Ophelia

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watercolor and graphite on watercolor paper. 5" x7". 2006.

she came into my mind this morning. i don't know where from...

this is what 40 looks like

i woke up actually feeling refreshed from the best sleep i've had in weeks.

had strange dreams last night. the last one before i woke up involved me going to las vegas on a triste with someone else's wife (it seemed like an ex-girlfriend perhaps) while she was on a business trip and i was tagging along, as it were. i remember limousines, a very nice hotel room, her conference guide (it had something to do with graphic design) and me shedding my suit and tie for a t-shirt, jeans, expensive shoes and an extraordinarily heavy jacket after we had sex and were headed down to the conference floor.

strange huh?

the rest of the day was pretty low key. i got out of bed early and started a painting of a maiden. the maiden started in a standing position but ended lying on her back and eventually turned into hamlet's ophelia.

grandma brought by brunch as she headed to the senior center and said she'd come back to pick me up to go hang out. there was a pyrex of pepper roasted chicken drumsticks and a fresh loaf of sourdough baguette. it was a wonderful feast, something so simple yet dear from the hands that made them.


at 13h45 she and lien picked me up and we headed to stanford. she was determined that i get a haircut and was willing to take me all the way to palo alto to the person i prefer. so we spent the afternoon hanging out in stanford and then i got a haircut and then came home.

quiet. oddly quiet day.

now it is late and as i try to distill the day i am finding it a much easier task than i could have imagined. i can't say why. i just know that i didn't make it anymore difficult on myself as i needed to.

perhaps i have learned some things...

40

i turn 40 on saturday...

it's now eight minutes before midnight. you would figure that for someone who loves words as i do that i would have something significant to say about turning 40, huh?

no. i've nothing to say. at least not now. perhaps i'll do it in hindsight and by then i'll have the advantage of being a tad older. maybe that will be enough for me to impart some shred of wisdom.

maybe. you can hold your breath.

i am not going to...

the history of light

watercolor and pencil on watercolor paper. 5" x 7", 2006.

for anesh

the poem below is something that i've found to think about on the day before my birthday...

Field Guide to the Night Sky
by Jennifer Chang

No one witnesses
the history of light.
The sky litters itself
with dust and I’m unsettled
by the steadfast burn
of thinking.
The night sky reaches
inside me,
I am sleepless
waiting for each star
to cross
into its corner, flower
then dim.
I do not believe
in paradise:
to flower, then dim.

Hi Miss...

ok, so i go out this morning for brunch and shopping with my grandma looking just like this which is nothing out of the ordinary. but obviously something has changed because today i got an unprecdented numbers of "hi, miss" than ever before. i mean ever before.

now, i'm used to getting mistaken for a girl when i have long hair (which it is not even long right now) a lot and it doesn't bother me. but usually it is once maybe twice a day, today for three hours in a mall everyone i came into contact with except for two (male salespeople in the calvin klein and some other store figured i had to be a guy as i was looking at men's clothing) stared me right in the eye, smiled then said, "hi miss!" they even said goodbye, "have a great day miss!" what the???

when i lived in the deep south, the girls i hung out with laughed caused i got more cat calls than they did. that was understandable cause my hair was really long and i'm little. of course then there was that time jamie's grandmother thought i was his wife's girlfriend but anyway i've never gone out for a whole morning in a crowded public place and have everyone think i was a girl.

perhaps it's because i lost some weight from being sick and my face is a little different? i don't know what to think. i don't think i'm getting a complex about it. all of you readers say yes please!

i just don't know!!! ;p

end of life

i could not sleep so i picked up the pad and a pencil and she revealed herself from the depths of my fatigue and insomnia.

this is the poem i wrote after i finished the sketch. i edited it this morning and thought they should go together:

END OF LIFE (oct. 26, 2006)

it comes not with surprise
nor with fanfares of brass.
it is more like a season;

the centered calmness of autumn.
quiet gentle slopes sheathed in leaves;
sheathed in quieting noises
that wrap like a gentle repose
descending over the detritus of
summer's extravagance;
summer's vibrant spectra.

it comes not in malice raucous
but in a rustle of twigs, leaves and feathers.
it is an awaited sensation;

the shy touch of intimacy,
silky stretches beneath terminal sheets
undulating like a sleepy caterpillar
anticipating the chrysalis,
expecting the drunkenness of
autumn's frugality;
autumn's monochromatic tones.

end of life does not argue,
does not try to make explanations.
end of life seeps like soothing cold
finding no resistance in tired tissues.

lying on toadstools

the quilted pillow i'm laying on was made and given to me by the woman who was my nanny when i was a little kid. she lives in vietnam.

Terminal
by Sylvia Plath

Riding home from credulous blue domes,
the dreamer reins his waking appetite
in panic at the crop of catacombs
sprung up like plague of toadstools overnight:
refectories where he reveled have become
the holstery of worms, rapacious blades
who weave within the skeleton's white womb
a caviare decay of rich brocades.

Turning the tables of this grave gourmet,
the fiendish butler saunters in and serves
for feast the sweetest meat of hell's chef d' uvres:
his own pale bride upon a flaming tray:
parsleyed with elegies, she lies in state
waiting for his grace to consecrate.