but i can just maybe see the first kiss of sunrise o’er the horizon.

and good goddamn, i’m writing again.

but i wanted to continue to talk about love for a moment, mostly as a response to what one of my readers commented on my last post. (btw, people who read and comment are awesome)

love isn’t just suffering. that would be too easy, and would maybe even validate all the thirteen year old emo kids who write godawful poetry about how much pain they are in because of a girl/boy. is their suffering genuine? of course it is… all emotions at that age are genuine. but is that really love? no.

love in my opinion is the willingness to suffer adversity for another human being. how ready one is to put oneself in front of the firing line or the chubby police officer. it is fundamental to the human condition, and like all things that make us who we are, it is at once one of the most heartwrenchingly beautiful and utterly awful portion of the human spirit.

so jail, war, oppression, these are just as fertile grounds for love as any paris night scene or idyllic nuclear home. if anything, they are more so, in that people are constantly called upon to back up what they profess, that they do indeed love and value another more than themselves, enough so as to be willing to put mental, spiritual and physical well being on the line for that other.

maybe i’m wrong. i’m wrong more often than not, but hey. that’s how i see it. or at least how i see it now. because like all ideas, it’ll get reformed and reformed as i age. so maybe, when i’m older, i’ll believe in it not at all, or maybe too much.

btw, the new xmen comics are fucking unbelievably awe inspiring.

or hell, longer than a few words, but i figure making at least a minimal effort is important.

how the hell did i end up wasting another night watching movies, when i should’ve been working on my art? i don’t know. it just seems to happen on its own, even if i know it doesn’t really.

i live a fucking boring life when i’m not drinking.

jiu jitsu tournament in a week so i’m abstaining from sex, drink and rock and roll, those things that inevitably lead me down the road to bad decisions and great stories.

in this abstemious state, i realize that i drink too much. i think i realized that awhile back when i was cutting back on it and felt like shit because of it. but hey.

alcohol, cheers to thee, my mistress, my lover, my spiteful friend.

mainly because i’m too lazy to check the google analytics, and even then, i’m not sure if those reading are actually reading my blog or searched something ridiculous like godzilla porn and randomly found my blog.

but there’s something in the human spirit that enjoys screaming down empty hallways, that lets forth a primal yell into the darkness of the night and the wilderness of the soul.

i guess this blog was mine and is now becoming it again.

we live lonely lives. or at least i do. we’re alone in our heads so much that sometimes it feels like the world fades away andd loses its colour, like life becomes nothing more than a constant blur of faces and repetitive routines meant only to get us through the day or afford us enough time to drown ourselves in the fantasies of tv or korean dramas (god do i love the melodrama).

but at the same time, we desire connection. it’s part of who we are as human beings. so no matter how things fade or become dark, we throw out messages in bottles, screams of defiance into the night air, even knowing no one will hear them.

you scream, i scream, we all scream for ice cream.

so therefore, i will be updating more in the next few days.

not the long, introspective pieces i’ve been writing but smaller posts. i think that way, i will be more consistent. here’s hoping.

which is why i’m forcing myself to write this blog post though i’m not very motivated to do so. without the ability to write, i’m beginning to feel like there’s something missing in my life. maybe that’s unrelated to just the block, but then writing has always been in my life in such a fundamental way that if it’s not the absence of writing, i don’t know what it is.

to structure it more broadly, let’s look at my life, which, contrary to the somewhat emo tone of this piece, i am actually enjoying. i am, for the most part and as much as an ambitious romantic can be, content.

my life is centered around finishing this masters degree of mine and jiu jitsu. i spend 14 hours a week in class + a bunch of hours outside of class doing work for it. i spend 15 hours a week playing jiu jitsu, doing conditioning or being an assistant coach. i spend the rest of my time in between side projects and procrastination. i’m living off of the rather limited budget provided by my stipend and by my side projects. i’m dieting hard and am only cheating a day a week.

this has been good for me in a really core way… i’ve lost 20 lbs and just generally feel healthier. i feel like my jiu jitsu, which is always hella important to me, is getting back to where it was and is actually being improved upon. i’m actually setting myself up to compete at the NAGA in november.

but at the same time, i’m missing three things… or at least i feel that i am missing those things. my writing, my sleep and human connection.

i think the next few weeks will be an effort at finding those things and maybe making myself happy instead of just content.

i’ve been hella fail at the whole updating thing. as a heads up, i will be updating with all the old blog entries that i should’ve finished. sorry.

my brain’s been fried. still trying to process my journey into the mountains and then getting pulled over by border patrol and then summit and then the fucking bay area.

i am writing.

i promise.

it’s been a great time in DC and was ’sposed to culminate in the 4th… but eh.

well, this post is mostly to say that i’m alive, if not completely well. yesterday, the 3rd, and my 5th on the road on the real part of my odd-yssey.

it was a crazy time, all sorts of random events and all sorts of thoughts and philosophies and moments of tiny revelation.

but i am, as previously stated, sick as heo, so they won’t be written up right now.

i’ll be back soon. for now, i need to enjoy the fourth as much as i can.

see yall on the road.

soundtrack to this blogpost is the constant hum of a saint marks inn air conditioner, the murmuring of organizers going about their diabolical plotting and the incessant chatter of fingers on keyboards.

yes… i am once again in “the event room,” that magical space where staff folks get together to deal with all the last minute crises that inevitably arise with any major event. so even though i swore i wouldn’t be in “the event room” ever again… c’est le vie.

tomorrow i do my last performance before i get on the road. hay qua, the biggest gathering of young vietnamese american folks that new york city has probably ever seen. whoa doggy.

i find myself in the room ‘cuz i ceded my apartment to the vagaries of munchkins. jeebus.

yes, this sounds a little ridiculous, but that’s the mood i’m in.

if you’re not from the city, yall should know we had a crazy storm period today. literally, this one hour of super rain and sleet and wind. tempest and maelstrom, chaos and rapture.

i got caught out by the flash storm when i was walking to jits… wait, let me set the scene.

imagine dear reader, your resident mohawk headed poet boy flip flopping down the street with bright yellow glasses and a black pop-obama t-shirt. it’s rush hour in the middle of midtown, so there’s crowds, of tourists and haggard looking business folk, the homeless and teenagers looking for a bargain. all of a sudden, the heavens open up, as if god had decreed that there’d be maelstrom. and at that exact moment, ‘that auld triangle’ by the dropkick murphys comes on my ipod.

as folks ran off as quick as they could to get under cover, i was struck by some crazy out of body force and start belting out the lyrics as the beads of rain and soon the pellets of sleet started raining down, harder and harder. the storm moved and danced with the sound of my voice, crescendo’ing as i did.

in that moment, i believed in magic again. the wyld and the weird, the strange and the divine.

there’s something about just being totally lost in the storm, singing and laughing and belting out the perfect punk song that is so utterly amazing.

i don’t know. i guess…

there is a fae part of me. that wild part that too often does things that i regret. those moments that i lose all pretense of control. les face it. i can be a control freak sometimes, always worrying about what’s going to happen next and how much of an ability i have to organize and contain any issues.

but that part of me, that i both love and hate, it thrives on chaos. too often it gets me through the rough times by riding roughshod. but there isn’t joy in the use, the use it puts me to and that i put it to. there’s a mutually assured destruction there.

so to be perfectly in the moment and to be perfectly in synch with that part of myself was…

beyond words or comprehension or articulation. all i know is that i wish i could share it with all of you.

oh and the hay qua post coming. with comments on kollaboration and what turned out to be one of the shittiest and most amazing nights of my life. such are the vagaries of city living.

living is waking up and realizing you are glad to pay the price rather than regretting you never gambled at all.

boston. the bosom from which i arose large headed, wide eyed and drunkenly reeling. you can never go home… that’s the truth, ‘cuz as long as you leave for any significant amount of time, the world changes around, you change and nothing is quite as it was. but sometimes, you catch glimpses of what it once was, the moments where you are happily back in some childhood place, imagined or otherwise.

it is appropriate enough that i feel this way getting smashed playing flip-cup with a bunch of boston irishmen. oh alcohol. oh dorchester day, ridiculous holiday celebrating the day an independent municipality was taken over by boston. oh neighborhood pride, cause of so many problems, but so comforting nevertheless. there really is a great feeling of safety and simple appreciation when you see the strength of feeling that people have for a neighborhood. fuck the problematics that are inherent in that pride… let me enjoy the phenomenon.

so i’m here, boston for the next week or so. seeing my family, watching my sister grad, getting my shit together before my odd-yssey. the journey only ends when you are back where you started, or so it’s said… so i’ll start it here, the introspection, the appreciation of what makes america american. the art, the culture and most importantly the people.

which is why i saw shepherd fairey’s work at the ICA. i like it quite a lot. the degree of intricacy, the eye to the ironic, the contrasts, both of images and colors, but also of subtle next to bold. yes, his work eventually gets old with a quickness. yes, he does the same shit over and over again. but hey man, you can be a little unoriginal when you’re as big of a street artist as he is.

obey.

i will be posting more as time goes on. more on my journey, more on the art project i’m doing for it. i just wanted to post this so you know i’m alive, well, and getting drunk still.

life is a fight, and even the fuckups gotta a puncher’s chance long as they keep on swinging.