What's a boy supposed to do?
(The killer in me is the killer in you.)
Smashing Pumpkins music, it turns out, reminds me of Linda Ho. I wrote the girl a letter to her lair on Pago Pago but have not heard back from her. Such is life. I think that brief bout of misty-eyed memories that were like weird echos of ancient thoughts and feelings, that had coincided with my breaking up with Asao and my acquisition of mp3 files containing the magical music, is behind me now. Like Asao, and a few others, Linda is one of those mysteries - those unsolved puzzles which is all the more haunting as not only was it so complex, but it seems as if I am shut off from being allowed to solve it. I like working out puzzles. Linda I was brought in on and got real deep into the middle of, or so it would seem. In retrospect she seems to have had many layers protecting the inside. Very craftily constructed and confusing, misleading layers, that would seem to make you feel that you are closer to the center of her person than you really are.
And Asao, she is similar, but more obvious in her complexities I think, and I more cynical and hopefully less foolish than before, but either unwilling or unable to scale what seems an intractable problem ... how to get through ... at what cost and at what importance? With Asao it seemed less a question of could I get through, and try to become sufficiently close to her that we could carry our relationship in happiness together, but whether the ordeal would be fair enough ... she is heavily taxed, reaching for those lofty goals, studying in a foreign country, with a lover who speaks not a lick of her native tongue. I remember her telling me that there was no such things as "not enough time" - that she could always make time. Well, she makes time well enough, but she has taken sick more frequently of late, says she did so in high school. Time is finite, when you are making time, you are taking it from something else ... and what is the result? Her scheme a contrast to my more "gradualistic" nature.
I remember discussing this gradualism here some time back and MikeyA writing about biting the bullet sometimes, sticking up for your beliefs, and feelings. Yeah, I responded, I do that. The main criticism it would seem Asao would have of me is my lacking dedication to her, or at least her perception of this. But it was I who wanted to live together, ironing out differences as they arose out of sheer necessity, without the easy option of simply turning away, as seemed the trend with her so often. (I'm of more stubborn, or at least different, stuff.) I considered taking the rigorous Japanese language course here this summer, ready to "commit" to the difficult task of reconciling the two very different systems we have with ourselves ... seeking for what I could offer her, and yet she wanted other things, that maybe cut closer to my spirit ... here I should adjourn the discussion lest things become too personal. I've said more than is needed of outstanding issues.
I bring this up now only because we had an encounter together, within the past two weeks. We got to talk some, to discuss some, not without the flowing of tears. While it is not my business to complain about it, it does not gladden me that I've been engaged in such difficult relationships. At times it seems petty to me that I should have broken with Jeong over something as trivial as a long-distance relationship. Our understanding ran deep, so deep it was awesomely and impressively weird. Perhaps I am the masochist out to tame the untamable territory, to slay the unslayable foe as it were, to be with the girl I just can't manage. I don't believe this streak to be so terribly conscious beyond the fact that I seem to posses that all-to-natural tendency of a guy to like hot-lookin' ladies he shouldn't have a chance in heck with and thinking to himself sometimes "wouldn't it be awesome if I could pull that off!" (You know, male ego - machismo.)
Corollary to the idea of women wanting what they can't have, I am still growing, that weird desire to keep aiming higher. I don't know if I actually subscribe to that or if such a reality is rather invented by Asao, but it is a factor that I and a future relationship perhaps would be well-served by being aware of. While I was perfectly well interested in being my best for Asao, or so I I believe I was, I also appreciated fine women, like anything good in life, though not to my knowledge having any desire to act on that appreciation. Is appreciation so wrong, did I have hidden intents that only Asao could see? Was she just being picky, by my standard, demanding my faculties to be entirely hers? The truth is in there somewhere. If I do have any latent intents that I'm unaware of, as I've found a person can have latent intents of many sorts that they are unaware of, it would be to good benefit that they be discovered and dealt with.
It seems futile to try and solve anything here. The real trouble with Asao that makes the situation seemingly unsolvable is that there are more issues at work than just this here. Ideas of the meaning and conduct of love perhaps, but here I shall hold my thoughts to myself.
With kinder fortunes I may in the future be engaged in more casual relationships that demand less soul-searching. The time taken for this activity, especially in a young man like myself, could be invested in more material things.
Speaking of the spiritual, in contrast to the material, it was just over a week ago that Grandpa passed away.
It was mom, and Uncle John and Aunt Linda who were the most affected. While a death is sad, I believe that those of us who knew him, as well as Grandfather himself, are pleased that he is no longer sick, and passed along to whatever existence, if any, in our own beliefs, awaits him.
I had the good fortune to attend the memorial service held on Sunday. I drove back with Uncle, and he expressed that he did find it comforting at least to believe that something awaits us after death. I don't know, and it is something I should really try to figure out, why I feel so comfortable with my more nihilistic beliefs of death that we simply extinguish with our bodies. My memory is poor so I can not tell if I am more comfortable with this now than when I believed, or at least preferred to believe, in my younger days, that there might well be some sort of afterlife. I think though, more likely, this comfort with the termination of soul and all goes hand in hand with me becoming a different sort of person - such beliefs are tied with religion, which so defines many of us. I have different requirements, different conception of comfort, than I once did. It seemed, from Uncle's queries, that he was unsure with how his beliefs might proceed himself.
Maybe that's why I should really sit down and shoot the shit with Grandma sometime, who is as far as I can tell the only other professed Atheist in our family's bunch of folks. I think in her years she must have had some reflections on the subject. She is an interesting woman and I can not help but feel that she, of all folks, I most identify with. She is, like me, confident but outwards alternately self-effacing and alternately coming on strong. I think she knows herself but is cautious about bringing this self to bear on others, as it is a fairly unique sort of being that doesn't always transfer well onto the unsuspecting. She truly desires to share, but has not yet hit on how to determine whether her audience is properly receptive or not.
Too much transference?
(I should switch to lighter talk.)
So, I move out Sunday. That's like now the day after tomorrow. Uncle's coming to pick me up, the parents not being so hot on the idea of me driving out west by myself. Too quickly perhaps I then reconciled myself to the numerous requests for computer assistance on the part of family, and my "friends" down at EnterAct where they could use some tech support help for a few weeks.
FAQ: Why don't you take the train out to see dad?
I want to get out there and explore, see what I can see, make it
to California, ideally. Amtrak and Greyhound don't quite have the same feel
as a genuine roadtrip you know? After all, I just now have a license, and
have been on fucking public transit my whole life. Much as I like trains and
busses, I'd like to have a different experience for once. I haven't travelled
in two damn years and have been working constantly.
</rant>
I coulda gone with Morris, it turns out, maybe, given he's got big trip plans, but he's talkin' three weeks, prolly cutting into I-Guide time anyway, and I've already all but volunteered my services elsewhere.
Party tomorrow! Woohoo! "Paul's Gone" party - I think he don't read my journal, and isn't likely to find out I think less than 24 hours before the fact here that we're throwing him a party. Brats, beer and margaritas later on. Sounds like great fun to me. Mark and I are assigned to bring chips.
I recently joined this nifty web-ring thing of other folks who keep journals and have been browsing through the ringmaster's diary ... impressive, so far, to say the least, and an inspiration for my typing right now. This Ophelia chick kicks ass, and I think I should be grateful she is in Hawaii and taken else I'd likely pine for her a little while in some bad way. I think she gets plenty of fans of that nature already though. After all, we're talkin' about an attractive, and seemingly pretty open and honest computer-geek woman. A rare catch that lotsa us antisocial geek boys would love to get our greasy tentacles on, I think. If nothing else, I may perhaps join the throng of loyal readers for her journal, and in that way I might better understand the smaller throngs who come here. (Hi MikeyA!)
H O M E
20 July
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14 August