Blinded

The room is dark. The desk lamp is on. The lamp’s semi-spherical head is supported by a narrow and bendable neck that leans over the desk. The light bulb drops from the lamp. It lands on a patch of papers. It doesn’t break. Now it rolls helplessly side-to-side, like an eyeball, and the lamp, a bare eye socket. I should not be able to see this latter part because the room should have now been completely dark.

xxxzzz

It's very annoying when for some reason the 'Z' and 'X' keys in your PDA keyboard stop functioning. Dear me. Now I can't say things like sexy and fizzle. How annoying. And my head cannot think of anything to write about. I felt so upset I almost did not want to blog tonight. Money I will spend on another keyboard. I will buy the same keyboard. It was a good keyboard. It malfunctioned today for only the first time. So it's been good to me. I'm sorry it died so suddenly. Maybe the kind spirit that watches over me would feel for me. Maybe the thing will work again when I wake up next morning. Then I'll be able to say things like sexy and fizzle. Then I'll be happy as a milk bottle.

Strawberry Sauce

Dear me so tired now. The strawberry sauce was very sweet. I want to sleep now. But I want to write too. Today I saw a man walking on a rope. I saw a Shakespeare comedy while sitting on the ground. The night was warm. I walked with friends along the street filled with colourful shops, the sunset before us a bright orange. What more do I possibly want?

漫長漫長路間　我伴我閒談
漫長漫長夜晚，從未覺是冷...

To grow is to step out of your comfort zone.

Me and My Head

If I have to give it a voice I shall. If I address it, then I can move on to do my stack of work. I do have a stack of work today.

I felt heavy this morning. Then I thought about shaving my head, or at least trim the hair down to very short, that way I won't have to fuss with it in the morning. Then I stared at my face for a very long time. Then I went for a walk.

The beautiful thing about Cornell is I can leave home and walk any direction and see beautiful houses and little decorations that cheer me up. So I walked. I looked at front porches, and wondered what we could do with front porches like these, and possibly having a dinner for two at one of these porches, though I’ve never seen anyone done that. An old couple relaxes on a bench on their porch. This, I see a lot. We say hi.

I turned into another side street. I walked purposely on the sunny side and I thought about my head. What would it be like to have really short hair? What would it be like to have no hair? What would it be like to just be out there?

I guess we all have things with which we build our sense of self, however fickle these things might be. For some it's having money and securities and numbers in the books. For some it's their job status and the titles and initials that garnish their names. For some it’s their beauty. For some it's their knowledge. I too have my own. But I just wonder, how nice it'd be to have the materials I used to build me based not on what I possess but on what I do.

Writing comes close to this. It shapes me without having a physical shape. Physical shapes are tiresome. The fluidity of my words is much better. I emphasize fluidity, because my words are only how I feel in a given time. It's constantly changing. That's what makes it energetic and never boring.

I know I’ll cut my hair short one day. It may be very soon. Then I can shop for hats.

A Summer Story

I Love You...
你會否聽見嗎　
你會否也像我
秒秒等待遙遠仲夏

Nine years ago today we separated.

Tell me yes or no, was all I asked.

You're going to miss me, I said. I shouldn't have said that. What I really meant was the opposite. But you have to forgive me. I was stupid then. And I missed you lots in those remaining summer days.

You cried. It was difficult for you. They were mean to you.

"I'll wait. I can wait. I know things are difficult for you, but you know I'll be waiting here," what would have happened had I said that?

But I wouldn't have said that. I was stupid then.

One day you'll pick up a book because you might recognize my name on the cover and you start reading a story with a character that resembles you and reminds you of something that happened to you back in your fifteenth summer. You smile to yourself.

It achieves nothing. But at least it gives a story to which we can fall back into.

On Becoming a Gentleman

We postpone our dreams. But people like us are certain to find our dreams one day. I’m not worried about us because we both know what we want to do, only now is not the time. We're tied up, but this too will pass.

As we cruise along Yonge Street on this breezy clear Wednesday evening, we are two idealistic souls, with dreams bigger than our heads. Tall glassy buildings stare down at us.

You are more mature than me. This I say based on my feeling. You speak steadily. Being a gentleman is not doing what you want to do, but doing what you have to do. This, I remember reading somewhere, and is the phrase that whirls in my mind. I know well what I want to do, but I’m never clear about what I have to do.

Going through the years and living independently makes you stronger and you start to care less about what others think of you. If only I live by myself, then I am free to expand and stretch and reach for the bits and pieces I need to construct this being that is me.

A Bowl of Thick Chewy

A bowl of thick chewy egg noodles in soup, in soup, I dip the fried tofu in soup and with my chopsticks squeeze the tofu. Bubbles fizzle.

Purple Sentences

Sentences have been purple lately. And that is how I think. When I come to my computer here at night I'm often very tired, so tired that my senses are numbed and my brain is left to gasp for air while a voice tells me to go to bed, go to bed.

When my mind is freshest, instead of writing I end up doing work, work as in work work, as in work expected of me at my job, work that I often enjoy, though I enjoy writing more, and I would rather write than work, that is not to say work is not fun, for it is not not fun, it is often amusing giving much room to think and create, but I’d rather be scribbling away at my story, that is not to say I’m selfish.

Dear me.

At the beach today the water was cold and while stepping over each boulder to make way toward a rocky point that juts out toward the water, I slipped and almost fell. Then I looked up and saw my friend taking a picture of my two other friends who are siblings: a brother and a sister. They tilted their heads for the picture. They had it taken. Then they asked if I wanted to be in the picture. I smiled and made a gentle and natural gesture that tells them I was so happy to have made it here to this point, I’d be content to just feel the breeze and watch you have your pictures taken.

I wanted to lie down and sleep. That was today. Did I really want to lie down and sleep? I only remember it was comfortable. Maybe I’m the one who wants to lie down and sleep.

‘Til tomorrow night.

Creamy Day

自分らしく生きる事など何の意味もないような 朝焼け...

A kind of creaminess, light and faintly luscious like a scent of vanilla in the air, thins and swirls. The sky is clear. Sunlight shines on the beige vinyl siding of houses that resemble pieces of white mocha cake. Even as I run on the street, I am steered by a tiny force that makes me run like an astronaut on the moon. I lunge forward, head first, leaving my feet, and soon I find myself floating in a controlled space, with my nerves in tact and limbs moving the way I want them to move. I am parallel to the ground. I slide my left arm over my face to touch the sunlight that gives me life. How graceful and sweet, and completely in control. Once the swirling fumes fill my head, I command my two feet to stand on the ground. And so there I stand, in the middle of an empty side street to contemplate how I would move from this point on, meanwhile, a cat and a plastic spoon hover and swirl amidst a spiral of milky white fume. This is a creamy day.

A Teacher Reflects

As a teacher I want my kids to learn and have fun in the classroom. I am always sensitive to the comments the kids make about my class, both positive and negative comments, and thankfully I’ve been getting more positives than negatives, and so it makes me think that I’m functioning well as a teacher, and that I’m well-liked, and I like to be well-liked, don’t we all? Thankfully, I am passed the stage where I would enter a classroom trying to please everyone and end each class deep in a puddle of emotions, wondering how the students thought of my lesson, how they thought of me, which is silly for it matters not what they think of me, it matters not what anyone thinks of me, idealistically speaking.

I remember one day, two years ago, after a month-long intensive teacher training program, I found myself in a bronzy coffee shop drowned in an abyss of self-evaluation, all the while scribbling a piece, the content I don’t remember, but it revolved around the phrase, all I want is for you to like me... I was so tired. Those were my blurry days.

Tonight I’m tired too, but I walk with a quiet confidence, though I walk often alone, and this confidence is prone to dwindling and shrinking under different climates, it’s still good to know it’s there and I’m here, tired, but walking with dignity, with a kinder spirit. The classroom is filled with abstract ideas for me to explore and concretize. This is my gift: to concretize the abstract and deliver these little morsels of insight to those who are hungry and hopeful. “You’re a one-of-a-kind teacher,” a student said to me today. Back in my blurry days I would have given deep thoughts to a comment like this, and by so doing I would fall into a series of elated tremors and unfounded worries. But tonight, as I reflect on a long day of teaching, I merely relish a moment of infinite gratitude that this student’s comment gives me, before I proceed to read the next student’s essay and plan the next day’s lesson.

Christmas Carol

When I told John that his name means toilet he gave a funny look because he had never heard anyone say I need to go to the John.

Frank means honesty, said Frank.

June is the sixth month, said June.

But today I felt most comfortable talking to Carol. And it made all the difference.

Carol has another meaning, I told Carol.

We were still dialing -- is anyone home? -- trying to connect, to pave it smoothly, and sustain a minute's conversation without getting pecked in the face by invisible pebbles that made us look for a microsecond at some random space. But we would connect again, until the next pebble pecks at us, and we disconnect, only to connect again. I pictured Carol in a red and green hat amidst drifting snowflakes and somewhere in the back are silhouettes of flying reindeers and I thought it kind of funny. I also pictured Carol attached to the end of a spring that flings when the present is opened. Carol in the box. Christmas carol. But I didn't tell her. Maybe next time I will.

How's the job search? asked Carol.

Interviews are very interesting, I replied, they ask very interesting questions.

Then on the way home I thought of red and green shiny laser teddy bear stickers -- which made no sense.

I Walk Along Red Maple

"I want to go for a walk," says I to myself as I walk toward my car, by-pass my car and begin to walk, for myself, as reward for a day's hard work, for the invitation comes in the form of a breezy Wednesday afternoon, when the wind is gentle, the clouds stretch across the sky in horizontal layers, in harmony with the hydro lines that dip and stretch into the distance like music.

Red Maple is a recent urban development. The community centre resembles lego bricks. Further down the street is a community of townhomes and semi-detached homes, each of a slightly different design, so that the houses seem to change colour as walk along, like browsing in an ice-cream store. I see bricks red like cherry. The houses are very touchable too, yes, touchable, as if I can take out a brick to feel its cakey texture before putting it back in, or pick up the entire house with my fingertips, take this red cherry house for example, swap it with that minty house with the green roof, add white fences to make a front porch around the bay window, and watch the row of houses in fluid motion before me. It feels so easy.

Near the end of my walk I pass by Leisure World, a three-level home for seniors. On each of the higher levels, at the corner closest to the sidewalk, there is an open alcove, windowless, entirely exposed to the outside like a spacious protected balcony. But on this day these open alcoves are empty. An old woman looks out from her third-floor room. She waves her hand. To me? I don't know. But I wave back anyways, while keeping a jaunty and carefree pace, I walk on. For a split second I feel so free. The home is a dainty residential complex. It resembles lego bricks. The alcoves are vacant. All the windows are closed.

Lucid Pebble

Computer functioning again. Yippee. The first thing I do is blog, despite the many tasks before me tonight, but my head is empty and seems to have not much interesting to say, and as I say this I just might think of something interesting, and if I have nothing interesting to say then why should I blog here? And is it okay for me to type even though I have nothing to say? My brain is a pebble. The pebble is unmoving. Unmoving. Unmoving. Unmoving. The pebble is in a box, it's in what feels like a box, the space between the pebble and the frame of this box is incredibly wide, the air is cold, the pebble shivers, and when the pebble shivers it looks funny because it has no limbs to cover it's body, no expressions to induce sympathy, it merely vibrates in odd rhythms like a malfunctioning microengine, one cannot tell that it's cold, but if one does tell that it's cold, one is tempted to shoot water at it and watch it sling across the width of the box until it is trapped in a corner only to be bounced back into the open space, totally submissive to the water pressure, crashing against the frame of the box, then trapped into another corner, and the exquisite torture repeats itself.

Two fingers, the same fingers that dictated the aforementioned shooting, pick up the pebble that is now beaten and inert. There is an abusive tenderness in their grip as the pebble exposes its wet body to the cold air, now many inches above the floor, and is dropped, into a cup of bubbling soda. The pebble does not, as the torturer had hoped, dissolve in a manic fizz. It merely sinks to the bottom entirely within itself.

Pastel Blue

There was a faint streak of pastel blue on her face. The whole time she listened to me intently, nodding to my words, smiling. That made it easier for me to answer their questions.

"So, are you an introvert or extrovert?" asked a stone-faced member of the hiring committee.

"Well, that's hard to say. I mean, I enjoy my times alone in the coffee shop pondering this and that and reading and getting up early to scribble away at my desk. So in that sense I'm an introvert. But ironically, as you review my resume, all the work that I've done involves me to be heavily involved with people, outreaching, public speaking, facilitating groups, so..."

She kept nodding and smiling. You're doing well, Adam, I knew I was right to bring you here, she seemed to say.

"You can't be fifty-fifty," says the stone-faced member.

"How about sixty percent introvert, and fourty extrovert, that's okay, right?" I said, thinking it a clever and fair response I had just made.

The faint streak of pastel blue, I had seen it before, on the dry wall of an abandoned basement, on the tin box of pencil crayons, on the scrap napkins that accumulate in my knapsack, on the shiny stretchy fabric of rarely used umbrellas, on a Sammi Cheng CD cover, on somebody else's face. Maybe there's a blue patch that remains constant in our space, and as our bodies rotate round and round, we might come in touch with this blue patch, and depending on the kind of person we are, it manifests itself on our faces in various shades and style. I must have had a faint streak of pastel blue on my face too. I must have, sometime, somewhere. Maybe we both had it on our face as we were rotating within the constraints of the interview room. Maybe she saw it in me, and that's why she was looking and listening intently the whole time.

She led me to the door, handed me her business card and thanked me for coming. I see a patch of blue on you, I wanted to say. I walked out of the interview feeling myself to be more interesting than before I walked in, then I rubbed my fingertips as if I had touched chalk.

Automatic Starry Night

I passed through my backyard tonight on my way to retrieve a folder I had left in my car which was parked in the back. It was a brisk and breezy evening. With the folder securely in my hand, I walked back along the paved brick path toward the door of my house, and stopped, in the middle of it, to look at stars. The sky was hazy and the stars were dim. Then I recalled one evening in my nineteenth summer, we were on the top of a hill in Miyagi after a night of campfire and games, we were all walking back to the camphouse when I looked up at the sky, and saw that the stars spilled over the sky as if the stars that had always been there were now visible because we were now on a hill, much closer to the sky. The stars were chunky too, like bite-size silver pebbles, each with texture and taste.

"I've never seen so many stars in the sky before," I said.

Everyone agreed. And I felt it was a sort of gesture from above, like setting the scene for these happy people in such a special evening, as if saying these people deserve to see this so they could remember tonight for the rest of their lives. At least I never saw stars like that again since.

Then I fell back to now, my paved brick path, my backyard, my home before me, the kitchen lights, time to go back inside. I asked myself if I could reproduce the scene of that very starry night. The kind of stars, maybe. The kind of people, probably not, maybe not even the place, no way. But the kind of light-heartedness, the kind of capricious hopefulness, I think I can.

Cafe Serene

It started with me, driving by on the highway and noticing a blue coffee cup symbol on a silver sign. I parked and walked over for a closer look. The coffee shop sat in a hidden corner, the full width of its sign not even visible to the highway passers-by, as if the section was carved out of pity for their little coffee shop business, just a tiny section, to see if it could survive, an owner with a slice of idealism and artistic sense, to provide a reposeful corner in the midst of a community of plazas stuffed with greasy restaurants, accessible only through a dusty highway, and pitifully lacking in taste. Thank you, I say to the owner, for your thoughtfulness of wanderous souls like me. Cafe Serene. Try our drinks, it says on a cardboard sign that rested on the floor behind the glass facade, written in a long paragraph that contains names of fruits and tasty adjectives, very pleasant, with a cool image of a tall glass of bubbly coffee. Next to it, other signs advertising other goodies, and a small notice of a life-skills building community. Try our drinks. I inspected its exterior, neat and placid, but I could not see inside. The width of the front glass was sanded and edged into it a horizontal stripe and the huge coffee cup symbol. Underneath that, the cardboard sign covered most of the space. Even through the door, it revealed nothing but a wall, a partition which I guess I had to walk around to arrive at the tables. How do they get sunlight? If I walked in, I would most definitely be the only customer.

I was not brave today. My body was languid. I carried my body around in separate pieces.

Still, the neon 'open' sign hummed and twinkled. Cafe Serene. Try our drinks.

If only someone could see me from the inside, and revealed herself through the glass, or even be open enough to attend to the curious passer-by, I might have entered. But it didn't happen.

Next time, I told myself. And so the anticipation builds. Try our drinks, says Cafe Serene.

Radioland

I tune into the radio tonight, Saturday night being a time in which I rarely tune in, a radio announcer whom I occasionally listen to announces her final show on the air. It’s funny how I happen to stumble into a moment like this by chance. She says her farewell and her thanks and her fellow announcers cry. She cries too. I find myself paying closer attention to her voice, as if suddenly I become attached, as if a close friend were departing. I feel an unsurfacing emotional rush through my body. The sky suddenly starry, suddenly grand, and I wonder why is it that we become most truthful in the face of departure. There’s a pebble of sadness inside of me. It seems to say something to me, something about my own truthfulness, or lack of it, and how I ought to be truthful to the world so the world can be truthful to me. I’m not fake, I’m bound, over the years I have become this way, it’s no one’s fault. But it makes me think, how free it would be, if I can stand in front of the world, with free moving arms and a free moving face, and words that match what I want to say. I wonder if I can ever attain that kind of freedom. I wonder if I can catch myself, just one time, standing in front of a group, and say to myself, consciously, I’m free, I’m free. That would make me very happy. I would have more friends too.

Scribbling Moments

Sometimes I do that. Carve myself a romantic moment out of nowhere, out of nothing, or not exactly out of nothing, out of... say pleasant weather, a Friday evening, sunny skies, gentle breeze, so as I came out of the Indigo Bookstore, instead of going straight for my car, I took my notebook and pen, settled on a curb in a more spacious corner protected by a blanket of shades overlooking hydro lines that dip and stretch into the distance, how I love the breeze brush through my hair, messy and dramatic, but ultimately lonely, and I'd be so overwhelmed by my emotions that I wouldn't know where to go and that'd be the point I say, "I can't take it no more."

A thought brushed over me as I was sitting there on the curb. I thought to myself, how I love to record this moment into my notebook, and so I started scribbling away, but as usual, my words couldn't match what I was seeing, what I was feeling, and I become discouraged as second after second ticked away. You cannot reproduce a moment. You simply can't. Not by writing, not by photographs, nothing. You can come close, and that's about all I can do, write as close to my heart as possible. Yes, that's what I'm trying to do, write as close to my heart possible.

On the other hand, why not just live this moment, let go, then live the next. There's bound to be more Friday summer evenings of clear skies and gentle breeze, and who knows, by then I might have somebody sitting next to me, and I wouldn't be thinking about writing so much. And that's all I have to say about that.

Work Like Me

So tired. So late now. Can't sleep without writing something here. It's become compulsive. It's as if I don't blog for a day, then the string is cut, then I fall, into a bottomless pit as I watch the string dangle above and me falling deeper and deeper and never making up...

Had a long list of things to do. Also set a schedule for Task A to be completed by this time and Task B to be completed by that time. It's a bad sign when I don't wake up at the hour I wanted. So that's what happened. And so Task A took longer than expected, then it was lunch time, then I felt sleepy and slept and dreamt of Task B and Task C and saw myself doing them in my dream, only to wake up at 4:26pm in the middle of the day, with Tasks B, C and D sitting in front of me like concrete blocks, and I lie back in bed as if by lying there I'd feel lighter, but I get up and it feels heavy as before.

Task A basically took the whole day. The next few tasks will probably get done on the next day. Some tasks will be forgotten, and become mere smudges in my agenda, smudges which I will revisit in the future and it'd prove these tasks to be insignificant, for I had still lived even with such and such tasks incomplete.

Of course I'll live. I just wonder if I'm being too hard on myself. I'd like to think not. But I also like to think yes, you've been too hard on yourself, and so I will rest in my comfortable bed and hear him tell me it's okay, it's okay, or I might go to the kitchen and get some ice-cream. Dear me.

Space Bar

There are four internet workstations in the library. A young man is typing away at one of the computers. An old man enters and sits at the computer next to the young man.

"We're in big trouble if they find out this causes cancer," says the old man.

The young man smiles, thinks about it, and says, "Just about every other thing we do causes cancer,"

"Might as well enjoy it then," says the old man.

They type away.

A few seconds pass. "We're all gonna go anyways, right?" the young man adds.

They type away. Except for the hollow taps of the space bar, they are quiet the rest of the way.

Write Something Dear

It's hot. It's late. I can't think.

When I work, I tend to drift, a song plays in my head and I'm somewhere else. I come back to my work to see thirty mintues have passed. It's that vapour trail that swirls up from my cup of white hot chocolate. "You look concerned," she said to me. "I think a lot," I said. What do I think about? What did I think about? My mind goes blank a lot, is what I meant to say.

Yippee I'm hired today. I'll have 33 students in my creative writing class. The class is one hour long. So if each student reads their work, they'll have just over a minute each. Then class dismissed. I don't want it to become a creative writing lecture. Boys and girls, let's take notes on grammar. This is how you use the present perfect. I don't want to make my kids hate English class the way I did when I was in high school. I loved English as a subject but English class was brutal. I especially hate it when they take Shakespeare apart in a way that looks like they know more than what Shakespeare had planned to do. I just want to break out of this box, this box that makes school rather boring, and meaningless. We read Shakespeare and study literary devices not knowing what the point is. There's no point in doing something if you can't relate! So boys and girls, write about something that's dear to you. Too broad. Too abstract. They stare at me blank. Dear to me? What means? Computer games?

Tomorrow, our topic is Why I Write. One time I actually sat down and jotted down my reasons and came up with about 30 of them. I'll blog it one day.

More closer to the matter, why blog? Why do I get upset when I miss a day of blogging (especially when it isn't like anyone's reading my blog). Why? What explains?

The window's open, light breeze, but still hard to think. Maybe I'm tired. I'm getting panda eyes from a lack of sleep. Pandas eat sugar canes. Panda is the name of my Primary One English Reader in Hong Kong. It begins with 'Tom is a boy. Siu-Ming is a girl. "Hello," says Tom...'

Kinda Lonely Kinda Nice

I wrote all day today. I don't know how I managed it, yet it doesn't feel like I've done that much. I had set out today to polish four short pieces. Mission accomplished. Only it took me a whole day. It's almost midnight now, I look back, and I don't know how the time had gone by so quickly. Tonight I made soup for dinner. The heat in the house made it difficult to work, so I went out for a walk just before dark. It was the first time I sauntered my neighbourhood by myself for the sake of sauntering. I passed by the senior home building at the northeastern corner of my village. Everything in the lobby, its shiny floor and reflexive surfaces looked clear, but there wasn't a soul. I'm writing about that now because that was the only bit of external stimulant I had today.

It's August already. Tomorrow I'll be busy. I need to make a syllabus for my writing class. So I'll teach writing, even before I know how to write, but there'll never come a time when I 'know' how to write. I might know now, but I don't know tomorrow. I might know for one hour, but not the next. But I still do it, isn't that amazing, what a strenuous activity, yet I'm keeping up, and I can't see myself quitting. Isn't that worthy of celebration?

How I need to sleep, should sleep, but I don't feel tired. I had wanted to get an iced coffee drink tonight, but elected to stay home, for all my books were here and my workstation set up.

There's something in my head today, right now, I'm trying to shake it out, like ketchup from a bottle...

I think I deserve to ramble here for just a bit. It's been a strenuous day. But as I say this, just now, my mind has gone blank, and I think of nothing to ramble about.

What do I really want now?

I want somebody to sit with me in a park, not just anybody. I want a chewy bowl of tapioca. I want to go to karaoke. I want my sanity back. I want a free day tomorrow. I want to sit at Second Cup and read Henry James. I want to see my friends. I want to say something stupid to make people laugh. I want them to like my stories. I want to sign up for writing classes. I want a teacher as thoughtful as me. I want to move to Vancouver. I want to loiter the night streets of Hongkong. I want to eat a light chocolate chip cookie. I want a balcony.

I'm kinda lonely tonight. Just kinda. But it's nice to be me. More and more I feel that and that feels kinda nice.

poem 3 in progress

n's and m's in perfect arch...

h's like n's, a's like d's
like a row of tiny lined up small and straight
hovering off the line but straight...