believe in nothing.

My life is filled with moments like these. You have to lie in wait, bait in hand, in order to catch them. Most days, there is not enough time.

The Future, Requesting Permission...

2011-03-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

Hello, what's your name?

Stephen.

Ah! Welcome to Korea. Where are you from?

America.

USA! Do you swim here every day?

Not every day. Three times per week.

Three times, one week. Yes. Are you a good swimmer?

I'm okay.

Have you mastered the four swimming styles?

I never learned the butterfly stroke.

Butterfly stroke?

Like this (make motion).

Ah! Butterfly stroke. Why?

Because it's stupid.

I feel myself becoming more and more detached from the present, as though it is merely a passageway between my beginning and whatever I'm heading towards. My life is so much more habitual than it ever has been. I just lift my head from time to time to make sure I'm doing whatever it was I decided months ago was important for me to do.

I am teaching.

I am showering.

I am at the pool.

I am drinking coffee.

I am going to sleep.

I am waking up.

Everything else is all blurs. Colored ribbons of light an motion that guide my way. I dare not even name them. I am waiting for the future to land on top of this present and squash it dead. In the meantime...

I am going to sleep.

A Gentle Cup of Mutual Surrender (It's from a song)

2011-03-21T16:50:00.000-07:00

The rain seems to drive certain things out of people. I myself have an affinity for coffee shops and sitting indoors, watching the people outside, shielded from the whining midmorning sky by their individual canopies; inclined to share the translucent gleam of their world with anyone for whom there is the slightest recollection, so close. Would their bodies touch up against each other, and does that make them smile?

Everyone?

Even the elderly, who have experienced touch in every form? Does the body ever tire of warm living thing pressed up against warm living thing, with no answer to the question of repetition? Is the world a romantic?

The sky.

It seems like she is crying for the love inexperienced, for the one umbrella per person, negating the outward necessity for warm against warm. But, we are all filled with the same as rain on the inside, and our bodies will be cold at the end.

It's raining here, in this place that will always be the other side of the world, though that is impossible. I do not grow tired of seeing small umbrellas, two underneath, without enough room to stand apart.

The Checking Habit

2011-03-20T18:41:00.000-07:00

I didn't weigh myself at the pool today. They have a fancy scale in the locker room right after the showers, and you can stand naked on it, because everyone in the locker room is naked. That way you don't have to feel guilty about the wieght from wearing clothes.

Clothes don't count anyway. Everyone knows we have skin underneath.

I wanted to weigh myself, but I didn't. Sometimes I think progress comes faster when you keep checking back. Sometimes I check my Facebook more than 10 times a day, just to see if anyone has told me that I'm brilliant yet.

But I've only checked it 4 times today. Maybe I should check again.

Today, I didn't weigh myself. Tomorrow I won't find out if I'm brilliant. I've just got to trust when I say that it doesn't make anything go faster, besides my patience. I've got to trust before they put me on pills or lock me up somewhere there isn't anything to check up on.

I feel like my good friend Vincent O'Brien. I like to pretend that I'm good friends with fictional characters. It makes me feel like I'm friends with more important people. I think the imaginary people are some of the most important ones. I worry sometimes that I know too many of them.

I wonder also, if I'll ever be able to write without being depressed first. When was the last thing I wrote?

3 months ago.

Sounds about right.

Progress. Checking won't make it faster.

I hope I get myself together soon.

Spring Cleaning

2011-03-20T17:19:00.000-07:00

Hello, my lovely reader(s?). I have been away for a while. I promise, for those of you who really enjoy me unloading all my personal junk in public, I am not done. I've been journalling (they have this new thing called paper, it's weird) and I'm going to upload some stuff more often. Then you will be able to look at my life, and my attitude about said life, and you will be filled with an infinite sense of gratitude that you are not me :)

Coming soon...

Guess What, Universe?

2011-01-16T05:24:00.000-08:00

I win.

Further details as events warrant :)

Conspiracy to Suicide

2011-01-13T22:02:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure my email address is going to kill me.

Not because it's based on a name I gave myself in high school when I used to make things out of duct tape with Devin and Jensen, which may or may not have included a full super hero costume with a logo I emblazoned upon the chest in sharpie.

It's not that.

(perhaps I should forget about "may or may not." There's summer camp video footage floating around somewhere...)

The reason that my email address is going to kill me is because it, along with my Facebook profile, Youtube account, Hulu (before it was blocked in S. Korea), Blogger account (who said that?) and the complete series of Arrested Development that I now own, exists as part of a unified battalion with only two perogatives:

1. Soak up 24 hours.
2. Convince me that I will need them again tomorrow.

Now, I am completely convinced that some form of my subconscious is in league with them to destroy me. You can call me crazy, but that doesn't mean that I'm not right. They are going to wreak havoc on my body, pillage my home, and I'm the one who left the front door unlocked.

Distractions are far more deadly than we give them credit for. I realize that now. I have wasted hours that have become days, that have become weeks, that have become months, that have become years. My entire life is the only thing they have left to take.

I allowed this to happen.

Perhps it's new years that made me aware of what I do with my time. For the last two years, I have made a tradition of evaluating myself and asking where I want to be by the time this year is up. I try to keep my goals reasonable, but it's such an empowering thing to have goals, and I'm usually not near my computer when I do this, so I forget that I am subconsciously conspiring with my massive array of distracting shit to keep me from being effective at anything. This year's goals were lofty, and twice as long as last year's goals because they included all the stuff I never got done from last year. I don't want to list them, because I think that will make me feel accomplished, when in fact, I am not.

The really sad thing is, I really think it is possible to accomplish all of the things I want to accomplish this year, if I can stay focused. In fact, I think it is possible to do even more than what I have in mind. The problem is, it's all a shallow dream if I'm not willing to put in the work that needs to be done.

...and I think I'm not.

I have no idea how many times I check my email in one day. I have a routine. It goes like this.

(1.) Email. look at stuff, respond to a few things, "remember" to go back and finish with the rest.
(2.) Facebook. See if there are any new reminders/postings/comments for me. If not, see what everyone else is doing. Notice that (name of cute girl or old friend) is online. Consider chatting with them. Chicken out.
(3.) Youtube. start with the recommendations. Move on to links in the sidebars of said recommendations. Look up music videos to old songs that I don't really even like enough to own, but just remember from High school.
(4.) Back to Facebook. Post links from said music videos to friend's profiles. Eagerly wait for return comments.
(5.) Email again. Suddenly remember all the emails I have to respond to but forgot. Get new messages. Briefly consider doing something important, like getting some exercize (I put on 2 kg over vacation) or working on that book (I'm supposed to be a brilliant novelist by now) or spending some time reflecting on the Scriptures. Chicken out. Back to number (1).

I have spent days doing this, over and over. That line about reflecting on the scriptures really hit me hard. Is it strange that I call myself Christian while doing nothing to study and understand the life of Christ? I seem to think I know a lot about him, but it's been a while since we've talked.

All the while, I've spent hours that become days, checking and going back, and checking and going back. Evenings reach puberty and become weeks, and gradute into months, and settle down into years, and I'm just praying that I will accomplish an honest days work before retirement.

These things look small and harmless, but they are death, as I understand death to be nothing more than the taking of a life.

And I have conspired to kill myself with them. To fill the room with emptyness, only to be strangled by the hands of nothing. The only thing remaining would be a lifetime of lists: all the things I wanted to be.

The judge will rule not guilty.

Surely it was consentual.

Quick and Deep

2011-01-10T06:06:00.000-08:00

I'll avoid the obvious "that's what she said" joke, because I think my mom reads my blog now...

Why do I fail?

Is it because I am weak?

quick to regret?

slow to reply?

perhaps, but...

Failure is not

a stumbling block,

sign to stop,

beginning of saying

"I guess I'd be better off..."

Failure is a sign.

Not a red octagon

but a yellow painted

arrowed line.

I fail because I continue

to try.

(how could I possibly fail otherwise?)

생일축하합니다 (it reads better if you translate it after reading the post)

2010-12-30T02:59:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning to a knock on my door.

Suh-ti-bun. question, question, I'm sorry. How old are you?

26.

Twenty six. Okay okay. Goodbye.

I've been asked that question so many times since moving to Korea that I didn't bother to think about why he would choose this time to ask me that. It just seemed like he needed to know. It was time for me to get up anyway. We are going to tour Seoul today, and I am leaving for Daegu tomorrow.

I feel the need to take a moment to prepare myself for the full-frontal invasion that is to be breakfast today. My stomach isn't awake yet, and telling a Korean that I don't normally eat breakfast is a mistake that I have no desire to repeat. You get a similar reaction to how an American reacts to the fact that they eat a soup made from dog meat here. It's not that I mind so much the type of food I eat. In fact I have grown extremely accustomed to it. The problem with Hyounjun's mother's cooking os one of volume. The sheer number of things she expects me to eat is staggering. I have never tried so hard, nor failed so badly at having a "masculine" appetite. It's just not in me anymore.

It actually took me a while to adjust to the sight of it.

Koreans normally eat fish, rice, kimchi, and some sort of soup for breakfast. Their breakfasts are a lot like our lunches and dinners. The bakeries in this country are not usually open in the early mornings, and the people who work in such establishments usually stare at me for a good amount of time if I buy a pastry or doughnut before noon. All this to say, I was VERY surprised to see a cake in the middle of the table.

There were seven candles in it.

Hyounjun's father knows how to sing 'Happy Birthday' in English, while his mother only speaks Korean. I don't know how they knew. Hyounjun must have told them. I usually don't mention my birthday, since it's so close to Christmas, and everyone is pretty tired from the holidays. I think it's been several years since someone has bought me a cake, and even longer since they sang the 'happy birthday' song. In fact, I've never heard it in Korean.

Happy birthuh day Suh-ti-bun. I love you.

I love you too.

Hyounjun called later that day. He said happy birthday, and then his mom asked him to say something to me.

Stephen? Yeah, my mom says to give her your dirty laundry so she can wash it before you go. Trust me, you don't want to fight her.

I don't think anyone has done my laundry since I was sixteen. I can't believe of all the things se wanted to say to me, that was the thing that was most important.

Hyounjun mama. Suh-ti-bun mama. It's okay.

She's been studying me like a hawk, trying to figure out what I like and don't like. She pours me water with my meal (most Koreans don't drink water when they're eating) in the cup with a picture of a bear on it (I like bears). Breakfast was 잡채, 불고기, and of course, cake.

이것먹어. 많이 먹어.

We went off to see Seoul, Hyounjun's father and I. She buttoned up my sweater and smothed out the wrinkles, adjusting my scarf and making sure my hat was on straight.

Handsome boy, Suh-ti-bun. Handsome boy.

I think she's probably the reason why a lot of Korean men have unrealistic expectations of their wives, or their girlfriends. If I grew up in this culture, I would be sooooo spoiled. I still find it so strange to be loved so much by someone who barely even knows me, and can't really communicate with me at all.

I mentioned earlier this month that I don't have a lot of pictures of my face on this blog. Actually I don't think I have any. This one seems worthy though. This is me and my 엄마.

사랑해요.

I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm

2010-12-27T00:51:00.000-08:00

Today was my first day of vacation since 초석. I woke up early and took the 401 bus to the international Airport. I waited there. About 10 minutes later, I got a phone call, and a white van pulled up to gate 1. A well-dressed Korean man got out of the van and started to load my bags into it. Though his English skills were limited (much less limited than my Korean, btw), his welcoming attitude towards me was translated instantly.

Suh-ti-bun? I am so happy seeing you!

반갑습니다.

I am trying to speak in Korean whenever I feel like know how to say something. Anything to make it easier for him, especially after he woke up at 5AM just to drive down here and pick me up. I have never spoken to this man before, but he happens to be the father of one of my best friends.

Suh-ti-bun...um...Korea? You like your time?

네. 한국 촣아요.

Ah. Good! Now. let's go please. We will...home...3:30. 3:30? yes. Let's go.

It's snowing. I should say now that I think snow is magic. I think the main reason for this is the fact that I'm from California, and I have only seen snow once there. Since, I have seen it 3 more times, all of them in this country.

Snow dances. It spins around in the wind, catching every note, every beat of the air around it. It almost feels like it's alive. I can't imagine a more beautiful thing, nor would I dare to think how jaded I would be about the whole thing if I grew up somewhere where it snowed every year. I think maybe I won't let my children see the ocean until they are adults.

Is it weird that I still hold my breath every time I drive through a tunnel? Jon and I used to do that every time we went on the 1 freeway to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I like to go there to watch the tourists watch it. Somehow we forget that it's amazing when it's near us all the time. The problem with holding your breath in Korea is that their tunnels are so long you rarely can even see the light at the end. I can't ever seem to make it the whole way on one breath. I feel like a failure. He's watching me struggle towards the end. Perhaps he thinks I'm claustrophobic or something, but I guess he figures that I am uncomfortable going through tunnels. He speeds up a little when he drives through them. It helps some, but I still can't get through on one breath.

Just breathe. It was only valuable when you believed it.

Suh-ti-bun. You like lunchey? Korean food you like?

네. 한식 좋아요.

He takes me to the first restaurant he can find labeled "western food." I guess whatever I said before didn't translate quite right. The "western food" menu had such items as 도까스 and 회빕빔밥 on it. Funny, I don't remember my mother serving me any raw fish OR raw egg when I was little. I certainly eat plenty of it here. Somehow, he finds me a fork. I'm sort of awkward with forks now. It has been a while. It hasn't really been that long, it's just... I've taken in everything so fast, I feel like I've been here forever. I had American food for Christmas this last weekend, and It really upset my stomach. My body is craving rice and 김치, and my fingers feel more comfortable around a set of chopsticks these days. I don't know why, but I feel like I'm going home. I'm going home with a perfect stranger who is anything but a stranger. He has Hyounjun's face. He stops to pray before eating. When did I stop doing that?

This country is so f%*$ing beautiful.

As the snow performs pirouettes around the cold mountain air, it masks everything but what it wants me to see. The mountains. The skeleton trees like rows of repentant sinners waiting for evening mass, their arms raised to the sky. Again, the snow only shows us what we were meant to see.

This city is called the 분당.

분당?

Yes. The 분당.

He twirls his hands in the air like a circus ringmaster.

White Christmas, yes? Let's inside go. 많이 cold. 많이 많이 cold.

His wife is inside. She has been waiting. She called several times to make sure we were alright. When I get inside, she grabs my hand and takes me into where I will be staying for the next 5 days.

Suh-ti-bun 방. 현준 방.

She speaks even less English than he does, but there is something that translates instantly. She has a lot of food prepared for me, but this time (I had met her before) I know how to say "I'm full," so I've got the jump on her. I'm going to find a way to break it to these people that I am able to use chopsticks, after I enjoy a bit of their frantic rush to find what I assume is the only fork they own. They never do, so I have to tell them. Oh well, fun's over. She sits next to me, watching me eat, talking to me in Korean. I understand almost none of it, but I don't think she cares. These are things she needs to say. I think that once someone becomes a mother, they will always need someone or something to take care of. I must have some food or something on my face, because she gets a wet rag and wipes the corner of my mouth with it.

한국 남자친구 있어요?

남자친구? 없어요.

He laughs.

She wants you to have a Korean girlfriend. She thinks you are very handsome.

I smile awkwardly like I usually do.

감사합니다.

She grabs my arm again.

You,현준 same. I love you.

She want to... treating you like... her son.

There are a lot of things in this world that I don't understand. I don't get most of my life these days, why I do the things I do, why I go the places I go. It's like everything is covered by these dancing weather patterns. White Christmas. Everything is beautiful and nothing is clear.

So here's the deal, God.

I don't know why you don't want me to see everything, and I have no idea what will happen next. I do not know why you put me here, or why I feel so inclined to stay. I don't want to ask why anymore, because I'm so glad you did.

Maybe someday it will stop snowing, and I'll see everything. Until then, I have seen enough.

Oh come, Oh come.

2010-12-23T19:39:00.000-08:00

He came quietly.

Like all those He sent before Him, He was not recognized by people of good reputation.Those sorts of people do not spend time looking for pregnant teenagers having children in dark caves. Why would they? Nothing ever comes of that sort of thing.

He needed her.

He had chosen her to care for Him, to wrap Him in cloth, to bed Him down in the trough. It was the best she could do, and He would often go without the things that other chidren had. She cherished and pondered the great mysteries of the universe, that one thing that we would, that she would persue all her life and never get any closer to, but how He loved to see her run towards it. Could all of Him really fit into such a small and fragile thing?

He was a baby.

He could have been a man. He could have appeared on the earth with the ability to feed and care for Himself, but that is not what He chose. He chose the dark place, that dirty stall where good people are afraid to go. If these tragically flawed creatures could not care for Him, He would die. They would teach Him to speak, to walk, to dress Himself, to work, all the while in awe that He should not be theirs, but He gave Himself to them. He became what all other gods were too afraid to become.

Human.

He came to a world that had turned itself on its head.

There was already someone claiming to be the son of god. There were many claming solutions to every ailment, but it was not medicine that they needed.

It was freedom.

The problem was one of ownership. These things that they thought would be a help had become their masters, and there were debts to be paid, more than a lifetime, and so they had given over everything. Freedom would never come of their own accord, it had to be something bigger.

He was small.

Unless you were in That dark place, on that night so long ago, you would have to crane your neck to hear it. The sound of a child crying in a manger. He was God, and He put Himself in our care, not so that He would understand us, but so that we would know that there is nothing He would not endure to be with us, not even the lives that we had forced ourselves to live. They had prayed for thousands of years for this day, a faint hope.

Come, Immanuel.

It was with that cry in the night, so soft it was missed by nearly all. That sound that said:

I am here. Even at my weakest, I am stronger than whatever has you.

and the world has not stopped spinning since He left it.

Merry Christmas.

Disappointed With God

2010-12-01T03:48:00.000-08:00

I have decided that in an attempt to observe Christmas in a correct and reverent manner this year (as I am far removed from my usual range of distractions), I will only post on issues relating to the Advent season until the end of the month. I don't really want to talk about Christmas, with all the jingle in bells, decking of halls and ho's in triplicate. I really want to talk about the historical period of Advent, and its effect on both the broad global culture and the narrow lens through which I see it, commonly known as the Church.

However, on a completely hypocritical note, allow me to introduce...

My Ginger bread 집 한국. my 김gerbread 하우스.

I've just realized that the above comments will only be entertaining to people who speak exactly as much Korean as I do. If they speak less, they won't be able to read what I wrote, and if they speak more, they will probably think (perhaps know) that I'm an idiot.

Oh well, that's probably still a much wider audience than most of the other things I've written.

Though my "I'm-so-sad-that-I'm-still-single-even-though-I'm-really-nice-and-smart-and-might-be-attractive-since-there-aren't-any-pictures-of-my-face-on-this-site" posts are quite popular with the "20-something-and-I-live-with-my-mom" crowd.

Don't worry ladies. I've got plenty more where that came from.

Today, I want to talk about disappointment. There have been a lot of things in my life that have been disappointing.

My film "career."

The end result of the nearly 10 years I have been playing the guitar.

the six week "relationship" I had at the age of 24, as the result of the first time I ever asked a girl out (You see ladies? Your pity is always welcome here).

My New Years resolution to "always do my laundry on time."

Let's not forget the many many disappointments that come with the Christmas season. I'm not talking about presents I wanted but never got when I was 5. It's this whole Christmas season thing, whatever it's become. Every year, you're promised magic, and togetherness, and miracles even. At the end, All I see is more stress, empty pockets, and a world that's just about broken even. No one is any better off, save a few people who own toy stores.

I myself have never owned a toy store. Hence disappointment.

I have always longed to live in a simpler time. Before the industrial age, or before the digital age. Hell, I'll even take before Youtube. I'll bet my work week would have been a lot more productive.

I hope no one from my work is reading this...

Anyway, of all the times I wished I could have lived in, at Christmas time I always think of the Middle East, right smack in the middle of that whole BC - AD mess. What would it have been like?

I probably wouldn't like it.

I never realized before how disappointing the Christmas story really was. It seems like the grandeur and spectacle I see in canvases, greeting cards, and the occasional cathedral window is a tragic misinterpretation of the details.

Think about it.

I can just see the Jewish priests putting together their letters to Santa...

Send me a messiah this year. I've been very good. Make him big and strong so that he can set us free. Make his birth known throughout the world, so that the most important people can rush to serve him. Equip him with the ability to establish a kingdom here on Earth. And make sure he doesn't hang out with hookers and IRS agents.

Sincerely,

J. Pharasee

This is what they were waiting for since, I don't know... forever? How would they even recognize him?

Here comes Jesus. Born in a poor family. Born to a teenage mother, out of wedlock, who CLAIMED that the spirit of God impregnated her (couldn't God have come up with something more believable than that?) which I'm sure was a popular excuse at the time. There wasn't much of a birth announcement, save to some dirty shepherds (who, let's face it, could have been drunk), and a couple of Asian stargazers who weren't even Jewish. Not exactly the most reliable sources. The only person who really made a big deal of it was that Herod guy, who ordered the slaughter of every child under the age of 2. The first Christmas present, before all the Gold Frankincense and myrrh (which is an embalming fluid, btw) was an empty cradle. Sounds like an episode of Maury Pouvich meets the Holocaust.

I can't help but think that He could have chosen another way to do it. He could have done whatever he wanted.

Jesus grew up to achieve no major political office. In fact, he never even became a priest. He just went from town to town, hanging out with the wrong sorts of people, talking disrespectfully to the other sorts of people until finally... they just killed him. Even with the high mortality rate of the times, 33 is a pretty young age to go. I imagine that the Jews left his burial site just in time to begin drafting this year's letter to Santa. They had thought of some new things that they wanted their messiah to be.

I guess they didn't recognize Him, did they?

Can't blame them.

I have some trouble spotting Him from time to time.

Of course, as most of you know, I am neglecting to mention the part that gets everyone excited. The fact that something fantastic really did happen that night. The fact that God came to the Earth in the form of a man, and was such a picture of meekness and strength under control that he could do so without being known to the very people who had been looking so hard for him. In fact that the very nature of his descent into human form shows what the dirty, the unfortunate, and the unreliable had suspected all along, that he had come for them. Of course, you might say that I am neglecting that.

Perhaps, but it is still a kind of disappointing story. It's a perfect story, but a disappointing one.

I have come to the astounding realization that we are able to be disappointed with something that is perfect. The divine could come to Earth, and we would turn up our nose at Him if we were looking for something else.

Can you really blame the Pharasees? If I told you that God was alive here on this Earth, could you tell me where to find him?

I confess that I can not.

I must be looking for something else. Something that He is not.

It's a thing that gives me hope, actually. The fact that I am disappointed with perfection, because I can't see what it really is. Perhaps we will see miracles, and healing, and love like we've never had before. The kind that goes with you. That wraps you up like a warm winter coat, and kisses the tip of the tongue like a winter carol about a time more fantastic than this one, because He really did come, and it really was perfect.

I want Him to teach me how to not be disappointed.

Culture Shock: A Haiku

2010-11-21T23:48:00.000-08:00

Lunchtime chicken piece,

sorry that I did not eat.

I thought you were fish.

Bear Speaks to the Moon

2010-11-14T02:55:00.000-08:00

It should come as no surprise to you that I like bears. I haven't worked with watercolor since the 3rd grade. I hope my technique has improved at least a little. It feels really good to be creating again though.

The text reads like so:

By what means do you hang

like quotations within quotations

marking feet and inches

up against this violet curtain

sheltering daybreak before

all hungry eyes will feed again?

The opening scene.

Shall we dance, just you and I?

a dress rehearsal before the curtain's rise

and if I say I only know a world

of glowing things that wear their bones

on the outside, would you think

I am so small?

Some who play behind your other face

have torn this world to pieces.

Final act called over thinking.

Expect the moon's response sometime in the near future:)

It Isn't Any Trouble Just To S-P-E-A-K

2010-11-10T21:05:00.000-08:00

My school has a special education program. I have heard that special Ed is kind of a taboo subject in Korea, so I feel fortunate that the good people of 해서 Elementary have put together such an impressive program. There are two classes, each with their own teacher, classroom, and there are 10 students in the special needs category.

There's one student in general that captures my attention. I don't know his name. In fact, I don't know many people's names (I have almost 600 students), but I feel sorry that I don't know his name in particular.

He's a very joyful person, while I, in full posession of my body, and with a fully developed brain, am not. Not all of the time. Not even most of the time. I barely fit into the "some of the time" category. He's got a big smile, and he always squinches his face together when he's concentrating on something. They let him come to my 5th grade class. Even if he can't really learn much English, I think no one should be deprived of the opportunity to stare at the weird looking foriegner, especially not one so disadvantaged.

He did learn some English though. He learned how to say "hello," and he usually interrupts my teaching about 3 times a lesson to smile at me, wave and say hello. He is so proud of himself when I wave and say it back. It's as if he has unlocked some magic code that allows him to do something with me that his teachers can barely do...

Communicate.

Today, he was crying at the end of my class. We were learning about the past tense today. Every way we had of saying that something was done was now wrong. He tries so hard. I think that sometimes we don't get that. We see someone like him and we imagine that if we were in his place, we might not want to learn anything, because it would be so much harder. I noticed how wrong that assumption was about him today. Everything is so hard. He tries so hard.

Something struck me about him today. It was a tough day. Everything was wrong again. The magic code was broken. Communication was in jeopardy. When the bell rang, he brushed his eyes, stood up, collected his book like everyone else, and headed out the door. He stopped in front of me as I was waving to the other students exiting the classroom. He shook his hands urgently.

"Teacher! Hello!"

Hello. Goodbye.

"Goodbye."

I think his smile is a reflex. I think that instead of taking it out like fine china, using it only for special occasions, he lives there. That's the plate he eats off of every day. It was back, before it was even long enough to say it was ever gone.

Goodbye.

It's a revolutionary concept. He now speaks English twice as well as he could before. What I wouldn't give for that kind of progress in my own life.

His smile shames me. That I could be up against so much less than that, and yet...

I can't smile like he does.

I call myself a teacher. What do I have to teach but hello and goodbye? I think he can teach me how to smile.

The Birth of Uncool

2010-11-09T04:08:00.000-08:00

I just started swimming laps at the local pool. I say local because it's in the city, but it's really really far from where I live. Perhaps it would not be so far if I didn't have to take public transportation, but it takes me about an hour and twenty minutes to get there by way of two busses and the subway. I think it's pretty lame of me that I want to travel that far just to goo swimming.

I have a beautiful body, in a sort of... untrue kind of way. I was never in the best of shapes. I mean, everyone is in some sort of shape, right? Mine is just less of a sculptural ideal and more of a ...muffin.

You know that part of the muffin that hangs over the side of those muffin papers that they put them in? Yeah, like that.

There are some overweight people who are actually pretty good athletes. I am not. I'm actually not even that coordinated. I can't walk in a straight line for very long without concentrating really hard. If I'm in a group talking to someone I kind of tend to pinball around a bit. It's okay, that's just kind of who I am. But I do want to change that. That's why I'm going swimming at the pool.

Words cannot describe how incredibly lame I look in my swimsuit, with my goggles that leave scrape marks on my nose because they are made especially for the shallow Korean bridge, combined with my swimcap (which the lifeguards make me wear, as though that will keep all the hair out of their pool) and my particular swimming style, perfected from years of never trying.

The pool is crowded when I get in. I feel (as I often do) that everyone is staring at me. I felt that way in America, when it wasn't true, but I feel it now all the more. I realized later it was because I was swimming in the wrong lane (apparently there are specific lanes for people wearing fins). I have to share this lane with 5 other people. I can feel their hands scraping my feet while they pass me. Everyone passes me. I really feel like this is not a place I should be. It has been a long time. Middle aged women are passing me, but I don't stop swimming until I have swum the amount I came for. Someday they won't pass me.

On the way back home, I pull out my flash cards on the bus. My flash cards are also extremely uncool. I have become known for my flash cards. I use them at work, on the bus, when I go home, and all throughout the weekends. I use them to learn to speak Korean. It is going very very slow. I have already learned enough Korean to thoroughly impress everyone back home, because I'm white, so I shouldn't know any Korean. I really don't want to impress people anymore.

Well... I wouldn't go that far, actually.

Let's just say that I don't want to want to impress people anymore.

I've noticed an interesting connection between coolness and success. Most successful people don't seem all that cool at first.

I'm not saying that successful people are uncool. In fact it is a very cool thing just to be successful. In fact I think that everyone in the world should always try to be as cool as they possibly can. Wear clean clothes, trim your nails, don't pick your nose, etc. There is nothing wrong with looking good.

Except when that was the entire goal.

Being cool means that you don't go places where you won't fit in. Being cool means that you don't try something when you know you will fail miserably at first. Being cool means always, always, always being in a situation you can handle, so that you always look good.

Again, I'm not saying that successful people are not cool, or even that they don't try to be cool, but when being cool itself is not the goal, a successful person can sacrifice his coolness in order to pursue success. I want to be like that.

So go ahead and pass me, Ajuma swimmers of Korea, I'm going to get faster, and I won't always look like a muffin. And go ahead and laugh at my flash cards, my so-called friends who spend their weekends getting drunk and the majority of their workweek on Facebook. I will speak someday.

I want to sacrifice for something better than cool.

Call and Response

2010-10-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

Friday night. Oh, blessed relief. The weekend is finally upon us. Those of you in America will be jealous to know that I now live in the future, and as such, I get to enjoy the weekend sooner than you do. It's like eating ice cream before it melts. Can't beat it.

Had a tough week at the office though (I've always wanted to say that). It seems like I was working and sweating all the way until time to leave. I remember when I used to twiddle my thumbs all day and surf the internet. It's a beautiful thing, to be committed to something that takes all (or at least most) of your energy. It makes you worry less, to know that you did the best you were able. Even the worst days (there have been a few) aren't so bad.

I've been listening to old school Rogue Wave a bit lately (pre Zune commercial madness). I've noticed that a lot of their music involves call and response. I like that collaboration. I used to be impressed by guitar solos, but now I like duets. I like call and response, for some reason. For those of you who can't see me as I'm writing this, you'll have to take note that I have a huge, cocky grin on my face. Perhaps at one point I will explain this reason to you, but for now, is is enough to know that I have a cocky grin and I like call and response.

I've never been a rhythmic person. I don't mean musically (though I'm sure it could be argued), but in a sense of life patterns. I've never really been able to depend on what I would be doing from one day to the next. My life didn't really follow a pattern. I used to think that made me cool, like that somehow doing the same thing over and over was boring, regardless of what that thing was. It's like if I could have a conversation with Robert Johnson, I might ask him why all he ever does is play the guitar. Perhaps he should play the piano, just so people don't think that's all he knows how to do...

I'm getting distracted.

I love getting distracted.

My life follows a pattern now because I found something that I really want to do over and over again. It's not cool doing random things, hoping one of them is going to pay off sooner or later. I've done that for far too long. Now it's time to stop trying to be everything in the world and be something I'm often afraid to be.

Myself.

And no one else.

I know that sounds cheesy, but I'm a bit in the mood for cheese, despite my occasional lactose intolerance. No more whine, but cheese is nice from time to time.

Last thought: it's November soon, and I just realized that I accomplished almost all of the goals I had for this year. I have two months two finish writing my novel and find a girlfriend. Pretty good year, all in all.

Maybe I should cut my losses...

... Maybe I should start learning some new phrases in Korean.

... for the book, of course...

After All

2010-10-26T04:53:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start writing again. I think it might be unhealthy for me to prefer writing my personal thoughts down on some website that I made public and posted a link to on my Facebook page rather than talking to a good friend about how I feel.

I'm a bit far from a good friend right now though. All attempts to be anything to anyone right now have been thwarted, and here I am again. Some sort of socially challenged forrest creature who somehow knows how to type. I wonder, in fact, if I really am alone here. If it's quiet for real now, even for the few who read this... whatever it is. Are you out there? I think you might be. I'm waiting on a voice from somewhere, something to assure me that I am facing the right direction before I start moving again.

Life is full of good things though. There are so many reasons why it's worth it to be alive, to try, to let something real in. I have seen and heard wonderful things, and if I have no one to call at the end of my day to tell these things to, I will have to write them down, with the hope that somehow they will be heard. At least one day I will come back and hear them.

My prayer is that somehow it will be enough to justify my existence. I feel like somehow it needs to balance out. Something bigger than the sociological, ecological, temporal footprint pushed into the Earth by the verb "to be." "To be or not" was never the question. We will be. To not be was not our choice. We must trust that with all the not be that never were, we were made to be, and our being was for the right reasons. It has weight. It is the only thing that really carries any importance.

Humanity.

The mess we moved into. The mess we made. The more we pretend that it isn't ours, the less our being pulls us to the earth.

There are oceans, you know? I've seen them. They cripple buildings from their foundations, and they grind the mountains into grains of sand. We're just calcium, plasma, and water. I've seen the ocean.

It's terrifying.

It's beautiful.

The most beautiful things in life are terrifying. The Ocean. Death. Truth. That voice you hear at night before falling asleep, only before falling asleep. You are too focused the rest of the day to allow it to speak. Too busy staring at the sand spread across this vast beach saying "not me, not me," over and over again as if that is going to make it true.

Yes. You.

but it's allright.

It's okay to let the ocean take you, to spin you around and dance with you. If you fight these tides, they will fight you back, but if you let them carry you...

...my God...

You can't imagine where you end up.

It's okay. It's okay because after it all, the pain, the suffering, the loneliness, the rejection, the sheer weight of the sand in your pockets, there is some thing bigger:

This world was made by love.

That's what he said his name was.

시 문 선 생 님

2010-08-28T22:17:00.000-07:00

I am starting to think that miscommunication may be my favorite form of communication.

I have been at my school for about two days now, and I feel like a member of a family, most of whom can’t say much more than two or three phrases to me. The only exception is 소 양, (roughly pronounced So-Yang) my teaching partner. We still have a lot of trouble communicating though, and I am constantly scratching my head to figure out what she just said to me. There are a lot of awkward pauses, which make me laugh, which make her laugh, with neither of us exactly sure what is making us laugh. It’s fun to have no idea what you are doing.

The kids at the school are really excited that I’m here. I’m not teaching classes yet, but just trying to observe another teacher’s classroom proved to be too much excitement. I had to leave. I was preparing my lessons for when I finally get to teach (I believe by Wednesday of next week) when a crowd of 5^th grade boys burst into my room, trying desperately to unload all of the English words that they knew.

“Hello! Nice to meet you!”

“what is your name?”

“Where are you from?”

“What is your hobby?”

“What did you do for summer vacation?”

"Excuse me! Can you tell me what time it is? Thank you!"

It kind of reminds me of asking all the Spanish speakers I knew where I could find the library.

I know where the library is.

Al suroeste del salon de classe.

Gracias.

소 양 , another teacher (I forgot her name) and I got official leave from the school (which required three different signatures of approval) in order to shop for supplies to decorate our teaching room. Halfway through this, the other teacher said that she was tired and it was too hot. We went to rest up in a local coffee shop in the downtown area. 소 양 tells me that more than anything, she likes piano music and the smell of new books. I think we are going to get along really well. She studied Korean in college, and so has promised to help me learn. I was so worried that I wouldn’t meet anyone who would want to teach me. I’m going to take advantage of every opportunity I have to learn from her.

Part of my contract stipulates that I am supposed to have a washing machine at my apartment. I am excited about it, because it didn’t arrive the first day. I’m looking at it now, and I realize that I have no idea how to use it, as all the instructions are in Korean. I hadn’t even realized how many things I would not know how to do because of the language barrier. I also don’t know how to say my address. I’ll have to talk to someone about that. In the meantime, I’m going to push all the buttons on this machine until it washes something.

Someone once asked me if I thought it was possible to fall in love with someone you barely know. I still don’t know if that’s possible, but I now know how she felt. It’s not a person for me, though, it’s a place. I am so happy here. It doesn’t make any sense, but I can feel it. I want so badly to be as helpful to these people as I can. I want to be a good employee, a good student of language and culture, a good teacher, and a good friend. I’ve always tried to be above average at everything I do, but I’ve never really wanted to be the best type of person I was able to be. Maybe that’s what love is supposed to do.

Sun Chaser

2010-08-18T19:48:00.000-07:00

Had lunch with Dad today before I got on the plane. It’s strange, I think we’re becoming friends. I don’t know if you’re allowed to be friends with someone who had a hand in making you, but I’m sure that friendship is better than whatever we had before. Some people don’t even like their dads. I think I was at one time one of them, but now I think we are becoming friends.

The plane was 12 hours. Didn’t seem like it, but there you go. I watched some good movies and also Iron Man 2. Yes, I put it in a separate category. Deal with it.

They keep giving me things on this flight. Everything from apples, to peanuts, cups of orange juice, and hot towels. I wouldn’t even know what to do with hot towels if I had never seen The Wedding Singer. At one point, they even gave me a little zippered bag. When I opened it up, there were socks inside. Socks? What am I supposed to do with socks?

Well, put them on my feet, obviously, but…

Question: why does the bathroom door have an ashtray on it? No one smokes on the plane. Really. Why?

Everyone has been telling me how humid it is in Korea. I don’t know how to gauge that. At least I didn’t until I got off the plane.

Good Lord! I feel like we landed the plane in someone’s armpit. People live here, and I find that fact astounding. I may continue to be dumbfounded by that simple truth until my body adjusts to the new climate.

All the advertisements here have white people on them. Is that Pierce Brosnan? What is he doing telling the people of Korea what to brush their teeth with?

There was a whole group of people in the airport, waiting. Everyone spoke English. A perfectly safe little bubble. I can’t stay here.

I find it difficult to admit that I dislike all of the people I have met so far. The other teachers, I mean. When I got this job, I thought that the type of people that would like to work in a field like the one that I now work in would be a little bit more like me. Perhaps they crave change, fancy themselves to be adventurous, or perhaps there might be a few artists stuck in a rut that needed a change of pace. I forgot to think about all of the cultural know-it-alls, rice kings, former college students still running away from reality, and unemployed slobs who thought the job sounded easy. I’ve had conversations with 15-20 people so far, and I’m one of 3 who have ever taught a class before. I hope there’s a plan for all of this, God, because it’s already not quite what I thought it would be. My urge to learn Korean is now fueled by my intense desire to NOT spend any more time with these people.

Took a shower. I feel the need to wash this day off me. It’s 10:30 AM in California right now. That means I have been awake for 27 hours now. We chased the sun around the globe, and it has finally caught up. What the morning will bring, I do not know. Hopefully new life, hopefully new possibilities. Hopefully hope.

Beer and Tea

2010-08-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

I woke up really late this morning after several stints of being up at 7AM to drive to the Korean Consulate in LA. Don't have to do that anymore. I have a big, fancy, embossed sticker on my passport now. Most of it is written in a language I don't speak, with the exception of the word "Visa" and my name/personal information. That was the last piece. I feel like I'm in a scene from Inception. I keep rubbing the top of my visa over and over again, trying to determine if it's all real.

My friends keep calling me, and I keep leaving to hang out. I have so many different types of friends that they all seem to want to hang out at different times, and it all seems to work out...

Breakfast with Liz and Justine.

Beer and fire pit with Joe.

Dinner with Lora (She's working until 5).

Beer and cartoons with John.

Lunch (cooked @ home) with Phoebe.

Tea in the morning with Genie.

Actually, we both originally said "in the morning," though plans have been made for 1PM. Neither of us is really set up to wake up in the morning (that may be why we're both working part time jobs with weird hours). Regular people wake up early in the morning. Genie and I are NOT regular people. That's probably why we're good friends.

Back to wondering if I'm still dreaming. If I am, then it's a good dream. I have so many friends down here, and they are all telling me how much they are going to miss me. Am I making a mistake, just uprooting everything and leaving? I call myself "lonely bear." Strange that I am now choosing loneliness. It had never been my choice before.

This is different though. Really, what I'm doing right now is vacationing at home. I am around the people I love without having to make any personal sacrifices.

It's a lovely place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.

That's what people say about most of the places they vacation at. Only this time it isn't true. I do want to stay. Right now, what I am doing is not staying.

It's just beer and tea. It's not a relationship, it's just "hanging out." I hang out with a lot of people, but I've never been in a relationship before. Maybe I run away. Maybe that's what this big embossed sticker on my passport is all about. People say that I'm going to be a rock star there.

If I wanted to be a rock star, I would have practiced the guitar more.

I want to stay somewhere. I want to be in a relationship.

I'm already tired of beer, and tea, and "hanging out" and the other things you do when you're not staying. I don't want to run away.

I Want To Be Like You

2010-08-01T23:04:00.000-07:00

Yosemite.

One of nature’s great wonders. A jewel on the face of northern California. An impressive collection of really big rocks.

I hope I see a bear.

There are warning signs everywhere, complete with instructions on how to be sure you run into one. Karolina says that I should not wish to see a bear. She says that bears are not cute and cuddly like in the cartoons.

She lies.

Bears are, in fact, adorable and full to the brim with the warm fuzzies. I am going to catch one by rubbing myself in honey, rolling around in graham crackers and singing the King Louis song from The Jungle Book.

I hope I don’t run into any bees.

Maybe I should dress like a little black rain cloud.

No one watches those cartoons anymore.

I think I could make a really good life for myself here in Yosemite. With my new bear friends, we would eat berries, wrestle, and hatch schemes to steal picnic baskets from the park rangers. Mom says we have to go back to the cabin and eat tacos.

Pooh.

Being a human is so full of disappointment.

A Cabin By The Lake

2010-07-29T16:02:00.001-07:00

Today is Hannah’s birthday and we’re all camping at Bass Lake. We go camping every year, and sometimes I come along too. It’s a long drive most of the time, but this time I live at home, so it was less of a decision this year and more of a subconscious dragging from one place of residence to the other. I’m the black sheep of the family, except I’m pale white and sunburn really easily. I’m the white and sometimes bright red sheep of the family

It’s not that I don’t love my family, because I clearly do. They’re my only link to this world when I don’t know how to make sense of my life. Sometimes though, sometimes I think that maybe I’m a white and sometimes bright red sheep in a family of Llamas, or perhaps mountain lions. Maybe… deer? I don’t know, as long as it’s something un-insulting. I just feel like we’re different.

Timmy and Hannah keep talking about surfing with Nate and Tabs. (those two seem more like they belong than me) and everybody keeps jamming along to Kesha or Kiesha (don’t really know how that’s spelled) whist quoting lines from movies about sports.

Hey, do you guys think that this could be the lake where they filmed Bethoven? That would be Soooo awesome!

Oh, my God! I love Beethoven!

I think that was in Beethoven 2…

Everyone lays out in their perfectly stretched out bodies on the beach. I’m in the shade. I’m writing and reading.

Oh, my God, I can’t WAIT to get in the water.

Me too, I am Soooo ready. You have NO idea!

What’s in the backpack?

Books.

You’re carrying around a backpack full of books? This is our vacation. I carry a backpack full of books around when I’m in school.

I like books.

I like sitting and reading. They have to write and read, because they are in school. There is no school at the lake. It’s just a cabin. I should not want to sit on the shore to read and write. I should not like the shade, when I can lie half naked in the sun and talk about the different flavors of peach that Jamba Juice has to offer.

Stephen, aren’t you going to get in the water?

I’ll go when I want to. Why do I have to right now?

I think everyone wants to be in the water right now.

I finally go into the water. Everyone else gets out. I move out of the shade. Everyone wants to get in the car. A herd of Llamas and one brick red Sheep.

Why didn’t you go when everyone else was going? Don’t be mad.

I hate it when people tell me not to be mad when I’m not mad. It just proves the point that I am unable to show how I feel in front of people.

I’m not mad. I’m just not a Llama.

Timmy is driving home. He is strong and muscular. He surfs, and he plays Bass in a rock band. Somehow being an introspective, socially backward home-school kid didn’t transfer over to the whole family. I remember though. He used to pee outside, and watch Star Trek with me and Jon. He used to cry to Mom about everything. He should thank me for those muscles. Jon and I used to fight him. He became strong because he had something to fight against, and he became cool because he had something to prove, something Jon and I gave up on. I had nothing to fight, which is why he can bench press me. We don’t wrestle anymore, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not strong.

You strengthen the muscles that you exercise. They didn’t have to deal with being the backward one in a family of forward moving people. They didn’t ever create the muscle memory to look away and pretend not to notice that everyone is either staring at you or completely ignoring you. I’ve always had either one or the other. I have a savings bond of awkward stares that has matured into the thousands. I keep them all.

It’s not just camping in a cabin by the lake. It’s when people tell you how funny you are, when all else they can talk about is how pretty your sisters are or how strong your brothers are. It’s every time someone asks you how you’re doing and you don’t understand that they don’t really want to know. It’s every note you write to some girl you SWEAR you’re falling in love with, even though she’s already started talking about the man that she’ll eventually leave you for. A real man. He’s funny and good looking. It’s everyone who thinks it will make you feel better to know that there’s no one else in the world like you.

Really. No one. I’ve never met anyone like you and I don’t think I ever will.

I keep them all.

Snippets...

2010-07-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

…of conversations had around my house.

Are you eating? Did your mother make dinner?

No. I was just hungry.

Mom didn’t make dinner yet? What are you eating?

A burrito.

A Burrito? Stephen’s eating a burrito.

Stephen? You’re eating a burrito? I’m making dinner…

It’s 8:00. I just thought…

Are we all having burritos for dinner? I thought you were making chicken.

I’m making you lunch.

You don’t have to make lunch. I can do it.

I’m making everyone lunch. Do you want me to exclude you?

Do you want to go to the Rodeo parade today? First time in a hundred years they’ve had it.

Yeah. I’ve missed that.

You want to go?

I don’t think I can…

I’m going to be dressed as a clown. I told them you might come.

What? I don’t have a clown suit.

Really? Your brother and sisters go to Safeway dressed as clowns all the time.

I really don’t think that’s true, Dad.

Do you want to go with me to my prayer meeting tomorrow? I’d like you to come.

Dad prays a lot. Not very loud, so that you would know it. But loud enough that the relevant people get the message. I think I’m a bit jealous of that. I feel the need to say everything out loud (like what I’m writing right now). I think he really doesn’t care what other people think of him. Mom loves him. God loves him. The rest of us are learning.

Somewhere in downtown Salinas (I’m not sure exactly where because I get lost all the time) there is a room where 10-15 middle aged men and women meet early in the morning to pray for the city. I don’t know how long they have been doing it, but I know that I was there this last Thursday to watch it.

I mean join them.

I mean, I don’t know…

Prayer is a difficult thing for me. It has been a while. Not since I’ve prayed, but since I’ve … wanted to. Me and God, we have trust issues. Same as me and Dad. I don’t really know how they started, but they’re here, and it’s only been a while since I was able to admit it.

This is not the time for that.

A full room. There is a man with a left handed 12 string guitar. It’s a Taylor. He doesn’t play very well.

Stephen Elliott, come on down! You’re the next contestant on “Which of these old people knew you when you were 5, and do you remember them?”

It’s the game show where everyone loses. It’s a little creepy when you enter a room full of strangers who already know a lot about you somehow. I used to want to be famous. I think it might feel something like this.

But these are not adoring fans. They’re religious folk. Praying people. Dad’s friends. I have no idea what they are going to talk about.

Stephen, could we pray for you? Before you go to Korea, I mean?

I was sure that things would never be the same again. That I had grown beyond certain types of faith to the point that nothing would seem like magic anymore. I figure everyone gets that way eventually. We become old.

I think that I was the oldest person there that morning. The one who thought he had seen everything. None would be in agreement. There was no point in agreeing anymore.

I don’t really know why I decided to go to Korea.

That’s a lie. I know, I just don’t want to tell anyone.

That’s not the reason why I’m going now.

That’s the final snippet. The last piece of the conversation before going home. Nothing is as it used to be.

I haven’t seen everything. Tomorrow is meant for someone else.

Day 1: Failure

2010-07-20T14:45:00.000-07:00

I apologize that it has been a long time since updating y’all on my life. This place is strange and backwards. I wake up every morning with a different thought in my head and there are far too many to put in writing. I wouldn’t have time to live.

Though, some thoughts have continued to loiter around in my brain since the day I got here, so I think I will share them.

I woke. That first day, when I woke up I was 20 years old again. In a time machine funk. This was the last thing I remember here. Moving away. Not wanting to go then not wanting to come back. It’s a game of Russian Roulette. I am willing to bet that I won’t want to go again when it is time. That’s the thing about time. It’s the trigger. Location is that spinning mechanism that has a bullet, that one chance at escape, nestled inside. We never know which one it is in, but we know one thing: time is the trigger. We do not control when it fires off. We may only choose where to point it.

This place is different. Five years have been lived here, by more than one person. You can see it. The walls are painted a different color. Blackboard in the kitchen, mom says. You can write on it. It used to be, at least, until one of Timmy’s friends drew a body part on it. Now no one is allowed. I think I know which part, but I can’t be sure. I have no idea what makes heterosexual young men so obsessed with that area. I really don’t.

There’s someone I don’t know here. His name is Glen. He says he knows my brother. My brother doesn’t get here until tomorrow. In the meantime I have to wait a day to be introduced to him. I can’t talk to him. I think Glen might be a robot.

Dad says we need to fix the tractor.

What the hell? Where am I? I don’t know how to fix a tractor.

Glen says he can try it. Timmy says he already knows what to do. I go outside too. I’m going to be useful. I’m going to try to be useful. I’m going to stand around awkwardly and take pictures. I now have pictures of Timmy now, and Glen, and the cat who kept trying to crawl in Timmy’s lap while he was trying to fix the tractor. The two of them made a machine work for a few more months but I took a bullet from the gun. I stole a moment from time that it won’t ever get back. Insignificant though it may be, this is my life for now, and this is what I remember from it. I think some day this day will be important to me. I don’t know why.

I was supposed to be studying for my TEFL certificate today. It was too full of random things like this. I guess I failed. Good for me. Somehow, someday.

I'm going to right myself.

In the meantime, I think I like it here:)

25 Years Old, No Job, And I Live With My Parents

2010-07-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

I woke up early yesterday morning, and tried not to wake Sean up. I'm glad I failed. It would be a shame if I didn't get to say goodbye. He hurt his hand while we were moving, and when his brother couldn't come out to help him move more, he said "That's okay, I have my other family here."

It's true. He's my other family.

I'm leaving my family. To go be with my family. Then, I am going to leave both families in order to be in a different country. Why am I doing this? I feel like I haven't really asked myself that question a lot. I really was at first trying to see if I COULD do it. and now that I realize that I can, now that everything is starting to move, we're generating heat from the source... doubt comes like a cold wind from the north. I'm going for six weeks to live in the north. To live in doubt.

As soon as I hit the freeway, all the warning lights on my dashboard flash on. They are trying to tell me something. It's an omen. The final interpretation of a nightmare. I say a prayer and keep on moving. If something goes wrong, even a flat tire, it's over. I don't have any money. I have tied all my hopes to the mast of a single ship, out on a storm torn sea. I'll have nothing to float on if I sink.

It's weird, I think. How often I am just inches away from ruin and failure all the time. I guess I don't think about it. Issues come up. I have problems that seem unsolvable, and suddenly, at the last moment, everything works out. I've literally had money appear in my pocket. I've had food delivered to my doorstep without me knowing why. I guess it's more than coincidence. I just have to keep driving, no matter what the lights on the dashboard say. I am going home.

What about my family? I am so different now from who I was when I last lived with them. Different in a good way sometimes, but also... just different. I've seen and been through so much that has marked me. I made decisions that only made things worse in that darkness. I am still dealing with the repercussions of those decisions. What if they notice? What will I do then?

What if I can't learn to speak Korean? They say after twelve, it's nearly impossible. I'm 25. Who am I kidding? How am I going to survive out there? Will I come back from this experience changed at all? I have to. Change is vital for me. If I don't change, I am going to a place that I never wanted to be.

Alone.

I would have to make this trip all alone, wouldn't I? It seems I'm always alone, even when there are people in the room. And this trip is no exception. I'm on my way to being alone for a while. God help me, I thought this was the right decision to make.

Every single time I hit a bump on the road, or my car swerves in a funny way, I start to think the worst. It's going to flip over and explode, and I'll die by the roadside before a single one of my dreams is realized. God help me.

I have to believe that he will.

I pull up to the driveway of my parents house, alive and with a perfectly functional car. They lied to me, all those lights on the dashboard, trying to keep me from going anywhere. Inside is my family. The first people to ever truly understand me. I will be okay with them. I will not turn back, even when it is frightening to do so. This is the place where God has put me. Thirty dollars in my bank account. 25 years old, no job, and I live with my parents. Call me overly optimistic, but I think something wonderful is about to happen.

No (love?) Lost

2010-05-21T01:18:00.000-07:00

My brother (who has been married for almost two years now) says that I do not understand what it means to be in love.

He's probably right. Not that it's my fault.

Maybe it is.

Love.

I guess I don't really know what it means. I wish I could understand it, but at the same time, I really don't. If what I've been through wasn't love, it hurt bad enough that whatever love might be scares the shit out of me.

Have you ever wanted someone so badly that you thought you would die if you couldn't be near them? And then, you find out that you can't. Love breaks her promise. You can't have what you wanted and it didn't kill you. You have to live without it.

That's why I never pitied Romeo and Juliet. At least they had something that was real. They both felt it, and once it was gone, neither of them had to endure that loss for very long. I, on the other hand, am a living, breathing regret. A monument to loves broken promise.

I talk to God a lot about this stuff. I try not to yell or swear, but it rarely holds up for very long. They say that he never wastes a hurt, never hurts us more than we can handle. There are days that I find that hard to believe. I feel like a dog with a choke collar. Sometimes I just doesn't understand that I'm supposed to move when it tightens around my neck. And love was pulling strings in my life for as long as I can remember. Can I be free of it for just this once? It's got a hold on me, and I can't find anything positive in it.

That's why I shirk away from the question when people ask me if I'm "interested in anyone." As though mild interest was really what it was about. As if it were that simple. I feel like that question is like asking someone if they want to stop by the dentist for a root canal. It's a ridiculous question. That's just not the way things are done. One must first decide if it is something that is necessary, and if they can afford to cover the cost.

Because it does cost.

Sometimes with out the payoff.

So no, I'm not "interested in anyone" right now.

I'm still catching my breath.

Life of a Starving Artist in Haiku

2010-04-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

I was trying to come up with something to read at my open mic night this week. I've been really busy, and I haven't had time to write anything really long, so I tried my hand at haiku. I wanted to write things about my life that frustrated me. I wanted to get like three or four of them, but I had so much fun that I did fifteen. I really want to share them with you all. I categorized them for easy reference:)

JOB

Hello sir. Can I

Get you a glass of wine to

Wash down that smug look?

Thanks for applying

We want you to have this job

Oh. You're an artist

I have a B.S.

It's really a B.A., but

It's in film, so... yeah.

Account overdrawn

I want to change perspective

Paycheck underdrawn.

I am a waiter

Until something better comes

my job is to wait.

GIRLS

You must wait until

My heart stops beating so fast

Then I will call you.

ROOMMATES

I will wash dishes

When hell freezes or I write

My English paper

Arhythmic snoring

If you take requests could you

Sing soft in your sleep?

Your girlfriend giggles

When you tickle her elbows

I'll cut off your hands.

Heavy metal songs

Fill my ears in the mornings

I need a Q tip.

I wish I could say

"Go to bed, it's 3 AM"

In Vietnamese.

I like loud music

until I'm tired and have to

work in the morning.

I know how to sleep

With the lights on and a big

pillow on my face.

MISC.

Bumbling hornet.

How are you inside my car?

Did you bring a friend?

Is it chocolate chips?

I found in my silverware?

Never mind, rat shit.

Haha. Sorry about that. It made me giggle.

A Prayer For Cindy Park

2010-03-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

Awake in me

Soul of a floating shipwreck on a war torn sea

Whose tidal patterns never cease

To tear

At the foundations of the rocks who stand firm

on the ever- decreasing shore

Break this ship from your beach

Sign your sail to the wind

That echoes my name

This untamed ocean of mine moves

In shifts

In phases

Effaces

The shore lined sand castles

Where all my children used to live.

Break free of this earth

And let your heart be led

To a place where feet will find no solid space

to tread

My love

Means never wondering when

Your toes will touch on solid earth again

I will rename you in ruin

In the salt

In the pounding current events

Floating driftwood, keep your lungs

Just above the water

Just beyond the vanishing point

My thoughts of you

Would eclipse the moon

If I could stack them on your tired head

Drown in me

Let slide to deep

These skeletons that you carry

On your slowly breaking back.

Never will you stand on your own two feet again.

Oh waves, hold me back

Oh ocean

Oh beautiful

Floating shipwreck.

Beautiful Hurt

2010-03-13T02:10:00.000-08:00

Besides the arhythmic snoring and teeth-grinding of my roommate, it's completely quiet here at home. I'll miss him when he's gone. I said that once before, when it was a distant thought, a glimmering possibility, far off enough to almost be untrue, but now I know. Acceptance letter arrived a few nights ago. He's going to be an architect.

I'm so proud of him. He worked so hard and he deserves this.

I'm letting it sink in that I'm going to be alone soon. That I will have to share this room someday with a stranger (though I'll likely be the stranger of us two). I'm not sad about it. I've stretched and worn my supply of sadness in this life, like moth-eaten winter coat. Like a pair of ripped burlap shoes that should have been thrown out long ago. I'm not able to be sad anymore.

I carry all my hurt with me. It's been a long time.

I went to a party tonight. Surrounded by people I know and love. It was Rika's Birthday party. I just wandered the room for most of the night, watching them all. I still don't know what to do around people. I like the quiet. The stillness of night time. The hush reaches a deafening pace about 1 AM. It helps me remember.

I've been hurt. I've been hurt a lot, with few moments of real remembrance. I have no interest in why anymore. I don't feel the need to keep asking that question. Not in the quiet, black speckled with black night that I don't have to share with anyone. This time is ours. My God and me.

Is it vanity? Is it narcissism? That I imagine I can feel the Earth picking up speed, swirling around the sun at such a rate that I may one day just slip off it, and be crushed under the gravitational thrust of something so much greater than me? I feel pinned to the ground of this great massive weight of sky, like a bug trapped in a spider's nest.

I am not afraid.

Fear will do me no good any longer. I've lost. I chose loss, and it found me. It sought me out, and tried to remake me. Now I carry the weight of my pain on my back. I carry all of them. The ones that hurt me. The ones that tried to help me. The ones that see me as beyond helping.

People ask me about it all the time. This pain that I keep hidden. They want to know so that they can lift it off my shoulders, perhaps so that I might breathe again.

I gave up on breathing long ago. I wouldn't trade my pain for a world of happiness, if such a thing existed. I met you through it. I can see something in it too. Something deeper than happiness. My pain is a beautiful pain, that I can't put completely into words, or paint on any canvas. None will stretch far enough.

I am grateful. I have been touched by something deeper, darker, and more rich in color than anything I could ever have taken upon myself. I have fallen head over heels for the hurt that found me. Alone is not a punishment. Pain is not a punishment. I will not run from it any longer.

Birds On The Brain

2010-02-12T15:21:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to an open mic night.

Not my open mic night. Someone else's.

See, I met this guy two weeks ago who said he could hook me up with a venue in Santa Ana so that I could have a fundraiser for my movie that I have to make this year to prove that I'm not a failure. I can't remember who I am trying to prove this to, but it's important nonetheless.

This guy said he was going to the open mic night at The Gypsy Den in Santa Ana. I'm decide that I'll go too, since I want to network with him and the circle of artists he knows along with the ones I know... I'm not really sure if that's something I care about or if it's something I know I'm supposed to care about so I fake it when I'm around people who do.

Doesn't matter. I'm here.

And he's...

...not.

I don't think there's such a thing as wasting your time (with the exception of most things you can do on the internet). I think that if you're paying attention, something cool can always happen. God does stuff like that. Plus, the guy that runs the event says that if he can get through 25 people on the list, he'll let me read. Alright, I'm staying.

I'm working on a collection of children's poems, in the only way I know how to work on a collection of children's poems: By NOT working on a collection of children's poems. Although, if you were to ask me what I was doing, I would say that I was working on a collection of children's poems. In fact, that's what the girl sitting next to me asked, and that's what I told her.

I was doodling.

I feel like I might have met someone like her before. She reminds me of one of my sisters. Not any one in particular, just that she had a look, a manner of speaking and dressing herself that reminded me of the four intelligent, capable women that I have come to spend most of my time thinking about and interacting with. That's probably why we ended up talking so candidly. She came by herself, and so did I, and since the place was crowded, we elected to sit together.

The funny thing is, she had almost no interest in my poems. She kept staring at the picture I was drawing. I was drawing a lot of birds. Don't know why. A few of my good friends are afraid of birds. I think that makes birds even more interesting. It's not like they mean to frighten anyone...

We ended up talking about a lot of things, like why one should use a music stand, the existence of God, stage fright, and weather or not there was a long line in the bathroom. About 3/4 of the way though the set, she gets up, and begins one of the weirdest interactions I have had with a stranger in a long time.

"I have to go. But I think you should draw pictures for people."

"What?"

"I think you should draw pictures for people. I really do."

"Um... okay, I'll think about it."

"I'm serious."

"Yeah, okay."

"No, I'm really serious."

"Okay."

"I'm serious."

Then she walked away. This easily qualifies as my WTF moment of the month. If anything stranger than that happens in the next two weeks, I will let you know.

Does anybody have any idea what that could mean?

Tornadoes and Chicken Stock

2010-01-23T02:16:00.000-08:00

Question: What happens when a poor post-college student who has survived for the past year on canned pinto beans and macaroni finally makes enough money at his job(s) to afford groceries?

Answer:

Be nice to me, my loyal reader(s). I have leftovers.

And perhaps jump to my defense against Sean, HyounJun, Jon, Jairus, and Peter, because it's 2:30 in the morning, and I'm totally not cleaning up the mess I made in the kitchen until tomorrow.

It's still raining down here. It hails sometimes, and it rains a lot. Everywhere I go in Orange county today, I see something flooding.

Sean said that this could be the beginning of Armageddon. I think that when Armageddon really does come, it won't take more than a couple of days of rain to wipe out the OC. We're pretty spoiled down here, so I figure... why waste the fire power?

It was funny to go to work during the tornado warning. Every adult in the school had this pale, dead look on their faces. Probably because they are responsible for the lives of so many little children. Not that they had to work so very hard to keep the children from worrying...

I remember Yessica. Six years old with a smile that pushed the boundaries of her ears. She was spinning around, dancing in the rain. She twirled in small circles with her fingers up in the air as the weather could not even hold its sour expression for long after meeting her. The rain began to cease. The sun began to shine.

"Everyone today is scared, but I wasn't scared."

"That's good, to not be scared."

"Mr. Stephen, do you know who Dios is? God?"

"Yes I do."

"I told him to stop the rain, so that no one would be scared anymore."

I guess all you have to do is ask.

She smiles and the sun shines. She talks to Dios, and He sweeps the storm clouds out of her way. Now I understand Why Jesus said that we had to be like children. Not because we need to think more simply, but because they understand something that we forget when we grow up. It is not easy to remain that way.

But it is possible to learn.

We were walking to the back of the school to wait for parents after tutoring let out for the day. She was walking far ahead. I moved quickly to catch up, the others trailing along beside me. She looked back, and quickened her pace, smiling. I moved faster as well. Those behind me followed suit.

Does anyone out there remember what it feels like to run as far as you can, as fast as you can, just because you can? I forgot what that was like. I got to remember, as we raced to the back fence, laughing and doing our best not to slip on the wet blacktop. Diego and Marian finally passed me up, right as we saw the fence, their faces red with the type of laughter that just barely escapes your cheeks when you breathe. They don't really speak English yet, those two. I think I will learn a lot from them this year. It makes sense. I've learned so much already.

Curl up with a hot bowl of soup this week, and think about what six years old feels like. Is it just me, or does being an adult sound like some sort of punishment we endure for doubting the source of the rain?

The Smell of Raindrops on Rooftops, Black Tops, High Tops

2010-01-18T10:28:00.000-08:00

There's something about the smell of fresh bread baking in your oven while it's raining outside that makes it extremely satisfying to be alive.

It's raining in Orange County.

Real rain, like the kind that washed your car for you. Like the kind that makes your socks wet when you misjudge the depth of a puddle in front of the house.

My socks are wet.

It's raining.

I remember that I am now an adult, and that I am supposed to be very serious all the time, now that I can drive a car. I am supposed to watch television and movies to enjoy myself, because they provide a form of escape. I think I won't escape from today. I think that today I missed my cue to exit.

Happy Monday, world. You didn't get the best of me this time.

Intervention

2010-01-10T01:20:00.000-08:00

I'm really supposed to be working on prepping my Sunday School lesson right now. I didn't remember that I was teaching until yesterday, and I couldn't pick up the materials from Sasha until this morning, and the first opportunity I have to be home is right now. 1:30 AM.

I've been working for the church for as long as I can remember. Not a bad working environment most of the time, but the hours are crazy and the pay is deferred. "your reward in Heaven is great", I believe it says on my contract.

Could I get just a little of it now?

They say that being an American with a college education gives you a lot of privilege these days, but I don't get why we should feel so privileged. We have all these things, but they don't make us happy.

They make us busy.

They make us forget God.

I don't really know what this post is about, and I really need to get back to work, but I also feel like I'm standing in my own way here. The thing that blocks me from Him

Is me.

How do I get out of my own way?

Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Seminary

2010-01-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

I've been waking up early lately.

I know it doesn't sound all that special, but I'm kind of proud of myself for it. In the past two years, I have had two jobs, neither of which has required me to be awake before 10:00 AM. My pattern has been, stay up until 2, wake up at 10. I guess I'm just not a morning person.

That's a weird phrase.

Morning Person.

Like you have to be a particular type of person to participate in a particular section of the day.

It's weird for me, too. To be up at this particular time in the morning, when I have nowhere to be for a good 3-4 hours.

I wonder how long I'll keep doing this. I mean, I hate to cut into my dream time. My dreams are pretty cool.

It's strange to see the world with so many different color schemes. I'm usually only paying attention at night. Nights are blue, and sometimes grey, and sometimes purple. Daytime is sometimes green , and sometimes white, and sometimes red. Mornings are yellow.

Kind of reminds me of Coldplay, even though I'm only a casual listener.

I'm becoming a casual morning person. Mornings are yellow. I am seeing the world in new colors.

I wonder if God exists in colors I have yet to see...

2938 Barrington Ct.

2010-01-01T19:08:00.000-08:00

I'm moving again.

It's my birthday again.

I'm flat broke again.

I'm starting to become a person of tradition, I guess. A revolving door of activities from one year to the next. I'm packing up my things once more, with the hope that this time, this place, these people...

... Somehow life changes you, right?

Is all this stuff really mine? How did I keep all of this?

I think my parents were part squirrel. I think they raised me to store my nuts in the holes around all of the trees I've called home. It's a bigger tree this time, but it's still me that lives in it, and nothing will change me so very much. It's a slow progression, and despite what I would like to think, these last 25 years were not wasted on turning me into something that I will never become. I am, undoubtedly, going to be what I was always becoming. Who I was made to be.

I seriously need to have a garage sale.

The worst part of my identity is how elusive it has been. I think that's why I collect so many things that I don't really need. Or, maybe I do need them. Do I? I don't really know.

I've been collecting things over the last 5 years that I've lived on my own. "Just in case." Just in case I need them just in case I don't know anyone in the future that I can borrow one from, should the need arise, just in case I suddenly decide that my entire life is going to be about something that up until now I only did every once in a while. It's like I can't get rid of anything until I know my entire life story.

This year.

I'm going to figure you out, Stephen. I'm going to search for God, and find you in the process. This year marks the end of me floating by on top of a mess of decisions I never made, "just in case." This is the beginning of becoming.

Welcome 2010. I'm ready for you.

A Moment That Time Skipped By

2009-12-26T22:02:00.000-08:00

It’s almost over.

11:00 December 25, 2009.

All of the secrets are unwrapped, and displayed on the inside of the house. I am outside, wondering what has happened to time.

It seems like this year went by so fast. I remember how it started. It was my birthday, as it often is. We were packing boxes up and pretending not to be sad about losing each other. I got a call from someone I thought I was in love with. It is now nearly a year from that day.

I’m not.

And Christmas has come and is nearly gone again. Time does not march.

It races.

All my energy has been spent trying to catch up with it, and now I realize that things must change. Here I am outside the house where I grew up. Outside in the cold. I hope, if it is cold enough, time will stop, and let me catch my breath. Catch it, and watch it pass from me like a vapor. In this small stretch of time we have, I hope that I am seen any bit as clearly. That is all we dare hope for. I couldn't ask for anything better than that.

But it’s Christmas, and I think I have had plenty of time to ask for things for myself.

My God, the stars.

I know it makes no difference to think, but I wonder what they looked like on the night He was born. I wonder how black the sky, how dark the clouds. Was there a moon?

Of course, there’s always a moon. Even if you can't see it, it's there.

I wonder what those two eyes, so close, and yet so far removed from humanity looked at that night. Did the sky acknowledge him, and welcome, or was he human in that strange way that we all are, where despite being under a canopy of stars, knit together by love, we can see nothing in them but ourselves?

I don’t know, and I think it’s beautiful that I don’t know.

You’re still out there.

You’re holding needle and yarn to this great canopy, and I can only see myself. What parts of me I can find, that is. Just this time, just this once, before you go, before time passes through me at that speed I’ve become so accustomed to, I want to ask you one thing.

Don’t go. I can almost see you.

I know it’s not really the right day, but happy birthday.

Honey Mustard

2009-12-15T12:31:00.001-08:00

I performed in a play at my church this last Sunday. I also helped write it, and had to get up early after getting a somewhat less than ideal 4 hours of sleep thanks to my friend Jina's awesome Christmas party, and a gentleman by the name of Jose Cuervo.

Anyway, this play was about Christians who complain too much. One of the characters complained about spending too much time serving at church.

I resonate with that.

Or, at least, I would, if I had time to.

Guys, I seriously spend Soooo much time at church. People are always asking me, "hey, man, when are you going to start dating?" or "when are you going to finally hammer out your career goals and start working on them?" Or even "didn't you tell me about that book you were writing? When Can I see a draft of that?"

"Oh. Um... now's not a good time. I'll get back to you after Easter."

That is how it has always been. I was talking to a good friend of mine last week who does a lot of the same stuff I do. We have some slight differences in what we do and how we feel about that, but one conclusion was reached by the both of us.

Something has to change.

So, lately I've been thinking a lot about what I can get rid of. It seems the natural thing to do, I just can't seem to do it. What should I get rid of? Programing/brainstorming for new series? That's kind of important. The youth group? I don't even know who would step into that role if I wasn't there. Then there's all these new initiatives with the homeless that we're doing. I don't want to quit those. Even the non-church stuff I do (Open Mic Night, film stuff, writing in this blog) seems so important to me. I just can't choose what to abandon.

I think that the problem is that my loves are to varied and specific. For example:

I LOVE Jr high students.

I LOVE the homeless.

I LOVE teaching little kids how to read.

I LOVE encouraging young artists to pursue their craft, and I love providing a platform for them.

I LOVE Teaching/learning from the Bible.

I LOVE making movies (even/especially if they're dumb)

I LOVE writing and performing my poetry.

I LOVE coming up with crazy, off the wall ideas to get my point across.

I LOVE honey mustard sauce.

That last one really is true.

Love it.

Honey mustard sauce got me thinking just now. Love it. The thing about honey mustard is that it is a combination of two things that don't seem like they go very well together.

Honey

sticky, sweet. Used on toast in combination with peanut butter to make an awesome sandwich.

Mustard

Abrasive, bitter. Used in combination with some stuff I don't understand to make a noxious gas.

Hmm.

But it's delicious.

It occurred to me that maybe simplicity is a lot like honey mustard. Maybe it's not about how do I choose what I'm not going to do, but how do I combine the bitter abrasive with the sticky sweet to make some awesome honey mustard?

Let me try one...

What if I have my Jr high students come out to hang with the homeless in the park, and then we could make a movie about what we learned?

How about...

I move to the inner city and start a creative writing program with some of the inner city kids so that they can learn to channel some of their energy into some type of positive thing? They could perform what they've created somewhere for their parents and other people too.

Or, even better...

Maybe I should move Open mic night to the park, where my homeless friends can come to it, then I could invite my Jr Highers to come and help, we could try to engage with the people that come with words from the Bible, as the students are learning to teach it. Somehow I'll have to fit teaching kids to read in there...

Seriously. It think I've got it. Life isn't about just abrasive or sticky sweet.

Life is Honey Mustard.

Throwing Stones, Skipping Stones, Stepping Stones

2009-12-04T10:56:00.000-08:00

I had a revelation for Christmas this year.

Funny, that's what I always wanted.

It started during Easter. I was asked by my church to perform spoken word for Easter. I wrote something. I didn't really like it. To be honest, I'm not sure they really liked it either. I'm not sure anymore if my art belongs in a church. By the time I create it, censor it, and wrap it up in a neat little package that "goes with the theme," I hardly recognize it and everything just becomes a little flat.

I wonder if Isaiah had to do "churchy" versions of his work...

Probably not.

Anyway, one way that we had decided to spice up my lacking spoken word piece was to add a vocalist. So, Carolyn (one of our vocalists at the time), Cindy (then director of creative arts ministries) and myself made a list of hymns that would be acceptable to sing snippets of in between my readings. One of the ones I liked was "Come, Thou FOunt of Every Blessing." I sent Cindy the lyrics and she sent me back a message.

Cindy: "Yeah, that's fine, just take the second verse out. You know, the one that talks about ebenezer. No one knows what that means."

Just take it out huh? NO one knows what that means? It kind of frustrates me when we have to dumb down literature or good music because the audience's literacy level has slipped below what it was at when the work was created. That's why we keep having to have new translations of the Bible. They don't make "more modern" versions of, say Moby Dick, or War and Peace.

It seems like everyone wants church to be really easy.

Insert Commodores reference here.

No, I'm not going to explain that to you. If you don't know, look it up.

Point being, I got all self righteous and huffy, talking about the decline of western civilization, and how we should all know what ebenezer means... blah blah blah, we ended up picking another song.

8 months later, I realize that I still don't know what ebenezer means. I think it has something to do with Christmas

Insert Charles Dickens reference here (you had better know what that means)

So, I looked it up. Funny that no one in church knows what that means. It's actually a biblical reference.

btw, those of you that use wikipedia to look things up will note that Ebenezer may refer to an abandoned water park in DuPage County, Illinois.

It doesn't.

You can find the reference to this in 1 Samuel 7:12. Basically, the Israelites had lost the Ark of the Covenant. Again. It seems like the Israelites treated the Ark of the Covenant like I treat my car keys. Everyone was in this big panic to get it back, and they actually did get it back, but there was no room in its normal place in Shiloh, because of all the monuments to other gods. At this time the army of the Philistines rose up against the Israelites. These guys were huge. I always imagine Dwayne Johnson (the Rock) up against Woody Allen (Jewish). Things were not looking good for Woody. Samuel, speaking on behalf of God, mentioned that some help could be had if the people of Israel would just get rid of all that extra stuff they had in storage for those other gods, and start worshiping their God, like the old times. They decided to try it, and the people of Israel had a spring cleaning day. wiped the floors clean of unholy sacrifices, ceased to burn grain to the wrong gods, and hauled some serious ass scooting false idols out of the temple. Right when they did this, God sent a huge thunderstorm, which scared Dwayne and all his friends out of their minds. I must have been one hell of a storm. Basically, Woody and crew went in there and cleaned up really fast, and that was the end of the war.

Simple, right? Ebenezer.

Okay, obviously, there's more.

Afterwards, Samuel erected a stone monument to God, and he called it "ebenezer," which means "stone of help." (If you had looked up the verse I mentioned earlier, you wouldn't have had to read anything up to this point. You see how research helps us?) It is a reminder that God will help us, if we would only ask, and obey what he tells us.

Stone of help! At long last. That is what it means.

Christmas.

This revelation has changed my interpretation of A Christmas Carol. Scrooge's first name is Ebenezer. He is defined by help. That sounds soooo weird to me. He doesn't begin the story as someone helpful*. There are things that make him stone, like his demeanor, his heart, or the stubborn will he has to be so grouchy. I think maybe he has rocks in his head. But stone of help? Why would Dickens name him that?

I think he was trying to draw our attention to something.

The thing about the original ebenezer, from the book of Samuel, is that, before Samuel assigned that value to it, it really was just a rock. Rocks can be used for everything and anything. You can skip them across a lake. You can throw them (unless you live in a glass house, or are not without sin). You can even trip over them. They become something great when you assign a value to them. Even some of our greatest works of art were once just rocks. If you look at Michaelangelo's David in its original form, I doubt you would be impressed.

I think that's the way I look at Scrooge. It's probably even the way I look at myself.

So, anyway, that's what Dickens did. He assigned a value to Scrooge before anyone else could see it. He was just a regular stone. He could have been a stumbling block, a block head, another heart of stone, but he became a stone of help. That seems really deep to me.

There are a lot a parallels to the scripture as well. The Israelites were worshiping false gods. Scrooge only cared about his money (the false god of choice in the western world). He (like the Israelites) had to be broken down. Faced with his eminent death, he realized that the things he cared about were absolutely meaningless, so he needed to find something that was meaningful. Scrooge found it in using his money to care for other people. By helping. By becoming a stone of help.

Dickens (like Someone Else I know) could see a person in his story as not who they were, but who they were becoming. And, I think, all the things that do not make sense about all people will one day be made clear. I wait for that day, and this Christmas, I celebrate one of the many ways that act of becoming is being made more clear to me

*If you don't know the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, just watch TV a LOT for the next 2 weeks or so. You'll find it somewhere.

Empty Calories

2009-11-10T23:12:00.000-08:00

A friend told me something about celery the other day that made me hate America.

My friend (who is a woman, and not the slightest bit overweight) told me that she makes sure to eat celery every day. "Celery," she informed me, "is negative calories." I had not heard of the concept of negative calories before, so I asked her to explain. Apparently, an average serving of celery has about 5 calories, and the act of chewing celery burns more than 5 calories, thus causing the act of eating it to consume more calories than ingested.

She smiled when she said it, as though she had discovered something incredible.

What does the rest of the world think about negative calories, I wonder?

When did we miss the point of eating? Why do we try so hard to fill our bodies with emptiness, instead of eating what we need to survive, and then giving what is left over to someone else who might need it?

It's such a tragedy that this country suffers from obesity, given the global need for food.

How terrible is it that people die by the minute over something that is killing us by its excess in our lives? I'm frightened by what the popularity of celery means for America. I think, in fact, that if a starving child in Africa heard about celery, and the whole negative calories thing, he would have a different reaction. I'll bet he would never want to eat celery ever in his life. It is a caloric parasite. Something we eat because we feel guilty about eating.

Maybe we should. Feel guilty that is, not eat celery.

I don't really have a graceful way to end this post. I just hope to think a little more in my life about the true purpose of things, so that I don't fall into a bad place because of their presence in my life: Eating is not something you do for recreation or to relieve boredom, dating is not something you do to reinforce your identity, the sabbath is not an observation to make you feel like a better christian, and charity is not about you either.

The list goes on.

As long as we are human, the list goes on.

The worst offense to a good thing is when it can be used to inflict evil on someone else.

Singing, Melting, Screaming.

2009-11-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

I've decided that the healthy thing to do would be to move on.

I know that no one reading this really knows what I mean by the aforementioned statement, but bear with me. I feel the need to say it out loud, or write it somewhere permanent, just so that I can't say that I never said it. Now is the time to move on.

I want all of you out there to know how good it is to be in a relationship with God. I can't put into the proper words how much I am dependent on that confusing, frustrating, difficult thing we often refer to as Christianity. I've been healed from so much.

Be warned, this might sting a little.

I wish I could go back in time a little... like three weeks ago, and tell the past version of me what a waste of time it is to feel sorry for yourself. The future holds healing.

All we have to do is be brave enough to ask for it.

That is the key to it all, really. We have to ask. I think sometimes I like having scars. They make me feel important. They make me feel like an adult. I don't want to go crying to Daddy with every ache and pain.

Even though He aches and pains for us to do so.

He said that in this world we would have many troubles.

Take heart.

Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world (note the capitalization).

I remember spraining my wrist when I was really little. And screaming.

I kind of wish, as an adult, that I would still be able to scream as loudly as I wanted whenever I got hurt. When we grow up, we're supposed to pretend that nothing really hurts.

Anyway, my dad was there, and he came running up to me, and asked me to see my arm. I didn't want to do anything but cradle it close to my whimpering body. We always have our own version of healing, I guess. He kept asking, and would often try to grab at my arm when it was available, which only made me retreat further. It hurt when he touched it. How could he make it better when it hurt when he touched it?

It is a willful decision to show someone else our wounds. It's painful, it's embarrassing, its... just...

We have to. Nothing will ever improve if you never pull your shaky arm out from behind your whimpering body and let your Father touch it. It's going to hurt a little more at first...

You may say it's impossible, but I'm telling you, He heals ALL wounds. He restores me daily. He makes me to lie down beside still waters. He put a new song in my mouth. A hymn of praise to our God.

He lifts his voice, the earth melts. I melt.

And then, I am just this pool, this useless thing, that can take no shape except to follow the contours of His hand, where I was when I lost my own shape.

I shall not want.

I ask myself, and you, my loyal reader(s?), what wound are you afraid to show Him?

He knows. He loves. He heals.

Scabies

2009-11-05T17:24:00.000-08:00

I need some new clothes.

literally.

Some people say they need new clothes like "oh, my God, I haven't been shopping in like, three months and I need new clothes!" I'm more like "I need a black shirt for my new job and all the pants I can wear for my old one are stained and/or with holes in them."

Not "new" clothes anyway. I don't buy new things.

I went into a Khols today. First time I've been in a legit clothing store in a long time. I forgot how good new clothes smell. Incredible. I kind of felt like it was Christmas, in a way I hadn't felt in a long time. Of course, I didn't buy anything there. As I mentioned before, I don't buy new clothes. Everything second-hand. I dream someday of buying brand new clothes without feeling like a failure. Someday, there will be new things that are not made by some misty eyed kid in Sri Lanka (but I bet they don't really cry anymore) . That's the goal. I can't wait for that day. In the meantime, I am resolute to not support the textile industry.

The cashier at Goodwill told me that someone she knows got scabies from clothes bought at the store I was at.

Gross. I'm taking a shower.

It could be different. I could have dedicated myself to a career, gotten some full time work, spent A LOT less time volunteering at church stuff, and get paid to do all the stuff I do for free. Then I would have money, and a little power, perhaps a small amount of fame. Who knows, I might be pretty talented if I didn't have to do so many damn church slideshows...

but then...

...who would I be?

There's always two sides to the equation, two choices we can make for how we spend our lives. I chose to invest in other people. That's why I'm so poor I have to check my bank balance before I do my laundry. You can't have both. I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I was rich and had no compassion. Or, perhaps I could trade in a little of my compassion for a little more money.

How much would I trade?

To quote the great Calvin and Hobbes, "As usual, goodness doesn't put up much of a fight."

On the one hand, we have a small, quiet life, filled with a reasonable amount of comfort (perhaps a wife and kids). On the other, stress, worry, poverty, and of course, scabies.

I choose scabies, and I refuse to feel anything about that decision except relief.

And perhaps a little itchiness.

Bleeder

2009-10-20T23:41:00.000-07:00

Funny story.

I got mugged last week.

Then my apartment got broken into.

Haha.

My mom tells me I have a weird sense of humor.

Everything's weird these days though. It seems that the direction of my life has gotten really dramatic. No middle ground anymore. It's always something really awesome coupled with something that really sucks. I get mugged, Sean and Jon come and visit me. I get to meet Sasha's family in Chicago, My car battery dies and I get a parking ticket. I have so little money that I can't buy groceries, but my friend takes me out to dinner. I like it like this. It's more interesting.

It's like I tell HyounJun every time he gets into one of my crappy 3rd generation hand-me-down cars for a long road trip: It's going to be an adventure.

What adventure would be complete without a twisted plot and agonizing losses, coupled with the eventual victory of all that is good, the restoration of the hero to his rightful place, where everyone cheers as he destroys the enemy, reunites with his trusty side kick, and finally gets to kiss the girl? That's why I don't worry when things go wrong. I hope for a happy ending.

Is that my story? I really need to get a side kick.

...among other things...

I probably should get a new wallet too.

The point is-

Actually, I don't think I have a point.

Well, maybe I do, but I don't think it's my point to make. Can you imagine if I was the one in charge of my story?

I was once "in love" (quotations indicate sarcasm, not towards love, but towards myself) with this girl. She was all that I could think about. I spent every weekend with her, and talked about her all the time, and when I couldn't hang out with her, I wanted to die. Smitten for sure. My friends were happy for me. They liked that I liked somebody. This was one of the first times that I ever thought that someone could like me, too. She also hung out with someone else sometimes, but that wasn't a big deal. We had this indelible connection. Nothing could possibly separate us. It was time to rearrange the alphabet and put U and I together. It was like a movie. If I was in charge of this story, I would be with her now. Who knows? We might even be engaged.

But I'm not. So, I didn't. She's actually with "someone else" right now, and I have absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. It wasn't really like a movie, now that I think about it. Well, maybe it was, but it was more like a made for TV movie. A Lifetime Original Movie, or one of those BBC movies starring the UGLIEST actors in the world, who somehow manage to not even have great personalities, despite their obvious physical shortcomings. Isn't it supposed to work like that?

Not that I'm calling her ugly.

Not that I'm not.

The story that is my life would be quite a small one if I were in charge of writing it. Right now it's a strange, often frightening, always complicated, rarely safe, never boring, completely wonderful and awe inspiring thing. It tugs and tickles. It draws tears and blood, and it makes me wake up in a cold sweat.

How wonderful. How marvelous.

And my song shall ever be...

I hope my apartment gets broken into again. I hope every wallet I ever buy gets stolen. I hope that the woman I "love" leaves me for a ham and cheese sandwich on my wedding day. The pain grows our dreams. The crying, the waiting... they make men out of boys and warriors from cowards. We are cut in half and we bleed. We bleed and we grow. We see our bodies turn red, and that's how we know we are alive.

And the writer of our story just keeps on writing. Despite us.

Good. Maybe He can make something of me.

Aesthetics

2009-10-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I'm an artist because of aesthetics.

It's not the easiest conclusion to arrive at. I've never really seen myself as one. I've always thought of artists a people who have their works published, or people whose names are in galleries, people with a little hype or buzz surrounding them... people who get paid to create.

By that definition, I am not an artist.

I am a waiter.

I have been other things, of course. I have been a student, I have been a tutor, mentor, librarian, and bingo scoresheet salesman (Maybe I'll tell y'all that story at some other time). But artist? Artists have studios, artists have commissions, artists have the proper tools.

I don't even really see myself as a filmmaker (despite having a degree in the aforementioned practice). I just have this crappy camera tat I bought in high school, which I shoot films that I edit on a computer that my parents went halvsies on with me when I graduated from 12th grade. How can I be an artist when I don't have the proper tools?

I like independent films.

I like the idea of taking a dream or vision for something that you really want and doing it without anyone's approval/finding. I love when an indie film makes it out to mainstream audiences and all the big studio exec scramble like mad to copy its success. It's a bit laughable to see these quasi-independent ventures that are actually funded by the big studios trying really hard to act like they're part of the indie "In crowd." They make their films look dirty and gritty like the low budget films that they so love with the goal in mind to re create the "magic" of the other film's reception.

Why would they do that? Make things a lower quality than they are able, I mean...

Is it just because they are trying to fit in, or did they just miss the point entirely?

I think I have a few things in common with them, and I think that's why I never (until recently) saw myself as an artist.

It is not the quality of the medium that is important. The weight, in fact, rests upon the quality of EXPRESSION.

The artist's tools are inside of him. It is not what quality and grandiose title that is bestowed upon the artist that makes his work worthy of our viewing. It is weather or not he is able to speak truth, and enlighten us about our own lives.

Everything else is just a question of aesthetics...

Let me put it to you this way. If I gave Rembrandt a piece of paper and a 64 pack of crayons and told him to make something, he would make art. He is an artist, and no matter what the medium, he will create art. If I give a big studio, professional tools, and a 10 million dollar commission to the guy who draws pictures of penises on the walls of bathrooms, he will use those resources to draw a huge penis. Because he's a dick.

I can't judge my own work through the same lens as other artists. I think that's one of the biggest problems with human beings today. The "compari-sin" if you will... I am not the next Monet, or Picasso, and I will not any time soon be creating works like them. I do not have the resources (or more than likely, the skill) to make what they make. I may have just a piece of paper and a 64 pack of crayons, but I can create art.

Because I'm not a Dick.

Everything else is a question of aesthetics.

Skipping Like Stones Across the Lake

2009-08-23T22:50:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in a phase in my life that's not really a phase. It's more of a phase between phases. A series of stepping stones on a lake between two opposing shores, if you will. I am in a transition.

There is a question in my head, though. One that tends to knock rather impatiently against the door of my brain late at night. One that I don't feel quite right about skipping across the stones in my lake until I have answered:

What are my two shores?

What am I running to? What am I running from?

I used to think that I was running from evil towards good. I used to think very black and white like that. It was easier that way. More hopeful. I could think that everything was improving and some day everything would be alright. I used to think that way, but I don't anymore. There's good and evil in everything I do. Something of God, and something of myself. I just hope that this next phase of my life will be more about Him and less about me. I feel like it could go either way at that point.

I remember my mom telling me when I was little that phrase that I'm sure every child hears from their parents at one point or another. "You'll understand when you get older."

Why is it that the older I get, the less I seem to understand? Something just keeps stirring the water, while I hold to my position, afraid to step either forward or back.

I need to move at some point.

Which way?

Boys and Girls

2009-04-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

My bathroom is a mess right now.

Bags of makeup, several types of shampoo, curling irons, straightening irons, and a bunch of other irons/ hair care tools that I have no idea what they do. I wonder about my visiting sisters and their friends. Do I really know what they look like?

Girls are messy. I'm not talking about "women" or "ladies," or any of the other things that a group of single men might idealize them to be. Let no one fool you. Girls are messy. They're loud, they're messy, they're emotional, and they have some sort of assembly line factory that they construct in the bathroom that helps them to become the person you see and idealize every day at school or work or church.

It's been a while since I've been this close to girls. Real girls. messy, loud, emotional hair care factory girls. I've just been staring at the bathroom, trying to guess what things do, or even which direction you hold them.

Boys are simple. we don't do much to make ourselves look presentable. We wash our clothes, shower, shave, and brush our teeth. Beyond that, there's not much help for us. Boys are simple, girls are complicated. That's probably why we don't really understand each other very well. We form this strange paradox in relationships. We pull each other in different ways, each trying to make the other more like them.

I had forgotten what it was like to live with girls. I had gotten used to this male-centric existence that I had been living. I had forgotten how much I needed them. Even though we don't always get along. Even though we're technically opposites, even though I don't really understand most of the things they do. I need them.

Boys and girls have this long, sordid history of not getting along, and hurting each other. I've been hurt enough to not want it anymore, but I've learned something this week about girls, in the middle of all the video games, girly movies, and (wrong) lyrics to John Denver being sung out loud. I think we need each other, and I think that without these relationships, we'll always be just one half of the equation.

The Philosophical Whims of Prepackaged Cookies

2009-03-24T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today, something very special was supposed to happen.

I don't know what it was, but I did everything I could to make sure that my good fortune was not interrupted. I woke up early this morning. I brushed AND flossed my teeth. I wore a nice shirt and my lucky socks. I went into the office, and called all of the people I was supposed to call. I did everything I could. You know what happened?

Nothing.

Conclusion:

Either I did something wrong, or the fortune cookie I ate on December 24th, telling me that three months from that day would be significant, was completely false. Or maybe it was just a piece of paper with something written on it.

Not that I really believe in that sort of thing.

I think.

It's silly, I know, but I had actually hoped, on some level, that something significant would happen today. I could really use a significant event. Something to change my perspective. I want something new.

God had promised me something new. (see my post "San Fransisco, Day One: Shorelines/Transitions" for more info). When, though? My life seems to have taken the form of a ticking clock. Everything is about timing, and I have put my faith in someone who exists outside of time.

I think I really hoped that a fortune cookie message would tip his hand. I don't think I really thought that. I just thought it would be nice to know ahead of time when something big is going to happen, so I can have my camera ready, and plan my work schedule accordingly.

My God, can you imagine what would have happened to my spiritual life if something important really did happen today? I would be done reading the Bible. I would be so obsessed with fortune cookies that I might actually want to eat one.

I shudder at the thought.

Back to trust. Good old fashioned trust. The type with no limitations on time, socks, ethnicity, or the philosophical whims of prepackaged cookies. One where we sit and we trust. One where we float along and we hope for the best. A world where we live so very often, and die only once. I can't imagine a stranger or more wonderful place to call home. Thank you, God, for not listening to the cookies when you came up with this place.

I don't think I want to live in a planet that is run by cookies.

Even still...

I wonder where I'll be in three more months.

Up And Out: Theology For Assholes

2009-03-01T23:20:00.000-08:00

When I was in high school, I heard a certain phrase quite often. I especially heard it the year that I went from being a lowly 5'2" to almost 6 feet. I have heard this phrase a few times since then, but it is no longer a compliment.

"You're getting bigger."

You see, there are two ways we can grow. We can either grow up or we can grow out.

When we grow up, it is a wonderful thing. We become taller, more muscular, physically more able to handle what life throws our way. Everyone notices when we grow up, and it makes them proud, regardless of weather or not they had anything to do with the current state we find ourselves in.

When we grow out, it is the opposite. Growing out is unhealthy. It is an indicator of our indulgence. It doesn't look good. When people see that you're growing out, they ignore it, because it's not polite to mention that your excess is wearing you down from the outside.

Today, I yelled at my roommate over something stupid. I called him an asshole. He doesn't deserve that. Ever. No one does. Especially someone of whom I have said that I couldn't love him more if he were my own brother. I apologized immediately, in my own stupid insufficient way. He said it was okay, and not to worry about it, then he left to go study. The thing is, I couldn't really forget about it. It bothered me so very much that I could just say something like that to someone I would call my brother. It's not like I have never used language like that before. My mouth is pretty much an open door most of the time. I couldn't shake it from my head. It kept replaying over and over again, and every time I heard the words I used, I couldn't believe myself. He came home two hours later, and I apologized again for how I treated him. He said not to worry about it again, that it was fine. I know him well enough to know weather or not he means it when he says not to worry about something. He meant it. I never want to call him that again.

So which was it? Up or out? Which way did I grow?

Have I grown taller, and stronger in my ability to care for others, that something that ordinarily wouldn't bother me could keep me bothered for hours? Or did I grow bigger, more bogged down and heavy with unnecessary self hatred that has been such a default reaction for me lately when I fail the people I care about? It's not like they're not used to it (there I go again).

Truth is, I don't know. I hope some day that I can learn how to care better for those who have been placed in my influence without hating myself. For now, it seems like my life is a strange mix of the two.

I'll need some exercise if I'll ever be able to make sense of this mess.

Getting Older

2009-02-24T17:57:00.000-08:00

Why do we even bring children into this world? Is it because we're lonely? Because we want our lives to mean something? Seems pretty selfish to me. The world is not a very kind place to live.

I'm not talking about me. I'm not talking about me. Usually, I'm talking about me. Most of the things I like to talk about are about me, but today, I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about Jonathan.

I don't even know his last name. It's either Medina or Martinez, something like that. I run the after school program that is trying to teach him how to read. It isn't going very well. He's going to get older, weather he learns to read or not.

Two months.

I have two months to get him reading at a level that is on par with his age group. He was a year behind at the beginning of the school year. If I bring him up one year, he'll still be a year behind. It'll just be a different year.

It's not good enough. I keep telling myself to try harder to get through to him, but I just don't know how to do it. I think that me and his tutor are the only ones in his life that want him to go anywhere. My conversations with him go something like this:

"Why do I have to go to tutoring?"

"So you can learn how to read."

"Why do I have to know how to read?"

"So you can graduate."

"I don't wanna graduate."

"I'll bet your Mom and Dad want you to graduate."

"My Dad only went to first grade. Then he got a job."

"If you graduate, you can get a better job. You won't have to work at Taco Bell like I did in high school."

"You worked at Taco Bell? Cool! I want to work at Taco Bell."

It's just not good enough. I just can't be good enough to make them want anything. They're like jello. They'll become whatever is being put into them. They're going to work at Taco Bell. For all my efforts, they're not going to learn anything. I really wanted to be an agent for change with my life. But some days, we lose. We show up every day. We put everything me have into the game

-but we lose. I'm not writing this because I'm feeling sorry for myself, and my inefficient teaching methods. Some of us lose more than others. The world isn't very kind to little Mexican kids who can't read. That's something else that may never change.

Poem I Wrote While I Was Sick.

2009-02-03T22:24:00.000-08:00

The 101 to the 46 to the 5, then the 210 until it hits the 57.

I’ve made friends with the signposts

I let the tell me what to do

All the colors of the rainbow

Pulling off like rest stops

Without gas stations

And where can I be filled again?

Another chance to watch faces floating by

In parade fashion,

Forgetting I was the one on display

Watch their lips turn colors of recognition

Speaking slowly as I crumble by

“What a nice young man”

I hope my daughters turn out to be just the way he is.”

Pausing before engaging in relationships

And not having sex with pretty girls.

And my friends have told me that I am not far from home

But I feel inclined once more

To lay down flat on this open road

Like all the other dogs that move too slow.

Who has sat in my passenger seat

To follow me home?

Though

I swear some day

I’ll find a set of watchful eyes

Disinclined

To fall asleep

In my passenger seat

On the long winding road

That somehow

Someday

Brings me home.

Orange Chicken and Thom Yorke

2009-02-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

I'm sick.

I'm trying with great difficulty to keep awake during open mic night at It's a Grind in La Mirada. Nobody wants to perform. What I really need right now is to eat some cheap Chinese food and listen to Radiohead.

I think I enjoy being sick. It makes me less accountable for my actions. Like I was some sort of social-awkardness super hero. I'm my own alter ego.

Hyounjun says that I have multiple personalities that hate each other. Maybe that's it. I could see that. I often hide my keys from myself, or sabotage my own efforts to be a successful writer. Once, I even set my water glass on top of the refrigerator so that I could reach inside the refrigerator to get some ice, thus forcing myself to spill water on my own head.

Hmmm.

I don't have to think about this right now.

I'm sick.

... To The Death

2009-01-28T12:09:00.000-08:00

I can't find my phone.

It's been missing since Sunday, and I can't find it. It's not at Genie's house, it's not in between the cushions of the couch, it's not in my room. WHERE IS IT?

What could I have done to deserve this? I think I know.

I don't have time to deal with this right now. I have to make phone calls for work, and today is Deborah's birthday. I've got to call her, and tell her happy birthday, and that I love her, or she's gonna kill me!

That doesn't sound like her.

I went into my car to see if my phone was in there. I got a parking ticket. I know already what I did to deserve that.

I feel this pressure inside of me all the time. I don't even know if it's real or not, but... I'm just tired of this constant fight. I'm tired of desperately searching for work, so that I can pay the bills I have racked up because I wanted to sleep in a bed and eat food. I'm tired of turning my apartment upside down to find something I'm just going to lose again. Today it was my phone, tomorrow it will be my keys, or my wallet. And the worst part is that in all this fighting , and searching, and hustling that I've been doing, I don't ever stop to ask myself if the fight I'm putting up is really worth the life that I live. I have to work THIS hard to barely make it. I mean, I'm so unbelievably poor, and alone, and inefficient. I can't be the things that people want me to be. I have friends that I haven't called because I'm afraid they don't want to be my friends anymore. I'm worried that my roommates hate me, that my father is disappointed with me, that my pastor talks about me behind my back, and that to everyone else, I'm a joke. Entertaining, short lived, fictional. My guilt keeps piling up, like a sink full of dirty dishes, and I can't do anything to make it feel better.

Shit. I forgot to do the dishes.

God doesn't make mistakes, they say. Secretly, I wish he did. If I were a mistake, that would explain how I manage to destroy everything I touch, or how I can't even manage to do a simple thing, like remember where I put my phone, or call my friends, or find a full time job after my parents paid for me to go to college, and I graduated with a degree. If I was a mistake, I could be fixed.

I've been fighting my whole life, so that I can maintain a mediocre existence. No one asked me if I wanted to fight either. We are born, we are slapped around, cleaned up, and then turned loose on the world, so that we can prove that we deserve to be here.

But what if I don't?

A January Exhale

2009-01-14T23:29:00.000-08:00

Okay.

Christmas is over.

At long last, this season of frivolous consumption and unabashed consumerism is at a close.I am breathing once more. I can celebrate now. I can say it.

"For unto us a child is born. To us, a Son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulders. And his name shall be called 'Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.' And of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end."

(Isaiah 9: 6-7)

This is not a statement of the current condition of the world, but a promise of what is to come. I will have to wait.

It will be worth it.

P.S.: I've been keeping this blog for a year now. I thought it would make me seem deep and introspective. All it's ever done for me is let me know how well I've been taken care of. So, to all who have read my crazy ramblings this past year, I thank you. And to the One upon whose shoulders the government rests, I thank you for still finding room to carry me.

SuffoChristmas

2008-12-23T19:19:00.000-08:00

I'm spinning around in circles. I've lost my Mom. I can't find her, and I've walked up and down every aisle. I'm not five years old and this is not a flashback. I'm 23 years old and I've lost my mommy. I'm in that place... that place surrounded by christmas music, where everything is red and green. That place where everyone goes to celebrate Christmas.

Where am I? Oh yeah. Target.

I'm shopping for Christmas presents, even though I have no money. Even though I know that presents are not what it's about. Even though I have no good ideas for anyone, and I have no desire to pretend that I know these people any more than I do. I have a sister in law, a brother in law and a new aunt this year. Can't even remember the Aunt's name. How am I supposed to buy her a gift? My uncle buys the entire family a tub of popcorn every year. We wanted to do that for him this year, but mom said that wasn't funny.

Mom. Where is my mom?

I feel more and more like I don't understand anything about life. How did Christmas become about...this? The worst part is, this isn't a new thought. Someone else always says something like this every year. How Christmas is a hollow shell. How no one really "feels" in the spirit of Christmas anymore. How we spend ten times the amount it would take to solve world hunger every year on shit we don't need. But nothing. We don't ever do more than complain. It almost seems like it's a part of the Christmas ritual to question the validity of this Christmas season and then do nothing about your convictions. I guess I just need to keep my head down, walk straight, and do my best to just survive this season. I'm dizzy.

I just need to get my mom and get out of here.

It's unfair. This numbness, this inability to think of anything but familial duty and my checking account balance, when I'm supposed to be remembering the only truly selfless action ever witnessed in the entire history of humanity.

It must be lame to have so many people who don't even acgnowlege you on your birthday.

He was born in a manger, you know? He was born in a feeding trough, and one of the wise men gave him embalming fluid. And we don't even remember. Happy birthday.

Mom found me. I'm getting out of here. Thank God (first time I've thought of Him all day). Me and Timmy are going to Dorithy's Place to throw a Christmas party for the homeless ladies he knows. We pray before we start. Timmy says that if we learn how to love people enough, somehow they will know where it comes from. Who taught him that? I certainly didn't. He and Karolina are at Dorithy's Place every Monday. Only missed three in the last two years.

Dorithy! That's my what new aunt's name is.

The women are all grateful. Timmy bought them Christmas presents. One of the women there told Timmy he was probably autistic. He thought she said "artistic", so he said thank you. We had pizza, and christmas decorations and candy. There was too much. We went out on the streets, and passed out candy and hot cocoa to the people who couldn't come inside. Tim says not to tell Mom or Dad, or Karolina's parents that we did that. They would make us stop coming if they knew we talked to people on the streets.

Life is not what i wanted it to be. One second, I am dizzy in Target, looking for my Mommy, questioning the purpose behind everything from gift giving to theology, to the breath coming out of my lungs, each consecutive cycle spending slightly more energy than it seems worth. The next moment, I am staring at my little borther, and his girlfriend, learning how to love people, learning enough that they would know why, and I am holding my breath for fear that my exhales would frighten this moment away.

So why should I care if my moments are pointless and numbing, or filled with purpose and hot cocoa? Either way, I can't breathe.

A Story

2008-11-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

Someone once said (I think it was the British guy from Little Women) that a good writer will write what they know. I think that's good advice.

I'm writing a novel about people who declare war on the ocean and get stuck inside a city made of driftwood, under the rule of a man whom I have described as "being made from the parts of several destroyed people." There will also be a small amount of cannibalism towards the end.

I don't know very much about the ocean.

or cannibalism.

One time, I saw a chicken eat an egg. It was disturbing.

This is a time in my life where I will endlessly (and sometimes pointlessly) question the meaning behind everything, so that I can know my purpose. It's perfectly normal. I've been told this by a lot of people lately, and I fully believe it to be true. I just can't help falling into its trap from time to time. Feeling like (maybe wishing) I'm the only person who's ever felt this way.

I think it's stupid to do things when you're supposed to do them. I want to be brilliant when I'm young, reflective and existential in my adulthood, carefree in my middle age, and useful when I'm old. I certainly, certainly do not want to question my existence and purpose in my post college mid - twenties. Seriously, how cliche.

But really.

What am I doing here? How did I get here? Why am I here? Will the things I do with my life have any effect whatsoever? Should I be where I am?

How did I get to be so lame? Just... doing the same thing that everyone else does? Whatever happened to rebellion?

I must have gotten tired. And a little lost.

God said that I was going to tell stories. Did he mean stories about people who declare war on the ocean, and end up in a city in the belly of a giant sea monster? How does cannibalism factor into God's plan for my life? Is it possible that I misheard him? That maybe he meant something else?

I love stories. I mean, it's just how I communicate. It just seems lately that I can't make it work like I used to. It's like that scene that's in every movie, play, short story, novel, whatever. Not every one's favorite scene. The one that comes right before it. Where no one knows what's going to happen. Up against the wall. Every option has been tried. Every favor called in. Stuck.

This is usually the part of the story that I like best. These are the parts when you scream out loud. Curse the author. Accidentally rip the page. Wonder why this story was ever even told. The conflict is at its greatest. The people are on the edge of their seats. The thing is... no matter how loudly you scream, how angrily you curse, it won't do any good. There are no words that will give you the answers you need. There is only one thing to do.

Turn the page.

See what's next.

I have a headache right now. I don't normally get headaches, but my brain is beating against the sides of my skull right now. It's like there's some deep realization (or hidden frustration) buried under there that needs to come out. Why can't I do this? Why didn't it happen the way I thought it would? I need to let that realization out. I need to understand that even though I have been trying to tell a story, I should have been listening to the story that was being told to me.

God, you are a storyteller. You were before I was. This is my favorite part.

Stuck.

Turn the page.

Childish

2008-11-17T18:56:00.000-08:00

Oh, my gosh, I looooove my new job! I just had my first day today. The kids are absolutely adorable, even though they can't read (or sit still). I just want to pick each of them up, and hug them to death.

But I probably shouldn't.

Actually, I don't think we're allowed to hug them.

It's okay. I can hold it in.

For now.

Why are these children so happy? I don't understand why these children are so happy. I mean, it's not like the world around them is going too well. They are the poorest kids in their school district, and also some of the lowest performing students. Now they have to stay at school an extra 2-3 hours. Why all the smiles?

Better question...

Why don't we smile more?

How do we get like this? Like adults. Like these complicated sets of fears and concerns, like the world is out to get us? Maybe it is. I don't really know, but it seems like these small children know somehow more than I do about what it takes to survive here. Where does their joy come from? Where does it go when they become old? Why do we stop enjoying playing duck duck goose, and rolling around in the sand, and spinning around in circles until gravity plays tricks on us? What in us shuts down as we become adults?

Where does child abuse come from? How could anyone be so devoid of love that a child becomes nothing more than an annoyance that can be silenced with a slap? Are we really that better off when we grow up?

It's not really about being carefree, and devoid of responsibility. At least I don't think so. It's seeing the world for the first time. It's thinking that adults know everything and can fix everything, if you only ask. It's getting to say, in a word, what you want to be without worrying about what you are.

"I want to be a fireman."

"I want to be a movie star."

"I want to be an astronaut."

The stars aren't as far away, when you're younger, when no one tells you not to dream.

I think that children are a wonderful gift from God, and that anyone who abuses a child should be punished severely. There is one abuse, however, that cannot be punished, and that we are all a victim of.

The worst childhood abuse is growing up.

3 reasons I'm happy today...

2008-11-11T14:55:00.000-08:00

1. I ate all the boba in my drink before I finished my tea (very rare for me)

2. My friends are going to help with my art show. They are awesome in many ways.

3. Quickly. Brian Adams. Summer of 69. Need I say more?

Father Say, Mother Do

2008-10-25T18:12:00.000-07:00

I was trying to remember some stories from my childhood today. I came across a few that kind of helped me out in my perception of my life as it is now. Hope you enjoy...

1. What Mothers Do.

I remember being really poor as a child. It's not like anyone expected any different. 7 children and a father who is self employed, while his wife has given up her career to home school their children. That was my upbringing. We had no right to complain. This is the lifestyle my parents wanted.

I should say that they had no right to complain. As an involuntary member of this family establishment, I saw it as my right and sacred duty to complain as often as I could. Of course I only had to deal with being poor. I wasn't responsible for making it look like 10 year old handmedowns were only five year old handmedowns, or for smiling politely at the grocery store when total strangers informed mother that condoms were cheaper than children.

Who would we have not had though, now that we were all here?

Maybe Timmy.

Anyway, Dad moved his business home in the wake of some slow business, and was without work for about 6 months. Mom had been without work since she started making babies (work that paid, anyway). They like to think that they didn't let us kids in on how bad it really was, but we were more tuned in than they thought.

I remember one dinner in particular, when Dad wasn't home yet, because he was out trying to collect money from some work he had done. We were holding diner until he got home. What we didn't know was that if Dad didn't come home with some money, there might not be any dinner. I was complaining to Mom. It was 7:00, I hadn't eaten yet, and complaining was just sort of my art form at the time (kind of still is). Anyway, I asked Mom (in my whinny voice) what we were having for dinner. She had had enough of my whining, so she told me the truth.

"I don't know."

Do you remember the first time as a child that you realized that adults don't always know everything? I do. Right then. Mom didn't know what we were having for dinner. She didn't know if we were even going to get dinner.

I threw a fit. I was tired of not knowing, when everyone else got to eat three times a day, and never questioned where it came from. Why doesn't God take care of us the way he takes care of them?

"We're gonna starve!," I screamed.

Mom didn't even flinch. She looked me in the eye, and with the faith that I am only to this day beginning to understand, she responded, quieting me for good.

"When have you ever starved? When have I not taken care of you? I tell you, we are going to eat when your Father gets home. You are not going to go hungry, because I am taking care of you."

We did eat that night. It wasn't a feast, but it was enough. We did not starve. She took care of us.

I think that today, I can still paint a pretty mean masterpiece of complaint. I want to know why I don't have the job that I want, why the girls I like are always just out of my reach, why I have to live so far away from my family, and why, oh why, there are about $12.00 in my bank account, and I have to think twice before buying toilet paper. I am at the bottom every time. I've been okay so far, but how much longer can my luck hold out?

I keep forgetting that it's not luck.

I hear the words of my mother in my head. The voice is familiar, but it's not hers.

"When have I not taken care of you?"

2. What Fathers Say.

I don't always get along with my dad.

(understatement of my life)

Dad and I have had issues from the start. I guess he always though that his more sensitive children would be his daughters. Oh well, at least he got two normal, mannish boys.

Then there's me.

Dad always said that I was lucky to have him as a father, considering what he had for a father. I can't help but agree (Grandpa once threatened to shoot me when I was 7). Even still, I always thought that he just used that as an excuse, and never really tried too hard. I think fathers need to try hard. When I'm a father I'm going to try hard.

When I was in high school, I got this weird virus that made it really hard to go to the bathroom. I was in bed sick all day. I fell asleep at about 7 in the evening, then woke up again at 4:30 the next morning. I decided to try going to the bathroom. I hobbled down the stairs to the living room which had an entrance to the bathroom. I was still in a lot of pain, but feeling a bit better.

"Are you feeling any better?"

I actually screamed out loud. I did not expect anyone to be awake at 4:30 AM, and especially not someone with such a deep voice. It took a few moments for me to realize that the voice was my father's, and after my eyes adjusted to the room, I saw him there, sitting in the corner with his Bible.

I would like to say he scared the shit out of me, but the circumstances of my sickness prevented such an outcome.

"I-I'm feeling a little better. Why are you awake at 4:30 in the morning?"

Dad took a sip of his coffee and a deep breath.

"I'm awake at this time every morning. So I can pray for my children."

I always thought I would be a great Dad. That my children would always love me and that they would turn out wonderfully. Never doubted that until I found out that my dad gets up at 4:30 every morning to pray for his children. I'm ungrateful for, and ignorant of the amount of work it takes to even be an okay Dad. And the prayer. I have a good dad. God only knows what I have been saved from by him waking up at 4:30 to pray for me. God only knows.

Love at Five Dollars a Day

2008-10-21T17:41:00.000-07:00

A cop gave me five bucks yesterday.

It's been a severely frustrating couple of months. I've decided that I should be a writer. Further than that, I've decided to be a good writer. Since I am not currently among the better writers in the world, and don't know any really rich people I could mooch off of, this means I will be a very poor writer. Not a writer. A very poor person.

The point is, I barely have enough to make it through the day, and when an unexpected expense comes up (like a $75.00 parking ticket) I really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to make it. I keep telling myself that I'm making the right decisions, or that at least it won't always be like this. Someday, I'll be doing better.

But what if it is? Like this all the time, I mean.

Me and God, we have trust issues. I have trust issues with him, I mean (even though I'm usually the one who breaks trust). I know I should trust him, and I know he's come through for me before, but I look at that empty bank account, and I just can't help but wonder when things are going to change, and why not now? He says that he has plans to prosper me and not to harm me, but I'm broke all the time, and living just barely below my means, constantly in fear of what would happen if, say, my car broke down, or I got another parking ticket, or someone even less fortunate than me needs my help, and I can't help them. A woman on the street asked me the other day if I had any money she could use to buy her children some food. All I had was a dollar. She looked at it like I look at myself in the mirror sometimes. not enough.

So, God has said that he would always take care of me, as long as I can trust him. What I'm finding out is that it's more of a day to day trust than a ten year plan trust.

Long story short, I need to get fingerprinted for my new job, which I think might help me a bit in the money department. We'll see. anyway, I was told to bring a photo ID and $15.00 to the Police station, so that my forms could be processed. I went to get some money out of my bank. I had a balance of $17.00. Barely made it. When I got there, however, I was told that the processing fee was actually $20.00. I though maybe I had some money left in my savings account (which was slowly being cleaned out). I asked where the nearest ATM was and bolted out the door.

I got lost looking for it. I always get lost when I'm looking for something. It's like my brain gets bored and decides to do something else, while the rest of me is left to continue on without it. So, I needed to find my brain, and an ATM. I finally found it (the ATM, that is) and checked the balance in my savings, hoping to be surprised. $0.00. Can't say I wasn't surprised, but it wasn't exactly the type of surprise I was looking for.

I had to go and borrow some money from someone. I really didn't want to, but what else was I going to do? I walked back to the police station with my head hung as low as that time I had to tell my Grandma that I had kicked a soccer ball through her window.

These are the times I talk to God, and make sure that I'm doing the right thing. Or, perhaps just to see what exactly he is doing. I mean, he promised, right?

"You're going to help me out, aren't you? You said you were going to be there, for whatever I needed, right? Now would be a good time to help me out."

I guess I was almost hoping a 5 dollar bill would come blowing down the street as I turned the corner to the police station. No such luck. I walked through the door.

I've never been a really big fan of the police. I guess it's my punk rock days. I'm just used to being harassed rather than being served and protected. Not that I've had a whole lot of run ins with the police. Just enough to not trust them.

I explained my situation to the officer behind the desk, and I said that I needed to reschedule my appointment. She looked at me for a second. I just wanted her to help me reschedule so I could get over this embarrassment and go home. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a 5 dollar bill. "You look like you could use a hand, and I could use a good deed for the day," she smiled.

"good Samaritan deed" she said, actually.

I walked home with what I needed. Exactly what I needed, and no less. I think it's part of God's weird sense of humor that He seems to reserve especially for me that I got my help from a cop. These were the people I demonized for so long, because of a few negative experiences. Good Samaritan, she called herself. Weird sense of humor.

I still don't have the next few steps figured out. I just have this promise, this weird promise that he's going to take care of me. I've always thought that the hardest part of being in any relationship is moments like this, when nothing is sure. When I could just as easily spend all my time worrying about the future, those are the moments I need to love those around me.

"I love you."

I said it out loud, as that phrase always deserves to be spoken. As the light on my gas meter turned on, I choked back a tear, not because I had another thing to worry about, but because I was, despite all other things, in love.

Of course, I didn't really cry.

Men don't cry.

1...2...3... Time To Jump

2008-10-09T10:13:00.000-07:00

I used to swim all the time.

Like, literally all the time. Every weekday, in fact. This was when I was in Jr College in Salinas. It was cold, and it rained. You could smell the ocean sometimes, on a foggy morning. I didn't always want to go swimming. It wasn't always the weather for it. Every morning though, every morning, I would look into that pool. Hesitating for just a moment, I counted to three, took a deep breath, and jumped in. The water was freezing at first, but then I got used to it, and could swim all day.

That was all it ever was. A deep breath, count to three, and then jump. I always got used to whatever it felt like.

I've been standing at the edge of the pool for quite some time now, looking in. I haven't been swimming so much. I'm not used to the abrupt change. The cold, the fog in the air surrounding me.

It's time to leap in.

I don't want the change. It scares me. I'd rather be dry, and have the same old things surround me. Why can't I wrap a towel around myself and go inside, without ever getting wet? It's been so good up here, on the deck. I knew I couldn't stay up here forever, but why does it have to end now? I guess I'll never know the answer to those questions. All I can know is that my body needs exercise, and I already dressed up for a swim. There is only one step left now, and I know what it is.

Count to three. Deep breath. Jump.

I'm moving. To a place where it's not always the weather for swimming. Where you can smell the ocean in the air sometimes.