080131

"Oh, by the way," she said, before hanging up the phone, "everyone commented on how beautiful you are. Brian (Graham) was asking who that woman was who came in first."

That first woman entering Knoll showroom for his lecture this morning was me. I thanked her, and hung up the phone.

Instead of feeling flattered, my mood turned sour. Instead of being delighted to hear such comments at last in my thirties, I fought back the tears. I went to the restroom and stared at myself in the mirror. The longer I looked, the stronger I desired to smash the mirror reflecting my image. When I came back to my workstation, I plugged both my ears with Chopin.

Without his gaze upon me, I no longer feel confident and beautiful...just awkward and exposed.

When my mother dreams

On the eve of my mother's birthday, my family gathered at my new apartment to celebrate. After the meal as we shared the dessert and coffee, my mother began to talk about a dream that she recently had. She was much younger in this dream of hers, early thirties perhaps. She was walking somewhere, holding my sister's hand and carrying me on her back. After a while, she realized that she lost me. She looked everywhere, but I was not to be found.

My mother never dreams. Other than the three "pregnancy dreams" that she's had (and subsequently giving birth to three daughters), she only spoke of one other dream--a chillingly prophetic dream that she had twenty-five years ago. In that dream, she came walking down a mountain--she was part of a funeral procession that had just buried my father. We would not find out about his fatal illness for another year afterwards.

cubicularis

On my bed there are two pillows. I sleep on the left pillow--on the one to my right, my companion changes with frequency. Most all are men, though I have on occasions invited women. Some are young, some are old, they come from different backgrounds and speak various languages. There are those who tell stories of love and tenderness while others speak of violence and vulgarity. I am teased, caressed, sometimes shaken and thrown around, while I hope and pray that this is that rare one, the one who can penetrate so deep inside to finally touch me, move me, awaken me.... Then, when the end--or boredom--finds me, I leave him aside and seek out another to accompany my nights. And thus my intimate rendezvous repeats each and every night, before I meet my dearest in the Neverland.

Tonight I face choices--a Jewish-Bohemian from Prague, or a former janitor from Washington. On second thought, why not ménage à trois. Unlike my previous bedmate to whom I bid farewell this very day, they both have long been dead--Franz Kafka before the second World War, and Raymond Carver of lung cancer in 1988.

080126

I cooked all evening. Chopping, mincing, sauteeing, and simmering, I kept busy in the kitchen non stop for three hours. Each note of Messiaen and each drop of rain intermingled, and I could not at times distinguish which was the background for which. I chopped more onions than was necessary--it was a perfect excuse to let my tears flow.

Aloof

Christina Georgina Rossetti

The irresponsive silence of the land,

The irresponsive sounding of the sea,

Speak both one message of one sense to me:--

Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand

Thou too aloof, bound with the flawless band

Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;

But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?

What heart shall touch thy heart? What hand thy hand?

And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,

And sometimes I remember days of old

When fellowship seem'd not so far to seek,

And all the world and I seem'd much less cold,

And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,

And hope felt strong, and life itself not weak.

Disconnect

I killed a woman in my dream. A complete stranger, she was a young sales clerk at a small boutique clothing store in Vancouver. My murderous deed harbored no rage or resentment--just eerie calmness and indifference. She offered no resistance and let out no scream. She simply took my stabbings in stride, as if it were her fate. When her body turned into nothing more than a conglomerate of dying cells and coagulating blood, I dismembered the corpse and stuffed all the parts in a large sack. Then, with the sack slung around my shoulder, I started wandering the streets of the dark city in its late hours.

Before the strike of dawn, I entered a hotel and found my way to the basement where, in a secluded corner, was a row of portable toilets. Inside one of the empty stalls, I opened the sack and reached in. I felt the cold, rubbery flesh of her right hand and grabbed it as if to shake hands, and pulled it out. Along with the hand came the arm, the shoulder, and a portion of her chest. That was all I could find in the sack--other body parts had disappeared. I dumped this chunk of blue-gray flesh in the toilet and left. There was no guilt, no remorse. In fact, the beat of my heart was calm and steady, and my mind was sharper than ever. Leaving the hotel, I thought about an alibi. Thanks to my clear thinking head, there was no need to think so hard or for long. At the time when the young clerk was killed, I was at another place, involved in some innocuous activity. The murder was carried out by my other self, the one that separated from my ego, an existence that was me but no longer me.

* * * * *

This dream was had in 2006, shortly after my trip to Vancouver and Seattle. I had it posted on my Korean blog, until a few protests soon came my way for its violent nature. This had me worry that I may have hidden inner desire for violence. The real meaning of the dream, however, did not hit me until this morning, as I stood in the shower lathering my right arm. It was really about the growing sense of disconnect between body and mind, between reality and perception / interpretation, between reason and emotion. The portrayal of violence was only a vehicle locking the real meaning in symbols. There is nothing puzzling about suddenly remembering this dream and realizing its meaning after all this time, and why it had to be this morning.

Forget Not Yet

Thomas Wyatt
Forget not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant
My great travail so gladly spent
Forget not yet.

Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye knew, since whan
The suit, the service, none tell can,
Forget not yet.

Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrongs, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in denays
Forget not yet.

Forget not yet, forget not this,
How long ago hath been, and is,
The mind that never means amiss;
Forget not yet.

Forget not yet thine own approved,
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose steadfast faith yet never moved,
Forget not this.

080117

A box of 250 business cards with my name on it arrived today. Handing the box to me, the office manager said that I cannot leave the company before handing out all those cards, and flushing them down the toilet would not count. Laughing, I replied back that she will see me order a second box.

I am baffled by the magnitude of irony interwoven in my life. In the afternoon, mere four hours after receiving the business cards, I found the voicemail light blinking on my phone. It was left there by a headhunter. How he knew my name, let alone where to find me, is still a mystery. I wrote his name and number down, and thought about what I would do. If he called two weeks ago, he would have heard back from me.

But I don't plan on calling him back. One month into this new job, I'm beginning to shine above the bosses' expectations. I plan on firmly establishing myself here professionally before I will even consider a move, and there are a few high profile projects that can help me get there. If and when I do make a move, it will be for a new job title--design director. I estimate five years for this move, seven at the latest.

Yes, it looks like I will need more than 250 business cards.

l'obscurité

It is a small house where we are. All is dark, except for the bright light shining down on us. We are both naked. I hold him in my embrace, lying there on the floor, feeling the cold concrete against the skin on my back. His body is slumped over mine as tears roll down his cheeks--he is in frightful pain. Whether his suffering is physical, mental or emotional, I do not know and I dare not ask. I simply hold him, hoping that perhaps, if I hold him long enough, some of that pain will transfer over to me and leave him in peace.

In the periphery of this scene stands a woman. Dressed in black winter suit, she stands there without emotion or expression in the unlit corner of the house to observe us. She is as caliginous as the darkness that envelops her.

* * * * *

Last week, I had a dream that was thematically parallel to this dream from a year ago, waking me up in panic before the first light of day. After some hesitation, I started a new diary just so I could write about it. There are certain thoughts that I would only rather keep within my well.

080113

I do love attending classical music concerts. I may prefer certain program or venue over others, but the overall experience is, for the most part, enjoyable. But always, without exception, there are these two types of older ladies (for some reason, they are always older and they are always women) attending these concerts who absolutely drive me insane--one, those who wear too much perfume, and two, those who have incessant need for a certain something wrapped in a plastic bag inside their little handbags. At today's concert, the perfume lady sat in front of me, and the plastic lady sat two seats to my left.

Pet peeves aside, the quartet played superbly even through the venue's poor acoustics, although they did lose the audience with Shostakovich's Quarter No. 15. I have never seen so many bobbing heads at a concert before. If I may be so bold to comment, I think the musicians' minds collectively floated away to Leningrad while the audience remained in the poorly ventilated auditorium in California on an unseasonably warm day. Feeling that obvious disconnect, I sat there wishing for chilly winter winds and, for reasons beyond my comprehension, a cigarette. I could have neither, so I just sat there staring at second violinist's suit, which seemed better tailored and of more refined fabric than those of his peers.

Reading back what I have written so far, I may have unjustifiably complained about a pleasant chamber music outing, my first for the year. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find so many different words to say that I enjoyed it--fault me for being a better complainer than a complimenter. But I walked out of the concert with a reminder of something I had always wanted to do--to learn cello. On second thought, however, maybe in my next life....

de la luna

The stench of blood lingers around my nose. That nauseating smell--or the illusion of smell--seems to emanate from within, coupled with a sense of vertigo. The sleep, much disturbed, is laden with vivid images and panic. But dreams are not the main culprit waking my sleep throughout the night. It is the pain--the most senselessly excruciating pain.

I let out a moan.

Then another.

Carefully I turn to the other side and curl up, like a fetus in a womb. Staring blankly into the dark void, I breathe in deep and hold my breath for a few moments. Then slowly and steadily, I let out the air I held in my lungs. I repeat. Again. The pain subsides slightly not a moment too soon. The eased pain is only temporary, I know, but I welcome the break.

My mouth is dry. And I am overcome by fatigue. In my head I still smell the goddamn blood. I drift slowly into the haze of sleep, knowing well that this unpleasant cycle will repeat shortly thereafter. I know, because this has been a recurring episode month after month for many past years, as it will continue month after month for many more years to come. This is only a slice of my womanhood.

Fortune Cookie

Words of wisdom from my Chinese take out.

The Desert Music

I remember when and where I heard Steve Reich's The Desert Music for the first time. It was at a house other than my own, lying on the soft, giving cushions of sofa in the family room while two standard poodles kept me company. It was summer then. And I did not find this music to my liking.

Months pass, and winter finds us. Now I seek out the music I once eschewed. The blanketing silence of the vast landscape, dry chill permeating through the thick coat and scarf, the ironic vivacity of life in every surrounding object, the subliminal beauty of nature in which I stand...it is all there, in Reich's music.
I love the desert in winter. I would never go in summer. So it is also with The Desert Music.

080109

For two hours I sat here, writing over 450 words, only to end up erase them all. It's my fault for not wrapping up the thought before the silent invasion of sleep. Like in a Haruki Murakami novel, a flock of sheep are grazing on my words as my mind drifts into the world of dream.

exaresco

I desire a road trip. Anywhere that is as dry as can be, away from any lakes, rivers, and oceans. Death Valley, perhaps.

Towards a boulder I walk. It seems so close, no more than a few paces away. But walk and walk I might, I never reach the boulder. It's only an arm's length away, my mind would insist. Hush, I say, this is the desert.

And you, you are at the opposite end of this salt basin. So far away you are, my eyes fail to find you. Yet I hear you whisper my name under your breath as if you whisper it right into my ears ever so softly. Yes, this is the desert.

The deadening silence. The diffracted sense of perception. It is to this sublime nature that I vow, my last sacred temple.

Race Track, Death Valley, California (source: Radeka Photography)
(I wish I could have used my own photo from my trip there two years ago.
Unfortunately, all photos came out underexposed--
I was still using film camera then.)

After Life

If you had to choose one memory from your life to take with you to eternity, what would it be?
After I watched After Life the first time, I pondered many hours about which memory I would take with me. I had then decided on a memory of years and years ago, when I was probably no more than four or five years old, on our way back home from a family outing one evening. The street was dark. Dad held my right hand, mom held my left. As we stepped into the light from the street light above, my sisters, walking ahead of us, disappeared into the darkness. No one was around, and I felt like it was my dad, my mom and me all to ourselves in this world. It made me happy. Taking this memory, I would forever be young, innocent, and unconditionally happy.
But now, I would choose another, in which Maria Callas sang a famed aria one night within the confines of my car, parked in an unsafe part of town. Breathing in those moments, I turned equally blind to the consequences as I was to the surroundings. No longer so young, and certainly no longer innocent, it is this memory I would still choose, even if the tears and pain that so soon followed it must also come. As someone once put it, it is the unintended and unexpected consequences of my existence.

Morning's Foggy Commute

070103

On my twenty-sixth birthday, I received a red notebook as a gift which I kept as my diary. The pages of the initial entries are torn out and it begins with five recipes and a travel log, eight months after I received the notebook. It would take me over four years to finish filling its pages.

The first travel log is of my trip to New York, consisting of no more than the list of places we visited. Another travel log follows it, this one to New Orleans. Only one blank page separates these two trips. So according to my diary, a year and a half of married life means no more than a single page that went unwritten...well, I don't disagree.

At times I went months without writing anything. Sometimes I wrote page after page in a single day. Various trips, long and short, people I met, people I lost, books I read, dreams I dreamt, my desires, fears, pains....they are all there, condensed into a little red notebook.
The last entry in the diary was in mid-October of 2007. A good dozen or so pages are left, but I will leave them be. By far, this has been the most difficult journal to write in, and I care not to start another. This one, with all its mental and emotional burden, took too much out of me as it is. And my handwriting is becoming more and more illegible anyway.


10.4.06
...The mystique subsided, and I dreamt of Pluto, now a dwarf planet, all night long.

Ravens

We were sitting on a park bench, he and I, exchanging a pleasant conversation of unimportance. In the periphery of my vision I saw a man standing some distance away, straight ahead from where we were sitting. I turned my head to see who it was.

It was him. He was sitting next to me, talking, while at the same time standing at a distance, watching me. I was not at all surprised to find him present at two places simultaneously.

Then I stood up from the bench and turned around. There was a hill against a backdrop of stormy clouds. The hill was literally covered with ravens, hundreds--no, thousands perhaps, fluttering their wings or simply moving about. Not a single one of these black birds was to fly away.

* * * * *

Could it be true that my dreams have some prophetic qualities? This dream of mine was had not last night, not a week or even a month ago, but on this very day exactly one year ago.

From The Solitude of Ravens by Matsuhisa Fukase

p.s. This is my 100th posting. Many are hidden away, and some have never seen the light of day. I don't always know why I write. Sometimes I wonder if the purpose of writing is to forget, like scanning and digitizing a file and destroying the document, so I can make room for other thoughts.

J'entends

I dreamt I was losing my vision. With strained eyes I tried to read the words, but they were a blur. And this, all while mindfully perceiving the silence abound.

This should have been to me a nightmare, as vision was regarded to be the most critical of all my senses. But in the dream, I was quite unperturbed about the blurring eyesight. I should have waken up in cold sweat. Why did this dream not bother me?

The answer was had one late night in Messiaen, as the music faded into the deadening silence in the last movement of Quatuor pour la fin du temps. With the growing sense of distance between the world and the eyes with which I perceive this world, only music still finds a way to the very core of my being. The dream was merely a reflection of my rearranged priorities.

071231

Instead of spending the last evening of 2007 quietly at home with a bottle of Lambrusco like I planned, I ended up going out to dinner with my friend M. It was our first spontaneous dinner outing since I moved far far away from her. Not knowing exactly where would be considered half way between us, we decided to meet up in Long Beach.

The restaurant I chose was Christy's Ristorante, a quaint Italian restaurant whose rave reviews I had read about before. Due to the nature of the evening, we were not seated for close to an hour later than our reservation time. But we found seats at the bar and they carried pretty good selection of single malt Scotch, so I did not mind.

The restaurant had a special menu for the night. Reading through, my eyes rested on Italian Paella, but because M wanted to order it, I ordered rack of lamb instead. The house salad, mixed greens with feta cheese and tomatoes in balsamic vinaigrette, was served first. Although the vinaigrette was a tad bit more acidic than I would have liked, the simple salad was prepared by a chef who, understanding the meaning of the word "dressing," made sure no green leaf went drowning in it. Even more impressive, however, was the quality of pepper they used to grind it fresh atop the salad. A restaurant that cares for the selection of and invests in pepper corn? Now that is a restaurant worth going to.

M's paella, she commented, was more like risotto. Perhaps that's what made this paella "Italian". From the bite I stole from her, the overall taste was very ocean-y (if there is such a word) without being fishy, although the scallop was overcooked by a couple minutes. I personally did not mind the risotto-like consistency. The only regret I had with my main dish was ordering it to a medium doneness. Had I known that the quality of meat they would put on the grill for me, I would not have hesitated to order it medium-rare. Three perfectly sized racks served on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes, three spears of fried asparagus, drizzled with demiglace sauce with roasted garlic and dried figs--at least my last meal of the year went with a bang.

But, alas, even Christy's had a downfall, and that was dessert. Of a handful choices available, we decided to share an apple tart, served warm with a scoop of cinnamon gelato. What landed on our table could hardly be called a tart. In my mind it was a misnomer, since the patissier obviously did not use pate sucree. The dough had more of a bun-like chewiness, and I never really found the apple filling (I'm not sure if M found it on her end). Although the cinnamon gelato was decent, it overpowered the flavor of that tart/bun where the apples got lost. What's more, there was a ring of vanilla sauce around it, with dabs of raspberry coulis. Yes, they made the plate look pretty, but the raspberry flavor, mingling with cinnamon, was not the most pleasantly palatable experience. The garnishing of fanned split strawberry, decorating only two of the three tips of the triangular plate, did not look so hot even in the dim lighting of the restaurant, and I told M so when she reached for it. It was mid-way over to her plate, and she dropped it right back.

* * * * *

After dinner, we just sat at the restaurant and chatted, since we didn't have any party to go to nor did we expect to find a coffee shop that was open. I said to M,

"This was a strange year. I hope 2008 is nothing like it."

And then it occurred to me that I said the same exact thing a year ago. And the year before. And the year before that. Hmm....

At the onset of the new year, I was driving along the 405 freeway, heading south. I was glad to invite the new year with Mozart's Great Mass in C minor, the last of the Credos to be exact. Shortly thereafter, the CD player moved on to the next set, Vladimir Ashkenazy playing Chopin's Ballades. I skipped over to Ballade No. 4 and pushed repeat button. Same notes played by another acclaimed pianist, Maurizio Pollini, never did move me this much. The real reason for my particular bias for Ashkenazy's Chopin...well, I'll just keep that to myself.

2008.

Everything seemingly changed. Despite the outwardly appearance, however, everything remains unchanged deep down. And I am too weathered to pretend that the first moment of a new year brings forth a fresh new canvas.