Oh yeah, I forgot, friends only from now on (well, for a while now actually).  So if you're not special, goodbye.  I like friends, though.

Everything is beautiful but everything is foreign.

Sometimes, in moments of poignant desperation, I can hardly control my reluctant contempt for [everything].  You have those moments, too.  You sit at the edge of your bed, hands clasped in front of you, eyes blank, mind set to wandering mode - thinking back to cozy nights in winter cabins you've never experienced but can sure imagine.  You perch there, foot tangled in blankets, body suspended in the motion of leaving even though you have nowhere to go.  You think about getting up and going to watch the sun set out on the hill because you want to experience something beautiful, but decide you would rather not see the sky polluted by your shaking aloneness.  You lie back on your bed, juggle your phone nonchalantly, and imagine yourself calling a friend, maybe your old best friend you really should talk to more often, but stop yourself when you realize you have nothing to offer except fake laughs and a distant voice.  You let your phone drop to your side and your body relax, while, for a minute or so, the thought of bold wandering into foreign places and discovering the world bolsters your confidence until they reach permanence as thoughts only.  Briefly you consider picking up that book you've been meaning to read, or doing homework even, but discard that notion with the rationalization that you just can't concentrate.  All out of suggetsions for your unhappy, weary psyche, you decide your bed with a nice view of the microwave isn't so bad after all. The music on your laptop lulls you into quiet, tolerable discontentment as you wonder where all the shooting stars are, and why you always miss them.  Apathy probably washes over your closed eyelids at about this time, and you try mightily to remember something meaningful - a passionate kiss or a glance of affection.  They were with you before and they're not gone forever, but the descending grayness as the sun sets without you tries to convince you otherwise.  Eventually, you let your thoughts dissipate as you slip into a state of vegetable-like breathing and accept the moment for what it is.  It wouldn't be right if we all felt alive all the time, yet we never fail to pursue the ideal of euphoria.  At least it's reassuring to know that all of humanity trembles at the thought of being alone, rages in fury at the knowledge that everyone is, and settles down finally to a state of patient waiting.  Sooner or later, you will awake.

mood: apathetic

Isn't it nice to drift along - drift drift along... in a field of meaningless faces? 
Isn't it nice to be so alone in a sea, a sea of sad - sad and empty places?

I was thinking today about this book I read a while ago, called Like the Red Panda, by Andrea Seigel:


which was very inspiring for me because the author is a graduate of Brown University, is 28 years old, and lives in Los Angeles, California.  So she's pretty young, she has a degree in Literature, and she has at least two books already published, and gives lectures and stuff, and teaches workshops at universities.  The reason this is all so inspiring is because this book is absolute, undeniable CRAP.  It's a typical story about a withdrawn, depressed teen growing up in Irvine, California, who ends up killing herself in the end of the book.  It may sound mediocre enough, but no, the worst part is the writing is flat and dull, the characters are like cardboard, and there are no deeper meanings or motives, or ANY POINT for that matter, to this book, at least not as far as I could see.  So, if she, by 28, can already have published this absolutely meaningless, trite, pretentious piece of dung and have it sitting on bookshelves across the country, why can't I write something twice as good in half the time?  O Wide World, make it happen.  Does it really matter that I've never been in a serious writing class, won any writing contests, or even attempted to write any kind of story on my own...?  If she can write this kind of poo, I'm almost positive I can do better...

mood: discontent

I hate the dining hall.  Again I feel the aloneness of separation, separation from human beings I somehow can't connect to.  Who knows if they are really all that different, but again I am an outsider.  I feel like I'm in middle school again and everyone's playing the cool game, one I've never been very good at.  I don't fit in very well with most of my fellow humans, at least not in large, impersonal groups, which is exactly what the dining hall consists of.  It's just a big watering hole for all the students, a pig's trough even.  When I want to eat, I'd rather not feel like a mouse running zig zags in plastic.  Who are all these people I see all the time?

Last quarter I loved being here, but now I can't help but feel like a caged animal.  I loved the newness and the excitement of living away from home, of being able to do whatever I pleased, but now I feel slightly claustrophobic.  How can this place be too small already?  Why am I already stretching at the seams?  Maybe it's just this morning and my reading of wild love beneath haystacks and the moon, of dreamers and wandering, that creates this longing in me to drop everything and run away to see the world.  I'd love to be Goldmund in my book, a homeless wayfarer whose only destination is love.  I'm a lost dreamer this morning, caught between words and feeling, living only for glimpses of beauty.  But that doesn't make much sense within the confines of reality, and I have to eat sometime.  I'm lucky Maddie doesn't mind when I retreat into myself, for I'd be much more unhappy with a constantly chattering roommate who thinks I care about the discrepancies between name brands.  The trees still walk with me, but I can't decide where I belong with them.

Reading: Narcissus and Goldmund, by Herman Hesse, who said:

"the morality of artists is replaced by aesthetics."

music: so welcome to Minnow Brook, and welcome to Shady Space

So I'm back in Santa Cruz now.

I miss my vermin very greatly but look forward to them visiting and possibly even (knock on wood) moving up here at some point in the near future.  Make it happen, chumps!

Today I realized I overcharged on my card and am now $150 in debt, but the good news is I just got a job at Joe's pizza on campus so I should be raking in the dough. Literally.

Classes seem good so far. I'm taking Greek drama/Modern film, Global politics, and Overview of the universe. 

That's all for this boring update.

location: bed/dormroom/santacruz mood: thirsty music: beatles

Haaaaappy New Year!!

Me and the boys are chancing a road trip up to Santa Cruz in Keegan's death trap, so please pray to Zeus, God, Buddha or whichever divinity you prefer that we make it there alive...

mood: nervous

I like having a mood ring because I know that right now my mood is mostly blue with a little bit of purple and a smidge of green.

I like Christmas in southern California because instead of snow, we have smog, traffic, and blistering heat to wade through during the holidays.

And I REALLY like this game:
for stealing 6 hours of my life throwing cows, capturing pigs, and riding warthogs around in the name of bunny slaying.

Okay. I lied. The only one of those I actually don't like is the second one.  Give me pretty colors and zapping rabbits any day and I am a happy camper. =) Hope everyone had a splendid holiday at home.

location: back at home mood: tired music: third eye blind

Happy millionth birthday Santa Clause!

budddy05 (11:16:25 AM): or a reindeer

mood: awake music: last christmas

A few inconsequential facts of life:

I like how high heels look on a leg but do not enjoy the way they make me walk like a buffalo. 

There's nothing like a family party or a well-fitted dress to make a girl feel pretty.  My sister and I are always doted over when we visit my Chinese family (which is usually only twice a year) because we have hazel eyes, white features, and she has light hair.  It's true, I have no culture.  Sometimes I forget my face is the only thing that reveals I have Asian blood, and I feel completely white, inside and out.  This makes for an interesting mindset because I identify the most with a white face, but I have to remember a white face doesn't always identify with me.  Although people often comment on my nationality - "Oh what a cute little asian" or "come on you lazy asian" (Miguel mostly) or "yeah, she's gotta be smart 'cause she's asian" - the only time I ever really think about and question my ethnicity is when I go to these annual family parties.  I'm surrounded by my KIN, my BLOOD, and I feel like an alien around them.  The only thing I have telling me I am Chinese is my flat nose, my dark hair, olive skin, and round face.  I believe what we have here is a case of the mind-body problem.  Well, cogito, ergo sum.  (I know Isabel will appreciate that.)

Speaking of mixed races, I was told tonight by my dad that when I was little, being the outrageously adorable baby that I was, my parents took me to Hollywood to test out my abilities as a model - a model! - and that although I had "the looks" - yeah right!- I lacked the eagerness to be in front of the camera.  I was a shy little muffin of a kid.  My dad said they could have sent me to acting classes and all that jazz, and maybe someday I could have been on the cover of Toys'R'Us magazine!  Just think!  Little toddler Nancy dancin' around with Barbies and cartoon characters on TV!  The imagination becomes overwhelmed.  It's strange to think what I would have been like if my life had taken that route - Nancy the kid model.  But as it is, it was not so, and for a reason.  It just ain't me, na mean.

And *here* is where I stopped the dribbling of thoughts to cyberspace and went outside to meet a friend and smoke a cigarette.  I've come to realize it's much easier to write about myself and my family and the way they affect me than my friends and the way they affect me.  I have no fear of my family members stumbling upon my incoherent rambling, but my friends, well, they know where I live online.  Although my friends are the single most influential part of my life, it's something I cannot actively dissect through words.  Would you really want to know how I perceive things?  Talk about you as if you won't read it, knowing you will.  That just seems wrong, although I wish there were some way.  Someday, someday.  If you don't mind, maybe I'll write a book.  I've got words in my veins, whether I or you or they like it, read it, or not.

You know who your real soul mates are when you're sitting on your front porch at 3 in the morning on Christmas Day, just because your young blood finds smokey-breathed, crinkle-eyed conversation more appealing than sleep.  And just because you can.  We share cigarettes like we share our stories - there's always room for one more. (...Not really, I don't smoke that much, but...it sounds good.)  Or when you sit around all day and just bask in the curious closeness of your chosen companions.  I think I've lived my life backwards - I fell deeply in love when I was in high school and now that I'm older, love repulses me almost as much as friendship appeals to me.  Isn't it usually the other way around?  Your friends are there from the beginning and when you've matured enough, you enter into a relationship.  Lately, I feel like my friends are my world and provide everything I need.  Which reminds me of a joke, "I don't have a girlfriend.  But I do know someone who would be very upset if she heard that."  Not to say I don't want to be in a relationship, but it's almost like I'm just now discovering that a soul mate doesn't have to be a lover.  In fact, that's exactly what it is. 

And if you liked that joke, you know Mitch Hedberg is the man.  If there's one person at this exact moment I wish were alive right now, it is him.  R.I.P. Mitch Hedberg, comedic genius.
 


"...and then at the end of the letter I like to write P.S. - this is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated."

P.S. I occasionally enjoy throwing down words like I throw down opponents - which is rarely and badly.  But I enjoy it nonetheless.  My problem is a captive audience and a need for material.  Would someone like to drop a line in my suggestion box?  That is, if anyone reads my bibble-babble...be a doll and give the poor a penny?  Like, "socks."  Nancy, write something about socks.  And I would do it.

P.S.S. In the light of the Christmas spirit, don't ever get someone a gift just because you want one in return.  That's just plain wrong.  And take a minute to appreciate the gifts people give you everyday, tangible or not.  An iPod isn't the only way to show you care.  (Although, it is nice.)  Merry Christmas, monkeys. =)

mood: rambunctious

It's time like these I appreciate the real people in my life.

music: the beatles

p.s. i'll say it again and this is proof, guitar hero owns your soul

but we all know we like it that way

I'm going to bed stupidly late in the early morning,

and a jolly good time to you all!

music: brand new

My, my, quite a crazy week it's been. 

I haven't gone to sleep earlier than 4 am since I got back to HB.  This takes some getting used to because before I left for college, I always had a curfew and a nagging mother calling every 15 minutes, and even in Santa Cruz we hit the hay pretty early, usually.  But here and now, every night in the dead of night, we wandering lost children have nothing better to do but kill time with cigarettes and outlandish conversation.  I feel like a teenager setting fire to the world just to watch it burn and touch the heat.  We'll drive around aimlessly exactly like we were meant to, maybe stopping to romp through a ghost park or gallavant down the boardwalk, and even though we have nothing to do, it's always too early to leave the heavy night.  The city may be dirty and small but finding that niche in the corner of worlds can be pretty satisfying, as long as you balance the endless nothings out with reality.  It's winter break so I have no obligations, but it's nice to know that when it's time for school again, I'll have my priorities strictly lined up.  Now that I'm free to enjoy the ride, why not reel in the sunrise every morning?  It's that sense of closeness I don't get anywhere else, a shared sense of being, and I don't mind coming home with fingers stained of nicotine.  Having the house to myself for three nights in a row was pretty nice too.

Oh, I partook in the grand annual "undie run" at UCLA last night.  Basically, it's the softXcore version of Santa Cruz's annual naked run on the first rain.  People just strip down to their undies and run around, usually intoxicated, I guess to celebrate the end of finals week.  Santa Cruz still pwns in the hardXcore department, but this was pretty fun.  I love being a foolish drunken college student with nothing better to do than get nekked.

Also, Guitar Hero owns your soul.

And with all that said, it's time to bring on another hellishly terrific week in this box-like cage of a city. 

Now tell me about your adventures!

location: back in HB music: we're alright, up all night, to see the sun come up again

It seems like the older you get, the more often nostalgia creeps up on you and hits you in the face.  All of us have so many memories stacked away in our little storage closet of a brain, and being back home it's like someone's snuck in during the night and trashed the place, tipping over bins full of this summer or that winter or those people, leaving a huge mess of scattered ghosts for me to sort through.  I don't mind it, really.  It's just very strong and a little disorienting, especially when it all gets mixed up with plans, ideas, and excitement for the future.  Where the past, present, and future intersect has always been a busy, confusing crossroad for me.  These tests I've been taking (OKCupid.com...biggest waste of time of my life, but so addicting) tell me I have a hard time with reality.  Well, duh.  I live in so many worlds it's no wonder I can't function, and live the majority of my life in my words.

At any rate, I'm realizing and appreciating a lot of things since I'm back, and I'm glad it feels like everything's finally okay again.
Tonight and tomorrow should be fun.  (Kickback at Nancy's while Mother is away ;-)  Bring on the memories.)

And about those tests I was talking about, if you're bored, check them out for a completely non-productive time-waster (but they're so much fun...and the well-made ones are so accurate)
Apparently, I'm a Starving Artist, a Nymph, and an INFP Healer (this test is the kind they give you in like 10th grade for career planning, and I find it interesting that I scored the same then and 3 years later, so apparently I haven't changed very much, or the test is just designed very well).  You know you want to take them.  Feel free to share your results with me =)

location: my huntington beach bed mood: nostalgic music: annuals

I can hear the sloshing thud of tires churning against gravel outside my window, and my cat is licking himself on my bed.  I just went out driving and the aloneness in the car out in the world makes me realize how Christmas makes me feel like such an observer.  I see the Christmas lights and smell the fresh pine, listen to the crunch of tires on rainy ground and watch families eating freshly baked cookies around a roaring fire on TV, but most of the time it just tires me.  I can't help but feel the commercialism in the air along with the scent of rain.  Why do parents spend so much money on their kids??  I feel like children are growing up spoiled rotten, with no education or view of the rest of the world.  When I used to babysit a couple years ago, one of the moms employed me and my sister to help wrap the gazillions of presents she got for her kids because it was too much for her to wrap on her own.  My neighbor's family, while composed of very sweet people, always has tons and tons of STUFF just lying around.  I don't think they even know where or what most of it even is, just because they have so much.  It seems so unnecessary.  There's so much produced and SO MUCH WASTED. 

It makes me think of a play I saw one time with Thomas, in which one of the characters is so disgusted and fed up with the wastefulness of modern society that she decides to become a monk/ascetic, and throw away everything she owns except for 8 items.  I consider the possibility of doing this, and then realize I don't really want to give up some things, like my books, my pictures, my journals, my memories.  I need things like pen and paper to survive.  But other than that, why another TV? Why more Roxy slippers or holiday Barbies or Big Wheels?  Why not a few presents and not 50?  And I hate the idea of Christmas shopping.  For the people close to you, you want to show them that you care, and sometimes gifts are great for this.  But during the Christmas season, everyone stresses out about getting great gifts because it's expected, and if that's the case, how is it an expression of caring? I would prefer, ideally, random gifts at random times, when you see something someone would like, you get it, just because you want to and not because you need to get them something for Christmas.  But I don't want to go too far down that road, and become something like the mother in Almost Famous, who doesn't allow the family to celebrate Christmas in December because it's too commercialized.  She be crazy.  But the best thing about Christmas for me is sitting around the fire watching a movie or playing a game, wrapped in a blanket and with close friends or family.  Aw, now I'm in the mood to watch The Grinch and be inspired by all the little who-people who prove Christmas is more than materials. 

Hmmph. I'm not asking for anything this Christmas. My parents are paying for my life at Santa Cruz right now, which I absolutely love and am extremely grateful for. I just feel tired.  And Huntington Beach is still so small.

location: my little bed in my little room music: whispertown2000

The internet consumes way too much of my life.  Humanity disappoints me right now.

mood: annoyed

I'm going to really miss Santa Cruz.

location: dorm music: radiohead