Changes

It's been so long since I wrote here that it took me some time to remember my password. It gave me the opportunity to go back and look at previous posts and I think the writing holds up pretty well. If anything, I'm a worse writer now that I'm not blogging regularly.

My sense of narrative is failing, to say nothing of poetic turns of phrase. I don't write poetry anymore. If that's not a sad and short statement of where my life is, I don't know what is.

It's not that I'm unhappy, quite. You could say that I'm comfortable, except that I'm still searching for who I am. So I hope to blog here more often, to sort through what's happening in my life and to have a record of how my life is progressing.

Reading earlier posts, they're so raw that it still hits me. Naive, angry, hurt, cynical but not jaded. Part of me wishes that I never hit the jaded wall, that I always remain just on this side of hope. I'm older and hopefully wiser. Or at least people look up to me for advice. I feel like an old timer these days, less bitter and more contemplative. Happier to spend a day cooking and eating with friends, and less inclined to try to overturn the scales of justice.

It's what I've always wanted. So why can't I sleep at night?

Dead of winter

Recently I have been feeling the need for nature, for verdant life and the tranquility of trees. I miss the leave-dappled sunlight falling on me as I take a leisurely hike in the mountains.

I don't know if it's my work, my personal life, or the failing health of those around me, but I felt a very desperate need to escape to the countryside that has yet to be fulfilled.

In lieu, I bought some green beans from the market and boiled them, without even stripping away the stems. I have been biting into their green juices and feeling the sweet crunch of life.

It is a pale substitute for time spent connecting with the earth, but it will have to suffice for now. My heart has been heavy, my thoughts weary and belabored for a while. I need some form of release, a weekend by the water or the foothills.

In this dead of winter, I am trying to taste the vitality that the earth provides and sing an ode to friends here and gone. Instead I bury myself in sleep.

Goal

Become more organized. Else, mishaps follow.

Rebuilding; or Sink/Swim

Our country desperately needs to go through a time of healing and rebuilding. The Bush presidency has left some very deep wounds which would take time or a magician to heal.

And Barack Obama is no magician. He even tells us this with his flaws and foibles. He is, after all, only human, as I must remind my eager and naive friends. He is not only human, he is a politician, and he has to win. As any good community organizer knows, you must always hold the elected officials accountable - even when they are your friends, even when they come out of community organizing.

I also want to say something about my own rebuilding process. I have not been blogging recently because I have been trying to process things in the personal arena:

How do you know when you have it all?
How do you know to be happy with what you have?
How do you maintain and grow?

Losing friends is always hard - it feels like a breakup of some sort. Good friends understand that you need time and distance to heal as well. I went through a do I call? When do I call? Does making the first move mean that I am at fault?

And what I am slowly coming to realize is that yes, I am more at fault and I need to take responsibility for that. Perhaps it was never a tenable situation because even when we were younger I never felt like we were equals. But we were. It has to do with how people perceive us - the light and the dark. The tall and the short. The loud and the reflective.

I had to grow, and so did she. Part of why it's hard is because I don't even know if she ever felt like it was unequal. (No, that's not fair.) I know she has learned from me and I from her, and that part of my lack of confidence in myself and my words actually dates back to 3 years ago when I lost respect for myself. I could cry and say that I am damaged goods because of that, irreparable. I could feign courage (and that would be a start because I am in a very defensive position and have been retreating) but I think I owe myself the honesty of saying I don't know. To somewhere somewhere where it won't hurt a loved one.

I don't know if I have the strength to change. To keep on fighting. And this is not even about -- rather, is not just about expectations. My expectations for myself, other people's expectations that I be the passionate leader and trail blazer.

It is about acknowledging that yes, things have happened in that past. Childhood memories and patterns are imprinted upon us like whisper weave gauze, filming how we see the world. Underneath, we are totally visible to the world, lace brides of extinction.

And yet the dreamy blur that we see through, always coated, always there. I have been taught since childhood to maintain face. To follow instruction.

Then I untethered myself to chart a new course. I subverted the model and walked my own path, a rarer path than most. Do I say this with some small amount of rebel's pride? Yes, because I have walked it and made it work for me. It's like putting on some spike-heeled shoes and finding out midway through that they are actually the most comfortable pair of Docs. That contrarian's knowledge was my battleship plating on some if not most days.

But now I find myself unmoored.

At all previous points, I have found safe harbors in unknown waters. Full of drive and curiosity, I have created safe havens, lit by the fire of escaping someone else's preconceived or pre-defined destinies. Now I feel as though my engine's sputtered. And I know I am merely drifting.

It is too easy to dissemble and pretend that I haven't lost my moorings. That everything is okay. I do, and I can, passably. But I am not a good enough actor and so sometimes I am too brutally honest. People prefer the solace of little white lies.

I've become adrift precisely because I can. Because I have that privilege. It's weird and disturbing and I don't want to think about what that means. I've grown up fighting for people without much and now I can simply coast. And my tremendous guilt is what's allowing me to run along on the back of the wind. But winds change, and I don't wanna be stuck in the middle of the ocean, miles from nowhere and short on supplies.

I need to go back to being resourceful.

To take this empty space and to figure out how to reinvent myself. To focus if nothing else on what I like, what I excel at, and where the twain meet. To figure out who I am and why I have come this far. I cannot be a good person, friend, activist, lover without doing some of this hard work. No one else is going to do it for me. The self-induced emotional flagellation has to stop. The growing has to start.

And I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I am afraid to rebuild. My battleship's a shambles and taking on water. My immigrant parents would be ashamed that I can't fucking decide if I want to sink or swim.

Typical - I am half-heartedly dog paddling.

Process and retreat

I originally started this blog as a way of processing what was happening to me in a previous (it feels like many moons ago) job. Since then, I've managed to forgive most of the people there, and really, it's not like they did me any huge wrongs. The organization was poorly run - so poorly run that after I left, it was discovered that 1 person had been stealing.

There are lots of things going on in my life now, and I need to keep blogging if only so that I have a place to sort these things out - if not on paper, then in bytes.

Writing has always always helped me to process change. This is no different than any of those times. The beauty and the joy of living is embedded in these moments of reflection. Of genuflection.

My life has been the tiniest bit in turmoil recently, and this is a change year in many ways, not just the election.

What I want now is a good solid ship to sail on.

Addendum: I got sucked into the whole tracking of my stats and it was exhilarating to watch it spike and climb exponentially. I started blogging just for the ego-feeding of it and felt a demand and need to publish and produce not unlike the unholy horror of academia. Now I think I am simply back to writing for the hell of it, for the need of it. Be forewarned, this is going to involve a fair bit of personal analysis of . . . well, me. Politics may come second for a little bit. But as they say, the personal is political.

Where I'm going and where I'm at

I have been neglecting the blog for a bit lately. Things have been sorta rough, and I am trying to sort things out. As if you could handle life items the way you handle clothing that you take out of the dryer.

I started the blog when I was in confusion and disarray. It seemed to help me sort and process. So maybe it's back to blog therapy - who knows?

All I know is I have loads of angst to burn, and that leaves not much time in which to write, sort, or live.

In my previous years I have always retreated into my personal writing space as a way of coping and of making sense of the world. Perhaps its time to hit the political pause button and just wind up personal for a bit. I'm not even sure how many of these rants and processes are going to be made public but I need a separate space, a separate self to rant. And then I can come back later and pick through the pieces and put together the puzzle, just as I did with my "stop breathing" posts.

Sorry for those readers who are interested in my political analysis. I'll still throw in the odd tidbit here and there, but in the middle of a country that's falling apart, so am I.

(Yeah, I did just write something that narcissistic.)

Can't you tell that's why I desperately need to blog it?

Happy readings,
power & politics

Belated thanksgiving

Work has been really busy. And I didn't get a chance to reflect on what I'm thankful for this year, which is a shame. Because I have so many wonderful people in my life and I'm blessed to be where I'm at. I suppose my musical kick is because music unites and heals us.

I suppose part of me feels weird being happy and has to go dig up some angst in a nod to who I used to be. And partially I believe that angst fuels or drives writers and even bloggers. But what I want to focus on is what I am really freakin' grateful for.

I know for certain that I'm lucky to be where I'm standing, and that well, some days I wouldn't be standing if it wasn't for my friends and family. So I'm thankful for my wide circle of friends, who have always been there for me. I'm thankful for my family, who don't always understand what I do but who want the best for me. I'm thankful for my family of friends who believe in me, and whom I learn from. And who I get to share lovely cuckoo moments with as well as more probing, root cause kinds of conversations.

I'm lucky that I get to blog and that I'm an American. It's a privilege that I think we frequently neglect to consider, but when you consider that people who came here to make a better life are giving up on the American Dream, I'm damned lucky. I'm lucky that I'm able to go out to dinner and tip well without worrying if it'll set me back.

I'm lucky that I can afford to give money and time (sometimes) to my favorite causes. I'm really lucky that I get to work for great progressive causes with folks who I love.

I'm thankful for the basics - food, a warm bed, roof over my head, and my laptop. (Just kidding. . . I know lots of people around the globe don't have laptops or even the basics.)

I'm grateful that I've been able to learn and grow from past experiences (I hope) and that these lessons inform my current and future decisions. I'm lucky that I have people who support and care for me. Love to all.

Craigslisted

I logged into sitemeter and saw I had a sudden precipitous spike in readership, and I found out it was mostly due to me making Craig Newmark of craigslist's favorite comment about him being on the Colbert Report:

Well, my favorite quote regarding the Colbert thing is from Power and Politics:

[Colbert] had Craig Newmark (craigslist) on, and the nerd on nerd interaction was hot and hilarious.

Thanks Craig, I call it like I see it. One of these days I'm going to get my ass into a live Colbert Report taping.

Now my readership has spiked up, but if history is any judge, readership waxes and wanes, so I'm not going to take all the credit. My sudden burst of creative humor is attributable to major procrastination since I have a big work project that I don't want to touch. And what better way to unwind than with a lil Colbert?

It sounds like a fancy French cheese, and I am sure that one day the man will have not just an American eagle (Stephen Jr), dangerously addictive Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and a Virgin Air plane named after him, but that he will have some ridiculously tasty, super-premium triple-cream cheese named after him. Perhaps it will join the President line of cheese?

I expect it will taste something like port salut but with a red, white, and blue rind. Damn, now I'm hungry. Off to the grocery store.

PS: Obviously, if Colbert were an American cheese (and he's totally all-American), he would be a sharp cheddar with significant bite.

Housekeeping

My new gig keeps me up at night and too busy to blog or think about blogging half the time...I'm running on about 5-6 hours of sleep a day, if even that. I am traveling again, all over, but I'm happy.

I hardly even have the time to keep up on politics all day long that I used to. So posts here will be slightly less frequent, but I want to maintain the same level of quality writing and agitating. analyzing and digressing as I have before, so it's the trade off I will make.

If I see something that really eats me up inside, I will be sure to post, and if I hear about something splendid and sunshiny, I will also post.

In the meantime, it's off to bed for me, and lots of work before that. I mean after I wake up.
But I digress. . .

The secret to staying up late is youtube, and lots of gum. Youtube is like my replacement for winamp, and the beauty of gum/altoids is that if you get the super strong type, the pain will keep you awake long after you need to go to sleep.

Prayers and Hope

Ugh, so I have some bad news. My friend was traveling alone when she got sick and she has to go into surgery tomorrow. She's kinda scared and they're not really giving her the attention that she needs, but I don't know if it is because she is a woman of color or if she doesn't have insurance, or what. It could be both, since it's the South, but this isn't the time for dialectics and pedagogy. Like I have a whole rant about the need for universal health insurance, but right now I hope that she finds the strength to hold up until I can see her. I hope she can get herself together to demand what she needs from the doctors, because it is hard to be forceful when your insides are a puddle and your core vibrates pain.

I'm not a religious person because the first time I tried praying for someone who was sick, it didn't work. She died. Then I thought perhaps religion was not meant for me. since then, when people get really sick, I hope and hope and intone well-being thoughts and wishes their way, but it doesn't have the same urgency or need as a prayer. To pray is to be in a position of need and want and to burn feverishly. To seek cleansing and absolution in the form of supplication.

When I was sick, I was alone amongst healers. I hid all my problems, and I tried to soldier on. but there were things that I faltered at. But it was so lonely being on the road and trying so hard to do good when all I wanted to do was to stay in bed and sleep and cry. If I didn't have great friends and family that I could call, I don't know what I would have done. Probably gone more berserk and gotten even sicker. In the end it made me stronger, but I think I could have done without that kind of object lesson.

Anyhow, if you have a spare moment, please pray for my friend. I still believe more in action than prayer, so I will go rope the doctors and be the asshole who gets results. But I still believe that she could use some good thoughts, so if you are inclined to believe in prayer, send some love her direction.

All the love

Been travelling, so I haven't been on top of blogging as much as I would like to be. Went to a family event, and it was great to have a roomfull of people who were happy, and the air was buzzing with warmth and appreciation. A room full of history and words, memories and stories.

It was so good to be wrapped up in that, and to sing along with everyone else.

The other night I had a dream about one of my childhood friends who I fell out of contact with. I dreamt I saw her on the street or at a gallery showing, and she looked just the same, but older, wiser, sharper, and so much more sophisticated. In my dream she had fulfilled her desire to be a model and her cheekbones could cut glass. She was wearing some devastating black dress but she still had the blonde and brown streaks in her bob. I was chasing after her, hoping that she would forgive me for letting our friendship wane. Abby, I cried, Abby! I tried to hold her aquamarine eyes, cold as glaciers. And she did a precise pirouette away, sauntering with the catlike grace that she lacked when we were eight.

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So Norman Hsu has decided to plead guilty and to go serve his time. It is one act by one individual, please don't tar and feather the rest of the community. It's like the case of Cha Vang, aka the "Hmong hunter." The worry in northwestern Wisconsin/Minnesota was that all Hmongs were hunters and would seek retribution against the white man. I remember my friend told me he saw a "Save a deer, shoot a Hmong" bumper sticker and that tensions ran really high in both communities. A lot of that could have been avoided if people did not over-generalize.

It seems like a pretty simple, even elementary lesson, but here is it for the media, loud and clear: Asian American donations are not suspect. Please don't heap all this on our community now - there is a hell of a lot of China-bashing going on nowadays, because of trade, because of monetary exchange rates, because China holds a lot of the US's debt, and because of some faulty products. The economy is on the downturn, and I know that historically, the decision-makers of the US like to find a scrapegoat, a convenient narrative to pin the blame on.

Don't play into the xenophobia - it's too easy. Find a real story, talk to Asian Americans who are affected. Talk to the Chinese over there who are just as afraid of losing their jobs as the steelworker here. Make the human connection. Don't just turn us into the Other, or into some scary statistic.

Or conversely, look at how far we've come since 96 - celebrate our achievements. There's more than one way to tell a story, so don't choose the cheap shot.

Scenes from a still life accident

Still here, still breathing. I'm riding the crazy rollercoaster of life, celebrating fireworks and friendships. a lot of stuff has gone down the past 2 weeks, and I am trying to decompress, to sift through the going-ons and the drama to find out reality.

It is not often that my life resembles Rashomon, but currently I wish I were a private eye, the omniscient narrator. I wish someone knew what was going on, and that there weren't huge gaps in the b-roll.

All the things I don't know about this situation, and all the potentially explosive ways we can go off. The heartshells lining the beach under a wide canopy of stars and other hopes. For you, they fade.

Watching you disjointed dis-spirited disappearing dilating between the here and the never
I fought to not lead a scorched earth campaign
with your heartshell so open
humpty's crema pouring across the page.

and there is nothing but the foundation of this bed and house
because it could, it was me. It was she. And precious few truths sprinkled
Across layers of limned lies like sediment.
What lies beneath so fungible and base. The wanting to tell
is weighing on my mind. she speaks and planes fall.

THe junkyard of emotion categorizes better than your eyes, welling
spinning telling vacancies of the soul

[Ok, I realize this is not very good. indeed is crap. but does say something about that week, so I am leaving it up for now.]