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Tue | January 31, 2006
my life as a dog-walker
Tuesday. I am back to my New Jersey schedule. I spent the past twelve days living in the West Village at someone's apartment and taking care of her dog.
I am not sure whether I would ever want a dog. They require a lot of care, i.e., picking up their shit, day in, day out. They don't really do anything; they are just there. They are furry and soft, but once you take them on a few walks and see how they trod in urine, you hesitate a little before petting. My hands are dry from all the hand-washing I did.
Then again, the dog served as an external conscience of sorts-- a witness who kept me on good behavior. I am not sure why, but it has something to do with the exteriority of the element. He was a live connection to, and reminder of, reality, and yet an unobtrusive one.
He woke me up in the morning, and sometimes in the middle of the night. He woke me up at 6 or 7, most of the days, which might have annoyed me because one of the benefits I anticipated was that I would be able to sleep later. But I rolled with it, I got up and did stuff--typed a little, thought a little. It was good because I did more that way. And I didn't feel drowsy then, and I don't feel sleep-deprived now. It was quiet in that apartment, which I have learned is essential to me.
So I had a little vacay, of sorts. I explored the area, and walked around, with a dog. Then again it wasn't really a vacay because I was still going to kaps and mostly doing my regular things. It was more of an extensive imagining, role-playing of what it would be like to be a 'normal' person. Or at least, a person living in the village. I also saw a lot of my sister, who happened to be on vacation as well.
journal | Posted by Lily at 06:53 PM
Fri | January 27, 2006
MoMA
I went to the MoMA yesterday. I had previously decided that I didn't like museums, but the decision has now been reversed-- an exception has been made! for the MoMA. It was great. I really enjoyed wandering through all the galleries and observing the settings, scenes, subjects, colors, arrangements, perspectives, and styles. I had this audio thing that explained a few things about some of the paintings and it was actually pretty good. I had always assumed those audio things were unbearably boring. I only listened to some of them though, because I was with my sister and her friend and they were sort of done with it from the start. Something to do if I go back, I guess. Then we ate in the fancypants museum restaurant and I had... pork cheeks! and felt like a cannibal.
journal | Posted by Lily at 05:16 PM
Wed | January 25, 2006
vietnamese writers reading
I went to a reading by Vietnamese writers last night. It was the fourth or fifth time I attended an event organized by the Asian American Writers' Workshop.
They read monotonously, except maybe the poet-- but she had the demerit of obvious imagery and thoughts. One of her poems was actually, literally, abecedarian. Not that I know anything about poetry so I shouldn't judge. But the prose, I do know. And I thought it was unremarkable. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything very good either. And some of it was wrong.
I think I have higher standards for Asians. I have tolerated a lot of readings at KGB with little comment. At any rate, the three readers last night were a cautionary tale against sounding bored by your own work. I have noticed that many writers, myself def included, sound absolutely bored when talking about writing. If I am ever up and reading I will have to remember to forget it is mine, and perhaps read it as if it is someone else's.
Last night, I listened, hung around a bit, and then left. I have never talked to anyone at an aaww event. I don't really know why. It seems just as likely that I would have talked to someone as not talked to someone. And yet I never have. Whereas at KGB there have been times when I have said a few words. Maybe next time.
journal | Posted by Lily at 01:50 PM
Fri | January 20, 2006
The Pond
For the second day I watched the striking of The Pond, the ice rink at Bryant Park. Earlier today it seemed likely I would not, for once, spend lunch hour mentally palpating the problem of modern isolation. It seemed I might dine with the grad curriculum pods. I had somehow established a pattern of not eating with them, because I had errands to run every day for the first few weeks I started working again back in Oct/Nov. Then other things... the end of which was, I think, that I grew to like my time alone, which I used to reflect and collect my thoughts. Or browse the magazine section at Coliseum. One likes anything if one spends enough time with it.
So while the prospect of actually speaking during the day, and engaging in conversation, was overall favorable, my first thought in response to the proposition was that I would miss seeing the breakdown of the park. It all neutralized to a feeling of indifference when it was 1:30 and I was too hungry to wait around, for them to get back from whereever they were, and considered that they might have left without me.
And so I sat in the park as usual, though slightly differently, as today I sat by the buddhaesque statue of Gertrude Stein.
I went ice skating twice. Once last Wednesday after work; again on Monday night. On Wednesday it drizzled and there weren't many people. On Monday, the last day of skating, the people moved in a herd, like rush hour. At a uniform and moderate pace.
When there are masses, everything is average and everything is rational. Much like contemporary fiction. It proceeds in its perfectly orchestrated and thus completely dead manner.
The kids do it right. They speed. They stop short, they cut corners, they go whereever they see an opening. They flail their arms, tumble, and are up again, frosted with shaved ice. Only they get the thrill of skating.
Both times, I scuffled in the perfect loop for a good thirty to forty minutes, in an extended warmup. Eventually I picked up the pace. I learned it is actually easier to skate if you go faster. It was only the third and fourth time I had skated ever. It is too bad I didn't start earlier in the winter.
journal | Posted by Lily at 02:48 PM
Thu | January 19, 2006
new phone
I got a new phone today. Still no scissors. But I have not been in the habit of searching for split ends.
journal | Posted by Lily at 03:05 PM
Wed | January 18, 2006
against poetry
I have been reading poetry recently, and I think it is making me depressed.
I would not recommend anyone reading poetry.
Except my enemies. Also, I have noticed my thighs and ass getting fat.
Yet another reason not to read poetry.
nonsense | Posted by Lily at 05:53 PM
Sat | January 14, 2006
football
Because I had nothing better to do, and I wanted to "be there" for my parents, who are going to Mexico tomorrow, I sat around and watched football all day today.
"How much football can they have in a day?" I asked my dad, when another game started.
"Two," my dad said.
Bizarrely, my understanding of football mostly comes from high school gym class. One year we took a break from perpetual volleyball to play touch football for several weeks. It's funny how some things which you think are small and insignificant at the time end up being useful or holding you in good stead for years to come.
Not that football is so useful to me. But in recent years I have found it somewhat interesting to watch. I experience what is perhaps a sadistic fascination in watching people make a tremendous effort for very little result-- for progress of a few feet. There has been so much slow futility in my post-undergraduate years that it feels comforting to watch someone else's unproductive efforts.
The essence of football, to me, seems to be frustration. And of baseball-- waiting. But football-- frustration and also wasted effort and unproductivity, a lot of it seemingly unnecessary. I mean, if I controlled the world, and someone wanted to run a ball to the other end of a field, I would just let him. I wouldn't want to be an obstacle; in fact I would get out of the way.
Which is pretty much how I played football in high school. I wonder if the guys who were into it were annoyed about the lackadaisical attitude towards gym class. But football was a little different because at some point people did get into it. I think this was in part because it was the one sport where we had fixed teams, instead of drifting randomly into groups, or worse, getting chosen.
I remember the day that I realized we were actually having fun in gym. Greg Tsang was our captain and we were playing Paul Hajjar's team. We had played them a couple of days ago and lost. And after the first few attempts Greg said he had an idea. He told us all to run to one side of the field, leading all the people marking us along. Then he faked out Paul and ran for a touchdown.
The whole thing was unprecedented because usually, everyone ran wherever they felt like, trying to get open. It was unusual to have a plan at all.
So that was kind of fun and memorable. And then "football season" was over and I remember kind of missing it. I also remember that when Greg called us into a huddle, saying, I have a plan, Holly said amusedly, Greg thinks about this. It was the only non-peevish thing she had ever said within my hearing. And I had never agreed with anything that Holly had ever said, ever. But she had said exactly what I was thinking.
That was high school. I guess school wasn't bad all the time. Of high school, I mostly remember the seemingly irremediable frustration with "the system" that I felt during my last year, and my desire to simply leave. I was happy the first year, and maybe another, and then increasingly disillusioned the third year, and miserable the last.
Today it was the Seahawks versus the Redskins. If deciding what team to root for, I think about what word I like better. Patriots versus Broncos, this second game, is easier. Broncos are definitely better because I have very little remaining American patriotism. The quarterback is very cute but this doesn't make up for it. Also, I am a horse in Chinese astrology so wild horses are definitely favored. Between seahawks and redskins, there are reasons to like both. Redskins represent injustice, and seahawks are animals, and apparently they have some connection to the sea.
Jeux | Posted by Lily at 11:24 PM
Tue | January 10, 2006
today's thoughts
Metro deli's spicy chicken is too spicy.
Usually Metro deli guy puts the right amount of raspberry ginger or tomato basil dressing in my salad, but today he did not.
For the past month, I have sat in Bryant Park during lunch and observed the ice skaters, and have tried to think of whom I could go with, and come up with nothing.
Today I thought, how incompetent I must be, at managing my personal life, that I cannot fulfill this simplest wish for myself.
I think I will go tomorrow, during lunch, or at 6. I must remember to bring my own padlock.
I went to the Half-King reading last night. DG was there.
Today may well be the second day sans writing exercise.
I went to the NYPL humanities and social sciences during lunch and looked at the exhibition of old books.
journal | Posted by Lily at 12:59 PM
Sun | January 08, 2006
Winter Passage
It was a morning in December. I sat in my cubicle, looking at the bruised purplish grey wall and lamenting the passing of the holiday season, in which I had taken little part. My cell phone rang. I wished it was Jake. It was my sister.
She spoke with affected friendliness. We hate each other. I try to ignore her. I think her trivial. Sure enough she had called to ask me what size her coffee filters were. Two years ago I bought her a coffee maker. I resented the fact that I knew they were size 4.
"Are you sure it's 4?"
"No," I said, for no reason.
"Does it really matter if I get the wrong size? What's the difference? Oh, I think they get bigger." Jen could not make the smallest decision without consulting someone. I welcomed the break from work so I tolerated the conversation.
"They're on sale! Twenty cents." she said. "Twenty cents, for one hundred!" she was dividing out the cost per cone. I braced myself for the result. And then decided I didn't want to hear it.
"I have to go," I said.
"I'm getting a new shampoo and conditioner."
"I have to go."
"What are you doing?"
"Work."
I got off the phone and took a walk around the floor. There was no one there. It was the week after Christmas and before the New Year. Everyone was off having a good time.
I made myself a coffee with two sugars, a little skim, and a little half and half. I sat down and gauged the size of my thighs. They had gotten fat from too many nights with mud slide.
They rubbed against each other as I walked the halls again and glanced into the empty cubicles. Seeking a reason to prolong the walk, I went down the stairwell. The stairwell was dusty. I wondered whether the air was hazardous. The walls were a wet-looking white and the steps were grey. Inexplicably there were a few small white feathers at every landing. It gave me an ominous feeling, as if a bird might suddenly fly out from around the corner.
I had never been to the bottom. At the bottom was a long hall. It was wide and tall enough for a small car. With a bicycle on top. And more. I felt liberated, and trotted down the passage. The white cinderblock gleamed. It would make a fine sordid retreat with Jake. Jake was a guy I would never have.
I know a place we can go, I say.
Let's stop here, he says, on a landing in the stairwell.
No, there's a better place at the bottom, I say. Look at those small white feathers. What do you think they're doing there?
We reach the bottom, where I paced, imagining it all. I wondered if it would be unhealthy to inhale deeply there. And if lingering there one would pick up the smell of polluted rain that stagnated in that space.
oh! oh! oh! oh!
But Jake was not the type. He worked on Wall Street. He lived on the East Side. He wouldn't think of going down there. I asked myself how long I had been down there myself. I walked to the end where there was a metal door and a sign that said: Caution: stairs immediately behind door. I pushed the bar and peered down the stairs to the door at the end, but did not go.
"Where'd ja go?" Alex asked. He always asked where I had been.
"Nowhere," I said.
He did not reply. I began to feel regretful. "I went down the stairwell," I said a few minutes later.
Alex was interested in me, but I was not interested in him. He was too cheery. I had moved beyond that long ago, and I could not go back. And yet--
"I'll show you something," I said.
"Ok," he said. Around the corner and down the stairwell we went. He did not see the feathers on the ground. He did not see things unless they were pointed out to him. It was one reason why I disliked him. And when we were at the bottom and walking down the long, remote hall, he did not see its potential.
"Well," he said, looking at the clammy walls. "It's like another place entirely."
We are in another place, I would have said, but I didn't. I turned around and led the way back. I supposed I must be a little insane for looking at that clammy hallway and thinking of anything besides the clammy hallway.
At 6 as I got up to leave, he got up also. "Time for a drink?" he asked.
"Okay."
We had not taken ten steps when he said, "or do you want to get sushi." It was alarming, the way he proceeded without caution. And yet I thought, perhaps this is the only way things will happen. Jake and I were both so cautious, and doubtful, that nothing would ever happen.
"Cheers," he said, lifting his glass of sake. He brought it to his lips with a lascivious look. It seemed improper and premature and completely unfounded. He raised an eyebrow and nodded knowingly. He reminded me of my mother, who talked on and on, without checking to see if anyone was listening.
I drank. My charm bracelet jingled as I put my arm down. He reached over and felt it. I reflexively extended my arm to make it easier for him. He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it. I drew it back.
"The sushi is good," he said.
My face had flushed with the wine, and as we walked down the street past unknown people on the sidewalk and past buildings and apartments full of more unknown, I felt drawn to this convenient, immediate person next to me. As we stopped at a crosswalk, I suddenly put my hand in his elbow.
"It's cold!" I said. "It's colder than it was before."
"My apartment is warm," he said, "and so is my bed."
I broke free of his arm. His eyes glinted in the lamplight. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. I wanted to say something to him. I wanted to tell him he was crazy for the way he proceeded without caution.
"Look at that," he said, pointing off to the side. I looked. He stepped forward and his lips were on my neck. The wetness touched me to the bones.
The bothersome pest dissolved and I clung to the warmth and the shared breath. I laughed. He stood close and pushed against and upwards. It was unabashedly crass. He did it again. I gave no reaction. I was thinking. But I was trying to think as I hung about his shoulders and it was useless. My mind had collapsed and spilled over like melted candlewax.
His bed was higher than mine, and it felt as if we had gotten on stage. But we were on a boat, on a river, and it was a relief to be there.
"A cigar," he said afterwards. I thought of how to go back. It was impossible.
He had put on his robe and sat on a low armchair. He did not think to offer me anything. I took his shirt and crawled onto his lap. I thought of the stairwell and its dusty steps. And of the hall at the bottom-- how it glowed with that strange, slimy white paint. His apartment seemed large and well decorated. There was a fabric hanging on the wall. On the next wall, there was another fabric.
On the table, there was a wooden puzzle of several interlocking pieces. I walked over and picked it up.
"Don't take that apart," he said languidly, "I don't know how to put it back together." I found the piece that slid out, and it fell to pieces on the table.
"My God," he said with genuine consternation.
"I'll fix it," I said. I began to study the small logs and their indentations.
I took a few pieces back to the armchair and he put his arms around my waist. It was a pleasant constraint. I did not resist-- in fact I wanted to feel them tighter. Reaching under his robe I felt his chest, and kissed him again and again.
I picked one piece up and counted the nicks. Three. And the next piece had two. As I put them together, flipped and tried, he advised, "they don't fit side by side. You have to line up the identical pieces and then fit them crosswise."
He went to sleep. I stayed up. I thought of how when Jake held the door he was thinking, let me get the door for her. Alex did it thinking, I'm a swell guy. It was no good, I knew.
It was late. "Alex," I said. He had fallen asleep. I got into the bed and waited, sleeping and waking, for the morning.
fiction | Posted by Lily at 02:15 AM
Sat | January 07, 2006
music
an ongoing list of some of my favorite music.
Bamboo | Kazu Matsui
good background music
Whisper from the Mirror | Keiko Matsui
more good background music. Kazu and Keiko are a couple, I think.
Benabar | Benabar
I looooove this.
De L'amour Le Mieux | Natasha St-Pier
My first cd from amazon.fr, which is now available sans hefty import tax and shipping on amazon us.
L'homme De Moment | Alexis HK
I got this from fnac when I was in Paris Nov 2004.
In This Skin | Jessica Simpson
Even though she and Nick Lachey were cloying incarnations of Barbie and Ken, I listen to this all the time.
Livres, films, TV | Posted by Lily at 11:03 AM
Fri | January 06, 2006
self-improvement
I am such a lunatic. I am not working at kaps today, and yet I did related work. I did a GRE essay. The idea with these is to agree or disagree, or take some sort of position on the statement. Crazily, this is supposed to be done in half an hour. This prompt was not that bad, but some of them are like meaning of life type questions where you're just like, you want me to tell you this now?
"The widespread idea that people should make self-improvement a primary goal in their lives is problematic because it assumes that people are intrinsically deficient."
The idea of self-improvement is erroneous not because of its assumption that people are intrinsically deficient, but because the goal is vague and not directed towards a well-defined, tangible result. As an example, take New Year's resolutions. Why do most people fail to attain their resolutions? And yet many people constantly achieve their goals. I would argue that it is because a resolution tends to be for some sort of behavioral change, like exercise more, or eat more vegetables-- to change yourself in some way. It is self-improvement. A goal, in contrast, is to use who you are already, to achieve some purpose. It is more tangible and defined; it has a beginning and an ending. You can be done with goals but you are never done with resolutions. A resolution is more difficult than a goal.
Should self-improvement be abandoned simply because it is difficult? In a way, yes. One of the characteristics of a good goal is that it is achievable. If the "goal" is a continual concept such as "self-improvement," one never feels done with it, and therefore never gets the good feeling of having accomplished it. A better way to improve oneself is to wrap self-improvement up in a goal. In other words, set a goal such that self-improvement is incorporated in the process of achieving the goal.
For example, say a person fears technology. Whenever she is on the computer she has a corrosive fear that something horrible is going to happen. The self-improvement goal "get over fear" is not good. Even if it is broken up into actions she can take to get over her fear, "fear" is too vague a feeling to quantify clearly. At one point does she feel fear? How much fear is too much? Must she be absolutely fearless to have achieved the goal? Even the technorati feel nervous about computer problems sometimes. However, say she sets a goal to make a website. She has always admired people who have websites-- they seem so techno-savvy, so up-to-the-trends. This is a tangible goal. When she finishes, she something to show people-- and to show herself the next time she feels technophobic.
This differs from a self-improvement goal because the goal was not to change herself, but to make a website. An increase in comfort with technology was a positive side effect of achieving the goal, but it wasn't the goal itself. This is significant because even if she feels fear in the future, this doesn't detract from what she has accomplished. Whereas if the goal was to "get over fear," then the moment she feels techno-terror, she has lost.
In some ways we are destined to always battle ourselves and our disadvantageous tendencies. However in the struggle to become a better person, it is inadvisable and misfocused to make "self-improvement" the goal. Self improvement comes in the process of achieving tangible, focused goals with a beginning and an ending-- goals which, once achieved, can never be taken away.
Écriture | Posted by Lily at 04:14 PM
Wed | January 04, 2006
the perfect seat
It is good that I am not a working stiff. When you're a working stiff, your goals become, "Today I'm going to drink water." "Today I will get a good seat on the train."
One of the first accomplishments of the day (besides getting up at all) is to get a good seat. This means not only sitting in the right place, but also a tolerable person then sitting next to you. You do have some influence over who sits next to you, via eye contact and body language. I am sure I wrote about it at my penn station blog.
So I know how to get the best seat possible on the 8:05 train-- the Dover line. It differs depending on what part of the line you get on. Chatham is in the middle, so some people have gotten on already. The window seats fill first, on either side. People who board at Chatham sit in the aisle seat on the three-seater. In fact it is possible, by looking at a person's seat on the train, to have some idea what town he or she is from. The ones by the window are from before Chatham. The ones in the aisle seats are Chatham and Summit. The ones in the middle seat on the three-seater, are South Orange.
The 8:05 is an express and so it skips the other stops on the line-- Short Hills and Millburn and all them. It just goes Chatham, Summit, South Orange, New York. I can recite the stops on the way back like an alphabet-- Secaucus, Newark Broad Street, Brick Church, Orange, South Orange, Maplewood, Millburn, Short Hills, Summit, Chatham, Madison, Convent Station, Morristown, Morris Plains, Mount Tabor, Denville and Dover.
The aisle seats are pretty good for the morning rush hour. While one could argue that a window seat is best, there is the disadvantage of not being able to easily get up as the train pulls into Penn Station, to wait by the door and be one of the first ones off the train.
Today I sat in a three-seater aisle seat in the middle of the first half of the second car, next to a woman in a grey overcoat.
journal | Posted by Lily at 11:59 AM
Tue | January 03, 2006
resolutions
I made some resolutions for 2006. I started thinking of things like, learn to dance. Or, learn to write right-handed. Because that would be cool. But then I thought, a lot of the things I was coming up with, were not central. I think this is why most people forget their resolutions in a few weeks. Anything you want to be doing, you are probably already working on it. If you have to think so hard to come up with it, then it's probably not that important.
Also, a resolution tends to be for some sort of behavioral change, like exercise more, or eat more vegetables-- to change yourself in some way. A goal, in contrast, is to use who you are already, to achieve some purpose. It is more tangible and defined; it has a beginning and ending. You can be done with goals but you are never done with resolutions. A resolution is more difficult than a goal.
So I kind of gave up on making resolutions. I made some, but they were more like goals, and they were kind of peripheral. I think on Thursday, I might try to make some goals. But then again, making a list of things I am going to do is overwhelming. I can’t do or think of that many things at once; I end up doing nothing. So maybe I won’t do that. Or I will make a list or a plan and then literally throw everything but the first thing or step away, so that I don’t start hyperventilating.