James Patterson. What a joke.

"On our way to the restaurant, they took us past their future home, an oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach that they bought last year for $17.4 million and are now in the midst of renovating."

"At one point, the conversation turned to the next installment in Patterson’s Michael Bennett series, which revolves around a Manhattan homicide detective and widower with 10 multiracial adopted children (“Cheaper by the Dozen” meets “Die Hard,” as Patterson describes it)."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24patterson-t.html

Pfft.

Lily sent me an article from nytimes.com and a line struck me:

For example, in the 1970s a Japanese photographer, Keiki Haginoya, undertook what was to be a lifelong project to compile a photo documentary of children’s play on the streets of Tokyo. He gave up the project in 1996, noting that the spontaneous play and laughter that once filled the city’s streets, alleys and vacant lots had utterly vanished.

And I could see that scene perfectly in my mind. The sun beating on all the kids who are playing and yelling, bouncing their ball and scrambling around. Then just as suddenly as I imagined it, they're all gone.

It's not as Alfred Lord Tennyson, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all", says it is. Once something profoundly beautiful and upbeat departs, the space it once occupied will always be emptier than how it was before it was ever occupied. [I know, it's a pessimistic take on things.]

While I was searching for the writer of that quote, I came across this one by Margaret Mitchell, "I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken -- and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived." And I remember that quote from years ago when Day wrote it in a letter to me. I don't remember the circumstances or even the letter, but I do remember feeling moved and uncertain and accepting.

René Magritte's Most Famous Work

René Magritte's Most Famous Work
by Pauline Hsia

Sunshine, like a flood light, poured into the room, not through the windows but through a fat fissure in the ceiling. “I don’t know. I don’t know. What should I do?” He’s looking at me like I had all the answers. I didn’t have any, only the ones he wanted me to spit back at him. The answers he already knew. I folded my hands. “Go after her. If you want her, you have to make it happen.” His knee knocked into mine and instead of moving it, I left it beside him. The walls were crumbling and I could hear chunks of concrete falling. The vines grew past the opening of the windows, the ones without glass, and were now stretching towards the sky. A grasshopper was in the corner, its butt in the air, and a millipede was lounging around above his head, moving its many legs. “I really like her,” he said. I respond, “I know.” His hair, when the sunlight caught it, lit up into red fiber optics. There wasn’t anything particular about his face that was especially eye catching, in fact if any specific facial feature stood alone, he would be considered ugly. But together, it wasn’t so bad. His smile lines crowded his mouth, his nose hooked at the bottom, and his eye brows would arch dramatically when he spoke about her. “Here’s the plan. I’m going to ask her if she wants to hang out with me sometime. In the near future. In the very near future,” he said while a lady bug landed on his wrist. “I’ll slyly grab her hand and suggest that we should go catch dinner soon. I won’t take no for an answer. Then when we’ve had a couple of dates, I’ll kiss her. How does that sound?” “Good. Really good.” The lady bug crawled up his forearm, but he didn’t notice. “From there, I can do no wrong. I just need her to see me. Get her to notice me. We’ve been friends for a while, but I don’t know. It feels right.” “Isn’t that what you think every time?” “But this time is different. We click.” The lady bug reached his bicep and flew off onto the adjacent wall, where a horde of his friends swarmed. “Why do you like her so much? Same taste in food? In music?” “It’s not even that. It’s really the way she looks up when I speak to her. It makes me feel like I’m needed.” “I need you.” “That’s not what I mean at all. I’m not talking about that connection you have between friends. I’m talking about the need you have for someone you desire.” “It’s not like you know how that feels.” “And you do?” The ladybugs took flight and their fluttering wings made a soft symphony. “No. You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like to need someone like you need her.”

I know. I still have kinks to work out, but this is the most recent draft that I've liked.

A man cooking for you at 3AM without notice is HUSBAND material. Really.

I cherish moments where I meet someone new and we click or moments where my life and an acquaintance's tightly lace together instead of unraveling and falling away. I usually look back and laugh because I would never have guessed that we would come this far or ever reach this point in our friendship.

<--> You? You'll disappear because out of sight means out of mind.

Even though this week sucked major ass, I'm extremely grateful for aspects of my life that unexpectedly kept me more level-headed--sort of.

With my internship, it's a bittersweet appreciation because though I enjoy how the internship is set up and the people who work on it, I feel out of place. I'm quiet, I can't chime in as easily as I want to. Sometimes it sounds like they're speaking in a completely different language; it's disconcerting. However, after going to the second editor's meeting, I feel more at ease. Though, I'm still not as talkative, I feel that they understand that I don't have much to say, but that I'm there. That I exist. I'm thankful for my past TAs who work there with me because though I never made myself all that noticeable, I honestly relish being in their presence and interacting with them.

Additionally, even though they warn me about what's coming up in the future, they give me hope because they're still living it. If they can do it, if they can live such a difficult life, why can't I?

I went to a reading for Julia Glass on Tuesday and she said something about reading John Gardener's novel, about becoming a novelist. Gardener mentioned in his book that so many writers "fold up their wings" and quit. But even when she felt like giving up, that quote gave her reason to persevere.

I don't want to fold up my wings before I even tried because life is about great struggles and about great rewards.



I'd carry Urban Germany's babies if I weren't so damn infertile.

"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."
Jonathan Swift

Swift, you've never been as right as you are now.

My heart is uneasy.

"Prayer is not asking. It is the longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart."
Mahatma Gandhi

I need to pray.

When I woke up in the middle of the night, I wanted to speak to you. I wanted to tell you good night, but I didn't because it's a bunch of foolishness.

"And I was even more appalled by her attempts to overcome it, because they so plainly, pathetically failed, and in failing opened up the view of a world I had only begun to suspect, where wounds did not heal, and things did not work out for the best."
Flyboys by Tobias Wolff

Not sure.

Here's my prayer to you

Two nights ago, I prayed for the first time in a long time. My friend was encouraging me to and for some reason it felt right to.

In the past, whenever I prayed, I never got that feeling I always thought I should get when I was talking to God. I was never moved. The only time that I ever was was when I had accepted Jesus, after seeing an reenactment of his crucifixion, but that was so long ago and I was young. After I stopped attending church, I stopped praying and I stopped thanking God before every meal. I stopped caring.

I've heard from other Christians that there have been times where they felt God's presence, but I've never felt anything. I always thought it was because my prayers weren't as sincere as I hoped it would be. But that night I prayed, though I still didn't feel anything, my words were honest. Maybe praying isn't talking to God after all, but an excuse to speak to yourself.

I don't know. All I know is there's just something special in praying after being in a prayer hiatus.



Classic

I'm five seconds away from pricking holes into the wall.

I'm surprised every time I discover a graduate student is married. I don't know why, maybe it's because I still think of them as peers even though they're older. I just can't seem to wrap my mind around the fact that my married friends' list is lengthening because it would mean that I'm getting to that age where I should marry. And I would never have thought of these folks as marriage material, but now after hearing that they're engaged or married, I find myself thinking, "Yeah. I could see myself living with them and being happy."

On a completely different note, it's a disgrace when a female is living completely on the whims of her significant other.

The finishing touch of my day.

When I read my new short story, I have the sudden urge to cry. Perhaps, it's because it's too sentimental. Perhaps, it's because it holds a lot of truth about me that no one will know.

How much of nonfiction is fiction? And how much of fiction is nonfiction? There are no boundaries anymore.