The Golf Swing

The golf swing is smooth,
easy, flowing.
You don't force the swing,
or else you tense-up and the swing turns into a sort of controlled trip.

The golf swing is powerful,
weightless, balanced.
Its power comes from the hips;
you shift your body weight going through,
like swinging a baseball bat, only vertically.

Like a palm tree,
the swing is loose enough so it sways in the wind,
but strong enough so it doesn't snap in half.

The swing is calm,
peaceful, focused.
Focusing on only the swing,
ignoring all noise and movement,
the swing stops time,
until you release yourself and then it goes--high, far, easy.

Self-confidence and my voice; "You better get there before I get there."

A lot of the time, I don't feel like a poet or a writer, and consequently, I don't feel like my poetry or writing is any good.

I don't say this because I want people to reassure me my stuff is good, and to tell me all writers feel self-doubt once in a while; I really don't want people to think this is that kind of plea. I'm saying this because it's becoming a bigger problem when I write.

My biggest concern is finding my voice. If you ask me, I don't have a voice in my writing. I don't know how to find my voice either. Everything I write, from my blogposts to chicken-scratch words I write on scraps of paper, everything feels...phony. I don't remember the last time I wrote something that I've felt was really worth reading. Nothing I write comes from me. It all feels generic and uninspired and stupid.

As a student in a poetry class, I'm exposed to a bit of stuff from my peers. And although some of it is junk, there's a few people in my class who are just bad-ass poets. One in particular, whom I'll call Hydrogen, has written stuff that knocks me out. Her words, her subject matter: these things are definitely Hydrogen. There's no mistaking her voice for another. I'm astounded by how clear and comfortable her words sound, yet at the same time, how easily they seem to lay on the page.

I'm jealous, I'll admit that. I get uncomfortable when others are praised and my work is unmentioned; I'll admit that too. But these things wouldn't matter, I think, if only I were able to find my voice and keep it close to me. Keep it to remember. Keep it for keeps. I think once I'm content with my voice, I'll be happy to just write and watch as others take the spotlight.

Being an author

I want to write young adult or children books.

For the past two days, I've been reading Lois Lowry's Number the Stars, a historical fiction book set in 1943 Nazi-occupied Denmark. It follows a young girls journey of maturation as she discovers what bravery really means when she is forced to make difficult decisions in the name of saving her Jewish best friend Ellen and her family.

I immensely enjoyed this book. The simple, direct language and poignant story struck me as brilliant.

But the most astounding facet of reading was how much I enjoyed reading it. I don't remember the last time I looked forward to reading a book than when I was reading Number the Stars. And looking back on my life, this phenomenon has occurred more when I'm reading non-adult fiction than the literary classics. Paper Towns, Stargirl, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz are clear examples that spring to mind right now. I was pleased so much by all those books that I've read them numerous times, something I rarely do with the classics (Pride & Prejudice being a clear exception).

I don't know if I'll write young adult and children books for sure; it's not like I can stomp my feet and declare "I'm writing young adult and children books for the rest of my life and I'll be successful and it'll be the most fun job that anyone ever had in the history of having jobs!" Well, I guess I could, but: 1.) it won't necessarily mean I'll be successful, and 2.) it won't mean I'd be happier doing something I've yet to discover. But I've got a good feeling about this plan. I really do. And if I decide this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life, I'll move on as easily as a marble on a greased hardwood floor.

Dangit

I missed yesterday. I swear I planned to post! I only planned to take a quick nap, really. Too bad it turned into a full nights sleep. I'll post something else later today. Right now, I'm off to do some dishes.

One shot written in a parking garage (edited from the original).

The new engine made a weird vacuum sound as Lee threw the car into fourth trying for neutral as we boogied down the highway at sixty-five. Lee mashed the brake pedal. The small Honda jerked forward, stalled, then died as our heads flew forward and cracked against the nearest hard object.

"Lee, what the fuck, man!" I said through stifling moans.
My head was swimming in blurred vision. I was afraid I had a concussion.
"What the fuck, man," I said again.
"We could've died!" Manuel added from the backseat.
"Don't be a pussy," Lee shot back. "You wouldn't have died."
"Why did you do that?" I groaned.
"What if there was another car behind us?"
"There's no one on the goddam road!" Lee rasped.
I don't know why, but this seemed like an odd thing to me to point out.

No people in their right minds would drive on the 10 at three a.m. for no goddam good reason like we were. But for a city of millions, it was surprising how lonesome things became at night, especially the streets. Thousands of miles of paved ghost towns criss-crossed each other in quiet, homesick silence. And as I thought about all this, my mind felt...slower, like I had just woken up after only four hours of sleep and life seemed more fantasy than reality.

"We still could've died, Lee."
"No, you wouldn't."
"Why did you do that?"
"I thought I saw a moren flying," Lee said, solemn.
"A moren?"
"Yeah, a goddam moren."
Manuel and I looked out the window in the starless sky and listened. The balmy air was stagnant. We saw and heard nothing.
"I don't see anything," I said.
"I though I saw one; I'm not sure if it was or not."
"Why would there be a moren here?"
"I don't know why. I just thought I saw one."
I turned back to Manuel.
"You okay?"
He nodded. "Yeah, just a little bruised from the seat belt."
I turned to Lee. His face was covered by his hands.
"You okay?"
He stayed silent. I didn't think he was crying, but there was something.
Finally, he said, "Yeah, I'm good. You?"
"Yeah," I said, though I was feeling like my whole body had been soaked in water for a few days. "I'm good."
"Good," Lee replied, looking forward.

Lee turned the car back on.
Manuel was looking sullen on the way back, flashing occasional glances out the window. Lee continued looking forward. We stayed silent all the way home.

Saturday

My friends and I went to the L.A. Festival of Books yesterday. We planned an eight a.m. departure, but my procrastination and the fact I was driving made us late by one hour. We found little traffic on the way there, except a brief hiccup on the 405 exit.

Arriving at 9:45, we wandered around the small city of UCLA trying to find free parking; however, we all knew it was beyond hopeless into the realm of ridiculous to find such parking. Throwing up my arms in frustration (not literally, though, because I was driving), I caved in and shuffled into a parking structure. A whopping $10 was my punishment.

Fresh from our adventures in parking, we walked a short distance to the actual book festival. Immediately we went to a 10:30 panel on the importance of literature upon a child's imagination with David Shannon, Pam Munoz Ryan, and Kadir Nelson. I was the one who primarily wanted to go because I had to find my professor and sign-in for extra credit. I did find her, although I never signed-in because after the discussion was over and the authors were going to sign books, I got lost and couldn't find the signing booth. I looked for twenty minutes before finally giving up. Now I hope it was enough for her to see me to get the extra credit.

Afterward, we wandered for a bit, making our way to the comics on the other side of the festival (a good quarter-to-half mile), retraced out steps to the food court in the center because I felt lightheaded from hunger, then doubled backed a final time because my friends' lunches were in my car.

We ate in the mostly pedestrian-less parking garage for half an hour, then we all took an hour nap because we were all exhausted already. I tried going to sleep, but my body couldn't relax.

Around 2 or 3, we saw the Wayans brothers, Henry Winkler, and Alicia Silverstone signing or promoting various things. The sun was hard on our faces by this time, so we sought some shade and relaxed for a bit.

The day was winding down around 4 pm, but we waited for a friend of ours who lives in UCLA to return from a trip. We waited for another hour, but by that time we were all so exhausted we decided to leave without seeing our friend and hoofed it back to my car.

The return home was far worse than the morning drive. We spent a solid hour in fifteen mile per hour traffic. We got home around 6:30, having left at 5. We had some McDonalds, then waited until 10 at my friends house before seeing Kick-Ass. I enjoyed it, but I didn't agree with my friend--who had already seen it before--who place it in his top 5 movies of all-time.

After the movies, we went back to my friends house where another one of our friends came over and they started to play 'Kings Cup'. It's drinking game where you pick a random card from a deck and have to follow the corresponding rule to that card. One rule was called Heaven; when a person draws a 7 of any suit, everybody at the table has to point to the sky. The last person to do this takes a drink.

As one who doesn't drink (or smoke), I found the game pretty fun even though I was drinking Pepsi. Most of my friends were definitely buzzed by the time I took them home. I finally came home around 3:30 in the morning, a new personal best (or worst).

I went to bed and read the last pieces of Tom Sawyer before finally sleeping off the long day. My mom reprimanded me a bit for being out so late, but I apologized; everything was fine when I woke up this morning.

An observation in the effort of observation

Us:
You curled your hair two days in a row
in fifteen or sixteen bay ringlets.
You bought a blue blouse to match the shoes
You bought a few weeks ago.

Random lines

A thousand leaves singing
like a million marbles dancing
in the lagged afternoon sun.

-----

Your heart lies like a DVD case wrapped in plastic.

-----

This is us:
You curled your hair two days in a row;
You bought a new blouse to match the shoes
You bought a few weeks ago.

-----

"Stop standing there irrelevantly and help me already!"

-----

Why wear a bullet-proof vest in a tank?

Movie Night

I just saw Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, and I must say this: it is a horrid movie.

The acting's terrible: each line is delivered like it's read out of a fortune cookie. The editing is confusing: vaguely important scenes are shown for three seconds before cutting to another one. The pacing is choppy: the main character has no motivation, therefore there is a lot of screen time where nothing important is happening. The love interest is poorly executed: the audience is not made to feel like the the romance between the protagonist and the love interest actually matters.

I did, however, like John C. Reilly's acting. I think his was the best performance in the movie.

I give it a 3/10.

Monday: Today

I feel lonely. I feel frustrated. I feel slow, like I'm not moving, but I only think I'm moving. Like my mind shoots electricity at my muscles to go! but it takes a millisecond longer than it should for my muscles to feel the pinch and go. And in that millisecond, I'm scared I'll never move again.

Today I went to cinema class on time. We discussed American Beauty a bit and leaped into Apocalypse Now. I gotta say, the first forty-five minutes gripped me. Heck, the opening scene with the still camera and the passing choppers set to a lonely guitar riff accompanied by a skinny tambourine and supersonic whiffs of chopper blades really hooked me. When that shot exploded in erupting fire blasts and the music ran like nothing had happened, I was in awe.

I aced my history midterm. Twenty out of twenty. I also explained what nativism and Jim Crow laws were. We left ten minutes early because I answered that last part.

My mom was crying tonight for some reason. I wasn't there while she was doing it, but I saw her choked up before going to bed. I don't think it's serious; it probably has something to do with my defiant sister.

Tomorrow I take my children's literature midterm. I also discover what became of my five poems: did my peers reject or accept them into the book we are publishing? Maybe I'll write another poem tonight.

That's all I feel like writing for today. Sleep tight.

A Hectic Second Week of April: A Sunday Reflection

When did my days become shorter? When did my life crawl between when I'm driving to school and when I'm driving from school? When did relaxing mean reading my history book?

Last week was an out of control frenzy of midterms and assignments. Though there's no need to go into detail, here are some of the highlights:

--History midterm on Monday
--Tom Sawyer due Tuesday
--Number the Stars due, plus studying a lot of literature notes for Tuesday
--Questions answered for American Beauty
--5 poems due for Thursday
--Driving out to Chino Hills for golf

And yesterday, I helped my dad put down new sod at my cousin Frank's house. He lives with his wife and three kids in a upper-middle class neighborhood. We rarely see him because: 1. his job drains a lot of his time; 2. he lives somewhat far away; and 3. he's from my dad's side of the family, the side we rarely see anyways. Combine all three, and you'll know why I haven't seen him in about 8 or 9 years.

Putting down that sod was dirty, flesh-peeling work. First we had to remove about 500 square feet of dry, weed-infested grass. Luckily for me, my dad and my cousin did most of the work by shoveling and pure muscles. Unfortunately for me, I had to shake the excess dirt from the pieces of grass; otherwise, the yard waste bucket would be too heavy to roll. After an few hours of inhaling dirt, we finished and my dad began to level the area. My cousin brought lunch and we spent a half hour in the shade. Afterward, I started to haul the sod from the front yard to the back in a wheel barrow while my dad and cousin began to position it. Only able to comfortably lug four pieces per trip with each piece an easy 20 to 25 pounds, it took me some time to transport all 500 square feet from the pallet to the back yard. Towards the end, we discovered we didn't have enough, so my dad and I went to the Home Depot a freeway exit away while my cousin prepared to go to his son's baseball game.

When we came home, I immediately showered, and within half an hour, I was sleeping like I'd been knocked in the head by bowling ball. My joints and lower back were stiff as uncooked spaghetti when I woke up this morning. But helping my dad out and getting some endurance exercise felt fantastic. Plus, the lawn looked a lot nicer after we laid down the sod.


There's nothing much I'll add except to say I played nine holes with Leo on Thursday. He beat me by four strokes and won our bet of $1. The experience wasn't a total loss; I've gotten much more confidence in my driving. I'll probably be playing a full 18 holes with Leo and his dad (and his dad's friend) next Friday; hopefully I won't make an ass out of myself.

The Inconspicuous Burden

Now: I'm tired; I'm frustrated; I'm jaded; I'm disgusted almost beyond control. Why? Because I have stuff. It's not that I have stuff though; it's that I have stuff I don't need! It's too much.

This isn't to say I'm being unappreciative or childish. This is more an issue of extravagance beyond the necessary, beyond the reasonable, and of inflated desires popping impulses in my brain to buy things every day of my life.

It's just too much.

Why do I need all this stuff? Why do I need $600s worth of gym equipment? Why do I need a treadmill when I can run outside? Why do I need to buy a new phone if my old one is still working; and even so, why do I need to buy an expensive one? Can't I be satisfied with a cheaper model?

I don't need any of this; I don't need the burden of owning all this stuff either.

(For the record, I've never bought $600 gym equipment or a treadmill, but my brother has. I am, however, guilty of buying an expensive phone for no good reason last time I upgraded a few years ago--never again, though.)

So far so good.

I managed to enter that last entry by midnight. Woo! I've managed to continue the successful streak I began two days ago--barely.

I'm proud of the previous poem, actually. I guess my poetry class isn't so useless after all. (Kidding.) I wrote it last Thursday after I had a few nosebleeds myself. I looked down at my fingers to see blood splattered everywhere, including that crack the narrator talks about. I didn't really know what I really meant when I wrote down the words, but they came to me with unguided focus. After I finished, I put the poem away from my mind, not really expecting to come back to it. So when it was 11: 30 tonight and I had little to say about anything else, I remembered that poem, and thought it made a good point about family ties. Quick as a flea and with flashes of snippet editing, I managed to prune the poem and published it a whole ten minutes before 12. Yes! *Pat on back*

In other unrelated but more bloggy-like news, my day was as good as one could hope for. I woke up four or five times this morning, each time checking the clock in a panic because I had to leave my house at eight-thirty for an appointment at school, and each time drifting back to another half hour snooze.

I don't know why, but I've had difficulty waking up in the mornings the past few weeks. I feel like I'm moving underwater whenever I manage to get off my bed. Usually I wander in my house for a bit to wake up, turning on our kitchen radio for early morning dancing. But I find staying up is one of the hardest parts of getting up. Every bone, muscles, tendon, and nerve in my body is pulled down by an enthusiastic Gravity; it takes every amount of will-power in my poor brain to wrestle against going back to sleep. And usually, I fail--miserably. I've overslept numerous times because of my shoddy self-discipline. I don't know what to do. Going to bed earlier doesn't seem to work; neither does setting my alarm or having my mom wake me up (she forgets sometimes), and I don't drink coffee. This is something I'm gonna have to figure a solution to--fast!

So I went to my appointment with a school counselor, but it turns out it was unnecessary because the information I needed was available at Admissions. *facepalm* Definitely my mistake though. I shouldn't have lazied out of research. It rained on my way back to my car too; I had to walk about ten minutes in soft rainfall. Luckily, I managed to find a short-cut from the counseling offices to my car that was covered by roofs.

Afterward, I came back home after retrieving my wallet from Leo after I left it in his car on Friday night. Instead of studying for my history midterm later in the day, I opted to surf YouTube for AC/DC videos. (In my defense, I had spent the entire weekend studying, ineffective as it may have been: I only answered ten questions from the 55+ question study guide.)

I almost ran late for my Cinema class, but it didn't matter because class was canceled for the day. So I went to the library and cracked down hard on myself. I studied my dry history book for about two hours, poking and picking through pages of fire brush for very specific answers.

After eating my homemade lunch and reading Tom Sawyer for a bit, it was finally time for my history midterm.

I gotta say this: I was unusually nervous. I think it was from all the studying I did over the weekend. Studying only makes you more nervous because you're more likely to worry about things you didn't study. There's nothing else to say except I believe I aced the midterm with marginal clearance; I'm confident in a B at least.

Dude, you would not believe how light I felt leaving that clock-ticking-silent room. I swear, I was walking at a slow jog all the way to my car. I love the elation you feel when a pressuring deadline or assignment is completed or past.

And that was my day.

An Old Beginning

I'm a writer--always have been, always will be (I hope). But lately, I've been feeling deprived: creatively and emotionally. Sometimes I feel like the three-year-old me has been given complete artistic control of my verbal sketching (a horribly elitist way of saying the stuff I write) by manner of a magic marker to a white board. Believe me when I say most of the stuff my little self concocts is unreadable garbage--it's that bad. Sometimes I even think I smell the unmistakable scent of gas-station bathroom wafting from the poor piece of paper I have defiled.

But, I keep going, and I'm hoping that this blog with help train my habits and focus my mind so that my nineteen-year-old self can be given control; I'm sure that guy can do some seriously good writing (I hope).