job

i didn't get the job. they sent an email two days after the final interview.

i cried, of course. not too much.

i told my girlfriend that it wasn't the not getting it that hurt the most. what hurt the most was feeling like a failure.

i've been there over a year. it's kinda a relief, in a way. answering phones may be bad for me.

where to now?

Trying to become a writer (Dec 16, 2019)

Before the new year, i'm reflecting.

i had not abandoned this blog, but i had forgotten the password for a while.

so much has gone on here. you can read it in the history. in the archives. my words, my thoughts, my ideas: my pining for ana; my nervousness about finishing college; my self-doubt about being a writer; my early-twenties lethargy.

i've wrestled with the question of whether or not i have depression. i think i'm afraid to know the answer. i'm afraid of a lot of things. for example, figuring out my medical insurance. isn't that silly? i'm afraid of getting better.

i'm going to pick up where i left off on here. just sparse, ungrammatical thoughts. experiences i'm exposed to. musings about my french toast and d&d and yu-gi-oh: the abridged series (wonderful, by the way).

poetry -- my go-to hobby, now turned into ambition, now become writing every day, every day hoping to be published one great big One Day. copper canyon press, i'm free to talk.

kanye west sort of makes fun of people who say they miss the old kanye. well, i don't know if i miss the old me. i don't think i do. but there's something that i miss about the past that i don't quite know what it is. is it the people? old readers, old friends from blogger. is it the time of my life when i wrote here the most? living with my parents and still in college. is it the security of anonymity? knowing nobody i know was going to read my blog. (that's still the case though)

here's the wishing well i throw my heart into. that's this blog. that's here in this spot of the internet.

it would be nice if someone was listening up there. in any case, i'll still go on about my day.

Thanksgiving 2019

rain outside
sitting in the office
girlfriend showering
need to wash clothes
dinner at my parents and then her sister's
rain tapping on the glass
second floor
closed blinds
daft punk's "within" in the bathroom
heating shut off
water bottle down stairs

Hello, 2018

Hello, blog.

Hello, old friend.

Hello, old space.

Hello, old times.

Hello, old self.

Hello, old me.

Hello, the past.

Hello, the present and future.

I wanted to just keep you up to date with me.

I'm married now. No, just kidding.

But I'm still in a relationship with the same person. We actually moved in together. We've been living together for about four weeks now, and it's been hard.

Harder than I expected because of how different we are, personalities and outlooks.

Sometimes, I feel criticized and judged. Sometimes, I feel supported and loved. Sometimes, I'm afraid of her reaction to what I'm about to say or do. Sometimes, I feel like crying. Sometimes, I feel hopeless and defeated.

But does the good out-weigh it?

There is good too. She's loving and adventurous. She's smart and career-driven and independent. She handles her business. She just called me, asking if I want any lunch from Costco. She's affectionate. She said my cooking was good this morning even though I put too much milk in the eggs.

Life goes on.

I'm writing a book. I have my own website. I'm posting regularly on Instagram. I'm not obsessed with anybody right now. I'm in love with my girlfriend. I'm healthy. I lift weights 2-3 times a week.

I'm sitting in my home office right now. My girlfriend owns a house. I own a car. I work at various colleges as an adjunct instructor.

I'm going, I'm going, I'm going.

I wear dress shirts most days now. I just saw The Color Purple with my girlfriend's family on Saturday at the Segerstrom Center.

Life, man. Life. Life is tough and full of bills and bad neighbors. Life is full of showering and doing laundry. Life is worrying about next month's rent. Life is getting new tires after last week's 5-day tirp to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Life is putting everything on credit. Life is drinking enough water. Life is cracking knees. Life is managing dandruff and athletes foot and psoriasis.

I want to go back to school, to take a few general ed classes, maybe even finally finish my Associate's for no reason other than to finish it. I want to ride a motorcycle. I want to make money and have enough money every month. I want to finish my book and post it for the world to love me and judge me and maybe even notice me.

My phone's at 79%. I have to go teach a class at 5:30 in Garden Grove. There's gonna be traffic, so I'm gonna have to leave around 4 o'clock. Tomorrow is when Frontier is coming to hook up the cable. It's gonna cost $75 for installation alone.

I miss my parents. It's like I've sorta forgotten about them and my old home. I don't feel like this is home yet. It feels strange, like I don't have a home. My stuff is here, but my joy isn't...yet. I hope to make my life here, full of joy and happiness and pride. It hasn't happened yet. I'm trying--God, I'm trying. It's going slowly...

What is my life made of? What am I trying for? I feel so near to crying right now. I feel so on edge about possibilities. It could be either, neither, or both. I want to laugh again. I want to crack jokes and life without fear of arousing anger, suspicion, and silence. Is hope ever violent?

Relationship goals

I'm currently lying on my bed, texting a friend from school who's going to take her comprehensive exam on Tuesday. Haven't spoken to her in like a month, and before that, maybe another month, and before that, a few months. Not since graduation, I guess.

I guess I'm in the real world now, though it often feels unreal to me. Like, I'm not ready, I mean. This isn't what I wanted.

What I wanted to do was join the Peace Corps right after graduating. But I didn't do it. I met someone. I couldn't leave her.

I often ask myself, are you with her because you are happier with her? Or are you with her because you're too afraid to end things, afraid of the pain you'll cause her? I still don't know the answer, to be honest. Each day makes the answer more pertinent, lengthens the inevitable end or perhaps not, and I just don't know, really, if I'm happy anymore.

Wanting her to change, be nicer to be, be kinder to herself, embrace the world and relax her anxieties because they hurt me just as they hurt her. Delusion and expectation -- these two stand-in for hope; maybe they are hope, and always have been.

To contrast our worldviews is to play into the binary of half-full, half-empty. My assumptions make things safe; hers require her to guard herself.

I think I'd be happier broken up with her, but I'm happier not to break up with her. Another paradox, another expectation eating it's own tail.

Am I happy?

Do I want this?

I stood looking out into my future and I chose to stay here. There's no regret, no blame. But -- there's always a "but." But will I be okay? In this difference assumption, in this difference expectation?

I have not really planned my life, and maybe because of that, I haven't really kept it safe. I think the fire is in danger of going out. And I'm hoping that this relationship is going to help me protect it.

Sunday late afternoon

My mom is talking with our neighbor in the dinning room. My dad's cleaning the back patio with a leaf blower. Our cat's sleeping on the rug in the living room right in front of me. Orange light is coming through the cream-curtained windows like morning fog. I'm watching "Flip or Flop" on HGTV. They're walking through a house that has its windows boarded up because they share a wall with an illegal addition in back. I'm two weeks out from finishing the quarter. I care about a woman who recently broke up with her boyfriend. I'm a month away from traveling to China. I'm getting immunizations on Thursday. I finished my volunteer tutoring last, last Wednesday. I have a paid tutoring job on Tuesdays and Fridays. I bought Uncharted and Tetris on Friday. My car needs new tires. It's also leaking oil. My Pilot G-2 broke yesterday: it's nib dislodged and what was left behind cut into the paper. I wrote a poem about her family, and she said she liked it. My dad walked in and changed the channel to a soccer game in Spanish. My sister's iPhone is on the edge of the couch to my right. Our neighbor is so lonely ever since her husband passed away 15 (or was it?) years ago. She's crying now and talking with my dad about cookies. I'm wearing my pajamas. I put my phone into my pocket just in case she texts - but why would she? I wrote a poem in the computer lab last night about that guy I knew who died four years ago. Has it really been four years? I think its more like two years. It feels so long since anything has happened - so much has happened, is going to happen. My sister has got a text.

What do I like about myself?
Do I love myself?
Am I okay?
Why do I feel abandoned?
Why do I care about her but feel so scared to be with her?
Maybe we're not so compatible.
Maybe it'll never happen.
I should be okay with that, but I'm not yet.

She said she's going bar hopping somewhere in San Jose, gonna stop by Big Sur, meet up with her cousin in San Francisco. Our neighbor's daughter has invited people to a Fourth of July party at her mother's house. "It's not her house yet," she says in Spanish. Her daughter, her husband, and their three kids live with her. "It's not hers."

Trips

I'm gonna try to write this real quick because I'm supposed to go to class at 12 and I still have some homework to finish.

I'm currently writing a statement of purpose for a teaching internship to China this summer. It's through the school, and I'm paying a bit of money to go. Even though you can't tell by these related facts, I'm excited as all hell.

Something funny about this trip: this girl I like is going to, and I want to become teaching partners with her despite that I've more or less confessed how I feel to her and she's told me she has a boyfriend. There's a certain formality or numbing knowingness in our interactions, but she's a cool person, and I've taken to calling her "dude" and whatnot to get it into my brain that she's a friend.

She, like, kinda flirts with me? I don't know what's going on. Maybe I'm paranoid, but there's something to this idea. I think she does like me, but can't do anything because she has a boyfriend. But maybe she doesn't.  Sometimes I get to thinking and analyzing in my discursive, protracted way. I've gotten better about causing undue suffering to myself, however, by reminding myself that none of this really matters. i don't need her to be happy.

I've taken to repeating this mantra to myself to prevent myself from extra suffering in cases like these: "Consider what you want versus what you need." Meaning, when I really think about all that I have, in reality, I have everything that I need to be happy. Ancillary attachments are things that I want, in a false belief that they'll make me happy. I can be happy right now, if I remember that I have everything I need as of this moment: food, water, shelter, friends, work, hobbies, and family.

So yeah: going to China, filling out the application. It's gonna be a great time.

I gotta get to class soon. See ya.