1:44 AM - 1/2/2006 - comments {0} - post comment

If You really Knew Me You Would Not Like Me yadda yadda

I am filled with pain. Not the pains I covered a thousand pages of  dribble with twenty years ago, all that angry young man angst and "what you rebellin´ against...what you got" bullshit, but I am  filled with actual pain and suffering. The type of anguish that comes with age and decay and from drinking daily from a bottomless well of regret and doubt.

Boredom and frustration are the only colors on my palette. I cannot seem to gather myself and my moments in the manner I had always imagined I would... long before this time in life. I am forced into accepting the fact that I will never be able to change and that there is nothing for me to change into. I can, with work, make modifications. I can airbrush some glaring flaw to the point it is not so noticeable and embarrassing. But I see now that I will be this thing that I have always been.

I have to confess that I am not unique in any way at all. I have done terrible things and I cringe when I remember certain of my deeds and words. But I am easy on myself and I see another side to the history of it all now. I recall odd moments and shameful decisions. The sheer cold calculus of reason and the lava flow of feeling. Thinking and feeling and all the universe in a hug goodbye.

There were long years of obsessions and compulsions that ruined my life. And I am the only one responsible, and yet I somehow sense that I (what I define as "I") was not the only thing involved in all those dark moments. I was there and I was sane and sound, but I seem to feel some strings were pulling me here and there, and still they do.

Maybe I seek a way to excuse my mistakes and absolve myself of my "crimes." In fact I do not. I  faced the repercussions for my vain and self serving actions. I sufferd alone and I wish not to recount the terror I once knew day to day for years on end. I am not unique and my story pales in comparision I am sure. I am simply wondering what really was happening back then. What is happening now...tonight? The way fish are unaware of water, I wonder about the currents and forces that guide and determine my life.

I am sorry for the wrong things I have done and the people I loved but hurt and I wish forgiveness for those wrongs. But what am I to say and do tonight about the wrongs and pains I will cause tomorrow? I seem weary of not knowing my own heart.

12:22 AM - 1/2/2006 - comments {0} - post comment

Quick Updates on Life in General... a little on the edgy side

News Years approaches fast. Christmas went by and did not feel much like Christmas at all. This is a absolutely secular and Marxist culture and the religious element of any westrern holiday is absolutely missing. This may sound refreshing to many Americans who would like nothing better than to remove the spiritual aspect of Christmas form the day. I read that this year in Seattle it was really overboard in the area of businesses and offices banning that evil, spiteful phrase which incites such bitterness in people... Merry Christmas. While here, in this atheistic society, everyone wishes you a Merry Christmas and they do not worry about all the alledged baggage the term has. It had gotten to the point with me in Seattle I felt absolutely brow beaten. I was so mortified (even though I was an atheist and still do not believe in the virgin birth or any of the miracles of the Bible) to simply say Merry Christmas to some America hating liberal there who destested anythiing to do with Christianity on the basis of...what? I do not even know anymore and I am bored with the subject all of a sudden. All those bastards ought to quit their jobs and forsake their Volvos and come here and live and see just how a society bereft of any religious values whatsoever has excelled in all areas of life both morally, politically and ecomnically.

I am teaching a computer class now. Power Point. Nothing gets done as is typical and so I am killing time doing the same thing the students do which is typically anythng but the lesson at hand. So, for the next two hours I will sit here and surf the net and wait for a student to ask me something which is simply not going to happen. I have to come to accpet that there is some radical difference in the way Western people and Asian people learn, but I am not an expert on the matter and do not feel like speculating right now. Most of my students regardless of their age simply do not want to learn Englsih or anythng else for that matter. They want to play and waste time and become rich CEOs later. If I ask what is a CEO is and what one does they have no clue, but they are going to be one, and they will not even have to study to do that. They will come to class (or maybe not), play and sleep and talk on cell phones and then one day ebcome a CEO somewhere without ever having to actually work and "climb the ladder" to acheive that end. And that may well be true, if they have an uncle or friend who works in the upper levels of a corporation here. The whole system here is beyond my understanding. I never will understand it and any opinion I express right now will only sound sound cynical and xenophobic. So, I will let it rest.

In fact, I do not even feel like writing another word.

10:22 AM - 12/29/2005 - comments {0} - post comment

Not a true confession entry. Still sick and not as artsy fartsy as I used to be

Lately it has been so cold in Beijing. Still not able to shake this cold. It has been almost three weeks. I am looking at the blog and the direct directions it has been taking. It is okay with me that this is happening although I am thinking of starting another blog, one that can focus on more serious writing and the practice of trying to write down thoughts in a detailed manner. I find the thing I can the least is really write about my daily life in an interesting way. I mean, how can I really do that? I am not so about to sit here and say I am going to keep some totally honest blog, and reveal my every thought and emotion, and discuss everything that I do in detail. I have been to some blog sites like that seem to take this approach... the "true confessions" approach and found them so lacking in real depth I was bored immediately. I do not see what a challenge it would be for me to lay out my sordid and dismal behaviors, or to rant endlessly about the shortcomings of my co-workers, friends or lover. I guess for some people this is all they have, this detailed description of all that is surface and superficial. It seems so... modern America. Not to say such writing does not have its place and value, and if well written it can be great. Henry Miller and Anais Nin made careers from such styles. But, I read some site about a gal who is desperate to get pregnant and she had a post on the various colors of her menstrual blood. It had been purple the week before and now it was a creamy red and she was all worried over her baby dream being compromised. She seemed to have no desire for a boyfriend or husband and any sperm donor would be suitable. I just could not see what the point of it all was. Not to say my site has a point, it does not. But is that really honesty? Is that what people see as being honest is all about? To try and simply shock the reader and in the process show yourself to be a "brave" person... brave here being the type of brave that defines a woman who had her picture taken without make-up early in the morning and then shows everyone the picture. Is that what brave now?

 Went out last night with Ivy and a teacher friend P_____ from NY met his friend M_____ from LA. We went and had pizza and I had some drinks but not too many. Enough to warm me in the cold and subdue my cough for a couple hours. We went to a small smoky club where there were poetry readings and performances, but I was not much in the right mood. I was tired and my head hurt from my cold. There was too much cigarette smoke and it was a bit too loud. Normally I would get something out of an event like that but I left feeling sick and weak. It was all strange really to be honest, and I feel not my cup of tea really. Too many people trying so hard to be artsy and different and unique. It was like some of the scene in Seattle really that I grew cynical towards. Maybe I am getting old and jaded is all. I would go back sure and try, and hopefully be in better health and more receptive to it all. Maybe someday participate in a reading, who knows.

 Ivy is on the sofa drawing away. She ahs been drawing so much lately and it is getting better and better. Some of stuff is appearing on her blog site and I will put some on my photo logs soon. I need to edit them someday, my photo logs. I am not drawing at all. Nothing, even thought the supplies she is using is supplies I bought for myself. There is something to that, but if I go into now it will just sound like one of those true confession bullshit blogs I was just crying about...so I will save that topic for another day.

5:43 PM - 12/11/2005 - comments {1} - post comment

Sick and tired of being sick and tired

I have been away from  the blog for a couple weeks for a few reasons, the main one being a damned cold I have had and cannot shake. Winter has set in in Beijing and it is a weird desert type winter. Dry and windy and with a painful chill in the air. I was already sick and it has all made my resistence weaker and weaker. My immune system is ravaged right now. The last thing I feel like doing is trying to be witty or clever on some blog right now. Still drinking wine since my last slippage back into that world, but I will come out of it in time. I seem to long for some release from  the boredom and stress of my life here. My job has had some interesting twists and turns lately and I was very frustrated for a time but am resigning myself to the so called system here, which is something I am not used to. It is a system where students who never attend class or take tests are moved along into high level English course when they cannot even tell you what they did last night or what they had for lunch earlier in the day. It is all around money and appeasing those who have paid in adavnce for the certificate and are going through motions to simply pick it up later. In the meantime they sleep all day in the dorms and have a great time at their parents expense, with the knowledge that they have to do absolutely nothing and will still "succeed." For many teachers it is frustrating, as well as it is for the students who show up everyday and struggle with higher levels of a complicated language like English. Well, the Good Lord will strike them all blind in the end I am sure.

I have been really pessimistic lately. Back to my nihilistic comfort zone. I have come to accept that I believe in God, but I realize I feel God is cold and impersonal. Like nature itself God is blind brute fact and distance. I feel myself moving in odd directions with my philosophies and beliefs. They are always in the front of my mind now and I have no books to research my growing list of questions. There is no available liteature in China on any of this really. Not in the bookstores at any rate, maybe through other ex-pats or over the net. I want to explore some of this in the categories of Philosophy, Aphorisms and Gibberish as well as the psuedo-autobiographical Commentarius Perpetuus. I have not abandoned those type of writings but lately I am not able to do it. My head hurts constantly and I am worn out. Still dealing with insomnia and this blasted shoulder and arm problem. I will admit that all of this colors my mood and theologies and all that, so in a week or two when my head is not cracking apart and I have stopped sneezing wads of blood I may have an entirely new attitude. Lets see.

11:29 AM - 12/5/2005 - comments {3} - post comment

Pushy Chinese sales ladies, cold saffron rice and booted out of a taxi.

Belive it or not, this kid has had a better day than I did.

Seems like today I had one of those wasted days I have more often than I like to  anymore. I felt moody and tired and edgy from the get go but decided to take the bus into Beijing with Ivy to get some new clothes. I wound up buying no clothes of the type I needed and returned home later in the night tired and in a bad mood. Little things can be trying here for me, such as getting a good dinner or buying clothes. Two things happened today to show how my mood is challenged and taxed. They may seem like little things, but these things can happen on a regular basis. After deciding to leave for Beijing proper and not being able to get a simple cup of coffee anywhere in this neighborhood we arrived after a long bus ride to an area that has clothes in sizes I can sometimes buy. It does not mean I will like the style, but I can sometimes find something. I have been wanting some new pants. We stopped by one of these weird military style stores they have here that sells army clothes, and even carry  one brand called US Army. Most of my students do not know what US Army is and assume it is the name of a clothes brand. In any case the people here are fascinated with the US and American icons such as the US flag. All I wanted was a pair of pants and I stepped in and was in a quiet mood to look at my own pace, but as I started to look at the pants I said to Ivy "I hope the lady does not run over here and grab the first thing I touch and take it and start trying to sell it to me." I just wanted to see if I could find some in my waste size. Sure enough, the first pair I touched to see if I could locate the label she grabbed and started out with her measuring tape and chattering away in Chinese to Ivy. In truth, I did not even want the pants, I just wanted to look and relax and see if I could find the sizes, then shop at a leisurely pace and find something I could wear in a dark color. But she was  pushy and aggressive so I simply decided to leave the store. I just was not in the mood today for it. I aw some pants I wanted to look at, but damn, all she wanted to do was get me to buy anything as fast as possible. I was disappointed too that they had no shirts. None, not one. Strange. The only thing more frustrating than this technique is he one where you select something finally and then the sales person gives you another product that usually costs  about four times as much. I wanted some vitamins once and found a bottle for about 25 RMB and the lady grabs something off the shelf and babbles away pointing at the box and all I see is that it is 120 RMB. She must have thought I was simply stupid, so I left without buying anything. It is the most primitive sales techniques I have ever seen. Very aggressive and even rude.

            Later we went to an Indian restaurant and ordered some food. I was worried about the spicy food as my stomach has been upset lately because they drench everything in garlic it seems, but I figured what the heck, I do not eat out at nice places often and I save money in Beiyuan so we can splurge on a good and expensive meal. Problem was the saffron and lamb rice was ice cold. Ivy tried it first and told me it was cold and I thought it might be warm, but it was cold, as if it was in the refrigerator. Even some of the grains were hard, you know, the way refrigerated rice gets. So we called the girl over and asked her to warm it I guess. After she left Ivy said maybe we should not get it, that It seemed old and I agreed. We called the girl and Ivy told her we wished to cancel the rice. I said cancel it or replace it with an order of fresh rice that was just fried. Not unreasonable right? And is an upscale type place. I spend about 10 to 20 RMB on average eating out lately, and this meal cost in the end 165 RMB, so you would think we would have some say I what we got right? Wrong. The girl comes back and says we cannot replace it but she can give us steamed white rice. We cannot cancel the order, we have to pay for it, even though we only took one bite each out of it. She says she will take it back and fry it for us. Okay I think...good compromise. But, she returns less than two minuets later with the plate and it is obvious she simply stuck it in the microwave real fast is all. The tomatoes and garnish are all wilted and the plate setting is identical and there are even the two empty areas where Ivy and I tried a bite each. I simply will not go back there. When we came in they even had on this loop of music that I complained about the last time. It is like a sample of some crappy Indian rap song, maybe 30 seconds long and they let it play over and over all day I guess. Why anyone would have to complain about it is beyond me. It is not even a song, it is a short sample and it goes on and on until I am nuts. And the people there seem oblivious to it. This is all capped off by the asshole taxi driver who made us get out on the exit ramp of the freeway because Ivy told him not to drive the long away around this giant loop around Beijing but to go directly to Beiyuan. This of course would cut his fare in half, but we have caught onto this scam already. He just booted us out and we were lucky to get another cabbie right off who was honest and brought us directly back with no hassle.

So I did not get any clothes because the lady made me nervous and we got screwed on some rice in a place where service should be above that of a street side noodle restaurant. I will stick to the cheap little places I think, where if I get bad service and shitty food (which is common) at least I do not have to pay 165 RMB for it. The whole day put me off and into a bad mood and I was snappy later with Ivy. I just get tired and worn out. I cannot seem to even put a comical twist on any of this lately. Lets leave it at that then.

2:01 AM - 11/13/2005 - comments {3} - post comment

Trying to study Chinese... worried over my neck and shoulder

I have been trying to study my Chinese more, but it is a tough language. The tones are so crucial and the people here just are not accustomed to forgiegners mauling their language the way we are in the states. They have no practice here of trying to listen and understand what you might be saying. You have to get it right or you are lost. So I am studying the written lagugae now, figuring I can pick up some characters and at least write down what I need. Of course that is more involved than the spoken language for me. I know around 50 characters maybe, but I cannot do anything with them. So I am studying radicals and characters with some books I bought and a huge new dictionary. I spent all night writing four radicals over and over. Okay, not all night, but an hour or so. I have to give it some time and see where it leads. I have a children's book I am trying to translate one character at a time. All I know so far is that a little girl filled up a bag of candy and sat down by a river and is eating them one piece at a time, and a fish appears and talks to her, but I do not know what he says yet. My goal is to read and then write the story in Chinese. Not referring to pinyin while I rewrite and recite the story later. It is a short little story but I can see spending a month or two on it. I have to refer to the radical dictionary over and over, but I am memorizing some parts of the characters faster now. I filled up a couple pages of grid paper with characters earlier. I have no idea how to learn a language and all I am doing is taking some of the things I have learned about teaching English as  a Second Language and have turned them around on myself. Maybe I can begin some classes soon. I have heard a rumor the school will offer them free in a week or two. It just seems like a good and positive thing to do. A big challenge. Yea, thats what I need. Another big challenge.

My shoulder, neck and arm still hurt so bad. I am not sure what to do about it. I guess I could try a doctor. I am just not sure you know. I did run into a Dr I trusted when I had my flu a month ago. He spoke some Englsih too. I just am worn out form the pain all the time. Like Bruce Lee side kicked me in the shoulder blades a couple times.

8:32 PM - 11/3/2005 - comments {2} - post comment

Exquisite reflections on pathos, human sufferiing, the death instinct and poop

I never get tired of this picture

I took a long walk to the local McDonalds here in my remote neck of Northern Beijing today. It was a dreary walk really. The weather is starting to chill now. But everything is so dismally dusty. There is no horizon most of the time here. Everything seems washed out, like a movie shot in sepia tone. The sidewalks are all blown over with dirt and my mouth is dry and parched despite the icy air. The buildings are imposing and utterly functional in their architecture. They lack any type of form that would alleviate one´s tension and isolation. You are simply walking between big, bland concrete structures, and with a cruel chilly wind blowing dirt and dust in your face amid the constant din and clamor of the endless construction and aggressive traffic. I just drifted down the long sidewalks looking for color somewhere. I found some purple plants that looked lovely and distinct. They looked like cabbage sort of, but were tall and bright at the top, like flowers in a way but different. I do not know much about plants except how I respond when I see them. I felt soothed.  That is until I saw a clump of vomit all over one. I became aware then of all the human waste around me on the sidewalks. There was a pile of shit beyond the bus stop, and I was sure to go out of my way on the way home to avoid it. There were more piles of feces of one form or another in various stages of decomposition here and there. Not all was human of course, but enough was to make me wonder how in the hell did it get here, in the wide open area of the sidewalk. The people did not even hide in an alley. And then I saw more vomit collections. There was a collection of puddles spewed out on a series of trees. I deducted that the same person hurled each batch as the food particles appeared the same, and each batch got smaller and smaller, as if he or she up chucked a load, walked a few steps then began retching for life again as they hung to the tree for support. Shit. Vomit. And then there was the stench of urine everywhere, especially as I walked by an alley way. It blew out and mixed delicately with the car exhaust and pollution and desert dust that layered every visible object.

I realized how much I had not learned about anything in my time here. All my angry conclusions about mankind were not challenged and replaced by some higher notion, but I had only come to despise the human race more and more. I long ago stopped seeing myself as distinct or apart from this rancid miasma collected on the surface of the planet like mold on an old orange. I am as rotten and filled with blackness as the son-of-a-bitch who yanked down his pants and shit at the bus stop or barfed in the garden of purple flowers. I wonder if I have ever done one truly good thing in my entire life and if I did why ruin a good blog by talking about all that crap. Hell, one time here in Beijing I was made fun of for giving two RMB (about 25 cents American) to some poor bastard who had no arms and no face. He must have been roasted in some industrial accident and left to rot by the "humane and sensitive" Chinese government and population. I did not see the value in laughing at the loveless wretch or denying his a couple pieces of paper to get some food or a warm drink with, if anyplace here would allow him inside to make the purchase. In my heart I thought I did a good thing, but it was taken away from me later with criticism that I helped no one, that I am essentially enabling such behavior and I only did it to serve my own selfish motives. Shit. Look, that poor guy never hurt me and I can do with my money as I wish. He has no one t love him. No job or future. And yet, some bastards shit, piss and puke on the sidewalk and they walk away unscathed. I will never feel ashamed to give 2 RMB to an armless and disfigured human again, because one night we all went to dinner and spent nearly 200 RMB on Coke-a-Colas!!!

There seems no balance here. None that I can find, and I had lost all mine in Seattle long ago after my long period of shameful tribulations. I seem to be propelling myself step by step towards the big sleep now. Nothing can change it. I can learned to have a sense of what death can almost be, and it is not so great a thing. It is a thing to be feared and respected and something to avoid whenever possible. There are two deaths we consider in our lives. The death we think about when we are young, and the one we think about as we get older and older. The former is not such a monster really. It is something to say "what is there to fear...it happens to all things!" There is arrogance and denial to spare about all subjects when we are young and full of a future. The latter death is a thing to tremble before and we say "yes it will happen to all things... and soon now it will happen to even me." And when I am in such a moribund and morose state of mind the last things I need to see is some fucking assholes pile of shit on the sidewalk while I am going to get a hamburger.

4:35 PM - 10/26/2005 - comments {1} - post comment

Ernest Becker, Wilhem Reich and T-Bone Todd

8:04 PM - 10/19/2005 - comments {1} - post comment

Push ups at 6:00 AM anyone?

2:42 PM - 10/18/2005 - comments {0} - post comment