Happier Birthday

Single malt trumps all gifts to date.

[diary] 070926

K called today. It has been months since I last spoke to her, and even longer since I last saw her. We made plans to see each other next week.

We have known each other barely a year, K and I. She is a bit older than me, married, and lives by the Nike slogan, "just do it". We have completely opposite personalities, which, at times, made it a strenuous chore for me to meet up with her. But she had the gift of ability to redirect my perception somehow, to untangle my problematic thought process and simplify things for me. The seemingly daunting tasks became "no big deal" after consulting her. If not for her, I may still be sleeping on the floor and dining from the sloping surface of my Maya Lin coffee table. I have to admit that it is a rare and exceptional gift, given my resolute stubbornness.

She always said that for as long as she is around in my life, "things will pan out wonderfully" for me. Whether or not I believed in what she said, I would have to say no, but it was comforting to me that someone could imagine my prospects to be so bright. And such reassurance is what I seem to be in need of the most these days. To reconnect with her now gives me the faintest of all hopes that, maybe, the worst is over...for now.

[diary] 070917

I spent my evening hours listening to Pierre Fournier's rendition of Bach's cello suites and reading The Brothers Karamazov. Mother later called to ask if I had a good day, and I --gasp!-- lied. Of course, she knew I was lying but didn't inquire further.

Evidently, I can write no more, for I cannot think. And I cannot think, for I am too consumed by feelings of unsurmountable sorrow and hopeless sense of failure. In such a state of mental paralysis, Dostoevsky, once a foe in my sleep, is proving to be the only capable friend. Irony never ceases to surprise me.

Leonid Ossipovitch Pasternak, Evening Before the Examination, 1895

exaresco

So it is in the bottom of this well that I find myself again lately. How long I have been down here I do not know, but the telling sign that it has been too long is the disappearance of my dreams. In such arid state of mind, my thoughts, ironically, are absorbed by poor old Ophelia.

[trip] Salk

A brief drive somehow turned into an overnight trip to La Jolla. And of course, I visited the temple of Salk. I will never tire of this place.