I hate watching the news.

The world is beautiful--or at least every bit I've been to so far--this country!, passing every empty store lit by lamplight late at night with mosquitoes and moths and frenzied flies, every empty window beaming white into the black world all around, onto the below sordid bit of sidewalk and street every empty evening!, and the rainclouds that rain and ruin our beach sunsets and sun that shines through glass in the silent afternoons alone on the stationary stores, and the sharp-angled shade corners to which you flee, and the smells of openair streets of sewage and cigarettes and gasoline,

--this world is a good and beautiful place--don't let anybody tell you otherwise!

Sweet naivete! The tube is your demise!

Fitzgeraldian

I'll be writing down some story ideas sometime soon, about a girl who commits suicide in a tunnel somewhere on the Chuo Rapid Line in Japan.

Her world will be very beautiful when she wakes up from the dead, with irresponsible people and ghosts on motorcycles and robots at bookstores and satellites in the night,

quite like a world should be--
only nobody has an anchor in this world at all.

(on a side note: My style, I've noticed, is an odd mix between mock-aristocratic Nabokovian prose and Salingerian speech, with perhaps a dash of Fitzgerald's detached-and-descriptive.

Of course, my talent arrives nowhere near any of these men as of now, but I'll get somewhere someday, I swear...)

There's a bird with clipped wings and a missing toe, chained to his cage. Every time I pass, he bawks at me.
It pains me to see him like that, so I give him bellfruit.
If I could, I'd make his feathers grow back,
and then I'd set him free.

Pipe dreams

They stuff your heads with cotton-fluff-brainwash,
dreams of pens and ink and paper.
But why does it really matter at all?,
if I don't do my homework? or Why does it matter,
if I don't write my research paper?
Why does it matter if I haven't showered in three days,
if I'm not dressed "smart-casual", and all my clothes stink,
if I skip breakfasts, and
if I skip lunches?

A success (singular noun):
is to be able to read at a bookstore, or write a day away,
or laugh steam in the winter air, marching defiant, punching sky,
or lie down in the sordid, car-exhausted snow when you are tired of walking
when you are waiting for buses at bus stops on spring mornings,
and wish on contrails drifting, falling across in the empty blue afternoons,
and hear the whir of fans and dehumidifiers alone late, late at night,

to hang out with friends, and play music at clubs, for the rest of your life
And everyone and the world tries to make it so hard!,
and a bird with clipped wings and a missing toe!,
and I worry my day away
--how much really matters at all?

"On reasons for religion," a paper for my Bible class

God talked to me when I was little.
He was this kind of guy who would tell you not to do bad stuff and make you miserable when you did bad stuff.
I remember this one time when my sister followed me to the bathroom because she thought I wanted to play a game when really I just wanted to use the bathroom. I didn’t believe she had her reasons for going to the bathroom, so I told her “you can lie to me, but you can’t lie to God.” She confessed. God talked. God praised her guts.
By the way, I got that line, the “you can’t lie to God”, from my dad, who once scolded me for saying what he heard to be “shut up.” I’m not a bad kid. I was actually just saying “shhhhhhhhuuuuhhh” because I wanted my sister to quit whining, to shut up, and, of course, I claimed my innocence up to the very tragic end, at which point he said “you can lie to me, but you can’t lie to God!” God told me he knew my dad was falsely accusing me. I was satisfied.
There was also the devil. The devil was just as real to me as God. The devil was the one to blame for anything bad that I did. If I got caught doing anything wrong, I’d just tell my mom the devil had been telling me not to listen to God. I wasn’t completely lying, either. I heard voices, or I thought I heard voices, coming from everything—God, the devil, stuffed animals, aliens. They spoke to me through other means, too—the number of spots on a banana, the tiles I stepped on next, all sorts of signs. If you step on that ant, this famous person will die in this year, for example. When I got old enough, of course, I kind of got the impression that I was actually just talking to myself. I stopped looking so hard. The devil hasn’t spoken to me since.
I was sort of schizophrenic back then.
There was this one time when I convinced one of my friends once of a secret portal to another world that lay just behind a huge rock at my school. We spent all summer trying to dig up that rock. When he left for another school that autumn, the project was suspended until we were older and could fight the monsters in that world a bit better. That was in third grade.
In fourth grade, it was the Bermuda Triangle, and the theory that monkeys and aliens were distantly related.
In fifth grade, the kid from third grade found my number somewhere and gave me a call. He told me he had found a few other friends who had known of that world’s existence. I told him that was very nice, and he should go with them instead. I wanted to shoot myself.
In sixth grade, it was the aliens. My friend’s uncle had been abducted.
And now…
I’d like to think I’m pretty normal now. To be honest, I’m still obsessed with the Loch Ness Monster and palmistry and astrology and tarot. Of course, these days, I’m convinced most of it’s just nonsense (ghosts and aliens, I’m still undecided about them). The guys who are absolutely sure, the former me’s, who pore over those Nessie photos or build camps around Area 51, I think many are just complete nutcases.
I’m embarrassed I was among their ranks at one time.

See, religion’s not like that, though. God’s got good arguments on his side. The apologetics books haven’t been wasted:
“There’s evidence in science: The Big Bang, which could not have come from nothing at all, testifies to the existence of something before the birth of our universe. The natural laws, which sustain our universe, would not have been able to do so had they been slightly off. We trust them to regulate our world to act in predictable ways, though we have no reason for believing why they will continue to do so tomorrow.
And there’s historical evidence: Eleven out of the twelve of Jesus’ disciples were executed for their beliefs—Peter was crucified upside-down because he saw himself unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. Had they not seen him alive after his crucifixion, they would have no reason at all for believing in his claim as the Son of God.
What’s more, we believe in such a thing as value: Our morality, our willingness to make others happy at great cost to ourselves, seems out of place in the natural world, where the strong dominate the weak. Our belief that there exists a set standard for right and wrong, that serial killers and rapists have violated this standard, rather than just our own set of values, persists despite all lack of evidence that there is anything of the sort. We believe it’s good to tell the truth and to love others. We believe there’s some transcendent meaning in doing so. “
See what I’ve done there? We can now safely take Christianity into consideration. We’ve established it as a logically consistent and scientifically valid belief—that is, it can explain most things without contradicting itself or scientific evidence.
But, you ask, does that make it true?
Because consider: The disciples could have just as well been horribly deluded, like followers of the Heaven’s Gate Cult. Your morals could just as well have been conditioned, and ultimately meaningless. And really, the lack of evidence for the propagation of natural laws and their existence could be explained by the Judeo-Christian God’s existence, but it could hardly prove his existence.
Ah, fine, you win. I concede: I don’t think proving Christianity through science can be done. I would think any religious nut who claims to be able to prove Christianity and refute every other worldview is a bad liar, or else badly mistaken—
because here’s the bottom line:
Christianity isn’t overwhelmingly obvious.
We don’t all “know in our hearts that God exists.”
We don’t all hear him telepathically talking to us.
In fact, if it was so obvious, if God ever appeared on radar, I’m sure most people would believe.
Most people aren’t stupid. They don’t ignore overwhelmingly obvious facts.

But you know that.
Religion, you might have realized, is the belief in the supernatural; it’s the belief that there’s something out there that influences it all that can’t be explained away with science at all—
But here we have a problem: if a religion can’t ever be proven, why believe it at all?
Because the only reason anyone should ever believe anything is because they’ve got evidence, right?
But of course. Religion isn’t negating that statement.
See, religion isn’t blind—I think many seem to think religion is about falling back into a (possibly nonexistent) guy’s arms and trusting he’ll catch you, about not seeing any evidence but deciding to believe anyway. Believing in something despite it contradicting everything you know to be true, that’s called denial. Religion isn’t denial. It’s just as much about the evidence as anything else.
The evidence of the supernatural, however, obviously isn’t of the nature where you could ever lay it out on a table and make a case for it. Rather, I think religion is evidenced through experience—
Oh, I see what you’re thinking.
That was a statement far too radical, I’m afraid.
(Quoth the naturalist, at this point: )
“What is experience? Your thoughts, your feelings, your values, your awareness of self, even that feeling you get when you’re singing a great hymn and feeling spiritual, they’re all caused by synapses firing up in different parts of your brain. Your reality is created by neurochemicals, is a big Sargasso-tangle of synapse-firings. That’s a fact. You may feel like you’ve found God, but it will be just synapses firing in your brain.”
You are correct. So it is, I’m afraid.
But so is your sight. So is your smell. So is your logic. You, even if you believe in souls, are stuck in a physical body. You absolutely cannot have an experience not caused by the firing of synapses. But what about it? You trust your sight, don’t you? And why should you trust your experiencing sight and doubt your experiencing God? Why should you believe this experience is invalid when all your other experiences are perfectly valid?
And so I continue: I believe it’s absolutely essential that anyone making any sort of judgment on a religious view try it for himself before evaluating its claims at truth, because the facts will get him nowhere, because this religion is evidenced to him through experience:
It’s his offering a few prayers to God before bed and looking for change in his life.
It’s his reading the Bible for a few months to see if God reveals himself sometime in those months.
It’s his feeling those chemicals and synapses shooting in all directions because of a spiritual something in those few words spoken by that man in the pulpit.
And after all this, it’s his decision to dedicate his life to the faith—but it won’t be blind. It’ll be because everything he’s experienced about the faith has proven reason enough for him to believe.
So that’s my view on faith. And now, you…
How can I convince you to believe?
You know, screw this. Let’s put it bluntly:
God is real because of thermodynamics, and Jesus is his son because of his apostles’ testimony, and we’re all sinners, and you know it because of your conscience, and we’ll all go to Hell, and—and you’re afraid to come to God because of sin, but you’ll experience Him someday—here, lemme pray for you:
God, let this guy not be afraid of you, and let him realize how wonderful you are and that living a Christian life is full of the truth of your love and grace and peace and joy and eternity with his brothers and sisters in your kingdom of heaven Amen!
Oh dear, I got ahead of myself.
I’m sorry.
See what I did there? That’s precisely what I can’t do: I can’t give you any reasons for belief.
The only reason anyone should ever believe anything is because they’ve got evidence, right? And in religion’s case, the evidence comes in the form of a sort of experience I can’t describe. And I can’t give that to you. Only you can try it out and see if that evidence is there.

So here’s what you could do: you pray for some time and ask God to show himself:
If God’s there and he loves you, he’ll answer in a convincing way.
If you try and you don’t get a convincing answer, God’s not there. You are free to give up.
If you try and you don’t get an answer and you give up, and sometime at the end of seventy years God asks you why you didn’t believe back then, you could tell him you’ve tried it and you’ve experienced nothing. So you’ve got an excuse, at least.
See, you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain!
Oh, my, what a pretentious statement.
There are quite a few religions claiming the same thing. I apologize (again).
In that case, I shall suggest you go try every one of those religions.
I know I’ve found something in Christianity that’s kept me holding on, despite all my doubts, since my conversion so many years ago. You, though, shouldn’t trust another person’s experience. Give all the religions a fair chance. If the Judeo-Christian God’s there, I trust you’ll also find something in Christianity you won’t find in all the other religions.

But wait—you’ve still got one question: what makes experiences so trustworthy? I never really answered that, did I?
I mean, let’s think—people from all sorts of religions have claimed to have experienced God—what if they’ve all felt the same thing? What about that serial rapist who believed he had a deep calling from God to enslave women? What about the Heaven’s Gate Cult?
Well, you see…
That is, they’re very good questions, I think.
(A sigh of exasperation at this point!)
I’ll be honest.
I can’t answer all those questions.
When I started writing, I wanted to present all the questions that had come to my mind about the topics I discussed—
I didn’t want to give you only one side of the story, the Christian side, and then try to convince you into faith with biased propaganda—that would be horribly dishonest. Yet ultimately, I still believed I would be able to show you how it makes sense to try Christianity out.
I can’t do it. I can’t argue for science or experience.
There’s always going to be a counterargument.
I suppose my efforts were wasted—how disappointing, I think, to have it all come crashing down so suddenly in the conclusion.
You mustn’t read any more.
I have no more good reasons for religion.
You may as well stop reading.

Oh, but wait, please—before you leave—I’ve got a suggestion:
Lemme offer one more, one last argument:
Here’s a third, final, and perhaps only:
Try the religions precisely on account of these hard questions, precisely because you don’t have the answers, precisely because you probably never will—because you probably will never know anything significant enough to disclose to you just what happens after your death, or where you came from, or why you’re conscious—Try religions because now, in this body, you can’t even fully trust your own experiences—Try the religions because you don’t want to die an ignorant, uncertain man.
Try them all, or as many as you can—I hope this isn’t too much to ask—and try hard science, too, and all sorts of experiences—increase both your scientific knowledge and your breadth of experience.
And then try until you’ve found the answer, but even then, question its validity. You must never be certain. If you are ever certain, if you are ever without a doubt, worry for yourself, and then doubt your own certainty.

Bananafish

Salinger, you were disillusioned--that was all!
It was all this black hole existence!, this absent God!, this grand, ringless, carousel!
“O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived! You overpowered me and prevailed!”
But even still, how you fought them, these 91 years!

And now, have you given up? And did you ever find what brass ring you were looking for, in the end? And your soul--did it outlast?

And your dreams, Salinger!, your nightnames--your corpus callosum, medulla oblongata--your synapses, the millions of synapses, the tangled sargasso synapses--did they ever?

A story idea!

The future:
!Fluorescent paint and see-through clothing are in!
Parties are life! Pink is the new black!, Ecstasy is the new pot! Don't be caught dead without your scooter modded, and shinto has washed the masses with incense and mock-shrines. Hip-hop and electronica make love to reggae and industrial music in a godly, bizarre sort of somethingorother. Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are the gods of today.

The story:
The travels and times of a band !THE WAR ON DRUGS!, as narrated by an immortal robot Bren who is quite glad he's not human...

The characters:

A boy,
with pink hair and a scooter doodled over in sharpie, eternally bubbling over with enthusiasm, rebellion, never-seriousness! Accepting, warm, softspoken, narcissistic, impulsive; decides to tour the country with a guitar and his best friend after he gets out of high school. ENFP.

His best friend,
a girl who wears fluorescent devil horns, rides a pink scooter with Marilyn Monroe's face on it, plays a red devil sort of guitar. The world is beautiful, everyone! And she secretly likes him, but, of course, he has a girlfriend... ISFP.

The girl's childhood friend,
whom the guy invites on the trip, despite never getting along with him. Bold, raucious, chill. He drums, with a kabuki mask. Rarely, if ever, serious. Just here for the good time. ESTP.

A robot they meet in a restaurant,
who has a passion for 7/4 and 5/4 timing and synthesizers. Plays the bass, wears a nail-studded Mickey Mouse hat and WAR glasses. Silent, blunt, chill. The band's music turns into something a bit odd under his direction. Smokes when upset. Thinks the band completely blows without his own ideas. Usually right. Fragile, INTP.

A pet street guitarist they adopt,
a sort of mother-figure, counselor, amazing cook to whom the ESTP gets quite attached... They leave him in Seattle with some money college for one night. He writes great lyrics, and he cringes at the band's love for vulgarity and shock theatre. Wishes he was a ghost sometimes. A saintly sort of INFJ.

An idea is born!,
Fight for air!
Don't die so soon!

And also my writing sucks these days.
I wonder....
Terminal Man.

The Senner.

The Senner

A poem, a true story,
a work dedicated to my brilliant math teacher,
and the wonderful video of the same name:

Once upon a math class dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a dull and useless problem done the night before,
While I nodded, nearly dozing, suddenly! some thought imposing,
A God of thoughts, a celestial thought, racing ‘round my languished mind:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XCg3Gu-YA

(You see, dear reader, I was eager—being shown that site before
By our teacher, Mr. Senner, just a week and days before—
To show the world this Youtube gold, this song to which my soul was sold,
This band, whose namesake from him taking, had been making
Who, with some stick fights and foot-shaking, had been making
Godlike song with saintly chords!)

And distinctly I remember: it was in the crisp November,
As each boredom-stricken student gazed with yearning at the door.
My friend was sleeping, and I, keeping watch of time so quickly fleeting.
I leaned beside, and in aside, asked if he’d seen before,
—Perchance my friend had seen that video before—
He claimed he had, and nothing more.

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Ah!,' said I, `we should coerce him, pay him, bribe him, or else force him!
Make him show the class that video we were shown by him before!
And so quietly he went writing, writing on the board
“Search up Senner VII,” said the writing on the board

Quoth the Senner, ‘Nevermore.’


But this silent man beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance he wore,
`Though thee has said tis not the season, thou,' I said, `has not a reason.
Omnipotent and mighty teacher, why do you our pleads ignore?
Tell us why thee never gives a reason for our pleads ignored?'

Quoth the Senner, `Nevermore.'


Much I marvelled at this answer, not the one which I would chance for,
Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that few living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XCg3Gu-YA on the net before -
A video with the name of www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XCg3Gu-YA on the net before,
But twas his answer: ‘Nevermore.’


But the Senner, sitting lonely on the cluttered desk, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
No more words then did he utter – only numbers did he mutter-
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Not one friend has seen before -
In the end, I’ll make him show it, as he knows he can’t endure.'

Then the man said, `Nevermore.'


Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
`Doubtless,' said I, `what he utters is his only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy class which caused unmerciful disaster,
Which followed fast and followed faster, till his cries one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never-nevermore."'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat now wondering, with my mind the video pondering,
Over swordfights, moving feet, and hair grown down to ‘neath their knees
But whose swordfights, moving feet, and hair grown down to ‘neath their knees
They shall see, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee
A name – a name like Senner, a name that www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XCg3Gu-YA proudly bore!
Now show, oh show this www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XCg3Gu-YA to us; give us joy and end this bore!'

Quoth the Senner, `Nevermore.'


`Senner!' said I, `name of evil! - Senner still, if man or devil! -
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Shall thee show www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XCg3Gu-YA to us, ever? - tell me - tell me, I implore!'

Quoth the Senner, `Nevermore.'


`Senner!' shrieked I, `name of evil! - Senner still, if man or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall see a certain www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XCg3Gu-YA whom the angels so adore -
Clasp a rare and radiant www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XCg3Gu-YA, whom the angels so adore?'

Quoth the Senner, `Nevermore.'


`Be that word our sign of parting, precalc coach!' I shrieked upstarting -
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no numbers as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the desk beside your door!
Take thy teeth from out my heart, and take thy form from out my door!'

Quoth the Senner, ‘Zeffy, I would like you to sit over here in the front.’


And so,
The Senner not permitting, I am sitting, still am sitting
On that lonely desk that lies before the Senner’s door.
The bell has rung, the kids depart, their heads held high, but oh! my heart!
Even now, the song’s unsung! The cause—is lost! Not yet! Not now!
Alas! the video, ah! the video, lies obscure now, disavowed now,
Shall be shown now—nevermore!

My faith.

When I was younger, God wasn’t so hard to believe. See, for most children, the Whats of religion don’t always require a Why; after all, life is just splendid, these matters are all so trivial, and the reason, if they ever discover it later, is probably very reasonable. And if ever any one of these questions gave me too much of a bother, I could delve into yet another book on my dad’s shelf explaining why evolution is a bunch of fairy tales and how God is so easy to believe. And it was splendid, after all, and they were trivial, and it would have been magnificent if things could have stayed like that.

But as kids grow up, they develop this skill—logic—until alas! there comes an age when doubts all grow too heavy,
when the Hammer of Empiricism smashes on through every one of their beliefs,
knocks them down,
sends away the ex-children scrambling for and clawing at whatever pieces are left huc illuc.

And I don’t think it was so bad that I was barely a teenager when I decided to let it reduce my religion to sweet neological nothings—
tis better to let it strike early, I think, when you don’t have too much to lose and still 5/6 of your life left to rediscover it.

But then, of course, I suppose many a Presbyterian preacher would have told me to neatly tuck these doubts away into the dark recesses of my mind and know that there is an answer,
but My goodness, what a horrible answer!

If God is God, what are they so afraid of? Wrestling with him, as Jacob had? And defeating him, perhaps? Some God they make him out to be!

Or maybe,
Or maybe those doubts which had the potential to sabotage our beliefs weren’t quite so important to these fundamentals, tenets, doctrines. Yet if this be the case, how seriously would I be taking faith, dismissing so lightly these doubts that undermine it so heavily!

Then, I would think the only proper response would be to let them run amok in your mind until they find themselves before the Divine Countenance, until God addresses them and you realize how completely unfounded they were.
Yet this is so hard for so many,
and for me Herculean.

Perhaps one reason for this is because God, for one reason or another, is given to frequent bouts of silence, often when you least expect them.
The late Job has experienced this, to which he cries out, “But God will answer in the end!”
But of course—a perfectly loving God would certainly not ever abandon anyone, ever!
But I wonder how much of that you can believe all at once when your head is so plagued by these worry-flies beating themselves to death against two layers of glass:

Perchance he’ll be silent for a little too long,
Perchance I’ll abandon him altogether!
and Perchance—
if I happen to die on some bleak, godless winter morning—
I’ll find myself the murderer Nietzsche before the face of that clandestine God (very much alive!) at death!

And so I hold on to my doubts,
not yet brave enough (and not exactly sure how) to hand them all over…

And…

I’m not sure what else to say.

After all the “hold ons” and the “never let gos” are all wasted, I suppose I don’t have much else useful to talk about…

Essential definitions in the world of moi.

Life (sing, n.):
1. That horribly chaotic time between your birth and your death when you try to discover why everyone exists and how everyone can keep on existing while you simultaneously try to make yourself and everyone else better and happier.

Happiness (sing, n.)
1. Sex, drugs, and everywhere and everyone new and dangerous. (see “partiness”)
2. Surges of electricity that pass from someone you love to you when you come into physical contact with them. May also pass through telephone wires and emails, however weaker. (see “love”)
3. Ramen on a cold day. (see “satellitiness”)
4. When you will not and cannot die until you squeeze something amazing out of life.

Emotions (sing, n.)
1. Shallow, annoying, uncontrollable creatures that show up at all the wrong times and go missing when you need them most.

Art (sing, n.):
1. Lame, supermarket-frozen, concentrated juice of emotions.

Psychic spy satellites.

I don't have much time to write much anymore,
nor much to write much about, and I can't write as well as I used to,
in June.
I wish I was a girl, so I wouldn't be so angry all the time,

but the world seems like an awfully big place, and there are too many things to do,
and too mant things to believe in,
and to disbelieve,
and you're not quite sure which will lead you anywhere,
or which is true, if there is such a thing at all,
so you drift a bit toward any planet that you pass,
merry-go-around it,
and then you're off f f f f f .

I only wish they would give you a map.

Pisces, again.



Hey,
let's have bubbles at our wedding.

Memories and love stuff

As I was packing, I found a bunch of stuff from 7th and 8th grade.

Two years isn't so much, you can't stay in love forever, and feelings aren't everything in a relationship.

Songwriting and shoujo manga?

Has it snowed yet where you are? I'd talk all night with you, but it's 3, and my ramen's getting cold.
Maybe you could visit this December, and then we could talk some more, but I really have to go...

Blablablablabla...
Blablablabla...
Bla...
I can't believe I'm writing stuff like this.
Perhaps it's the influence of Twilight,
Or the numerous shoujo titles I've been devouring as of late...(tis Kare Kano, my current series... Arima is so like my best friend!)

Last Plane to London?

Before I leave, I would like to buy a phone, so maybe I can lie on my bed and talk for hours into the night with my friends.

Maybe it'll be still burning up over in my cabin, and the fan would be sighing all night, and in America, it would be a winter morning. I don't have such a good imagination, but just hearing the word "snow" makes you feel so warm. It's funny. Cold things make you feel so warm, but summer makes you think of cicadas and cool nights and bugs by lamps and Taiwanese winters.
I must ask about the ducks, in any case.

What if they make me take off my bracelet at the school?
I guess I wouldn't mind my wish coming true so much, right? I wonder if it still works... the heart came off the green one, so does it still count as the original bracelet?

Wait, I still haven't made a wish on the blue one...
How's "I wish I'll find something super-amazing one day"?
So selfish.
"Because the Pisces must survive, he can be a very determined, even selfish individual."
I don't really believe it, of course, but I'd like to play it safe.
Wishes are horrible things to waste.

Dizzy, dizzy, an afternoon in front of a screen...........................
Envy is when someone makes a better friendship bracelet than you.

I like this story a lot.

I wrote a story.



It's about Ken, who falls in love with another boy named Ax, but then Ax dies in Vietnam. It's also about the narrator, who's liked by a really young girl. There are cat chases and moths in streetlights and contrails and fans in empty restaurants and one way trains on circular tracks, and at the end, Ken is asleep on a train...

I think I'm really happy with it. i wrote out the whole thing on this page... the summary... it's really long, and i don't have time to post it now.

But i really want this feeling to be heard... because... Ken thought that any dream you could actually catch wasn't worth running after, because it's not good enough. I really wish something amazing could happen.
I don't think anyone is really reading this, or anyone would actually be interested in the story if they were, and i already know the story by heart.... so...

maybe i'll go to bed.

but the ending is so nice... they sleep the empty cabin of the subway going through the town, and music is playing over static on the loudspeakers... it's like they've come so far, and they're going in circles on the one-way train again... they never really got anywhere in the end...

and there are cats as well... in the town...

i'll sleep early tonight...

Bonam noctem...
Defessus sum, esurioque

A video and a story at 1 in the morning...

SHE AND HER CAT

It's by Shinkai.
I can't stand the stuff a lot of people watch these days. Adults drooling over Naruto and Full Moon and stuff... I mean, it's a bit childish, I guess. I don't know. Perhaps I'm just biased, but I like stuff like Haibane Renmei and Satoshi Kon's films a whole lot. KyoAni's nice. And I LOVE Kimi ga Nozomu Eien!
Tragic, beautiful stuff. Makes you think.
Then again, some loli hentai or something every so often doesn't hurt ;)

Oh, also...
Here's the first part of my story for English. I can't think of an ending. It's really been bugging the shit out of me.

'^' <-- it's a new kind of sad smiley, i think... Here:

It was pouring by the time he had arrived at the doors of the city station. Greeted by automatic doors and cold steel and escalators and glass ceilings and harsh halogen lights and silence at 2 in the morning, tired. It was a dream.
But still he dragged his soaked luggage and a wet Rolling Stone through this empty expanse, past nobody else at all.

The train had already come earlier this evening, but he thought maybe he could wait out the rain a bit and board tonight. He regretted it more than anything now.

Down the escalators,
Onto the linoleum of the platform,
Waited on a cold metal bench,
Tuned out the harsh edges of reality with loud music. Nirvana. Freedom from the vicious cycle.
But then the train arrived, glided to a stop,
And it was still raining outside the station, right now, probably. The boy yawned,

And he stepped into an empty cabin. No, there was a girl in the very front right seat.
Don’t mind her. Ignore her. It might be a bit lonely, but save yourself the embarrassment and sit alone. And he was about to sit down in the very first seat to the right.
But she spoke.
“Can you sit over here?”
.
“Uh… alright.” he said, but he was more than happy.

The PA announced the closing of the train’s doors monotonously.
“It’s a bit lonely at 2 in the morning is all. Someone to talk to would be nice.” She looked up at him.
Short, short hair, short shorts, a cami, and a hoodie. He eyed the cup noodles on her fold-out table.
“They have ramen in the vending machines over there. Here, if I had a cup, I’d pour some out for you"

“Not hungry…” Lies. He sat down across from her, in a window seat, and pulled his earphones out.
Silence now.

“So where are you headed?”

“Kaohsiung,” he replied.

(“Oh, I love the bookstore there!” she cried)

“I went to an English school two, three years back.”

“It’s nice to do that, I think.” She said this as she glanced out the window. The rain came harder than ever now, he thought, but it was silenced by the sigh of the AC.
“Reliving old memories, I mean. There’s a bookstore there, you know? It’s on the very top level of that mall… What’s it called?”

“Sogo? The fashion mall, right?”
It did have one on the top floor, right? Or was it a theatre?

“The Bookstore on Top of the World.”

“Is that what it’s called?”

“No, just in my mind.” She smiled. “But it is amazing. I used to think that when I got to college, maybe I could visit every day. Reality fades away when you’re reading.”

She paused.

“I think life is really stressful and overly complicated. You have to give them all a good performance, but it’s not what you really think. And maybe you could tell them how you really feel, but they think you’re just acting. And either way, you feel so guilty in the end because you can’t do anything… like… have you seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”

“I don’t think so. Was that the Hepburn one?”
He looked out the window. Black. They were out of the city now, he thought, or maybe underground.

“You should see it. Audrey’s amazing.” She yawned.
“Are you tired?”

“Not really. You can sleep now if you want.”

She took off her jacket and bunched it into a ball. Makeshift pillow.
“Um, hey… did I get your name?” She closed her eyes.

“Trent.”

“Are you single, Trent?”

“I had a girlfriend in Kaohsiung. Alice."

“What was she like?”

“She was really nice. We went to the carousel together the day just before I left. It was raining, but she wanted to go to the carousel because it would be just like in Catcher, and she looked so nice with the rain running down her face…”
But he caught himself.
“That could have been a line from a bad Korean soap opera...”

She laughed. “Keep going.”

So he told her about how he first met her when he arrived at the boarding school.
He talked about shaved ice in the summer and the comic market in the winter.
He talked about visiting her dorm before the typhoons and watching anime under the colorless and rain-drenched skies, about lonely work at a 7-Eleven’s through the summer nights, about riding mopeds through the neon jungle, about adult video games, 24-hour cafés, stray cats, cheap noodles, the carousel, the carousel, and he kept mentioning the carousel because she loved the carousel a lot.

I shouldn’t be here, she would say, or I don’t belong here, or I want to disappear, and he would take her out for ice cream, or coffee, or maybe just shower her in compliments if he was short on cash.

And often times, he thought, I wonder if life would get better, because it’s so frustratingly empty right now, and he would drown himself out in music, and he would never tell her. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure if he liked her so much, but he wished he did.

And so he promised her that one day, when he was done with his studies, he could return all tired and sweaty, and luggage behind him, and his breath in the air, and cranky taxi drivers in taxis, and they could rent an apartment, and they could live together, and all his friends would be next door, and his sister could visit in the summer, maybe, and…

The girl was asleep.

Somewhere between 3 and 4, he got up and bought some grapefruit juice from the vending machine. Amidst the typhoon, the neon signs of the city danced back and forth like ghosts.

Actually, I hate it now. I hate it completely, and with a passion......................
I was so happy the night I wrote it. I thought it was the best thing in the world. But now? UUUUGGGHHH...

But there was one line I liked in my story....

The world is a pretty big place, he thought. A pretty empty place.

There was the occasional lonely ghost waiting under the bus shelter on spring mornings,

The torrential storms that drains and bleaches the sky every summer,

The autumn evenings spent alone at old manga cafés after school,

The nice ramen they sell in the street booths on cold winter nights,

The trains over water and hundreds and thousands of neon lights that dance from dusk to dawn and hundreds and thousands of satellites that litter the sky like the pool after a storm.

But that wasn’t much, he thought.

it's nice, I think. If i was a visual novel writer, I could rely on music and pictures to do the other 2/3...

But I guess I'm not THAT bad a writer. Just not the best, and maybe a bit corny at times.