Letter Never Sent

I feel like I haven’t been to work in ages since I had four days off this week. Monday I woke up early (early for me) at eleven or so and went canoeing with Sab (who cuts my hair) on Town Lake. I sat in the back of the canoe with my feet dangling in the cool, muddy water while he did most of the rowing. This division of labor was agreeable to both so I didn’t feel guilty. We stayed out for an hour, going in one direction and then another and back again. We would see turtles paddling around underwater with green algae covering their shells. Sab said they needed to exfoliate which I found very funny.

When we got back Phillip met us to get something to eat. We bummed around for a while inside while Sab just started rearranging all the clothes in my closet. He said the open closet doors were bad feng shui and then he started putting it in order. Everything had to be hung in the same direction. Buttoned shirts unbuttoned on hangers all in the same direction. Pants ordered from lightest to darkest. Collared and buttoned shirts grouped separately, lightest to darkest. Then we all went out to Hula Hut. Sab was very hyper. He told us this funny story about when he volunteered for some organization that held bingo games for elderly people. When a number was called everyone would look down to mark their cards. While everyone wasn’t looking Sab would do a cartwheel. Apparently, he was once well known for his impromptu cartwheels.

After lunch, we went back to my house to make further plans. We agreed to meet up at seven to see ‘Dirty Pretty Things‘ at Westgate theatre. It was really good. I would readily recommend it. I’ve been seeing a lot of movies lately. I saw ‘Thirteen‘ sunday. That was good too and emotionally sapping. What I really want to see is the new Sofia Coppola movie, ‘Lost in Translation’. A lot of people are saying it is the best movie of the year.

Tuesday I woke up late and ran to the post office to file for a passport. I waited for a few minutes behind a couple trying to get a passport for their new baby so they could visit whichever Latin American country they presumably have family in. They brought along a friend to translate for them. When I got to the counter the clerk smiled and made some comment about how I was well prepared since I had the filled out form, two passport photos, birth certificate, and state-issued id on the counter ready to go before he could open his mouth. I took this as a compliment. After that I zoomed down to book people and nosed around for a while. When I got out I saw it was five till five and called Susan to see if she wanted a ride home from work. We stopped along the way to get golden vanilla frozen yogurt at TCBY. We didn’t talk a lot. I felt a little out of it and distracted, but I distinctly remember acting very hyper and obnoxious, saying a lot of hyper and obnoxious things.

Today, I didn’t do too much. I showered and dressed then walked to Flipnotics to read Rules of Attraction and write in my notebook broodingly. Along the way I stared down every car that passed me. It gave me something to do. After I spent a couple of hours there Kristine returned my call. We were supposed to hang out before she went out of town for a wedding but she said she had to finish packing and everything before she left in the morning. I asked her if she’d give me a ride back to my house on her way home from work. She was totally up for it and it was good to see her. She mentioned something about some werewolf movie that just came out on video. In it the werewolves are pubescent girls and the lycanthropy has something to do with menses or the onset of menses. I like the word ‘menses’. It reminds me of some sort of mental disorder. I need to find this movie. It sounds interesting.

Updated: I found the movie it’s called Ginger Snaps. Here’s an article on it with some minor spoilers.

My cat and girl t-shirt came in today. I noticed it stuffed into the mailbox when I got home from work at 4am. It’s neat. I’m going to write more later when I feel like I have more to say.

I couldn’t stand to look at this picture anymore, so I’m hiding it a little.
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I went to Seguin to visit my mom and stepdad on Wednesday (photos). It was nice to take a day off from work and visit. Earlier that week my grandparents had dropped off a few boxes I had asked them to keep for me when I moved off to college in the summer of 1995. My mom told me to either take them with me or throw them away but to get them out of her house. She had a few boxes she needed to sort through so we went through it all together. I found a lot of things I had thought lost, and a lot of things I hadn’t missed but was glad to see again. Lots of old papers, a diary, lots of photos, and some assorted junk. Here’s one of my all-time favorite photos, my brother, my cousins, and me in the bathtub at my grandmother’s house (From left to right, me, Jonatha, David, Scott, and AJ):

Like I said, here’s an entry from my journal I found. I used to type it on a black Underwood portable which I still have. I remember I could only do exclamation points by first typing an apostrophe then backspacing a typing a period underneath it:

“July 9th the year of our Lord 1992,

I’m back! I’ve been on a brief hiatus from writing in a journal for about 4-5 months, sorry. I really am. I’ve decided to start my journal again. I was reading the journal I started last summer the day before Uncle Tim got married. It brought back a lot of memories. Some I had almost completely forgotten. So, I decided to resurrect the idea for as long as possible. So what has happened since the last journal you say? Well, here’s the short of it: I passed 9th grade and am on my way to being a sophomore in the fall. Oh, yeah and I have to do a summer reading assignment for English for next year. I have to read the book Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury and write a journal of passages about the book; fun huh? Excuse me while I die of excitement (HA!…). It is summer now and boy is it a hot one. My own PRIVATE HELL! I went to Karen and Susan ***** ‘s house yesterday. They live in the neighborhood by the Texaco by my subdivision. I gave Susan a box of “curiously strong ” Altoid mints and pasted a sticker that read “Billtoids” onto the front. I gave Karen a book, Question Quest, and I shot off a couple of bottle rockets in their yard. Their mother came home later to take Susan to the doctor and I stayed home with Karen and we watched “The Kids in the Hall” on tape. Then I left around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I talk to Karen on the phone sometimes. Tomorrow I’ll call Galadriel to tell her I’m sorry for sounding rude on the phone, but if my Dad is here I won’t.”

Why would this be remotely interesting to you? Well, I don’t know, but I thought it was funny. For one in some ways it seems like so long ago and then I realize that eleven years is really not that long ago at all in the scheme of things.

When I got home from hanging out with Susan and Steve I decided I try to seriously sit down and draw, an activity that used to be very important in my life. As a kid drawing was my primary mode of expression. I even used it sometimes to help make sense of the world around me and to feel better about bad experiences. I remember once in middle school while I was waiting in line for the bus some kid threw a can of coke at me. As a completely unexpected and random violent act it really freaked me out. When I got home that day

I drew a picture of the situation except in my depiction of the event I blocked the can of coke with my notebook. As I got older I often drew to commemorate important events or to express my emotions and thoughts, a drawing of my parakeet that died or about various lovesick crushes. The older I got the less I drew and the more I wrote. If I drew a comic, 50-75% of it would be writing. Now I rarely draw at all, and because I’m no longer in school and I spend a lot of time on the computer I rarely even handle a pen or pencil.

Tonight I wanted to draw something. I wanted to experience the in-the-moment zen-ness you experience when making something. I wanted to experience the feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment at summoning something from the paper because when I draw I almost never know how or if anything will come out. I found my pens and markers. I felt a little like the retired gunslinger who has to dust off his six guns for one last job. I guess when I finished with them last, a few years ago, I had left the ink in so they were hopelessly gummed up. They’re currently soaking in windex so I can use them later.

After I found something else to draw with I just sat there for a few minutes. This feeling is probably the worst part about drawing. For me the starting point has always been the hardest because when I start to draw I use the initial momentum to continue. If I don’t like how I start I might just give up. Anyway, the point is I had fun and I drew something. Maybe I’ll try some more later when I get my pens working.

I finally got around to watching Ghost Dog by Jim Jarmusch. I had been meaning to see it for a few years. It stars Forest Whitaker as a hitman who’s inspired by the Bushido samurai code of honor and conduct. The movie features passages from the Hagakure (which means ‘hidden leaves’ or ‘hidden by the leaves’) recorded from a series of conversations around 1716. There are some good lessons in it as well as some which are less useful but nevertheless interesting like this one:

The warriors of old cultivated mustaches, for as proof that a man had been slain in battle, his ears and nose would be cut off and brought to the enemy’s camp. So that there would be no mistake as to whether the person was a man or a woman, the mustache was also cut off with the nose. At such a time the head was thrown away if it had no mustache, for it might be mistaken for that of a woman. Therefore, growing a mustache was one of the disciplines of a samurai so that his head would not be thrown away upon his death. Tsunetomo said, “If one washes his face with water every morning, if he is slain his complexion will not change. ”

It’s interesting and maybe a little ironic that books like Hagakure, Musashi’s Book of the Five Rings, and Sun Tzu’s Art of War have been adopted so wholeheartedly by people in management and business.