Dec 2003

reminisce

2003 Dec 07

found a notebook from college that was my journal and read it. pretty manic depressive stuff, being in love makes you that way. my old life sounds pretty exciting to me right now...i was at least as broke then as i am now, but i always had people to hang out with, and shit going on. i realize that most of that stuff i was doing would be exhausting now, and i'm glad that i can love--and be loved in return--in a way that's stable. my life may not be as exciting in terms of sheer adventure/shadiness, but even when its scope of activities is reduced to sheer survival, it's still worth living. i'm learning to enjoy the simpler pleasures that i would have been too distracted to notice when i was 21.

hey

2003 Dec 09

this is really just to say hey to the world. yep i'm still alive. I've just been down and out for weeks with busyness and non-busyness. I've had that nasty flu that's going around. I've also been stuck out in the backwoods with no internet access. So really those factors alone mean that not much has been going on with me. if only that were true...

actually a lot has been going on. some of it good. some of it not so good.

job? yep i need one of those

2003 Dec 09

as lame as it sounds, i'm trying to get the library to rehire me to shelve books for $6.50 an hour. at least i would know that i could pay my rent consistently. aren't many other prospects for jobs--especially short term jobs, and njeri hasn't given me hours for ages. i would like to do tutoring but need something more stable for awhile...maybe i can find a way to do both. i'm way over qualified for the library job, but i ain't too proud to do it if they'll have me. shit, i wash dishes now, i ain't got no shame. that's life, you gotta do what you gotta do.

While we're all introspectin'

2003 Dec 10

we finally have another woodstove installed...sat on the couch infront of the fire and lo and behold fritz decides to become a cute purring lap kitty.

i miss this place even though a lot of the time things are pretty crazy and people have their dramas or at least pretentions of drama. i feel like my life has been cut into several pieces and spread all over town. i just want to come back here and stay here, hole up and ride out the winter with cats and woodstoves and books.

moving on in

2003 Dec 11

talked brian into moving in with me. it's an idea i had awhile back, but i never pushed it. i think i've known brian long enough for this to succeed, so starting in January, hopefully i can end this weird double life that i've lived and keep all my business under one roof. i think it will simplify a lot of things. i am at a point financially where i either should move in with brian or move back to my parent's house--and i really didn't want to move back in with my parents. too lonely out there. and i've invested a lot of my self in this place, and am not ready to give it up just yet.

back at declerye

2003 Dec 14

finally get to come home and stay home. it's nice.

helped brian move some of this stuff in and have been taking it easy ever since. today's been pretty hard on my back. i'm hoping things will go back to normal soon. my whole life's been pretty out of kilter for the past month. i don't know if or when i'll ever get to work again though. i wish the library would call...oh well. at least now i have a basis for starting something, a foundation to begin again on. for the longest time i've been hoping to really be able to get my shit together. here goes.

gloom glum

2003 Dec 16

pretty gloomy day around here. good thing that i have return of the king to look forward to. we're gonna go to the midnite showing-me, brian, denny, rom, whoever else. glad i'm not the one driving--i probably will be too sleepy by 3 am. this should be fun...or insane.

other than that, not much going on around here. spent the day making kimchi, running some errands, and hanging out at the shichang on summer stocking up on new year's loot. but now i'm at home cooking pinto beans and listening to radio darvish.

actually worked for njeri last night...for the first time in a month. things are pretty much the same there. kinda nice to have my routine back.

and she died

2003 Dec 17

denny told me this morning that njeri called real early to tell us that her mom died. it was pretty unexpected, so i figured it had to be something like pneumonia or bronchitis, things that old people often die from rather unexpectedly. turns out it was pneumonia. such a shame. i knew her a little bit from seeing her around the restaurant. she was always very nice to me.

didn't do too much the rest of the day except go buy some groceries and go with brian back to his old apartment. it's depressing to go back to a place you once lived. of course his landlord's still being a complete jerk...don't know what the guy's problem is. spent the rest of the evening on the couch infront of the woodstove drinking sake and kickin' it with tim for awhile. what a weird day.

ky's birthday

2003 Dec 20

one of the few things i've had to look forward to this week is kylin's birthday party. (it's been a dull week, what can i say?) the bad thing, though is that it's kind of a going away party by default, which makes it kind of sad. (They're both going back to philly in some form or another within the next few weeks, and i'm gonna miss the hell out of them. they're lovely people). when i got there, someone had put peeps all over the sidewalk so it was a minefield, so to speak. There were lots of fun people there that I haven't seen in awhile. I ate way too much food, but we did lots of fun silly stuff like play "duck duck goose", make puppy piles and have a wild dance party. note to self: dance party + food = something not so good for the tummy. suzie, sarah (andrea's boy from finland whose name I have no idea how to spell) and ky were fun to watch. They kept the dance party going while the rest of us just watched. in the end, it was just ky and sarah, but they did the most amazing stuff with their bodies that looked like they had been practicing for months, rather than just making it up on the spot.

But in the end, it's a little sad to think that in a way, this is the end: ky and rom are going back to philly in less than a month, sarah's going away to school fairly soon, ashley and brian are moving to california any day, denny's moving in a couple of months, and well...you get the point. everyone i love is leaving me. that's not something i'm entirely used to, even though it's happened several times before, but usually i am the one who is doing the leaving. memphis won't be the same place without any of them...just another loss in the scheme of things but nothing feels the same when these little things disappear. but that is the way of life. there's nothing you can do about it, and probably good enough of a reason to let go.

so i dedicated this entry to the memphis kids who are the heart and soul of my little world. without them, this would just be another sleepy river town.

life in boxes

2003 Dec 23

box of rain: rained real late and real hard last night...a fierce storm pushed away the strangely warm weather we had the day before, putting a little reality back on the map of winter.

box of train: i like lightning in december. but it always reminds me of those freakish storms you get in winter in bloomington...and the wild winds that come out of the south. late nights spent walking the trestle back from 312 and wondering what brand of alcoholic debauchery might have been going down on the east side of the street towards dunn. here though, pushing my bike past the graveyard of the midsouth cold storage and norfolk and southern train yard, past the halogen nightmares of spottswood and familiar faces in the dark. the ride can be exhilirating rather than wearisome in the dark of winter, but in both visions, there's always the railroad tracks, a constant in the landscape of my dreams.

box of pain: in another box sits $23, which is today's donations for njeri's sudden funeral expenses. $23 is a drop in the bucket of njeri's great seas of misfortune--her mother died without life insurance. maybe i'll never complain again about my finances...they pale in comparison to hers. i really don't know if she's gonna make it. and it makes me very sad.

chinese box: after work, i went over to kiah's house to meet up with brian to get my ride home. after shutting down a restaurant, i wasn't in the mood to ride home. i was pretty out of it though, and they were having a christmas party of sorts. i just sat on the couch and quietly listened to uncle ray's stories...kiah served up a slice of his highschool days as well, which helps me understand him a little better. i know very few people like him so he's always been a little mysterious to me. anyhow, haley ended up giving me something too, which was unexpected. but she handed me a box with a cheongsam which almost fits. it's almost the same color as the one i had when i was 9 years old. amazing. she also gave me one of those chinese silk jackets that she was gonna take over to goodwill. sweet.

almost vegan bosnia box: went over to the mediterranian market around the corner to get some cookies, since i needed something to take with me when i went over to visit gertrude. they didn't have any of the pirouettes this time, so i got a bunch of polish cookies instead (who makes better cookies than poland, and they have a fabulous selection right now since eid wasn't that long ago), so the new cashier thinks i'm bosnian to be buying all this polish stuff. it's cute. i think i have them properly confused because one week i'll be in there buying plantanos and mate; and the next week i want pita bread, tahini and falafels. heh heh. turns out that one of the three brands of cookies is vegan...the guava flavored ones. the others are almost vegan. life's funny.

i went over to gertrude's a bit late...they had almost given up on me, but i stayed for awhile and had a good chat with them before coming back home and finding the kitchen full of people and hot food. this is just the sort of thing this house needs--it's been a long time since there's been anything like this.