Dayset

Another Sunday in Paris. Nothing happened, so let's talk about another Monday in Paris.

The day is long. It's 9:34 PM and outside the window there's still a relatively pretty cloud formation with a nice gradient from gray, to sky blue, to gray, to the trees. Students, I think, run around in the stadium across the six-lane street, playing soccer on a hard surface. The feeling from having eaten a fourth baguette sandwich in four days, this time for dinner, is pleasant. Mango yogurt isn't as great as it sounds, but it probably helped get that feeling. With feelings you never know how they get there anyway.

Earlier today some students might have tried to start a bonfire on the campus of Nanterre in the spirit of the strike. Another train accident on line 9 delayed my host mother getting home, so my housemates and I went over to Carrefour, a supermarket that seems to be buried by the grassy park and baseball field above it, to find food to make our dinners. I got a baguette and some meat because I already had cheese and lettuce in the fridge, and mustard was available at home: €1.52 ($2.03). My host mother's sick and had a very long day at work that ended at about 8:15 PM. Geez. She's a soldier.

"No more lonely soldier." The phrase in my head has transformed itself from what it initially was when I was trying to sleep last night, "No more the silent soldier." I decided it would be better as "No longer the silent soldier" to make the meaning more clearly applied to me, but in any case I forgot to change my Facebook "self-introduction" thing where I'm counting down the days left in Paris with a small motivational phrase each day. Which means I've forgotten about one day. Actually, no, I'll use it tomorrow; I had something else prepared for today.

Sometimes people wonder what my motivations are and accuse me of things that I've never thought of doing. This is rare, though, and most frequently it's more actual that I imagine people accusing me of these things. So as to be able to rebut them if necessary. Maybe it's true, though, that those are my motivations. But if that's true then it's my heart, not my brain. And the heart is what I've learned I need to come to understand here.

The gradient of clouds has changed from diagonal to horizontal; at least that's how I see it. One horizontal line of gray, another of light sky blue, then trees. I haven't been this relaxed in awhile.

Another one of my uncles died today. This time he isn't one of my mother's brothers or sisters but he's a brother-in-law. So my Tita Ava lost her husband. He was 50 and just suddenly died of a heart attack. I don't want to be my cousins Yayan or Hannah right now (Yayan's slightly older than I am; Hannah is in high school or younger). That's awful. I don't want to know what that's like.

I have an offer to run tomorrow and get to the library. A dentist appointment on Thursday. Hopefully it'll stop the bacteria that are fucking up my teeth or giving me pain in my jaw or whatever they're doing now from running amok in my body. I wouldn't be surprised if they already have, but they're going up against one of the strongest versions of me I've ever known so they're in pretty big trouble.

Today I had a rare version of a nap, one that didn't end with a headache. And one that might even let me go back to sleep at a normal time again; that's pretty rare.

In Paris the time zooms by slowly.

2 puzzles solved, 1 formulated // Run away, run away!

I realized something now.

The back story of this doesn't need to be told really. All that needs to be said is that something that had a chance of ending without bitterness ended very bitterly. And I've been angry about it for about two days, not very sad but more angry. Not so much angry at myself but angry at the other person.

He's what I've come to understand.

One, there's a difference between sharing intimate details and sharing intimacy. I once fucked something up over someone I shared intimate details with and that hurt me to the core. This has also hurt me to the core, but differently. I just feel angry now. But I shared intimacy with that person, not only intimate details. A relationship with a person with whom you start out on a footing of sharing intimacy is never just going to be a simple friendship. You know the feelings and desire that you have for the person with whom you've already been intimate could be satisfied, and that adds a whole other emotional degree to the story. Hence, this is not an end to a regular friendship but rather to something different. To just call it a friendship is an insult to what it really is and to the word friendship. Neither one is superior (although there are some who don't agree with me on this), it's just that they're both very, very different. The thing that really hurts me about this is that I shared intimate details with that person that I haven't shared with anyone else. But there's always friends.

I guess you could argue that it could've been a friendship, but there just wasn't enough time for me. I would argue similarly that there wasn't enough time for him; he probably wouldn't agree with that or want to hear or see it. So it's over. I saw him, though, like what, 7 times? 8? Let me count... 7 times. Gee, a lucky number!

Two... all my life my friends have been almost exclusively straight guys. This being the era of analysis that bases itself on our differences rather than what we have in common (this is one thing that the French aspire to get right but don't), I noticed this and wondered what difference this makes. None. The difference exists when there is mutual attraction. I thought up until now it was potential mutual attraction. So when you're gay there's a difference, or when you get along without attraction to each other there's a difference. Wow, it didn't occur to me that this applies to my relationships with gay guys but it does. The idea of dealing with potential attraction, two-way or one-way in either direction, has always scared me and I'm not sure why. That's why I'm the most comfortable with straight guys (I don't know any gay women). But potential attraction really doesn't matter; either it's there or it's not, and there's no hiding it once you meet people. You just get along if it's not two ways. Why didn't I realize this before?? My point was gonna be that when guys talk about girls not understanding and vice-versa, it really doesn't have anything to do with one's gender but one's attraction. Maybe I'm wrong. Whatever, I'm just musing. But now I at least know that for me, with my friends, men or women gay or straight, unless there's mutual attraction, there's no difference caused in friendship. And that's a great thing.

And mutual attraction can do horrible, horrible things.

But getting back to this - I'm going to admit that the main reasons I decided to go to Japan instead of Italy for spring break were based on very shallow fears that have a lot to do with the above. For some reason, my mind feels like it's clearing up. I feel like it's because my real back-up, my real bailout, my real lifesaver, it's not where I am: it's my friends wherever I am. And that's a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Thank you guys so much for your help. And my appreciation for you, not my frustration at what's happened, brings me to tears now. (and better tears, because they go away faster... and allow me to save face, save face most importantly from my own critical eye)

Heavy doubt clouds

It's time to write a freewrite.

I'm broken. I'm not sure where to go from here. I realized that whenever I need help, I run away from the people who could help me the most and I don't know why. It's absurd. I don't know why this is true but yeah. Maybe I'm looking for one person who can help me with everything, and I still can't find that one person. This doesn't mean a person for romance - perhaps a said person doesn't exist. But the aggravating thing is that I am RUNNING AWAY and this really sucks. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm being completely irresponsible because I don't understand what I'm supposed to be responsible for anymore. I'm throwing words out, fishing for possibilities and the words are too good; they get too much and they snap my line and I have to go fishing again. The ideas are too good. Where am I?

I'm worried, that's where I am. Worried about my sister. About my parents, but mostly about my sister. About my relationship with her. About how I don't want to leave her alone in a critical time just like I felt I was alone during high school. I remember how much being alone hurt me back then, and I really do not want her to go through the same awful, horrible feeling. I wish I could tell her right at this moment that she never has to be alone, that she could just tell me everything. And I would, but that would wake up my host parents, probably. Fuck this. They aren't my real parents. I need to get back home.

For Easter. But I have a ticket booked to Japan; we're waiting on the verification of the payment. Let me check and see how I would cancel the deal and get 90% of the ticket back (e.g. pay a penalty of $100!!!!)... I'd have to do that before the ticket gets back here. WHY do people allow me to mess things up like this? I don't understand this. I guess they don't know any better. Either. They don't know any better either.

How could my sister have her first SAT on the Wednesday of her one-week vacation? Who the hell had that idea? Oh, my God, I'm worried.

I haven't spent much time with her over all these years and I really know that time is running out for me to make things better, to fix things. There's nothing left to fix in Japan; everything is fine there. There's plenty that can be broken, though. Am I testing myself by having me walk through a room full of antiques to see whether I break any? YES, I am! What the hell am I doing?

None of this occurred to me (with my sister back home) until I called and spoke to her on the phone. And as I was speaking to her, I half-attentively booked my plane ticket to Japan. It actually might have been the very instant before I started speaking to her.

Why am I fated like this? No, it's not that. I'm just weak against fate. I think that after something's over there's no hope, or that I am about to see in full technicolor before me the awful horror picture of what I have just messed up playing itself out. THIS is what I fear the most: this horrible horror picture of my own making. When I was a kid I couldn't even look at embarrassing moments on the movie screen; I would literally turn my head around and bury it in the seat. Even nowadays I laugh it away as much as possible and sometimes can't look - but everybody does this. But me especially. There are these pseudo-PSAs (public service announcements) on the train that... well they aren't even pseudo-PSAs, I don't know what they're there for, but they say, anyway

...I just lost the rest of this freewrite because AIM restarted. Dammit. It was getting to be really really good shit. About me being swept away like a pillar of salt and falling like a tree in the woods - nobody's there to see it. And how I really hope that God takes care of my sister and the rest of my family at home, because I feel utterly powerless to play my role.

Dammit. I threw too many words out and I lost the meaning. But the feeling is still good.

I need to stop. Somewhere. Along. The line.

I added "of my own making" just now to the "horrible horror picture of my own making" part. One thing you should realize though is that nothing is ever just made by one person. There is always outside contribution, conspiracy with the outside.

Which means that I'm not completely responsible for everything I mess up and shouldn't feel like the only one who deserves to be stoned. And most importantly - I am not alone in this world.

The parts before "The line" were all written in my AIM profile.

z

I've narrowed it down to two plans - Italy for 2 weeks, or Japan for 2 weeks. Talking to my cousin on the phone made me miss Japan terribly and long for it such that I wanted to shift from Italy, which I had been leaning to. Honestly, I know nothing about Italy, and furthermore have felt out of control this whole time that I've been here. In Japan I'd know what I'd be doing and be in control and see people I love that I might never, no, won't ever see all together again. That's a little painful. Not as painful as some of the other things here have been, though, like the recent hay fever that prevents me from sleeping until I get deadly tired at 4 AM, and then I wonder how I manage to survive through the night, breathing in the pollen on my bedsheets or fighting with the pollen that's accumulated in my body, I dunno.

I guess too much shit that I can't fully handle myself has come up here, and that's what it is that's really bothering me. I feel like I haven't had a good grip on things while I've been here, like, there's nothing here to grip onto. Here's another Friday of not doing anything. Actually, no; I had frisbee and I did that for 2 weeks (not this week because, uh, spring break plans needed to be resolved further). Well, here's another day of not doing anything that I would find really awesomely fulfilling. How much am I going to have to exert myself to get what I want out of this trip? Is the problem not enough effort, too much effort, high expectations, what? There's nothing that I really feel like photographing here. That's another thing that's bothered me more than a bit: I just don't think Paris is as beautiful as even the non tourist destination city I was in back in Japan. There's something I'm not understanding here and I, well, just feel a hole in my chest that doesn't belong there.

I'm looking at pictures of Italy now and 心から(from my heart) there's this feeling that I actually really don't want to go there.

Yep, I think -- I'm not certain -- it's Japan. And if so, it's going to have been an interesting thing to look back on.

Wow. Where is this place that have I been for 3 months? It feels like Paris, France, but without the "France" part. It's never really felt like France.

Wow

I'm feeling really enlightened tonight. And when I feel enlightened it's really hard to hold onto the thoughts. So I'm going to write them as I think along, here.

I'm watching the only politician in the US who I can agree with ninety-nine percent of the time, that being Ron Paul. Specifically, I'm watching this playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=67670E5727E6BFA4 You can tell he's going to be on his feet tonight because he starts off the video sounding pretty jovial and awake. Other times he isn't quite as good when he speaks, and he's no Obama (not that Obama ever really says anything when he speaks... it reminds me of paintings like Les romains de la décadence by Thomas Couture that everybody loves at the time but that everybody forgets because they say nothing important and contribute absolutely nothing to the progress or the development of the art), but this is pretty good as it is. It's the kind of speaker he was the night of one of the Fox News Republican debates, the one that really got me hooked onto him.

In the third video he's talking about how the bailout is throwing money at big companies instead of giving it directly to the people, while at the same time claiming to have an immediate effect on you and me. He concludes that they could have done exactly what they were talking about by "just getting rid of the income tax." Every liberal, and rightfully so, would call for a justification here. And I realized something: This is the exact same thing, except better than the bailout. In either case, the benefit is directly proportional to how much you earn. The dropping of the income tax (though sadly politically much less feasible) of course doesn't technically mean you earn more money; it means you lose less. But it has no effect on our national debt - pay attention, they're calling for a global monetary standard at G20, specifically China! Why is this a surprise? The whole global system couldn't rest on us forever. This is China calling bullshit with our citizens being permitted to stay rich on the backs of their citizens. What happens if we refuse to accept what they say? More importantly, what happens if we agree and then later want to back out? War? Global authoritarianism?

Or (this word means but in french), I guess it's really hard to explain these floating thoughts too. And I don't mean to say I know enough to be fully convinced of my own, um, convictions, but this is just what I'm thinking.

By the way, if you watch anything in the playlist, don't actually watch the video; the camera work is horrible, so just listen.

Here's how I see what he's talking about in regards to the Federal Reserve. If you try to prove something and it goes wrong, and your proof has n steps, you can blame it on the n-2th step (assuming that step exists) and claim that this step is the flaw. Well, that step may be flawed only because step 2 (assuming 2 is less than n-2) is flawed. Otherwise it would be perfectly acceptable. But if you take n-2 to be flawed in itself and then you try to do other math problems on the test assuming such, you might actually fail the test. This is similar to the problem with the US economy. Yes, it is wrong that certain regulations were eliminated from the economy. But this does not mean in general that regulation of businesses is a good idea and is necessary. If you go along with that, then you risk really killing your economy and your country in the future, near or far. If on the other hand you look back at the problems caused by the Federal Reserve's unchecked power, and its members' potential to be tied with the interests of big companies... ah.

This is what I'm pondering. Life doesn't give you an infinite amount of time to create an argument, and neither do teachers, so the argument I'm going to try to develop in my head is the one I believe in. You argue the other, I'll feel hurt, you'll feel hurt, so it goes. Someone's got to hurt eventually.

As for the income tax, well, apparently there's something constitutionally wrong with the amendment, and if that's true then it should be abolished. In any case, think about where the government money is going to: the rich, just not necessarily the same rich people. Yes, it allows poor people to keep their jobs. And if they lose their jobs, they're at the whim of charity again. Either way, though, it's getting money from the rich. I guess if you come to believe what I believe then you have to put faith in the idea that people will give sufficiently to charity in such a crisis.

I guess that's where my blind faith is going to have to go to complete the argument. It's tough believing and having hope for the future. Better than the alternative. Hmm... I have a slight headache.

The Strength

I have been under a spell of feeling not well this entire week, and I figured out today that I probably have hay fever thanks to Paris's seemingly nonexistent greenery and flowery. I'm pretty sure that I got sick simultaneously, though, so hopefully that part is gone. Well, I'm here and feeling decent at least, but very tired-like.

Damn, Paris is getting boring! It's probably because I didn't really hang out with anybody this weekend. Also, I haven't made spring break plans yet - should I visit Italy and London, or Japan? Shh... I think I might just travel alone to Amsterdam (bad idea???) to see Eurovision performers. Yes, specifically for that purpose. What, you act like I know much about Europe?

I guess I should browse the infinite internet or the really thick Lonely Planet guide for Europe in my room. But that's too much work.

I'm going to be home in exactly 2 months. It's 30/3, then it'll be 30/5, then 5/30, the (North) American way. Also kind of the Japanese way. Probably the Central African Republican way too? They have their embassy nearby my house.

This spring is going to be tough. It'll test my tolerance of myself, of other people, of new things, of old repeating things. I'm going to try going running tomorrow specifically because I want to know whether it'll help or hurt against the allergies. I was able to go through frisbee practice indoors on Friday, still sick, without much trouble. I didn't go Sunday because I wanted to get enough sleep to get over the sickness. Well, sleep doesn't kill allergies. A lack of sleep cheers them on, though.

I gained a little weight this weekend and I'm still really craving food. This is good for muscle building, but, um, weights are integral to that. Don't have those. Well, there's always the wooden exercise structures in the (now pollen-filled) Bois de Boulogne. And my Push-Up Pro grips. Fellas and femmes: don't buy these. They slide like nothing else; if you don't have a good surface, they will fail. Luckily, the carpet in the living room isn't too bad for them, but still... I need this shit for my wrists, man. I guess I'll have to buy Perfect Pushup when I get back.

In 2 months.

I stop a lot when I blog now. This isn't freewriting; it's more like stopwriting. At least the stops aren't that long. Keep in mind that when you are actually writing, with a pen, you can think as you're writing. I think it's a better process, actually. Lets your brain think things through before you get them down. Whereas typing, unfortunately...

I read a book about photography called La chambre claire by Roland Barthes. It was really good at first but I was left disappointed because all the author seemed capable of discussing was seeing the essence of his dead mother in a picture of her when she was 5 years old. It seriously went nowhere from there and was really weakly argued. He saw death in photography when you could easily just take a quick counterargument route and say, well, why can't you see life instead?

It's just that death is seen as a more serious topic and is more accepted as such in academia, I guess, despite the fact that the guy was trying to be as un-academic as possible. I guess when you're French and heavily embedded and submerged in all this academic shit there's not much you can do. This city is stuck in its history and seems to have too much of it to learn much from it. Those who have information overload are doomed to repeat it.

That's why I listen to Plies. It's my drank. "Just stand in front of me and pose. You touch mine, I touch yo's." Unfortunately, I'm losing my taste for the bad flavor. That's the difference between bad music and beer - somehow people can't tire of the latter's awful, look at me I'm a man I can have a bigger belly than you taste.

And alcohol sucks. All of it. At least when you have nobody to get frisky with in the meantime. But even then, it's really just unnecessary.

Peace.

I hate Sundays.

Sundays suck. Sunday is the day where nobody talks to me and I talk to no one else, and I'm isolated and all alone, stuck trying to do work or trying to get myself to do work that usually involves reading long sentences like this one except only in French, all day, and all night, up until 4-6 AM, which isn't any good for the 9:30 AM class I always have on Mondays or my sanity or my health; I usually end up going to class wanting to throw up or something.

Nobody is ever on Facebook. Maybe there are some messages left over from the night before, but after that there's nothing. I can't call home until it's rather late because nobody gets up in the morning on Sundays and there's a 5 hour time difference. Before that time I get nothing done.

In Paris, in 枚方, in Medford... there's no difference. It's all the same sad Sunday story.

There's a band called Taking Back Sunday; I think it's the best band name of this generation in music. I don't recall enjoying their songs very much, though.

I'd say this is a very selfish freewrite but I think it speaks for everyone. Sundays suck. Observe the Sabbath day or it will make it observe you.

I was gonna go to the Louvre today but I didn't go to bed early enough to do so and my feet and legs are still sore from not being stretched after frisbee practice, which rocked, Friday night. And that was a legit practice!

I guess I'm not gonna go back to Japan for spring break. But I haven't booked yet for the everyone's-gotta-do-it-travel-Europe vacation. Aaggh, where does the time go? I'm going to need this one so badly... another 3 weeks and I'm gone for 2 weeks and I'm back for 5 weeks and I'm gone. Goodbye, France. Never coming back.

At least I don't think so... Now, Japan, on the other hand... you might see me, look out. Wish they liked foreigners a little more so I could have a refuge in case we have another draft. Don't laugh; bad economies lead to bad wars. So stupid, why did I sign up for the selective service shit?

At least there's paisible Canada.

I hate Sundays.