Voluntary Confinement in Los Angeles

2008-09-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

I am sitting up on the bed in my tiny apartment in Pasadena. It's about 9pm, and my Indian neighbor is blasting his Bollywood music, the singer serenading the empty, melancholy space that divides each apartment dwellers from getting to know one another except of our music tastes. The ceiling fan hums above, trying its best to combat the stifling cubicle space that is of my home. The high-pitch singing goes on, intermingling with the mechanical sound of the to-and-fro Metro train. I stared at the window opposite of mine for a short second, its blind shut completely, yet the music escapes unmistakably with its longing plea.

My writing has become stilted. The naturalness is gone, despite my best efforts and intentions. It's difficult to fathom two years have gone by since my last blog entry. My original intention was to never touch this journal again, as it brought back a myriad of emotions and turmoil that was a daily part of my life. Yet from time to time I find myself going back to reread a few entries at a time, reliving what I thought was unlivable, and found my former self as someone I was not altogether presently detached from, despite the months and years that have slowly gone by. The current of life brought me respite from, but failed to completely erase the memory of, the Michelin of two years past. I would like to keep this journal alive.

2006-09-24T20:57:00.000-07:00

With my sincereness, thank you for putting up with my trivial nonsense, ungrammatical writing, and rudderless aim at the concept of blogging. I have decided to put an end to this blog, as it has run its course. I will continue to explore the world of blog, and yours as well. May we meet again.

2006-09-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

The program read Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 for tonight's performance. It was one of those evening in which the air hung heavy like a thick curtain, refusing to be stirred. Sitting at the elevated back section, one commands a panoramic view of the Bowl. I took out a box of tuna sushi bought from a Japanese grocer for $6, opting not to pay $16 for the ones sold at the Bowl. The box consisted of four nigiri sushi and several maki sushi, not exactly a bargain in real term but a tremendous saving compared to the price gouging at any entertainment event. Carefully I tear open the soy sauce package and spill the content into a small plastic jar, and ran my thumb and index finger over the package so as to squeeze out every single drop. (The preciousness of this act is only understandable to those who buy takeout sushi.) I dab the chopstick into the wasabi and smeared what clung to it on top of the nigiri, dipped the tuna, as if glancing, into the soy sauce, and swallowed the little piece of perfection in two bites. At the same time that I chewed over the raw tuna and rice, I cast several envious glances down at the dining section right next to the stage, where pre-concert dining is held, mostly among wealthy senior citizens. The servers bustle about to and fro; the diners dined and wined and laughed a great deal. They seemed happy.

After finishing the sushi, I felt bored and a strange emptiness left me enervated. I had half hour to kill before the start of performance. I took out the New Yorker but couldn't focus on the reading. Instead I eavesdropped on the conversations of fellow concertgoers. One guy was talking of how his cat liked to scratch the sofa; a girl talked of her meeting with overseas relatives; and a modelesque couple engaged in a ferocious make out session, parrying off curious glances by their complete indifference. I followed the conversations in dribs and drabs and soon lost interest. By habit I took out the mobile phone and went over the contact list, scrolling down and up of names, some of whom I strained to recall. Of those whose memory dated back three or four years ago, I chose to hit the delete button: what was the use of keeping them, for sentimental reasons? As Graham Greene once wrote in Orient Express (I believe it was Coral Musker, the chorus girl, who said it), "Perhaps I have a life in people's minds when I am not there to be seen or talked." I have long ago ceased to have a life in their imagination; it is time for I to suspend theirs as well.

2006-08-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

As the sky transitioned into an evening mauve, the streak of white cloud that hung precariously during the day evaporated with the going of the sun. Slowly and gradually the warm stillness of the day is chased away by the breezy evening, a changing-the-guard event which I am all too glad of. The residual daylight barely illumined the torn, yellowing pages of the used textbook, as sitting at the outdoor stone bench outside the Central Library I became a more voracious reader than usual. I read on, hoping to catch up on the reading schedule prescribed by my first-ever online class. The previous occupant of this bench had scattered small bits and crumbs of bread and flattened popcorn underneath the bench, thus attracting a troupe of pigeons gawking not far away from me at the morsels. A few brave ones caught me unaware and ventured cautiously under the bench to grab away what's left. A few more pages turned and the words became strained by the enveloping semi-darkness. On one command the street lights start casting a strange pall over the library veranda, intermingling with the dark purplish evening; the outdoor corridor is no longer conducive to reading. I walked into the underground parking, taking the stair on purpose so as to make up for the complete lack of exercise that is of my current life. By the time I steered the car onto the downtown surface street, the sky had turned completely dark, and the high level of artificial illuminations had put up an imaginary big tent to prevent the evening and the star from crushing down.

2006-08-22T00:38:00.000-07:00

Dear anyone,

What prompted me to get up middle in the night to hastily compose this short writing is a matter much to complicated for my muddle-headed mind to converse clearly. Nevertheless, I will try. This moment shouldn't be forgotten for all there is. I am generally an agnostic when it comes to religious belief, but at a moment like now, when I am wrought by what once seemed a serendipity but turned out to be an unfortunate joke all to cruel for me to swallow, I think there indeed might be something up (or down) there who is conducting this little charade. I won't go into details but just let it be known that this is not pretty, and I, like an unsuspecting fish, took the bait all too eagerly.

It is pretty pathetic at a time as now to assign blame on something one doesn't usually associate with. When one is at the end of the cul-de-sac and have no way out, one is sure to curse at the bright blue sky that is smiling back at you -- more like a smirk. Forgive me.

Best of luck, from the depth of my...whatever,

Nobody

2006-08-20T00:36:00.000-07:00

Awoke in the morning without the pensiveness of last night. The bare white wall was dappled in August sunlight. First thing I did after getting up was watering my small pot of cactus, then putting it on the windowsill where it gets its exposure to the sun. It gives me a sense of purpose always when watching the water slowly sift through the dry clay. Seeing the cactus exposed to the bright sunlight is another way of affirming my usefulness, however small it may be. The plant was somehow thrust into my care without my wanting it at the time, perhaps one or two years ago, but it is now an indispensable part of my daily routine.

Waited until my roommate is done with the bathroom. While performing the morning ablution I pondered about the upcoming Thursday, a day in which I look forward to as if standing on needle and pin. Thursday night is LAPHIL night at the Hollywood Bowl. The true excitement lay not in the music but the person with which that will be sitting next to me. And if that person happens to be a potential special someone, which is something that I am quite unaccustomed to, given my long absence on the dating scene, then one is bound to worry endlessly.

After a hurried brunch at an Italian cafe, I started making rounds at various grocers and stores, such as Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's for salad ingredients and cheese and wine. Afterwards went over to IKEA to check out stemless wine glass (because plastic won't do!) for use at the Bowl. After much contemplation at the wine glass section, I chose two $1.99 rather unorthodox glass piece for their aesthetic appeal. Of course things don't end this easily at IKEA, for there bound to be useless things you would pick up on the meandering path to checkout counter.

Walking out of the giant IKEA building, the sun still shone brightly in the midst of its downward path. I did a mental check of the to-do list, to reaffirm my commitment for Thursday.

Ticket -- check.
Food -- check.
Refreshment -- check.

"Oh yeah," pouting my lips, and said out loud when no one is near, "I haven't even asked that special someone yet."

2006-08-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

N. and I each hurriedly rushed out of our office to catch the first Hollywood Bowl Metro bus that is scheduled to depart at 5:40 pm. Along the way we stopped by a Taiwanese bakery, Japanese grocer for sushi, and Trader Joe's for an inexpensive bottle of pinot grigio and some cheese, all to be enjoyed at our picnic night out with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Usually the thought of Thursday late afternoon drive toward downtown and Hollywood is as unappetizing as eating at Taco Bell. But upon hearing about the park and ride program, which transport concert goers in Torrance straight to the Bowl without stops, we decidedly purchased the least expensive ticket available online (face value $6, plus $5 process and convenience charge by Ticket Master) and headed toward an evening under the spell of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody. We arrived at the stop around 5:40, but fortunately the first bus was still there. We boarded the bus and found seating; we were mostly surrounded by enthusiastic senior citizens with picnic baskets and canvas bags. A single trip fare costs $2.50, with the benefit of not having to worry about driving and expensive and troublesome parking at the Bowl.

During the bus ride, curiosity and excitement interlaced heavily, in part due to the concert, but another for the bus ride along the 110 freeway, a first since my residence in Los Angeles. I looked out the window while the bus sped past cars as it slowly disengages from the massive flow onto the carpool lane, surpassing the gridlock of one-person vehicle lanes that I often find myself the victim in the midst of. Somehow, when I am not driving, the perception of the city softens, exuding a sense of skittishness. As the bus make its way past the tall steel and glass section of downtown, I dozed off; so did N. The muffled combustive sound of engine worked like a gentle lullaby. In under an hour we were delivered to the front entrance.

The crowd was heavily gathered at the monied section. The back benches where we belonged were occupied sparely. N. and I laid out the wine and the food on the bench, and decidedly put on our talent of eating on display. When the wine was drained about half way, the sky begin its gradual enclosure of darkness, and cool breeze gently blowing, along carried the strong scent of acidic red wine from fellow neighbors, soaking the evening air like spilled wine eating up white tablecloth. The open-air venue exposed a wide cloudless night sky, though only a handful of stars could be seen. The droning sound of cicadas regurgitated through the ears. Besides the eating, we conversed on just about every conceivable topics between two good friends, under the hidden stars. Then we spent the best Thursday evening immersed in Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.

2006-08-05T23:58:00.000-07:00

At each long communal table at Philippe's, strangers rub elbows with strangers, and spicy mustard in clear plastic jar is passed from one diner to the next. There are four or five wooden public phone booth by the front entrance, clearly lost in their purpose to society, but nevertheless provided the place with nostalgia that goes so well with the famed French Dip sandwich. The beef is sandwiched by a french roll, with the top end (or both, if you like) submerged in au jus. The exterior crispy; the interior laden with juiciness. The hour is approaching lunch time, and the crowd is only getting denser. The bus boy patrols up and down each single narrow lane between tables, to clear away finished trays. I am engrossed in the sandwich and the scene. The Dostoevsky novel serves no purpose this late morning.

Despite the airiness inside, sunlight was pouring down outside, though the temperature is mild for an August day. I put on the iPod headphone, listening to French Ecole lesson one to four -- Bonjour! Salut! Au revoir! Tres bien! -- and started the walking tour of Chinatown and nearby community prescribed by Angels Walk LA. The walk included the LAPL Chinatown branch, and I ended up spending an hour inside browsing the wealth of Chinese language materials. The tour itself was not remarkable, but there were few things that I missed on prior visits, such as Chung King Road, the Alley nearby and Bruce Lee's studio.

On the raised platform of Chinatown Station, waiting to catch the light rail train to Union Station, one is offered a panoramic view of the city shrouded in a semi-gauze. The rather long wait on the sleepy platform was conducive to self-introspection, from the weighty to the frivolous. The weight of summer semester has just been lifted off my shoulder, and the remaining three weeks are free for whatever whim I have, so long they don't cost more than $40 over a weekend. That is correct. I live so cheaply as a result of my tuition fees and the desire to travel as much as my finance and time allowed. I repeat to myself: lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi...Then it hit me, all of a sudden, the notion that I can't get a date in this city is simply that in my circle of acquaintance, and they are limited in numbers, sadly, almost no one shares any of my interests or views. In their eyes, I am the perculiar donkey that traverse downtown via public transportation and reads Dostoevsky and Henry James for hobby and listens to French-learning podcast, rather than clubbing in Hollywood three nights a week or showing off their latest Lexus or boast about how great Southern California is by not going anywhere or join a church. It is time for a new circle.

The light rail took me back to the Union Station through which I transferred to the subway line and exited Pershing Square Station toward 4th street, where the Grand Central Market is located. The open-air market has a distinctive Latino flavor to it, with stalls selling Mexican spices, taco stands and fruit seller being the most prominent. I have always loved open-air markets, from Vancouver's upscale Granville Island to sawdust-covered Grand Central to the less-glamorous neighborhood morning markets in Taipei. As a small kid I would be holding my mother's hand while she complains to the butcher about the price of pork and urging him to throw in a free batch of leek to compensate it. The scene in itself is indelible, and I recall with fondness whenever I need to escape from reality.

On the way home, I stopped by the Central Library, checked out 續集, an Eileen Chang (張愛玲) short stories collection. In it a particular passage I especially like, and in my clunky translation, they are:

"I buried my face in the rice bowl while sweeping up the rice, [to hide my] spirit walking on cloud nine, it was the most glorious moment of my life."

This was a scene in which Chang was about eight or nine and the family was gathered for a meal. Chang was already considered a genius at young age. She detected a slight medicinal taste in the chicken soup despite no one at the table had suspected. The perspicacious mother inquired and confirmed that the cook had earlier fed the live chicken some home remedy when it appeared sick in the yard.

I could not help it but to smile silently at the printed page 38.

2006-07-26T21:12:00.000-07:00

The late afternoon breeze was a welcoming change after days of sultry onslaught of heat and stillness that suspended all imaginative emotions except for that uncontrollable yearning for ice cold Coca Cola to be poured down my throat. The cool breeze wafted through the warm air like a messenger carrying nostalgic good news from home. A small puddle has gathered on a small depression close to the sidewalk, the water flowing down from the nearby sprinkler quenching the thirst of a big patch of grass colored like summer in a dry yellowness. Slowly the water surface expanded, forming a delicate dark mirror that reflected the cloudless sky that seem so heavy at times. I sat on the grass watching as two sparrows landed nearby the puddle and began drinking from it, though not without their usual cautious manner, taking tiny sip at a time and watching all too alertly for any disturbance or movement. One sparrow took the liberty of submerging its tiny feet in the middle, jumping about after every sip of cold water in a circular motion, creating a small ripple in the otherwise cool darkness. Their taking in of the cool liquid made me realize of my own thirst and hunger. I went into kitchen, took a plate of curry rice -- extra spicy -- and a big glass of ice water, and sat down on a shaded spot on the grass in the front yard, the freshly-cut grass felt cool and prickly against the rump. The confluence of curry and grass and heat and breeze were a combination of rather nice texture to the mind.

2006-07-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

These days alarm clock is unnecessary as the muggy weather thoroughly invaded the room before Sunday sleep came to a satisfactory point. As a result one is awoken to the heat and humidity, a sensation more real than the illusory dream that perpetuated throughout the night. Once the mind became sentient to reality, one realizes the clamminess that stuck to the night shirt, and every pore on the skin is open for business, discharging an endless stream of salty sweat. The electric fan is continuously humming, but its effect against the unusual summery heat is almost neglectful. Before washing I turned on the iBook to check on the day's weather: 100°, partly cloudy with 66% humidity.

Thought about taking the camera out for shoot around downtown, but had to decide against it as I won't be able to last beyond 30 minutes under the balmy condition. Instead, took the car in for an oil change; did some grocery shopping at both American and Chinese market; got a coke slurpee from 7-Eleven; ate cold soba for lunch; and, finally, fought for the one last open table at the chilled enclosure of Starbucks and began reading Timothy Findley's Not Wanted on the Voyage, a random purchase from Chapters while in Vancouver. The heat is said to last till tomorrow.

2006-07-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

Trying to do some library researches using Windows, and this is what happened -- twice! Ctrl+Alt+Del took three minutes to work, only to be hit by the same problem again. Finally I had to force shut down everything and start all over on Mac.

Nice, eh?

2006-07-14T23:39:00.000-07:00

Putting on a worn, frayed white t-shirt with chino pants, and a pair of flip-flop under my sole, the gentle evening breeze obliged the evening dinner plan with N. at a nearby Vietnamese cafe. It was only after getting to the cafe that N. called to inform she is stuck at work and won't be out anytime soon. I thought of leaving at once, but the faint smell of phở (or the imagery of it) persuaded my general reluctance of dining alone in a restaurant to let it pass. Instead, Lord Jim will be my dinner companion.

The patio section had five or six tables, all of which were empty, despite the agreeable evening weather. The patio view is nonexistent -- it expands into a gigantic parking lot of a strip mall, and a gas station stood at the corner of my vision. The depth of summer fading gradually in the course of the sinking sun, its impression upon the suburban landscape is of palpable one that turns from hard edges into mellowness, and behind the blue tapestry above the sketchy outline of moon began to take shape. What remained of the sun light reflected off the worn, yellowing pages of the book, a Modern Library hardcover edition dating to 1969, accentuating the fading ink that testify to the ongoingness of time.

Without so much as a sound the server placed the phở on the table, while glancing curiously at the book cover. "Good book?" "Excellent," I replied, "but very taxing."

As the whiff of beef broth slowly trickles through the air, I tear up a few leaves of basil, in addition with bean sprouts, to be added to the soup. The few slices of red raw beef sitting on top of the noodle formed a strong contrast with the sprinkled leafy green. I take in two spoonful of the broth -- a little taste of happiness -- and watched street lamps lip up one after another, casting a artificial pall over the suburban setting with which I try to extricate from.

2006-07-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes one cannot ask too much from life, especially when sipping coffee at Peet's Coffee & Tea on Lake ave. in Pasadena and reading a fine novel such as Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim. It is not everyday one gets a choice between Starbucks (there is one right across from here) and Peet's, when the former straddles just about every block in Los Angeles. The conclusion of a six-hour lecture early this morning has left me devoid of purposeful mind except for sitting here twiddling my thumb and occasionally casting gaze upon passersby on the sun-drenched sidewalk serried with shoppers going in and out of Macy's. Time imperceptibly ticks away, like a tree branch falling in the middle of a desolate forest. The fire ball in the sky continues its slow descend through the usual course, imprinting the city with a degree darker shade of light as it travels further away.

The long wooden bench on which I am sitting makes a reassuring creaking sound whenever I shift my position. I read through Marlow's account of Jim; of their conversation about the Patna; of Marlow's meeting with the French seaman; of Marlow's introspection of himself, of Jim, of the French seaman. In between pages the hue of gloaming, imbuing the city with a softer glow of light, brought the world beyond the coffer shop's window closer to one's mind, shortening the distance that was once put in place by the unbearable heat and glare. What followed immediately after was a dark radiance permeating the blue sky, all together intermingling to produce a pale purple ambience that bespoke of things sad and beautiful. As if by social norm, couples that once occupied tables left the establishment to attend perhaps their dinner appointments; the remaining ones sat stoically in the midst of their page turning.

2006-07-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

The morning light sifted through the blind and cast a soft brightness about the basement room where I am lodged. With just a slight tilt of the head while reposed, one could see the sharp blue sky without a speck of white. The whole dormitory was quiet, quiet to a point where I begun to suspect if there are other travelers besides myself. The communal bathroom was empty, and without any evidence of use, except that one of the toilet wasn’t functioning. While passing by the TV room, a girl sat motionless there, reading her paperback, without giving any thought to the passing person. I need not mention which day this is, for everyday in Vancouver started out this way.

Emerging from my dungeon, the sun light pierced through the vision like a penetrating gaze that one couldn’t stand looking at. The morning coolness, while slowly evaporating, served as a small respite before the full blast of heat. I walked the usual 12 minutes-walk to the nearby bus station, all the while passing by travelers and students alike. My right foot still aches, and my knees growing weaker. But the pain is worth it, as I am bound to recall every poignant detail of this short ship in the midst of school paper deadline and work. I took an obligatory detour into a small grocery market near campus and purchased a bus day-pass.

Traveling alone takes commitment, and not everything can go smoothly. While riding the Seabus going from Vancouver’s Waterfront Station to North Vancouver’s Lonsdale Quay, in the midst of 150-plus strangers, watching the ferry cleave through the smooth surface of the sea, the din of chatters from fellow passengers can really drown out one’s independent spirit. Watching as the Waterfront Station recedes into the distance and forming into a postcard scenery, and feeling the slight wobbling of the ferry, an uneasiness came over my mind, questioning my stubbornness in traveling alone -- will I travel alone for the rest of my life?

But I should not exemplify the abovementioned as what the trip concluded to be. Simple, blissful moments are abundant, and only could be achieved by my traveling solo. At times the aching of the foot grew so unbearable that it was excruciating to tolerate another step more. The cure of such annoyance turns out to be a simple C$0.99 ice cream cone from 7-Eleven. I walked as I take in the simple delight of life, and soon the sweetness made me forget all about the pain. The walk on Seymour to Gastown, from Davies to Denman, from the seawall at the Stanley Park to the inner forested trekking path, all were accomplished with patience and a little confection.

And there was the oyster burger consumed at the Granville Public Market. Bought at the fish and chips stall inside the teeming market, I chose a wooden bench laden with sunshine splashing down directly, with view of the tranquil English Bay to keep me entertained, the burger, though slightly overpriced, was as good as anything I have tasted on this trip. Savoring the moist texture of oyster and fish and chips, the sea water pushing forever gently against the pier, there might not have been a more perfect moment on the entire trip.

All good things must come to an end. YVR-LAX will take place at 9 am tomorrow. Many more things, nuances that I wish to convey to you will have to wait. Although some will be lost.

2006-06-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

The morning during which I stood under the expansive sky of Vancouver, as if in response to my curious gaze, it smiled back in its big, sweeping way, something the sky of Los Angeles had not done for me for a long time.

The 7:40 am flight from LAX required waking up before the prevalence of day light, but the bulbous crowd at the airport gave testimony of people's eagerness to travel on the July 4th weekend. And seven hours after the landing at YVR, my legs are tired and hurting from a full day of walking and hiking. Each step I take is a reminder of my sedentarily wasted days and months working at a company I think not much of (also a sign of thinking not much for myself). At Blenz, The Canadian Coffee Company, a cup of Royal Tea Latte, at C$3.30, is working magically in its persuading my brain not to bother with the aching. As theclichehÃ©s goes, A painful day of traveling is better than any day in Los Angeles.

This is my first landing in Canada, a vast country so close to the States that one is certain to forget about. Aside from the occasional jab by comedians on TV poking fun of its northern neighbor, and the not-so-often newspaper articles on Canadian politics, I have no conception of what this beautiful, diverse country represented, as Vancouver serves as a small slice of the whole of Canada.

The public transportation is excellent, even without an extensive system of underground trains. From YVR to University of British Columbia, where my lodging is, it took about 40 minutes, including two transfer, one at Broadway and Granville, and another at Airport Station. Along the ride, with which my mind was jubilant at not having to drive, I took in as much as humanly possible of the street scenes of this foreign city, not letting go even small details such as the postal box and gasoline prices. There were quite a few travelers and backpackers in the same bus; we each smiled awkwardly to one another, but desist from inquiring more.

I decide to spend the first day exploring the campus and surrounding areas of UBC. A typical college town, if not for its situating in the midst osnow-cappeded mountains and renowned beaches, it did not impress too greatly in term of its architecture. The nearby Wreck Beach, a short hike away from the campus, is an experience I will not forget for a long time. Setting out for the hike with an innocent intention of capturing the beach scene with my camera, the beach offers a swath of naked sun-bathers whose pubic hair and private parts were one with nature. I wasn't sure which way to aim the camera at.

(It's with great difficulty to find a wireless internet connection near UBC, except by paying C$10 for access to the campus' wireless connection for 24 hours. Nearby Blanz's connection just doesn't work!)

2006-06-16T23:26:00.000-07:00

The oppressing summer heat showed no signs of letting up as the clock hand strive toward seven in the evening. Behind the French window I sat alone at a small table, concentrating on the New Yorker that had just arrived by mail. On a Friday evening it is almost impossible to find a lone coffee drinker in the air conditioned Starbucks. I just found myself.

"Tall Tazo Green Tea Frappuccino Blended Cream with Melon Syrup," bellowed the barista behind the counter. A handsome Japanese couple went over and claimed their purchase.

My choice is simpler: "Regular coffee in short size. In my own thermal cup, please." $1.25. No embellishment. Just lukewarm coffee. In an air conditioned room.

After reading few paragraphs I habitually lifted my gaze toward the world beyond the wide windows, loitering for just few short seconds, fearing something may gone amiss without my realizing it. Although nothing ever happens. I took a small sip of coffee, and at the corner of my vision, a middle-aged, slouchy woman sat down at the table on the other end, normally a sight of no significance, however, her simple manner of enjoying the coffee I was unable to avert looking. On her table there were no books, magazine or newspaper; she had no interlocutor, the cup of coffee serving as the sole entertainment. Sitting with her back facing the sinking sun light to the west, her silhouetted profile looked refined, her ways of sipping as if she were savoring the precious dark liquid like a connoisseur. Occasionally, too, casting her gaze beyond the window, her brooding way of looking about made reflections that were as if looking at my own shadow.

"Tall Caramel Macchiato" was all it takes to snap out of my semi-trance.

Then I recall something I wrote down from The Book of Laughter and Forgetting: "Litost is a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery."

The middle-aged, slouchy woman left. Then a noisy group of teenagers occupied her place.

2006-06-09T20:58:00.000-07:00

The hollowness returned as soon as I concluded the lively phone conversation with B., a hollowness that in recent weeks in particular has attributed a poignant sense of unhappiness that I find unbearable as the days progress in their droning movement. Nevermind. I motion to return to the pages of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, in which I find temporary escape from the mundane, from the helplessness that one ought to feel in my current context. Gazing over the pages, my mind, like a film wheel, revisited the phone conversation in a nuanced swiftness. Despite her carefully masticated words, hints of disbelief and sorrow that were hidden so well were excavated from the depth of her voice and emotion, as they are directed toward my predicament, toward the BREADTH of my ennui.

Nothing is more true than this blog in conveying the sentient mind. In speech, as in the phone conversation, the pressure is on the speaker to present ideas in a coherent, comprehensible way, so as for the interlocutor to reciprocate the correct sentiments that are fitting for the occasion. However, in ways I can't explain quite well, the process somehow loses its original intent, for the process itself is polishing the content and hurrying out the ideas in a timely manner. No, it has less to do with polishing than it is with getting the crude idea across to the other person. The spoken words are thus akin to manuscripts without proofread or merchandise without rigorous quality control. As a result, the main ideas are presented but the nuances that are central to the idea are gone missing and the interlocutor is left with an understanding that is not quite consistent with what the speaker was trying to say. I was never a gifted speaker, in public or private.

The din of airplanes can be heard occasionally in the evening as they travel in and out of LAX, and the sound of them rattles my placid, uninspiring life to a point where I fancied about dropping out of everything and take the path of a world wanderer. Of course this is just all fanciful thinking: What will I do with my books and belongings? My IRA? 401K? My social obligation to my mom, myself, my landlord, bank account, school and the cat I will be adopting once my financial foundation is lain? I am simply too worldly a person, still shackled by the things I somewhat loath; and those aspirations I secretly harbor in my daydreaming mind set are simply too chancy for my temperament to undertake.

Sadly, I am unable to convey even just one percent of the abovementioned statement to B. over the phone; it seems to me pretentious to be talking about the impossible. By the same token the chance to make speech has ruined many a times worldly opportunities that I sought. Seeing myself through her eyes, I am a lonely person living in a desolate city, waiting and waiting for my break, my futile hope that somehow in the next instant a thunderous roar will break open the great mountain that is obstructing my path. But in truth, I have no desired path except to escape it all by jumping over the fence and take life as I see it, though the unreality of it is sober enough that I dare not to heed the call of the wild. In compensation I assuage my feelings by living in a parallel universe in the novels, blogging, and my periodic traveling away from Los Angeles. I am quite content with my own unhappiness. Your pathos will be better received elsewhere.

2006-06-03T23:54:00.000-07:00

After a steamy shower sweat started pouring out of the back skin, soaking the fresh T-shirt to an uncomfortable stickiness. The electric fan hummed continuously in the background, at once mingled with silence, then it became the silence, an silence that was needed in order to finish the New Yorker that just arrived in the mail today. The spinning fan kept down the stifling heat only to a bearable level. It is still warm, the T-shirt sticking to my back reminds me the hatred I have of this summer weather. I put both elbows on the windowsill, facing the semidarkness outside. The evening air felt cool to the face, but somehow the window demarcated the coolness from entering the room. I go back to reading the fascinating article on Oriana Fallaci, a woman of both courage -- she had "balls" -- and silliness.

The heat just won't go away, and the warm air congealed into an unmoving mass that hovered about the room. The coaster, already soaking wet, sits under a big glass of ice water that needed refill every thirty minutes. When the heat gets unbearable, I would put the big glass of ice water next to my cheek, roll it around carefully, a sensation much like diving into a swimming pool, except on a far smaller scale. By the pale light of the lamp, sitting on a mat on the carpet, line by line I took in each word as carefully as possible, going from the magazine to Marguerite Dura's The War. Life isn't so bad, as long as you have got the strength and concentration to read. A particular passage in the book grabbed my attention: "It's wrong to move too much, a waste of energy, you have to save all your strength to suffer."

The next day I was again awoken by the morning heat. The sun pour through the window blind in a wholesale fashion. When my feet touched the carpet, it was warm from the sun light. I shut the blind with one angry pull, dive into the bed, trying wholeheartedly to dream again, but to no avail. I am no longer 18, where it was easy to go back to sleep in the morning. Gradually reality -- and my bladder -- swallowed every bit of dreaminess; sleep was chased away completely. I pull on the blind angrily to open, revealing the typical Southern California sky, where the speckless blue sky smiles down at you with its enormous breadth. It's really beautiful to look at, only if I could have it without the temperature. I thought about taking out a cigarette, like they do in novels, only to realize I don't smoke.

2006-05-28T10:20:00.000-07:00

Through the small window the sun light impressed a soft square spot on the sturdy wooden floor, exposing a dusty tube of air, almost unmoving, disturbed only when the waitress walks through it. At an early hour the breakfast cafe was already gathering a waiting crowd on the sidewalk. The serried pavement was stomped by youthful energy that is characteristic of Hollywood. One can even tell that some were club goers waiting to grab a bite before going to bed. The cloud-flecked sky of the past days was replaced by a big expanse of bright blue. Shorts and tank tops were the uniformity of the waiting young men and women. Summer has invariably arrived.

On the white-clothed table our vegetable omelette was delicious and coffee strong. N, in a red and white stripe polo shirt, with her collar turn up, was busy sipping and eating and carrying on the lively monologue with her animated physiognomy. She was so drawn into the conversation that the normally perspicacious N did not even notice my perfunctory nodding. Looking about the cafe, the arrival of summer-like weather has given Los Angelenos more reasons to lift their heads and smile at the gorgeous weather. Just then a plane cuts across the clear blue, soiling the sky with a trail of white and grey. In the midst of the morning languor her eloquence was muffled by a sudden clatter of plates and dishes hitting the floor, the sunlit square smeared with foods and sauces. The restaurant was hinged by a momentary suspense, unsure and fascinated by the spectacle -- an accidental work of art -- the waitress eyed her patrons with an entreating look before bending down to clean, and by consent everyone returned to their previously interposed conversations. The day went on just like any other, and I am drowning in monotony.

62%

2006-05-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

The director at the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University sent out a fee increase notice on May 16, 2006 to students of the program. The fee increase for the special session in which I am enrolled, from $215 per unit to $349, a substantial 62% increase, is by no means an easy pill to swallow. While the director, Dr. Ken Haycock, did his best in explaining the reasoning behind the increase, pointing out that despite the increase the MLIS program at SJSU remains one of the most affordable in the U.S., I was rather piqued by his response to the deluge of student protests (mainly through email and electronic postings instead of mass demonstration and burning cars like those in France). His somewhat condescending tone did not do a good job in soothing student sentiment:

"The special session fee increase is not a “CSU fee” insofar as special session is to be an entirely self-supporting program; the faculty and staff extend themselves to provide the program; we are under no requirement to do so; we could simply cancel it and continue with the regular program of 600 students."

To even suggest closing the special session program in Southern California sounds as if we are an expendable lot of herds that should be thankful of the charity bestowed upon us by SJSU.

"Special session students have complained to me about inferior status, access to courses, quality of instruction, IT infrastructure; we can address these issues only through increased funds."

Improvement is the theme often cited to justify any means of fee increase. While I give credit to Dr. Haycock for addressing these apparent issues, I doubt the increased funds will propel any meaningful change to the current program; any additional funds will only be used in maintaining the status quo. It is just like gasoline, either at $2.50 or $3.37 the same mpg applies.

The trend of rising tuition costs across the U.S. makes it simply inevitable for SJSU to catch on. What caught us off guard, I believe, is the sheer magnitude of 62% increase. Imagine the happiness of getting a 62% salary raise at work, how will that change one's life? The same can be said for us students, already struggling with tuition and book and living costs in the state of California, 62% fee increase without any warning is not something we can stomach quietly.

2006-05-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

The fabled Los Angeles subway system, the Metro Red Line, betokened an impalpable excitement as I stood and stared incredulously at the entrance of Pershing Square station. The entrance is a long blackened staircase that descended into an airy wide corridor of steel and marble. Three ticket machines are moulded into the entrance wall, selling one-way ticket for $1.25. I had not a single change but a $20 bill. I inserted the feather weight paper money into the machine and got change all in the ever-unpopular Sacagawea gold dollar coins. (Try carrying around $18 worth of coins...) As I walked toward another set of staircase to embark on this sentimental journey, I was confounded to the fact that there were no system in place to check for tickets: riders were scurrying in and out of the station without anyone checking. My superfluous paper ticket remain unchecked throughout. Maybe Los Angelenos get to ride for free on Saturdays.

The platform on which I waited for the next train seemed a strong contrast to those in the Asian cities -- utterly lacking in commercialization, which might be a good thing in almost everything else, but in this case, no. The walls on both sides of the platform were black and bare as the innars of the tunnels, presenting no advertising opportunity for companies to showcase their latest products in colorful, well-lit graphic. Not that I cared much about the ads whenever I rode the Taipei MRT, but it does enliven the station and help pay the cleaning bill.

Los Angelenos are so in love with their cars and SUVs that the Red Line in thirteen years remains the only underground route in L.A. It goes from Union Station to North Hollywood -- a route that any one not living downtown would be insulated from. Looking about the platform, I noticed that no more than ten passengers were waiting. A few minutes later, a familiar sound gradually traveled through the tunnel and pressed upon my ears as that of the arriving train. Aboard the silvery train a strong sense of nostalgia swelled my city-hungry heart.

I took an almost unhealthy interest in every passing stations. Most were nondescript and dark; and some were rather filthy where plastic bags scatter about like the streets above some sections of Los Angeles. Exceptions were found in the Hollywood station (I can't recall which one) and the Union Station, with the former suffused with a colorful display of mosaic tiles and the latter an extension of grandeur of the Union Station. I sat placidly in the seat by the window, in between stations the occiput of the passenger in front or the small graffiti scratched on the back of passenger seats would direct my gaze for a short while. The swaying of the train and the familiar sound of doors closing and opening almost put me to sleep. But on second thought, this is Los Angeles.

2006-05-11T23:50:00.000-07:00

When darkness has fallen the 405 North continues its crawly motion into the foggy night. What was expected of a pleasant evening drive into Sherman Oaks turns out to be a many puckered brows. Luckily, the previous night I had had the foresight of downloading numerous podcast into the iPod to anticipate any prolonged idling on the freeway. A pair of high school friends of mine, who happens to study in Los Angeles as well, had invited me to their newly furnished apartment in the San Fernando Valley, a geographic area of Los Angeles that I rather not tread, for its endless succession attempts and that other L.A. newspaper, LA Daily News.

When I finally arrived and found a parking space, I am welcomed as always by my dear friends, who are a couple. Their freshly-painted apartment on the busy Wilshire thoroughfare exuded a sense of serenity that I found in them as well. Plastered on the walls are their yellowing photographs from childhood faraway places, from which I gathered the same warm smile that they still exhibit today.

After the brief tour of the apartment, a circle has gathered in the living room. Great, I thought, already we are skipping the alcohol and proprieties to play spin the bottle! Someone is kissing someone!

As I strategically picked my spot in the circle, at the same time eyeing for attractive faces, a anglicized voice sounded the salvo of the night: "Tonight we gather here for a genuine business opportunity."

"Huh?"

This genuine business opportunity gathering was no kissing matter; it was a multi-level marketing scheme presentation. A dump smile remained on my face for a few stuporous seconds, and immediately I thought of the precious $3.34-a-gallon gas that I spent on getting there. The presentation, coupled by forced Q&A session and psychological questioning and praise, lasted an hour and a half.

I walked out of the apartment, feeling duped and a sense of vacuity, and checked my money to make sure I did not pay $370 to get rich.

2006-05-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

The narrow one-way street stood the residence of my childhood, a small ground floor unit that belongs to a grayish concrete building that stretches six stories high. The building itself is of common pedigree in the streets of Taipei, but the ground unit is especially pronounced by its facade -- a red wooden door that is twenty years behind the rest of the neighborhood, with its frail-looking, bright red paint been chipped away as time progress, leaving behind a look of withered spinster. Upon entering through the wooden door is a small garden, no bigger than perhaps a walk-in closet in many homes in the US. To call it garden is misleading, for the only foliage visible to the eyes are the uncultivated weed and dandelion that persevered in wherever crevices in the stone ground are found. But since the tiny square is well exposed to all earthy elements, I am inclined to calling it garden. I recall there once existed a small koi pond, in which during the sultry summer days I would dip my tiny feet in the cool water. There are, however, no evidence of any pond, and now everything is flatten and ugly and exposed.

I will like to take a few steps back and describe the street scene. I often think the street as a quiet fissure in the midst of noise and hustle and bustle of central Taipei. It takes two minutes of walk to reach from my house to the nearest MRT station. But I have never thought the place as noisy; in fact, it was almost too quite for my then restless young mind. On both side of the block are concrete buildings that are typical of ugly modern Taiwan architecture, the outer walls darkened by air pollution and steel bars in symbiotic relationship with glass windows. I didn't know what shielded the block from the busy movement of Taipei, but time there didn't seem to be in conjunction with the time outside. Tall apartment units stood row in row on both sides of the street. As a result I never knew what other people were talking about when they referred to a big expanse of blue sky; my notion of sky was always the long stretch of open air that hung above the block.

2006-04-30T22:29:00.000-07:00

Seeing that unleaded gasoline has climbed to $3.24 a gallon, I have not the enthusiasm from last year about attending the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA. But upon N.'s insistence that she will drive we left about 10 in the morning. Although the cloudy grey sky afforded not a shaft of sun light, the morning air was rather stuffy, the kind of weather that tells you to bring a light jacket that will never be used. We stopped at a convenience store to stock up on drinks and snacks for our little expedition to Westwood. As I exit the store and walked toward N.'s Volvo, I noticed her hands clenching the steering wheel, her face a brooding look. "What, again with the constipation?" was my instinctive question. She let out a little laugh. "I was just thinking, it has been almost five months since his accident. And yet, I have recovered well, almost too well."

"Not well enough to start dating," I said. "That means you haven't completely recovered."

"I think it will still be a while before I put myself on the market again. I just can't deal with that for the time being. But what I mean is that, life went on like nothing happened: I eat, I sleep, I laugh, all without great difficulties, and I am a little confused by it." She paused for a short moment, as if to gather her thought, but swallowed at the last second of whatever she was going to say.

We made way onto the 405 freeway, passing innumerable featureless Los Angeles architectures and scenery. Along the way we remain relatively quiet; if we talked, it was only small talk about our expectation of this year's book festival. Upon approaching Westwood, the area turned into a cluster of vehicles. The left-turning lane was backup for miles. We had to drive few blocks down and make an u-turn to get to the outlying parking lot. From there we had to take the bus to the festival, which I did not mind at all. When we got on the bus the seats were empty for our choosing; but at the next stop came on a swarm of riders and mix of body odors . This reminded me of Taipei, of living in a city where I am oblivious to the price of unleaded gasoline. The bus ride was short, and I almost wanted to tell N. that maybe we could just reminisce a little more of the ride. I kept my gaze at the passing Westwood Village and UCLA dormitories, at the gleaming million dollar high-rise apartments , till the bus reached our intended stop.

It was as if they never bothered to take down last year's festival settings and banners, because everything remain the same. The same Canadian tourism booth; the same $5 sale booth that always attracted the largest number of buyers; the same angry political activists yelling at the microphone. We were both a bit disappointed; and since we are not familiar with the author speakers, we had no interest in attending. We made an effort of going around every single booth at the festival, but it was clear that 90% of them had nothing to do with our literary taste. We found some decent paperback of Proust, Flaubert, Henry James, Virginia Woolf and Salman Rushdie at $ 5 each.

At noon the sky gave no hint of being one except for the rising temperature and humidity. We chose a big expanse of grassy hill, overlooking the south end of the festival, thronged by readers of all ages, and sat down for a little refreshment. N. went on to talk about her troubles; I went on a tangent about how I enjoyed the cozy bus ride. Then all of a sudden, N. said peremptorily: "I think he was cheating on me, and I suspect a girl at the funeral as his other girlfriend."

I did not at first know how to respond to this posthumous information. I went on sipping my coca cola. "He is dead. I am not sure if his having a side girlfriend will do any thing to help you feel better or not. You shouldn't bother yourself with it." I closed the conversation by reading the last few pages of Never Let Me Go, hiding the fact that I knew just a few months ago from a friend in Taiwan that this piece of information was indeed creditable.

2006-04-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

Every other week, a check would be deposited into my checking account, the amount would always be the same, and it was long ago that I stopped checking the number. I don't get to see the actual money a whole lot, for they are usually electronically sent out to places where services were rendered on my behalf. I do occasionally see them in physical form from my weekly $40 ATM withdrawal; but usually they are just some electronic number stored in a bank. It is a pity, I have always thought, that even though I worked hard for them for 40 hours a week, they provide no realization of anything tangible. Sure, they do their job just as well as real money, by keeping gasoline in my car and a roof over my head, but something seems missing. Instead of realizing dreams, the numbers are merely a tool of subsistence, of which the living had became tedious and dull. Yet day after day I perpetuate the daily going by furrowing brow at work and curse silently at disagreeable superiors. 8-5, 8-5, 8-5, 8-5, 8-5, fives times a week, the same s#$% would repeat itself, all under my watch.

Little consolation result from my attending graduate school. Graduate level courses demand a different set of ingenuity that my introverted personality so sorely lacks. Although first semester is coming to an end and I am in no danger of failing, instead of feeling triumphant or relief, a re-confirmation of my social-network ineptness is dragging my spirit down the sewage, swimming along with brown waters. I tried to compensate my social ineptness by studying hard for tests, but an B average student will always be an B average, as evidenced by my earning Bs in my first courses.

Well, life isn't so bad as I purport to be, like having lunch at that particular Chinese beef noodle place, of which none of my non-Taiwanese co-workers are willing to partake; or when in the afternoon a flock of certain colorful birds would form a choir and chirp for hours just outside of my big window at the office; or when I got to know a group of diverse and funny and smart people in classes, expanding my narrow universe just a bit wider. With Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go in hand, I chose a shady spot under a skinny maple tree and listened to the rustling tree. Soon the sound of a low flying airplane pressed upon my ears, reminding me that life is still worth living -- for now.

2006-04-23T00:26:00.000-07:00

"I always lacked common sense when taken by surprise."

The sentence was taken from Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey, when Agnes refused an open umbrella, offered by Mr. Weston, the curate, under a light rain fall. Under similar context, what took place at the secondhand bookstore earlier today will have me writhe in regret. Will it end like the novel does?

2006-04-14T23:33:00.000-07:00

The nondescript wooden shack was pronounced by the surrounding concrete buildings, giving the prim-looking street a small touch of humility. I made a habit of going there for late night ramen during the three nights of stay at a hotel nearby. Every night, upon my going there, snow drifted, heaping on an already thick layer of snow on the roof. From outside, in the cold, one could see through the window, through the warm luminescence, in which the cook ministered to the boiling of noodle and the soup that goes in later. The seating was only few, laid out in a bar style; and every night only few men can be seen there, each sucking loudly of his ramen and beer.

The cook was a man of middle age, slightly over middle height, serving mediocre ramen (according to the hotel receptionist) that my uncultivated taste bud considered well enough. His face was square, perhaps too pronounced to be considered aesthetically; but perfect for a setting as such. He held a penetrating gaze at you whenever he handed over the bowl of ramen, an unmovable stoutness that bespoke stubbornness. The ramen soup and the beer warmed my stomach like nothing before.

The young waitress, perhaps his daughter, shared none of that intractableness the father had, comported herself in a quite, genial stride. She inherited her father's facial feature with a softened edge, by which she might be considered attractive in her own ways. Despite the drudge of menial work, she was always willing to supply that giddy smile of which I came to appreciate in my three visits there.

The dreaded date on the return ticket to LAX is fast approaching, rendering the last night of stay in Hokkaido ever more poignant. The voluptuous snowfall quickened its drifting motion downward, at a furious pace. I paid and went out joyously into the bitter cold for as long as I could, savoring the threefold luxury of travel, snow and melancholy.

2006-04-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

Noboribetsu (登別) was blanketed by a fine and substantial layer of snow by the time I finished the evening bath; and having just walked and ate my several rounds at the crab buffet dinner, a stroll in the snowy darkness was tempting enough despite the howling cold wind. Just beneath the hotel are rows of souvenir shops and convenience stores and restaurants, in which more or less the same products are offered and price variation does not fluctuate enough to justify taking the time for comparison. I took a borrowed umbrella, shielding from falling snow, and took each step carefully over the snow-covered slippery pavement. An underground canal is located right next to the hotel, in which the gushing of water toward the lower plain can be heard distinctively: it sounded clean, with a hollowness to it.

The distance between the hotel and the shop streets was of short, but the semi-darkness that demarcated the two was made more poignant by the running water and the snow. Emerging out of the darkness, the streets offered a teeming and cozy atmosphere where tourists like myself are prone to spend hard-earned dollars on kitschy things to take home. The streets seemed more remarkable from the top of the hotel, where the warmth softened my perception with a mawkish gauze; and having browsed four different souvenir stores with identical selections, my eyes grew weary, but the falling snow, a novelty in Los Angeles and Taipei, soon recovered my enthusiasm. I purchased a hot coffee laden with sugar and cream from the convenience store, and found a bench to sit down, adoring the white world around. "Wouldn't it be nice to live in a place like this?" the thought conjured a mental mirage that will have lodged in my mind for long, long time.

2006-04-06T00:37:00.000-07:00

On a mildly cool afternoon I sauntered along the airy canal and manifold shops of Otaru, savoring the sight and sound of things around, cherishing the last few days of stay in Hokkaido. A kitten, on the sidewalk opposite of mine, was about the cross the busy street, where cars and light trucks traveled on both directions at a rather high pace. I let out a gasp, seeing the kitten stamping his paws on the road when cars on both directions were closing in. My entrails convulsed at the thought of the kitten being crushed by the oncoming traffic. Fortunately, a loud squeaking braking sound was heard: traffic on both ends came to a temporary halt. The kitten huddled into a small furry ball, frozen in the middle of the road. The drivers let out a chorus of car horn and shouting and proceeded the kitten to the safety of the sidewalk. Tragedy averted, right in front of me. I regrouped from my momentary pasty appearance, made a murmuring sound toward the kitten, but enticed nothing. The kitten dashed for the narrow alley, in search of his fancy. "Good luck, kitten," I murmured, as the kitten disappeared into the distant alley. I consciously smiled on in watching the kitten venture on in life: a smile that is genuine and unaffected. I walked on toward the south end of the canal, relishing the sweet air of travel, feeling a bit better about the world.

Catching a bus back to Sapporo, a sense of doziness gradually overtook my faculty, I put down the novel, head resting on the bus window, and slept all the way back, perhaps with my mouth open. The sky was heavy with cloud by the time the bus arrived in the city, and the air imbued with wetness. After checking in at the Renaissance, I strolled around the streets, rode the subway just because I miss riding it, rub shoulders with Japanese high schoolers at the train station, blending into the mass of black hair, lost myself in the gait of the city. Utilizing the calm before the impending heavy rain, I stopped by the Old City Hall, Tokeidai, and Odori Park, taking in whatever sight and sound that were there, for my days of escaping reality were coming to an end soon. With a bit of an effort I found a twilit cafe with wireless connection. I ordered a cup of coffee together with a cream puff that was too big for my appetite, at once to write down the happening of the past few days before they escape from memory. Rain by now were pouring down hard and, with enough moisture in the air, snow seemed imminent. The panoramic glass window offered an unobtrusive view from the 3rd floor, where each sumptuous raindrop can be observed spattering the city. The clinking sound of silver spoon stirring coffee made me realize that I am unable to reflect the blissfulness of the past few days into words.

2006-03-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

The first night in Tomakomai I was not able to sleep much. I cogitated in the dark, not thinking of anything important, but just sat on the chair and looking over the city through the French window. Slowly the street lamps were turned off by the batch. Soon the sun gravitated to the city and every streets and buildings were shone with a soft golden shine. The weather outside is 32°, but the perpetual AC fixed the room to warmer temperature than I have liked. Only remnants of snow can be seen on street sidewalks. Dressed in summer-like fashion I went down to the hotel cafe to have breakfast: Rice, natto (納豆), miso soup, egg and sausages.

I still had some time before the bus arrival. I put on a heavy coat and walked the streets around the hotel. In ways what the sultry air of Singapore did to my senses, the sharp, cold morning air of Hokkaido lifted my sagging spirit long inured by Southern California weather. Here and there a pedestrian or two can be seen going to work on bike or on foot, but generally the streets were sparse. White smoke is been puffed profusely out of the red and white industrial chimney to the north west. My heart was sinking a bit at the disappearance of snow. But with a sudden stroke of luck, the sky begun to relinquish a layer of light soft snow that disappear as soon as it touched ground. I felt exuberant; my heart tingedd with emotions as the white speckle danced elegantly downward. Slowly the dry pavements were mottled with small wet patches.

The bus punctually arrived to take me to Okurayama (大倉山) Observatory, the hosting site of the 1972 winter Olympic. The ski jump has now been converted to an observatory, overlooking the city of Sapporo (札幌). The road up to the ski jump is tortuous and winding, and the bus at times seemed not capable of gathering its strengthh against the gravitational pull. But eventually the bus deliveredd safely. By now snow was abound, and the wintry mountain top proved that my purchase of the heavy coat worthwhile. I paid a reluctant walkabout at the Olympic museum, shortly after, shelling out a few hundred yen, the cable car carried me off to the top of the ski jump. I have always had a vague notion that the ski jump must be a place of tremendous height, but seeing it for the first time from atop, as opposed to seeing it on television, the height and the steepness of this colossus surprised me. The clean air of Hokkaido offered an ever-expansive, picturesque view of Sapporo. I couldn't help but to click the shutter a few more times, from every angles possible. With my broken, rudimentary Japanese, I made an acquaintance with the old Japanese lady next to me. She was very polite and asked where I was from and my impression of Hokkaido. She had a wonderful wrinkling smile, and nodded her head every time I spoke, regardless of comprehension. We exchanged conversation much like what a dog and cat would, but we both knew we were enjoying the north island. Before going down I tasted a melon flavored ice cream cone for 300 yen. Savoring the ice cream with the whole Sapporo expanding right in front and soft snowflakes falling onto the ice cream, I tasted true happiness that I had not for a long, long time.

Taking the returning bus back down to Sapporo, the passing scenery of rural Japan put on their best appearance for me to appreciate, and snow added an inscrutable charm to everything that caught my fancy. On the way back to the city I saw a temple nearby, and I hopped off the bus to pay tribute and to wish my well being this year. When the bus reached Sapporo, my stomach was growling with hunger. Looking over guide books before I knew the place is famous for Genghis Khan BBQ (ジンギスカン鍋). I have heard many people telling as to why this sort of grilled lamb is called as such, but its true origin remains unproven. I was surprised to have found this dish in Japan because I had never come across lamb in all my Japanese food dining experience. Apparently Hokkaido is one of the few places, if not only, in Japan that offers lamb. With a tall glass of cold beer, it is a most satisfying lunch after a morning of wind and snow.

What can be better than a tall glass of cold beer? More beer! Nearby is the Asahi Brewery in Sapporo, open to the public for viewing and tasting. I followed the tour and watched in amazement at the efficiency of modern beer making. A large pool of manpower is no longer required, as machines and computers have taken over the operation. The guide explained that the whole brewery can be operated at full capacity by just two workers. I was amazed and chagrined at the same time to watch cans of beer been bottled effortlessly by streamlined machination. Photography was not allowed but I nevertheless did so in clandestine fashion. It looked more like a scene in Power ranger. After the guided tour of the brewery we were shown into the tasting room, at which we were treated with glass after glass of freshly brewed Asahi and snacks to go with it. There was a particular beer cake, slightly sweet with a aftertaste of beer that I grew so fond of that I brought two small cases home. "That is enough beer for today," I thought to myself as I strolled out of the brewery lightheadedly.

A reservation was made in advance at Jozankei View Hotel in Jozankei (定山渓温泉), in the suburb of Sapporo, for the night's stay. Jozankei is a famous hot spring town in Hokkaido; and the hotels there offered rooms in traditional tatami style. I recall as a kid my family and I would often drive up the mountain in the suburb of Taipei to take a hot spring bath. How far away were those memories! The tradition and rule in Japan goes that one must wash oneself completely before going into the hot spring. It felt a bit weird to be naked among strangers, but since everyone there is naked just as I am, I soon flung myself carelessly as everyone else does. The indoor hot spring offers a panoramic view of Jozankei covered heavily in snow. And the hotel also offers an outdoor rooftop hot spring in which one could be submerged in the hot spring and watch the falling snow in relaxation. This is where hot and cold go hand in hand. After the bath dinner was served in Kaiseki style (懐石). The food was a bit too much, but I had no problem in taking in the fresh sashimi. The dining hall had a festive atmosphere as kareoke machine is never short of singers. Songs in Japanese and Chinese and Korean are perpetually in rotation. During dining I have also made many new friends from elsewhere in Japan and Taiwan. It was with a blissful mind when I stepped back into my room. The tranquil night view of Jozankei laid picturesquely beyond my window. I sat on the tatami, with a cup of hot green tea in hand, gazed satisfactorily toward the night snowfall. All of my troubles seemed to be tossed away.

2006-03-30T22:21:00.000-08:00

Before the alarm clock struck 6:30 A.M. I was fully awake. The early morning sun sifted through the window blinds and dappled the carpet with warmth. My mind was full of expectation, looking forward to traversing in the middle of a wide expanse of snow. Swiftly I got up and washed. For the seventh times since the night before I looked over the luggage, making sure no documents were missing. It was still early when I closed the door of my residence. The whole neighborhood exuded a Saturday sleepiness.

By the time I took care of long-term parking for my car and arrived at the international departure terminal by shutter bus, the check-in area was filled to the brim with people of every imaginable nationalities. Everyone was going somewhere, and I was one of them: I felt relieved at the change. As usual the security procedure for check-in luggage took longer than was necessary. I then proceeded to the Japan Airline counter, hoping for a business upgrade by showing my oratorial flash. Despite suggestions from colleagues and newspaper articles, which I tried them all, it went no where. Worse, the ticketing agent, perhaps getting annoyed at my futile persistence, issued a seat in the middle, neither aisle nor window, 47 E. "Sorry, this flight is full. That is the best I can do," said the agent. So much for my business aspiration. But my spirit was still high as I went through the security hoopla of taking off my shoes, jacket, open and power up my laptop, taking off the belt and put everything back. I walked a short distance in the corridor leading to the gate for JAL 061. When the boarding time came I boarded with a slight unbelief.

If there is one thing to complain about this trip, it is been stuck in the middle seating. My legs had practically no room to stretch, and going to the lavatory is just a hassle, much like asking for a bestowal from the fellow seat holder to excuse my bladder for functioning. Finally when the plane reached Narita I was elated at the prospect of a long walk to the domestic departure counter. I took a short JAL flight to Chitose near Sapporo. For the night I was housed in a business hotel in Tomakomai (苫小牧市), a sleepy, small paper-manufacturing port city near the sea. Hardly a soul was walking on the street. I felt too tired to venture out. After a simple nabemono (鍋物) dinner I went to sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. Thus concludes Day 1.

2006-03-28T03:09:00.000-08:00

This is the third day in and I am finally able to connect via high speed to the Internet. It was the JAL flight 061 that carried me across the Pacific into Narita, and another to take me to Sapporo, Hokkaido. Though my short trip is soon to be over, and the incoming post-travel depression is already stirring in the back of my mind, I am just having a blast. The picturesque Hokkaido offered a whole lot: clean air, crystal-clear water that taste better than bottled, soft snow, Japanese hospitality, cheap fresh seafood, and friendly people. As I am writing this in the comfort of the Renaissance Hotel, where reportedly the Rolling Stones are also staying, dark clouds are pouring down heavy rain and thunder sounding its fury. There are so many things that I wish to convey before they escape, but I just couldn't quite put it down for my mind is restless. Snow was falling lightly earlier yesterday, and I hope the same for tomorrow. Everything is so agreeable.

2006-03-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

I often fancy a day in which television would be chucked forever out of my life and my future downtown apartment would be filled wall to wall with novels and smart books. I would waste no more valuable time transfixed in front of television set, instead the city skyline and the soft murmuring of radio will direct the attention of my senses. I will share the noise of the upstairs neighbor who will have taken up tap dancing at late hours of the evening; the couple next door whom are forever quarreling and hurling cruel insults to one another; and take in the endless, unsolicited advices from suburbanite that I have been cheated by paying for such small living space when a whole acre is up-for-sale out in the open. I will gladly include the aforementioned deficiencies as part of the package of living alone, nine stories up, from which my identity is represented by gilded name plate and two small square windows that looks over busy intersections.

Realistically, I am sitting in front of an 32 inch television, in a one story apartment unit, my facial contortions alternating from chuckling at TV shows to grimacing by sipping cheap, acidic wine. The big window to my right offered a nondescript, panoramic view of decrepit suburbia, where each single glance is a grim reminder of reality. Exhausted from work and school, pressed by the specter of tuition bill next semester, the Maugham novel, which was started engrossingly a few weeks ago, remain half way unattended. The newspaper was read in subject-heading fashion; the toil of journalists goes to waste day after day. The neighbor from two house down has a voracious appetite for ethnic music, macerating the whole block to his rhythmic gibberish every weekend. I have a long way to go.

2006-03-17T22:49:00.000-08:00

"I googled the term depression and depression.com came up." After a few sips of Kirin beer I confessed.

"I know you are mostly depressed, but I doubt it is clinical," said N., just when our cold udon with tempura and softshell crab were placed on the table. Her voice matter-of-fact as usual; but her eyes shone a gleam of empathy. "I hope it is nothing serious."

"No, just making sure that I am not. It felt weird browsing the site. My colleagues caught me looking at it but they mostly walked away."

Picking up the alabaster udon, I submerged it into the shoyu and swiveled around. A few specks of green onion and wasabi adhered to the noodle as I take in the deliciousness -- the chewiness of Japanese handmade udon. The wasabi made a strong, burning surge through the sinus, followed by muzziness. A few more sips of Kirin I was back to normal. By this time the waiting crowd outside grew denser.

"So did you learn anything from the website?"

"Well, yes. Besides the constant sadness and irritability, I found nothing else that fitted me, like sleeping too less or too much; eating less or too much; unable to concentrate. In fact, I see lunch and dinner as the bright spots of the day. Like now, I feel extremely happy eating."

"You are too skinny. Maybe depression will work for you."

I ignored her attempt at making fun of my weight. "But I did find something that fits me perfectly, a symptom called, what you call it, d-y-s-t-h-y-m-i-a, a low-level depression resulting from negative outlook of life."

We touched our glass and down the beer in one gulp. The tempura was fried to a perfect gold, and the shrimp slightly crispy on the outside and succulent on the inside. The famous udon restaurant in the South Bay did not disappoint.

Often times I felt overwhelmingly sad and depressed to a breaking point that I thought life to be not worth living. And there are times, like eating the delicious udon with N., I feel so blissful by the simple make-up of life. Whether dysthymia is something I carry around is not important. I have absorbed the grey cloud above my head as part of my lineament. Taking it away and I wouldn't know how to open my eyes.

2006-03-11T23:56:00.000-08:00

Tonight the temperature dipped to 44°F and the wind chill factor made it seem even colder. The dark cloudy sky is still densely formed, but the rain only came down intermittently. Certainly the looks of it are more menacing than the actual substance. For supper I subsisted on rice, egg, carrot and brie; and oddly enough, they tasted quite good in one setting. Lemon the dog gave one languish look at the food and decided not to beg for it. I am always used to doing things alone, eating alone, driving alone, shopping alone, reading alone, watching TV alone, traveling alone, and on a cold day like today, drinking alone (some unheard European beer) seems to be the answer to everything. Forget what is bothering (the research paper); forget the ennui (life in general); forget what is to come tomorrow (the repeat of today).

Earlier in the afternoon, after returning a few books back to the central library -- it is always fun to borrow multiple books but returning them was never equally amusing -- and finding none of the novels I want to be available, I walked a few blocks outside, wearing the North Face jacket for the first time this season, watching the heavy cloud inching closer and eating away the few remaining clear sky. The sun strobed now and then, but was soon devoured entirely by the cumulus cloud. The air felt a bit stinging cold to the face.

While eating the four-course dinner desultorily, I flipped through the maze of cable television channels and landed on channel 243, BBC America, for the first time. The cold, vapid evening was spent in mild amusement at the eccentricities of Father Ted. Giggling to one's own self in a confined quarter sounds especially hollow if you just step back and watch in silence.

2006-03-09T01:09:00.000-08:00

As we tootled from the over-congested parking lot to our respective classrooms every Wednesday night, L. and I developed an acquaintance based on the seven minutes walk. The time frame may be short, but our conversation always engaging and peculiar, until today. Her parochial intelligence baffled me.

"I wish my CPA study would soon be over." Said L.

I sensed a tinge of melancholy in her voice, so I supplied: "Mine won't be over till two years after. We are all in it together."

"You? What do you have to worry about?" She said this wide-eyed and with a slight mocking tone, but maintaining her spruce appearance.

"My library and information study, of course."

"You are not serious, are you? You mean to tell me you want to work in a library?"

"Why would I be studying if I didn't wish to become one?" I retorted, losing a bit of my friendly tone.

She gave a slight nonchalant glance at me. "I thought you just like to study. Plus, shelving books is not really studying. It is different from what I do."

The field of librarianship is often misunderstood (I get that incredible look every time). But L.'s contempt and belittlement of my choice are what ravished my mind, could this person, who claims to have a master degree in biology from China, be so impertinent and ignorant (usually is one or the other)? I wanted to correct her mistaken notion, but refrained, as I wished not to meet her half-way of her cluelessness. I gave a scornful laugh and walked my own way.

2006-03-03T22:40:00.000-08:00

Instead of putting ink on my upcoming research paper I am again wasting valuable time by writing nonsense. Last week, I think it was on a Sunday, on a mild weather afternoon, while loitering inside the majestic Pasadena Public Library, I came upon a book that is all too familiar yet at the same time seemed alien. The book is Eileen Chang's Written on Water, or 流言 in traditional Chinese, of which I have read over and again. To see the actual copy of Chang's work in translated English (by translator other than herself) is like meeting an old lover in a foreign country. This analogy does not make any sense but I am sticking to it. Without a second thought I grabbed the only copy and scanned the library card. Records showed I am the second person to have borrowed this book.

My initial reaction to the English title is that it does not match the Chinese title, which translates as "Gossip." But by separating the word 流 and 言, they somehow do resemble the sentence "Written on Water", as in "stream of word." Moreover, the title "Gossip" does not resemble the theme of the book. This is typical of me, reading without thinking; taking everything for their face value. But to my defense, I am not the only dimwit to think this way. Look at Amazon.

Nevertheless my trepidation in opening the book was not appeased by Andrew F. Jones' (the translator) thoughtfulness in the title. After all this is the first Eileen Chang in English that I come across besides the ones she translated herself, which I thought were not as incisive as those in Chinese. I put aside my newfound fascination for Somerset Maugham briefly and flipped through the pages of Chang and have discovered that, as two worlds apart as the English and the Chinese languages, the translator did a superb job in conveying the subtlety and nuances and color of Chang into English. In the few short stories I read so far the resonance of the original version was there, like rediscovering one's old lover's good and bad habits in bed in a foreign hotel. (My friend N. says I should do away with this nonsensical analogy, but I am sticking to it!)

I tried to convey this new discovery to another Taiwanese friend of mine, only to be poured cold water over my enthusiasm. "Eileen Chang in English? How is that possible? They will butcher her writing, and you will never get the true essence." She said this quite confidently before even reading or touching the book. supposedly, if I were a native English speaker not knowing Chinese, should I abandon all attempts and efforts to read Chang even if I do wish so, because I will never achieve the native essence and wisdom? In that case we shall live in a world without Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Milan Kundera, Haruki Murakami and Marcel Proust. Wake up, mandarin Chinese speaker, you cannot monopolize the language.

2006-03-01T23:37:00.000-08:00

The pitch-dark sky is varnished with a few speckle of stars that only appear on days after rainstorm. The stone ground is still damp from the early evening shower. I came upon a path covered with fallen foliage, and as I waded the leafy avenue, the smashing sound of crisp dry leaf broke the silence of the night and accompanied my solo walk to the desolate campus parking lot.

The most reassuring sound after walking alone in a cold night is turning on the car engine. Slowly warm air murmured and sifted around the interior; slowly I acclimatized to the artificial warmth, forgetting it is 45°F out in the dark. The monotonousness of the late evening drive soon overtook my conscientiousness, in which scene by scene the day's happening replayed in my head like a film wheel, vivid but glossed over with the drone of time. Trifles, mild surprise and introverted anger all mixed indiscriminately together.

"Time weighs down on you like an old dream."

Was it Murakami who wrote this? Or was it Eliot? Dostoevsky? I cannot recall. Out of nowhere the aphorism is etched in my mind at such a timely moment. March is here.

Tags: Trifle

2006-02-25T23:10:00.000-08:00

Tonight is bound to be a sleepless night. A rowdy group of college students have gathered en masse at a house just half block away, showcasing their youthfulness and their aptitude in partying. The incessant blaring of rap, hip-pop, punk rock, heavy metal clashes with the tranquil look of a moonless and cool semi-starry night.

###

I sat contently in a small cafe surrounded by healthy, bright foliage in the hustle and bustle of West Los Angeles, slowly devouring two cups of coffee, laden with heavy cream, and the last 50 pages of Rohinton Mistry's Family Matter. As the plot thickens to its climax, resulting in professor Nariman's slow death from Parkinson's, out of the blue I felt an helpless sense that death will eventually befall anyone at any time. How will anyone move on when his or her loved ones gasp for their last breath? Apparently, they do, but at what cost?

###

The night continues to stretch long into the evening. The loud music only made it seem eternity. Isolation and misery, the dominant elements of my adult life thus far, are made all the more pronounced by the ruckus.

2006-02-23T23:11:00.000-08:00

Minutes before the alarm went off I was fully awake in bed, waiting for the alarm to sound. At 8:40 a.m., on a wet and grey Thursday morning (I had skipped work), the alarm went off, broadcasting news from NPR at a moderate volume.

(I had not planned on recording on such a day spent in mundaneness. Yet, roughly 40 hours later, while reading Siri Hustvedt's The Enchantment of Lily Dahl and under the comfort of my heavy quilt, I felt compelled to not let the day before slip away from my conscience.)

The waitress took my usual order of two eggs, sunny-side up, wheat toast and coffee. The Thursday paper is spread wide on the near-empty counter and stained slightly by two wayward drops of coffee. I consumed what was on the plate and glanced nonchalantly over the newspaper. As I got up and paid, the cloud begun to disperse; soon the sky turned into a bright cerulean. I felt an unexplained happiness to be driving under a beautiful picture as that.

At the Central Library's literature room, while conducting my rudderless research on upcoming term papers, in the glass-steel-encased bridge that lead from the reference desk to the fiction section, I noticed a succession of men in variegated appearance and clothing, like a row of unmoving tableau, each sitting and concentrating on reading: A perfect picture of Equal Distribution of Wealth, where the homeless man sitting next to the man in expensive-looking Italian loafer to the young student knitting his brow on some difficult calculus equations. Perhaps the library will be the only place where every person will be equal in our inherently unequal world.

Piled under the pressure from term papers, group projects, critical notes, tons of reading and a full-time job that I hate, I gasped for fresh air, as the sense of urgency is slowly setting in on my procrastinated mind. Putting away the Enchantment of Lily Dahl, walking away from the comfortable and airy reading room, I forged on into the maze of APA Publication Manual and the rest of my researches.

2006-02-15T00:02:00.000-08:00

The foggy evening fell quickly as I let open the window wide so as to let in the cold and poetic feel of the night. Inside the bedroom closet there remained a Rubbermaid container that housed a sizable collection of scarves of every color and brand and dimension. The long hibernation inside the storage container had encrusted the collection with a layer of faint moth ball scent. After looking over the decision was made on the brown Polo checkered. Carefully extending the fine, delicate fabric vertically, making sure the bottom end does not reach the floor, I glanced over the checkered squares as if they each contained plaintive meaning. Next I wrapped one time the scarf around the neck; the familiar motion, or what it used to be, was repeated twice to make sure the length on both ends matched perpendicularly. Funny, on a night as such, the best warmth is provided by a long stretch of wool.

2006-02-09T23:04:00.000-08:00

The familiar, reassuring sight of cold water droplets that rime on car windows during the early morning hour has not been seeing for quite few days, an ominous indication that the transient wintry season is coming to an end. While the suspended morning air still retained a touch of coolness, the biting chill is no longer present. Already, with the twinkly sun rising from the east, a mawkish warmth is sifting through, a prelude to months of scorching weather that is to plague the land for months onward.

In the semi-privacy of my cubicle, with the pattering sound of numerous fingers striking computer keyboards in the background, I fixated on the new dark brown wool cardigan that hung precariously on a hanger by the wall, a new purchase of mine that has been rendered useless by the commence of balmy sky. Both of my hands unconsciously went into a chafing motion, imitating that of an action in cold, to appease my stirred annoyance at the early sign of warmer days.

The balminess still clenched the city tightly at 5 P.M., showing no sign of retreating. But I was no longer seething, for today I did not have to study. Over an expensive cup of macchiato I opened the long neglected Family Matters, dog-eared at page 103 from two weeks ago, and for a good hour and a half I was in India, humid, hot, more specifically, in Bombay, observing the clattering of kitchen wares and the tumult of street hawkers. The moldy smell of a small apartment packed with furniture after a long monsoon rain. Everything suddenly came back to me, of my former life in that subtropical, over-polluted island.

The phone rang, pulling me back to reality. It was N., asking if I wanted to dine at the Elephant Bar with her friends. With my brain still boiled with last night's lecture, the bed seemed like a more inviting place than bars serving cold beer, but recalling the disarray that is of my residence, I would rather have illusion take a few hours of my untidiness away.

2006-02-08T23:09:00.000-08:00

The over-sized laundry basket is brimming with dirty laundry that dates back to early last week. Pens and papers and water bottles are strewn all over the wooden desk. The carpet is also littered profusely with books and clothes, leaving a snakelike trail in which navigation is barely possible without stepping over something. This is life in the midst of graduate school and working full-time. Everything is encrusted in a thin layer of dust and I have no time to get rid of; everything is an eyesore.

My mind can no longer focus: it skittered here and there and distressed constantly about the next paper due date and when will the researches start. No longer can I afford time to linger over Henry James's eloquence or George Eliot's fine subtlety. Topsy-turvy my life has become, and I have no idea as to what adjustments should be made in order to accommodate the whole stir.

Perhaps somewhere down the road the course will straighten itself; perhaps a gleaming dolphin will carry me off across the Pacific or the Atlantic; perhaps I will pass out in the middle, be revived by the arriving medic, and declared I had lost roughly half of my brain power, however scant it was in the first place.

I miss my cat.

2006-01-29T00:45:00.000-08:00

When the sunshine broke through the thick white cloud, warmth sifted through the cold morning stillness and whiff of salt, brightening the patio of a cafe nearby the beach. Two cup of coffee, with lots of cream and a touch of sugar, sits prettily on the wooden table, emitting its last cloud of steam. Few tables away, on a railing, a seagull is eyeing lasciviously at the half-eaten piece of cake that I neglected long ago. The rumpled Saturday paper also neglected: Bono speaking at the World Economic Forum is something that does not interest me. Instead my attention is fixed on The Killer Angels. What does the Civil War have to do with MLIS I do not know, but the novel is one of the most interesting required reading for class. Lee, Chamberlain, Longstreet, Buford. These previously unknown names are now circulating wildly in my head as the novel progresses to its epic stage. N. sits leisurely across the table in her white poplin shirt and spotted chiffon skirt.

She is leafing through The Thurber Carnival. The book is one of those surprise find one encounters in used bookstores, while going through the rubble. What caught my eyes to Thurber was he does his own writing and his own illustration. I am not far into the book yet but it seems that I could learn a thing or two about life and humor. This is further evidenced by N.'s occasional amused countenance and suppressed giggle.
As the hour approached noon the empty morning street was thronged by tourists and shoppers alike. The seagull flew away and replaced by dogs chained to the railing as their owners come in to grab a bite. By now the unimpeded sun was glinting brightly over our heads. We paid our bills and left. We took obligatory walks into Borders and J Crew and Sephora and Banana Republic and Urban Outfitters before we left the beach.

On the drive back (we didn't really know where were heading) we stopped at a Trader Joe's to stock up on provisions -- my brie and baguette; her California merlot. Lately I had acquired from her the habit of carrying my own grocery canvas bag. Actually it is more of a "re"-acquiring because carrying one's own reusable bag is customary in Taiwan. I recall the time going into Carrefour in Taipei with my dad and each of us would carry two giant-sized canvas bag to haul our grocery goods home. Almost always N. and I were the only ones carrying our own bags in any supermarket. It seems conservation is such a lax idea in the mind of American consumers.

When we waited at the checkout line N. remarked that today is Chinese New Year. We had both forgotten. So what should be a day of celebration with families, instead we acted like two non-Chinese Asians wandering around the city indifferently, not knowing where to go. Not that it makes any difference. Had we known the day would probably be spent in exactly the same way. We simply have no choice.

2006-01-26T21:29:00.000-08:00

A stroll around the desolate campus during the evening, a confluence of feelings, akin to meeting a long lost best friend, refluented so naturally and so freely that an unsuspecting grin broke out while I looked toward the darkening sky, letting out a sigh of relief. The night air had a cold, sharp quality to it, conducive to awakening one's tired senses. The stately performing art center stands adjacent to the stone bench in which I sat and marveled from. However flat and suburban the campus seemed during the day, shroud it in quiet darkness under a starry night and it too has few aesthetic qualities.

I can't believe how long it took me to come back to school and being a student again.

I had quiet some time before my first class starts. The realization has not sunk in yet. A woman's voice directed toward me from behind, asking if I belonged to the MBA program. "No, I am here for the MLIS program," I proudly replied, enunciating each syllable carefully.

For now and for the near future, this place will be my refuge, a refuge from the pins and needles of the business world.

The professor spoke in a slow and measured tone, introducing the small class to the world of MLIS. The MLIS world has definitely gravitated from the "L" (library) to the "I" (Information). It can also be said that Library Science is now a subset of Information Science (red flag!). I jot down each notion hurriedly -- the words looking increasingly like they have been swept by strong wind -- and wondered whether I can decipher the writing later on. I wrote and wrote: writing gives me a purposeful sense. It does not matter what I write, as long as the pen inked the white paper. Often I straggled behind the professor's speech, hoping someone might asked the man to slow down. It is my personality; I cannot help it. Instead a classmate fancied working in a Mark Twain library.

That was yesterday night. Today is back to the morass of office politics and petty business Emails.

2006-01-21T23:34:00.000-08:00

While grocery shopping might not be classified as recreational or leisure, every Friday evening, after work, with an gleeful state of mind, I head over to the Trader Joe's, armed with an orange plastic basket, and begin selecting, with my present state of economic sovereignty, the nutritional intake for next week's worth. To be single and poor and an unwillingness to cook, for the past 12 months, I have learned that eating healthy might not be such an easy task. Back at home, with mom deciding what food should grace my stomach, I need not to worry so much about eating healthy. Not that I am a health-conscious freak, but there comes a time when one is tired of buying takeout at either fast food chains or Chinese restaurants or Japanese supermarket bento.

The traffic is light this Friday evening. The sky clean and crisp as ever, and darkness soon descending. Slowly, motorists turn on their night lights. I turn on Marketplace at 6:30 p.m. sharp, as the radio program is devoting a whole week's coverage on China. The calm voice of Kai Ryssdal, together with sound bites of various Chinese interviewee, spoken in different dialect of Chinese, shortened the drive considerably.

The name Trader Joe's invokes an image of mom-and-pop grocer. In many aspects, the store resembles one, despite it being a chain of several hundreds. Compare it to other conventional grocery stores, Trader Joe's is much smaller in sizes and a fraction of king-sized Wal-Mart and Costco. Its offers, while limited due to its size, are more focused, such as organic (or non) vegetables and fruits and cheeses. I went ahead and picked up some baby carrots and spinach salad, paired with a triple cream brie and a roll of baguette. There is nothing I love more than brie and baguette. I also love the little recommendation stickers placed throughout the store because they are mostly hand-written.

While passing the sweets section, I purposely looked away, passing by in resignation. I had the urge to take home the small whole cheesecake sitting coolly in the refrigerator, waving its sweet indulgence at my lack of self-control. I stood in stupefaction, and a glimmer flashed across my eyes at the sight of that sweet love. Eventually -- thankfully -- I thought better of it and pass up the opportunity to satisfy my sugar craving. My promise in grade school that I will eat whatever sweet products I crave when I grow up will probably not be fulfilled any time soon.

What follows one indulgence is another. In a few steps of trekking is the wine section. It is often that I spend a good 20 minutes looking over the small but eclectic wine selection, not to mention its affordability. I scoured through the big barrier of two-buck chuck (the $1.99 Charles Shaw brand proclaiming itself as from Napa) and Yellow Tail, and landed in search of the newer arrival from Bordeaux and Rhone and Spain. The prospect of drinking myself stupid over the weekend is very alluring. I got an $8.99 bottle from Rhone, thinking it might be great with my frozen veggie pizza. And just before concluding this shopping trip, a tea tree oil soup and a tin of Altoids found the way into my basket. At the checkout counter, I was greeted with a warm smile; and in return, when the final total price was flashed across the computer screen, I flashed a suppressed smirk back to the cashier: it feels great to shop cheaply and not feel guilty.

P.S. The above images are BORROWED from Google Image search. I don't have the thick leather skin to take my bulky Canon and start filming cheese and vegetable. So thank you, anonymous photo providers.

2006-01-16T23:40:00.000-08:00

On my conscience a promontory stands at a distance, faintly visible, yet lacking distinctive shape or characteristics. Without a doubt that object is something I am chasing after. I go through the proper motions and jumping through various hurdles, just so as to know I am after something. Days and months and years go by, that something is as illusive as when I begun chasing it. After days of sombre overcast, the sky finally cleared up, peeking down from its azure, splashing the city with warm sunshine, and occasionally providing gentle breeze that rustles the window curtain.

I stood by the window looking despondently toward the blue expanse, my elbows resting on the windowsill. The weekend was passed in a celebratory mood, for my roommate had just earned a spot on the U.S. Kendo team that is to participate in the next World Kendo Championship. Up and down the house champagne corks were flying in all directions and beers come in unlimited supply. Naturally I knew nothing about kendo, but knowing how hard he worked thus far I felt truly happy.

But when the alcohol started to ebb and the party ajourned, there comes a period of self introspection wherein one falls into inexplicable gloom. There is only so much I could endue myself with other's success and accomplishment; and when reality checks back after a brief hiatus and patters on one's conscience repeatedly, I irrepressibly began to feel once again how inconsequential and twilit my life has been. That promontory's indefinable shape lingers somewhere ahead, but giving no hint as to what it is. For all I know it could be but an illusion.

In eight more days my days of ennui will be altered considerably. Besides my full-time office job I will be attending night and weekend classes for my MLIS degree. Often in the moment before I fall off to sleep, in the dark I degusted over being a student again, to relish that special feeling when one is situated in an academic milieu instead of a cubicle. I often tried to attribute the promontory as my striving toward MLIS. But somehow the puzzles do not fit snugly together. There lies something else, something unknown.

2006-01-11T22:32:00.000-08:00

"The boy exhibits antisocial behavior occasionally, I am afraid."

The mother is doing most of the talking, and her voice is tinged with a slight helplessness. I sat opposite of her on the plastic booth, with two cups of coffee sitting atop the unvarnished table in the play area of McDonald's. Whenever the conversation comes to an awkward stop, I pretend to sip and linger over the coffee.

"But he seems to take a liking in you, have you noticed?"

I nodded in agreement, while glancing at the boy, playing in his own little world.

"So will you be so kind as to watch over him for a few hours this Saturday? Of course you will be paid, according to the hour. What do you say?" The mother let out an entreating look.

It is not so much the pay or the need for someone to watch over the little boy. It was just something that the mother and I wanted to try.

###

The boy is now about seven. I met the mother few years ago in Taipei, when the boy was just a toddler. He had a most beautiful pair of sparkling brown eyes, and always exuded that precious innocence which can only found on children of that age. Whenever I proffered my arms toward him, he would reciprocate his chubby little arms upward to indicate clearance to hold him. It was precious because no one but the mother had the privilege to do this. Not even the father, who was always away. The child is especially shy in his nature, therefore to see that glistening, trusting look in his pretty eyes while holding him gave me a blissful feeling.

The marriage between the mother and the father was not one to be envied. Despite their good looks, reasonable wealth and good family background, they got off on a rough sailing and the boat never settled. The father was a known skirt-chaser that often spent his time away from the family. Amidst the stormy days the boy took in everything: the shout, the wail, the things that a child should be shielded from. Gradually those negative elements coagulated and hardened the boy's mind; his glistening eyes are now cloaked by a distant, hard gauze. They are still pretty, as I look at the boy now, but long gone is that shy, trusting look.

The boy had trouble getting along with his fellow playmates in school. He has no trouble learning -- actually quite bright, I was told -- but his withdrawn behavior worried the mother tremendously. As a result, to prevent the boy from further retreat inwardly, the mother thought of educating him in the U.S., where a child can receive a more liberal, creative learning. The divorce was finalized before their departure for Los Angeles.

How is the boy to cope with the divorce? How will he react to an entirely foreign environment? How will his little mind be shaped by the equivalent of a seismic shift? These are the questions that ran through my mind as I watched him, diligently sipping orange juice by the mother's side.

2006-01-08T18:51:00.000-08:00

Trays of succulent raw oysters, steamed crab, clams, fish and chips, and spicy seafood soup are invitingly laid upon our small wooden table by the window that looks over the King Harbor and the Pacific Ocean. The crowd is sparse this Saturday afternoon. Few men and women dotted along the pier with their fishing rods, hoping for their big catch. A large pelican perched itself on the wooden railing, drawing a small crowd of onlookers. As I take in the view of the pier, all that there is left on the oyster plate is a mountain of empty hard shells.

"I told you not to wander off your spacey mind, now the oysters are all gone."

"Maybe you should chew your food first before speaking," retorted I, half jokingly.

This lazy Saturday, the four of us, including N., took a short drive to Redondo Beach and rewarded ourselves with heaps of every imaginable seafood, washing them down with a bottle of Korean soju. I am usually not much of a drinker of soju, but given the consensus opinion among the three other diners I gave in. After a few shots a slight buzz is already lurking in the back of my brain.

"Drink, drink. We can't order second if you don't finish your glass," N. urges on, while herself is unfazed by the onslaught of alcohol, and her two friends nodded in general agreement. Are you kidding me? I thought in the back of my mind. And before I know it, a second bottle found its way to our table.

After way too many clams and way too much alcohol, we took a leisure walk around the pier. The large pelican changed its standing position a few feet down the railing, but still oblivious to the minor stardom it has gathered. The weather is mild, not a cloud over our head, and the clear blue sky formed a tender contrast to the emerald green sea. We stood against the railing, watching the vicious wave pounding against the shoreline. The occasional sea breeze rustled my drowsy head. The four of us stood in parallel, gazing into the distance where the sea and the sky meet, and each of us formed our own independent thought, perhaps about the future, about the present, or about how to proceed in life. But midway through my inward brooding, the refluent alcohol flustered my train of thought. It hurts to think.

2006-01-01T22:59:00.000-08:00

That unmistakable resonance of heavy raindrops plashing against the windowpane awoke me to the new calendar year. There is still a trace of lingering champagne taste in my mouth. My body is bundled into sheaf by two layers of quilt, as the storm from the North descended and plunged heavy precipitation and chilling temperature upon the arid South. I bundled myself even tighter, savoring the warmth as much as I can, so as to make up for the lost time during days which work prohibited such luxurious pleasure. The rain continues its unimaginative thud on the windowpane, apprising the world to wake up and smell the rain -- and the new year.

After much inward debate I finally got up (fighting off the chill is no easy task!) and washed. I breakfasted on two eggs, toast and the Sunday L.A. Times. I had ample time before N.'s scheduled arrival from Taipei at 5:30 pm, so, with a $20 gift certificate from Borders bookstore, I went and got the just-released paperback Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, and Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.

I read and lolled and had dim sum with a friend until it was time to head to the airport. The storm, after a brief interval, had resumed its furious roar as I stepped out of the door. By a mere five, six second exposure to the rain, when I ran to the car parked on the street, my shirts and hair were drenched with cold rain, and a shiver of chill crept up behind my neck so unsuspectingly that I just froze there for a good two minutes until the heater started cranking up warm air.

The whole ashen sky is shrouded in a sombre countenance, not a single gleam escaping through. Though the airport is only 15 minutes away from where I live, the condition on the freeway was not fit for normal driving (I had already a few instances where my tires were skidding slightly as a result of the rain). I arrived a little later than the intended time, but N. has still not come out from the terminal. I waited along with others in the waiting area, hands on the iron railing that marks the boundary of the waiting area, its coldness so penetrating that I thought of N.'s misfortune, and stood there like a bough, conjecturing scenes of upon meeting her fragile frame.

Her emaciated visage was marked out amongst throng of visitors, for everyone else featured a bright smile upon seeing relatives and friends, and her especial weariness had a protruding effect, despite her slender frame. When she saw me waiting she affected a smile, but unable to mask her mournful touch. We embraced one another; and as I squeezed her, I felt she was about to let out a cry. But she held back the tear in her moist brown eyes, and held check the twitching upper lip.

We remain unspoken until we crossed the traffic lane to the parking lot. "I feel like I have aged ten years...Oh, I brought a gift for you. You will like it much. Thank you for everything," said N. episodically, while flashing a genuine, lambent smile.

"Good to have you back, Kitty," said I, blushing for no reason.

2005-12-29T22:19:00.000-08:00

The stuffy enclosure I find myself situated in Monday to Friday week after week provides me with a meagre subsistence in the form of biweekly paycheck. The rectangular piece of paper is then taken into banking branch in exchange for small white receipt on which numbers are specified of its potential economic clout in the open market, and they are generally spent on things needed but not desired especially such as rents, gasoline, grocery, dry cleaning -- the minutiae of everyday life. Occasionally, aided by passing whim, various clothing retailers may be the recipient of my anemic monetary exercise. The rest is then divided into savings and book buying. I have inherited from my mother her inclination to saving over spending carelessly as my father was prone in his youth. The book buying budget is distributed between Borders, BN, secondhand bookstores, Amazon, Ebay, Half.com, Abebooks, et cetera.

Hardly the life I had imagined before taking the eager plunge into adulthood. The building's internal stale quietness continues to drone, goading at my conscience and causing a slight mental headache. The adorned calendar upon my cubicle's barrier read December 29th, 2005; it is in its final stage of life. Tomorrow it will be taken down and discarded along with millions of its siblings like they never existed. Such a staid morass I find myself sinking perceptibly deeper, and I remind inwardly so as to not forget I once had puerile ambitions in life, however abstract they may now be.

For the 15th time today, I clicked on the Firefox icon to check my Email. And for the 15th time, there are none to be read but spam.

As usual I headed to a nearby coffee shop to read after work; and to participate with numerous working men and women (whom for good reason do not have the desire to be home) in an acquiesced, nonverbal understanding that this is the closest we will come to in terms of companionship, of camaraderie. The proximity of fellow human beings, though each of us remain stubbornly quiet and going about our task in reading or computing or eating, serves as a form of opiate in dulling of our lonely senses, in giving another chance to humanity before feeding ourselves to utter indifference.

The sky was briefly mauve before turning black, and the wintry weather is reappearing after days of absence. I look about the world outside through the bay window, and saw that 2005 -- my first full year as an independent adult -- taught me more things than many other years combined.

2005-12-24T23:58:00.000-08:00

In a strange twist the cool night air, mingled with a muffled croaking sound of a frog, filtered through the window screen and settled into the permanence of early morning hour. Throughout the day the temperature remained stiflingly warm for late December days, a strong contradiction to snowy Christmas commercials shown on television at any given hour. The croaking sound (I am not sure if it is really a frog), though faint as it is in making it heard, proved to be a good distraction to my wakeful mind at such late hour. My chest heaved according to the rhythm of the sound -- almost imperceptibly -- and my lung did the same in regulating the intake of the night's misty air. I found most amusing in this pointless exercise. Slowly I dozed off, and along brought the frog with me.

When I come to my sense of time was flustered because the sun is heavily shielded behind heavy, thick cloud. This is of no concern, since I had no presents to open. Just as I reposition myself to fall asleep again the mobile phone rang.

"Good morning, my dear, It's Christmas Eve." N.'s voice trickled slowly into my brain.

"Oh...hey....how did the funeral go?" Stammered I, trying to quell any sleepiness in my voice.

"I think I can shed no more tears. This whole thing is left me a dry well. How is your trip to Vegas? I read it on your blog. Are you seriously considering moving back?"

Sensing that she wanted not to talk about the funeral, I gladly took the hint. "You know that's impossible until I finish graduate school. I guess I was just overcome by nostalgia, you know, the ghost of the past."

Oops.

I knitted my brow for using such reckless phrase, ghost of the past. If anyone is going to be haunted it will be N. The breadth of her boyfriend's death is unfathomable. She and I both fell silent for few seconds, and I futilely tried to come up with something to fill the blank. Finally she moved the conversation to something unrelated; inwardly I heaved a reproaching sigh for my insensitiveness. We ended the phone conversation by my giving a few encouragements and wishing to see her soon.

An act of sheer folly on my part, and it will be a blot on my conscience for at least a few hours. I tried to find solace in George Eliot. But after reading a few paragraphs I tossed the novel aside and went in search for my nonexistent holiday spirit in the worldly world.

2005-12-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

What was once an endless stretch of desert overgrown with cactuses are now covered by asphalt miles across as far as the eyes can perceive. New housing constructions are forever humming as the buying spree refuses to cool down. I am standing at the peripheral edge of the city Henderson, and looking into the distance where the splendor and kitschiness of Las Vegas Blvd. that outshone the moon and the stars. In the back seat of the new Toyota 4Runner, I inwardly thought how the city has expanded since I was last in town seven years ago.

Do not mistaken I am in town for the gambling or partying. Part of my adolescent years were spent in the sin city, and therefore I had come to developed a special bond with the city that quite differed with what a tourist would consider the city to be. The mid-size SUV in which I am riding in drove smoothly down the immaculate paved road, farther away from the lights and glamour, and quietly made its turn into a residential community situated on the edge of a small hill. I still cannot believe I have made the capricious decision in coming to Vegas right after Thursday's work (driving four and a half hours alone in the dark). But I am here, and my long time friends, E. and Y., a couple together for over six years, are by my side and showing me their newly-purchased home.

Next morning we took their dog, A-Chu, and another friend E. to a nearby park and watched A-Chu do his thing. There is no question that Las Vegas, besides its famous gambling halls and night clubs, are more suburban in its lineament than Los Angeles (and to the best of my knowledge, there is not a decent second-hand bookstore); but somehow, strolling along the park with friends and watching the dog enjoying the morning sun, made me forget the many philistine aspects of the town. My mind was at ease and all my past and present melancholy evaporated into the cold, clear sky.

Thick cloud gathered as we had a wonderful lunch at a Memphis barbecue restaurant, getting our hands smeared with barbecue sauce as we devoured the babyback ribs like four hungry hyenas. A light rain begun to fall at a slow pace. We abandoned our original plan to visit Lake Las Vegas; instead the four of us headed toward Las Vegas Blvd. I was shown some of the newer hotels that did not exist -- and there are plenty -- before my exile into Los Angeles. The hotels are more or less the same in their kitschiness, but I am still captivated by the (free!) fountain show at the Bellagio, despite it was my 27th time of seen it. For propriety's sake (I have no gambling habit) I put in a $5 bill into a slot machine and after two spin I won $18. Gleefully I quickly took the ticket to the cashier and exchanged for cash. I used the money to buy ice cream for five people. Everything was perfect thus far, except when I was at the casino cashier counter, I was not asked to proffer my ID for age check. (Have my look gotten past that stage already?)

Four days went past by sweetly, doing nothing but visiting old friends and old sites, talking of future plans and complete nonsense. The days so relaxing and blissful and lazy that my novel remain unread for the duration of my stay. My fixation was solely on my best friends and the camaraderie that one can only capture when in the company of people whom one trust completely. It was not till 8 pm Monday night that I had to tear myself away from the good company of friends. The long, winding I-15 of which I traveled south bound back to Los Angeles was shrouded by a gloomy gauze. I thought of turning back repeatedly and never return to Los Angeles.

It is with a heavy and longing heart that I write this post. Deep in the recess of my heart there rest a childishly euphonious thought of moving back to Las Vegas. The frisson of that thought is unmistakable: the thudding, thumping sound can be heard distinctively like a heavy boot touching on the stone floor in a quiet corridor.

Taipei is my home. Las Vegas is my home away from home. Los Angeles, what will you be?

2005-12-13T21:49:00.000-08:00

After hearing the bad news on my voice mail I immediately rushed to N.'s apartment not far away from my work, despite my manager's entreating and half-threatening glance that I ought to finish the unfinished task. The front door into her apartment was left ajar, but not a trace of illumination coming out of despite the evening's stealthy approach. N.'s boyfriend in Taiwan has just died from a horrific motorcycle accident on the highway, her quivering voice recorded onto my mobile phone.

I looked through the door ajar and saw nothing but a pallor darkness. I called out her name two, three times; nothing audible returned my calling. I made entry into the short corridor and searched timidly with both hands for the light switch. As I got into the living room a faint crying sound was heard. Notwithstanding the pitch-black surrounding, I was familiar with her apartment so as to navigate in the dark without encroaching the many flower pots situated around the room. I found her hugging her knees by the bed, sobbing, the only illumination coming from the moonlit French window that was in the room. I put my arm around her, trying futilely to calm her senses, though the best thing for situations as such is to just let her cry.

Under the moonlight I saw clearly the horror that is transfiguring her delicate, pale face. Her deep-set black eyes, normally with a depth of sarcasm and confidence, are now filled with tears, and their breadths replaced with a profound helplessness. Her face, lined with streaks of dry and wet tears, no longer exudes that proud lineament. I, holding her still, sat quietly by her on the cold hardwood floor, not knowing the right things to say, was as incapable as she is now. The apartment is filled with a deadpen quietness, and everything external was heard: the clatter of dropped utensils from next door; the purring sound of stray cats lingering atop the roof; and the tipsy singing of her neighbor who is perpetually slightly drunk. Every sound, every movement of the outside world seemed so cruel and heartless, while I caressed her gently so as to invalidate her sensitiveness to foreign noise. Episodically she convulsed under the strain of his nonbeing: it was the first time that she and I both felt the encompassment of death. We just sat there, spoke nothing, and let fate take its toll upon her smitten, rumpled soul.

That was four days ago. N. is now on a flight back to Taipei, to gather her memory up and to prepare for the funeral arrangement. My mind, when seeing her off at the airport, was interlaced with sorrow, sadness, shock and a tiny tinge of indifference -- indifference! I blame myself for not been able to fully share the burden of her tragedy, for my heart is gradually hardened by my voluntary confinement.

2005-12-11T16:06:00.000-08:00

A peculiar question floated on my mind as of late. As I sat in the small coffee shop, waiting for my 10:45 pm show of Pride and Prejudice, sipping the lukewarm coffee and glancing at George Eliot's Middlemarch, I suddenly recalled the physiognomy of a waitress, whom I cannot recall her name, yet I was sure she was once an acquaintance of mine, only her importance to me personally was of transient nature. I stole few stealthy glances at her between chapters; she possessed a sturdiness in ways she carried about her work. Her fluent and somewhat familiar movement aided a sense of my knowing her but did nothing to help in recognizing it. She did not possess any recognition on my being. Nevertheless, she is not central to this post; but she did unknowingly give assistance to my tottering conscience. The aforementioned question I put forth is one bound to seem stupid and vain to any outsider looking into my feeble mind. I wondered, in extreme toil, of how much I am worth to this world.

On Friday night the theatre is busy with foot traffic and the floor littered profusely by empty food and drink containers. Certainly the traffic is not here for movie adapted from Victorian novel. I lingered at the lobby; besides me are the concession stands selling over-priced popcorn and soft drinks. I debated internally of whether to go into the threatre and suffer through long minutes of movie previews, or sat at the bench at the lobby and watch disagreeable teenagers touting ostentatiously of their mobile phones and speak in their incomprehensible utterance. How much am I worth to them? Absolutely nothing. But I was once one of them! I was worth something then. Since I am of little value, and they to me, better to find me in a situation in which darkness could shield my general unease. As expected the theatre is devoid of a large crowd, and only few delicate laughs can be heard at witty remark been made on the screen.

As expected the movie ended on happy ending: Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth living happily under the umbrella of holy matrimony. Everything seems so easy in the movie, as lives are condensed into two hour capsules and everything is spoken in deliberate decisiveness, unlike the drone one suffers in present reality.

The next day, my mind still clouded, I went to have dinner with A., a dear friend and a former colleague of mine. Our circumstances in life after university could not have differed much. We went through the insufferable, the unrelenting and the unthinkable. We both find lives to be difficult to adjust to with our bachelor of arts degree. And both of us are now looking forward to graduate school, a respite for our mundane life doing inconsequential jobs.

"I will say our lives could not be worth a bit, except for sentimental reasons," I declared, just as plates after plates of food is put on our table.

"Correct. Our degree means nothing. We work in meaningless, dead-end jobs that are really meant for trained-monkeys. Now we will strive more toward that graduate degree, of which we will be under illusion for two more years," A. supplied with much enthusiasm as we both find our statements reciprocal. An old-time camaraderie instantly refluented in my chest. We dined and drunk and had much fun bowling with her friends well past mid-night. When I got home, leafing through George Eliot's writing, and find a description of Mary Garth, the governess, I found worth learning and an answer to my question. A light rain begin to fall, plashing on dry pavements and giving it a dappled look:

"A vigorous young mind not overbalanced of by passion, finds a good in making acquaintance with life, and watches its own powers with interest."

2005-12-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

Right foot on the pedal, left foot idling; left hand holding the steering wheel, right hand fiddling the radio dial, tuning circular from KJZZ to K-MOZART to NPR. My foot and my hands and my basic reflexes steering the vehicle, my mind already wandering miles down the road, beyond the freeway, across the ocean, brooding over what I always brood about. The immaculate evening sky hung quietly above, surveying down with nonchalance, together with the crescent moon, imbued by Louis Armstrong: the chiseled multitude created one melancholy surrounding.

The car stopped at an intersection while awaiting the left-turn signal. The theatre to the right painted in big bold black letter of showing Pride and Prejudice. My capricious spiritual half thought of going for the 11:00 pm show; my other sensible fleshly half, usually triumphant -- and this time is no exception -- checked myself from indulging in sleep deprivation. The signal turned green, putting away my fanciful notion.

I continued my corporeal drive home. I opted to take surface streets instead of the freeway in search of quiet contemplation. It's queer to feel so effusive at a time when one is alone in a vehicle, segregated from worldly affairs, yet when putting one's hand on a keyboard it felt exceedingly difficult in translating those lyrical thought, as if they never manifested. I do not wish to let go of those feelings, but they almost always fleetingly escaped my capture, opting to take their own pertinacious path. Their whereabout buried forever in the warp of time, and I shall join them once my time on this earth is expired.

2005-12-03T20:48:00.000-08:00

Bahans Haut-Brion '00 Pessac-Leognan, the second wine from the famed Chateau Haut-Brion, the closest I will ever come near a First Growth in the 1855 Classification of the MÃDOC, is now standing atop my IKEA coffee table, exuding suppressed haughtiness. Before you start criticizing my uncalled-for extravagance, let me just make clear the wine is not intended for my tongue, but for my landlord and landlady as their Christmas present. They have been the most caring people on this earth besides my mother, and that is why I splurged on this precious 2000 vintage bottle.

***

X'mas shopping season is clearly warming up to its eventual culmination in the next few weeks. Already parking lots at various shopping malls and plazas are filled to the brim on weekends. To be smart one should avoid the dreaded indoor shopping malls, but having a sweater that needs to be returned, today I found myself along with hundreds and thousands in the midst of a suburban shopping mall. The ritual is all too familiar: circling around parking lot trying to find an opening; the claustrophobic feeling one gets while standing in the midst of holiday crowd; extra long lines at the register, while babies are crying and kids are running around and teenagers acting puerilely -- not a moment of tranquility. Surprisingly, once I was summoned by the cashier, the process is extremely simple. The return process at Banana Republic is finally heeding speediness and efficiency. They took my receipt, checked the merchandise, scanned the bar code on the receipt, a return receipt is printed out, and everything is done under one or two minutes (no forms to fill out and I didn't even have to show my credit card!).

Once I suffered through the commotion, I guiltily rewarded myself with a trip to two used bookstores. One in Manhattan Beach, Dave's Olde Book Shop, and another in Long Beach, Acres of Books. Dave's used book shop is possibly the cleanest and most organized one I have ever encountered. The store is spotless and the books rest nicely on shelves without the presence of any dust. Dave himself is extremely friendly and helpful. I came out happily with two 1951 Modern Library hardcover edition of Nostromo and Lord Jim, an International Collectors Library edition of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, and two Penguin paperbacks of Stendhal and W. Somerset Maugham. Acres of Books is a giant warehouse of used books that covers any conceivable subject. The fiction section is considerably larger than Dave's, but shelving is a bit disorganized and dust is as much a presence as the books. I thought about going through column by column but soon was disoriented and had to jump inefficiently from author to authoress as I can recall. I was only able to come out with two: Henry James's Roderick Hudson and The Other House, the latter I was not even aware of its existence. Before going in there again one must be prepared to take allergy pill and eat a good portion of breakfast; it is like going to war, sorting through writers and dispelling dust and dirt. For the day a total of seven novels for $35.

Sitting next to Acres of Books is Terry's Camera. I am always in need of a tripod but could never find one at a right price. I walked in and next thing you know adventitiously I came out with a $40 tripod -- completely out of my frugal calculation. That's okay, I guess, since I had earlier returned a sweater. And as I took my leisure walk to take in the view of downtown Long Beach, my vanity was soon attracted by the twinkly clothing display of Nordstrom Rack. Sure enough, I went in, and got out with two bags of clothing for gift and for myself. Despite my careful planning of not to buy I still contributed a great deal to the commercialization of X'mas. I heaved a deep sigh, hands busy carrying plastic and paper bags, and put up my white flag to surrender myself to Consumer Spending.

2005-11-27T23:43:00.000-08:00

The downtown office buildings stood erect like an airy oasis that suburbanite like myself cannot resist the allure of returning for city inspiration. On this particular Sunday thin slices of spotty cloud embellished themselves as appurtenance to the vast blue sky. There are no traces of gusty wind from last night, as houses creaked and trees swayed precariously to and fro as fury directed. The freeway remained relatively unimpeded, relishing its last hours of lucidity before the returning of holidaymakers.

As usual I lacked a destination; wandering around downtown on foot with a camera as of late has become my sport of choice. When the car is near the exit of 6th Street into downtown Beethoven's Romance #2 in F Major had just took over my ear from 陳昇. I thought there is no more opportune selection as the iPod is churning out now. I made a circular motion around Little Tokyo and found a metered parking open (Sunday being the day without parking enforcement). Walking the city with one's own feet gives a truly different sensation than motoring through. While on foot, time slows down, and one is able to perceive things more clearly and bluntly. The air, mingled with sounds that are unique to the city, such as car horn blaring and congregation of feet stumping on pavements and police sirens penetrating to one's spine, does its best in quickening one's stupor senses. This is one of the biggest reason for my detesting living in the suburbs, as one invariably is stuck inside a vehicle, looking at things swooshing by without perceiving or knowing it.

The air is cool and relaxing, without its usual pensiveness. I started my walk on the Second Street and made my way toward the poetic green tunnel. The passage is long and unbending, like a beautiful artwork done by a headstrong painter. Over on the Third Street a different tunnel bespoke a different tone: it is in a state of disrepair and it looked inscrutable, like a neglected child moping around the park, not wanting anyone to get close.

By chance I discovered the Chinese American Museum located near Olvera Street. Old photographs of early Chinese immigrants in Qing Dynasty costume showing their despondency of been left in a foreign soil. Upon seen this particular photo I commenced a mental picture of a strawberry field in Taiwan, of which I cannot remember. It was the earliest memory as a child I can date back to. I may be no more than two or three, but I vividly and poignantly recall seen those strawberries for the first time: how red and beautiful and exotic they looked to my childish gaze! I think their melancholy is kindred to mine for longing that strawberry field. As one grows older piecemeal patches of memory resurface to change one's perspective in life.

After traversing through Olvera Street, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Union Station and much of First and Second Street, my feet long for a seat and my throat refreshment. I ordered a coffee at a quaint cafe and chose a seat by the french window that looks directly at the Los Angeles City Hall. After transfixing myself with Emily Bronte's writing for about an hour, I took out a stack of Christmas cards and started to drivel with my pen on trite greetings: Wish you a merry...may your new year be...take good care of your...Not that I don't mean them as I write, but, I thought to myself, there must be a better way of conveying my sincere feelings. Moreover, I hated my handwritings; they are unsightly to look at.
By the time I finished my drivel dusk is approaching and night will fall in an hour. If only you know how dreadful and morbid it is for me to have to drive back to humdrum suburbia and face the prospect of returning to work on Monday. I felt the window with my index finger, transferring the coldness of outdoor to this side of the window. I gathered up my book and cards in my backpack and headed toward the car. And it suddenly hits me that I had paid for my dry cleaning but forgot to pick up the finished shirts. I don't know if dry cleaning has anything to do with this, but I just realize then that the art of living is living alone, learning things by oneself, and not rely on others to take care.

P.S. More about L.A.: Nobody Bikes in L.A. on Slate Magazine

2005-11-24T23:19:00.000-08:00

My morbid fear for holidays is not unfounded. I have no where to go to. I do not exclude myself for feeling excitement about not having to attend work for four days. But without a traveling plan a four-day weekend is just a weekend too long. So when everyone else is driving or flying to their warm Thanksgiving dinner, the day found me driving all over the greater Los Angeles in search of nothing.

My aimless meandering started on the 110 Freeway heading north. I didn't have anything particular in mind. I just drove, hoping to find objects to photograph. On this day the normally dyspeptic freeway finally live up to its name. With so many Angelenos off the road the freeway turned itself into a raceway for many drivers. For no apparent reason I stopped by downtown to check out apartments I cannot afford. I miss living in the city. Though my euphoria was flustered by a beggar who do not look like a beggar. The bum, while dressed nicely, with a clear impression, interrupted my taking pictures and asked if I had a buck to spare for bus fare. I pretend to not speak English.

While I traversed the empty streets of downtown an odd notion came up: Will I long for my youth when I turn senile? Given that how depressed and unhappy I feel for such a long period of time, naturally I would not; but likely I am to forget the melancholic and selectively dwell only on brief shining moments and thought them to be how I lived in my 20s. Hopefully I won't live too long.

I have always felt the service sector are overworked and should be given more days off. Yet being Thanksgiving today one of my capital fear was how will I procure food when over 99% of all restaurants are closed. Fortunately, there are always profit-driven Chinese / Taiwanese owners who neither rain nor... will forever keep their restaurants open to the public, doesn't matter Thanksgiving or Christmas or Chinese New Year. I went to a small restaurant in Chinatown and ordered a noodle soup. As I ate I felt guilty, like someone who protests about Wal-Mart but secretly shops there to save money. As a result I left a generous tip for the server. (Be aware, when you tip in a Chinese restaurant a good chance the tip will be shared by the owner -- blood suckers!)

Armed with my SEMI-professional Canon (a breed between DSLR and prosumer: N. calls it "lame") I tried assiduously to somewhat replicate the stunning images taken by This Life and Man Man Zou. Of course that is impossible. Looking over my photos I feel like a three-year-old trying to outgun Charles Dickens in novel writing. My learning curve is still a uphill batter. At the current rate I will reach their level in, say, 26 years?

The whereabouts of my next stop still unknown, the gas tank still quite full, I steered toward east on the 10. After walking amidst angular steel and glass buildings the whole morning I felt to be with nature. Although I had a holistic notion in mind about visiting the Sequoia National Park, I didn't have the gut to drive five hours there all by myself. Instead I settled for something that quite resembled nature: a huge, deciduous park complete with a man-made lake right off the 10 freeway in Rosemead. With ducks and geese abound the lake shore, I furiously clicked the shutter at a rate unseen before. They are so adorable.

The rest of the day I got by by doing things not worth mentioning (but I am still going to): Reading Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights at two different Starbucks; grocery shopping at Trader Joe's and Albertsons and 99 Ranch (Chinese grocery); drove haphazardly and without a sense of direction on the Pacific Coast Highway and visited my alma mater at an eerie hour when not a living soul was present.

My Thanksgiving ended without ceremony. While I drove to various corners and points in the greater Los Angeles, familiarize myself with the city's lineament, one thing that left an ingrained image in my conscience is that, despite Thanksgiving, there are still many people wandering around the city like myself, without an opportunity to gather with their families. What are their reasons for not spending time with their family? I am sure there are million good reasons, as I represent one of them. I recalled a poignant image of a poorly-dressed man sitting at a bus stop bench during dusk with his hunched back facing the traffic, his head lowered to gloomy contemplation: it was the most lachrymose hunched back I have ever felt.

2005-11-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

At noon, under the evanescent sun, the bustling intersection of Artisia and Western avenues resembled a suburban jungle, roaming amidst are impatient motorists, each trying to out maneuver another by getting to his or her destination where hungry stomach can be sated. The clamor repeats itself day after day. No one gets tired of it. Or no one has a way out of it.

The rain had just suspended itself. Patches of azure sky gradually replaced the thick, white cloud. The contrast is especially vivid after three days of inured gloomy rain. The storm is moving on to the distance, casting its mighty fury elsewhere.

There I stood, at the intersection, waiting for the green signal to come on. While the streets were clogged with cars, I represent the lone pedestrian standing on the edge of the pavement. It is not difficult to discern some drivers' impatient glance upon my crossing the road, indicating askance at my choice of transportation, as if I alone constituted the impediment to the flow of the traffic. I stride forward: from one pavement to the next.

"How to live in a world with which you disagree? How to live with people when you share neither their suffering nor their joy? When you know that you don't belong among them?" (Milan Kundera, Immortality [New York: Grove Press, 1990])

2005-11-19T22:36:00.000-08:00

Immortality by Milan Kundera:

"As long as we live with other people, we are only what other people consider us to be. Thinking about how others see us and trying to make our image as attractive as possible is considered a kind of dissembling or cheating. But does there exist another kind of direct contact between my self and their selves except through the mediation of the eyes?"

This post-GRE weekend I found myself enervated and depleted of any aim. I lay lazily in bed, under the quilt and blanket, staring at the dappled sunlight on the floor that came in through the half-open blind. This is the kind of day where real sense of purpose does not belong. I wanted to turn on the radio, as is my habit in the morning, but realized, for the 48th time, that I didn't have a stand-alone radio in the room. I had given that away before moving in to my current residence.

I went down to the kitchen and breakfasted on last night's leftovers, some mushroom and rice, and scan through the Saturday Financial Times. The Weekend page lacked topic of my interest. But the interview of Joan Didion was interesting (if not a bit melancholic); Dear Economist always provides a good laugh; and the Food and drink section featured a long list of wines that will go great with the upcoming festive roasts.

The sun continues its uninhibited ascension through the cloudless blue sky. It's mid-November, yet today the temperature is expected to be in the mid-80s. I thought of going somewhere and concluded of visiting the campus of which I will be educated for the next two and a half years. When I applied to San Jose State University's MLIS program the big attraction was that I didn't have to relocate there because the school dedicated a off-campus program at Cal State University Fullerton. Now I regret that I didn't pick the main campus program.

Before seeing something with my own eyes I always place unreasonable amount of expectations on things unbeknownst. The city of Fullerton is another embodiment of suburbia Southern California, and the university resembled it in every aspect. I arrived there at noon, while the sun is baking the city to a roast. I don't quite know how to describe the school, because everything seems so plain. Several angular, functional-looking buildings surrounds a vast patch of grass, with sundry parking structures and lots on the periphery. Certainly architectural aesthetic was not on the mind of those who designed the batch of Cal State Universities. But, hey, I can't complain, I am a student of SJSU and not CSUF. Not having to move to San Jose is a big convenience.

Seeing that nothing pleases my eyes, I found a shaded area under the tree to sit, having lost the will to meander through the rest of the campus. The phrase "If only I didn't bungle on the GRE..." ran repeatedly in my mind, whilst the image of that beautiful, grandeur campus, of which I am so smitten with, where now I know I will have no chance of been accepted, fleets away like a butterfly, ephemerally dashing in and out and eventually lost itself amidst the varicolored flowers.

I am such a vain person, I will admit that.

2005-11-15T19:57:00.000-08:00

By habit I awoke to the 6:45 a.m. alarm. As I slowly come to I felt the air to be unusually cold and damp. With a bit of struggling I raised myself and looked outside the window. The world outside is as if suspended in a gloomy mood: Dense, impervious cloud hovering above, filtering out every bit of sunshine; the morning mist carried itself with an inscrutable temperament, shrouding the city with a dewy, ashen silk. On any given day I'd welcome this sort of hazy weather. But on this day the gloom serves as an ominous sign.

I went to the bathroom and wash myself. The slight pain from paper cuts I suffered the previous day at the office still lingers, as the cold tap water came in contact with the wound. Then I sat down at my desk and delve into GRE vocabulary memorization, again. Today is the day, I told myself. I had given up every bit of leisure activities for the past two weeks, reading nothing but Barron's HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE GRE TEST and The Princeton Review's CRACKING THE GRE. Finally, when all is over, I can reclaim my life; resume where I left off with Milan Kundera, blog whatever nonsense I have. At least I hoped to be that way.

***

It was with a heavy heart when I stepped out of the testing center at six p.m. The dread of lower-than-expected score confounded my mind. What went wrong? I repeatedly asked myself. After memorizing 3,500 the so-called master word list from both test preparation kits (in my own homespun way), how is it that on the 7th verbal question there appeared a word I had never seen -- ever! (and a few more after that, too.) That threw me off the horse. And there is the Reading Comprehension Section. Since in the beginning I dawdled way too long on the mysterious vocabulary I was left with insufficient time to read through the passage. With the clock ticking away on the upper left corner of the screen, I panic and lost half of my reading concentration. I recall having read in the preparation book that said just read the first and last sentences in each paragraph to save time. But on the scientific reading comprehension questions today that would be like applying the same technique to Wings of the Dove or Finnigans Wake and be able to say what Henry James and James Joyce are trying to convey. Thereupon I became dispirited. Disaster ensued.

At the end, in a state of doldrums, the computer asked coldly if I would like to know or cancel the score. I felt an inescapable desire to click on the latter, but application deadline left me with no choice. The score was given. It was not as bad as I thought, but certainly it won't do for that one famous university I am applying too.

***

I grew more despondent as hours went by. I felt tired, hungry and helpless, like a piece of cloth that I wore my academic moral has suddenly been defrocked, left me naked in the middle of a touristy shopping square, every passersby jeering and laughing at my failure.

I flip opened my mobile phone to see if there is an appropriate number of which I could seek solace. Not one jumped to my mind.

At around eight p.m. the need to console myself grew unbearable. I decided to seek console in the form of food. I drove to the nearest IN N OUT Hamburger and got myself a cheese burger, fries and iced tea. As usual the restaurant is lit up brightly and its patrons convivial, just like any other day. I thought about sitting down alone at the booth, but seeing so many happy faces, in contrast of the dark state I was in, only made my want to recoil. I chose take-out and drove my car to the empty part of the strip mall and devoured the food. I ate as if I had been starved for three days. Since no one will be looking I didn't care to keep up propriety. I took bite after bite, with very short interval, first the cheeseburger, then the fries, all without really tasting it. In five minutes no morsel was left. Whether the gluttony helped or not, I do not know, but a miserable state is better than a miserable state PLUS hungry stomach.

As the evening drew closer to hibernation I knocked at the door of my neighbor Mr. and Mrs. F. The day before they had surprised me with a plate of delicious okonomiyaki dinner, as they knew I had a testing next day. Depressed as I was, I didn't wish to infect them with my melancholy. I contrived a happy-go-lucky appearance -- more like a rueful grin -- thanked them and told them about the lukewarm result.

2005-11-13T17:06:00.000-08:00

Judgment day this Tuesday. 3,500 must-know-vocabulary. Numerous incomprehensible arithmetic. An insensate mind with a wish to jettison everything and retreat to an unpopulated cave.

2005-11-09T21:51:00.000-08:00

"I can't help but to feel as one gets older, the duration of time shortens," I blurted out, as N. and I watched from the safety of the concrete office building at the blustering storm that is plunging heavy precipitation upon the pavements, creating a homogeneous picture as the multitude of raindrops splashing ebulliently against the earth.

"I mean," I added, as I felt the need to elaborate a bit, for N. was already giving me a puzzled look, "don't you remember back in the student days where the duration between Monday to Friday felt like an eternity, an abeyance? Now, it seems, amidst our working schedule, each day is passing by like express bullet trains traveling at high speed without stopping at stations."

"I am not sure I felt that way," said N. with a slightly nonchalant tone. "In fact, as it is, I felt time is drearily too long. I cannot wait till my next surprise in life. Those stations you referred to, what's there to look at? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, they all look the same. Better not to bother myself with dullness."

"But you must admit it is still a pity to see them go without careful examination. You will find surprises, however small they be, if you look careful enough," rejoined I.

N. flashed a vacuous smile. "But you won't be here come January. You are speaking nostalgically because school is giving you hope. As for me, I am stuck here."

And then we resumed our admiration for the stormy weather. The air felt cold and pensive. I snuffled a bit and begin to think. N. was right. For the first time, in a long time, I have hope, about my future, the future in which I will escape, escape the place where I will never feel at ease. Two more years of schooling will make sure that my one-way ticket to get out of town is valid and non-refundable. I will surely be in arrears with debts but that is secondary.

We stood there gazing at the rain until the clock hits 6 p.m. We went back to N.'s desk to tidy things up, readies for another tomorrow. As we left her office to go to our favorite sushi bar nearby, I glanced at the calendar on the wall and made a mental note on the date of which I will embark my new sail.

2005-11-03T22:13:00.000-08:00

The end of Daylight Saving Time brought the advent of evening earlier than I am used to. At five PM the sky is already one big patch of dark grey, stretching as far as perceived. The coming of darkness also propelled the outdoor temperature to drop precipitously that it matched the evening's gloomy mood. Like a pair of impeccable dancer they waltzed their way across the city in dashing fashion, enveloping everything with shadowy darkness. The lamp post, in anticipation of dark encroachment, one by one, stood sentry and fired back with its bright but listless luminescence, pushing back the advance of darkness to an acceptable position. The coldness, however, remain unchecked, and shrouded the city with unseen chill.

Sitting inside a warm and aromatic coffee house, I directed my gaze at the small patio outside. Under a red and white awning sat a few coffee drinkers, their mouth moving animatedly, laughing at some clever remarks. At this instant my phone rang. The caller ID shows a number from Taiwan:

Me: "Hey mom, what's going on?"
Mom: "Oh nothing, just checking up on you. Are you well?"
With stifled enthusiasm I replied: "Well, not so much, but my first grad school application has been accepted."
Mom: "Great, congratulation! How much will it costs?"
Me, a little put off by this question, appearing so early in our conversation: "Well, I am guessing around $........."
Mom: "Oh, that's not bad. With your current job you will have no problem."
Me: "Well, I may have to quit my job. The schedule won't fit." (Having said this, I can already detect her silent alarm.)
Mom: "Then how are you going to pay for your bill, your rent?"
Me: "I will get by with my savings and a few part-time job, of course."

So the conversation ended on my shaky financial underpinning in the future. No word on what school I will be attending or what program I will be studying was brought up. The whole conversation covered exclusively of my solvency. At once I was plunged into the embrace of my dear old friend melancholy. Not that I expected anything so different. I had come from a philistine family that values higher education as nothing more than a pedantic badge that one wears across the chest. I rested my forehead on my palms, elbow resting on the table, unable to read, all the blood in my brain coagulated into an unmoving solid. I tried to check the time on my watch, normally resting on my right forearm, only it was not there today. I searched frantically on and under the table, gleaned my backpack for any trail, but none were found. I had come to love that $40 Casio watch especially because it was purchased in Singapore almost two years ago, the only surviving souvenir from that city state.

I heaped my books and newspaper into the backpack, heaved a silent, introverted sigh, vacated my favorite table by the window and stepped out into the cold.

2005-10-30T00:24:00.000-07:00

As the adults immersed themselves in wine and dine and lively conversations, the child and the dog were having fun too.
Lemon the dog: "Hey, what have you got there?"
S. the baby: "Cracker, yummy."
Lemon: "Oh, if only I could get a bite!"
S.: "Not today, pal."

Are they the cutest or what!? :)

2005-10-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

The street lamps that dotted along the pavements worked in collusion with the evening fog to create a sad, lonely look. The campus is devoid of its daytime traffic and bustle at such a late hour. I hurried along in silence, hoping to catch a professor that always taught a night class on this certain day. The route of which I am taking is the same that I took one and a half year ago, with the same patch of lustrous grass that was always too wet for sitting down; the same red brick building with that insouciant solemnness that curiously resembled many of its engineering students; the same cafe with its outdoor patio that my classmates and I spent countless hours toiling over term papers and finals; and the same school newspaper stands that I was so involved in putting in articles that no one on campus really cared for. Everything seemed to be unchanged, only that they now carried a gradual aging look -- if ever so slightly perceived -- a newfound forbearance.

After seven minutes of walk, cutting through the stillness of the wet, cold evening air, I descended into a short staircase that lead to the entry of the Journalism department. Upon entry I was greeted by the familiar luminous corridor, with the faint creaky sound underneath each step, and the plastered walls that are perpetually adorned by postings seeking student internship and scholarship. A clear, distinct sound of typing on keyboard can still be heard, as it was the same when I first started. I stole a glance inside the slightly cramped newsroom. The four rows of colorful but antiquated eMacs that spelled out defiance to Windows have now a slightly mawkish look. As usual, no one looked up or took notice that a stranger is physically present at the threadbare office, as each writer busied him or herself with the approach of deadline. I scanned each face and profile as discreetly as I could, and found no one I knew.

I made my way to the professor's office, located on the other end of the building. Luckily his light was still on. I gave a couple of light knock on the steel door and was granted entry by a muffled sound of "Come in." I gave him a handshake and briefly explained the reason why I had come to his office. In his avuncular and affable tone he enquired of my current employment and my educational goal. After some exchanged pleasantries he granted my request for a letter of recommendation that will be used toward the application of another Library Science program. I thanked him and took my leave.

Though extremely tired from working and driving to school afterwards, a sense of exorbitant nostalgia swelled like a high tide that I couldn't pull myself to leave. The derelict building in which I was in was indeed the embodiment of my youthful happiness and transgressive ambition. The warm corridor calmed my nerves. I chose a bench along the wall to sit down and closed my eyes to imagine the clangor in the former days. None so distinct other than that lonely soul typing against the approach of deadline.

2005-10-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had a chance to taste an authentic Japanese household dish Okonomiyaki done in Hiroshima style. My dear neighbor Mr. and Mrs. F. and their little baby girl invited me and my landlord and landlady and roommate over for dinner. And as everyone got hold of the news that I will be attending graduate school at San Jose State University next year, my landlady surprised me with a lovely homemade cheese cake that is dedicated to my acceptance by the university. Words alone cannot express my gratitude.
In a nutshell Okonomiyaki is Japanese style pancake cooked with various vegetables and meat and seafood, splashed on top generously of Japanese mayo and Okonomiyaki sauce. The cooking is done right on the dinner table, as everyone can decide what ingredients to be put on. What delicious taste!

Our host Mr. and Mrs. F. are originally from Japan. They are in the antique/second-hand clothes and furniture trade. Their cozy apartment is furnished in a stylish 50's and 60's motif, in which every single piece of furniture was a result of a treasure hunt throughout Southern California antique mall and swap meets. They just had a baby about one year ago. She is such a darling.

On occasions as such we cannot skimp on the flow of alcohol. Every imaginable alcohol was at our disposal. To start out we celebrated with champagne, followed by Asahi beer, Japanese sake, California zinfandel and syrah. Of course, being a non-drinker, I abstained from but the champagne.

Everyone talked a great deal. The obvious advantage of living in a Japanese community is that I get to improve my paltry comprehension of spoken Japanese language. The conversation in general would zigzag between English and Japanese, and here and there I would catch a gist of their saying in Japanese. Everyone here is so incredibly nice and generous. At almost 12 am we thanked our gracious hosts and sauntered back to our apartment, feeling the sharp cold night air and watched the few stars sparkled above.
As I sit in front of my iBook and reminisce over our dinner party, I couldn't help but to feel a swelling of deep, sincere gratitude toward everyone that I got to acquaint since my moving here about five months ago. As much as I complain about living in Southern California, about how much I dislike living in the suburbs, I bethought myself as very lucky to have met the nicest people around. Being with them tonight made me forget my melancholy; they made me enjoy life.

2005-10-22T23:17:00.000-07:00

Just as I finished my last blog entry at the local Starbucks, worrying as ever about the upcoming GRE, went home with my brain boiled with chagrin, a blissful letter arrived unannounced, giving me the first surprise of the year.

2005-10-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

The ashen gloom that has been enveloping the city for the past week stubbornly refused to cast its melancholy elsewhere. It remained stationed, showering the city on occasion with fine mist that doesn’t require the use of umbrella, but nevertheless would moisten the lens of my glasses, filtering the way I perceive. At night it would drop heavy doses of raindrops with a clatter, making my sleep a wakeful event.

Something ghastly is slowly and noiselessly making its approach, piquing at my mind, tearing away piece by piece the buffer zone that is known as time. That something is a date: 11/15/2005. On this day I will put forward all I have worked for so far into one standardized test, the minatory GRE, and it’s supposedly to have significant implication as to what my future holds. It’s only a month away till judgment day. I had started my preparation sometimes around July, but my efforts so far has been halfheartedly proceeded for procrastination is the only personal quality I can boast of. Instead of toiling away on nonsensical geometry and algebra equations, or laboriously trying to memorize the secondary meaning of the word august, I instead indulged myself in reading Henry James, Franz Kafka, Thomas Hardy and Milan Kundera.

The two dog-eared GRE preparation books that had gathered a good amount of nonchalance are once again excavated from the ignored section of my bookshelf. I still remember the frisson of toward the books when it arrived from Amazon during the summer months. I glanced over the verbal section, of which the alien words still somewhat remain decipherable, though not entirely familiar as before when I had started memorizing with flash cards. Letting out a sigh, with a horrid feel, I turned over to the deadpan math section. It’s been how long since I last sat in a math class, I soliloquize to myself. I faintly recall of my college sophomore math class, where which I took much pummeling in trying to get by with a passing grade. That I did, with much relief, and I had never once again looked back at the queasy numbers. Then -- despite my immaturely thinking, I was actually happy -- I didn’t have the foresight and ambition of going to graduate school. I was too proud, too boastful, thinking that further schooling will only have hampered my bright career that is sure to take off right after college. How wrong have I estimated, and by such a wide margin! In the actuality that is today, I look about of what I have and achieved -- so little, so hollow, so sad.

With great reluctance, page by page, I meandered through the first few sections on the GRE math. As I am clarifying the meaning of integers and prime numbers and so on (and trying to stay awake), my fleeting eyes unconsciously shifted its gaze to the new novel I had just started, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty. I let myself succumbed to the bookish temptation, read unsatisfactorily for 20 pages or so, and got back to studying. However by this time, my arithmetic spirit has already been disabled, ceasing all functions. “Come back tomorrow,” the sign reads.

2005-10-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

http://voluntaryconfinement.wordpress.com/

I want to give WordPress a try. Basically the contents are identical. Just different lay out.

2005-10-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the best way to de-stress is a game of catch-the-bone with Lemon. She is happy. I am happy.

2005-10-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

C. and I reminisced over dim sum at a crowded and noisy restaurant. We have not seen each other since our college days. And upon our meeting we extended courtesies to one another way over what was proper, considering that our friendship was quite beyond superficial means. Pleasantries were exchanged to and fro. I asked of her recent developments; she in response inquired of my life after university. There was an odd hesitation in me that I did not feel comfortable to divulge my current life over to this person that I at once felt to be indispensable. By the same token I did not venture in areas that I consider to be overly personal.

Shrimp dumpling was brought first to our table. The waiter spoke at first in rapid Cantonese, of which I failed to fathom, then changed to a softer tone in mandarin, asking if we would like to try the special-of-the-day dish. At present the ashen noon sky begun falling heavy raindrops that, despite the chattery noise confined in the restaurant, a muffled sound of rain splashing against pavement can be heard continuously. The hot steam emitting from the BBQ pork bun looked especially tantalizing at the advent of falling rain and temperature.

Just as I was fumbling with the paper wrapper of the bun, the questionary floodgate of C. that I have known so well over the years is finally open and let loose (Is it the rain?). Deep, hardball questions were thrown at random at a rate that I couldn't take two bites before giving answers that were deemed satisfactory to her. By the time at which she needed to take a sip of the lukewarm oolong tea the steam of the bun had already evaporated. Of course I don't feel sorry; this is the C. that I adore.

One by one the dishes came: Chicken feet (C. would never touch), pork dumpling and shu-mai, HK style noodle, rice-noodle sheet with shrimp and fried bread, sesame rice ball, and mango pudding (C.'s favorite). We ate slowly and joyously. Our lunch must have taken more than two hours (there are many people waiting outside for tables), of which not a moment passed without one of us uttering a notion that is of interest. I was glad to hear that C. has found life to be agreeable. Of all the people I know in our university department she is after all the few who have actually realize her dream of working in the field of press. She satisfied my curiosity about the actual field by answering each inquiry with much animation. In doing this service to me I felt my miseries were unclouded.

We bid goodbye at the front door. The rain is falling like fine needles at a much slower pace. C. will already be leaving Los Angeles without really stepping in. She wished me luck in my endeavor in finding a more suitable life. I watched her ran to her small rental car and saw her drive off. I am always the one watching over others move on -- I couldn't help but to feel.

2005-10-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

I walked and walked, taking each careful step, looking about the prim surrounding, unused to the dispeopled pavements of downtown, wandered from 6th Street to 1st Street and back to 8th Street. There is nothing in particular that I wish to see, only that the act of walking and perceiving at random has a soothing effect upon my conscience, of which the feeling of dissatisfaction continues to fester itself.

I started off at the Central Library. Seeing rows of books carefully catalogued has a salutary feel, yet I felt no inclination to pick one out and render my concentration to reading. Last night I had just finished reading Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, in which a conversation between Isabel Archer and Caspar Goodwood toward the end had a most striking point. I can't quite recall the sentence verbatim, but it has a close likeness to as such:

“Part of your life is a mistake, but please don't throw away the rest."

Has my choice of occupation, of residence and of my study a series of mistakes too? that in going with the current, instead of against -- and suppressing the capricious undercurrent in me to do otherwise -- will I further surrendered my remaining youth to conform to the wishes of others?

As I walked and brooded, without my knowing it, the Walt Disney Concert Hall's various angular arches, protruding proudly toward the blue sky, gleamed in the foreground and caught my unperceived attention. The steel vastness of the structure spell out magnificence, as anything Frank Gehry laid his hand on; and its glistening surface, in synchronization with the sunlight on top of the city, represented the grandeur of new Los Angeles. I stood motionless by the structure, head tilted, struck in awe. The building is near-perfection. Scratch out "Walt Disney" and replace it with something more elegant and imaginative, then we can talk about perfection. I never thought a cluster of steel can be rendered into a structure of such that exudes softness and elegance.

Looking about me it seems there might be a concert tonight. Scattered at every intersection were "Do Not Enter" or "Road Closed" placards awaiting their upcoming duty. It's my wish to someday attend an event as such. When will that take place I do not know. After walking around the structure and its attached garden, I proceed into the inner. The interior is pronounced by the modern marriage of soft wood and steel and glass. The staff members standing by, looking professional yet obliging at the same time, were very eager in explaining the intricacies of every nook and crevice. The box office also offers 45 minute walking tour of the building inside and out for $10. Instead I chose the touristic thing to do: picking out an $20 T-shirt at the gift shop, on which the famous design sketch by Gehry is imprinted.

After my self-appointed tour of the Concert Hall, and a brief walk over to the less-spectacular Ahmanson Theatre right next door, I started back for the library. On my way back, while passing the MOCA, an handsome man and a beautiful blond woman were arguing viciously in foreign tongue that I couldn't make out of what origin. Their quarrelsome conversation did not cease even of my passing by -- they were quite oblivious at this point of their argument. The deserted streets of downtown on a Saturday give liberty to anything one's mind gives to.

The furtherance of my walk, while dusk is slowly making its introduction to the disappearing daylight, made me perceive more things that are characteristically of downtown. The loud police siren, sounding more penetrating and luminescent amidst the tall glass and steel buildings, has a more urgent feel to than those that sound off at monotonous suburbia. Every two block that I traverse a beggar, hatchet-faced, with plastic cup in hand, would ask for my generous donation. Each I refused in affront fashion; it pains me to think of their daily struggle for subsistence.

Inevitably my daily struggle with my conscience will continue for a while, as my logic can only arrive at such inconclusive conclusion. My life is hung in the balance; how long will it be I am still in the dark. The tunnel of unknowing extends itself infinitely, torturing my senses, frustrates my equilibrium, and always gives ominous warning for the next stop.

2005-10-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

Placid mind set + Ennui = Nothing to blog

2005-10-08T15:41:00.000-07:00

I like IKEA. I dread IKEA. I like IKEA for its egalitarian affordability and the colorful catalog. I dread IKEA for having to spend an afternoon assembling a piece of furniture that is furnished with a primitive drawing of instruction that I could never decipher what goes where. But, hey, where else can I find such a place with a $30 new book shelf, and the beauty of not having to deal with a furniture sales person? Plus, going to IKEA means I get to browse the mind-boggling selection of Swedish food products. On the way there I stopped at a cafe for a light breakfast (its seldom that I eat breakfast and eat out). Coincidently the Financial Times is running an article about 25 influential billionaires in which the founder of IKEA is featured as number 22. Interestingly the Swedish consul general in San Francisco is quoted saying, with a great degree of condescension: "In Sweden, going to IKEA is like going to the supermarket to buy paper towels in bulk. But in America, IKEA is a wonder of super design."

After I hauled the tightly-packaged heavy planks home, despite my wishing to enquire Isabel's progress in The Portrait of a Lady, I set to work, tearing away the cardboard packaging and tried not to be overwhelmed by the work ahead. I tried to ascertain that none of the screws are missing (it happened to me once before). The instruction is as convoluted as ever, despite of IKEA's endeavor in trying to simplify the process by including no written words.

After much fumbling a rough outline is sketched in my constructive mind as to what goes where and how many screws are needed to secure it from falling apart. I cajoled, caress, entreating to the planks that they shall fit snugly. While the planks were cooperative, the screws were not. They are like a bunch of wild puppies, running around misbehaving, refusing to be housebroken. I screamed, cursed, bellowed, hammered away vagrant screws, and finally the burble of defiance quieted down, the mutiny leader put to its proper place, the autocracy restored.

It's pleasing to the senses to see books that long littered the edge of my tiny residence finally to have found proper shelter. I put up the bookshelf against the white threadbare wall, cataloged each book according to its genre and authorship, my tiny literary heaven is thus erected and put to my disposal.

2005-10-08T00:42:00.000-07:00

In a nonchalant, dispassionate way I picked up the 6 iron and started swinging, aiming for the enormous dark night that hung listlessly over my head and extending into the far distance. The air felt cold; colder as the wind picked up momentum, enveloping my every sense with chill, yet my mind remain defiant, as, one by one, golf ball disappeared into the dark gloom, each carrying off a bit of my melancholy, my sorrow and my helplessness.

It was around 8:20 PM, after sunset, where no traces of daylight was left lingering, there formed a beautiful picture in the distance, where which the merging point between the dark night and the city's mechanical luminescence formed a dark purplish patch of ponderable size and luridness, and, with the help from the many fellow golf practicer, shooting stars disguised in the form of tiny golf balls were repeatedly launched skyward in haphazard fashion into the backdrop of purplish heaven. Wishes were whispered introspectively: "Get me out of here; get me somewhere; let me live my life as it should."

2005-10-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

Given Google's forward thinking in search and software, I am very surprised to have read Google Maps' labeling Taiwan as "Province of China".

Google has been very active in the news as of late. The search engine giant's dominance now encompasses not only people's internet search habit, but the various softwares Google keeps on putting out are now a regular stable in many PCs. I for one am an avid user of Gmail, Picasa, Google's Desktop Search, and the host of this blog, Blogger. I cannot confirm whether this is due to political pressure by the People's Republic of China, or simple ignorance on Google's mapping department. Though it is hard to believe such mishap can be attributed to ignorance or human mistakes, for just take a quick glance at any map not published by the PRC one can easily see Taiwan is overwhelmingly listed separately from PRC.

Just for the record I am in no way an hard-core, die-hard pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union member, of whom are trying to stamp out any thing that bespeaks of China or Chinese heritage, even if ever so slightly. I am quite content -- though not excited -- about Taiwan's de facto independence at this point in time. I just wish that Google would simply respect the fact that Taiwan IS NOT A PROVINCE OF CHINA! Every decision-making process in Taiwan is enacted by the Taiwanese people and no one else. PRC has no say whatsoever in how many potholes to fix in Taipei or how many F-16s we can buy from the American or whom we can vote to be our president and legislators.

2005-10-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

With blue sky and sparse white cloud hovering overhead, the exfoliation of the 405 freeway from traffic congestion, I and my friends E. and Y. drove northward to the world famous Beverly Hills, where vehicles that are valued close to, or over, six digits outnumber those that are fractionally priced, where even the most zealous bourgeois mentality would be humbled by the prevalent affluence so detailed in everything that the eye could perceive. Usually this uncharted territory remain to us off-limits for its flatulence and for our lack of Swiss bank accounts. But since my beloved The North Face store -- the only one in Southern California -- is situated here (of all place) I had no choice but to traverse the water that is privileged for the filthy rich.

Our timid, poverty-stricken minds are aggravated each time we walk the street of Rodeo Drive, in which looking at the well-heeled facade is like looking directly at the sun. Everywhere we see rich, tall blonde women with their thin frame clad in Burberry outfits and Hermes handbags, skittled in and out of their Mercedes or Lexus; and rich bald men swaggering along with their girlfriends or wives, not in any way inhibited by the scar left behind their brain by Dr. Bosley (the hair transplant doctor, the embodiment of hair loss restoration in So. Cal). However much we detest idolatry in materialism, we couldn't help but to lust over their much expanded economic power.
As we walked toward my purpose of this trip, while passing numerous designer boutiques, E. took the initiative to confiscate Y.'s credit cards lest she might on a whim bring back home the $900 handbag that has been the yearning of her soul as of late. I didn't have any say in this for my recent purchase of the iBook, of which I was lightly scolded for my indiscretion.

We reached my destination but came out empty-handed. I had precisely six items on my mind, but they were either out-of-stock or none were in my size. I had also planned on purchasing a new backpacking pack for my upcoming, nonexistent getaway that is scheduled at who knows when, and that also evaporated like a puff of smoke because of their inefficient logistical supply line. E. called it a blessing in disguise.

So the three of us combined to spend amazingly not a penny on our external decorations. We were rather happy about it. To celebrate our financial prudence (Y. termed it uptightness), we chose a Sunday brunch place and surrender ourselves to champagne, mollifying our tacit awareness that we are at the lower end of the economic scale.

2005-09-29T23:49:00.000-07:00

The nondescript arrival of autumn brought not idyllic setting but the much dreaded Indian summer. The stifling dry heat during day time so irritable to my nerves and senses that I can't concentrate on reading, and whatever was read was consumed on facile understanding. As I await for the advent of the cooler evening air to chase away the insufferable, there on my iBook screen appeared felicitously a banner for an advertisement for midweek getaway to Iceland. This truly aroused the little bourgeois itch inside of me, to emancipate from the world of sameness that I now reside, even if it mean to upset my financial stability in the short term.

My best chance of getting away is the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday that is to afford me four days off from work, by which an additional sick-day or two I would be able to pull this little scheme off. Yet as I envelope myself in resplendent gleefulness, there was something amiss: Everything is sounding too well; a hitch must be hiding in some dark, damp mildew corner, only to strike me at moment of most unsusceptibility. To attest to such inhibition that I hung around my neck as an aphorism, I began my search for airfare and lodging in Reykjavik, and surprisingly the results were most agreeable. Just as my planned trip begun to take shape in the form of actuality, the deity somewhere up in the cloud threw down the thunderbolt, graying my newfound optimism, and issued the edict that my parole had been denied, that I ought to be further imprisoned in suburban hinterland. The trip cannot be realized because, of all things, the Thanksgiving holiday.

What had originally been the initiative of the trip turns out to be in itself the slaughterer of hope. The leaving for Reykjavik requires takeoff at either New York's JFK airport or Boston, thus requiring my buying a domestic air ticket to the east coast. Normally a trip across the spacious nation is priced at around $200 to $250, plus all that weighty taxes going to the Homeland Security. But at such given time as the Thanksgiving, every single seat on the airplane will succumb to hyper inflation and priced over $500, before adding taxes (and I am only speaking about the budget airlines). The extra markup ruined entirely of my carefully planned expenditure and rendering it too expensive for the relative short stay in Iceland. As you can guess it, gloom can always find a way to attach on to my shoulder.

2005-09-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

EXTRA! MAJOR PROGRESS MADE IN DOMINGUEZ

By Michelin L. W. Y. in Los Angeles

After a day’s chaos in which the Dominguez Golf Driving Range was overrun by white bouncing rabbits, many witnesses saw major changes today as white golf balls flew straighter and farther, injecting new confidence into the shattered public trust.

Officials estimated the rate of errant hit golf balls were down at least 50%, a major improvement compare to just a day ago, where errant golf balls were estimated at about 89% of all golf balls hit. In one instance a golf ball was hit beyond the 170 yard line, breaking all previous records, while maintaining a straight course.

“I couldn’t believe my eye, as the ball traveled in such uncompromising fashion,” bellowed one witness, requesting anonymity. “It was a near-perfect swing, chasing away yesterday’s large number of rabbits.”

In an unofficial report leaked just hours ago, officials cited the average distance of well hit balls was around 120 yards to 160 yards. The report also gave few possible reasons for the sudden improvement, such as better concentration and relaxed handgrip.

“We don’t want to jump to conclusion at this early stage, but from what we saw the rear end is positioned at a right angle, whereby the force of the swing was able to be shifted smoothly from the right foot to the left,” said an official who is close to the workings of the report, on condition of anonymity, for fear of retribution for the leak. “It will be very interesting to see the development over the next few weeks. We expect further improvement as the swing is becoming more natural.”

The golfer known as Michelin, no relation to the author of this article, was unavailable for comment.

2005-09-24T21:56:00.000-07:00

In order to fill the immense void of my life I feel there is a need to acquire additional quotidian things to do besides my liking to literature and blogging. After all, a Saturday such as today cannot be taken up entirely with reading Thomas Mann and blogging about trifles of the day. I suppose one could, but hobbies that are of sedentary nature, when engaged beyond the reasonable limit, can stifle one's mental and physical health. In another word, I didn't want to become a total nerd, so that's why I have taken up the sport of golf.

With the help from my landlady and landlord and my colleagues I was able to garner eclectically used irons and drivers and advices on how to swing at the little white ball. Armed with my used clubs and clad in my new golf glove and Lacoste polo shirt (this gave me an excuse to shop), I strode bravely upon the hill of Dominguez Golf Driving Range in the City of Carson. The cost was $10 for 125 golf balls dispensed automatically as shown in the picture. Before embarking on such adventure, my twisted notion of golf is that of high-brow and exclusive -- the description is more fitting in Taiwan and other Asian countries. But here I found people of all background and age practising under the slightly murky sky, with patches of blue just barely visible from time to time. Laity such as I wouldn't feel intimidated.

Thankfully the weather is bearable, as wind breezes through occasionally to relieve the afternoon heat. I purposely chose the farthest open range down the corridor, careful so as not to show my unfamiliarity, I found the machine's opening slot to insert the $10 card, and after a faint ruffling sound a white golf ball was hoisted from underneath the fake grass, ready to be at my service. Without any ceremony I put on my golf glove and positioned myself to tee off. "Protrude your butt; interlock your left index finger and your right pinky; straighten your back; eyes on the ball", as I recall one by one the dispensed advice I got from various sources, set my mind ready; and with a not-so-reassuring raise of my iron, in one relatively fluid movement the iron-in-motion met the little white ball, and, indeed of sailing through the murky sky and defying gravity, it simply traveled on land and bounced thereabout, as if dancing and prancing like a rabbit on a gleeful spring day. Thus my frustration and misery grew. One after another the little white ball behaved like rabbit and refused to take off despite my hearty wish.

It wasn't till ball #57 then I saw my first successful launch. Of this swing I clearly recall, for I felt no constrained force on my hand when I hit, the fat part of the iron met the ball perfectly, the ball exploded, surging in air, and landed in one elegant and graceful motion on the pitted turf, the distance I judged to be around 90 yard. Pure joy. Period.

Of course, one great swing does not guarantee future success. Again, one after another the ball bounced off or flew obliquely, not to be budged into traveling straight. Periodically a good swing would ensue, erasing the bitter taste of previous failures, egging me on to try to reproduce that magical feeling of seeing the ball far off in the distance. At $0.08 per ball this is one high-brow hobby I can somewhat afford, but sadly only once a week.

2005-09-21T22:55:00.000-07:00

The calm after the thunderstorm made its impression by inviting the sun to lit up the city in its usual fashion. The clouds, so voracious in its appetite to devour any inch of blue sky this morning, gradually shed the melancholic dark grey color and change into an innocent white, and soon scattered around innocuously as if having no home to go to, a stark contrast to its earlier malevolent intent to wash away the earth.

Stepping out of the office, after eight hours of torturously monotonous work, I unbent my mental constraints and thrusted my face upward, to take in the fresh air and the dewy surroundings, where the usual primness is temporarily replaced by a glistening abstract texture. Suddenly I realize how long a way have I come to this junction, and how much along the way I have lost, things that are irretrievable and will never again be at my disposal, no matter how hard in trying to correct those mistakes.

I met up with Y. at a ramen shop. Y. showed me pictures documenting her sojourn in Northern Europe, where she made acquaintance of many great friends. In many ways I secretly admired, maybe even envied her for her personality, for her family background, for her temperament, for her liveliness and coldness, each alternating at irregular intervals. I've never made this impression upon her, for her aloofness towards people in general had prevented our friendship to gain any meaningful underpinning. Soon she will be going away to sojourn at some exotic corners of the Earth; and of her return we will once again nourish our lukewarm friendship with ramen and beer.

2005-09-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

Under the tutelage of the dark, moonless night sky, thunder roared faintly in the distant gloom as if to signal the inhabitants of the encompassing wrath that is about the befall this placid town. The town, as if heeding the foreboding, is devoid of its usual nightly animal howling and mechanical noises that the few insomniac souls find so unsettling. Above sky, dark cloud gathered thickly in a desultory fashion, ready to plunder the town of its dryness by slamming heavy doses of precipitation upon parched roofs and streets, at the same time discharging icy cold air to penetrate even the most profligate quilt so the person underneath will shudder as if encountering a nightmarish murderer.

A night like abovementioned, which doesn't happen very often here, is usually a time for brooding, for contemplation and a little soul-searching. A night as such will have befitted those whose temperament aren't the brightest star out in the galaxy, as I find solace in melancholic settings.

Yet tonight I will not succumb to such romantic feelings, because I've just put down $950 for the Apple iBook! Rather than a joy, it's more like I have just unburdened myself of an heavy monkey that has been housing in my conscience, impede my mind from normal functioning. The purchase made today at the Apple store is more or less a capricious decision made on the whim, given that besides the iBook, as shown in the photo, there accompanies an iPod Mini. The Mini was really out of my calculation, but since Apple is offering the Mini for free (after main-in-rebate with the purchase of a computer) I suppose such opportunity shall not be missed, though in reality I have no practical need for the Mini, for my entire music collections remain stuck in the mid to late 90's and span no more than a box full of CDs. But what the heck, I will soon as I find time to upload my paltry music collections (at mere 100+) into the cute green machine. Although I for one does not like listening to music while walking the streets, of what use I will have for the Mini is tough enough a question for me.

2005-09-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

It has been a while that a Saturday finds me unoccupied. Without obligations to perform work-related errands and other trifles, this day in suburbia Los Angeles I found delightful and relaxing. Such a day of blue sky and cool weather one shall avoid society altogether, so that however depleted one may feel, this is the day to recharge the battery.

This exemplary day is evidenced first thing in the morning. After I was awoken from Friday night's dinner party and carousing -- of which I was situated at the fringe of things, again -- I found myself in the mirror an element of freshness to my face. This is atypical, for usually I sport a more brooding, tired look. I don't know what attracted this tentative equanimity.

Then things got better. My Financial Times weekend edition rests submissively at the front porch, waiting for my tearing up the thin plastic enclosure and dive into reading. This week featured a very funny and engaging interview of "fashion supremo" Ermenegildo Zegna, and an equally excellent examination of how Google is changing the face of this planet. (This article is the first in which I found the phrase "pain in the ass" is used, not as a quotation, but by the reporter himself! But upon close look, the article is simply an extract from a soon-to-be-published book. My lively spirit is slightly dampen as a result.) I am often been asked why I read the FT because I am known to harbor no business aspiration and have no clue as to the workings of the financial world.

The clock struck 11:30 and suddenly I had a hankering for panini. It's funny how I crave panini on a regular basis. Yet whenever I make up my mind to disregard gasoline price and drive some distance to the panini bakery, I find the sandwich too greasy after a few bites and end up only consuming half the portion. Today, again, the same scenario took place. This the kind of irrational behavior I am so prone to espouse.

Fortunately a Coffee Bean is adjacent to wash away all the grease. This particular Coffee Bean had a airy feel to it ( uh, duh, the doors on two opposite ends are open). I ordered the cheapest item on the menu and chose a good seat next to the bay window. With the pleasant aromatic coffee smell and the euphony of coffee bean grinding servicing as the backdrop, I, in a leisurely pace, took up the reading of the FT and Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus. This is probably the only time I found suburbia Los Angeles moderately agreeable, as I am looking out the window of sunshine splashed generously across the paved street.

After some weighty concentration on reading (I found the opening of Doctor Faustus no easy read) there grew an itch for checking my email and blog. I vaguely recall an Apple store nearby where I could take advantage of their free internet service. The only problem is getting to my car. I have a tendency to forget of which parking space I parked on. So there again goes the searching endeavor amidst the spacious strip mall parking lots.

Finally I got to the Apple store and purposely chose the iBook for my internet free ride. There is nothing better than free ride, I am convinced. As I direct Safari to Yahoo.com I was surprised to find that someone had forgotten to log out of their email account. Great, now you are just tempting my snooping, eavesdropping nature. Please, people, clean up after yourself! The better sense got me to go to another iBook.

I suppose my battery is charged fully. But for what? for another week at the unbearable office, doing what I hate? I sometimes dream of my younger self reflecting upon my current predicament, shaking and pointing finger in disapproval; by the same token, an older and wiser (Hopefully!) me entreating for my undertaking change and not wasting my fleeting 20's. Such a compromising situation I find myself in.

2005-09-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

The Los Angeles International Airport represents ambivalent emotions on two extreme end. On the one hand is to see myself off, gleefully going through metal detectors and unconditionally surrender one's check-in luggage to be manhandled by careless handlers, leaving all chagrin in the world behind. On the other hand, one gathers in all chagrin and invidiousness when seeing friends off to a distant land, while conscientiously aware of the fact that I am still here.

L. and V.'s guided tour ended inexcusably off schedule. Normally I would let out a tirade on the tour company's unprofessional time management, but since I was able to see them off before departure, this proves to be a blessing in disguise. Of course, all this is done in a haste, of which right after work I had to maneuver in the midst of five o'clock traffic, darting this surface street and that, in the risk of getting ticketed by the ever-vigilant Torrance Police, only to be met by a discouraging spectacle of a clogged 91 freeway.

We finally met up around 6:30 and sat down to a steak and BBQ rib gluttony. After dinner, though with plenty time on hand, we wisely head straight to the airport to check-in early, in order to avoid the expected ensuing crowd. Certainly, when we arrived at LAX the crowd at the Singapore Airline counter was sparse, and the rigid luggage screening was done before the lines gathered momentum. With the extra time we saved from idly standing in line, we took a halfhearted walk through the duty free shops -- inasmuch as the items are not taxed, they were hugely mark up compare to street price. Then we ordered some coffee and ice cream shakes, again overpriced, and chatted till their boarding time.

Sadly, everything must end at some point. To see them off to their appropriate gate is to feel sorrow. We bid goodbye. As I walked alone toward the parking garage, enveloped by cold evening silence, my mind felt empty, drowning in abyss.

2005-09-11T00:06:00.000-07:00

I am gladdened by L. and B.'s visit to Los Angeles from Taiwan. They are on a guided tour of California and Nevada and were able to free up whole day Saturday to spend time with me. Being a host of a city that I am still quite unfamiliar with, despite my lengthy stay so far, I wanted to do my best to show them the site and sound of L.A.

I met up with them Friday night for some pizza and discussed laboriously of where to go, what to see. Of course, being an outsider of L.A. social scenes, my list of sightseeing were mostly tourist traps and shopping places. (We'd already decided to eliminate theme parks -- Disneyland, Universal Studios, Sea World -- to avoid long lines of waiting for a two minute ride.) The important thing is that we get a chance to catch up on our much diverged life. We made an easy choice of taking in some Pacific Ocean breeze and let loose our shopping DNA.

We headed to the Santa Monica Pier from Fullerton, where their hotel is situated. Not to stray off topic, but I feel an undercurrent of need to file a grievance: Los Angeles is too @#%^&* BIG! Of our commute to and fro Gardena-->Fullerton-->Santa Monica-->Beverly Hills we very likely have spent a big chunk of our time idling in traffic and taking in the monotonous view of our fellow motorists, whom were equally amused by looking at us. Mass transit is literally nonexistent.

After some walking around on the pier we sat down at a Johnny Rockets for lunch, where they thought the hamburgers were too dry. Our bill for three persons turned out to be about $40! While we window-shopped we also saw many beautiful dogs on leash while their owners leisurely stroll through 3rd Street Promenade. We generally agree that dogs in the U.S. enjoy better treatment than those in Taiwan, where basic animal right is not taken for granted.

The day ended fairly quickly. I am really sad to see them go. Their guided tour and my working schedule will lend us no more time together. Of however little time we have, we chatted a great deal of our lives now. It seems as if we were transformed back in time, by which we were in our early student days (L. and B. are still attending university) and looks forward to life immensely. In reality, I have shed my studious carapace and put on a new one that is awkward and unfamiliar still. L. and B., I hope you will have more fun during the remain of the trip.

2005-09-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

Please smack me across my forehead, for I've just dropped down US$50 on a computer mouse. The culprit here is the Apple Mighty Mouse, the signature Apple white aesthetic notwithstanding, the gadget itself is more or less retrograde for the fact that it is wired and costs more than a wireless. What is "evolution" (more like a concession to the PC world) about it is Apple's threshhold of left and right click, whereas previous models all featured single click annoyance. At first use the mouse is a bit ungainly, where the sensor system of deteching left and right click is a bit difficult to master (I got so frustrated at one point I was thinking of returning it); but afte a little more use the mouse works perfectly just like any other. Why do I spend my hard-earned dollar on such frivilous things I do not understand. Someone has pointed out that my vanity is the cause of it.

Earlier today I sat down to a green tea frappucino at a local Starbucks with my friend U. We got on talking about life in general and about how confused we all have become, when all of a sudden an incendiary question suddenly arose so unsuspectingly: Was I considering marriage at this point in time? U. confided that he will probably be engaged sooner or later with his girlfriend. Though we being in the same age group, the question has never protruded my conscience because all these time I am acting as if I were still in college and refused to accept the fact that I am now aged at 2x. Am I already at a crossroad where marriage must be part of my future consideration already? Perhaps I could be more mature and set my mind at ease with it, but doing so is conceding to the enermy. (The enermy here is lost of youth, vitality and the right to be wreckless and irresponsible and stupid -- I am somewhat influence by the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.) My equanimity is thus gone, whatever that was left to me.

2005-09-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

It has been an odd week, to say the least. What seemed to be an innocuous tropical storm, trespassing its way through the gulf states, turns out to be a wrath of nature so great, so forceful, so compelling that a city is practically flooded over and done with. The magnitude so unexpected that even the news media, so keen in their smell of blood, were slow to react to the devastation, until words got out that dead bodies heaped themselves in great numbers alongside streets and evacuation centers. One photo so telling of New Orleanians' blight as I saw on the cover of the New York Times.

On the other hand, what is even more surprising than the damages caused by the hurricane is the general nonchalance exuded by most people that I come in contact with. Unlike the war in Iraq or 911, of which so much emotions and enthusiasm were on display, the catastrophe in the gulf states is seldom discussed by the water cooler. Or maybe the people I hang out with are so dim-witted, myself included, that they just don't care.

Over here in Los Angeles the pulse of the city did not give the impression of major disruption except the price climb at gas stations. In a matter of 24, 48 hours regular gasoline in most stations have skyrocketed past the $3 benchmark, fueled by the news of damaged refineries along the gulf states will not resume normal function for a while.

Will high gasoline price dampen consumer confidence during the Labor Day weekend? where shoppers in throng pay their annual pilgrimage to major malls and outlets. I am most curious to find out. I for one have considerable lessened my desire to contribute economically to the retail industry.

My nondiagnostic depression is much under control these past weeks. For what cure there is I do not know, except that without my occasional depression I feel even more lonely and empty.

2005-09-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

One and a half hour of work to go till Labor Day weekend, as my mind is racing against the clock in anticipation, but the clock always gives a slow, almost motionless, impression...

2005-08-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

The desire for an Apple ibook waylaid my conscience out of no where and now I can't seem to concentrate for ten minutes without thinking of it. The white plastic machine has put me up to a pillory as if scorning me for not having one. I suppose the easiest thing here to do is just BUY IT! but since I am very careful with money, people have referred me as frugal, a skinflint, a miser, it will be next to impossible for me to part with US$1,000 on something that I really have no urgent need for. Alas, being sensible has its shortcoming.
# # #
And a side note on the news media: They all look alike. Where ever on Earth one may be, heavy downpour and gusty winds bring out the worst in TV reporters. As if an edict has been issued by some deities dictating how news shall be presented, seemingly most TV reporters can't think of any other clever way to cover a storm but to situate oneself (clad in poncho) on a desolate street, street light dangling precariously in the background, while been pummeled willingly by whatever earth elements there might be present. Can it be any more pedestrian, commonplace?

Image taken from Reuters

2005-08-28T17:01:00.000-07:00

Much to my chagrin the blissful mild weather in the midst of summer is finally coming to an end. The warm weather makes me feel lazy to step out. I opted to stay home with my landlady's dog, Lemon. On a hot empty day like this I feel there is nothing to blog about. Better get back to reading I, Claudius.

Actually there is something on my mind. Ever since Apple decided to up the RAM on the ibook product line, I have wanted to buy it for my mobile computing needs. My other Acer notebook works just fine, but having to carry around a 15.4 inch screen notebook all day isn't exactly the smartest thing for one's shoulder. If only there is a consumer appetite suppressant pill to take I wouldn't be here agonizing over this trifle (it really is killing me). When I asked Lemon to reflect on this dilemma, she yawned and went back to sleep...

2005-08-20T22:06:00.000-07:00

Despite record-high gasoline price, hovering around $2.70 a gallon, my friend M. and I drove North on the Pacific Coast Highway for about 77 miles to the city of Oxnard and Port Hueneme, where we visited the beach and ate a good portion of fried seafood.

The short trip has that inexplicable charm that is so endearing to me, which is why I keep on coming back. The view of the Pacific Ocean along the Pacific Coast Highway entering Oxnard is breathtaking, though one can easily be snarled up in traffic upon entering Malibu. I think the view alone is easily worth the drive. The beach at Port Hueneme is clean, easily-accessible and parking-friendly! We had no trouble finding parking right next to the beach -- on a Saturday at 1 pm! The crowd at the beach is sparse, plenty room to go around for everyone. Children, dogs, surfers and city-dwellers all enjoying the hazy afternoon on the sand and in ocean water.

After two hours of strenuous walking on the sand and plundering sea shells, tired and mildly sun burned, we head over to the nearby pier and ordered some fish & chips and calamari and clam chowder. The portion generous and the price reasonable, probably due to the fact that the pier is also devoid of large number of tourists, which is perfectly fine for us. The $20 we spend on food filled us to the brim, and plenty to take away for the car ride home.

One side-effect of high gasoline price is that we keep vigil throughout our trip for the cheapest gasoline station, it is as if we were enjoying the number game while make fun of those who opted for more expensive gasoline. We saw one Arco on Victoria Ave offering at $2.63; Mobile on the same corner for $2.69; and a Shell few blocks down for $2.66 (On the contrary, in Malibu, the city of the riches, we saw a 76 offering at $2.99).

After filling up at the pump and on our way back to suburbia heaven, we came across a little strawberry stand called Red Barn. We quickly alighted our vehicle and went hunting for the best looking basket of fresh-picked strawberries. While we picked out our bunch, the convivial woman at the shop offered us a slice of their mini watermelon, which was great as well as the strawberry. So we drop down another $18 for two case-full of strawberry and a mini melon. M. was treating the strawberry like a child, shielding it from the sun.

The descending sun signalled for us to go. I took one last picture with the sun in the backdrop to conclude the day.

2005-08-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

I was exhausted from the day spent at the San Diego Zoo.

The usually sun-drenched SoCal is unusually cool for the past two weeks, while the rest of the nation is suffering from heat-stroke. My friends and I took the advantage of the mild weather and drove south to San Diego to visit the zoo and the city. Traffic on the freeway was light as we start our journey, but half way through our drive the congestion gathered momentum and I grew impatient at the slow path. On 5 Interstate before entering Oceanside we found a vista point and alighted to gather in the ocean view. The hazy sky, though in turn provided us a cool weather, did not present itself as a picturesque backdrop against the ocean.

The loss of one photo opportunity was soon replaced by another. As we were taking it the view of the ocean and the pale sky, we soon found ourselves surrounded by a large number of squarrel-like creatures prancing around in search of food. We did not at the time have any morsel to spare, but our fellow travelers have plenty and so I took some great shots.

Our spirits were high after our encounter with those cute little creatures. They turn out to be as entertaining as those beautiful animals we were about to pay $21 entrance fee to see.

Much to my surprise we didn't have to pay for parking charge! Paying for parking at major tourist destinations is as given a fact as human existence. Luckily for us the San Diego Zoo provided plenty of free parking for its patrons who are about to infuse large amount of money into souvenir and food buying.

The zoo is huge and well-kept. The giant panda is the largest attraction for the zoo. We had to stand in line for 15 minutes just to catch a glimpse of the giant bear chewing and savoring his favorite bamboo. I recall having read in a magazine that these giant pandas subscribe $1,000,000 from the zoo to the Chinese government. Judging from the crowd these giant panda garnered it seems very much worth it.

We couldn't help but to anthropomorphize the animals we were seeing. One gorilla listlessly squatted with a melancholy countenance atop the mountain, and another, looking a bit aged, sat stolid on the dusty ground with a protruding, portly belly. I can't help but to feel sorry for them.

The majestic giraffe stood 15 feet ground high. For some unknown reason he couldn't keep his viscous and long tongue away from the lighting pole, like it was a popsicle. The polar bear slept much of the afternoon, occationally teasing us spectators by tilting her head high for a few seconds. The deer, of what kind I can't recall, gave us plenty reasons to click our shutters.

At 6:50 pm we couldn't take any more walking. We call it a quit and abandoned our plans to visit downtown. The drive back home was more pleasant for lack of traffic on the north bound.

On the way home I grabbed a quick bit at a hamburger stand and soundly asleep by the time I hit home. There concludes my Saturday. I am sure to grow more morose at the impending of Monday.

2005-08-12T22:31:00.000-07:00

Late Friday afternoon, right after work is put away till next week, my hunger announced its arrival by making funny noise. My stomach yearns for something filling with grease. After much internal reflection and debate I've decided to let loose and devour a California treasure, IN-N-OUT hamburger! As of late I have been mollycoddling of my eating habit by staying away from junk food for as long a period as possible. That was successful for about a week. Amidst that time frame I couldn't help but to prefigure my physical being enjoying cheeseburger and fries that IN-N-OUT is so famous for.

Here in suburban hinterland IN-N-OUT serves as my oasis, my sanctuary where I found tentative comfort so as to prevent my total insanity outburst. Oftentimes I would bring my Taiwanese friends who are visiting SoCal to taste what a true American hamburger should taste like, for, not surprisingly, their cognition of hamburger are those of McDonald's or Burger King's.

Granted, there are many outstanding hamburgers served throughout SoCal, such as Island's, Johnny Rockets and many other I can't recall , but given the factors of price, accessibility and preparation speed IN-N-OUT is by far the best there is. One is always greeted by friendly staff members(I am not exaggerating, literally, every time), and they always take the trouble to inquire whether onion is preferred on or off the hamburger (one can ask for it to be grilled also).

Unlike many other fast-food chain, the menu at IN-N-OUT is pleasantly simple to follow. Hamburger, Cheeseburger, Double-Double, french fries and drinks. You always know what to expect and no nasty surprises (I found one chain selling a concomitant of burgers-teriyaki bowls-tacos-pita sandwiches). Price is comparable to any other burger chain.

But most importantly, what makes the hamburger here so special and tasty? After much reconnoitering, surreptiously, of course, I think I know the secrets are the followings:

Fresh ground beef (not frozen). Hand-pressed on the grill.
A mixture of spice and herb splashed (the concoction is thus unknown) generously on the beef patty at the start of grill to add flavor.
The grilling of bread with butter, to make it crispy.
1000 island dressing.

P.S. If only I could bring IN-N-OUT formula to Taiwan...I am a moron, my shot of the hamburger is out of focus!!! I was too hungry to be cautious to take additional shots of the burger and fries that this is the only shot I have.

2005-08-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

At Souplantation I see ranch dressing covering green lettuce on most plate. At Johnny Rockets ranch dipping is a must for eating onion rings. At McDonald's teenagers can't get enough of ranch with their french fries. At grocery stores the variety of ranch outnumbers any other salad dressing. Just as I got really curious with this ranch madness in the U.S., and knowing that many other countries around the globe don't even have ranch, Slate.com has an explainer on the phenomenon of ranch dressing.

2005-08-08T00:56:00.000-07:00

Having just finished reading John Keay's India: a History, I have finally gathered a rough outline of histories of India and its relations to Pakistan and Bangladesh. Finally will I no longer read newspaper articles concerning India with great zest yet with ignorance as to its historical implications. Just the other day my friend asked me where did I gather such intense interest in the affairs of India, I could come up with not an obvious answer (I have no connections whatsoever with the region, except I like the food). Certainly it has to do with novels I'd read in the past, whether it be E. M. Forster's The Passage to India (the British Raj), Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance and Such a Long Journey (the untold human tragedies caused by sectarian madness and government-declared emergency), Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan (the tragedy of the partition of 1947), or Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, each novel presented itself as a microscopic phase of history during the tumultuous period. And to be able to gather up the dribs and drabs of each history as told in the novels in a streamline fashion I gain an even more profound understanding and appreciation as looking at the big picture.

2005-08-06T22:39:00.000-07:00

A bright sunny Saturday provided a chance to visit the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. The price isn't cheap. $18.95 adult ticket plus $6 parking and a $3 pepsi. But I did get to touch various sharks and sting rays -- that's right, touch! The addition of bird garden was perplexing to me.

The Saturday family crowd was unrelenting. Pushing and elbowing and more pushing, just to catch a better view of clownfish or, as Disney like to call it, Nemo.

2005-07-31T00:33:00.000-07:00

The stomach illness resurfaced on Friday and I was knocked out cold. I guess my improvidential desire to eat a full portion "Tonkatsu bento" at a take-out place Thursday night was the catalyst for my retching all next day. Funny how one feels when retching -- the stomach turning, convulsing, writhing, as if all of one's internal organs were going to burst outwardly through the opening.

Having the possibility of retching-any-time, I resorted to staying home Friday and Saturday, perfectly wasting two days that could put toward improving my personal statement at the Central Library. I will be there tomorrow, though.

Despite my stomach illness my appetite has slowly crepted back to live. While reading Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey, all of a sudden I crave vegetarian curry at the local Indian grocery store. The intensity of this craving so exorbitantly I could almost taste the curry and basmati rice mingled together by one deft scoop of the fork. But having learned my lesson Friday, better judgment prevailed. It will be a few days before I can eat regular food. Now my diet consists of apple juice and plain porridge. This illness has set me back 8 lb.

2005-07-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

It's Thursday night and my brain is boiled with anticipation of another fleeting weekend. The monotonous cycle repeats itself week after week; my life slowly but cruelly chipped away, piece by piece, however small, imperceptible to eyes it may be.

While driving amidst Thursday late afternoon traffic, I have all of a sudden lost count of my real age. It took a few seconds of subtraction for the current year and my birth year to sort out the confusion, and the result was not satisfactory; the truth is always a little higher than what one would of liked.

The profusion of so many quality photo blogs of Taiwan, by natives and foreigners alike, is making my resolve to stay in the U.S. waver. What am I doing with my life as of now will surely contribute to my future regrets, or will it? Oh well, at least I still have my grad school acceptance/decline letter to look forward to in the next few months. To be accepted is to fortress my resolve; to be declined I might as well hop on a aircraft and backpacking in China till my savings are dwindled to naught. But the sad part is, I will never be that capricious. I will continue to whine like this and not take any tangible step.

Much to my abhorrence I have come to love Starbucks. No, I don't care much for the drinks, but for the privilege to sit and read without a bother in the world is really something else. Of course, some would argue that library would serve the purpose at no charge, but I simply cannot stand the 'aesthetics' of community or branch libraries in my neighborhood. The only library I adore, the L.A. Central Library, is too cumbersome on weekdays to travel to due to traffic congestion. At Starbucks I don't mind the coffee bean grinding noise or chatters from the table next -- they are what I consider 'noise of life.' Funny how milieu can change one's preference. At Taipei city I strongly detested Starbucks; at enervating suburbia the coffee joint is becoming my sanctuary from ennui.