but now

But now, perhaps, a sense of obligation? Where is that energy I had so much of shortly after I came back from California? I just feel a little funny. It might never go away.. How do I let my arms and legs loose, and hang like stuffed toy keychains that dangle and make that ding ding ding sound?

and oh i've been to georgia and california and...

The sky hasn’t been clear all day. It only had glimpses of clarity, moments when I look through the smog and thought I could trace the contour of a complete cloud, and thought I saw layers to the sky, that it might still resemble the blue-and-white type.

At the house across from me the young couple is playing with the baby. The woman is sitting on the steps with the baby in her arms. The man is crouched behind her and is tapping on the little guy.

At the house further down, a man came by in a white Mazda with tinted windows. He talked to the girl on the driveway for a while. He had his hands around her waist at one point. Three days ago the same girl had received a bouquet from him. Flowers delivered to her on a blue-sky-white-cloud Sunday afternoon. I was on the porch and talking to my friend through the phone. He was at a loss about a girlfriend.

So much can be seen from my porch in the moments I take my eyes off my book. Today I finished Haruki Murakami’s South of the Border. His voice is infectious. I washed it out with Elie Wiesel’s Night. I’m already half way through it. All this reading and random musings are only made possible through working part-time.

tea days

I had ten bubble teas in fourteen days.

070627 W: mint one at Bubble Tease
070628 R: mint milk at Verde
070629 F: Thai tea at Berkeley
(We tried to find bubble tea Sunday night)
070703 T: red tea at Tree Place
070704 W: wintermelon at Tea Destiny
070706 F: red tea at Kotos
070707 X: green bean at Chartwell
070708 S: HK milk tea at Queen’s
070709 M: rose tea at Fancy Cup
070710 T: hazelnut coffee at Tree Place

Had another one this afternoon while reading on the porch.

i'll take my chances in san francisco

The following entry was typed on Thursday June 28th on my flight to San Francisco. Yes, in the plane and little me trapped in a window seat with my Pocket PC and foldable keyboard all laid out on the little tray-table. The text is untouched. It appears below exactly as it appears in my Pocket PC. It retains the airplane feel, typos included.

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070628 R

Work would have just been over if I were still at work. Been three hours or so on the plane now and yes it does feel really cool to have all my equipment in place and I'm even typing he, here in this small compartment of a seat! Tomato juice on my trap; carpet on my lap; just read the first chapter of South of the Border. Again, reminiscent of Norwegian Wood (and in fact reminiscent of all Murakami stories with the nostagia and the direct fct-oriented view-point of the narrator and the mysterious female and so on), but as I was reading a few things occurred. I thought of my story Carmen. I thought of the way I approached it nd the scene of Andy and Carmen sitting on the bench or walking through the park or the very first scene with Carmen angry and standing there with 'a bundle of scorn' and so on. Some lovely phrases but I LOVED the one about having a place for Shimamoto in his heart like the 'Reserved' sign on a table in the dark corner of a restaurant. Wow! So yes, I thought about Carmen. I also thought abnout Betty. The 'vague and unformed interest in the swell on her chest and what laid beneath her skirt. I remember a similar scene with Betty sitting there on the grass of GV. Just a vague notion, yes, an unformed idea. I also thought about Yukie and the images of Japan that I register, right away: like the train stations, the shape of houses, the annual sports day in school. Moreover, like Shimamoto, Yukie was an only child.

I also thought about the craft of writing. The idea opf having rectangular long paragraphs to ease the readers into a story. Lovely. The tone of the narrator and using very clear, fact-based sentences. Good. No need to tring long sentences together because it would sound pretentious if not done well!

Lately I've been reading lots of novels, well not really, I've only read one, Hardboiled Wonderland, and now, another one by Murakami. Not that I'm thinking about writing them. I'm still inconvinced of the idea that a novel resonates more than a short story. O counter this argument, I think of my own favourite stories. Consider '100% Perfect Girl' and 'Newlywed' and 'Something I've Been Meaning To Tell You' and all the Saki stories and the Dubliners stories. Like, seriously.

Back to more reading? Yes. But it feels as though I stil have more to say. This morning in the airport my mind was wanderous. My sense of self dwindled and I let it stick to this man's nice shirt or that girl's nice jacket and so on. Then when I finlly got to sit down at the gate surrounded by sunlight in that spacious area, I came up with the idea of 'being transcendent over being self-contained', or rather, 'self-possessed' might be a better word. How I implement this, the actual strategics still need to be formed, but at this time, I'm glad to have come up with an idea to overcome the dwindling I experienced this morning, and I'm glad to have this as something to start me on this journey. That is, without becoming overly sentimental on this first plane ride in more than four years. It's also nice that despite all those sentiments this morning, I'm still able to really enjoy some reading, a whole chapter, and thinking about my writing, and coming up with points about my writing that comes from my reading and so on... From Yukie to Betty to Carmen, I have come a long way. It's just nice to know that my mind is functioning well even now, way up in the air overlooking the terrains of the Rockies, is it? I don't know. But from way up here, things look awfully small. Mr. Adam, please resume regular activities.