texting with my dad in the winter

jan 24 2013

it's so cold in my room

do you need extra blanket? supposed to warm up soon

it's too late i am an ice cube

:(

life is sweet in the belly of the beast

i've disappeared from the internet for the past few months. the truth is that i've just been living real life instead. i'm sorry because the internet has given me so much and not sorry because it feels good to live, and i think i'm actually happy even though i don't believe happiness is a real sustainable feeling.

my internet friends probably have forgotten i exist; my real life also probably hate me because i'm always at work. work counts as real life, right? 'cause i've basically given up my right arm and leg and firstborn child to my job. it might not even be a real job, i haven't decided yet.

rory culkin

sometimes i'm more okay with not knowing who i am than others. i know i've changed, i can feel myself changing and sometimes it's scary because i said i wouldn't become this person. but here i am and i'm just me and sometimes that's okay and sometimes i don't like it but i'm learning to live with it. i'm trying to be less stressed on the bus when i think i'm late.

i don't know what i want or who i want but i have some ideas i think. like maybe film school so i can tell my stories better. or something else but i don't know yet. i guess i'll just have to see, then, right?

for now...i'm off to toronto for 2 days then back on boxing day to work. i'm tired but excited about things and i don't really know what's going to happen in the new year so i'm just going to go with it. enjoy the holidays, my friends.

Identity Crisis #3: Am I White?

This is a better written off shoot of one of my other identity crises. Despite being Chinese/having an "Eastern" background sometimes I still feel like I'm an Orientalist/appropriating other cultures.

++

When I look in the mirror I don't see a Chinese person. I don't see a Jewish person or a lesbian. I don't see a boy or a girl. I don't know what I see. I think I see someone who is just scared of being anything.

I was born in Canada to immigrant parents but to immigrant parents who themselves had been raised in Canada. My dad's family moved to Toronto when he was around 10 and my mother's family moved to Montreal when she was around 5. They were educated in Canada and have not lived outside of Canada in over 20 years or maybe ever (since they moved here)?

I was raised in the suburbs in a fairly white neighbourhood in a middle-class family. There was enough money for me to play sports and have toys and have food everyday and also pay medical bills because my mother was ill (though I didn't think of these things when I was a kid). I went to high school and there were, like, 3 black kids. I think there was one other Chinese kid in my grade. The "biggest" minority were the Jewish kids, about 5 or 6 in the sports program my dad had enough money to pay for. Everyone else was white. This is not to say "I'M SO OPPRESSED" this is actually to say I grew up in an extremely white setting -- so much so that I accidentally let slip "other white people" in reference to myself to Laura in February and she asked me if I considered myself white. And I've thought a lot about it since then.

This is the opposite of "I'm oppressed". When I fill out job applications and they ask me if I'm part of a minority group and list a bunch of options, I feel like I'm exploiting something when I mark off "Chinese" (I don't, however, feel bad about marking off "woman"). Being Chinese has, luckily, never limited my options, at least not that I know of. I don't think I've ever not gotten a job for being Chinese, though once I didn't get a job because I don't speak Cantonese.

I've lived my life in white neighbourhoods, gone to school with white kids, played sports with white kids, had as much money as the average white person, have been taught mostly the same values as non-religious white kids. If you went into my house without knowing who it belonged to, you would probably never guess "Chinese". You might guess "Jewish" if you search really hard and find our menorah, but then you would probably be confused by my step-mom's Christmas decorations. The Chinese food we usually eat is take-out. Just like other white people and Jews on New Year's eve (JKKK).

I have had the opportunities that white, middle-class people my age have had. If asked who I identify most with, between a Chinese person from China and a white person from North America, I would choose a white person from North America. But in some situations among non-asians I can't help but feel extremely Chinese. I've gotten weird questions like "Do you have statues of Buddha in your home?", or people will say something about China and might add in a "no offense" in there (what even?) or ask me if I know the answer (I don't). Someone once told my friend that she thought I was "pretty for an Asian". It used to bother me that people assumed I knew things about China because in my mind I was so clearly not Chinese that I just couldn't understand why people would think I would know. I understand better now (but that doesn't make it right). When the subject of China comes up I suddenly feel extremely conscious of looking like a Chinese person.

But I feel like an impostor in a half-Chinese person's body. I know very little about China. Before I took a class on China last semester pretty much all I knew about Chinese culture was that General Tao chicken is not an authentic Chinese dish. I didn't even know which city my family was from or which dialect of Chinese they spoke.

When I look in the mirror I don't see a Chinese person. I definitely don't look Jewish. I don't even consider myself a real Jew, in fact, my half-assed attempts to celebrate major holidays are probably an insult to real religious people. I consider myself more "queer" than "gay" or "bisexual" because I'm still trying to figure myself out, but queer people can look like anyone.

I don't see a white person either though. I know I'm not white, I just have white privileges, for the most part, right now. What does that make me? (Answer: confused).

There is Nothing As Lucky, As Easy, Or Free (blindsided)

vii.

I never really dreamed of heaven much, till we put him her in the ground.

viii.

At first it's easy to pretend it isn't there; that loneliness, that empty space somewhere in your life. First you pretend you're crying because you were the only kid in grade 3 who forgot to bring scissors and glue to school on arts and crafts day. You sit in an empty classroom with a teacher who had big, black curly hair. She loved The Beatles, just like your aunt, and she asks you if you need to see the counsellor, and in a moment of weakness you say yes. Then you get over it, and when it's time for your meeting you feel upset at being interrupted while you were cutting paper with your friends, colouring things, making fake houses. But you go anyway, and pretend you don't know what it's about. And you lie, because you want to go back to safety. You want to go back to denial.

It was easy to ignore life, actual physical life, breath, the act of breathing and moving and smelling, touching, thinking, feeling. It was only when I realized she was dead that I realized I was alive. Suddenly life -- the concept of being alive -- was different.

ix.

I never thought about it for years. It, I never thought about It. You know, that event. I didn't make the connection between the scissors and the glue, and the event I had truly forgotten at home.

My dad said it was okay to cry but I didn't because my cousins were nearby, and I didn't want to cry in front of them. I wanted to pretend like I didn't care, because maybe I didn't. Maybe it was easier that way. I wanted to go home and be alone in my room. I became used to that feeling.

Maybe we all did.

x.

There's nothing left but fuzzy memories and an excuse I keep and use when it's convenient. Instead of pretending that it didn't happen, I make it all that has ever happened to me. So when something hurts, when you hurt me, I pretend it's not you, it's not you, it was this thing that happened to me a hundred years ago. When I feel like you're leaving I pretend that it hurts because I was left so long ago and not because I simply just want you to stay.

xi.

At first I missed the body; then I missed the mind; then I missed the concept. I'm stuck on the idea that my childhood could have been different, that the rest of my life might have been different. Now there's one less thing to return home to. I can feel my memories of being a kid disintegrating; I mean really, sometimes I wonder if the first 13 years of my life were real, if I ever lived in a different house than I do now, was there always someone other than Tina around? Did I belong to a family of two at one point? I don't think so, no, it just wasn't real at all.

No, no, and life is just so fragile, and maybe we spend all our years trying to reach the point we reached when we came out of the womb, so delicate and malleable, but we can't go back, no, no we can't go back, we just go forward and hope we'll reach "second childhood and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything". Maybe we should take the broken pieces and turn it into something new, and we build our own events, because whether we have a purpose or not is irrelevant; we are just going, I mean, we are moving, and life will move you whether you are ready to move or not, so I mean, just don't sit there among the brokenness, take the pieces of your life and make a house or something, make a bicycle, make a friend, I don't know what, just fucking do it, go on, do it, go go go.

xii.

Move, like today never happened, today never happened before.

the trapeze act was wonderful but never meant to last (blindsided)

iv.

overstepping my boundaries for the first time. this is what happens when you write yourself into a corner and cover yourself with words that mash together into one incoherent mass of letters.

the morning was a love letter. the night is a taking back of sorts, a retraction and a removal of the early fog. perfection is so hard to retain. it's a standing at the top of a mountain; one step in every direction is down, and sometimes the fall is just free. is the point of it all to stand still? we will never get anywhere.

now every letter counts. every word counts more than the next, till the taste of your name is heavy on my tongue. so my speech is slurred, so i'm t-t-tired, so i can't spit it out. i lift books during the day like weights. i hope there's something in this universe waiting for me in the sky, 'cause i'm headed there, i'm headed there and i'd like to float around. i'd like to write your name between the clouds. this [blank] is such a mess.

v.

why'd you leave?

i miss you and i never had you. i get you mixed up with everyone i know. i see you everywhere, like you never left, but you just don't recognize me. would i want you if i had you?

i made a wish, threw my heavy heart to the bottom of the pool.

it always comes back to you. i saw a baby once, sitting on her mother's lap. she looked at me with blue eyes and smiled. her mother kissed her, the cheek. the baby was completely unaware. i wanted to cry for everything i had lost.

there's no way to get it back. the words i've said, those individual little letters that hardly mean anything at all, they've gotten away from me.

"those who've gotten away from me:

read this, and call.

those whom i've hurt:

i wanted everything, or not enough.

it was all my fault."

words don't call back and accept apologies. they lie there, on real pages or on virtual ones, existing. i caused them all.

the baby didn't know who she was. did she feel the kiss on her cheek? did she put her tiny finger to the spot, afterwards, to feel some remnants of love or the moisture of soft lips? in the worst way possible i wanted to steal her memory, but there is none of that.

vi.

mother, i'm terribly, terribly afraid of everything [she] loves. why is life so fragile?

The Vanishing Act (blindsided)

i.

We pick a day on the calendar and circle it, then count down till we get there. Then we get there. What happens now? What do I do?

We're counting down and recounting and going and continuing on this road and if we just stayed on this train no one would ever know.

No one knows we're here.

Mum?

ii.

Why'd you leave? No one asked you to, except me. But that was a secret. It was a secret wish I made to myself, never even said aloud. Did you know? I could never even touch you. I think I made you cry. I made my grandma cry once. Once again it was my own fear, because I live my life in fear. I'm terrified of everything you loved. I can't plant tulips in the garden, I can't sew, or pick up seashells on the beach. I lost your letters, I lost your card, I lost your scarves, and your wedding dress when we moved. Children scare me because they have things I never did, and never will. And if my child hates me too? And if I vanish just like you? And if I'm still so mad that I don't do it just to spite you, just to end it here? 'Cause I'm the last one, I'm the last kid you ever had.

iii.

Why is life so fragile?

And In Short, I Was Afraid

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
though I have seen my head [grow slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet -- and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
and I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
and in short, I was afraid.

T.S Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

++

I have a fear of bikes. Really. I'm afraid of going too fast, afraid of losing control, afraid of getting hurt. I'm afraid of getting my pants stuck in the gears. I'm afraid of the gears ripping a hole in my leg.

It might be because of that time I hurtled full speed down the steepest hill my 6 year old eyes had ever seen and flipped over the handlebars. My aunt decided to walk her bike down but my cousin rode down so I did too. I just followed people in those days. I rode right into a pile of rocks and forgot what brakes were for.

I don't want to get hurt. Hurt, (how could you have forgotten?) hurts. I don't want to die.

++

I'm also afraid of horses, which is really stupid considering I went to horseback riding camp for two years. I followed my cousin there too.

It's not just that, though. I'm afraid of drowning. I like the air, I like the ground, and I like both to be readily available. Maybe it started in Mexico when I followed my cousins into the ocean and was gasping for breath, for control of something -- the water, the ground, my limbs maybe, -- something that would get me out of there. I discovered the ocean is beautiful from the shoreline.

I'm afraid of driving too fast. I don't even drive. It's not even the accident potential, it's the I'm-afraid-the-car-is-going-to-blow-up feeling, which is less likely to happen than an accident. I have no control. When I was little I never liked when my dad twisted and swerved. As the highway whizzed by I quietly imagined car crashes in the backseat.

I guess it goes without saying that I'm afraid of airplanes too. I don't want to crash in the ocean. I don't even think I'd make it to the ocean, let alone the emergency exit. I'm afraid of the oxygen masks the lady in the video so calmly puts on, like the last seconds of her life aren't just ticking away. I like my own air. I like my feet on the ground. Real ground.

Maybe it started some eight years ago, when I suddenly realized I was about to fly over the ocean in a giant piece of metal. I was going to England with my grandmother and I was about to say goodbye to my dad. Maybe it was because I was afraid to leave, or maybe I was seized with a panic and certainty that we were going to crash. I refused to even go to the boarding gate. My grandmother cried, she thought I didn't want to go with her. And right then, I was afraid to tell the truth.

I can't control anything on a plane. Turbulence practically makes my heart stop. I don't want my last meal to be plastic chicken. I don't want to die in a place where no one outside the plane can reach me. I don't want to die in no man's land. I don't want to die. And I don't want to survive on a plank of wood because I don't want to be eaten by sharks and I don't want to die of starvation, 'cause then I'll really wish I'd eaten the plastic chicken. I don't want my last meal to be plastic chicken.

I don't want to nosedive into the ground. If it wasn't clear, I'm also afraid of roller coasters.

Other things I am afraid of: Jumping too high on the trampoline, skiing down double black diamonds, skiing, cancer, hospitals, not recording everything because I am afraid of forgetting.

What it comes down to is this: I'm afraid of pain, and I'm afraid of dying because I'm not ready to go. Hurt hurts. Every single one of my fears is based on dying.

But more than that, I've been afraid to live. This is something I've known for a long time. I've felt it, as people moved faster than me in other directions, and I stood there because I'm too scared to move. This is something I've struggled with; how do people do it? How come my cousin went down the hill without a scratch? How come everybody I know likes to drive fast?

I'm afraid of the physical things and the mental things. I'm afraid of knowing things and not knowing things. I'm afraid I'm doing it all wrong.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
would it have been worth while,
after the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
after the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor --
and this, and so much more? --

T.S Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

++

It was Christmas 2008. The first time I had ever spent Christmas somewhere without snow.

I don't know why, but I'd just had the urge to go to California. I missed the weather, the clouds and the rolling fog, the ocean from from a safe distance, the big houses, the other world. I missed San Francisco, which felt safe, and Berkeley, which felt cool and homely.

It was fun to watch people walk down the street wrapped up in their jackets and hats and earmuffs in 11 degree weather. Somewhere north of the border there was a snowstorm happening.

I loved the decorations on the houses. Outside it looked like spring, and yet, there was santa on a roof. There were reindeer in the yard. It's weird to imagine Christmas with no snow but I loved that crisp feeling in the air. I loved the smell of Berkeley, the shops, the streets, the laughter. I loved my aunt's house, the sheets, the cat, breakfast in the morning. The colours of the flower petals were more vibrant, the food more organic. Yes, everything there is good, good, good. I felt good.

But it turns out there are scary things in Berkeley too. More things I'm scared of, like people. Also, there's me. Sometimes I'm scared to know who I really am. Sometimes I'm scared that someone might see me. You know, really see me.

There are also bikes in Berkeley.

And hills. Big hills.

Do I dare
disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

T.S Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

We decided to go for a bike ride on Christmas morning. I'm afraid of bikes. I used the smallest one, which even then was too big. I tried not to be afraid, but it's hard when you're afraid of everything.

Going for a bike ride up a hill with my family? The irony wasn't lost on me. I'm afraid of getting hit by a car.

The top of the hill was beautiful. I could see the whole city. I could see the clouds and the rolling fog, the houses with lights and decorations. I could see forests of trees which seemed to be greener than any I'd ever seen at home.

The only way back was down, down, down. My cousin began his descent easily, breezily. Even my aunt went ahead of me, experienced and steady. I started after them, slowly. I guess I still follow people. My cousin was way ahead. Occasionally I could see the back of my aunt's windbreaker, puffed up with the wind, at the corner of a turn. My hands were gripping the handlebars tightly, my stomach was tense. My fingers were holding the brakes halfway, ready to do the full squeeze at any time.

The thing about going downhill is that you don't need to pedal. Gravity will take care of everything. I don't really want gravity to be in control, I want to decide how fast or slow I go. The thing with gravity is you don't have a choice. No one does.

My cousin made it look easy, riding down a mountain. Everyone makes it seem that way. I remembered that last time I followed a cousin down a mountain on my bike.

But I was already going down. My aunt and my cousin were getting further and further ahead of me. And then it just clicked. I was in San Francisco. It was 11 degrees. It was Christmas. I was outside, I was alive, I was in love with the big scary world. Maybe there was something waiting for me at the bottom, maybe there wasn't. It didn't really matter. I loosened my fingers on the brakes. I let go.

There is something very freeing about flying down a mountain when you don't want to. The colours blur together, the air fills your lungs, the ground disappears --

There was nothing at the bottom. The road continued as it does, as they all do. I crossed it and went home.

The truth is that I'm still afraid. This could be one of those stories where my life changes for the better when I finally let go of my fears. But it's not. I went back to Montreal and stayed the same, for the most part. But that's not the point. The point is that I did it. I left Prufrock at the top of the hill. For a glorious half hour I sailed through life. I opened my heart and touched the sky.

Let us go then, you and I,
when the evening is spread out against the sky...

oh, do not ask "what is it?"
let us go and make our visit.

T.S Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

The Muscles Fought so Long to Control Against the Pull

Today is a big day for someone. Not for me, but for someone else. I'm just going to bear witness to it, I'm going to clap and drink and hide in the bathroom. I hate socializing. People are going to touch my hair and ask me when I'm going to the olympics. They'll point at my tattoo and ask me if it's real. My grandmother will probably make that "tchh!" sound and face and turn away -- why would you ever do something like that to yourself? I'll smile politely. Get another drink. Disappear for extended periods of time -- no one will notice me, it's a huge gathering, I'll just be off there in that gray area, stumbling around. If I had internet on my phone I would maybe live blog. But I don't, so I won't.

Today is the happiest day ever for someone. Right now. I wonder what they think as they wake up? Will I ever think those same thoughts? I don't think I could, knowing what I know and feel and see. It's just not fucking fair. Yesterday I woke up and couldn't feel my fingertips. I had a dream that someone's head was cut into 4 pieces but don't worry 'cause then she got up and killed her brother. I wonder what the happy people dream about.

Today is the greatest day ever for two people, given the opportunity to share their lives together. For others, today is another day denied equal rights, denied understanding and compassion, denied acceptance, denied as being humans. Today is another fight to live their lives as free, honest, loving, caring, etc. people. For some people, today is a day circled on the calendar. This is going to be an anniversary, a celebration -- a cele-fucking-bration! What the fuck are we celebrating? How come only some people get to celebrate? How come only certain people get to be happy? I know -- because everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.

I cannot go to this wedding with a clear conscience.

--------

[tegan and sara - i was married]

and read this because you should.

---------

[edit at 1:35 am maybe drunk maybe iu;lk erase and edit this tomorrow probs not[

my thiughts and feelings re: guinuine heterosexual weddings. i think all weddings are genuine. i mean you don't get married thinking that you're gonna break upo with them in a year -- the moment itself is comepletey geniuine and honest and real. regardless of what really happens in 10, 20, 40 years, if they have affairs or have 2.5 kids but really end up hating each other -- they're not getting married with these thoughts in mind. the're thinkling it's gonna be the opposite. they want to beat the odds. that being said, i enjoyed myself qwuite a b it. i wish that i was not such a complete social retard but it was nice because maybe you know thst things like this make me cry. i told you this right? i cry at the olympics and it's not an athlete thing. i'm an idealist in the truest form and though i hate that being straight is super normal and being gay is frowned upon, i'm happy for them. and it doesn't even matter what i think because even though the bride and groom wanted to shasre this day with us it's really about them and they're in love and they don't need our permission. i'm an idealist and i believe in love so i'm glad they celebratied this. i guess the real thing that kills me is that people want to deny thi s same happiness to other people. i mean not in canada, in canada gays and lesbians can get married. but in the majority if the world gays and lesbains are prosecuted and stuff. but i think if these two peple, my cousin and some other guy, if they can fall in love and they want to make this commitment, however silly and caked with religious garbage, why can't anybody else. i think the way we see marriage now in our society is obviosuly not a handing over of the bride as property from one man to another, it's a promse that two peopl are makign to each other to love each other for a really long time, i dont think ti's a religious thing anymore, i eman i don't see why it should be cause they're in lvoe and that's so great and i'm so happy for them kinda i mean i just think they're lucky and i'm glad i was there cause every once in a while i need a reminder that there is good in the wrold. i like to see honest happy people. it makes me cry thinking about it watching them walk down the aisle i mean maybe nedt may 31 who knows what we'll be doing but they're gonna be remembering today. and i don;'t think they'll remember everyone who came or what songs were played or what food they ate. but they'll probably rememer being happy. even if may 31 2010 means they;'re in a fight or the dolphins are exgtinct or there's a power outage, today, tonight was somethign else. i am happy that tonight was full of love and happiness. i only wish that it was more easily shared. it's not fair that part of the world is denied this simple feeling. and i mean just that. i don;t know maybe sometimes it seems hard and stupid, love i mean, feels like it deosn't make sense. but then when you have it for real, like this, it is simple. it is so simple. and life is complicated, always, but love can be simple so why people try to steal its simplicity is beyond me. it cold be so simple.

If You're Going To San Francisco Part II

In preparation for

the final twist
we often document
the soon-to-be past
in hopes that we
will not be forgottenin the future.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following were taken by my cousin Nick:

There are more, bigger and better quality, if you're interested drop me a line and I'll send them to you.

"I'm alive,
but a different kind of alive
than the way I used to be."
- Okkervil River "Starry Stairs"

If You're Going to San Francisco Part I

To begin,

Sometimes we are bigger than we think.

Sometimes we are not who we think we are.

Sometimes we are alone.

Sometimes we are not.

Sometimes we are children.

Sometimes we are a part of everything.
Sometimes we are nowhere to be found.

We are always, always beautiful.

To be continued..