I need to stop taking people at face-value.
I was thinking today. And I realized that all the times I found that people to be not who they claim to be and that's okay. None of us are really who we want to be. When we make claims about ourselves, when we say, "I am this-and-this," what we are actually saying is "I want to be this-and-this," "I am in the self-actualized project towards becoming this-and-this."
In the company of others, when we talk about ourselves, we are actually committing an act of self-reinforcement towards that being we wish to be. I think everybody does that. I know I do. The important thing is that we have the belief that we are already the being that we are not yet but soon will be.
Then, our thought process forces us to take actions we would not normally take and over time this become encrusted into habits. And all the things we claim to be, the things we wished we were, are now things that we are. We will conduct ourselves with neither intention nor thought to do them because we have habituated ourselves to do so.
The important thing for me to remember is not to feel disappoint in the failings of others; it is more important to realize that these are the steps people take to go there.
I'll try to remember this. And bolster people's beliefs so that they can get to where they want to be quicker.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Random outbursts of positivism
So today, I almost passed out at my desk. I clonked right out.
I've been working on these damn Chain of Custody charts and they were getting on my nerves. Just then, I noticed the charts I'd been drawing for weeks and had been circulated to half the company had multiple, glaring mistakes in them.
In my state of utteral exhaustion and fruss-ssstration, I blacked out. It was sort of like dying. Of complete dispair.
I think my subconscious mind was trying to keep myself alive. And the first image it pulled up was a friend I hadn't seen in a long time. I had flashes of all the fun times we had. I knew her now for almost two years and it's always cool whenever I hang out with her. Just the positive thought alone made me jolt right up. And I was grinning like a idiot in front of my computer screen.
This is the coolest thing ever! I had been sleeping for 4-5 hours a day the last few weeks. I don't think I'd lasted another hour. But that little jolt got me awake and productive all-day -- including the gruelling afterwork meeting I had with my boss and my boss's boss.
I went to her house to thank her right away. She wasn't home. But I bumped into her on my way back to the subway.
I started telling her all about what happened and started telling her how glad I was that we're friend. I think she was a little freaked out. But, oh well, she is always super cool.
So if you are reading this, bud, great big hug and super-thank you.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Girl with the big canvass bag. Responsibilities.
I saw a large canvass handbag in the back of bus. Opened and showing its contents through its wide leather lips: an agenda, a pair of Converses, a large brown trifold women's wallet.
This is the #11 Mississauga bus going to Islington Subway 5:30 in the afternoon. Bus had maybe ten people in it and everybody was exhausted from work; nobody is about to go rummaging the bag either for goodness of heart or gainful profit. Still, it was odd. all the regulars that takes the #11 with me everyday are too savvy in the ways of the suburban city to leave things lying around like that.
I took one of those two-seaters on the right of the bus and ate my sandwich. Stared back out to Westwood Mall and the Food Basics.
A tall girl with hair shrouding her face walked angrily, quickly up the bus. She started speaking to the bus driver. I couldn't hear what she was saying. But her whole body spoke. Her hand gesticulating to each movement oof her lips. Her body shook. Hair like dried river reeds in autumn wind. She looked like she was about to … I don't know. Like something violent or volcanic. I'd half-expected the bus driver to kick her off. But he didn't: she was threatening him or anything. Just another frantic chick on the bus out of Missisauga.
She had to be young. Her clothes. Grey jogging pants fraying at the ankle. They drew her legs long if they weren't long already. A flattened puffy parka with those fake fur fringed hoods that are everywhere at the malls. It's red but faded from salt-spray. She was coloured - like me. those I can't tell with all her hair over her face. Black or brown - it's hard to say.
Though it's hard to imagine too many white folks riding on this bus: it's the last ride of the damned. Only those too poor or mentally and physical incapable ride this bus in and out of hell.
She looked pretty. But it's hard to say. I could see her face with her hair and the large orange rays of the last sunset through the white covered metro-bus windows. I had idly wondered. Mostly, detachly.
She clunked back quickly, in those cheap $30 sneakers that are washed impossibly white. She grabbed the large, almost spilling canvas bag and sat down in the right-corner seat of the bus. She swung her legs over to the intersecting seats and hugged her bag and slept with her hood down.
I slept too and fiddled with my phone and ate my sandwich and watch what I can out of the dirty windows to Woodbine Racetracks. There is the highway that passes the airport. There isn't much on this side of town. The corner of the city everybody forgets. I was forgetting too. Hoping to wash away much of the stench of Brampton with as much road speed as the #11 can push out until we hit the City again. Passed Burnamthrope and all of sudden the easy leafy houses of Etobicoke. And it was so easy to forget the ugliness just a line on the map away. By the time the bus hit Islington Station, I had regained my Toronto self back and got off and bid the foul orange bus fairwell till tomorrow.
It was good and, normally, I'd take the subway home. I noticed today, in the back corner, a red form still crunched up, leaned into the window at the back of the bus. The driver saw too and moved to the back and gentlely nudge a grey knee of the girl. She closed her legs and leaned into the window in sleepy form. The driver nudged her again -- softer really -- and she woke up. Straight up.
Still clutching that big bag over her chest, she climbed off the bus. I saw her face finally. Young except her eyes. And it was impossible for me to guess how old she could be. Pretty except for her large frightened eyes. As if she was running away from something or watching out for somebody who will track her down.
She pulled out a pack of -- Cravens maybe, I had only seen warehouse workers smoke them before. I was already beyond curious. I stayed on the curb of the sidewalk. Like I was waiting for the bus. She kept smoking, smoking, and staring. Till she was done and went into the subway. I went into the subway too and saw that she was standing just away from the collector's booth like she has never been there before. She looked all around her like she was lost.
I felt like I should go over and asked if she needed help. I don't know. She seemed like she needed more help myself or anyone else can possibly offer in a busy subway station. She dashed to some of the payphones. I should mind my own business, I thought, she is calling somebody now for whatever it is that she needs.
I swiped my metropass and got into the gate. I thought about getting a Toronto Star. I had not bought a newspaper in years and the newsstand clerk had to tell me that the paper is 75-cents now. I fumbled for a while for that one extra quarter.
I crossed back to take the stairs to the platform level. On my way down, I saw the girl one last time. She was still outside the gates. She hadn't used the payphone at all. She was just half-hiding herself by the small wall next to the phones.
I kept an emergency subway token in my change purse, in a separate compartment. Maybe I should've gone back out and just gave it to her. If she did needed help, she won't find it on the edge of Toronto. Downtown. At least there are shelters there. It was going to be a cold night.
My feet took it's own course. It took each step down. And I saw her face peering out one last time and I was gone.
This is the #11 Mississauga bus going to Islington Subway 5:30 in the afternoon. Bus had maybe ten people in it and everybody was exhausted from work; nobody is about to go rummaging the bag either for goodness of heart or gainful profit. Still, it was odd. all the regulars that takes the #11 with me everyday are too savvy in the ways of the suburban city to leave things lying around like that.
I took one of those two-seaters on the right of the bus and ate my sandwich. Stared back out to Westwood Mall and the Food Basics.
A tall girl with hair shrouding her face walked angrily, quickly up the bus. She started speaking to the bus driver. I couldn't hear what she was saying. But her whole body spoke. Her hand gesticulating to each movement oof her lips. Her body shook. Hair like dried river reeds in autumn wind. She looked like she was about to … I don't know. Like something violent or volcanic. I'd half-expected the bus driver to kick her off. But he didn't: she was threatening him or anything. Just another frantic chick on the bus out of Missisauga.
She had to be young. Her clothes. Grey jogging pants fraying at the ankle. They drew her legs long if they weren't long already. A flattened puffy parka with those fake fur fringed hoods that are everywhere at the malls. It's red but faded from salt-spray. She was coloured - like me. those I can't tell with all her hair over her face. Black or brown - it's hard to say.
Though it's hard to imagine too many white folks riding on this bus: it's the last ride of the damned. Only those too poor or mentally and physical incapable ride this bus in and out of hell.
She looked pretty. But it's hard to say. I could see her face with her hair and the large orange rays of the last sunset through the white covered metro-bus windows. I had idly wondered. Mostly, detachly.
She clunked back quickly, in those cheap $30 sneakers that are washed impossibly white. She grabbed the large, almost spilling canvas bag and sat down in the right-corner seat of the bus. She swung her legs over to the intersecting seats and hugged her bag and slept with her hood down.
I slept too and fiddled with my phone and ate my sandwich and watch what I can out of the dirty windows to Woodbine Racetracks. There is the highway that passes the airport. There isn't much on this side of town. The corner of the city everybody forgets. I was forgetting too. Hoping to wash away much of the stench of Brampton with as much road speed as the #11 can push out until we hit the City again. Passed Burnamthrope and all of sudden the easy leafy houses of Etobicoke. And it was so easy to forget the ugliness just a line on the map away. By the time the bus hit Islington Station, I had regained my Toronto self back and got off and bid the foul orange bus fairwell till tomorrow.
It was good and, normally, I'd take the subway home. I noticed today, in the back corner, a red form still crunched up, leaned into the window at the back of the bus. The driver saw too and moved to the back and gentlely nudge a grey knee of the girl. She closed her legs and leaned into the window in sleepy form. The driver nudged her again -- softer really -- and she woke up. Straight up.
Still clutching that big bag over her chest, she climbed off the bus. I saw her face finally. Young except her eyes. And it was impossible for me to guess how old she could be. Pretty except for her large frightened eyes. As if she was running away from something or watching out for somebody who will track her down.
She pulled out a pack of -- Cravens maybe, I had only seen warehouse workers smoke them before. I was already beyond curious. I stayed on the curb of the sidewalk. Like I was waiting for the bus. She kept smoking, smoking, and staring. Till she was done and went into the subway. I went into the subway too and saw that she was standing just away from the collector's booth like she has never been there before. She looked all around her like she was lost.
I felt like I should go over and asked if she needed help. I don't know. She seemed like she needed more help myself or anyone else can possibly offer in a busy subway station. She dashed to some of the payphones. I should mind my own business, I thought, she is calling somebody now for whatever it is that she needs.
I swiped my metropass and got into the gate. I thought about getting a Toronto Star. I had not bought a newspaper in years and the newsstand clerk had to tell me that the paper is 75-cents now. I fumbled for a while for that one extra quarter.
I crossed back to take the stairs to the platform level. On my way down, I saw the girl one last time. She was still outside the gates. She hadn't used the payphone at all. She was just half-hiding herself by the small wall next to the phones.
I kept an emergency subway token in my change purse, in a separate compartment. Maybe I should've gone back out and just gave it to her. If she did needed help, she won't find it on the edge of Toronto. Downtown. At least there are shelters there. It was going to be a cold night.
My feet took it's own course. It took each step down. And I saw her face peering out one last time and I was gone.
Tweets for Today
- 15:28 Sluthood means, among other things, that you don't have to depend on any one person to fulfill all of your desires. - Ethical Slut #
- 15:34 It is not possible to predict when or with whom a crush, or any other deepening of feelinggs, might happen. - Ethical Slut #
- 15:38 Commentary: Not sure if little tribes of sluts are necessary something I look fwd to. #
- 15:40 . don't let yourself be driven into a position where you feel you have to fuck out of politeness . - Ethical Slut #
- 16:21 Traditionally in this culture, women often bear the burden of being responsible for everybody's emotional well-being. - Ethical Slut #
- 16:35 Intimacy is based on shared vulnerability. - Ethical Slut #
- 17:22 Commentary: Limerance (self-delusion of desire) is not addressed. #
- 17:27 We make a fight fair . by respecting other people's right to their feelings and opinions while we are expressing our own. - Ethical Slut #
- 17:29 Commentary: I don't feel i've been fighting fair. But what if we don't have the strength to be fair. Or our desires and wants are contrary? #
- 17:37 So what's wrong with wanting attention? Isn't there plenty? - Ethical Slut #
- 17:41 Commentary: Had an unsatis convo. Felt like things were push aside. #
- 17:47 . the single most important hallmark of agreement is consent. - Ethical Slut #
- 17:53 Agreements do not have to be equal. People are different and unique. - Ethical Slut #
- 17:57 the purpose of an agreement is to find a way in which everybody can win. - Ethical Slut #
- 18:02 Most people have a harder time dealing with suprises, which can feel like land mines exploding. - Ethical Slut, Predictability #
- 18:03 . sometimes, you simply need to agree not to agree. - Ethical Slut, "What if there is no agreement?" #
- 18:06 Commentary: being fair and "looking into ones heart and feeling no wrong" are entirely diff concepts. #
- 18:08 Human beings change, so do agreements. - Ethical Slut #
- 21:51 When we judge ourselves by cultural values imposed from the outside . this is internalized racism. - Ethical Slut #
- 21:51 When we see our friends as too slutty or too free, this is called horizontal hostility. - Ethical Slut #
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Blame (from The Ethical Slut)
It is always tempting to respond to a major relationship conflict by assigning blame. In childhood we learn that pain, in the form of punishment from our all-powerful parents, is the consequence of doing something wrong. So when we hurt, we try to make sense of it by finding somebody doing something wrong, preferably somebody else.
… What is impportant to remember is that most relationships break up because the partners are unhappy with each other, and no one is to blame: not yoou, not your partner, and not you partner's lover. Even if someone acted badly, or was dishonest, your primary relationship tends to end due to their own internal stresses.
- Ethical Slut
Stuff I worry about
Not feeling I am/will make as much money as I like to. I know it's the kind of thing North Americans talk about: it's not cool to be too concerned about money. But I have to be honest — I feel it, it's there. I feel anxiety about current and future earnings.
I am a little afraid of my own force of will. Feeling mentally drained and weak. Neither feeling fully able to stand by myself or stand together with other people. Like under a cloud.
Not sure if I will ever do anything I can be proud of. I was one of those library kids: my mom used to take me to the library and i'd take back 6-7 books. Writng has always been a big deal for me. Not sure if I can ever give back all that I have taken in this life from everyone elses books. Have not written stuff of worth in 6 months. Going desperate. Anxiety making me sleepy.
Still reading Ethical Slut. Like it very much. But. Not sure if lifestyle described is for me. Don't really like sex that much. (Which in itself is a worry for me.) But do not feel monogamy is right either. Nor longterm onanism. Thinking about what to do with rest of sexual life. Worried.
Still thinking about Macau. Many things makes it not worthwhile to go. But. There are lots of advantages. Just concerned whether I am making decision impartially. Or, whether I am just pushing myself because I am feeling that the air is leaking from my life here. Am I deluding myself to go because of some form of mental escapism? I don't need to making the right decision, I just want be sure that I don't mind-fuck myself into things.
Anywho these are the stuff I worry about.
Tweets for Today
- 17:04 Had a revelation about something. Wish I was a Dutch Master. Still life of a Mother Haggling for Eyeglasses. #
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Tweets for Today
- 22:55 It's neither hard nor easy. Probably more, just, something else. #
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Tweets for Today
- 17:18 Do not commit yourself to a lifetime of hinting and hoping. -- The Ethical Slut, Dossie Easton & Catherine A. Liszt #
- 18:28 Do I have terrible politics? I don't think so. Just ... iconoclastic. Reasonably iconoclastic. #
- 18:36 What you are not responsible for is your lover's emotions. You can choose to be supportive . but it is not your job to fix anything. - E ... #
- 18:57 Forget about fairness. Ethical sluttery does not mean that all things come out equal. #
- 18:58 Different relationships have different boundaries, different limits, and different potentials. #
- 19:24 The real test of love is when a person - including you - can know your weaknesses, your stupidities and your smallnesses, and still love you #
Monday, March 17, 2008
Tweets for Today
- 19:10 spoke to as many people that I should speak to as I can. Now home, bed. Hopefully. #
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Bear Stearn
I never thought a major wall street bank can essential go out of business.
Fuck.
Bear was one of the big boys. Primary Dealer. Titan of Wall Street.
Bought out for $236 million ... their headquarter on Manhattan alone whole fetch more than that..
Entry in Wikipedia
On their head honcho -- Jimmy Cayne
A timeline of events from AP
Fuck.
Bear was one of the big boys. Primary Dealer. Titan of Wall Street.
Bought out for $236 million ... their headquarter on Manhattan alone whole fetch more than that..
Entry in Wikipedia
On their head honcho -- Jimmy Cayne
A timeline of events from AP
Tweets for Today
- 08:59 just woke up to a massive craving for oysters. #
- 09:00 googled oyster restaurants. Oyster Boy sound super good. Remind self to call friends, make reservations. #
- 12:16 Arranged all the good times to be had for a saturday night. #
- 18:40 just realized that the concept of "the balanced lifestyle" is a myth #
- 19:34 waiting for the show to start. Bearing thru mic feedback. chillin' to hiphop sound and trying to find out why a 18 years-old kid got shot #
- 22:43 at goodhandy's waiting for friends to show #
The Police is the biggest gang in the city
I am at the Justice 4 Alwy Benefits Concert tight now. The keynote speaker said "the poice is the biggest gang..."
It's kind of true, isn't it? But isn't that partly the point?
In the allocation of public resources and the drafting of policies, there are always going to be winners and losers.
The police, as far as a paramilitary organization, serves the interest of some over the interest of others.
The police, from a public perspective, are gauged not by their effectivness in the apprehension of criminals, but by their effectiveness in reducing crime. The assumption is that the former leads to the latter, but the police can employ other methods.
Harm-reduction and community policing are both ideas that crimes can be prevented before they start. The other thing the police can do, as insurances companies do, is to target demographic groups that are statistically more likely to commit a crime. This is neither legal nor just, but it is something the police might be tempted to do.
Intimidation of those groups might yields the kind of results that the police are judged by; perhaps in a more cost-effect manner (albeit, in the short run) than other methods. Arresting criminals invole court costs. Thounsands of people hours in paper work and filing.
As an organization with resource constraints, the police would have an incentive to externalize these costs: persecute minorites that are most likely to commit crimes so that they would be too afraid so that crime statistic would go down, and create more social problems in the long run. But sense of equality and future rises in crime rates are not the concerns of the current administration of the police services.
So,
Winners: Middle class white people and the police.
Losers: Minorities
Simple problem of economics.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Tweets for Today
- 18:39 saw a hot girl with no ass. How does one bridge this refutation of the princlple of negation? #
- 18:39 just saw the tackiest watch ever. Gold leaved digital Casio with matching strap. #
- 20:28 had dinner with K. He still doesn't know why the girl he goes out with is angry when he asked about her boyfriend. #
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Tweets for Today
Friday, March 07, 2008
Good to be a man (I guess)
Saw this job ad at the bus shelter in Westwood Mall:
Jobs Jobs Jobs
Immediate openings for Male workers in Shipping/Packaging Dept. for permanent positions.
Good start with $10.25, after 3months permanent positions will be offered for $13.00
Pick and drop facility available from Westwood Mall
Contact only serious and hardworking people who are looking for a permanent job.
Ask for details
647-829-####
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Stubby Grass
I am always impressed by the stubby grass growing by the tracks between Summerhill and St. Clair Station. What must be ten, twelfth feet underground and where not even a sheaf of sunlight can ever be seen, these grass grow.
I go by them almost everyday. Most of the time I don't even notice. The subway train going so fast; they are just a sliver of shadow under the orange lamp lighting the tunnels for those interspersed constrution work the TTC pretends to do once in awhile.
The grass stays.
The grass seems to die once in awhile. Then it comes back at different places. Though by what earthly cycle their never ending nocturnal existence should tell them the coming and going of seasons, what clue or signs that tells them if the sun is close of far?
Life for the grass, as far as I cam tell will always be dim. Why live? Grow tall to when light is lit from the ground? Waste precious energy for seeds of children who will steal those same few precious energies?
The life of grass must be a happier one than mine: they are so willing to live it even when they are so far down.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Beijing Bicycle
Whole movie involves two character getting their ass kicked in over an 18-speed mountain bike.
It's a massive social commentary about the ascent of China as a economic power and the influence of Western ideas and capitalism in the city.
It's funny. In Macau, my uncles were always warning me about Mainlanders. "They'll kill you over 100 patacas," all my Macau relatives said to me.
Words. A promise. Pride. Manhood. What are these things that can be bought for a few hundred dollars?
I was thinking about money again - still - on the plane over the Artic. The Continental flight I was on had a duty-free catalogue that sold a similar bike for a good price.
Isabella
I watched movie about Macau on the plane from HK to Newark shot completely in Macau, completely about Macau.
So. Everything I want to say about the place, beyond the money, the new shiny cars, and the massive casinos. Old Macau. Of the raggled above-store appartments. The coffee shops with the undrinkable coffees. The constant haze of cigarette smokes. Dai-sam-ba. Old herbal tea. Short sleeve shirts.
I was watching the movie and all over the crystalisation of the real reason to go. The closeness and intimacy. The narrow streets. The press of people. And their slow, rough, and friendly talk.
Perhaps we saw the same things.
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