I've been spying on people again, which suggests a resensitization to my environment...perhaps because spring is here, and I've been escaping my head occasionally to notice the warm sunlight and brightly colored pansies and aggressively cheerful birds. I've been compulsively writing in my little notebook (a birthday gift from my friend Martin) about other people in cafe's, in stores, and so on. There was a strange wommon in a cafe yesterday who was very demanding about her ice cream sundaes. She rather bitchily insisted on more and more whipped cream until she was finally satistfied (while I impatiently waited in line behind her). She seemed to be in her mid-30's, but her hair (a pageboy with bangs) or her outfit (white sneakers, high-waisted baggy jeans, red turtleneck, and long leather jacket) may have prematurely aged her. I imagined that she had ordered the sundaes for her whiny spoiled monsters of children, but to my surprise she was joined by an absolutely beautiful young man who looked like Jared Leto playing Jordan Catalano of the TV show My So-Called Life, but with dark brown hair which dripped down the nape of his neck to brush his shoulders. He appeared to be in his early 20's. They sat down and dug into their sundaes. Instead of reading papers about cardiac enzymes, I tried to decipher snippets of their conversation to figure out their relationship. They spoke as equals, although they didn't appear to know each other extremely well. They knew many people in common, and kept mentioning what Nicole or Brad or James did the other day. The wommon used "like" frequently, which made her seem much younger than her appearance suggested. I'm not sure if it was a date, or a friendly meeting at a cafe. I eventually lost interest in their excruciating boring conversation (there's only so much I can take of "Well, Nicole got really wasted the other night, and she called Brad, and then they...") and moved on to spy on a scruffy cute guy, then proceeded to miserably fail at an attempt to hit on him. Heh.

I look back at my writing during my anatomy class, when I was overwhelmed by the sight and smell and feel of cadavers and their innards, and am struck by its almost hallucinatory (is that a word?) quality, the visceral punch of the images. When I was reading Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson, his images reminded me of the images in my writing during that time...I wish I could get that quality back. My writing has been too cerebral as of late. Not enough poetry there.

As I've been trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life and how to find myself and all that jazz, I remembered Conan O'Brien's commencement speech to the Harvard Class of 2000. It's amazing. As good a job as Hillary Clinton did with her speech at my Yale commencement, Conan's kicks the ass of hers. I remember being so profoundly moved when I first read it. While my interest in his talk show has waned in the last few years (especially since he now makes a shitty gay joke almost every time I happen to catch him, although he is very friendly and sweet to his gay guests), I still think he's a wonderful person. I still remember him at a Master's Tea at Yale, when he spoke for two hours and had all of us laughing hysterically, tears streaming down our cheeks, the entire time. He was so incredibly nice. He offered to stay longer "because [he] had nothing better to do" but the Master ultimately had to interrupt him and end the tea.

Dave Eggers at another Master's Tea, on the other hand? Complete asshole. Although perhaps he can be forgiven since he had gotten almost no sleep the night before (or so he claimed). I was all trembling with excitement about meeting him and sharing how much I loved reading his book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius during my semester abroad in Paris (its quintessential early 90's American-ness helped me with homesickness), but he blew me off and had no interest in hearing what I had to say. He did draw a little picture of a hammer in my journal, though, with the phrase "This hammer has seen it all." Which I kind of liked. Although I preferred the little baby chick he drew in another girl's book. I don't recall what phrase he included with that drawing.

Marry me, Brian Joubert. I love you for your quadruple/triple toe combination, your shiny black costume with green numbers all over it, your long program set to the Matrix soundtrack, your dodge-the-bullet-a-la-Keanu move just before your straight line footwork, and your blunt desire to be world champion. Oh, and you're French. I don't know about having your babies, but I'll cook you Korean food once a month, when you have a day off between competitions. Now that's love, at least it is from me.

Oh, I also love Richard Clarke. His testimony yesterday was kickass. Oh, the drama, when the entire room fell silent for what felt like an eternity after he flat-out said that Bush's war in Iraq undermined the war on terror. The pissing contest between him and that Thompson guy, with Thompson ultimately slinking away with "well I'm from the midwest so I don't know anything," was highly entertaining. And he finally apologized for 9/11, although of course those words should have come out of the mouths of others. Hopefully people won't fall for the Bush administration's desperate scrambling to undermine Clarke's credibility.

Oh, and I finally picked up Loudain Wainwright III's album, The Last Man on Earth, and I love it to pieces. Most of the songs are about death, his mother's death in particular, which is of course up my alley. I like his wry sense of humor. It's a little strange to notice all the cross-references in his and his son's (Rufus Wainwright's) albums. I can't help but think about each in relation to the other. I do wonder, though, if he stands by his claim in the song "The Last Man on Earth" that he doesn't "give a damn which idiot runs this country" after what has happened in the last few years (I think the album was recorded back in 2000 or early 2001, before 9/11).

I'm reading the book Terrorism and Tyranny by James Bovard, which is primarily about the Bush administration's response to 9/11, particularly its curtailing of civil liberties via the Patriot Act. The first few chapters discuss the first war on terrorism during the Reagan administration and how subsequent administrations failed to act responsibly towards the threats of bin Laden and Al Qaida, leading up to the W. Bush administration's willful ignorance and lack of action before September 11th. It's been good to recap the events leading up to 9/11, especially since the 9/11 commission hearings took place today and will continue tomorrow. Although the Clinton administration certainly had their fuckups (its handling of the first WTC bombing, its failure to procure bin Laden after Sudan offered to capture him, the useless bombing of an abandoned Sudanese pharmaceutical factory), at least Richard Clarke appeared to realize the magnitude of the Al-Qaida terrorist threat at the time that the Bush administration took over, although he and George Tenet were apparently ignored by Dr.Rice and the rest of Bush's administration. Ugh. This is probably old news, but I missed a lot of these details the first time around (due to the stress of newly starting medical school, I guess), and am pretty horrified as I read about them now. Not to mention how ridiculously scary and unconstitutional the Patriot Act is, and how proposals for amendments were promptly shot down, and how it was rushed for approval before most of the signers even had a chance to read it.

God, it's been a long time. I've been kind of avoiding thinking about a lot of things, hence the lack of posts. But hopefully I can change that soon.

I participated in the Medical Student Faculty Show as a singer and a writer. It was called "Gray's," as in "Gray's Anatomy," and was based on the musical Grease (although the conflict is between a goody-two-shoes internist and a gunner surgeon instead of a "good girl" and "bad boy"). I wrote an Attending Rounds scene, a Third Year party scene, and a Match Day scene, all in the span of five hours (from 3 AM to 8 AM on a Monday morning). The latter two scenes had only a few lines before the songs ("You're the One that I Want" and "We Go Together" respectively, both from Grease). Anyway, here's the Attending Rounds scene. It's obviously a spoof of the show American Idol. I came up with the idea of this scene, and I think it actually does capture the competitive nature of attending rounds for the medical students, and also how arbitrary the responses from the attendings can be. I channeled some of the hate directed towards me from surgery attendings into the Dr.Simon character. I think the first and the last songs are written decently...the middle song, "Harder to Breathe," is insanely awkward and I wish I put more time into it, but the singer actually handled it with aplomb.

ATTENDING ROUNDS SCENE

This is a spoof of American Idol. There are three “judges,” who are attending physicians, seated at a table. There is the mean one with the British accent, “Simon,” who is a typical asshole surgeon type. There is the sweet nice one, “Paula,” who is the fluffy psychiatrist type. And there is “Randy” who is some internal medicine whatever guy (I’m thinking endocrinologist but it really doesn’t matter) who says “dawg” repeatedly. Meanwhile, the medical students, take stage one by one to “audition” with their patient presentations. There’s student #1, student #2,(who may be already established supporting characters) and Sandy. There is also the host-type character who interviews the students and asks them how they think they did.

HOST: Welcome to Medicine Attending Rounds! We have three medical student contestants who will perform their patient presentations, and we have our three esteemed judges, Dr. Simon, Dr.Paula, and Dr.Randy, who will choose our new Medical Student Idol. First up, Ladies and gentlemen, Student #1!

Music cues: “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles.

STUDENT #1:
Here come the runs, Here come the runs,
and it’s not right

Diarrhea, that’s this poor patient’s chief complaint
Diarrhea, it seems like years since it’s been clear
Here come the runs, here come the runs

Diarrhea, it could be caused by Norwalk virus,
Rotavirus, or it could be C.difficile.
Salmonella, Giardia,
And it’s not right

Runs, runs, runs, here they come…
Runs, runs, runs, here they come…

For assessment, well it’s clear that it’s diarrhea
Next the plan is, we rehydrate and culture her
Here come the runs, here come the runs
And it’s not right

Applause, or lack thereof. Student #1 nervously awaits the judges’ remarks.

PAULA: Student #1, I love how you put your heart into your performance. I could see that you were trying really hard to do well. You need to work on your pitch and phrasing, but you have a lot of potential. Good job. Thumbs up.
RANDY: You did your thing, dawg, and I respect that. It was a’ight. Just a’ight.
SIMON: I don’t know what planet you two are from. That was dreadful. Simply dreadful. You should hire a lawyer and sue the people who advised you to pursue this profession. And this institution should be ashamed of accepting your money to do labor for them. After all the presentations I’ve witnessed, I can safely say that you’re the worst medical student in America.

HOST: Aw, man! That’s pretty harsh, Dr. Simon. Do you have anything to say, Student #1?
STUDENT #1 (groveling): Dr. Simon, you are absolutely right and I’m horrible, but I can do better. Please still consider giving me honors! I’ll do anything! Anything!
SIMON: My failing you would be a gift to the medical profession. You simply don’t have what it takes.

STUDENT #1 is dragged off the stage by the HOST.

HOST: Okay, now for Medical Student #2!

Music starts: Maroon 5’s “Harder to Breathe”

STUDENT #2:
So this patient’s chief complaint is sudden dyspnea
He’s got HIV and CD4 of twenty-uh,
He’s had night sweats, fever, chills, headache, and hacking cough.
And he’s also noncompliant with his meds and stuff

So at the ED his O2 sat dropped to eighty-four,
And he was given two liters by nasal cannula
His O2 sat rose and then next he had some cultures drawn
He was admitted but his symptoms are not close to gone

Rash allergy to septra and noncompliant with meds
Which are dapsone and azithromycin, while on lung exam
He’s tachypnic and got decreased breath sounds in his bases you see
His chest x-ray shows bibasilar ‘terstitial opacities
He’s got pneumocystis p and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe

So for our plan we’ve got him on 2L Oyxgen
And for his PCP we’re giving him some primaquine
We also ruled him out for pulmonary embolism.
And he’ll get steroids for hypoxia and optimism.

Mr. B, he’s got HIV, and he’s noncompliant with meds
CD4 count is low and so he’s at pretty significant risk
His symptoms as well as his chest x-ray suggest PCP
He’s got pneumocystis p and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe
He’s got pneumocystis p and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe

Student #2 has tons of attitude, and smugly awaits the judges' comments.

PAULA: Medical student #2, I could see your spirit dancing as you were presenting that patient. You’ve really got that extra factor to be a great physician some day. Good job! Thumbs up.
RANDY: STUDENT 2, STUDENT 2, STUDENT 2. You’re the man, dawg. That was tight. Yeah!
SIMON: (dramatic pause) Well, it was just all right. I’ve heard better. You have strange facial expressions while presenting which I found rather distracting. I think I would have liked your presentation better if I kept my eyes closed.

HOST: Do you have anything to say to that?
STUDENT #2: Well, I just did my thing my own way, and some people won’t like it, but I don’t care what other people think. Dr.Simon has his opinion, and I have mine.
SIMON: And I was going to give you a passing grade! Never mind, I will fail you instead!

Student #2 gives a "whatever" face and flounces offstage.

HOST: And now for our third and final contestant, Sandy!

Music starts: Peggy Lee’s “Fever”

SANDY:
Fever is the chief complaint here, and swollen lymph nodes under the jaw
With the fever comes blurry vision, chills, also anorexia
He’s got a fever – but no skin rash, no bleeding or bruising in sight
Fever - in the morning, fever all through the night.

PMH does not give a clue here, and sex affairs he can’t recall,
Allergies? None to speak of, he’s taking no meds at all
He’s got a fever – Pulse 90’s, temperature is 39
Fever - in the morning, fever all through the night.
Leukoplakia on his tongue there, and some focal LUQ pain
Cervical lymph nodes are swollen, also tender to the touch,

This may be from a sort of infection, or maybe something autoimmune.
Could also be a type of cancer. A biopsy is scheduled soon.
He’s got a fever – we’ll do some cultures, for viruses and rickettsiae.
Fever - in the morning, fever all through the night.

Applause.

RANDY: Sandy, Sandy, Sandy. Yo, that was off the hook! You need to teach a class, show all these other students how to get this done. You’re definitely getting Honors, dawg!
PAULA: I have tears in my eyes; that was just wonderful. You hit all the notes on that presentation perfectly. You’re going to be a star physician, Sandy! Honors to you!
SIMON: That was perfect. There is no question in my mind that you have won this competition. You’re the only student today who was worth my attention. I give you Honors as well.

HOST: Congratulations! It looks like you’re our new Honors Student! What do you have to say to that, Sandy?
SANDY: I…I…I was great! I didn’t hold back, I kicked ass with my presentation, I’m getting Honors, and…*gasp* I like being a gunner! Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hard on Danny…oh Danny, I understand now why you’ve been so aggressive about school. If only we could work things out…

End scene.

Hey, I'm easily amused. This guy's imitation of Billy Corgan (of Smashing Pumpkins fame) isn't bad.

Every year my father sends me a box of Li-Lac Chocolates for Valentine's Day. They're homemade chocolates from a little place in Greenwich Village; the champagne truffles are especially celebrated. He usually sends me a truffle assortment, because I am a truffle whore. Anyway, each year I get the box, and I always forget which truffles correspond to which flavors. So, for future reference: Milk chocolate with dark chocolate stripes = champagne truffle, and dark chocolate with white stripes = caramel truffle. My favorites, and the ones I always want to save for last. Good Lord, but they're divine.

Out of curiosity, I rented the first Six Feet Under DVD and watched the pilot and the next couple episodes. I had never seen the show before, due to my lack of HBO (and absence of friends who forced the show upon me, as Dave did with Sex and the City). Although I found some of the script a bit stilted and stage-y, I found myself really identifying with a lot of the characters. Just being in the hospital and constantly confronting the immediacy of death makes one more aware of mortality. And then, of course, there was all the stuff I went through during my pediatrics and surgery rotations which made me acutely aware of my own mortality. Although I've largely learned to push away and distract myself from thinking about death, the fear is still there. And there's also a kind of desperation to do all that I wish to do right now, in case my time is soon up. But my inability to accomplish all that I wish to do (or even a small fraction of what I wish to do) frustrates the hell out of me and sometimes makes me want to curl into the fetal position and dream away my life (I've never taken drugs, but maybe those would help?).

Anyway, back to the show. I hated the fake commercials in the first episode with a fiery passion, but thankfully, they don't seem to be a recurring element in the episodes. Peter Krause--damn but he's gorgeous. I loved Rachel Griffiths in past film roles, so she's welcome here. I love, love, love Lauren Ambrose. She's so natural on screen. I'm impressed with Frances Conroy as the mother, although the sudden outbursts are becoming repetitive and tiring (more the fault of the screenwriter than of the actress). I identify with David (Michael C.Hall) the most, of course. Well, I think that I'm probably a strange mix between David and Nate. But I feel David's pain most strongly--his feeling of entrapment because he's unable to let himself be happy. Urgh.

*sigh* Well, Howard Dean has announced that he's no longer campaigning for president. I got a little misty-eyed reading and hearing snippets of the speech he gave to his supporters today. I'm overstating here, but I feel like he was the lamb who was sacrificed in order to breathe life back into the Democratic Party. His early fury and bluster about Bush's failures, and the support he gained from doing so, led the way for other candidates to safely coopt his message in more media-friendly soundbites. And even with all of his fuckups, he was the only candidate, other than Kucinich, who convinced me (and had the history to support) that he was really passionate about reversing the Bush administration's agenda, bringing power back to the people rather than kowtowing to corporate interests, and discussing openly the motivation for the war in Iraq. Kerry and Edwards talk a good game, but they still strike me as rather shady. Especially Kerry. Yes, he was a war hero, and yes, he valiantly protested the Vietnam War after his return. But he voted for the PATRIOT act, he voted for the war in Iraq, he voted for No Child Left Behind. A significant portion of his funding comes from special interest groups. His voting history indicates that he's very much centrist. He's ugly as sin, he's a wooden speaker (not as wooden as Gore, but definitely without the fire of Dean, or the charm of Edwards), and he has a strange family including his gazillionaire ketchup heiress wife who babbles nonsensically at campaign events. Oh, but he's "electable," whatever that means. It does seem that Republicans view Kerry as much more of a threat than Dean to Bush's bid for reelection, but I still feel like Kerry lacks something, and still feel uneasy about his chances of winning the presidency.

I still haven't figured out how Dean's presidential bid flopped so spectacularly. I do know that I'm not one of those who "dated Dean, married Kerry." In fact, I suspect that if Kerry does gain the nomination, those who voted for him in the primaries might eventually wish for a divorce. But then again, anyone but Bush, right? *sigh*

The other day I met a wommon named Hooker Dough. Hooker Dough. No shit.

Well, I just saw Capturing the Friedmans (with all the DVD special features...I'm beginning to fall in love with the whole DVD thing, which is new to technologically retarded me). It blew my mind. The best movie I've seen in ages. The director Jarecki did an amazing job with this debut film of his (although I'm sure the shitload of money gained from being the founder and CEO of Moviefone helped him out quite a bit, as well as his luck to discover such a rich and complex and tragic story). The DVD included an interview with Jarecki and Charlie Rose, and Jarecki made the comment that these days in the media (spurred by our current President and his cronies) there seems to be such an emphasis on the sharp delineation between "good guys" and "bad guys," but this movie reveals that this is a fantasy, that there is a gray area between black and white, that people can do really horrible things while also being good in other ways. If nothing else, this film reveals the endless complexity of human nature. I've found myself drawn more to documentaries lately. This film, as well as the grand prize winner of the Full Frame Festival in 2002, The Last Just Man, packed such a wallop, I don't know if I'll ever recover. Damn.

This article, which features an interview with the sociologist Arlie Hochschild, attempts to explain why blue collar white men vote for Bush, even though his policies will probably benefit them less than the policies of Bush's Democrat opponents. I've been mystified by this phenomenon for quite some time. Hochschild's implication that blue collar white men resent womyn and minorities, and thus turn to the Republican party which they feel will champion themselves at the expense of others, is quite disturbing to say the least. As well as their falling for Bush's bullshit aw-shucks-I'm-just-like-you act. God, when I read something like "I voted for Gore, but I'd probably vote for President Bush if I had to do it again...I like that he's a Christian and that's he's not afraid to admit it. I can relate to that." , I just don't know what to do other than shrug helplessly.

I'm still fuming that CBS did not air the MoveOn.org anti-Bush ad during the Superbowl, after it aired ads supporting the Bush administration last year. As for the Janet Jackson boob fiasco, I won't waste much more space on that. All I will say is that the outrage is ridiculous (the French must be laughing their asses off at us right now...it's a fucking breast, for God's sake), and that it just highlights the insane hypocrisy of CBS. All this media hoopla over a fucking breast, while there are so many more newsworthy stories about how people's lives are fucked over by the Bush administration, both here in the States and overseas. It's sickening.

I finally saw Lost in Translation a few nights ago. It didn't quite live up to the hype for me. I don't know if this was due to my mood at the time, or to impossibly high expectations because of said hype. I had a few issues with the film. First of all, there is the autobiographical element. Charlotte, played by Scarlett Johanssen, was clearly a stand-in for Sofia Coppola herself, and John, played by Giovanni Ribisi, was clearly a stand-in for Spike Jonze. I've read that the ditzy blond actress was supposed to be Cameron Diaz, and she certainly was Cameron-like with her bubbly demeanor, TMI regarding body odor, and her kung fu movie (i.e. the Charlie's Angels remake). I don't know the details of the now-defunct marriage between Sofia and Spike, and so I can't take sides. However, I absolutely love Spike's work. Being John Malkovich and Adaption are among my favorite movies of all time, and impressed me greatly with their innovation. Spike's probably my favorite music video director as well...God, think of Weezer's "Buddy Holly," the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage," Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" and "Praise You"...I could go on and on. So, to see Spike portrayed in such a negative light in Lost in Translation left a bad taste in my mouth. And it really was Spike. The sunglasses, the clothes, the demeanor, the stuttering, the mannerisms...(if you check out his performance in Three Kings, you can see how strong the resemblance is)...it was definitely him. And so I couldn't hold back some irritation at Charlotte, and thus Sofia Coppola herself, for making me feel negatively about an artist that I greatly admire. This compromised my ability to enjoy any scenes with Charlotte, especially the scenes with John, with ditzy blond actress girl, or with Charlotte alone. Well, there is also the matter of some appalling interviews with Scarlett Johanssen which have dissipated my previous admiration of the actress (which existed in the first place because of her appearance in Ghost World).

Okay, my other beef with the movie (surprise, surprise): how the Japanese were objects of mockery. Why would a reasonably intelligent wommon ask a question like "Why do they mix up their l's and r's?" Other than to set up Bob's punchline, "For yuks"? Different languages have different sounds, and not all people were raised learning to speak the sounds used in the English language, dumbass! Gah! And it struck me as strange that the insanely cheezy red-haired lounge singer was good enough for Bob to sleep with, because she was white and American, while the Asian prostitute who asked him to "lip my stockings" was too repulsive to fuck. Cheating on his wife is cheating...but of course he would only cheat with a white chick. I hated that whole segment, actually. Well both segments--the "lip my stockings" segment and the "cheating-on-wife-with-cheezy-lounge-singer" segment. The latter plot twist just seemed too soap opera-ish for me. It served its purpose to create conflict between Bob and Charlotte, and to also help them realize how much they meant to one another, but surely there could have been a less predictable and cheezy way to do this. Ugh.

Things I liked: Bill Murray, the ending, the soundtrack, the cinematography, the title.

Bill Murray: Sofia Coppola has reported that she wrote this part with him in mind, and he took the role and completely kicked ass with it. He was transfixing in every scene...the subtlety of his performance was astounding. His voice, his fleeting facial expressions, his body language, his eyes...with ease and grace, he conveyed the myriad of this character's emotions and uncertainties. I'm not as familiar with his other performances as most other kids of my generation are (I've only seen him in Rushmore, and have never seen Meatballs or Ghostbusters or any other the other iconic Bill Murray movies), but I understand why he's always so celebrated as a comedic and, more importantly, an authentically human actor. Whenever I think about Bob, there is a pang of tenderness in my heart, and this is thanks to Mr. Murray. I think, other than the ending and the going-out-karaoke-scene, my favorite scene is when he's in the hospital waiting room, goofing around with the old Japanese lady, while Charlotte gets her foot examined. I just love that scene, the pure childish joy of it.

The ending: this was one of the director's touches which struck me as really lovely. Bob whispers something in Charlotte's ear before they part, and we, the audience, are not able to decipher it. It's their secret. It reminds me of the end of Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love when the main male character whispers his secret into the hole of a tree, and we don't hear what he says. In both cases, the characters keep something to themselves, and this gives them some privacy, a life outside of the world of the movie. Which makes them only seem more real, and more alive.

The soundtrack/cinematography: I thought the music was fantastic. Perfectly captured the mood of the film. And the cinematography, with those gorgeous shots of neon signs reflected on windows and dreamy off-kilter images, was also wonderful.

The title: "Lost in translation" refers not only to the fact that Bob and Charlotte are in a foreign country where they do not understand the language or the culture, but also how they are unable to communicate with their spouses or understand themselves. Only when they're with each other does the world make some sense. However, the strength of their mutual understanding can only occur under ephemeral circumstances (while they are away from their normal worlds and their spouses, while they are in their current stages of personal evolution). This is why they must part, to keep the purity of their spectacular connection.

Next up for me: Capturing the Friedmans! I've been dying to see this movie since forever. Woo!

We like the moon.

Curses. My friend Brian has gotten me addicted to vintage clothes shopping on ebay. At the moment I'm on the hunt for a cloche hat, the kind which graced the heads of ladies in the paintings of Edward Hopper, such as Chop Suey. I'm waiting for a supposedly mod vinyl trenchcoat in the mail. Someone stop me.

This week's This American Life includes a profile of Jerry Springer, aka the talk show host and former mayor of Cincinnati. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I was blown away by his political speeches. They created a stirring of feeling inside which I rarely experience while listening to modern day politicians. I knew vaguely of his political career but I had no idea that he was such a gifted politician. I thought it was telling that even people who knew him from his talk show were caught in his spell as they listened to him talk, about how he immigrated to the States with his parents at the age of five after most of his family had been killed in the Holocaust, about how the rich should not be getting monstrous tax cuts and how this does little to help the economy or the poor. There was such raw passion in his voice, and what he said was poignant and appealed to common sense. He's a fascinating study of self-loathing. The revelation of his use of a prostitute while he was in office seems to have led to this downward spiral, resulting in his playing the foolish ringleader of a trash television circus. He doesn't seem to have forgiven himself for this public failing, even though, at least according to those interviewed on the show, everyone else forgave him and wanted him to continue to serve his community.

Song of the moment: "1979" by the Smashing Pumpkins. I can forgive Billy Corgan's bitchiness and egotism because he writes such damn good songs. This one is perfect for driving at night, and brings me back to aimless high school misadventures.

I saw the movie crazy/beautiful yesterday on television and it was, well, beautiful. I tend to be very very critical of teenage coming of age love stories, since it's so hard to do anything interesting with a genre that's been done to death, but this was one done right. Apparently the more explicit sex and drug use scenes were edited so that the film could maintain a PG13 rating. This may have compromised the quality of the film, but it's still damn good. It's really nice to see Kirsten Dunst act her little heart out as Nicole, a role more challenging than Mary Jane in Spiderman, or Torrence in Bring it On (although she was charming in both those roles). And damn--Jay Hernandez, who plays the male lead Carlos, left me weak in the knees. His lips, his eyes, his chest, his tattoos...*swoon.* What a gorgeous guy. The critique of well-meaning but clueless liberals was not as trenchant as it could have been, but the wince factor was high when Nicole's father tries to empathize with Carlos by telling him that "it must have been hard to escape from la vida loca of drugs and violence...it's not just a Ricky Martin song." (Or something close to that).

I love Caffe Driade. Not only do the servers and the patrons provide plenty of eye candy, as well as nummy pastry treats, but they almost always play fantastic music there. It was where I first heard Beck's Sea Change, as well as Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism. I got more done during five hours there tonight than I've gotten done the entire past week. Damn but I wish I were more productive at home.

Anyway, there's a story of mine which has been in progress for over a year, called "Cookie Dough." I had the first couple of lines and the last couple of lines for the longest time, but couldn't write what happened in between those two points until tonight. This is a first draft, so it's unpolished (God, I always say that...at every story reading, I've said those exact words). I think this is the first story I've written in three years that does not contain the word "orifice." Woo!

Cookie Dough

Robbie smashed a second scoop of chocolate ice cream into the paper cup. He sang with Britney on the radio, his overly cigaretted voice offering a plaintive and weary interpretation of “Oops I did it again.”
“Is that all? I can’t believe I’m paying $3.14 for just that much.” The woman’s red lips were pursed in displeasure, like a bloody gash beneath her nose. Her knuckles were white from grasping the Sunday Times so tightly.
Robbie masked his irritation with a creative interpretation of a smile. “You asked for two scoops. Ye ask, and ye shall receive.”
Robbie had renounced God after a particularly nice screw with a plaid-sporting Steve McQueen type in a red pickup truck on October 23rd, 1977, and he never went back. But when he raised his eyes from the cash register to take the next order, he could have sworn that an angel appeared before him. This vision of such beauty and purity and innocence was so sickeningly sweet, he felt like he was being asphyxiated with vanilla. Robbie was suddenly self-conscious about his rough, scarred skin, and the strands of gray mixed with dirty blond of his straggly shoulder-length hair. This boy…his creamy smooth skin, rosy cheeks, chocolate curls of hair…this was a dream of a boy, who knew no evil, no ugliness, no wrong. Robbie almost wanted to take a bite of him and swallow him and digest him to incorporate his young fresh molecules into his own body’s aging matter…but then again, eating veal or lamb doesn’t make one feel any younger or more innocent.
“Your name must be Dick, right?” Robbie found these words escaping his mouth, to his surprise.
“Why do you say that?”
“You look like a drawing in one of those Dick and Jane books, the kind that my Dad read to me when I was a kid.”
The young boy smiled widely, and the brilliant glow of his teeth combined with the sparkle of his eyes nearly blinded Robbie. “I guess I do look pretty old-fashioned. I’m not like some of the other kids here with spiked, bleached blond, or purple hair. My name is Jim. What’s yours?”
“Barbra Streisand.”
“Well, your nametag says ‘Robbie,’” Jim noted, confused.
His mother suddenly appeared, resembling a massive peach elephant beside him. “Jim? Have you gotten your ice cream yet?”
Jim turned to his mother and gave her the same charming smile he had given to Robbie just a few seconds earlier. “No, mom. You sit down and I’ll take care of it. You want butter pecan, right?”
His mother looked critically at Robbie. “You make sure this boy gets nothing but the best, you hear? He got a 1580 on his SAT’s. He’s going to go far someday. Maybe even president!”
“Well, I’ll make sure that this future luminary gets whatever sweet treat his little heart desires.”
Mom glared at Robbie. “Just make sure that your dirty hands don’t come in contact with his ice cream. I don’t want him to get any diseases from the likes of you.”
Was it that obvious that he had HIV? His T-cell count was still decent, and he had always been skinny. Robbie didn’t think he looked sick, at least not yet. Or was she just assuming this because he was gay? Robbie wasn’t sure, but he managed to keep his expression neutral as he regarded Jim’s mother. “I wouldn’t dream of corrupting your son. After all, he’s our future president.”
Jim blushed. “Mom, you just sit down, okay? He’s doing a fine job.”
Mom harrumphed and navigated the way back to her chosen table.
Jim leaned forward and whispered, “I’m sorry she was rude. She didn’t mean it…Sometimes she just gets a little uppity.”
Robbie felt himself melting under the soft brown-eyed gaze of this boy. “She’s proud of you, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just an ice cream scooper. You’re gonna be someone important someday.”
Jim looked startled by this comment. “Everybody’s important, including you.”
Robbie paused, and tried not to show the emotion that he felt, which manifested in a burning sensation inside of the bridge of his nose. He managed a crooked smile and brandished his ice cream scooper. “So Jim, your mom wants butter pecan, what about you?”
Jim gave him another of his devastating smiles. “Chocolate chip cookie dough, please. Both large, in cups."
“You got it, Dick.” Robbie grinned.
“My name’s Jim!” he protested, mock-offended.
“Well, it should be Dick.” Robbie went to task, slipping the edge of the scooper beneath the surface of the butter pecan carton and carving a curl of ice cream which he deposited in a cup, followed by a second scoop. He placed the cup on the counter for Jim. He then rinsed his scooper and moved to the cookie dough carton, repeating the motions. He heaped the contents of this cup particularly high.
“Do you guys make your own ice cream here?” Jim queried.
“Sure do. The best you’ll ever have, Dick.” Robbie placed the second cup on the counter next to its older sibling.
Jim grinned. “You’re awfully confident about that. What will happen if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not wrong. This is the best, kid.” Robbie’s fingers were a little stiff from the near-contact with the freezer as he rang the order up on the cash register. “$7.26.”
Jim fished in his coat pocket for his wallet, and extracted a $10 bill. “Here ya go.”
Robbie slipped the $10 bill into its slot in the register, and counted out the change. “All right, Dick. You and your momma enjoy your ice cream, okay?” He placed the change in Jim’s hands, and his fingers brushed Jim’s open, waiting palm. A jolt of electricity raced up his arm from the point of contact. Robbie trembled slightly and looked away from Jim, not wanting to showcase the vulnerability likely present in his eyes.
Jim looked at Robbie with knowing gentleness and withdrew the hand clutching his change. “Thanks. You take it easy, okay?”
“Take it easy,” Robbie echoed. His eyes followed Jim as he grabbed a couple of spoons and some napkins from the counter, and made his way towards his mother. Robbie realized that they had probably come in after church, given his mother’s dress and flowered hat, and Jim’s navy suit.
“Sir? Sir! Excuse me, I’m ready to order.” Robbie snapped to attention and turned to look into the face of a twenty-something Asian woman with an impatient expression, a physiology textbook tucked under one arm. Must be one of those medical students.
“Sorry, sweetheart. What can I get you?”
"Small pistachio, please."
As Robbie moved his scooper toward the pistachio carton, he quickly glanced over to the seating area to find Jim. He and his mother had risen from their chairs and were putting on their coats. As they headed for the exit, Jim turned and his eyes met Robbie’s, whose heart raced in response. The corners of Jim’s lips rose in a shy smile, and his arm rose in a jaunty wave.
Robbie paused in his scooping and dipped his chin in acknowledgement. He did not blink once until Jim’s figure was obscured by the glass windows and finally left his sight. He wanted all 24 frames a second to replay in his mind as he lay in bed that night, beneath the constellations he had fashioned on the ceiling with glow-in-the-dark sticker stars.

To return to my rant about stupid comments said to biracial people, I have to mention this site. Ugh. While I suppose the claim that biracial chicks are always supremely hot is intended to be a compliment, there are two sketchy aspects to this. First of all, there is the suggestion that when Asian features are diluted by Caucasian features, they become more conventionally attractive. Even Asian people are guilty of this. One of my cousins (who is fully Asian) once looked at me wistfully and said, "I wish I could be half white, so I could have eyelids like yours and so my skin wouldn't be as dark." The fuck? This girl is much, much more conventionally beautiful than I could ever hope to be, and she's telling me this shit? Argh. I also recall one Asian chick telling me, "I want to have a kid with a white man, because Eurasian people are always so beautiful." (Well, I then reminded her that I was Eurasian, and she looked at me quizzically and said, "What? Oh yeah! I forgot you were biracial!" *ahem* Gee, thanks for that ego-booster.) Second of all, it singles out Eurasian people as somehow special or different from people of other ethnic backgrounds in terms of their potential attractiveness. I've seen quite a few Eurasian people, and they run the gamut from exceedingly hideous to spellbindingly gorgeous and everything in between. Just like people of any ethnic background. We're not "special" in that way. Perhaps people come to this assumption because of their lack of exposure...they might not see many Eurasians other than celebrities such as Keanu Reeves or Dean Cain or Devon Aoki, and come to the conclusion that all Eurasians must be that beautiful. Or they might see the one Eurasian kid in their school who happens to be really attractive, and then conclude that all Eurasians must be attractive. Erm, no. Wrong.

Song of the moment: Wilco's "How to Fight Loneliness." Solitude is something I embrace, not something from which I try to escape. I'm usually spinning so many thoughts in my head that I don't notice that I'm alone. But I feel a little twinge of recognition when I hear this song all the same. "Doo doo doo, doo doo doo, just smile all the time..."

Fucking insomnia.

Earlier this evening, a car horn somewhere outside of my apartment blared for at least thirty minutes. At first I feared that it might be a scene recreated from Chinatown, but there was enough variation in the noise (such as a few short pauses sandwiched between long stretches of "beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep") that I figured it probably was not caused by the weight of a corpse. I'm guessing it was probably just drunken lout behavior. Here's hoping.

I love Dick Button (or as I've called him over the years, "Dick Butt"). He's a figure skating commentator who bitches at inadequate layback spins and voices the desire to pinch the cheeks of chubby faced Russian female skaters. He's the cantankerous one who bluntly says when a skater sucks ass, while Peggy Fleming hurriedly reminds us the viewing audience how nice a person the skater is, to draw attention away from the shitty performance. I watched the U.S. National Championships today, and thankfully Dick Butt was there to give his opinion sans bullshit. He cracked me up when he began to bitch about the first male skater's "flailing of his arms" which distracted from his program. But he was right; it was distracting. The entire men's skate was sort of an odd experience; there were all these tall, slender, lanky men who looked like Japanese anime characters, who twisted themselves into all sorts of insane positions as they leapt and spun and danced across the ice. I liked their sexual ambiguity, their androgyny. Since Rudy Galindo's win several years ago, there has definitely been more freedom in U.S. male skating for men to look pretty and skate prettily (or in a "feminine" way, to use the stereotypical meaning of that word).

ABC Sports tried to help us get to know the skaters better by adding little bullets underneath their names shortly before they skated. I know now that Michael Weiss "works with a hypnotist," and Johnny Weird "idolizes Justin Timberlake and likes to roller skate." Oops, I meant Johnny Weir, but I kind of like that typo, so I'll leave it be. In any case, I did not want to know that Johnny idolized Justin Timberlake and liked to roller skate, and my enjoyment of his gold-medal winning performance might have suffered because of that knowledge. He did have a beautiful skate, though. And it was pretty inspiring that he had such a disastrous long program skate last year, including falling through the boards and having to restart his program and fucking up all his jumps, and ultimately withdrawing due to injury. It's goofy, but I get all warm and tingy over these sorts of inspirational stories. After all my fuckups the past couple of years (which are relative, I know, but I'm a critical person), it's nice to think that with determination and hard work, I could overcome them and become a champion of some sort (a "champion" as I define the word). Provided that 1) I have the talent, and 2) I find that determination and hard work. Iffy at the moment.

My favorite had to be the guy with the rainbow tiered sleeves who skated to some sort of pulsating drum-filled tribal music, who ended up in 4th. He had such a fluid style, with such attention to the music as he illustrated its rhythms by twisting his torso and carving spaces with his arms. He seemed like the type of guy who regularly did yoga and had a collection of crystals, and who only drank herbal tea. He had a sort of unselfconsciousness about him which reminded me of the performance artists and dancers I've known. The commentators spoke about how he and his wife did community service work, and taught Sunday school to underprivileged children; I wasn't surprised.

I saw the ladies' free skate as well, and of course was completely enthralled by Michelle Kwan's skate. It was gorgeous. Perfect. Her excitement during the last minute of her program, after she had completed all of her jumps, as she raced across the ice doing her footwork...chills, baby. Chills.

Outside of opera, figure skating is one of the few somewhat mainstream realms which irony has not yet penetrated. It's truly a sport for romantics, with its overblown emotions, its ridiculous costumes, its gaudy story-telling, its intense now-or-never competition. Your worth is solely judged by those three or four minutes on the ice, not how good you were in practice, not how good you were in the last competition. Just those three or four minutes. And the skaters feel it, the audience feels it. It's so intense. I love it.

Top 5 things NOT to say to someone who is biracial, or of ambiguous race (such as myself):

1) "What are you?"
I always hate hearing this question when the questioner is actually asking about my race, especially when it's the first or second thing that (s)he wants to know after meeting me. To properly answer the question: I'm female, I'm an art lover, I'm a bitch at times, I'm neurotic, I'm excessively verbose, I'm wacky, I'm uncertain about my future, I'm a dedicated listener, I'm a daydream believer, I'm an introvert, I'm a huge fan of R.E.M., I'm someone who suffers from inner turmoil regarding the meaning of my existence. Oh, and my mother is Asian, and my father is Caucasian, and thus I am half of each. If you want to know my ethnicity, then ask specifically about my ethnicity. Don't assume that my ethnicity is the totality of my existence and my identity, because you'd be wrong.

I often respond to this question by asking the person to guess, and I've heard everything from Native American to East Indian to Italian to Mexican to Egyptian to Filipino to Jewish. In my numerous travels around the world, people have come up to me and spoken to me in their native language, often assuming that I work at the store or restaurant where we happen to coexist. Here in the States, Latinos often approach me with a question in Spanish which I regretfully cannot answer. Strangely enough, my racial identity is so ambiguous that I am treated like a universal native...except in my own country, where I am called things like "exotic." See example #3.

2) "Wow, that's so cool of your parents!"
Yes. Back in the 70's, my parents looked at each other, realized that they were of different races, and decided to fuck the whole racist interracial taboo bullshit by literally fucking each other. Their copulation, and thus their creation of me, was all in the name of political correctness, which warms your fuzzy nonracist heart.

3) The word "exotic." e.g. "You look like an exotic Egyptian princess!" or "Oh, so that's why you look so exotic" (upon learning the components of my ethnicity).
OK, so you're saying that I'm the "other," that I'm a foreigner to you, even though I was born in New York City and raised in New Jersey and as American as any other kid. And you use a word that brings to mind Gauguin's Tahitian mistresses and Delacroix's Arabian prostitutes who offer the European man respite from the confines of his own culture via their savage mindless lusty bodies and their feathers and jewels and spices. A guy used this line on me, and it was an immediate dealbreaker. "Exotic" is not a compliment.

4) "Does your brother look more or less Asian [or insert other race here] than you do?"
A female physician actually asked me this during an interview for a NY medical school, after she took off her glasses and peered at me for a few minutes, presumably to determine how "Asian" I looked to her. How the hell am I supposed to make this sort of judgment to answer this question? Am I supposed to measure the size of his eyes compared to mine? Measure the degree that his eyes tilt compared to mine? The relative flatness of our noses? The relative yellowness of our skins? Examine the configuration of his features and determine how it much it deviates from what is stereotypically Asian, compared to mine? This was one question that rendered me absolutely speechless.

5) "If you had to choose one, would you say that you're Caucasian or Asian? [or insert two races here]"
I'm half of each. One parent is one, and another parent is the other. Hence I'm biracial. Don't ask me to choose one, because I won't. Maybe in your little world (or the world of the writers of demographic questions for the census, SAT's, whatever), a person can only identify with one race. That's not my world, where duality and plurality are quite acceptible, thanks.

Also, pick-up lines not to use on Asian chicks (these are real examples):
-Hey, I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
-Your hairstyle really goes well with your ethnicity.
-You speak English really good! No really, you don't have an accent at all!

Song of the day: "White Winos" by Loudon Wainwright III (Rufus's daddy). Somehow I ended up downloading the song awhile back, I don't recall exactly why. I think I had read positive things about his 2001 album, The Last Man on Earth, and in my curiosity downloaded whatever I could find, and ended up with this song. In any case, it struck me like no other song ever had before, or has since. It's one of the two most wryly moving son-to-mother odes I've encountered (my other favorite is David Sedaris's essay, "Ashes"). I just love when he sings about how he'd switch from wine to beer whenever he and his mother would start to talk about the "old man." There's an easy, simple grace to this song, with the aftertaste of mourning, just like the bitter aftertaste of a complex wine (ugh, cheezy simile, I know). I put the song on a mix CD which I made for a college friend, and also on a mix tape that I had left in my car before my father had used it during my winter break. After he returned the car to me, he mentioned this song specifically, along with Eva Cassidy's "Fields of Gold" and Beck's "Already Dead." Since he's such a wine connoisseur, I'm not surprised it caught his attention. The version I downloaded a few years ago is a truncated version, as I discovered today. As I was leaving NJ to head back to NC, the local radio station (God bless Brookdale public radio 90.5 FM) played a longer version of "White Winos" with several verses I hadn't heard before, which explicitly acknowledged Loudon's mother's death and was more obviously sentimental and wistful. I like the longer version, actually, because it gives a little more context, a little more detail to round out his mother's portrait as well as his own. Shit, I'll obviously have to get the album now.

I saw the most beautiful sunsets while driving. Puddles of melted sherbert (orange and raspberry) blending into an array of beautiful pastels (melons and pinks). Lavender clouds with glowing copper lacey edges.

Last night I dreamt about a guy I used to deeply, desperately love, and am still rather shaken. I haven't been in contact with him for several years. It's amazing how strong an effect the memory of him still has on me. I don't think I'd want to see him again.

I visited a college friend for New Year's and we got into a discussion about various people we knew who were absolute gems, witty and brilliant and sweet, but were hideous by conventional standards of physical attractiveness, and thus had issues with poor self image. And I admit that as gorgeous as some of them are on the inside, I couldn't imagine being attracted to them or fucking them. So perhaps my earlier post about character actors, or at least my claim that I could completely look past physical appearance with regards to attraction, was pure horseshit. *shrug* But that doesn't mean that I can't work towards becoming a better person someday, right?

By the way, speaking of character actors again, I love Bob Balaban. He was a treat in Ghost World, but I love him best in Waiting for Guffman, where he played the musical director who so clearly resented Corky for getting all the glory despite his ineptitude.

I went ice skating with my mother and my aunt today, and really loved it. I've skated twice before. The first time was a few years ago, with my friend Joe. We were probably both about 17. It was wintertime and we decided to skate on an open rink in the South Street Seaport in New York City. Neither of us had ever skated before, and there was much unintentional ass/ice contact. At times he grabbed me for support as he wobbled, which in turn made me lose my balance, and down onto the ice we went. After one of our more spectacular falls, the onlooker tourists crowded around our crumpled bodies, and then pointed and laughed and mocked in their native tongues. The second time was in North Carolina with a bunch of medical school friends. Today's third attempt was in New Jersey (best place in the world, second to Paris). I thought I was going to go insane when the public skate began with a Phil Collins medley (those horrible Disney Tarzan songs which make my ears bleed), but once the music switched to the Beach Boys, I was able to blissfully skate without trying to contain my irritation. (Although it seemed a bit incongruous since the Beach Boys' music always makes me think of summer, rather than winter, their name aside. I know once the summer heat returns, I'll be dusting off my Pet Sounds.) I whizzed along, with cold-bitten cheeks and flapping hair, trying not to crash into the lightning-fast four-year-olds who skillyfully weaved in and out of other more clumsy skaters, such as myself. There was an older guy, presumably a Dad, who chased a young boy, presumably his son, around the rink. Whenever Dad caught the kid, he lifted him up and carried him; as they flew together on the ice, the kid's face was alight with pure joy. While viewing this episode, I experienced one of those rare little aches in my chest, one of those pesky pangs of longing...for a kid, and for a husband or lover who fathered that kid with me, and for the opportunity to watch them do these sorts of sickeningly sweet things together. But then I remembered how glad I am to be able to wait a long time before dealing with any of the responsibilities which accompany cutesy family scenes such as that one.

I fell twice. The first fall probably provided much entertainment to the older moms who were seated on benches ouside the rink, watching their kids stumble on the ice, cameras in hand. There was much arm circling (r of circle = full length of arm) and body bending 45 degrees forward, then backward, then forward again, and leg wobbling, and then...splat. Well, if I'm going to fall, then I'm going to do it in style, dammit. I know the older moms got a laugh or two out of me. Although hopefully they kept their fingers off of their shutter buttons while I was doing my thing.

So, I must admit that after seeing the final Lord of the Rings movie on the big screen tonight (the first one of the trilogy that I've seen on the big screen), I finally understand why so many people are so taken with Legolas, the Orlando Bloom character. I grudgingly admit that yes, he is very pretty with his long blond hair and lithe figure and serene expression and occasional silver head jewelry. And his action sequences with all that arrow-shooting are indeed very cool (I loved the scene where he crawled up the elephant and arrowed all the baddies). However, his face bears such a strong resemblance to the face of the friend I mentioned earlier, Joe, that I can't see Legolas without also seeing Joe. It really is unnerving.

I have so much love for Rufus Wainwright's Want One album, and have been listening to it over and over again. I've heard that his earlier albums are better, but I haven't heard them so I can't compare. I've also heard that he's kind of an ass, but I loved his salon.com interview, and haven't read much else so I can't say for certain that he is guilty of assholism. In any case, anyone with a Romantic sensibility will get love from me, because of my insane fondness for those guys (Delacroix and Keats and Coleridge and the Shelleys...I still think that Percy Shelley's "Defense of Poetry" is one of the greatest influences in my life, and definitely one of the most beautiful things I've ever read). And, erm, he sure is pretty. I was actually worried that my love for the album would be marred by negative association, since I played it in the car to calm my nerves as I was driving to meet a guy who turned out to be a complete asshole; thankfully that has not been the case. Some of the lyrics of the songs are meh (what was up with that Britney Spears reference?), but the soaring operatic vocals and classical music influences are simultaneously spine-tingling and very calming. It's lush and gorgeous. *sigh* "Men reading fashion magazines...oh what a world it seems we live in...straight men..."

An older friend of the family, M, was suffering from the ravages of ovarian cancer (currently in remission, thankfully) when another lady (who had gone through a health crisis of her own) told her, "Let people love you. Don't fight them." M proclaimed this to be one of the most important pieces of advice she had ever received. While these words resonated with something inside of me when she told them to me so many months ago, I certainly have not followed them. I'm not sure I know how. For future crises, I hope I learn.

I finally got a collection of Dorothy Parker's short stories (thanks Santa) and have been reading them the past couple of days. I had never read her stuff before. It's lovely. The stories are sometimes a little too narrow in their concerns, and sometimes lack a little polish, but boy do I envy the sharp and concise and brutal quality of her prose. And she has a morbid and slightly despairing sensibility which I understand quite well (although I still retain some youthful idealism to temper this in myself). I read "Big Blonde" first, and it's definitely the strongest of the stories I've read so far. "Here's mud in your eye."

I saw the film Cold Mountain a couple of days ago, which I absolutely, passionately adored. (Then again I'm a sucker for epic historical romances...I similarly swooned for The English Patient, another film directed by Minghella, which many of my friends despised). I spent the first few minutes of the film scrutinizing Nicole Kidman's face for the evidence of plastic surgery (which was very apparent in the piece-of-shit trailer for the Stepford Wives remake), but soon abandoned that habit as I lost myself in the story, the characters, the images. I've muchly liked Jude Law in everything I've seen him in so far, and he doesn't disappoint in this film...he was achingly beautiful, tragic, wonderful. I'm relieved that he, and not Tom Cruise, ended up playing the part of Inman. Nicole Kidman (although her Southern accent was less than convincing) and Renee Zellweger were also damn good. Jack White's cameo wasn't as distracting or laughable as I thought it might be (although it was strange to think that he and Renee were dating at the time the film was made, and that he subsequently broke up with her while she was filming the sequel to Bridget Jones' Diary, possibly due to her weight gain or her "conventional" lifestyle during the film). But as often happens when he appears in a film, Philip Seymour Hoffman stole my heart as the slutty minister. I once proclaimed his hotness to a college friend a few years ago (probably after seeing him in a Paul Thomas Anderson film or something of that ilk), and he rolled his eyes and scrunched up his face in disbelief as he spat out his horror at my girlish confession, presumably because he could not imagine that I would be into a guy who was so unattractive by conventional standards.

So, attractiveness. Virtually all of my friends (especially the gay male ones) have strict physical standards, with few or no exceptions. The guy in question must be thin and/or muscular. If a guy is fat, he is automatically not worth consideration. He must also be very young, or young-looking. He must be stylish and dress well and have good hair which indicates knowledge of hair products. He must have a pretty face with no feature too off-kilter, no aspect too unappealing to their aesthetic sensibility. My female friends are also particularly concerned with height; above six feet tall is preferable. Some friends, disturbingly enough, are only attracted to men of certain races.

I judge male beauty as carefully as anyone else does (and am probably even more exacting in my standards than many of my friends are...I don't see the physical appeal of Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Richard Gere, Colin Farrell, Tom Cruise, Orlando Bloom, or many other supposed heartthrobs, although I may like some of their films), and dammit I do enjoy looking at pretty boys (such as the just-mentioned Jude Law, and Gael García Bernal of the movie Y Tu Mama Tambien). But I'd like to think that, for me, a guy's appearance is not the main measure of his worth. My friends make fun of me when I cluck my tongue at their judgments of "pretty" or "ugly," and when I say, partly tongue-in-cheek but also partly with genuine feeling, that the beauty of a person's soul is far more important than the beauty of a person's body. (Well, I could examine this perhaps artificial and antiquated division between body and soul, but I'll save that for another post, after I've read more philosophy about that subject). I just hate that so many people, especially people whom I love and respect, judge other people's worth by such superficial standards. Ever since I was a teenager, I've mistrusted what was force-fed to me by the media about what was and what wasn't beautiful, and it still astonishes me that others don't see how arbitrary their standards of attractiveness are, and how little effort they have put into redefining those standards for themselves. It seems so silly, but whenever one of my friends expresses disgust over the ugliness of a person who is overweight, I think about Jeremy, who is indeed a fictional character but is also the kind of person whom I would date and love without question. Why would anyone deny herself the chance to be with someone who is such a lovely person, just because he's fat? I don't know...perhaps I'm naive, or perhaps I'm a hypocrite and not as immune to the pull of conventional standards as I'd like to think.

I love makeover shows, such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but I'm not sure that I agree with the concept of making a straight guy more "acceptable" by making him look more like a supposed ideal. In the end, aren't they taking all these different guys who showcase their individual quirks through their very different appearances, and making them all look the same, i.e. exactly like the guys who are engineering the makeovers (actually, makeover shows seem like a curious method of self-reproduction or cloning)? I remember sitting in a subway train in New York a long time ago, and examining the vast diversity of people seated in the train with me. Very few of them were conventionally good-looking in the movie star way, but they all had a sort of beauty to them. They were all like character actors. And I thought how dreadfully boring it would be if we were all movie stars and none of us were character actors...even though we're all supposed to envy and strive to be like the movie stars. Is it fair that some enjoy the privileges that come with conventional attractiveness, and should those privileges be denied to those who are conventionally unattractive? No, I'm not saying that. But I love diversity, and I strive to not be the person who gives a conventionally attractive person privileges over a conventionally unattractive person. Although I'm probably unconsciously guilty of doing this as well.

So. Philip Seymour Hoffman. Incredibly hot, even with a sweatshirt-covered potbelly and greasy hair and thick-rimmed glasses as he appeared on In the Actor's Studio the other day. A character actor par excellence, and someone I'd quite happily fuck, if his wife didn't mind.

On Thursday morning, as I was driving to the hospital at about 7:50 am, the sky was so striking that I could barely keep my eyes on the road and almost crashed several times. The clouds partially obscured the sun, so that half of it was glowy white and the other half was smoky gray. It looked kind of like a pearl that was half white and half black, and each half had unfurled rays of its own color. Some distance away from the sun, there was a smear of a rainbow, as if someone had dabbed a part of the sky with a giant paintbrush which had been dipped in every color of one of those cheap kindergarten watercolor palettes. It's so difficult to describe; I wish I had been able to take a picture, or that I could paint a picture, to properly illustrate how beautiful and bizarre it was. It was one of those early mornings where I was barely awake after pulling an all-nighter and wasn't sure how much I was hallucinating what I was seeing, or how much the bleariness of my eyes contributed to the melty glowy blurry lights and darks of my vision.

I'm not sure why I'm so interested in scatalogical matters. Not sexually, certainly. *shudder* Not that I judge those who are turned on by such behaviors. Truly. It's, um, just not for me. (Okay, I'll stop.) But it is an element which seems to reappear in my stories...part of it is the desire to probe subjects which are considered taboo, to shock myself and others. Which is a bit adolescent (residual teenage rebellion bullshit). But then, a lot about a character can be illustrated by how he or she pisses or shits: what she thinks about as she sits on the toilet, how he shakes himself of stray drops in order to minimize staining his underwear. I'm fascinated by people who are fearful of pissing or shitting in public bathrooms. I knew a guy in college who would wait until the shared bathroom was empty of others before he allowed himself to shit. Poor guy. These strange little games we play with ourselves.

At one point I decided that since I knew of no female writers who used toilet or gross-out humor, I was going to change that by writing a full novel of it, dammit! But that idea lasted about as long as my decision to become Durham's resident mime.

As I was doing my dishes today I listened to this weekend's installment of "This American Life" and was surprised to hear a story read by Truman Capote. Ira Glass commented that he sounded eerily like David Sedaris, and I agree. It was a Christmas story about friendship and loss and the rural South, and like most of Capote's writing, it was evocative, incisive, and taut with emotion. Tears pricked my eyes at his final image of broken kites drifting up towards the heavens. I first became interested in Capote when I saw a film by Almodovar called All About My Mother, which I absolutely adored. The first Esteban in the story (who was insanely beautiful...*sigh*) received Capote's Music for Chameleons as a gift from his mother, and read the forward out loud, where Capote describes how self-flagellation is a necessary part of a writer's existence. And then I knew I had to have that book. I'm not sure, but I think Joe might have given it to me. Capote has a reputation as a "gossipy" writer, because of his famed exposes of Marlon Brando and other celebrities, but his talent went far beyond that. (Although I did enjoy his gossipy anecdote about Errol Flynn playing "You are My Sunshine" on the piano with his penis). His story about Marilyn Monroe, "A Beautiful Child," was one of the most lovingly poignant portraits I've ever read. The final story in that collection is a conversation with himself which unfolds an astonishing spiritual revelation; I still shiver when I remember how I felt as I read it...a "profound expansion of being," as an author (her name escapes me) of a fiction story in The New Yorker once said. He gives me hope that one day I'll be warmly enveloped with the blanket of a spirituality of my own, which will soothe me to sleep. Somehow I need to construct it, discover it, find it.

Capote did what Nan Goldin did through her photographs: reveal the vulnerability and the beauty and the humanity of a multitude of people he knew and loved, but through his exquisitely written stories. When I went to Montreal earlier this year, trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life since medicine no longer seemed like the answer, there was an exhibition of Nan Goldin's work in the Musee de L'Art Contemporain. One of the highlights was a slide show of her work set to a hymn sung by Bjork, and I bawled quite embarrassingly over the insane beauty of it all. But it then struck me that this was what I wanted to do with my life. Those people were all so brave, to expose themselves and their vulnerabilities, to share themselves so completely with others. And Nan Goldin not only showcased her friends and lovers; she also turned the camera on herself. I want to be that brave, I want to be that vulnerable, I want to share the beauty and vulnerability of others. But I just haven't decided which medium would work best for me to do this. My writing and my art are not accomplished enough, and I'm not sure that I have enough raw talent that I could ever create much that is worthwhile. Is it possible in medicine? I don't know. I'm working in an oncology clinic and it's been surprisingly satisfying. Most med students want to shy away from dealing with death or with terminally ill patients, but I appreciate how introspective these patients are, and the newfound perspective that they have. They're forced to truly evaluate their lives, given the lack of time they likely have left, and most are comfortable enough to share their thoughts with me. Given the threat to my own mortality earlier this year, I can relate just a tiny bit (although of course what I went through is nothing compared to the certainty of their approaching deaths). And the oncologist with whom I work is just fabulous. I adore her, and she is certainly the kind of physician I'd like to be, if I do end up becoming one. She truly knows her patients and cares deeply for them. But is medicine really what I should be doing? And so I obsess and obsess and obsess some more...

I made the bold move of using a sugar substitute for my coffee, for the first time ever. Con: the diarrhea I suffered later in the evening, which I suspect was caused by it. Pro: As watery shit gushed out of my ass, I was struck by inspiration and began to sing "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles, changing the word "sun" to "runs" (and "comes" to "come" to be grammatically correct). A potential new song for the student faculty show? It could explore the differential diagnosis of diarrhea. Oh and another song idea...that old jazzy song, "fever," as in a fever of unknown origin.

I also made the unfortunate decision to stop by Kroger to pick up a quartet of bananas. Within the span of two hours, I devoured three of them, each bite dipped into Nutella. I'm such an addict, ugh. I need help.

Please, please, let Saddam's capture not guarantee the re-election of Bush. Somehow. Please?

It is so lovely to fold freshly done laundry in my toasty warm bedroom, with Ryan Adams' Heartbreaker playing from my computer, as the rain taps on the edges of my apartment building, at 4 am on a Saturday night.

Yikes. I read on a messageboard about a site with accurate name analysis, and the skeptic in me of course said, "Oh pshaw." But then I succumbed to my curiosity and entered my name on the site, and this was the result: "Your name of Elizabeth gives you a very idealistic but passive outlook on life. You appreciate music, drama, and the arts and could excel in these fields. You desire culture and all the comforts of life but you are inclined to daydream and not bring your ideas to fulfilment. Although you would like to do many things, procrastination undermines your accomplishment and success in life because of insecurity. You do not like to create issues and will do anything to avoid conflicts. Making decisions is difficult for you without the support and approval of others. This name gives you a very sensitive nature, making you feel much that you do not understand." Which is pretty much a dead-on description of me. All my main faults contained within: passivity, procrastination, lack of fulfillment, insecurity, indecisiveness. Eep. I mean, obviously there are lots of people who share my first name but have completely different personalities. But for whatever reason this description of me is pretty accurate.

I just tried typing "Wings in her Spine" into Google and this was the first hit. Here's the excerpt from Google: "On Silver Wings. ... Shivers of pure ecstasy rippled along her spine as he murmured words of love against her hair and lightly caressed the nape of her neck." Oh, and it gets worse, much worse. It's kind of nice to be randomly associated with crappy Celtic romance novels. And my insecurity about the worth of my writing? Temporarily relieved after reading a few lines of On Silver Wings by Elfie Leddy (the author's name, I'm not shitting you). Yes, I'm bitchy today. It'll pass soon.

Awhile ago, the guy I was seeing at the time (no longer, thankfully) asked me what my porn star name would be. I responded with "Pussy Lo Mein." Yeah. I know.

I hate motherfucker acquaintances who don't have the decency to look at you as they walk by. Granted I've been guilty of the same offense in the past, but usually when I'm not certain if the other person remembers me. A few days ago I saw a surgeon who was my attending during a surgery subrotation (I'll call him "Dr.Peel") walking down a corridor towards me. As we approached each other, Dr.Peel turned his head away from me, stared blankly into space, and walked past me. Given all the shit that I went through while working with him, I can't imagine that he forgot me. Ugh. Fucker motherfucking fuckity fuck fuck. I thought that my bitterness and anger from my time working with him had gotten better...but perhaps not. I hate surgeons. Except for ENT surgeons. The rest of them can go to hell.

I've been thinking recently about muses. Although I discovered a passion for art at a young age, I never cared for the oft-encountered concept of the female muse, whose beauty inspires the the male artist to create his work. It seemed that she was often no more than a body who aroused the emotion or lust which fueled his creative prowess, "an object subjected to the male gaze" as I learned in many an art class and feminist theory class in college. I don't dare to consider myself a true artist, although I have desperately wished I could be...but in any case, from my mid-teens, I wanted to reverse this established relationship between the female muse and the male artist. I looked for male muses to inspire my own art, as unaccomplished as it may be, and I found them. They were not traditional muses; I didn't respond to their physical selves, really. No objectification on my part. (Heh). I just sensed that they would appreciate the part of me which I feared to share with others, my philosophical ramblings and leaps of imagination and word experiments. But alas, it seems that muse relationships are not long for this world...things have apparently just ended between my latest muse and me.

Anyway, I need to stop looking for muses. I need to nurture and push myself to write and make art, not to rely on others to spur me on. I don't need to look for another muse. Looking for friends, for lovers? Of course. But not another muse. I only need myself to unleash the beauty, the imagination, the wild reckless spirit which reside in every person.

Sometimes I wish I could be more like Bruno.

I chopped off my hair today. Well, that sentence is not entirely accurate. I paid somebody else to chop off my hair, and this occurred about 12 hours ago, which was technically yesterday. My hair tickled my elbows when I brushed my teeth this morning; now the ends curve around my earlobes, gracing the angle of my mandible. It kind of looks like ass, but thankfully I don't really care. I had brought a picture of myself with a superimposed shorter 'do (the wonders of the internet) in order to guide her, and of course my hair looks nothing like that picture at all. Strangely enough, the hairdresser looked rather uncomfortable when I told her how short I wanted to cut it. She kept asking me how long I had thought about it and whether I was sure I wanted to do it. I wasn't the least bit conflicted. I associate long overgrown hair with depression. I look back at photos of myself, and inevitably, my hair was longest during those episodes when I was most depressed...my high school graduation, my college graduation, etc. And as I ease myself out of depression, I always chop off my hair in a symbolic gesture of cutting myself free from the bonds of the past. Or starting anew. I haven't been truly depressed for awhile now, but it still feels liberating to get rid of that thick long messy burden of hair, although it was definitely more flattering than my current haircut. Mais n'importe quoi. Hair grows back. Wounds heal. Seasons change. Turn, turn, turn.

I told my mother about my haircut and she asked whether I had saved the hair. I replied in the negative and she cried out, "But I told you to save it!" I had no recollection of this. Apparently there is some kid with cancer in my hometown and she wanted to donate my hair to him or her. Ah well. Instead those six or so inches have been swept up from the floor of the salon and are likely in a garbage bag chillin' with rubber bands and sponges and tissues. I'm sure the kid would want prettier, less obnoxious hair than mine anyway. If she had a choice.

Milquetoast. Heh.

I did some volunteer work earlier tonight, and had a blast playing with the kids, especially one adorable little girl who leaped onto me and tenaciously gripped me with her legs as I spun her 'round and 'round until we became so dizzy that we needed to stop. Her mother asked me if I had any brothers or sisters, presumably (I hope) because I seemed to be comfortable with kids, and I responded that I had one brother. She asked whether he was older or younger, and how old he was; when I told her that he was younger and 22, her eyes bugged and she exclaimed "What? How old are you?" I responded, "Twenty-four," and she shook her head in disbelief, saying, "You don't look 24! You look a lot younger!" Well, gee, thanks. She then asked me what college I went to, and I chickened out and said "I went to college up in Connecticut." I felt guilty because in a way it is condescending to not provide a direct answer, but there have just been too many uncomfortable experiences with people who respond with either hushed awe or embarrassed insecurity. And I want to tell them, "Please, Yale is so overrated, and in any case, I'm no better than you are just because I went there," but that also sounds stupid and elitist and condescending.

I'll never forget when I took a painting class in New York City at the Arts Student League, and there was a monstrous bitch of a wommon (she looked like a bored rich wife, with a shiny blonde pageboy haircut and multicolored silk scarf around her neck and expensive black suit, who passed time by painting shitty canvases) there who began to verbally abuse the model. If I recall correctly, she was irritated because the model wasn't perfectly still as she posed, or her resumed pose after her break was slightly different than the original pose. Something like that. The model defended herself in a calm and polite manner, but this evil monster bitch (who clearly had other issues; maybe she recently found hubby in the arms of vapid young model? Or is that too cliche?) then said something like, "I pay you to pose, not talk back at me. Shut your mouth" in an exceedingly condescending and degrading fashion. I was furious and immediately told this wommon that she had absolutely no right to treat the model as if she were just a body and not a person. The wommon responded that she would file a complaint so that the model would lose her job. The model then asked me to speak on her behalf to the powers that be, and I did. Afterward, the model was grateful, and asked me some questions to get to know me a little better. I told her that I had just graduated from Yale and was going to attend medical school in the fall. She then had that look of hushed awe and seemed to withdraw into herself. She suddenly became much more conscious of her speech, and spoke slowly and with extreme attention to grammar (although she still made mistakes) and enunciation. She kept saying, "Wow, you must be really smart...wow." And in the mean time she visibly seemed to think shit about herself, which made me feel ill, and I realized that I had lost chance of making a real connection with this person, a friendship even, because she was intimidated. I suppose that's not my fault, but still, I feel like it was a loss which could have been prevented.

The moon was eerie tonight. It was full, or nearly full: a bright white egg in the black sky which was full of diaphanous speckles of clouds. It actually looked like one of those great blue whales, with all those white spots on its chin and belly, and a big white eye glowing through the inky ocean waters. Around the moon and melting through the nearby cloud smudges there was a beautiful grayish rainbow, like the interior of an oyster shell or an oil puddle in a parking lot. Sometimes I wonder if this year would have been better if I had remembered, as is Korean custom, to make my wishes on the first new moon of the year. I had missed the first new moon; I think I was on my surgery rotation, or some shit like that. But then, it's always easy to think these things in retrospect.

I've eaten nothing today but a few spoonfuls of rice and chicken, and a Cookout Reese's peanut butter cup milkshake. Ah, the joy of letting my seven-year-old-self operate the controls of this 24-year-old body. She's very pleased, because of course Mom would not have let her get away with this back when she only had her 7-year-old body to work with, and had to rely on Mom to drive to the milkshake provider and purchase said milkshake. I'm a much weaker soul, and she knows it.

Am I a total dork for reading Chomsky while doing my forty minutes on the elliptical today? Well, maybe not, since I only got through four pages of Language and the Mind: Present...not because the material was difficult or dense, but because it was difficult to get the book into a position which made it readable while I was using those arm things. I haven't had much luck with my issues of The New Yorker, either. Someone needs to design an elliptical which is more conducive to reading. Please?

I saw a performance of Handel's Messiah in the chapel over the weekend. It was gorgeous; I coveted the mezzo soprano's voice (especially her rendition of "He Shall Feed his Flock"...which pricked my eyes with tears). I was reminded of how much I love singing...it used to be such a release for me. It sounds vaguely disturbing, but during my freshman year of college, whenever I felt depressed, I would climb to the roof of the tower in my residential college and sing my heart out, as the wind whipped my hair against my cheek, with only the moon as my audience. Somehow, someway, I should get my tired ass back into a chorus of some sort. Or maybe find a new tower with a roof to provide a platform for cathartic singing. Hmmm...maybe I need to stalk people with access to the chapel.

Inertia is so frustrating. Sometimes I feel like I'm one of those dogs who perpetually chase their tails, not realizing that what seems so delicious and just out of reach is actually attached to its own ass. Well, I'm not sure that analogy is so apt...I wanted to convey a sense of aimlessly running in a circle and not getting anywhere. Which is not technically inertia. *sigh* OK, I'm fucking up my metaphors tonight.

I go through periods where I'm cruising along in myopic fashion, taking care of all the little things of immediate concern, but intermittently am jolted out of my routine by something--a traumatic experience, travel to a new place, etc. Something which leads to resensitization to my environment, something which forces me to think critically about my life and what I'm doing. And I have all sorts of epiphanies about what I'm doing wrong, what I need to do in order to make my life better, to take charge of things for once instead of passively letting my life float by...and end up doing little or nothing in the end, and return to my routine, as if nothing had happened. So, so frustrating. Aaaaaaaaargh.

Song of the evening: Jill Sobule's "One of These Days." Another example of a song which perfectly speaks for me, almost to a disturbing degree. Well, it doesn't speak so much for me now (I'm much more functional and productive at the moment, although my uncertain future looms large, and my apartment is still a horrifying mess..."One of these days, and it'll be real soon, gonna kick some ass, I'm gonna clean my room, sometime soon..."), as it did when I first heard it, while making the long drive back to school this past September. I was driving through New Jersey and listening to 90.5 FM The Night (the successor to my high school radio station of choice, the dearly departed 106.3 FM, which had "Mandatory Morrissey" every night at 10 PM). Jill Sobule had visited the station and performed an acoustic version of "One of These Days" and I had one of those wonderful car moments where I hear a song which coincides perfectly with my thoughts as I'm driving, and I have a big goofy grin on my face and bop my head, full of wonder as I realize that I'm not totally alone...because, at least at the time she wrote the song, Jill Sobule was my twin.

Oh, and another thing about The Wings of Desire, the movie I mentioned a few posts ago. Marion's dancing has to be seen to be believed. It's just hilarious and so European, with the vague swaying and twitching of limbs. I could watch her in a loop for hours and still feel on the cusp of bursting into laughter at any second. I would love to dress as her, in that strange tight red dress (so 80's) and big curly hair, as well as imitate her dance moves, but virtually no one would get the reference. I dressed up as Neil Gaiman's Death for Halloween this year and no one had any idea who the hell I was supposed to be. I even did a big ass tinfoil ankh and the black eyeliner squiggle and everything. *sigh* It was kind of funny to hear responses from drunken partygoers after my explanation of my costume, e.g. "That is awesome dude, like, I love comic books! I totally dig them, man. That is really cool, what are you again? Oh yeah, comics, cool."

I got myself a new Fig Apricot fragrance by Fresh, and it's wonderful--very ripe and summery, a much-needed escape from the cold and the rain outside. *sniffs wrist* Mmmmmmm.

Oh, and for some reason I've become addicted to eating bananas smeared with Nutella. Could somebody stop me, please? I should have known that it was a bad, bad idea to purchase a big-ass jar of Nutella for the open microphone event I set up a couple of weeks ago. It sits there on my kitchen counter, mocking me, knowing my weakness, conquering my sad attempt to deny myself the indescribable joy of dipping my spoon into its creamy brown contents and smearing the stuff all over a banana before taking a big bite and smushing the two flavors together against my tastebuds. Damn. It's a good thing I'm out of bananas.

I can't even begin to express how much I love green tea with mint, my newest Kroger discovery. Mmmmmm. I've been trying to stop taking sugar with my tea, and the mint gives it an extra kick which more than compensates for the lack of sugar.

I was working in the ED for most of the day; at one point a family member of a patient asked a nurse for the doctor who had seen them earlier. "It's the Oriental one," she said co-conspiratorially. Ugh. If I do end up becoming a physician, I wonder what my distinguishing characteristic will be? The kinda-Oriental kinda-Hispanic kinda-Native American looking one? The short female one? I understand that most people use race as a distinguishing characteristic of strangers, because it's what they first notice, what first registers in their brains...but what to do with someone who may be racially ambiguous like myself? I wonder if they'll still grope blindly after a plausible racial identity they could assign for me, or whether they'll choose another default characteristic (as they might choose with a white person, who of course does not register as having a race...does anyone say "I want to see that white doctor over there?" No, they'll say, "the guy with a mustache" or "the real tall guy" or "the blond girl"). I know I may be overly sensitive about this sort of thing, but it still bugs. I'm still surprised by how often I hear the word "Oriental"...I suppose those who don't regularly interact with Asians wouldn't realize how offensive it can be.

Oh, and in the spirit of AIDS awareness day (well, it's over here on the east coast, but hey, it's still going on in other parts of the world), I was definitely forced to confront my own thoughts about the disease. I watched a VH1 special earlier (I'm apparently all about VH1 tonight) about AIDS, and I still felt myself become furious when it described Reagan's lack of response to the crisis back in the 80's. So many people could have been saved if action had been taken earlier to educate people about AIDS, and to fund research into and treatment of the disease. It still makes me sick to think about the right wing labeling it a disease of gays and drug users, and all those assholes who believed it was God's vengeance against "sinners" and "human filth." Ugh.

I remember my all-consuming obsession with Keith Haring in the early nineties and how I cried buckets when he passed. His golden three panel alterpiece, with soaring and falling angels in a depiction of the life of Christ, currently displayed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine close to Columbia University in NYC, is one of the most intensely spiritual and emotional works of art I've ever experienced. I also remember how much I loved Pedro Zamorra on the Real World San Francisco on MTV, and how I was depressed for weeks after he passed away. Even before I met Joe and through him became enamored of gay culture and most things (and people) gay, I was so deeply touched by this intelligent young man who decided to dedicate his life to educating others about his disease, rather than spending the rest of his days in comfort and trying to forget his illness. Just seeing him on television or thinking about him starts up the tears. I know it's dopey to feel this profoundly affected by someone only known through a crappy TV show like The Real World, but he was special. I remember watching Pedro kiss his boyfriend Sean, and thinking to myself, "This should be disgusting, this should strike me as wrong, but it's not. It's beautiful. These are just two wonderful guys who have found love and are expressing it. There's nothing wrong with this."

Since then, as those who know me can attest, I've become about as gay-friendly as any straight chick I've ever known (well, maybe other than Margaret Cho, whom I love). I won't claim to know what it's like to be gay, or to speak on behalf of gay people, but I do relate to a lot of gay guys and girls that I've met. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but I will cite Joe's influence as paramount, as well as my own alienation from American mainstream culture. I much prefer to talk to people who don't follow rigid yet arbitary notions of "right and wrong" which have been spoon-fed to them without reflection on their part. And most LGTB people who accept this aspect of themselves and are comfortably "out" have had to redefine what they had previously learned as "right" or "wrong," and thus question established norms. Questioning established norms? A good thing in this chickie's opinion.

So I went over to my aunt's house for Thanksgiving where we had a big family gathering. As expected, kimchee was served along with turkey and cranberry sauce and yams. *disgusted shudder* After eating dinner, my aunt turned on her karaoke machine, and grabbed my hand and forced me to sing. I looked through the book of songs and commented on the inclusion of "Ma Vie en Rose," that song made famous by Edith Piaf, and my aunt immediately programmed for that song to play and shoved a microphone in front of my face. I started singing and apparently impressed the hell out of the rest of my family members, although the key was way too high for me. My mother told me afterward, "I didn't know you could sing like that! You should take voice lessons. You could be the next Britney Spears!" I was a bit flabbergasted. Yes, Korean mothers are always consumed by tantalizing fantasies of their children's glory, but this was a bit much.

Song of the moment: Ron Sexsmith's "Riverbed." His voice soars and embraces you warmly, and casts its spell so that you start to see inside rather than outside yourself, even if your eyes are wide open (not the best song for driving, but I manage). It's rare that I see or hear evidence of another person reacting to his or her environment exactly as I would, but the lyrics to this song almost perfectly coincide with my thoughts and movements in similar places, such as along the Seine while I was in Paris. I frequently sat down on the cobbled surface along the edge of the river, to gaze at the wide pearly sky as the sun warmed my face, then lay back and closed my eyes and let dreams and stories and ideas stream through my head in a river of its own. I saw a cascade of red and green dots of light, appearing and disappearing, on the inky blackness behind my eyelids. When I occasionally opened my eyes, I became hyperaware of detail: the colors and crevices of the stones by my feet, the curled wrapper of the beer bottle which had been smashed by the trash can, the specks of vegetable or animal matter in the gently lapping river. Occasionally I'd hear passersby say something of interest and make sure to jot their words in the book I carried everywhere with me. Never did I write as much as I did while I was in Paris. Never was I as aware of every aspect of my environment as I was in Paris. Resensitization in an unfamiliar environment, I suppose.

"Riverbed" is from Sexsmith's album Whereabouts. I bought the album because it was recommended by one of the employees of the local record store, but also because of its cover. It features a man (whom I presume to be Mr. Sexsmith) seated at a green picnic table, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, holding a bright yellow leaf in his hand. His arms are positioned across his body as if he is shielding himself. His head is turned slightly to the side and down, but he looks up at us through his shaggy bangs. Something about his somber and vulnerable-but-protected expression reminds me of a college friend of mine. They only mildly resemble each other physically; it's that expression of his face and body which just captures who he was when we were at Yale together. I haven't seen him enough since to know how well this image represents his current self.