This & That with Myself

I experienced some sharp pain on the chest while thinking about work, life, and everything else that happens in Los Angeles for the past year.

I thought I am gonna die. Is it because I was listening too much American Pie? Always thinking this would be the day that I die?

I know better than anyone else about how stress can really kill someone, and my current problem is not just about the stress, and everything else, my life is totally unbalance, there’s just no good aspect in my life at this moment that  can help me to hold on to it.

If life is like this down the road, am I already lived the best part of it?

Am I expecting too much?

I just want something, anything out there, to make me happy again.

It has been 1 year…

Another July 4th in Los Angeles.

Another fireworks.

My purple G.G Armani Sunglasses.

My blink blink tight jeans.

My greenish top for Paul Van Dyke@ Vanguard.

The departure of the greatest love.

The arrival of the greatest surprise.

So many things had happened.

And I am still, the stubborn me.

But this year has been great so far, I finally try out white water rafting on July 4th, the long lost spontaneous spirit in me was once again ready for the summer. The awesome fireworks in Alhambra was totally expectable, it was just great.

Today is another great day, put on my summer dress, drove through the beautiful downtown night scene. Great food and good time.

Just like last summer, when everything just began… After 1 year, the feeling is still the same, I guess, it only gets better.

From my mom,

"You don’t have to work so hard anymore because we don’t need big houses and big cars, it is not good to the environment, we just need enough."

We are seeing people selling their minivans, luxury cars, macho tank like Hummer everywhere in the country now to save their money for something that is more crucial in life, like food.

Under this kind of circumstance, we all know that pricing for almost everything on earth will just keep rising, the things that will decrease in value like property, currency and stock, the only thing that will remain the same is our paycheck.

I actually support higher gas price, maybe only when our fingers are burning and our wallet is empthy, humans only learn that we need to change our life style and live differently.  Global warming, air pollution, ice-free North Pole are just not as powerful as money that will shack up human beings to do something that is good for the earth.

Besides tighter budget for our everyday life, higher gas price brings in a lot more benefit to our environment and our society. We stuck at home and spend more time with family to save gas, we sleep more cause we have nothing to do, we only buy enough of what we need to use, no more wasting, we plan everyday trip to make sure we maximize the gasoline for our car, we start biking, walking, rollerblading , taking public transportation to work.

You plan well for your weekend, so you chose carefully where to go, who to go with. Your trip actually become better in quality than in quantity because is too expensive to make a mistake, air ticket is not cheap, you better make the best out of your trip.

It even makes the lonely city less lonely, because now you stuck at home because everyone want to save gas, not because you can’t find anybody to hang out. Less jerks in our society because they can’t afford to date too many people at one time, is just too expensive to drive around and meet different people. Your annoying coworkers will not have as much time to annoy you because they have to catch the bus.

And the list goes on…

So, are you still complaining the gas is too expensive?

2 news that I would like to share, and remember, because one day, they will be gone…

Afghan snow leopard is in great threat

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080627/sc_nm/afghan_snowleopard_dc&printer=1;_ylt=AuB9.Hrg5sBOA7AoMkEiVm8iANEA

Snow leopard is one of the most gorgeous animal on earth, along with my other favorite animals like blue whale, great white shark, salt water crocodile , sea leopard, black bear, rhino and etc…they are slowly disappearing from the world.

North Pole could be ice-free this summer

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/weather/06/27/north.pole.melting/index.html?section=cnn_latest

I love snow, and I wish every year, they will be snow on my beloved mountains.

Today, I shade a tear for what I love,  and I am in grief, for the great lost. My "Things that I Love on Earth" list is undoubtedly getting shorter and shorter everyday.

Let’s fight for global warming! Recycle, cut down plastic use, save water, save trees, do whatever we can, a little step at a time…

Apparently love is not the best answer for everything.

It can’t be the best solution as well.

On the other hand, like and time always work better under any circumstance.

The question is, what’s the different between like and love?

I think when something is more important than yourself, something that you will hold on to regardless, something that will make you happy for no reason, something that will make you sad for no reason, something that is so vague, nothing on earth can really represent is love.

Compare to love, like is probably easier to digest and to understand, more realistic and easy to express. Love is open ended, like is multiple choice. You like something because there’s a reason, you like something because that something make you happy or make you sad, you like somthing so you don’t feel lonly, you like something so you can live on, you like something, so you can exit easily.

Love is unconditional, like is conditional.

That’s why, slowly, love is eliminated from our life. It is out of fashion and unacceptable.

When you get older, you try to make sense out of everything, you learn how to please everyone, you learn how to make agreement and put things black and white, you negociate, you don’t just give but you make sure you take, you think you are smarter, you know how to protect yourself from harms, you learn from experiece and lesson, you think you are living a better life, you think you are more mature.

The best thing you learn out of everything is to use time as an excuse to reject or to try. Timing is not good, I don’t have enough time, I hope this happen sooner. Forever we can get away easily with this and don’t even have to blame anybody.

Love, will soon be joining the extinction list.

Apparently, human beings prefer to live a more robotic life.

Because we are all selfish and defensive, because we like to find the easy way out.

He was on the phone, smiling in a very special way, kicking the floor, pacing around, looking down, looking up, launghing but not so loud, touching his hair, pacing around some more.

"Take it easy." He said, and hung up.

Then I realized, how cool is that, observing someone on the phone with somebody.

Then I realized, how sucks is that, the fact that none of us will ever know how the person look react at the moment when they pick up our phone call.

I wonder, how do people react when they see my numbers appear on the screen…maybe they will be smiling, or they sigh, or they scratch their head, or they don’t even bother just hit the hung up button?

Then I think about how I react to each person when they call…

hmmm….

It really depends.

A few things I want to write about and remember.

Sex and The City: The Movie. "Will I laugh again?" "Yes you will, when something really really really funny happen."

Whenever I was in deep shit, I feel exactly the same, I just don’t know if I will ever laugh again. Again and again, the really really really funny something always happen, my friends, my beloved friends will always make it happens and then, I laugh from my heart and I am cured.

I love my friends, I really do. I love to make friends, new friends, old friends. There’s no intention behind, is just pure friendship. So pure that you don’t really need a lot of maintainance, just leave it there, it won’t be rotten for years and years.

A lot of self-discovery when I standing in front of the Great Salt Lake, the water is so still that it really scares you. And you look down, you see who you are. Your reflection told you the great story about you and yourself, then you look back, there’s the mountain, there’s how far your vision is, it is blocked by obstacle.

We have very limited vision, we can never see it all, there’s always something on our way. I try to look very far, I try to plan very far, but my history is pulling me back, once in a while haunt me, stop me, and make me say things I don’t mean to say.

Then you think about, if experience really do you any good? What if everyone of us have no history, we live everyday a brand new day, will we repeat what we do or we will do something new everyday?

My Salt Lake City trip

Salt Lake City is different.

It doesn’t look like any other part of the USA at all.

Sometimes you see a handsome guy smiling at you with a baby in his arm and both hands are holding two kids.

Most of the times, you don’t see people.

The road is big and a lot of one way street. Too many traffict lights but I like how black color blended very well into the city. The road signs, the traffit light post, the bench on the street: all in black.

Here you see the richest homeless in the country, with new pairs of sport shoes and fancy clean clothes.

The Mormon empire took out a lot of space in downtown, and you will find that one or two persons that can speak malay or swedish to you.

Is very empty, I drove miles and miles to find an antelope on antelope island. Then I saw a group of wild bison, eating quietly like nobody business.

I didn’t know, one of the man made objet that can be seen from the space is right here, the copper mines.

I didn’t expect the dog that bite me so hard last time was sleeping quietly with me.

This trip is exactly what I needed.

Then I found out, the betrayal still bothers me, when it comes true after 10 years, is none of my business anymore, but it bothers me a lot.

But I guess, it is a good thing, because now everything doesn’t look as bad as this one.

Life is good again.

My dream died again when I landed in LAX last night.

I certainly able to revive this dream again, like so many times before, but I hestitated.

You can’t revive something fully to what it is each time, it breaks a little, each time.

Do something for no reason is nothing new to myself, I do it everyday, I do it for the sake of no reason, I do it because there are so many things that can’t explain. I do it because there’s no because, you just do it.

But, I am only human being, once I compare, this meaningless of giving won’t work.

And I am still learning, how not to compare and only appreciate.

Is a long process.

I just finished my laundry today, as I was putting on the fresh bed sheet and pillow cases, my coworker aka my roommate walked in to my room.

We were talking and talking..about work, about hip hop…etc…while I was folding my clothes, and finally I found the pillow cases that I just washed, and started putting them on.

Then my roommate asked me if I used two pillows every night.

I said no I don’t, I just used one.

Then she said why I bothered to put on pillow cases on both pillows.

I thought about it for a while and then said, well, sometimes things come in pair, so you shouldn’t separate them. If I have a twin size bed, I will put only 1 pillow, and since I have a queen size, naturally there should be 2 pillows..because that’s the way it is.

I never really get used to sleep with another person, unless I can sleep with the same person over certain period of time, like I have no problem sleeping with my sister and my mom. So I have no problem sleeping by myself, and as far as I can remember, I am better off to sleep by myself, unless I can sleep with a very quiet sleeper.

But it makes me wonder, if I will sleep better with just one pillow, or 2 pillows?

Maybe I should give it a try tonight, after  all, queen size bed doesn’t really necessary to match with 2 pillows, and I can save my time to put on another pillow case!

Unless, my other pillow complains about being too lonely by itself.

Last night, for 1 year, I made the impossible still impossible. So I thought, things will forever remain unchange, forever. I can only change myself, that’s the only thing that I can control.

Try to stand strong after another defeat, imagining myself pouring a glass of champagne helping the healing process.

Today, it takes 4 and a half years to make the impossible, possible.

I loosen up and soak myself in tears of happiness, imagining myself pouring a glass of champagne to celebrate!

Then it got me thinking, just really how long and how much does it takes to make something happen in the way you want, just how far does a person will go on waiting, for a miracle, for a change.

I always think, you just gotta wait, keep waiting, people will show you their best, keep waiting, and you will eventually be happy about the outcome. But it gets pretty tiring when you realize most of the people around you, they don’t wait, they give up. They give up too early.

Then I find myself like a clown standing in the crowd, shaking hands with people and tell them how I wish I can meet them 3 years ago, 4 years ago, 10 years ago…before they give up and lock themselves in their own little world. They shorten their vision and stay back, accept their life and everything else should be the way it is. They can only wear this shirt for this occasion, they can only make friends with certain type of people, they can only have chicken sandwich for lunch. They close their mind to the open world and forget about the existence of "going with the flow". There are still so much, so much a life can give, so much to do, so much to see, so many reasons to live a life in supersonic style. But they give up and they say they have enough.

Some common reasons to give up like, they got a family, they got a car to feed, gas is expensive, they got this and that to prevent them from doing this and that. I am sure life is full of restriction, but why, why not make the best out of it when the opportunity is just right in front of you, why don’t we change, why don’t we give change another chance?

I have a job that totally like living in a prison, but I am glad to realize how important it is to make the best out of it and carry on with my life. How to accept the fact that "there’s nothing I can do about it" so stop being stubborn, stop thinking I can change this, I can change that, because seriously, the easiest way is changing yourself and your perspective, give people chances, then wait, hoping they will realize and appreciate one day.

What if they don’t? What if nobody care about the time you give them?

Isn’t that also an outcome?

I would rather do it, then regret.

Trust me, it is always easier to heal than try to come back after you give up, completely.

So I want to be an expert in trying, that makes me an expert in healing myself from defeats and wounds, because they belong together.

If you dare to try, you dare to fail, and you dare to heal and try again.

This is a personal entry to myself, to remind me what I am and who I am today. Who knows when I will change again from now on. Is better to make an indication here first before I find myself slapping my own face in the future!