my love my fate

Teach me to be quiet and you will have killed me completely. Do I hear myself? Do you hear me? Don't we all want to be heard? We all have something to say, to sing, yes, to sing, there is a song for each of us, a song we have chosen for ourselves and have labeled it "my song". So each time we enter the dark room we pick the song and we follow the words on the screen and try to give our best performance of the words that mean so much to us. I say we, but I may be speaking only of me. Many songs mean a lot to me and I take my singing seriously. My dream: To stand on a stage and sing a song to an audience. To be heard. My voice only. And I will sing it with every drop of heart and you may think I sing well, or you may not, and I would care lots if you think I sing not well, more so than if I were to sing well. But what really matters if all I want is to be heard? Few singers can electrify a stage. Few singers can move a crowd by just standing still and singing. Fewer people can move a crowd by standing still and reciting poetry.

if there were no more beds in this world

I ponder where I stand with my friends. Sometimes I feel I'm standing on grounds not very firm. Then I think about what my friends do for me, and I can think of many things, even the littlest things like saving me a seat at the lunch table, that counts too. Then I think about how I ought to cook a big dinner for them. It would set everything right, for I don't know how to cook. It would say a lot if I were to cook. It would say even more (or at least surprise) if the food were delicious.

Somebody says I'm too passive, and that my way of going about things is wrong. If I were to meet another passive person... let's concretize this image... perhaps a person just like me... no, maybe like me in the way she talks, the way she responds to questions... And if she were to be labeled passive... I would be very nice to her. I would listen to her intently if she had something to say. I would help her get the things she wants but isn't able to get for herself. And most importantly, I would not label her passive. This is the way she chooses to go about things, and you see, she is happy. Yes. A world revolves around her and every other minute she is able to close her eyes for a split second and know that she has everything. What most people don't know is that when she needs to step up and be 'aggressive' she can. I trust that she can. I know that she can. She is calm. She listens to me. She is insightful. Her words are uplifting, and I see a lot of me in her. This is why I like being with her. I know she can look after of me.

Now back to me. I remember vividly that night, almost ten years ago, lying on the bed with Yuki in that hotel room, early evening, sun not completely set, window open, train station across the street, and that tall billboard for Terminal Hotel. I couldn't breathe. I never had a problem crying before my girlfriend for she was my girlfriend and there was nothing to hide. But it's easy to say 'hide nothing, be honest' when it's all retrospective now, and looking back, I cried as though my stomach was cut from me and my arms had no power to gather back my insides. This is not to paint an ugly picture of myself, but to tell you just how desperate I was feeling, and how much I hated myself for missing a part of my body, the part of my body that could have relieved me from saying things like I want to be strong. Yuki stayed with me the whole time. She was really something special.

time and distraction

Was distracted a little bit just now. Now I see the advantage of having a big chunk of time. Your ability to recover from distraction is greater. But the good thing about having a little chunk of time is you cannot afford distraction in the first place. In other words, the distraction prevention mechanism of the little chunk is much more solid than the big chunk.

as people and places overlap

The CD plays. The Island band sings lyrics with a quality that cannot be found nowadays anywhere in Hong Kong. Current HK pop is quite dead.

My heart pours out for my home
Viewing from a distance -- the home of my heart
On what day will I return?

Surely my translation retains little of the essence that the performers intend.

In my most recent story, Leo (whom I shall rename) brings up the problem of writing too many stories in succession. The storywriting itself is not a problem. The problem is that he meets women, a succession of women. Each woman gives him an idea for a story and he writes and writes and writes and in a rush of whirling inspiration he writes a story in a month's time. As the story is about to finish itself, the woman fades away, or rather, as the woman begins to fade away, he is touched by a beautiful tension that brings his pen to finish the story he has started. He doesn't know what causes what. He brings this up to Audrey thinking she can help him. She considers the situation with some curiosity at first, but in the end, Leo becomes what she calls an 'ugly' person (this sounds a bit random).

fourth quarter

Raptors beat Lakers as Kobe's last open look for three rims out. Christopher says Steve Nash should be MVP. I said the Lakers lost because Chris Mihm didn't play. In the car on our way back we talked basketball stuff. I had two packs animal crackers in my knapsack which I put in the trunk. We lined up for pizza at half-time and missed a bit of the start of the third quarter. "I dream about Agent Zero," says Christopher. I laughed because it took me a few seconds before I made the connection to the player he was referring to. The animal crackers are shaped like animals and each piece has the name of the animal spelled out so kids can learn English words like 'fox' and 'rhinoceros'. I had two packs. Seaweed flavour and red bean flavour. Red bean flavour is new. I never saw red bean flavour before.

whenever sang my song

One dream I have is to be able, for once, to stand on a stage in front of an audience and sing a song. The audience will listen to me and the words I have to sing. There will be no interference. Just me standing on the stage in my plain white shirt, and a few people who listen. I may not sing very well. I may even miss some notes. But at least I have something to express and the message, however hidden it might be behind the melody and the fame of the singer associated with the song, the message will be there, I'm sure of that. Whether they hear it, is another story.

tombo house, the shrine, nakamura camera

Tonight I'm missing Maya. Strange. Isn't it? The way we went our separate ways and me on this evening upon digging up old letters in search of a friend's address stumble upon Maya's scribbling. "Dear Adam, please understand... I don't love you anymore." How does one articulate the end of love? As I ponder here before my keyboard, almost ten years away, I wonder if ever I have crossed her mind in these years, or if I'm even a little tint in the corner of a window, or a pebble, at least? This is the way I like to think. This is why people like me sleep late because thoughts never quite get cleared out, and what scares me is by writing it I might see her in my dream. I did like Maya very much. I really did.

But across the street I see through my window, over in that streetcorner just outside the convenience store, this evening, next to the little phone booth she is standing there waiting for me to wake up, waiting for me to meet her there like I said I would. She is there watching me sleep and how I have forgotten to wake up yet again. Why do you want to talk to me so much? And why is it that I'm afraid to talk to you? Why is it that...

orange

Was very sleepy and tired while my friends celebrated my birthday with me. As I sat there on the carpet while a few friends chatted and a few friends washed dishes and all, I thought to myself: Why? That love is defined by action. And what can I do for people?

ba-sday

It took me a good thirty minutes after waking up to realize that today is my birthday. I revisited Daiichi high school this morning through a website sent to me from a friend. A birthday present? Having my memories stirred so early in the morning I'm not sure if it's a healthy thing, especially when I was about to write, about to work on this new story I was supposed to have worked on yesterday. But yes. It's white outside. Not snowing. Just accumulated snow from the night before. The sky even looks a faint blue and very very faint purple.

Sometimes I think about what would have happened to me had I not come to Canada at all, had I, in that summer of 1989, made a headstrong declaration to stay, and force my parents to find a place for me there, keep myself at Munsang College and have me finish highschool there, what would have happened, or, how would I have turned out? Deep down, I miss being in a school with uniforms. I miss being in school in Japan. I miss being in school in Hong Kong. Sometimes I feel as though I've had that part of my life stripped from me. But then, the restrictions of schooling in Hong Kong and Japan might have been too much, and I wonder had I stayed would I have turned out not as round as I am now, more like a square. Would I be as free thinking as I am now? I like my freethinkingness. It's something I taught to myself.

Too many scattered images in the last few days to record. Last night I was reading Jane Eyre and Tuesdays with Morrie. This morning I will write a little and then head out for work. Then my friends have planned something of a dinner for me for this being something of a ba-sday for me and I am 27. The years 20-27 have gone by very quickly and I feel as though I'm still adjusting to this new millennium. 20-24 was a big cloud. In 2004 I fished myself out of a hazy pond. Now we're here. I refuse to be too busy. Time moves too fast if I'm too busy. I have resolved that I might never own a house or a car. I might not even get married. Who knows. But I shall have time to explore and write and share this experience with people. I have decided quite some time ago that this shall be the way I live. And here I am.