Everyone is Sleeping in South Africa!

We were taking a wine tour around Cape Town and after two wineries and lunch, we were totally, totally comatose.

Washington DC

Press Play to Enjoy Six Seconds of Spring...

Before the Show

Clothing by Virtue Couture.

Enough, Enough

My house just tried to kill me.



I had baked and butchered a cake, eating the gloopy mess as it dripped from my fingers. As always the case when eating alone, I was like a savage with pounding heart.



I heard it first. Heavy wooden objects, moving. Then just as I turned around the whole mess of wood and paneling came crashing down on my instinctively outstretched arm. Thanks again to the inner savage.



It is hurtful to be the victim of attempted murder. That the assailant was my house added a sense of betrayal to the hurt.

Enough, I gathered my wits and muttered under my breath.

E
n
o
ugh.

I'm out of her





e.

The Truth Has Alternate Titles

The Pitcher of Milk at Your House
Or, A Present
Or, I Hope You Decide on Cereal For Breakfast

Or, About How Much I Hate You
Or, Why
Or, How

Or, Handsome Boy Tricks
Or, Handsome Boy Tricks Romantic Girl
Or, You Can’t Trust Handsome Boys

Or, You Taste Like a Lie
Or, Your Obvious Lies
Or, I Know You Screwed Nicole Last Weekend When I Was Away

Or, Nicole is a Fucking Bitch
Or, You Asshole
Or, I Don’t Forgive Assholes

Or, I Don’t Want to Forgive You
Or, I Can’t Forgive You if I Tried
Or, If You Ask For Forgivence, it Will Be in Vain

Or, You Don’t Know What You’re Losing
Or, Decency Dictates a Phone Call, You Jerk
Or, I am Going Crazy Checking Email Every Five Minutes Because You Went Missing After Sleeping With Nicole Who You Knew Full Well I Hate and Is A Slut and I Was Only Away For A Weekend You Weak Bastard and This is what you do to me do you have not a shred of consideration for the me who you seduced so charmingly that night, like an afterthought, in your brown v-neck sweater with that smile of yours that looks wrong and right at the same time, with those white strong teeth of yours encouraged by a lifetime of too-meticulous flossing and obsessive milk guzzling which I hope is what you’re about to do right now you rake because when I dropped by just now and you weren’t home, I spilled your milk all over the floor and left it there, another thing for you to not cry over, you cheap emotionless fuck

Bottles and Blondes

I learned a powerful thing this weekend. Josh and I were walking home after the snowstorm. It was a little past midnight and the thick snow made the quiet Astoria streets even quieter.

"What is that sound?" Josh asked.

"What sound?"

"That... popping sound."

I looked at him blankly and took another swig from my bottle of lemonade flavoured Vitamin Water (TM).

"That sound!" he said, pointing at me.

"You mean... this?" I asked and took another swig. As the bottle left my lips, it made a small popping sound.

"Yes, that sound! Why are you doing that?"

"Huh? What are you talking about? This is the sound I always make. This," I announced, "is the sound of drinking from a bottle."

To drive the point home, I took another swig.

"Oh my god," Josh whispered, "are you putting the whole opening in your mouth when you drink?"

I nodded. "Doesn't everyone drink like that?"

"No, you're suppose to allow enough air to go into the bottle as you drink so that you don't create a vaccuum inside the bottle, which is what makes the popping sound when you take it out of your mouth."

"Won't I spill all over myself if I don't put my mouth over the whole thing?"

"Maybe, if you're a baby."

"Try it," he dared.

Tentatively, I tipped the bottle up without covering the entire opening, allowing air to go in as the water came out. I took a gulp, lowered the bottle, and stared at him with a stunned look on my face.

"Oh. My. God."

Josh nodded vigourously. "You see what I mean?"

"This is what the rest of the world has been doing, all this time?" I marveled. "This is lifechanging."

* * *

I've had pink and orange and red hair, and I've been encouraged to try green and blue and purple. But every time I ask someone about blonde hair, everyone has thus far responded with a look of disdain. Some people think it means that it is some sort of statement about wanting to be white, which is simply poor logic. Most people, when pushed, will say something about how it looks kind of 'hoorish.'

This weekend I did a google image search for "blonde asians" and found only one page of results. "That's odd," I thought. I switched it to "asian blondes" but still only got one page. Then I noticed that I had google "safe-search" (i.e., no porn)option on. I switched it off and tried the search again. This time, I got 542!

I haven't proved it yet, but I think that "asian blondes" is probably the king of search terms that has the highest hits differential depending on whether the safe-search is on or not. What do you think?

About A Job

I got this email when I was in law school. Enjoy.

----
Hello Ms. Li!

I'm Levi. I saw your email on the Yale Law School
website for the class of 2004 and I'm contacting you
because I thought maybe you would like a summer job
after you graduate. I am looking for someone to help
me share the rent cost and in exchange will help you
apply for work here.

I just moved to Sitka this March, a small island city
in SouthEast Alaska and I'm working in the seafood
industry.

Li, the manager at my job told me today there are
still a few more positions open for temporary work
here during this summer. You can earn about $10,000 if
you want to work here from mid June - September, and I
also have a place that you can stay here. You can make
some money for school or anything. I know you may
already be busy, so please ask your female friends who
are looking for a job also!

Here's my number:
1 (907) 747-xxxx x11 - please call after 10:30pm
(Alaskan time) because of my work schedule. I will be
at that number only until June. Please SEND YOURS TOO!

I can't always get online here at the Alaskan library,
so please email me to my personal email address
because I can listen to your email on the phone and
send you a voicemail response to your email from the
phone.

March 1st was my 25th birthday so I hope I'm not too
old for friends!

Here's my photos:
http://photos.yahoo.com/xxxxxxxxxxx

If you're interested, please follow these 3 steps:

- Respond to my OTHER email: xxxxxx@xxxxxx.COM

- Include a PHONE NUMBER and what time I should call
you.

- tell me if you have, or can get a temporary work
authorization in the U.S.

I will then send you an email with complete
information, including the company name, address phone
number & website.

sincerely,

your friend Levi

Woke up on New Year's Day, 2005

On the first day of 2005, I woke up and got this voicemail on my phone, said by a broken man. I picture him tall and gaunt and gin-flavoured with grey pants and grey hair. Anyway, this is wha the said:

"...Jim, call me for 3 minutes and .. talk.... 3 mintes of talking would
be worth an hour of waiting, like... you don't even understand... if
you knew me like you think you know me, you wouldn't do this."

Email Excerpt (aka, Jumpy)

Oh... so for four days I was up north with the fam, renting a cottage on the lake, in the woods, under the sky, etc etc. It was really interesting. I was the most loathful creature in the world at first, completely pasty and unhappy and defensive, and awful and mean and hypersensitive and meanspirited and bullying.

It was ridiculous and I hated myself even at the time. (But probably not as much as I hated everything else, harhar.) And then every night we would play bridge till 1 AM. And using that as a marker of my progress, you can tell that I became a much better bridge player (sharper, more focussed), but also a better person-- scratched and bruised all over (as I should be, if I really am as fun as I think I am) recklessly tanned, bitten, friendlier, more ready to laugh, much much calmer, less nervous. I had had all this pent up anxiety. It's so weird!!!

Oh, also, up at the cottage we climbed rocks up this cliff and jumped off of it into the lake! We were scared silly (my bro and I) beacuse we weren't sure if we could clear the rocks below (and not die --my brother's fear--- or become paralyzed --my fear). My brother went first, since he's a man now (harhar) and i followed. But, man, it was lifechanging.

I just stood above the cliff and was so scared. Just of the height, really. The black water beneath. It was just pure and simple fear. And every one was saying, "It's ok, don't do it if you don't want to" and the only pressure was that I knew I wouldn't like myself if I didn't do it. But it was soooo tempting not to. And I WISHED for peer pressure. But it felt so great when I did it, letting out a blood curdling scream that made my mom scream AT my scream (har) and...yeah!! It was such a stereotypical moment. Isn't it wierd when you experience something from the Cannon of Life?

So I'm hoping this sojurn (is that the word) in Europe will finally get me unfucked up. Do you think that's possible? I hope so.

Floaty

There are accordian reasons for why I do what I do.



I started to carry the book around, sort of showing its spine to
the world. I've not read it and don't plan to, but the author has my name.



I was watching TV. The food channel. A segment about a one hundred
pound woman winning an eating contest. I recognized her. Thin as
fuck. Not stylish in any way, permanently stuck in the wardrobe of
someone from 1993 who was herself stuck in 1989. Jean shirts, I know
thee. A purse with an extra zipper. I knew her type. Mousy at first
glance until you see that her hands are always trembling with barely
contained, barely manicured zeal, rage, thrust, pinch, stab. Her
verociousness hides between the cracks of her worn leather goods.
Perhaps, for example, her bath towel is a piece of sandpaper hidden
beneath the sink. Perhaps she combs her hair one thousand hard
strokes a day, and there is blood on the teeth of the comb in the
medicine cabinet between pills.

The look of her makes me weary. I know her. I know her type. I
know. I have seen her on the street and, being lonely, tried to catch
her eye with an exaggerated tilt of my chin. Hello? Hello, I see
you, do you see me too?





Women, a French man with an armful of clean laundry had once announced to me, turn against themselves when they break down. Men turn against the world, they slash tires and throats of other people. Women stay home and disappear, collapse into themselves. Soldiers shooting backwards.

How True!

I recognized instantly that this was dashingly close to the truth. And being truth-seeking, I liked it and shared it often. Women turn against themselves when things go wrong. They fold up like tents defeated by a hard rain, secret madness unreserved self-damage. There is no room for shyness in a studio apartment.



What do you do with the apology of a pretty girl in your pocket? Like an admission from a bully, too good to be true? Like an orchid with no one watching, surfacing the bully within you?



For one brief flashing moment --it was a Tuesday in October and I was
wearing grey pants-- I felt exactly how I had always wanted to feel. I
felt like I was living my life, the One that I had Dreamt about and
Wanted, the charmed one. Where everything was happening and I was
busy trying to juggle all the random opportunities that came, darting
out of the folds of God's generous overflowing robes, at me,
underserving sure but handling fortune with such humility and
delicious awkwardness and high, choking incredulous questions, "who?
you are who?? ... you want me for what? me?"



And all the world seemed available to me and nothing was a fantasy.
Everything was possible and I was so, so, so happy and so confident
and in disbelief at the happy disarray that was my life! That bundle
of joy no longer waiting in the future like a lure or an illusion, but
was here, here! No longer testing my faith and optimism, because, I
can only assume, because I had passed with flying, sparkling,
irredescennt colours.

When I got home I emailed my mom ten excliamation marks, punctuated
with love and visit and dear. I sailed, floated, strut, already somewhat bashful
at my success, looking down to hide the grin on my face,
stooping a little to hide the magnificent rays of everything good that
I must have been radiating, richoting around the elevator, disturbing my co-workers.



Last week I was stopped in the middle of rushing somewhere, caught up
in a sudden unforseen cry. It was like getting hit by a Mack truck.
Didn't see it coming at all, but when it came it glued me right there
in the middle of a rush in the middle of a room. My hands
instinctively went towards my face as if it were about to disintegrate
like washable marker, as if I was trying to catch the cry. Made a few
sounds, ridiculous but also ridiculously satisfying and the temptation
to keep going, to make a music video-like parade of self-pitying
images and concepts was certainly strong. I semi-succumbed but pulled
away just in time, and voila my face had not slid off onto the floor,
my hands were free and the room was quiet again. That would be
enough, pet. Go to the bathroom to wash it away. Turn on the light
and the tap. Look in the mirror and almost scare myself: there is
blood all over my face. Some sort of malfunction, harmless nosebleed,
I had been coughing and my ears had been hurting all week, something
related to nothing. But what timing! Because for a second it sure
looked like I had been hurt.























My dad told me that what I had to do was to decide to not let the
thing that bothers me, bother me. My mom told me that I need to lower
my tolerance to stress. My brother told me that the shoes I had
bought for him had arrived. That makes my brother the easiest to
love.