Day 75

I think it's finally time to reveal a little secret I have been holding from everyone. It deals with a summer love. A very one-sided summer love.

I don't know his name, nor do I care to learn. I call him my baby, my habibi, my cute watchmen, or whatever whimsical name that pleases me for the day. I see my baby every day on my walk to class. Always that same smile, a smile that sees neither the complications of life or complexities in unhappiness, just an open and honest smile on his very attractive and kind face.

The whole thing really just started with a few stolen glances, a quick glance to verify his existence, a little validation to the skips of my heart. Several weeks passed by and it evolved into those small, shy half smiles, ones that gave a little bit of spice, a little bit of character to my walks. And now, I've gotten gutsy/crazy enough to whisper a little goodmorning, a little nonsensical greeting for a foolish crush.

I hope it doesn't make me a sad person if this person isn't real. If he isn't made of flesh and bone, but rather paper and ink. Is it sad that in either case, he still gives me little flutters in the morning. A secret crush, an unspoken relationship that doesn't mind when I project my thoughts, hopes, and feelings into the cosmic space between us in hopes to escape from them.

And I hope it doesn't make me crazy for feeling this way, cause I rather enjoy his presence and my sanity. I may have not succeeded in finding a skin-and-bones man, but in the end... they serve the same emotional purpose. A listening and caring ear.

And I'm happy for it.

Day 68

For Nic.

Garcia.

Day 67

Alright I need to complain about something today. It involves people’s sexual fetishes and fantasies.

And I’m going to describe what happened in a crowded public men’s bathroom in a very large mall.

So I get to the bathroom, and upon entrance you had the customary four sink, mirror, dryer, and soap dispenser on either side of you. The pathway continues and turns and after a short hallway you enter the main hygiene area with three urinals and three stalls. So I turn the corner and there was a line for the urinals/stalls, a little strange for a guy’s bathroom. A man was standing there waiting for the next available place to do our business, so I stand next to him and naturally face the urinals and stalls to keep an eye out for availability. Now mind you, obviously the stalls are facing us, and in a perfect world the guys back would be to us to provide ample cover (along with the side panels) of a guy’s junk. Needless to say, the man in the middle was a good two feet away from the urinal and facing the guy to his left. His pants were low and his hand was on his dick… jacking it off. The guy, no the little boy (I would venture to say in the mid-teens) was turned to the corner as much as he could to give his genitals their privacy from this man who was OBVIOUSLY pleasuring himself watching him urinate and the other people in line who were unfortunately facing him.

Now the first thoughts that passed my head were the motion of the older mans hand on his dick, it’s a little distracting when a guy is pleasuring himself. It also seemed to me that either the kid was having trouble with his junk or he was getting off on it as well because there was a lot of right hand action. Now just to make sure I don’t sound like a creep, this had all happened in the span of maybe 2-3 seconds max. I had to avert my eyes because I think public masturbation is disturbing and disgusting. Anyways, I was avoiding *everyones* eyes for a plethora of reasons and I resigned to looking at the ground while this was going on. The next thing that opened up was a stall in which the man in front of me quickly entered to avoid the vastly awkward and inappropriate display. So my turn. And guess what opens up but the kids stall. Apparently he had been freaked out enough, got enough off his freak off, whatever. I dreaded the short three feet walk and I took the same position. Back to the guy, face forward, with minimal vision to my special areas. The man fucking kept going. The floor of the bathroom had a little sheen and by looking down to aim (which by the way took way too long to come out, I guess I can’t go with an audience) and I could see movement on his side.

Ugh, finished my business to the best of my ability and speed and left there, avoiding looking at him, his eyes, his penis, his soul. Ugh… why? Why the fuck would you do that? If I had more of a mind I would have informed an officer.

I understand people have sexual fantasies, but he was intruding upon my personal bubble by getting a happy ending off of my urination.

Inappropriate.

Day 55

Yargggggyyy!!

I think I'm going to fill these next few days with something that has been on my mind recently. While I am no "Philosopher Savant" nor do I pretend to know what that phrase actually means.... let's just see where this little conversation will take us.

First major topic: Learning as an active endeavor.

For me, I definitely believe that my general weakness/misgiving/thing that keeps me down, has been my concept of learning, and my pursuit of it. Learning for me has always seemed to break down into two very different fields: One is learning=education and another learning=personal enjoyment. I can make this a little clearer...

Learning as personal enjoyment means the active learning that takes place when you generally are interested in something. Be it comics, movies, books, storylines of games, games, etc. You can divulge a great part of your concentration on acquiring as much knowledge as possible for a long period of time. I would be a liar if I said that I have never spent hours reading about Mutants and the Marvel Universe on Wikipedia. So while it is very labor-intensive, the enjoyability factor glazes over everything to make your time slip away and your head to fill up.

Learning as education is the other major sphere on knowledge acquisition in my life currently. I have been lucky/cursed enough so that for a considerable part of my life education has been very active. If I didn't get it now, I would get it a few hours from now when I'm playing again, or by the second or third day. Things would connect on their own and I would understand everything quite well. That ability has been getting worse and worse, for good reason. I don't like thinking that effort can be easily succeeded with natural ability/talent/graces.

That being said, in my Arabic class, I have been very fortunate to be able to catch on quickly (in the beginning) and had no trouble doing maybe one hour of homework a day, while the teacher prescribed 4-5 hours a day. I had multiple commitments to follow-through on so it worked to my advantage. But I am no longer keeping afloat in class, the other students have built their foundations on solid effort and determination, I have tried to skirt by and now obviously failing.

For me, the class can serve as a microcosm of my own life, I do well in the beginning, fail miserably in the middle (where I am now in Arabic), then I get a big burst of energy in the end when I realize that I need to keep from getting fucked.

Thats enough for today. More tomorrow. :)

How do you view learning?

Day 54

OMG. I was so excited today because I had time to ... take a nap. Like my schedule was loose enough to allow me the free time to sleep.

It was amazing.

Slash, does that make my life a little empty if a large chunk of my happiness is a result of an hour of free time?

Day 53

Am I the only one who thinks these trees are sooo fresh/crazy/wack looking?

Day 52

I am running out of money. I just wanted to share that with the world. Problem is ... I don't like working. Not that I don't thoroughly enjoy developing carpal tunnel through the repetitive use of my fingers to ... (uh huh, that's right think dirty) fold clothes. I think its mostly because I am running out of steam. Its difficult to do this, and obviously I don't have to do this, so there goes one of the large determining factors that force people, against their better wishes, to work more than one job or maybe to work at all.

But the truth still stands. I am running out of money. Blurrbbb. You'll see me on the streets working soon.

Now the question is ... leather or lace?

Day 51

My mother left for the Phillippines today. I wish her a safe trip. She will be in Japan for a day before having her little vacation for the next two-three weeks. I think she definitely needs it, my house has been crazy (8 people currently living there, two babies). My sister will be joining her (currently in Japan) the last week before returning back to the states, my other cousin in tow.

That means, within two months, my house will be housing a total of 11 individuals. It'll be a hell hole, hence my mother's early vacation before she actually decides to poison our food in return some quiet.

Day 50

Day 49

I was just thinking about our personal information in context to the public world. A blog, an update, a profile. These are all very public pieces of ourselves that we have relegated to the greater auspices of a shadowy other world. Something accessible to hundreds, thousands, etc for years now and years that exceed us. There are obviously many restrictions to this, your privacy “barriers”, choosing who can see it, etc. But in many very important ways it is infinitely much more public than a personal diary.

There’s plenty of information out there about very superficial and shallow information. I’m not here to diss on that but I am remarking on its existence. People package themselves with the information they say, even in personal blogs and its kind, the information that is eventually written is either vague, overblown, or edited.

There’s not a lot of demand out there to read about personal musings, and I completely understand. A lot of shit is out there and your personal attention span can only handle so much text (juxtaposed with many shiny and colorful pictures of course). People want their information to be directed because time is important. Posters also either must mute their own experiences because of a feared backlash against a reader who it may concern. Or they may overblow an incident/happening/issue to get a little sympathy/pity/attention.

I guess I’m just writing about it to serve as my personal commentary on blogging about life and in general, surrendering yourself to the world. After all that thought of putting what to say, what not to say, how to say it, and where to say it, are you still really being genuine? Is that person you are putting out there really you?

If not... why do it?

Or maybe the bigger question: Can we be happy characterizing ourselves in flat text, regardless of it depth or power?

Day 48

Offish caught up :P

This woman was so confident about herself. It was amazing.

Day 47

Lyrics to the song that currently haunts/bugs/inspires me:

Going back to the corner where I first saw you,
Gonna camp in my sleeping bag not I'm not gonna move,
Got some words on cardboard got your picture in my hand,
Saying if you see this girl can you tell her where I am,
Some try to hand me money they don't understand,
I'm not... broke I'm just a broken hearted man,
I know it makes no sense, but what else can I do,
How can I move on when I've been in love with you...
Cos if one day you wake up and find that your missing me,
And your heart starts to wonder where on this earth I can be,
Thinking maybe you'd come back here to the place that we'd meet,
And you'd see me waiting for you on the corner of the street.

So I'm not moving...
I'm not moving.
Policeman says son you can't stay her,
I said there's someone I'm waiting for if it's a day, a month, a year,
Gotta stand my ground even if it rains or snows,
If she changes her mind this is the first place she will go.

Cos if one day you wake up and find that your missing me,
And your heart starts to wonder where on this earth I can be,
Thinking maybe you'd come back here to the place that we'd meet,
And you'd see me waiting for you on the corner of the street.

So I'm not moving...
I'm not moving.

I'm not moving...
I'm not moving.

People talk about the guy
Whos waiting on a girl...
Oohoohwoo
There on no hole in his shoes
But a big hole in his world...
Hmmmm
Maybe I'll get famous as man who can't be moved,
And maybe you won't mean to but you'll see me on the news,
And you'll come running to the corner...
Cos you'll know it's just for you

I'm the man who can't be moved
I'm the man who can't be moved...

Cos if one day you wake up and find that your missing me,
And your heart starts to wonder where on this earth I can be,
Thinking maybe you'd come back here to the place that we'd meet,
And you'd see me waiting for you on the corner of the street.
[Repeat in backgroung]

So I'm not moving...
I'm not moving.

I'm not moving...
I'm not moving.

Going back to the corner where I first saw you,
Gonna camp in my sleeping bag not I'm not gonna move.

If you could tell, beforehand, who would end up hurting you the most. Would you want to know?

Day 46

One of my favorite quotes in my life at this point:

You are not the work that you do.
You define yourself.

Especially in a time when the vast majority of the world around you measures you in work productivity and output, a student statistics, a racial census, a race's final time, etc.

You are more. Even if only a handful of people can see it, as long as you know it, you're solid.

Day 45

I think I just want to dedicate this time to a little self-reflection. You don’t have to, no one would know, but I think it would be a healthy way to spend one minute.

The person who you are doesn’t exist without everybody you have ever met in your life. However, everyone has impacted your life in varying degrees and at various times. But it should all boil down to a handful of individuals who have defined/redefined/undefined you, in either direction of “good” or “bad”.

Are you happy with your answer? With the people who have made you? What emotions escape?

I really hope that most of your answers don't include feelings of sadness.