...and on I went - 090501

I saw her first. she had just shoveled a forkful of food into her mouth, hunched slightly over her plate. I could see she had plumped up again.

then I saw him. our eyes met amid his conversation with another guest. he appeared the same as before. even his contemptuous weaknesses, the shame that I once chose to forgive, were all there still. I walked on with not a trace of hesitation. my little white dress and the ruffled petticoat seemed to exaggerate the bounce of each and every step.

080826

S and I have begun having breakfast before work from time to time. The young junior designer has found me to be her mentor of some sort and she had asked many questions about the design industry, the firms I used to work for, and what she should expect outside of her first professional job.

This time we met at Lulu's Creperie for our early morning rendezvous. She was telling me about her boyfriend of six years. After being away on business for three months, S's boyfriend was due to come back in a month. She confided in me some time ago that, instead of missing him, she felt relieved, liberated. Upon his return, she was expected to accept his proposal. Having the time to think about it, she said, made her even more unsure.
 
"Can I ask you a question? You don't have to answer if you don't want to," I said.

She looked back at me with curious and anticipating eyes.

"Do you have a crush on someone else?" I asked.

She lowered her eyes.

"How do you know?" she asked.

"He's married, isn't he?" I asked her back.

Her jaw dropped.

"Really, how did you find out? I never told anyone," she said, baffled.

This time I lowered my eyes and shrugged, taking a sip of now lukewarm coffee. Our beret-wearing server stopped by to clear the plates. Except for an old man sitting at a table next to us, apparently a regular, the restaurant was empty. The fog had lifted and the sun was shining through. In the warmth of the morning sun we sat, contemplating. For the life of her she would never figure out how I knew.

080817

I saw you in my dream last night. It was a night of endless images but all I could remember was you, standing there, smiling. Then you called me this afternoon much to my surprise. You sensed gaiety in my voice. I didn't want to admit I was actually glad to hear from you.

Watching men's swimming in Olympics lately had me thinking of you. You never did lose that athletic swimmer's body from your days of youth. The morning after the first night we spent together, I woke up and saw you looking out the window, a white towel wrapped around your waist, hair still wet from shower. You were tall, lean, shoulders broad, hips proportionally narrow. For the first time I marveled at a man's body, which until then had been a source of certain repulsion and contempt. I found you as beautiful as you found me.

You have come and gone all in the course of this short evening. All I'm taking from tonight is how you wrapped your hand over my left hand and wrist and asked if it was still hurting a lot. Yes, I said, it's the most mundane activities that give it pain. You wound your fingers tighter around my hand and dozed off.

Yet, my friend, I love you not for I love another, even though this love is made of equal parts resentment, sorrow and madness. I seek from you the comfort and familiarity of our bygone childhood years when life was simple and innocent. Neither do you love me. We each hold back so much from each other, wanting, but not giving, knowing not to utter the same words we whisper in bed when we're clothed.

Selfish is what we are. Measured is the time ahead of us. Hurt we both shall be at the end of this time.

080809

"So, when are you coming back?"

I'm hit with this question not infrequently. "In time," I would answer, "in time."

She put me on a spot and asked me the question in front of others.

"When do you want me back?" I asked in return.

She said, "tomorrow."

"Well, only you know my timing of things," I said.

She always throws the craziest fun parties and it was the most fun evening I had in a long time. Yet, driving back home to the deep woods of Orange County, I welled up and let the tears fall. I wished I could give her a different answer.

I thought of the dream I had a while ago. Years passed and I was back. Many were strangers to me. Someone asked why I came back. I answered, "because A is here."

That would be my answer indeed...some day.

080729

11:42 AM. Magnitude 5.4 earthquake hits the southland. No frayed nerves--back to business as usual before noon.

Twelve hours later, however, I spent the evening updating the emergency kit with bottled water, couple of granola bars, medications all different sorts, flashlight, extra batteries, and even change of clothing. And I'm in bed wearing shorts and tank top, way more than what I'm used to wearing to sleep.

I miss the days when I was young and oblivious.

080727

Ours is not an act of love. It is an act of sex, a contemptuous act which at times is rough, sometimes violent, always animalistic, and never, to me, satisfying. I am too inhibited by thoughts, dreams, and diary full of yearnings for another man that I keep hidden under the bed. Yet I failed again to whisper au revoir into his departing ears.

Frailty, thy name is woman indeed.

080720-Sick...again

I had been feeling foul all that day. I came home agitated and with bitter aftertaste in my mouth. All night my dreams shattered into pieces and rained on me, except for the following portion which remained with me.

* * * * *

I was wearing a black pencil skirt, a strapless black brassiere and a sheer white shirt over it. First I found one little blood stain on the shirt. Then another. Then everywhere. I could not figure out where it was coming from, whether it was coming from within or without.

* * * * *

Next morning I awoke with a fever and migraine in the morning. There was no thermometer, but drawing from earlier experiences, I could tell that the fever was getting close to a dangerous level. Tylenol only worked temporarily--this unexplained fever was relentless.

So now, five days after it all started, I am on antibiotics and beginning to eat solid food again. There is slight fever still, but it is much more manageable. I lost ten pounds. I did not want to lose them this way. I don't know why I am constantly getting sick.

080706 - Why I thought of Renee Magritte

"You mean, you think I'm sexy?" I questioned.

"Yes, you're very sexy," he replied.

"Really?" I asked again. I had to.

"Do you really not know there are tons of men out there lusting after you?" he said, and immediately I had this image in my head.

I felt sick afterwards. I spent the entire long weekend buried inside my apartment.

080702

For the past week or so, I have not been sleeping well. I would toss and turn, have vivid yet unrecognizable dreams, then in the morning wake up groggy, restless. Perhaps weather was to blame. Perhaps I need to cut back on caffeine. Perhaps I should stop watching movies like Camille Claudel.

Then last night, in bed, I found the source of my agitation.

What if I wake up to an intruder?

I have had such preoccupation before, but Mission Viejo supposedly being the safest city in the country, this thought did not occur to me since the move. But suddenly there it was, completely unfounded and benign. As I drifted into the Neverland, I thought, Pajamas. I should start wearing pajamas. Like that'll save me from armed intruder.

So I reached a conclusion that I need companionship. I think I'll opt for the four-legged kind.

080701

Suddenly there was a sharp shooting pain in my head. I tried to endure hoping it'll simply disappear, but it was stubborn. After popping two maximum strength Tylenol I grabbed my car keys. It was over 90 degrees inside my car, parked out in the sun. I didn't care as I crawled into the back seat. I lay there with not a single window cracked open.

I was drifting out of consciousness. My hand, still holding onto the keys, fell to the floor. I laid there for what seemed like an eternity. Until I found myself whispering, not yet.

So after fifteen minutes I was back. When I came back inside, no one had the faintest idea how close I came to being gone.

080622

Friday.

Called in sick. I was suffering from heat exhaustion, but more importantly, a big disappointment with a bit of regret. I decided that a day off was in order despite the deadline. All morning I thoughts of things I wanted to do--go to the Aquarium of the Pacific or the zoo, have leisurely lunch in Laguna Beach, so on and so forth. In the end, I did absolutely nothing--just the thought of stepping out into that sweltering heat was enough to nauseate me all over again.

In the evening, I took a cold shower to cool down and put on my white linen dress before heading over to Corona del Mar. It was fourth night of the Baroque Music Festival to which I was the patron subscriber. The night's program included Torelli, Telemann, Bach, and a Swedish composer named Roman. Dr. Burton Karson's introduction was entertaining as they were all other nights, Elizabeth Blumenstock worked wonders on her 1660 Guarneri violin (still strung with sheep gut), and Timothy Landauer's Telemann was out of this world.

I was walking to my car after a stop at The Crow Bar for a drink when I saw a bright shooting star, through all the light pollution around and the moon's perigee. I tried not to think too much about its meaning. But it was too radiant and too splendid--it flamed into extinction over and over again inside my head.

Saturday.

I wore the same linen dress. Even at 7 in the morning, I didn't need a sweater to cover my bare back. I drove the freeway at 85 mph. It took 1 hour 10 minutes, door to door, to get to Beverly Hills. It included a stop at a gas station and a long drive-thru line for iced coffee.

AIA LA's Spring Tour took place exactly sixteen hours after the official start of summer. I needed that stimulus---I've been stuck in OC for too long, where clients and designers alike lack sophistication. Two designers from my company in attendance were obviously struck with awe. While having lunch at Paperfish by Clive Wilkinson Architects, they said that people at the company wonder if I will leave to come back to L.A. I just smiled and brushed off that comment. That was all I could do.

I took photos at Broad Contemporary Art Museum and stopped by the grocery store I used to frequent before heading back home.

Sunday.

Another very warm day. I took a nap and woke up at 3pm. The fifth and last of the Baroque Music Festival concert was to start at 4pm. I jumped in the shower knowing I would be late.

Following another magnificent concert was patron dinner reception. I sat next to an old lady who took much interest in me. As it were, I was the only non-silver haired patron in attendance and the only one of different race. She spoke to me extensively about her children and different cities where she used to live. She's seventy years old, she said, and of failing health. She wants to live fully before the inevitable, she said. At the end of the evening, I walked away with a promise that I will accompany her to a concert at Hollywood Bowl this summer.

On my way home, I listened to Deborah Voigt and Placido Domingo singing the finale of the second act of Tristan und Isolde over and over again. I drove through the dusk imagining the night the lovers were enveloped in.

080622 - Sunday morning

We finished two small bottles of sake and had moved onto a twelve year old Glenfiddich. We were unusually chatty--for us, at least. I do not recall how our conversation got there, but I found myself saying these words:

"If I had been born a man...."

Before I could finish the sentence, he chimed in.

"...you would have made many girls cry."

"What makes you say that?" I questioned in protest.

"Because only one person gets to be a free bird in a relationship," he replied.

I knew exactly what he meant without having to read through many lines in between. The surprise was in that he knew me that well. I changed the direction our conversation was headed.

"As I was saying, if I were born a man, I would have become a priest."

He gave me a look. That was enough to put me on a defense, citing differences between priests and nuns. But he, too, grew up a Catholic. I knew my argument was the losing one but stood by it nonetheless.

* * * * *

Of many of our childhood plays, one remained in my memory bank more vividly than others. There was a big mound of left over sand from construction at one corner of his yard. I would gather rocks and use them to reinforce the mound of sand. He would bring over a bucket of water to wash it all down. I knew my attempts were futile but refused to give up, gathering the sand and bringing more rocks to build a bigger, stronger mound. All he had to do, he knew, was to keep pouring water over it. We would be at it for a long time, neither of us relenting, until his mother called us back to the house for dinner.

* * * * *

I had on my white linen dress, a favorite of mine on those extremely hot summer days. I stood up from where I was sitting and looked down. There was a little red dot. On my dress. The dot grew and grew into a coagulating mess of my own blood.

* * * * *

It was early morning hours but my east facing bedroom was already filled with bright morning sunlight. I drifted in and out of sleep through his snores. It was a lazy Sunday morning.

080619

All day I thought about the couple next door. Their fight few weeks ago must have been a bad one. Now that he's left, the girl is in the process of moving out. This morning, I noticed that the little fabric wrapped ledge that used to perch on the window sill for Lucy, the cat, was gone.

I have a project with Friday deadline. But I left the office even before my usual time. I was tired.

"I know you're busy, but just one question...is it okay to stop caring?" I wrote, before putting the car in reverse gear. I pressed the send button.

She sent me back her response in two separate text messages.

"Whoa! That sounds loaded. My quick answer is..."

"NO. But are you talking work or love life?"

I replied, "Work. You know I have a love-less life.... Okay, I'll try a little more."

What I really meant to say, in lieu of "work," was "life." But I knew better than to bother her with that load of baggage before her forthcoming deadlines. And we both knew I only had myself to blame.

People call it quits all the time. I did to my own marriage. I did to an eighteen year old friendship. But I cannot to things I am expected to.

I opened a bottle of Lambrusco when I got home. I'm on the course of finishing it before this evening is over.

080612

Michigan.
I have only a few moments on the net. Not that I could not be on it longer, but that I'd rather not be. It is pouring rain with some serious thunder and lightening--this actually feels like a summer, and I love it.
I catch up on some other blog reading. The OC Register's music critic called me a name--Orange Countian. But I'm still an Angeleno by heart, damn it!

Just a mid-cap of my trip.
Chicago--crazy. Probably deformed my feet for good, but a lot of fun and, most importantly, great food. The drive up to Michigan was good. Not what I expected, but good. Lots of dead animals along the road. And I thank god for GPS. But my right shoulder hurts by the time I reach Holland, MI--it is a fail-proof indicator of rain to come.

I get to Onekama, and it is like I never left it. What is it about this place? I do not know. But I am certainly glad to be back.

080605

Shall I speak of jealousy?
Really, shall I speak of all my maddening moments thinking about an old muslin dress?
And would you let me speak about young Werther whose untimely death was an easier choice than mine?

Would you hear me out?


Would you care...?

080602

Sunday morning.

I was still feverish when I woke up to a ruckus from my next door neighbors. It was an apparent fight between the couple. The girl locked the guy out. The guy went on banging the door while cursing liberally. The girl opened the door, crying. After a short while, the guy walked out with a duffle bag which I presumed to contain his belongings. I couldn't care less what the fight was about. But I was worried for their cat, Lucy. I wondered if Lucy was hiding under the bed.

I stayed lying on my sofa wrapped in fleece blanket. Just the thought of lifting the blanket off to walk over to the bedroom gave me chills. And I watched tennis on television even though I could not really see the ball due to poor reception. Better that than infomercials, I thought.

What r u doing? he text'ed. I could have ignored it. But I didn't. By mid-afternoon, he was over at my apartment.

We had very early dinner and finished an entire bottle of Lambrusco. He said he's going to Chicago for a week. A job interview? I asked. He nodded. He would be arriving in Chicago the day I would be leaving.

Later, as we lay on my bed with his arms around me, he asked,

"Why do you want to keep moving away? Why don't you just stay here?"

"Speak for yourself," I said, "you're the one going to a job interview in Chicago".

"But the job is not in Chicago. It could be in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, anywhere, but I'm really after the job in Irvine," he answered.

"Really?" I questioned. Then we both fell silent for a while.

"Then should we live together if you get that job in Irvine?" I asked. I wasn't serious. I just wanted to put him on the edge.

But what I got back was unhesitating and enthusiastic, "sure."

"Really?" I questioned, again, then started playing along.

"Just don't expect me to cook. We'll go out to eat on the days I have to cook," he said.

"Then you pay rent, I'll take care of all the household stuff."

He agreed.

"Well, we would still need our own space, so at least two bedrooms...."

"Can we get a dog?" I asked.

"Depends on how big a place we get," he replied.
Oh, he's serious about this, I thought.

"But you know, your mother could decide to visit you and we'd be busted," I said. Then added, "if my mother doesn't bust us first--she's closer by."
I thought about my father, then his brother, then his wife, then her brother, then his son who was lying next to me. I certainly did not want to create havoc in all our families in between.

We did not speak of the matter afterwards. We just fell asleep tangled in each other's arms. And I dreamt. I dreamt that I was standing at the edge of a cliff late at night, looking out into the midnight blue of the sky and the ocean. Full moon rose from the west, its shine almost blinding to my eyes, then quickly set on the east. The night was enveloped in the comforting darkness again.

In the morning we left my apartment together. He gave me a little hug.

"I'll call you," he said.

I nodded. "Drive carefully."

I got in my car and headed to work. Another same old goddamn week was starting.

080526

Summing up my Memorial Day weekend:

• Great dinner and conversations with my dear friend M
• New additions to my CD collection - John Adams' Naive and Sentimental Music, Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf conducted by Kent Nagano and narrated by Patrick Stewart
• Terry Riley organ recital at Walt Disney Concert Hall
• A lengthy, late night conversation over wine and tapas with a friend and her child prodigy husband about my new short story idea and more
• Another great dinner and conversation with some friends and a retired musicology professor who had personal acquaintance with Jascha Heifetz and once taught Deborah Voigt
• A phone call affirming new...possibilities

080522

At first I didn't realize it. Then I tried to ignore it. But eventually, I could not help but admit to my addiction. The substance of abuse came programmed in my new smartphone. It's called Solitaire.

I spent most of my waking moments at home (yet strangely never anywhere else) playing this mindless and repetitive game. From Friday nights to Monday mornings I never left the couch, except maybe to go to the bathroom. I scavenged through the cupboards and refrigerator to find food that took least amount of effort to be consumed. Dishes started piling up then around the sink. Junk mails were scattered everywhere. On nights when I was fortunate enough to find my way to the room in my half sleep, I slept on one side of the bed while the other half of my comforter was weighed down by clothes I had shed off. I knew through it all that this addiction to Solitaire was only a symptom to a bigger and a lot more serious problem--yet another bout of severe depression. I knew, because I played through the half of the games in tears. I knew, too, because I was staring at fluoxetine bottle again.

When she returned my call this evening, I was again sitting on my couch playing Solitaire, holding the phone in one hand and the stylus in the other. Rain was turning into a pour. Suddenly her number--still speed dial #7--popped up in the middle of a three card draw. I tucked the stylus away and answered.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," she said back.

* * * * *

E and I were sitting on the floor of the living room, talking. Television was on for a background noise. We were having yet another conversation about T.

The story about T is complicated and quite stupid. I met him at the tail end of my three year relationship and had introduced him to E, a high school friend of mine. But quite unexpectedly and belatedly, T and I discovered our mutual attraction for each other. First thing I did was to tell E, to come clean before anything got serious. She said she wouldn't see him any more, that she wasn't that attracted to him anyway. I ended my relationship not to be with T but because it had obviously run its course. T and I, well, we never got together. As mutual as our attraction was, so was our incompatibility. At the end of the whole debacle, E and I were roommates.

I was still hung up on T. And because E was the only person who had seen it all, she was the only person I confided in. And that evening, I was doing another spiel of "what if" when she interrupted me.

There's something important to tell me, she said, then confessed that she and T had continued dating for some time afterwards and through our move-in as roommates. I told her that she could have saved me many months of my sanity. With that, I cleared any residue I had left in my mind of T and E and everything involving them. At the end of the lease, E and I parted ways and never saw each other again.

* * * * *

She asked how I was doing and I said I was okay. That wasn't too convincing, she said. I'm not really trying, I replied. We talked on the phone until she got home, mostly about gossip and work. And somewhere in that gossip came my moment of clarity.

"Oh, I wish you would have told me this sooner--I'd been so angry for the last few weeks."

"But it would've made you even more angry," she answers.

"No," I said, "it would have made it burn off faster."

Before getting off the phone, she said, "hey, chin up."

"Thanks," I said with a smile, whether she could see it or not.

The rain, by then, stopped. After getting off the phone, I continued my Solitaire game. I'm not going to quit my addiction in a losing streak, I thought. After a few games, I won. Deal again? it prompted me. With the stylus I clicked No.

I played Mozart's The Magic Flute in my iPod and went about the apartment, cleaning. I took the trash out (all five bags of them), put away all the laundry I left out to hang dry, replacing the empty toilet paper roll with a half a roll that's been sitting on the ledge. The best I saved for last--the dishes. There is something meditative about hand washing the dishes, the very platform onto which we place our food for all its implied significance.

During the two hours or so of clean up I realized--finally, after five months since moving into this place--I could really use some artwork on the walls. Maybe I'll finally frame the John Baldessari poster I have been saving. I could use more color in life. Really.

[diary] 080506

"Take an emotional risk and meet me half way," he wrote. I scoffed and deleted his email. In response to my silence, he wrote me one last time to call me "human igloo."

I could easily be in a relationship right this minute--for all the wrong reasons. But I don't believe in bad start transforming into something good as Hollywood loves to have us fantasize. I'm a skeptic--I've been married before.

Severe cramps had me handicapped all evening. I could not find acetaminophen in my medicine box so I opened a bottle of Glenfiddich instead. It turns out, Scotch works better than Vicodin.

[diary] 080503

Deja vu.

I woke up to my usual morning alarm. 6:30AM, set for every morning. My body ached and eyes felt dry. I undraped the fleece blanket off of me and got up from the sofa. Stumbling toward the bedroom I turned off the kitchen lights and let myself flop on the bed before silencing the alarm. Dark silence enveloped my consciousness again.

I was awakened a couple hours later. I lay there staring at the ceiling. This routine has become too familiar, too often repeated.

Deja vu.

The word hung over my head stubbornly.