Defining the Relationship

I've created a blog to chronicle my life as homeless.

http://asleep-theroad.blogspot.com

Zhong Wen isn't Sexy will continue to be the blog where I vent.

Homeless Journal, Sept. 20th: Day 1

Slept in a car for the first time last night. Had an argument with a good friend slightly before that. Feet got cold in the middle of the night, but otherwise slept pretty well. The alcohol probably helped. Need to re-think how I cover the car windows, it's too easy to see inside still. Woke up next to a graveyard, walked over to friend's place and brushed my teeth. That was this morning. I felt really lonely today after I finished the day's work. Didn't really have any place to go.
Dinner was spinach and easy-mac.

James Blunt/The Universe

I've spent the last several hours in my underwear, reading NYTimes articles about the cosmos, the big bang, string theory, relativity, and quantum physics. I came to conclude that... it's all very romantic.

Light bends around the sun, the universe could be made of elegantly vibrating strings, and something can be everything at once. Theories that explain things in principle don't make any sense in reality, or maybe there are an infinite number of parallel realities, "cosmic dice throws," meaning our own universe is devoid of meaning as another straw in a haystack in which God had no choice but to create.

Or I might have been listening to too much "Goodbye My Lover."

1 quote I want to remember:

"We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own."

-Arthur Eddington, British astronomer who first observed light bending around the sun.

Bad Moods

I can't stand all the eyeballs here, looking me up wherever I go.

The air is horrible too, both outside and in this cyber-cafe.

A Loud Sucking Sound

I wonder if I am sustainable

Warp Tour

Some guy threw up in front of me. This would've been fine, except he was a bassist, his band was in between songs, and he got some on a little girl who happened to be real close to my chest.

I had a camera, but I froze. Camera ready in my hands, exposure was already set. I had about 10 seconds to take the picture while the guy threw up, but I froze.

And that was the first time all of that ever happened to me.

Prime Time Of Your Life

Some guy opened a red stripe with his teeth. Than another guy sang a guitar solo.




I got dressed up



went out and walked around



and came back.

And in between, all this happened.

Out Of Mind

Last night I rode my bike home, a ghost to the world.

Leaving the theater, I wanted to stay with the girl next to me. I knew her, not in any special way, and I just wanted to walk with her. Young men dream dreams, old men see visions... in the theater. It was hard to leave tonight, and I knew the next time I'd be a little less receptive, a little more distant. So I just wanted to walk. Stroll. Because when you get on your bike to leave, the only way to go is fast. When you go slow, you fall over; that, and it gives people the chance to see you.

No Redemption For You

A bad portrait of the chancellor can't get me down/
Naw baby, naw baby, nothing can get me down/

I hope they don't run it big in the insert/
Naw baby, naw baby, it's hideous.

I hope you enjoyed my medley, it's almost as bad as my portrait. More on this when it comes out, (hopefully) running the width of a column buried deep within the ads of page 3. Please God, please..

Edgar Rice Burroughs Woke Up And Wondered If He Was A Hack

I would like an open mind to see the good and the bad, and eyes that would recognize greatness emerging.

This Is Familiar

Picked up a camera and felt like a photographer again (and not a photo editor). Saw. Shot. Asked. Wrote. Shot.

Flash Settings! Flash Settings! Recycle Time!?

...Aaahhhhh.
Next year, I will manage nothing but a camera.

Footprint In Your Mind

I've made a lot of new friends lately, and I wouldn't like them to come here and get some oddball idea of me. I am not, as I heard mention today, sitting on a throne of broken dreams (odd enough yet?)

I'm feeling very good about myself. I'm learning that in conversation, sometimes the best approach is just to be blunt. Being subtle is fine sometimes, but I could never pull it off. So here you go: I'm feeling good.

In Continuity

I would like my post to pass,

so I can continue to walk.

Requiem: A Response

Looking back to February 15th:

First of all, I confess that I've never read all of Duino Elegies. I loved the first line, read probably the first three elegies in comprehensive manner, than fell asleep through the eigth. I think there are nine total, which makes an entire elegy skipped. The fact that I don't know how many there are total does not inspire me with confidence (edit: I just checked, there are 10 total).

Second, I always thought a requiem is something that revisits, but it's actually a musical composition honoring the dead. I'll be generous: I was half right.

Anyway, whatever I thought it meant, today I've come across it. Requiem. Regression. On February 15th in my mind the two were one, and although it's taken me a month and a half, I realize I'm somewhere else entirely.

Lately the feeling in everything has gone out. No, I should say that everything I've done has felt like a repeat. Repetition. I've lived the same quarter and the same spring break before. Today is different. I don't feel the same familiarity--and yet, I don't think I've discovered a new way to be.






A few months ago my friend and I adopted a kitten. It was a confusing affair, we could never decide what to name it or even where to keep it. Today I had to tell her it was dead.

It was hard for me to say the words, and I wasted time talking about other things while I built up the courage. Earlier I had called and asked her to meet me, and she gave me the specific time. She arranges her days in specific events and arrives to them right as they begin, but I'm usually late. That isn't always true. Sometimes I go early and arrive before she does. I think I get nervous. But these times I'll stay back and fool around because I won't have anything to say, and when I get there she'll be upset that I'm late.

We are close, but not very. It's that semblance of closeness that comes from seeing someone too often in too short a time, and in fact I know very little about her. These months together did not bring us any closer. Thankfully, after today I don't think we're any farther apart. Today I had to tell her it was dead--but I'll not use those same words here.

Complaining In French

Je suis fatigue, j'ai une maladie. C'est ca, merci.

(fait d'amore avec moi? S'il vous plait? Does that make sense?)

Does Novacaine Give You Pimples?

This is surely for enjoyment's sake.

First they stick the needle in your gums and inject you with novacaine. I got three of these (ye-aah you know you gotta help me out). I wish the nurse would try to look less bored (ye-aah oh don't you put me on the backburner-er). Then they take the drill and knock out all the decayed tooth (hooold on), which is fine because you're already numb (you know you know no you don't you don't).

Now they start putting stuff in your mouth, (These changes/ ain't changin' me/ the cold-hearted boy I used to be) and I'm impressed at how much they fit in there. Wait, was that clamped to the side of my mouth? What's that fuzzy thing? Can you fit a time capsule in my cavity? Is that fuzzy thing a cat? Doctor Le, I hope you're not just carving your initials on my tooth. (I got soul but I'm not a souljah!/ I got soul but I'm not a souljah!)

I have 6 hours of I-5 to feel the inside of my mouth. I don't feel a thing (I need directions to perfection no no no no help me oooouut).

Thank God

Tattoo On My Wrist

If, for every hour I was awake, I could share myself with someone, learn something new about someone, make someone happier, challenge someone to be uncomfortable with themselves, with me, with deities, God or otherwise... than I can be OK in this (short) life I live.

Gravity

Hey little boy hey little boy hey little boy hi, why do you carry those rocks around?
Why the long face, and why do you cry? A merry voice said.

I-I-I've got these rocks, they're frightfully large and oh so heavy,
but I mustn't drop them, you see on each one I've drawn a clock! The boy sobbed.

Why, why, why carry those stones? They're much too heavy, see how your little arms shake?
And so dirty and old, I say into the sea let them be thrown!

No no not these rocks that I love, I shan't lose them that each stand for a time,
when I was so fresh and so merry and looked to heaven above!

Bickering badgering balderdash! If it's only to memories you cling,
then you've had all you'll have. Don't expect any more from ashes to ash. At this moment the voice became fierce, and the child stopped crying. Then he was no longer a child, but someone much older. He looked back and said

My life I've divided into twenty and three, of each division three hundred sixty-five days free. Days not sad but happy and glad, but O after each how my heart is rent!

For I give and I give, and I take and I take, but songs conclude and laughter is fake
it all goes and passes away, and I am left with these rocks. And nothing more did the young man say for a long time.







But o well-a-way if I meet a girl so fly, that I could throw all these rocks up into the sky!

But who am I kidding, who would believe
That these rocks would not fall back down? I finished the Canterbury Tales today; the sense of accomplishment I felt compared only to the sense of loss in reading Chaucer's retraction. I need a new project.

My Posts Are Ridiculous (Looking Ahead Back Again)

Allow me a laugh: Ha. I think my recent posts are all sharpy strained in the ridiculous because I wrote them late at night after reading post-modern lit. Crises of consciousness is no joke, remember that future me, and don't forget how affected you were (are) when I learned how empty the world thinks it is.

Today I went into the office early, feeling really good about the day. I had one class and nothing due, and just had to get through Thursday production, which happens to be the wimpiest of all production days--paling in comparison to Sunday production, which is hung like a horse. Then at the budget meeting, news tells me the centerpiece photo illustration is still a mass of ideas, and on top of that we can't get in touch with the doctor we need a portrait of. I'm always a little apprehensive about shooting doctors and professors, they don't smile well and are too dignified to make a clean, quick shoot. This particular doctor had created a kidney dialysis machine that you can walk around with, basically a portable kidney. Dharmishta also informed me that he sounds "quirky" over a phone line, and we would meet him at 3:30 on Wilshire to take his picture. It was 2:15.

Fortunately I enlisted the help of trusty Christopher Shane, an intern with a nose for good photos and trouble. Hometown: Atlanta. I made him wait ten minutes in the parking while I got my flashes together, and we're ten minutes late to the hospital. I'm getting fidgety because we're late, I really should be editing, and this doctor seems extremely busy. Fortunately he's not there when we arrive, and I get to mull over things for another 20 minutes in a waiting room. Slaughter. I try to teach Chris some of the nuances of light in the meantime, and honestly I think I did a fair job, spitting out some old lines like "the bigger a light source, the softer the light," "aperture controls flash, shutter speed controls ambient" and "bitches ain't shit." I was all up in that waiting room.

After a while the receptionist lets us into the doctor's empty office ("You didn't tell us you were photographers, we thought you were patients, come right in!" Photographers get triage-priority, it seems). We do a quick sweep of the room, decide to shoot in front of a bookshelf, and I set up the lights.




The key light had a warm gel and was the most powerful. The idea was to throw some heavy warm light onto his face, with just enough fill to not lose detail on the other side, and a backlight to diferentiate from the background. The portable kidney is really just a huge belt with a bunch of gadgets attached, so we would just have him hold it up. And we wait. And wait. At 4:40pm he comes in, tell us we should have called, should have come earlier, and calls us kids.

We turn off the lights and Chris starts shooting. I hold the flash and direct, and I can tell Chris is much more nervous. I multitask and try to chat up the doctor while giving instruction to Chris, while Chris simultaneously takes pictures and tries to chat up the doctor. We're both so absorbed in doing other things we don't listen to a word the doctor says, and in general were assholes. Fortunately he didn't need talking up, he's perfectly comfortable because he thinks we're idiots. He's also got one of the most consistent and best news-camera-smiles I've ever seen. He had a model smile! I've never seen a guy not in the modeling business keep up that good a smile for so long. He even talked through it! This guy was definitely better than us, and we all knew it, and frankly somebody had to say it.

Just kidding, only he was thinking that. I'm trying to get Chris to move around, Chris is nervous. He gets off a dozen shots before this guy puts down the vest, and "Time's up kids." He's a busy man. The pictures look good to me, but then they won't have my name attached to them so I'm less critical. Chris is less excited. In reality we didn't consider lighting the dialysis vest, and it's a black-hole piece of nylon that doesn't come out well in the pictures, but at this point I just want to get back and finish editting the wonderful file photos sure to be waiting for me back at the office.

Traffic is bad, I get back to the office at 6pm. Dharmishta's there, she's tired and so am I, on top of being frazzled by the doctor who thinks I'm a kid. We argue about how to get news to turn in requests earlier, although it turns out in hindsight we were talking the same things to each other. Afterwards I feel like a jerk for instigating, and man this is a hard day.

I'm getting tired now so I'll just gloss over redemption. After baseball photos and frantically calling photographers to get cameras to other photographers, I go to Catalyst with Sue.
It's the Prodigal son, not the way Kierkegaard tells it, but less challenging and more pleasing. I am both younger and older sons, and the rhetoric is getting ridiculous again. I'll stop. I don't need to remember today this way.

When I read other people's blogs, I'd rather read about the bad days, and I think there's something magical about spitting those words out after a trying experience. Here's hoping you feel something like that right now.

Anxieties

Begin with an 8-hour drive home, but don't end there.

Sartre wonders if there even is a beginning, or is there even an end? He tells stories that cut up and divide this infinite time into little chunks, which he then recites over and over but never hears. He believes these stories but I don't believe him, although he is right when he tells me I am the stories I tell. I shall have happier stories than he, I hope.

The Arizona earth is hot; Darfur's is scorched.

There is a God above but not below, unless I count my mind.

He once told me to give my life to the pictures, but three years later that dream is fading fast and was it something I said? The East Coast and higher higher education is the last place I want to go.

I put these words in plain view, but they're in a bad neighborhood. Not dangerous, just boring, and only a few people will come by to look. Of the few that do, fewer will make it here, but it's this handful of adventurers that I fear, because the more I write the more I am to them. I am a the stories I tell, and I write only dreams, nothing more.

Accounting For Your Philosophy

The classics say "know thyself."

The century said God is in man.

Yet I know myself, and know not God.

Benefits Of Repetition(?)

Reach. Reach. Reach. Reach reach reach reach.
REACH. Reach, fall.

Examine the merits and possibilities, weigh them against the possibility of failure. Tell a different story Believe It Man, believe it yourself. Feel better (fear no more the heat of the sun).

Remember familiarity, you've been here. Predict future based on the past--are you reaching?

Or getting ready to fall? Reach? Repeat? Act? Again again and again.8 (WHO, if I cried out, would hear me among the heavenly realms?)






Think. Don't act. Thinking not acting.









Figure
A) Nothing new under the sun? (Y/N)
B) Not true the moon.
END

I'll write the requiem when I get there.

Wow, That Wasn't Sexy

Chinese Class.

Some of the things I did that first year in Chinese class are too embarrassing to think about. Like my speech about finding out your girlfriend is a man. Or the time I performed as both the little boy, lost, and the old man, trying to take advantage.

Comedy, it was all comedy, and then afterwards when your turn was over you went back to your seat and looked pleased with yourself (but not too pleased), and found you had conquered yourself with comedy.

That's one way to say it. Another way to say it: today I am a result of everything I've ever done before today, and everything that's been done to me. Yet another way is, if yesterday was so embarrassing, what does that make today?


How far do you get comparing yourself to birds, while the moon lingers overhead.

My Dreams are Ridiculous

In my dream, the woman asked what I could do for her. "I'm great at shaving, you can tell just by how clean my face is." The man laughed and told me I was a terrible shaver, just look at how scruffy my face is. Indeed my face was not clean, the man continued, I was no great shakes at shaving compared to him. When I looked at the man he had a heavy bald line running along the back of his head, looking as if someone had shaved it clean.