It’s officially winter break now, which means long, slow days with nothing to do, days in which I get to look around and weigh the fullness/emptiness of my life. The weight of my life—most of the most substantial weight—is the writing. There is little else. Friends, family and people in general weigh very little. I am not an unfriendly person, but it takes an immense effort to want to be around other people. That is why, this break, I am only spending one week with family and three week by myself. Usually, I spend all four weeks with family, but while my physical presence is there, my emotional/mental being has already escaped during the first week, because being close to the ones I love for too long makes me unhappy. I am too aware of them. I cannot concentrate. I mourn my decision—while also acknowledging its rightness, because I have always been afraid to think on one particular question—If I cannot stand to be around my family, if I find it unbearable to be among those I love most in the world, then who can I bear to be around? If my biological family is not my true home, then where is my true home--where do I belong if not among people? Well, I am asking this question now, and I’m not afraid to look for the answer.

All these years, I’ve been disappointed that I withdraw when I am in the midst of even the most-longed-for company—while sitting next to an attractive woman, while having a conversation with an attractive woman, etc. My personal timidity, fear, and anguish makes even pondering a relationship impossible. I long for it. I obsess over the thought of finally, someday, having a romantic relationship, then—when I’m with an attractive woman, I freeze up or I realize how different I am. Different. Sometimes—how vaguely sometimes expresses such an oppressive emotion—I am so tired and worn out of being different.

How can I achieve personal romantic satisfaction? I do not want these unhealthy emotions clawing at me during lonely, cold, restless, bored winter months—because it is always the winter that brings about the melancholy. What I usually do to stave away loneliness is think on any attractive woman I vaguely know—and she is usually a writer, and google her endlessly for perhaps thirty minutes. I look for any tiny clue of her cyber existence. I don’t usually find much information, but tiny clues here and there lets me build my imagination of this woman. I build her life, her relationships, her daily routine. I build and build her based mostly on mystery and a few lines here and there, a published essay here and there, a news story here and there. This habit of mine is one of the reasons I do not have Facebook. It feels wrong to cyber-stalk these women to their personal cyber lair. I feel more comfortable googling and finding professional information on them. Reading their Facebook information is a boundary I am unwilling to cross. I am probably making too big a deal of it, but it’s something I feel strongly about. I will not spy on them without their permission. I will obsess, but only so much. So, yes, if someone were to ask me if I had a romantic life, I could say—Yes, yes, I have a one-sided romantic life which consists of me googling people I like and looking for tiny clues of them here and there. I fall for them usually based on my endless re-readings of their essays. I fall for their literary selves. I romance them by googling them in my free time, in my restless time, in any time when I feel I need a look. These are our dates, our getting to know each other dinners, our waltzes. And these women, of course, end up existing mainly in my head—in a world where their lives intersect mine and where, most importantly, I am comfortable enough to be fully myself.

Why I Sketch

There was a high school teacher whom I adored for years and years, even after I didn’t see her again. I stopped talking to her because I wanted to be emotionally healthy and sane again. And then for years, I taught myself not to think of her every day. I never told her how I felt, but I think she guessed. As of now, I don’t think I’ll ever see her again, even though she wanted us to stay in touch.

I felt sorrow when I saw her during those last few times three years ago. Before our last meeting, I emailed her and told her how I felt about women, and then we met for dinner, and during the dinner, I realized that nothing could be the same between us again—not with the knowledge of the way I loved and perhaps why I told her. There was no way we could treat it lightly, when there is always love on my face when I see her and when she always turns away, perhaps knowing that I am watching her and the reason for it. If I had known that telling her would mean saying good-bye to her, I would do it again exactly the same way again. I have no regrets.

She is engaged now and will probably be married soon, if not already. To a good man. He has a son by a previous marriage, and so she will be happy, I think. I am happy for her.

Once every few months, I forget that I’m not supposed to think of her, and I search the internet for her name—to find pictures of her and save them, and to find where she is teaching now and how she is involved with her community.

When I sketch women, I always sketch women who remind me of her—if not by their physical features then by the expression on their faces. She is beautiful, but I did not notice until a year after I first met her. What I noticed first were the varied expressions on her face as she spoke about things that mattered to her. I was captivated. And then one day, while listening to her, I looked at her, really looked—and realized with a shock how beautiful her face and body were. Suddenly, her expressions and movements had glow and effervescence, as though I had suddenly opened my mind to her. That was when I first started to imprint her into my memory. She is still the most beautiful woman I have ever known. When I sketch, I sketch the memory of her. I sketch hope and imagination and magic—I sketch what life would have been like if she were mine. In my imagination—if never in reality—she is mine to love.

I pretend that I don’t love her with my whole heart anymore because it keeps me sane. All these years, I’ve tried to love other women just so that I can forget her.

One day, if I ever find a woman who will spend her life with me—it will be a different kind of love. The way I feel now, for this woman whom I’ll never see again—it is a love based on deep, quiet yearning—and this love has affected the person I’ve become, more than anything else that’s happened to me. I may put thoughts and memories of her away, but they are still there, buried deep in my treasure chest.

I suppose she is my muse. I painted murals for her. She has several of my artwork. If I could, I would give all my artwork to her. The first artwork I ever gave her, I gave idly, not really caring, just thinking, oh, she might like this, but the expression on her face, and the way she touched the inked lines so delicately with just the tips of her fingers—I felt as though she were touching my heart with the same love and delicacy.

Here is that pen-and-ink drawing~



And that’s why I sketch. Not only because I like observing the world through an artist's eyes, but mainly because of the memory of love.

Lady Librarian

There’s a woman on my mind.

The most essential goal of my life right now is to be emotional stable—for long periods of time—perhaps forever. I’ve done an excellent job so far this summer. However, there’s a woman on my mind. So how to deal with this? I read lots of AfterEllen posts which say—Oh, there’s this girl. XYandZ happened. Does this mean she likes me? I’ve never felt this way before. Also, ABandC happened recently. Why is she giving me mixed signals? What should I do? I never reply to these posts, but I often think that there are two clear options—you either pursue her or you don’t pursue her. You either decide to sit down and have a heart to heart chat or you don’t. In my situation, the clear option right now is I don’t pursue and I ignore. If there are unclear signals, then I decide that it’s all in my imagination and go from there. Too many times in the past, I interpreted something incorrectly and . . . let’s ignore the Romantic Tragedies of My Life, shall we?

I don’t have the Flirting Gene. Instead, I have the Awkward Conversationalist Gene. Many times, when involved in a conversation, I purposefully say something really stupid or weird. To spice up the conversation. Very detrimental. In contrast, when someone flirts with me, I clam up and stare. I know the rule is that when someone flirts with you, you flirt back. However, I have a very slow brain. It takes me at least a minute to understand a joke. My sister can attest to this fact. Flirting, I understand, require immediate and correctly coy responses. I am incapable of this! Hence, I will not pretend that there’s anything going on.

Now that I’ve made it clear to myself what I will and will not do, then I will now proceed carefully to unburden my mind.

I tutor at the public library in the children’s section. I often see a certain librarian. She has short black hair, waving off of her forehead, deep set gray eyes, and a voluptuous figure. Her skin is so white—like cream? –like ivory? She usually wears a long sleeved black shirt and black pants—which goes well with her white, flawless skin.

I don’t know her name, her age, her marital status, her sexuality. Henceforth in this blog, I dub her Lady Librarian. I have tutored for five years, and so I’ve seen her once in a while. This summer, I am tutoring Monday to Wednesday, and when I decided to tutor, one of the chief attractions was seeing her. I think—since I want to settle in this town, I can look forward to seeing her for years and years to come. I will stop tutoring someday and settle into a job, but I am a ferocious reader, and as long as she works at the children’s desk, I will see her, since I read lots of YA literature.

There are certain people, who—when I see them, make me feel happy and safe—simply because they are who they are. I like to memorize people—to write about them, to sketch them, to think about them, and I’ve spent lots of time thinking about Lady Librarian. I don’t know anything about her. Is that a chief attraction? Possibly yes, since everything is in my imagination. Everything is possible. She could be everything.

Here’s what I want—if not to pursue her. I want to have a nice conversation with her. I want to be able to see her, say hello, ask her how her day is going, and go from there. I want to slowly get to know her. She enjoys talking to people. One of my favorite things to watch is Lady Librarian strolling among the shelves. When a child asks for a book, she strolls purposefully to the shelves. I’ve watched her countless times. I have no qualms about watching her, because how can she notice little me sitting at my tutoring table? She strolls back and forth, picking books up, pushing in chairs. Once, I dropped my pen, forgot about it because I was busy tutoring, and she strolled by, knelt, picked my pen up, and placed it next to my hand. Now, if I were a quick thinker, I would have looked up and said thanks. The perfect thing to have done could have been to lay my hand gently, briefly on hers.

However, what happens usually is that I ignore her. If she is walking behind me, I don’t turn around and say hello. I pick up my pace. There were many, many times when I could have glanced up or stopped for a moment as I passed her station, and said hello. It doesn’t have to go anywhere, I could simply say hello, smile, and keep walking. There have been a handful of times when she engaged me in conversation, and I always messed it up. Always said something stupid.

Yep, so that’s one of my goals this summer—act normally with Lady Librarian.

It began when I watched the SouthPark episode “Major Boobage”—afterwards which I decided that it was my favorite episode ever because it features—animated—a statuesque shaggy haired blonde woman with slim waist, long, long legs, and a pair of spectacular breasts. It is so wrong and yet so right that I would be mesmerized by her breasts. Plot goes like—Kenny, high on cat piss, enters an alternate reality—enters riding a rocket powered 1981 shiny black Pontiac Trans Am. He encounters described goddess, and next sequence reveals him riding shotgun with goddess driving—and one of my favorite activities in life is sitting shot gun to a goddess with one hand on the wheel. Kenny, pre-adolescent boy that he is—watches the bobbing and dancing of spectacular breasts. They proceed to her kingdom, where the prize will be that Kenny will proceed to the pool with goddess and where he will rub soap suds on spectacular breasts.

As she uncovers—Kenny is interrupted.

Blah, blah, blah goes the plot, and then Kenny finally returns and he finds the goddess trapped by brutish villains who have imprisoned her in a metal frame. She is naked—the metal bars barely covering her nipples and her privates, and the villains are laughing with ill intent and holding a mean whip over her. Then—this is my favorite part—goddess gives Kenny a look. The look is calm, but it conveys annoyance and forbearance and displeasure at the stupidity and beastly behavior of brutish villains. She is not frightened, she is simply annoyed. The look says—Can you believe these idiots? Kenny cannot, and he proceeds to kill the villains. Very bloody. Then next sequence features Kenny riding in front of goddess on winged creature. Kenny—short pre-adolescent boy that he is—gets to enjoy the nice sensation of spectacular, heavy beasts bobbing up and down against his shoulders as he soars magnificently through the skies.

Is it wrong that I enjoyed this episode very, very much? As a feminist, should I feel outrage that goddess is a silent sex doll who must endure soap suds being massaged onto her breasts by pre-adolescent boy? I think not. There’s a nice innocence about this adventure story. Heck, I want to be the one riding shot gun, soaring through skies, and floating in pool doing the massaging.

Pianist

I am watching/listening to Martha Argerich, pianist extraordinaire, play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto. She is old and a bit dumpy, but the black dress contrasts nicely with the demure display of her white bosom. Her face looks old and tired, but her hair is magnificent—black with the shine of brown. White strands near her temples and along the parting of her hair. I like her concentrated, frowning look.

There is also a fetching picture of her younger years. Her chin is held high. Her body is facing right, but her head is turned to the camera. Her eyelids are slightly lowered. Her mouth is closed, corners held low, a beautiful mourning look. Her lower lip is fetchingly full.

The first few minutes of Piano Concerto are magnificent. Her white hands depress the chords, and then fly up again. Straight off the keyboard. They remind me of white frightened birds. She seems to leisurely strike out the deep, thunderous notes, her hands touching the keyboard on three specific places, down the keyboard—one, two, three—and then moving her hands swiftly to do it again—one, two, three.

Chem Final

Today, I had my organic chemistry exam at 8:00 AM. And guess what time I was able to drift off to sleep? 4:00 AM-ish. I couldn’t sleep because I screwed my internal clock by doing what I enjoy best: reading, watching movies, eating, laying around daydreaming—doing all of these between midnight and dawn, which arrives at 5:00 AM-ish. Which means I end up sleeping until 2:00 PM, which means the whole vicious cycle continues into the next night, which makes me feel like a failure.

After three hours of fitful sleep, I wake up so groggy that I am almost weepy. I was also panicky—the “I wish I had one more day to stuff my head with chemical reactions that don’t make sense anyway” panicky.

I go in, sit down, and I don’t remember much of what I studied. And there’s 14 pages to the exam. Good news, though. While I was studying late into the night, I was listening to Lady GaGa’s PokerFace over and over again. I listened to acoustics, instrumental, vocal, and radio versions. I can listen to Pokerface for two hours at a time. So for the two hours of the exam, my analytical skills were reduced to: Hmm, which sugar-sugar linkage is 1, 2 Beta? Let’s see, glucose P-p-p-pokerface, P-p-p-pokerface Okay, okay, the linkage is obviously horizontal, so is it option A or maybe [Clenching my teeth] Can’t read my Can’t read my No he can’t read my pokerface. Ah! No, the oxygen bond is over here! Is that even glucose? Maybe it’s fructose?? P-p-p-pokerface, P-p-p-pokerface! Gosh darn frickin’ chem! la-la-la Russian roulette is not fun without a gun. With my muffin! With my muffin! Gosh, how does it go? Okay, what about option five? Let’s see Mum mum mum mah Mum mum mum mah. ARGH!! The linkage looks okay. It’s Beta and there’s the two connection. Looks stupid, but the stupid one is always the answer. Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, ohh-oh-e-ohh-oh-oh [Deep breath] The answer is option five! She's got to love nobody She's got to love nobody . . . Gosh darn it, it better be five.

All this to say, I got a good enough grade on the chem final that I’ll pass with a C and won’t be kicked out of college! All thanks to Lady GaGa for keeping me company during the final.

Lady GaGa

People call her scary, insane, psycho. How can I not love her extravagance, sheer individuality? Underneath that makeup and those clothes, I have an idea that she is ordinary. Long face, long nose. Regular face. Nice voice. And then, she makes a wig, a personality, a new self for herself. She makes herself so unique and so grand that I cannot help but think her beautiful.

Watch the first few seconds of Pokerface. She rises like Venus from the water, but she is in black and she is masked, hiding her eyes behind sparkles. She rises and then she crouches like a tiger and you know she is no Venus. She dances with one hard, widespread, ready to move in front of her face, move away. Her hand like a flashing fan, here and away.

She wears costumes. She is her costumes. Her costumes are like armor. They can call her names and the names slide off her armor. She says she is a commentary on people who want fame. She is a commentary on herself.