March 2004 Archives

it's been busy here since the orchestra came back from tour; and i've been stressy getting all this crap done.

one of hardest tasks i've got is scheduling meetings that involve musicians because their schedules are so irregular and they don't live on email like us admin folk.

yesterday, during rehearsal, i went out on stage at the end of their break to pigeonhole a flutist -- can you make it on 4/13 or not? so she rumages in her purse for her calendar and then it sinks in.

i'm sitting center stage at Davies Symphony Hall, surrounded by world class musicians, all warming up. for a moment, i see what it's like to be one of them. to be on stage. all the sounds flow around me, because i'm sitting in the middle of the orchestra and not in the house. i'm not a ticket holder. i'm part of the symphony.

i wonder how many people ever get that experience. especially people who don't know adagio from allegro.

she sends me the following quote from Motherless Brooklyn, a Jonathan Lethem book i lent her for the trip.

"Then her hand fell lower, and mine too, and at that moment I felt my hand and mind lose their particularity, their pointiness, their countingness, instead become clouds of general awareness, dreamy and yielding with curiosity."

sharing seems to be a theme with me these days. captured as discussions on honesty or revelation or otherwise.

and i just interviewed the squatblogger about why he blogs and what he shares and he told me that my blog was "emotional." that i talked about emotion as opposed to ideas.

it happened again!

a long long time ago, i was blogging and (phew, maybe i'll get around to transfering all those old posts into this system; until then, it's here on 6/24) made this freudian slip, in which i wrote that i was hopefully moving to a nicer part of time. meaning to write town.

but i left the typo in, commenting on it.

well, it just happened again. i was emailing an old high school friend i just found on friendster, and i told her "i live in a great flat in a really nice part of time."

it wasn't until i reread my email that i caught the slip.

if it was a slip.

'cause both are true. this is a really nice part of time.

i'll be honest. this morning has not been so good.

it started real well; opening today's letter from madhavi to find a little Tarzan keychain and a note about helping her through the metaphorical jungle.

this kicks the ass as now not only do i have something in my pocket which makes me think of her, but i also began (and have not stopped) picturing her in the costume she wore for our Amazonia housewarming party. to understate the case grossly; she looked awfully fetching in it. god bless leopard-print bikinis.

*swoon*

i just called madhavi in melbourne and her aussie acccent has come back gangbusters. so so so so CUTE!

i was so nervous about calling her (excited?) that i could barely read the instructions on the website i bought the phone card from. i felt like a seventh grader about to ask his very first girl out on a date.

why? can't say. except that girl just makes my heart go flip-flop. and talking to her was so good; washing away all my silly nervousness.

we talked for an hour and it cost about three bucks. that's nothing!

i cannot wait for her to come home. one week down, another to go.

i think i can make it.

sean just left. We were writing the syllabus for Cinema Jejune: 501; "Semi-orgasmic Translucid Optics and Associated Thai Food"

um. yeah. it's a film class we "teach" every few years. wednesday nights we're gonna show films and talk about them. if you're interested you could ask for more info.

anyway, writing the syllabus was a project. then he left and i jumped back into projects a and b, which are ripping all of my cds so i can load them on my iPod and figuring out how the hell to use this movable type software so i can make this blog look the way i want it to. an hour later, there's an image at the top of this page instead of just text.

i'm learning a whole new language.

setting up this page took more than HTML and involved a lot of guess work, even with help.

but i'm never sure if i'm talking about what i'm talking about.

i'm learning a whole new language, but who cares about HTML or CSS or whatever this is (i don't even *know*). that phrase might be in my head because i'm thinking about what i'm doing with my life now. because i'm looking back at the past year of blog entries and things are just different now.

when i started blogging last march, i thought my heart was about to break and i was right.

starting this new blog, i'm learning a whole new language.

if you want to see the old one, it's right here

this blog will soon go poof.

but not in a bad way.

bill is helping me set up movable type software so i can:
a) blog from work
b) support comments
c) uh. stuff. things! i dunno.

so soon this blog format will drift and there will be a new Movable Type page here like every other goddamn blog on the web, except it will continue to look like a page of mine or forget it. bill assures me we can keep this background .gif of a page out of my journal, written on palau perhentian kecil, malaysia on my birthday in 1999. coming on FIVE YEARS AGO.

i dog sat for kaya last night, 'cause madhavi's home in oz and john was at a conference. bedtime came and i climbed her ladder to the loft; there laid out for me on the duvet were letters to be opened, one for each day she's away.

i almost cried.

i can't wait for her to get home and i'm counting the minutes (:54) until midnight so i can open the one that's labelled "to be opened no sooner than march 25"

she's home on the 5th and i'm bringing her to my parents house that night for passover seder. i want to introduce her to my bubbe.

'cause i love her.

been working on this article about blogging and, in the process, neglecting my blog.

lunching with bill today, we discuss how much we share in blogs and why. the analogy that evolves is that it's like laying yourself on the examination table and cutting yourself open for the viewers in the gallery. not because there's anything wrong with you, just to see how you work. just to discover what makes you tick.

it's a record of who you are. it's a challenge to be honest with others and in doing so, see yourself more clearly.

lyrics from the pop song that's growing around my heart like ivy:

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be.

not only am i blissfully happy, but i'm actually starting to believe that i'm blissfully happy.

more! i say more science!

what we need more of is science.

that's what it says on the grey hoodie. what we need more of is science. i ordered it from achewood. i ordered it the first time a year ago and returned it, a gift ungiven.

last night, having ordered it a second time, i gave it to her. a gift i've been waiting a year to give.

it was, like so much else is proving to be lately, worth the wait.

and it's true. what we need more of is science.

we talk about things being normal as if that could ever be possible.

things being normal seems so abnormal. so there you have it. the trick to keeping things interesting!

today is an anniversary of sorts. two years ago today i moved into amazonia, followed by steve, madhavi, romy and bill. and then scott. and then sarah. and then ritz and danah and...

two years of amazonians. vive le roi! vive la reine!

now i need to get back to work on my parachute.

i make dinner; the chicken comes out perfect. at the symphony, sasha plays the violin solos in scheherazade like he was weeping molten gold. on the street after, david and paul drive past shouting compliments at us from the truck. but back at home, madhavi is tired from her dive trip and thinks about going home and i get tense.

sometimes it's so hard. she pulls back and i remember the way things were and get scared. and i get scared so she pulls back more. and we both have to take slow deep breaths and build tender moments to push through the fear. she says i terrify her, the way i dig so deep inside. and i know she scares the hell out of me, the way she cracks me open.

i keep writing all this stuff about madhavi, but deleting it. i'm not sure if i'm being considerate of her, of her ex-boyfriend, or myself.

i guess it doesn't matter. for the time being i'm trying to not cause any trouble. but not too hard.

after the crazy rollercoaster couple of years we've had, one thing hasn't changed. i'm still always glad to see her. she makes me feel.

and that's what it's all about.

we watched Say Anything... the other night and it really took me back to when i first saw it in high school and to so many moments in the tumultuous history of madhavi and zack. a lot of the dialogue keeps popping into my head, even a week later. so i guess i'll just share this quote with you and leave it at that:

Diane Court: Nobody thinks it will work, do they?
Lloyd Dobler: No. You just described every great success story.

i really tried to kick back and relax this week, but instead all i did was power through all these built up tasks i had. posting the iditarod pictures, cleaning my room hardcore, cleaning my showerhead, brainstorming lists of films for the next installment of cinema jejune (i'll tell you about it later, perhaps), continuing to rip all my CDs for the iPod, and boing-boing-boing. but i think, looking at it all, that getting stuff done might be how i relax.

that when i lie around (alone), that isn't so relaxing for me. getting stuff done relaxes me. tires me out and lets my brain shut down for a while.

so i got a lot done. and i feel pretty good about it.

words cannot describe the urban iditarod. so you'll just have to wait for the pictures. until then, check out my brother leading our team to certain victory in the Chron!

today i will get very drunk, dress like an idiot, and pull a shopping cart across the city. i'm certain there will be pictures.

i am currently struggling with the fact that i'm not really writing anything here. i've been trying to be discrete, to be cautious, to be private. none of those things come naturally to me. i'm generally all out on display. my feelings, desires, and everything laid out like a big buffet. keeping a blog is part of not fighting that.

so fuck it.

i'm in love with madhavi.

again.

although, i guess if i'm going to be really honest, i never stopped loving her.

i feel, um i think...

this is what she says that i say all the time.

i feel, um i think...

she says totally. and hates herself for it.

we've spoken every day for over two weeks. generally for at least an hour.

and that's why i'm not writing so much. it's not that i don't have anything to say, far from it. i just don't know where to start.

everything seems too intimate to tell the world about.