What ever happened to my Legos?

I'm still trying to get used to the idea of 2007.
or the thought of leaving home again, for that matter.
this was bound to happen
I don't think i'll be getting used to it any time soon.

Vintage, worn, ripped, again imperfect, frayed
anything that holds weight
either truly loved by someone
or carried some obvious collective history.
That's what feels real now.

Carefree

I remember one lunchtime during high school, I walked out to the parking lot with one of my best friends, Joy. It must have been junior or senior year, when it was THE thing to drive out for lunch. This one particular day was a normal day...nothing eventful, nothing special. But something caught my eye and made me stop and forget everything. It was a big and beautiful butterfly I caught in a kind of dance with the breeze, just a few inches from me. It was wrapping around this invisible sphere again and again. It didn't seem to matter that it was in the middle of a parking lot or that a person was looking at it...it just played carelessly for however many seconds and then it was gone. Maybe it got lost along the way to wherever it was trying to go, but found something worthwhile. it made the rest of my day feel a little lighter.

Today, I saw a butterfly on the window sill of the Krispy Kreme a couple blocks from my apartment. It was there for a couple seconds...and then it fluttered off into the thick air, through the traffic, onto the other side of the street. I tried to follow it...but it disappeared between a taxi and a minibus. What was it doing here? I don't know but I could have followed it forever.

an update

so...upon reading about my friends' lives and lai's life and everyone's life online in cyberspace...i decided to jump on the bandwagon and update my life a little too. plus it makes my time here feel more legitimate. my friends, alex and andrew, and i were talking about this last night - about the value of writing. it makes you reflect on your experiences and, in a way, makes them more meaningful. it gives you less chance to forget them and, in turn, gives them more weight in your mind. there are times i feel like i'm just floating here in hong kong, without anything to just pin me down to the ground. but then i write to jim, or my girls, or to myself...and i am reminded of who i am and what i'm doing here.


so what's been happening in my life? picture tour! here are My top 10 Most Memorable
Moments of the Month. alliteration is so delicious. mm mm mmmm.


1. After a long night at the Old China Hand in ghetto Wan Chai, dancing for hours til we closed a bar/club (I forget the name), then going BACK to Old China Hand, Alex, Andrew, and I truck on through to the Immigration Tower at 7 in the morning in hopes of getting our Hong Kong ID's. This pretty much sums up the delirium that comes with hours and hours of no sleep.







2. Here are me and my girls, Jackie and Celeste, at Beirut, THE sheesha bar in Lan Kwai Fong. This was the best part of our night, after an awkward birthday party of whom happened to be Jackie's ex-boyfriend. Awkward. First time I have ever smoked sheesha and boy was it divine.








3. Yet another pitstop at Beirut...only this time, with my co-worker buddies and Celeste. This was also the night I discovered Kebabs. I will never let another night at Lan Kwai Fong go by without one of those juicy, delicious, conveniently-wrapped, and perfectly sauced-up kebabs.






4. Celeste and I took a boat off Sai Kung to visit an island which had a rocky path leading to a 'mini-island'. It was an adventure, hiking and exploring in nature...something i don't see much of. We had to jump from rock to rock and dip our legs into water just to get to this mini-island...but it was all worth it when we found a mini-coconut in the end.








5. I got my first real foot massage in Happy Valley. I remember getting one before with my family in Mainland China but I wanted to cry because they like to use knuckles. This time around, sat back, watched some flat-screen TV, and caught up on some mindless celebrity gossip as I dozed off to a man rubbing my feet. It doesn't get any better than that.





6. Released some pent-up frustration gathered up from the week by karaoke-ing! We belted out songs such as Don't Cha by the Pussycat Dolls, Wannabe by Spice Girls, as well as Oops I did it again, Bohemian Rhapsody, Billie Jean, oh and so much more.









7. At Dicken's Bar (right around the corner from my apartment) is the setting for our newfound weekly tradition - Trivia Night. This was our first night...when we came in dead last but dead happy because we got free beers for it.









8. Karen, Vanessa's sister, wanted some Hot Pot (which I'm ALWAYS up for). We went to a nice, local place in Sheung Wan and ate and ate to our hearts' content. Meatballs, Tofu, and Pig's Intestines...oh my! Our new nickname for it is "Got Pot" because Alex accidentally texted me 'I've been craving some got pot'. We all realize we sound like drug dealers.

9. After a long week at work, we decided to have a chill-out night. After some stir-fry, a moist chocolate cake, and a trip to Toys 'r' us, we played some trivial pursuit which we would soon find out was a little TOO british-centric. But in the end, it didn't matter because we resorted to the easier, kid cards to rebuild our self-esteem.







10. Lookin' thugged out at the Russian Bar. We're in 'the freezer' where you stand around drinking vodka shots wearing faux-fur coats and yell 'prost!' as a toast. It was quite a spectacle, especially when John Cleese coincidentally showed up and bought everyone drinks. Okay...he wasn't John Cleese, but he was damn close.

this feeling so sublime. forget time only feeling. you sink into your own body as it moves like clay, devouring you...whoever 'you' are. sinking like quicksand. helpless under the spell of another human's touch on your outer core. only when someone else touches you can you truly feel alive...the incredible sensation of pulling, stretching, pushing, sliding the flesh and whatever's underneath it until you forget all life's worries.

i had a massage today.

falling down a well

i am helplessly being sucked into murakami's world. he writes of a man who goes down a waterless well to think in the darkness. i wonder what i would do sitting down at the bottom of a well. just me and breath. i recall one time in my life when i was down a well - when i got high with jim in amsterdam. without even knowing it, i inhaled 6 hits and started floating slowly down a deep and dark well, with the wall made out of the cushions like the ones you would find in mental hospitals. every time i closed my eyes, i'd spiral down this well and fall deeper and deeper the longer i shut my eyes. i urged jim to save me from falling but there i'd go again before i knew it. it was one of the scariest experiences in my life. but in a twisted way, this scenario my senses created for my body to believe as reality was the closest thing i will ever come to fantasy.

a profound 4-year-old

"i have no time...i have no time" ethan, my favorite kid, kept repeating. i asked all the students to glue their pictures but for some reason, even though he's usually so peppy and into it, ethan just wouldn't glue. "what do you mean ethan? we have 15 minutes before breaktime." "no...i have no time. 15, 9, then 1, no time." he said this the kind of extreme urgency only a child could convey. but i had no idea what he was talking about. i was so confused. "what are you talking about, ethan? oh come on, just glue...show me how good you are at gluing" "i have no time..." ethan said very quietly. his face starts getting red and his eyes well up. i'm taken aback by this but i open my arms and he comes towards me. all the other kids just watch us silently. "what's wrong ethan? why are you so sad?" "i have no more time." all of us at my musikbox knows ethan's moving to shanghai next week, this week being his last. "is it because you're moving?" he nods slowly and tears start trickling. "no more my musikbox."

his face was so close to mine. perfect and pure. looking him made me want to cry too. "but you're moving to a new place with new things. you'll start a new life" i knew only too well. i held him on my lap and asked all the other children if they've ever moved to another place. one girl did and said, "but i wasn't sad." at this point, i was suddenly inspired to tell them about my moving here to hong kong, even though i had no idea whether or not these little 3 and 4 year olds would understand or care. but they did. i told them about how this was my first time here in hong kong...how all my life, i've lived in america. and i got up and moved to hong kong, leaving family and friends. i missed them at first and still do, and was of course scared coming here. but now i love it. "that'll happen to you, ethan." he stopped crying. i kept holding him on my lap, and the children looked at me with serious eyes. it was the most beautiful and substantive thing i have ever talked about with such young children.

you never think of children being overly concerned with time. it seems only grown-ups watch the clock and feel the passing of time. but children feel it too. ethan was able to feel the future. and see it as a loss of the present. i saw him grow up today.

clicks

goodbyes are awful. i never really know how to handle them. lightly...seriously? and you can't really do them naturally...because what's natural? goodbyes are an end to something...and endings aren't natural for me.

i already miss teresa. if you're reading this teresa...forget america and stay in happy hong kong! damn you! we said our goodbyes, an ending to a short but sweet time of only a couple weeks. i've known her since she was 10 (or maybe younger?) but never actually knew her until now. it's hard to find people you feel comfortable with instantly.

it's also hard to find people who click with you...click enough with you that they come to know you. those people are not the kinds who need your time frequently...but just instances, opportunities to click here and there. because the connection is not something earned, but something that's already there. that's what amy jin is to me. she infuses a kind of childish and pure love in my life, instantly. that's also how i feel about julia..instantly...with every conversation we have. it's so obvious, the clicks between us.

then there are people who have come to know everything about you. and they love you for that everything. they pick on those little things that even you don't notice about yourself, and hold them up high and preserve and cherish them lovingly. like everything about you is fragile and valuable. that's jim. he's the glass snowglobe i get to play in forever.

and of course, there are people who simply know you...have known you, know you, and will know you for the rest of your life. they forgive you, appreciate you, take care of you, love you, through all the stages of your life. that's what lai is to me - an unlimited well of love...sitting there just for me. forever.

i love you. all of you.