Devdas (speaking to his mother after his father's funeral service): Bapuji said leave the village, everybody said leave Paro, Paro said leave alcohol. Today you said leave home. One day He will say, leave the world. On a whim I brought out Sanjay Leela Bhansali's magnum opus, Devdas. I had been flipping through the novella when I was struck by a wave of nostalgia, and although I knew it would just depress me, I had to see the film again. One scene in particular that I can never forget: - When Devdas returns to Paro on her wedding day and apologizes for leaving her behind and sending her a letter that stated, in more ways than one, that she was only a "dear friend". His reply to her questioning: Your Deva never does anything deliberately. I was naive." Angrily, she chides him. Was he naive when he gave her the bracelet? Devdas has no reply. Standing with her back to Devdas with her pained expression hidden Paro says, " You are the son of a lawyer, and tomorrow I will be an aristocrat." Devdas: "It's not good to be so vain. Even the moon is not as vain as you are." With a determined look, Paro says in a hardened tone: " But the moon is scarred." And Devdas, staring over he shoulder with an eery expression, slowly reaches for her pearl necklace, brings it up her face and swings it hard at her forehead. Paro falls to the ground, holding her bleeding head, gasping: "Deva, what have you done?" Devdas breaking to pieces the necklace, touches his fingtertips to his lips and then to her forehead and says, " I have marked you with my love." __ On another note, I am leaving for San Diego tomorrow afternoon. A close friend of mine will be driving. It's only about two hours away. Perhaps we'll go to a Jazz club in the Gas Lamp district. I feel like I could use a little jazz in my bones. I feel almost attached to this forum now. Made some new friends, too. So it's kind of sad to go while I just started. I'll try to take my mind off the interwebs while I'm gone. In the meanwhile, see you all in a few days! Don't get too rowdy while I'm gone
- Sitting in my sister's beat up , smashed up, blue Mitsubishi Gallant, with our stilettoed heels up on the dashboard, reading all the racy parts in The Fountainhead. - The first gift my mother gave me: A set of hairpins, on my 22nd birthday. Her words: You look like a chimpanzee with that orange hair. - My words to my mother on my 22nd birthday: Yes, and now I can look like an orange-haired chimp with hairpins. And it's all thanks to you! - The conversation I had with my mother on the porch in our old neighborhood. I was reading Congo and was on chapter six when .. Why you read sex books? she had hissed. Huh? I know you read sex books. You think I don't know? What are you talking about? (She jabbed at my book, her nails round and viscious. I bowled over with laughter. She had been reading "six" as " sex" all along.) - Oyaji's lighter, the one he always kept the breast pocket of his weathered, green parka. - Having my shorts pulled down during a Powerpuff FootBall tournament. - Ryan Soreno holding my arm longer than he should have, and realizing it. - Joseph tracing my clavicle with the rough edge of his thumb. - The first time I saw Haruki Murakami at a book signing.... ..and my knees buckled. These are the things that I will forever fold into my memory. __ Shameless, shameless plug: For those reading this blog entry, if you have even a second, please, please, pretty please check out my story in Novel Section, called We Were There. It's a very personal story for me, and I need all the help I can get to improve. For those who have, thank you very much. I appreciate it
Someone finally understands me. Funny how the package the someone comes in is so tiny. All it took were a few words from my nine-year-old brother: " Without you," he says, rolling around on the carpet with my kittens, " I'm so bored!" Just five simple words, and it fills me with glee. I remember, in high school, I had wanted to say the same exact words to my creative writing teacher, Charles Fielder, but never got the chance to because I ditched graduation (Me and a friend climbed the gates and took off running). This man, he, lol, he was the most eccentric man I have ever met in my entire life. When class was in session one day, he drew down the blinds; He trudged to his desk in the middle of the room; He sat at the edge of the desk, and leaned over conspiratorily, and nodded slowly and said, " Those other teachers, the ones in the 300 building? I bet they're plotting against me. No, I'm almost sure of it. And, you know what?" A collective " What?" (mostly in a droll tone) from the students. He did a little skip and jabbed the air with his index finger: " Well, I'm gonna write a novel about it!" And knowing Fielder, he's probably on his 1500th page right now. Everyone knew I was bored in class. Ask my AP US HISTORY teacher who so kindly put it in the form of a rhetorical question: " If you have so much time to finish all those novels, why don't you ever have time to do your homework?" Of course, I had no reply at the time, but sure as hell, once I stepped out of that classroom, I wanted to march back in and say, " ' Cause. I'm. Bored, damnit!" , but I'm always a minute too late. But Fielder was never boring. He was a maniac! He thought the other teachers were plotting against him, he probably had a closet filled with the same clothes, he snuck us out of class to go the park because he felt the room was too - what was that word? - confining, he expressed in more ways than one that my writing was " too sad" and always tried to convince me to change the ending: " Why does the mother have to die at the end?" (Those were the times I was not getting along so swimmingly with my mother). I will be going to see Fielder again in a month, with my story. School will be opening again. I'm sure he will be disappointed to know that I had dropped out of college years ago to pursue a drab career in a translation firm. But I'm certain, one hundered percent, without a shade of doubt, that he'll be damned glad I kept up writing. I think maybe I will tell him this time. " Without you, Fielder, everyone here should just tie boulders to their feet and jump into the Pacific." I wouldn't go so far as to tie boulders, you know, just in case. But I think I might have jumped into the Pacific.
I wrote that conversation I had with Joseph the other day, and now I can't get him out of my cranium, and well, knowing me, maybe I don't want to get him out of my head. Maybe I'm more comfortable with him there. At least it beats being lonely. I wonder why we said those things to each other. I wonder why I said those things back then: " Do you really need a name?", " Never lose sight of me?" Even now it makes me blush to think I said such cheesey lines to him. On paper, it's even cheesier. I forget to mention that at the time we were standing together on a bridge over a koi pond in the middle of the night. I forget to mention we had just finished watching the water works at Disney Land with some friends and were heading for dinner. I forget to mention that when our shoulders touched, I felt really, really, really heavy, as if I was standing in a pool of water up to my armpits. But, well, last night I watched an old episode of Ally Mcbeal, the episode during Mark Henderson's case, you know, the man that stole into his would-be date's house in the middle of the night and, well, tickled her foot? That one. Ally's closing, you know, when she said that usually you hear things like, The right one will come along ,and she says, Well, well, who made that up anyway? You ask your friends and they'll tell you, The right one slipped away. Well, those lines really struck a chord with me. Standing alone with Joseph on that bridge, with our hands shoved deep into our pockets and us blowing frost in the night air like smoke dragons, I could have done something - anything! - but instead I apologized, and then whipped around and ran off to join our group of friends. After that I stopped answering his calls. We used to go by code names: Polaris (me), and Orange (him), but in the end, the only one who knew anything about anybody was me. I mean, you could tell a guy your life story, take him up to your apartment, marry the guy!, but all that wouldn't matter in the end when you don't even trust him enough to give him your name. And, you know, what's sad is, if I had the chance to replay my life, and sneak in and edit it according to my whim, chances are I'd probably do the same thing all over again. I was letting the right one just ... slip away out of my hands. And I did it on purpose too.
/ Joseph - Do you really need a name? - Yes. No. I mean, it's not that I need a name, per se. But say for instance (he scratches behind his left ear), say we were walking in a crowd of people and ... - And what? - And somewhere along the way I get shoved to the side, and you kept on walking and walking ahead of me without turning back. What would I do then? - What if I turned around? - Well, just imagine. Imagine there's a crowd around, tugging us in different directions. - Then there's only one thing left to do. - What? - Never lose sight of me. /the jaded middle aged salaryman in her office who just so happens to be her boss - Do you have anything for me before I go? - No, sir. - A warm embrace? A longing sigh? She sighs heavily. /group dates, always getting the short end of the stick. - Sorry, she says, but I've really got to go.
Apparently someone on this board is angry with me again. I remembered the first time posting a story when a member said one line and left the thread: " I strongly suggest you not become a writer." I didn't know what to make of it at first, as I had expected something more or less.. tangible to hold on to. Well, I suppose I won't become a writer. I like to write, though. Isn't that enough? I don't believe I'll ever get published, but I'd like to finish a novel once (even if I never send it in, even if it's no good), if only for piece of mind. Angry people always remind me of my mother. She's a really nice woman at times, especially now that she's thinking of retirement. Some people say, the older they get the crankier they get, but I don't believe that. She's gone softer. But when I think of my mother, I don't evoke images of my mother [Now]. I think of all the times she's said [ Suck it up. I'm not going to feel sorry for you even when you cry ], and it's true! She never has! And well, I've never cried after that either. I suppose I always come off sounding bitchy and defensive online. It happened once on an anime and manga forum, though I've made a lot of friends and progressed since then. And the guy and I are friends: We just agree to disagree. Tone is everything. This is why I hate big chunks of text. There's no real voice for it, except for the one the reader has in their head: They read me like I'm a raving lunatic, lol. Well, sometimes I am. Most of the time though, I'm really not.
I've been so wrapped up in translating Japanese comics and reading comics and collecting comics that I haven't had time to sit down and actually read a novel. It's been all of five months. I picked up (literally just closed my eyes and grabbed whatever my hands came in contact with first) Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and Elizabeth Haydon's Rhapsody (first part of the trilogy) from a crate in my closet and have been juggling the two for the past week or so. Kurt is delicious. Haydon made me gag during the short prologue, but after trudging past all the cheese with Sam and Emily, the "First movement" is quite a good read (Meet my brother, Achmed the Snake, lol). I recently lost my backup discs with all my writing in it. I was digging through my old binders looking for hardcopies and had combed every inch of my room, only to recall - suddenly, morosely, all the while mumbling " Oh, my god...." over and over again to myself - that the house had flooded during a bad rainy season several months ago in California, and that I had sloshed over carpets to get to my room only to find papers, journals, CD, and clothes, and my kittens, all but floating in pool of water. Just imagine, five years worth of a novel, journal entries, letters I typed up to my ex-boyfriend but never sent out, photographs I took while backpacking in Cambodia, all gone! Good thing is, I haven't blown my top off on anybody yet. I suppose it's because I'm just too tired.