Halloween NYC

I think half of New York took today off. It's November 1st, which means last night was October 31st, which means everyone's still wondering if that girl in the naked costume was really naked, or if she was just a man. Ample reason to take the day off.

Week One

I live in New York.
It's been a week.

I think I was expecting quicker results on my apartment, job, and life search.
I want decisiveness! Ingenuity, courage! Luck, even. Maybe a little bit of faith.

My far flung assumptions about my own entitlements knock the wind out of me when revealed. How silly! Silly, silly girl.

Dad, in response to my request, says, "Maybe." Followed by, "I have to see the whole picture first."

I can't say that I blame him. I have been unreliable, non-committal, so many shades of flakey it turns my head on its side, with tears.

To be honest, I am terrified.

In the real world I flounder. I put up spikes against possibility, defend ego more than honor; I anger easily over my assumptions when they reveal themselves as false.

The word that characterizes my last few years is one: paralysis. For years, only this. The 'free spirit' with no ties or boundaries, shouting of wisdom and spontaneity, hope and a life fully lived, was always only paralyzed. A rolling stone, yes, gathering no moss, but only because she's mired in mud.

I regret speaking.

Lyrebird Unbelievable Jungle Bird Mimics Bird and Human Sounds

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3433507052114896375

Unintended circumstances

"Everything has an unintended circumstance," he said.

It prods, somewhere around my cerebral cortex, poke, poke poke. What unintended circumstance will I exude into the world? No doubt a lot of death and destruction, what with two showers a day, frequent hand washings, walking around and placing high amounts of pressure on ants, cockroaches, things of the like (I use humane traps for mice though. But I also occasionally feed them to pythons.) Thinking more globally and long-term, if I were to choose a long-term career, is the 'Unintended Circumstance' something to consider?

Think of examples. In which the agent does a perfect job but of course, cannot control what the rest of the world does once the job is done. You could be a doctor and save lives. Population probably agrees: this is good. But what if you're Osama's doctor, and by saving him you subtract a few thousand lives? I think it's not your decision at that point, once you're a doctor, to decide who to save and who to leave. Only Unintended Circumstance.

You could be a field worker and work in international development. Population probably agrees: this helps, and I feel better that you do this. But what if the population you try to help doesn't really want change, or you funnel money into a system that eats it to feed corruption and war. Are you still forgiven your actions? If you do your job knowing about these consequences, are they still Unintended Circumstances?

In the other direction, you take a less drastic approach to life. No more life/death stuff, so far. You work at Dunkin' Donuts (unintended circumstances: distribute immeasurable amounts of joy to countless denizens; alternately: feed Mr. Smith a donut a day for 40 years, Smith dies of heart complications without life insurance leaving a family of four to fend for themselves), you work as a Legal Secretary (unintended circumstance: support someone to be the best they can be; alternately: is there an alternate ending? Do Legal Secretaries REALLY hurt people?), or say, you're a Yoga Instructor; you align chakras, are vegan, ride a bicycle. Unintended circumstances? Where?

I'm sure everything DOES have unintended circumstances. Their severity by profession is debatable. Am I advocating a less risky career? Not necessarily. Perhaps the more risk of failure, the greater the possibility of change, success, triumph. Do you choose the path of more resistance and hope the rest of the world doesn't let you down by being mean? Or assume it will be mean, and choose the path with fewer bad circumstances?

Can we be part of a system that does not end in destruction? If we can't, does it matter that we've considered the unintended circumstance? More significantly: does it matter that we've considered?

Ruminations

I moved back to New York. I think it was a decision I made subconsciously long ago, like maybe the day I left it for San Francisco. They don't tell you, when you first move to New York, that the love-hate relationship you forge with this city is forever; or sadly, that it will always feel more like home than anywhere else; that each time you return it levels you like a stern mother, but simultaneously bewilders you to the point of inspiration. A city of foreigners! and it feels like home.

This last year of traveling and being with my family has been excellent; I feel grounded, calm, maybe even peaceful -- all these with little justification for feeling so. I've come back armed with a renewed sense of self and a 'wholeness' that I never had before. No doubt the city will slowly chip away at those things, but I'm hoping for the best.

I'm excited about the next two years. I didn't understand that committment was necessary, that it was something only I could do, and then, only in my own head. So once I did that -- made a decision, and stuck with it -- I felt a sudden peace. I can't say that I have figured out what my longterm goals are, but I don't think I can go wrong with just getting a good job right now. As long as I stay self-aware and honest, I think I'll be ok.

9 Hours till take-off

I'm brain dead and my heart is ripping. I pack, organize, unpack, reorganize, pack, think think think think think until I'm thinking myself in circles like usual and then thinking about everything I will miss and exactly why my heart is ripping, no more: mom, dad, root, prae, p na, danzig, swimming in a warm open sea, hot sun, mango trees, elephants, cheap food, beautiful drag queens, som tam lao, po dag, fresh kung, FRUIT, an entire population with easy smiles, happy children, waves, tropical storms, MOM, DAD, ROOT, no more, no more, no more of these for a while. How I will ache for them....

Python Feeding

Watched, no, served another python feeding today. Danzig eats two medium-sized mice, once a week. We buy them at the snake market, transport them home in a paper bag, or sometimes a clear plastic tupperware box like a TV dinner. They sit in this sombre paper bag until nighttime, when Danzig wakes up. They shit a lot. The scratch of their tiny mouse claws on the hollow paper bag makes them sound bigger than they really are. Once, a mouse died in the bag from unknown causes -- maybe an assault by one mouse brother upon another? Maybe the bag jostled too violently, and the miniscule skull cracked saltine-like? Danzig ate him anyway, cold and dead.

My brother has a policy that mice should be served one by one, so no one mouse must witness the carnage and endure the stress of such a sight alone. As I'm in charge at the moment, I let the first mouse out of the bag onto some newspaper, python ready to strike. But two mice slipped out. The first, a long, light grey mouse was instantly taken; the python whipped his long, brown-spotted body around him in a tight knot. The mouse's two back legs warped awkwardly, then pattered the floor in panic, tail flinging itself across the newsprint.

The smaller mouse, a chocolate colored nugget with a clean white band across his back, had been eagerly sniffing his new environment. But he stopped as if struck when the python nabbed his partner - the predator's bloodthirst electric across the dead space. The chocolate mouse curled into a tiny ball, paralyzed, perhaps begging in his soul for forgiveness of all the bread crumbs he stole, the fuzzies he trampled, the sawdust he soiled. Only inches away, the deadly coil was unraveling.

The python had begun to swallow his prey. Head first, the warm corpse slid through his elastic jaw, down a narrow throat and propelled southward with each curl of the python's contorting body. The little chocolate mouse was now at ease -- the killing had ended and the troubling thoughts vanished like peanut butter at feeding time. His downy nostrils poked the newsprint, eyes like garnets strangely stationary on either side of his snout. He approached the snake as if greeting a neighbor. We flinched. But he scuttled away again, further this time. Danzig was busy stretching out his jaw, demonstated the curved fangs nestled in his baby-pink gums - it seemed as if he had finished for the night.

A new tension in his neck heralded otherwise. One furry, warm-blooded creature remained and he could sense each delicious beat of its precious little heart. The chocolate mouse examined an article on Koizumi. Moved on to obituaries.

The python caught him by the soft skin of his left thigh, releasing a shriek of outrage from the tiny body. He coiled squarely around the mouse's midsection. At first, there was only silence. The mouse perhaps, did not understand why he had such trouble breathing. His oblong mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. His eyes glared at the lightbulb miles above him. For a moment, there was no movement from either party. The mouse, suddenly comprehending that death itself was upon him, sputtered for air, lungs wrenching inside his chest. The pain of suffocation finally ripped through his body causing his tail to straighten into one long obstinate blade before limply giving way, the crush of death escaping into the still air.

Danzig just held him for a while. Then, sure that death had again worked, he unclenched his jaws to show that no blood had spilled -- the mouse's underbelly was rumpled and wet with saliva but otherwise unmarred. The python lifted his head and glanced around him, disoriented. He tried to get at his prey head first, but had trouble finding its head -- his own body obstructed the view. He seemed confused. His triangular face poked, knocked, shoved at his own coiled length until finally flipping over itself, upon which he found his mark, and swallowed it whole. When most of the corpse had disappeared, the python reared as if standing, elongated his neck and sucked down the last two translucent pink feet, claws and all. The mouse's long tail being the last to go, it reached from the python's lips like a tongue - thick and muted - before finally slipping down - one long, furry spaghetti choking in his throat.

Danzig, the Python

This is Danzig, my brother's python. He's an African Ball Python, or Royal Python, so named because he rolls up into a ball when sleeping or threatened. Or eating. Or really just anytime. Either way, I love him.

It's hard to tell what a snake is thinking. He can't complain about his weight, tell you why he's so sleepy today, or give you a thumbs up if he approves of the cuisine. Before I met Danzig I assumed all snakes were dirty slithery things, but this little python is different. He, in fact, is CHARMING. He moves slowly -- takes life at his own pace. He's often seen cocking his head in all directions and staring for minutes at a time. We believe it to be a characteristic of his inquisitive nature, but it may also be because he can't blink. He has a keen sense of smell and an appreciation for different cultures -- he thoroughly enjoys both my old sneakers and my bag of dirty gym clothes. If you're lucky, he'll pulsate on you -- he curls around your arm like a bracelet and squeezes -- one long muscle in waves of flexing and unflexing. I like to think it means he loves me, but it could also mean he's practicing for when he gets bigger and can kill me.

Though he is now a toddler, Dannie may someday be six feet long. His jaw 'unhinges' into four pieces and he 'yawns' often to stretch it out. This means that if he ever learned to think of us as food, he could suffocate us to death and swallow us whole if so desired (though he'd be extremely uncomfortable for a very long time). Pythons are one of the few snakes that still have remnants of their legs -- they're called "anal spurs" -- but they're on either side of his genitals so it's not like you want to be handling them all the time.

We feed him live mice. It's possible to ween a snake off of live feed -- you can feed them Mice-icles, but Thailand has yet to carry such delicacies. Another option is red meat, but it has to be the right temperature and moving, which means you put a mouse-sized piece on the end of some tongs and make it dance so the snake thinks it's live prey. If this doesn't work, you can rub the meat on any spare dead mice you may have lying around to impart the smell of the snake's favorite dish. The mouse-killing thing saddened me, until I remembered that I eat meat too -- I just have other people kill it for me.

The only time I've seen Danzig move quickly is at dinner. Some Ball Pythons are finicky eaters, but not Danzig. When Dannie was smaller, my brother once held him above a box of live mice to say, 'Look, Danzig, see what I got for you?" when suddenly one mouse was gone, Danzig was rolled up in a ball with four little mouse legs sticking out the top, and my brother was hurling the whole package across the room in fright. He's like lightning, Dannie is.

Egg-bearing animals often have salmonella on their skin, so though it really may be the kiss of death, we kiss him goodnight anyway. I usually do a nose rub instead. He probably hates it but has learned to love us back in his quiet way.

My Ex (x 2)

V broke my heart, many times over I'll admit, but literally only twice. The first time was characterized mostly by a lot of wailing, complaining incessantly to a very good friend of mine, thoughts of suicide and generalized pathetic despair. My older, more mature self thinks about the girl I once was and wants to slap her silly, but my chance has passed. The second time was less melodramatic; it may have sown the seeds for a truthful perspective of reality on my part. For this, I owe him a great many thanks.

V speaks with India on his tongue -- the colloquial speak of the New York taxi driver implanted in a six-foot frame -- it's charming, unexpectedly sexy. From a distance he could resemble a turban-less Osama Bin Laden, but for the jeans and the cigarette hanging from his lip. He has long eyelashes and since he's the color of coffee with too much milk, the dark eyes are somewhat shocking.

He meditates everyday. Or at least tries to. He often proclaims to give up his vices, the vice of the week being the most pressing, whether it's cigarettes, alcohol, meat or sex. Like meditation, at least he tries. If I think hard about the first thing that attracted me, it's that he was a big fan of Tom Robbins -- it seemed to tell the little girl in me that underneath this threatening, rather doomed exterior was a soul that could delight in Jitterbug Perfume.

My method and my downfall was such: extrapolate and exaggerate to the point where his character is exactly what you've been looking for. And then fall in love! I did a great disservice to both of us. We ended badly, tried again, and again ended badly. My last impressions of him were of a tall, handsome ne'er-do-well; a sort of fuck-up who made me only angry; the bad boy who didn't love me.

Now, five years later, he's my friend -- the kind of friend who is your ex (x 2) and you're never really sure where to put each other. I fumble a lot and always read more into what he says than I'm supposed to -- the little girl I was shining through the cracks. Mostly though, I'm done being both angry, and hopeful. If V taught me anything, it is this: See. Really see. The person standing in front of you is only the person standing in front of you -- not a white knight, and not a perfect circle. So if you're going to fall in love, SEE FIRST, fall later.

I see him differently now -- he's no longer a mirage. V stamps out a cigarette across the table, flashes those dark eyes at me -- sweet with a hint of bitterness. I feel about him the way I feel about passionfruit; I like the idea of eating it, but I silently die a little bit inside from the sourness. He has always been just himself; a fact I conveniently let slip by when we were dating. He's the bad boy who is more real than I ever was, who didn't love me and who I didn't love.

Today's News

I got a new toothbrush today. It's like a Ferrari. And blue.

Coup D'Etat: The Morning After

I think this is good. In fact, I think this is great. The big powers on the international scene are condemning it as an act against democracy-- that democratic means would have been the better way to restore order on the Thai political landscape. But democracy fell long ago here and perhaps has never really been as strong as we hoped. In name, a democracy; in truth, a collection of barking dogs.

Now the dogs have been silenced, at least for a while. I think the military has given Thailand a moment to breathe, to reconsider, to make room for new voices. The Constitution has been invalidated; now we have a chance to write a new one and dream of better mechanisms to guide us. Perhaps this is a necessary stage in a growing democracy.

These events defy the Western ideal of democracy. It seems that the Western leaders are dismayed -- like Thailand has robbed them of a good example of a developing nation thriving on democracy during a time when the West really needs to believe that democracy is a good idea. What if this IS Asian democracy: a messy, teetering struggle between effective decision-making and really listening to all the voices that need to be heard. Throw in the occasional peaceful military coup to act as referee every 15 years or so, and you've got a strengthening democracy.

Coup d'Etat, Thailand

There's a coup d'etat happening in Thailand right now. We're out in the country, in the sticks, so of course I saw none of the tanks that are rumoured to be blocking Bangkok's crowded city streets. There's no radio transmission and all channels on TV are showing the same message (with music) that says something like, "At the present time a group of revolutionaries, for the Democratic system with the King as the head of the country, which consists of the commanders of the military and the national police, have taken over the area of the capitol city of Bangkok and its vicinity without any opposition. In order to keep the peace of the country we are requesting your cooperation and we apologize for the inconvenience."

Heard rumours of a possible 'double-coup' -- that the Prime Minister had planned a coup and a rebel army chief planned a different one? The BBC said this, "Thai media say that two army factions appear to be heading for a clash, with one side backing the prime minister and the other side backing a rebel army chief." And they know a lot more about all this than I do. We are pretty cut off right now.

In Bangkok, my brother was at Models' Night at Santika and had to give up FOUR free drink tickets cuz of this! Just joking :) He did say that everything looks perfectly normal and people who are not glued to their televisions don't seem to know anything unusual is happening.

Will keep you updated.

Quote from Valentina

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.

- Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist (1875 - 1961)

First Day

I went on my first interview today. Financial independence looms.

I'm flakey. I'm sorry. I know I change my mind all the time. Even now the branches of the opportunity tree that I just pruned are angry at me -- the "Yeah-buts". They're saying, "You're going to miss your family." Yes, its true. "You're going to be distracted from finishing your journey through philosophy." Yes, this is also true. "You're going to be a low-level pee-on." Probably also true. "You may not gain a deeper understanding of life or what you want from it." Possible. "You are leaving Asia, which you know is the area of the world you eventually want to be in." Do I know this? I'm not sure.

For most things I'm going to politely say, 'I don't know.' Which is better than making up the answer. And its better than saying you know when you really don't. But I'm hoping the 'i don't knows' and the 'yeah-buts' will be cleverly extinguished as time goes on.

And I'm also going to politely say, over and over in my head as the Yeah-buts try selfishly to reel me in, "I'm going to commit to this plan." I'm going to stop being a statistic in my generation of wanderers. I'm going to give committment a shot for the following:

Four things:
1) Exercise.
2) Reading philosophy.
3) Writing, professionally.
4) Financial independence.

These are the only four things I know to be 'good' for me. So I'm going to go with what I know.

"What saves a man is to take a step."
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of "The Little Prince"

The courting days

Found a photo of Grandpa “in his courting days,” as it says on the back. He looks about 25 years old, he’s wearing only a dark colored bathing suit, a little longer than a speedo, and he’s sprawled out on a big flat rock with his hands tucked behind his neck. He’s smiling at the camera as if saying, ‘hey!’ – a candid and spontaneous snapshot of an unsuspecting subject. I imagine the next moment he's jumping up to grab the camera out of the photographer’s hands and kissing her square on the lips; the action perpetually in motion -- on repeat for eternity, but lost to the rest of us who have moved on.

Catching wasps

My grandfather's hands look like crispy fried chicken -- as if the skin and the muscles have slid over one another so long that they are no longer friendly neighbors, resolved to go their separate ways. The skin is nicely browned and seasoned from years of working in the sun; the nails are thick and yellowed like an elephant's. I remember watching him catch wasps on the back porch with his bare hands, unaware of the invention of pain. He's one of those Grandfathers that grew up on a farm, fought and survived World War II, built his own house and worked and worked and worked. In photographs I see of him when my Dad was small, he looks stern and has deep smile lines but no smile. His eyes have the intensity of one who is perpetually preoccupied.

At 87, he's lived to see many of his family and friends pass into earth. He perhaps expects the same of himself soon, yet daily does physical work that men my age would be unable to perform. He has none of the intensity of his younger years, unless you get him talking about politics or the National Rifle Association (his favorite hat is a navy blue baseball cap with a red stripe along the brim and embroidered white letters that say, 'Smith n' Wesson.' He forgets it sometimes so he's written his name in permanent black marker on the red stripe.) To his grand-daughter that grew up elsewhere, he's a sweet old man who loves his wife and knows a lot about engines and nature.

The other day when my Grandma and I were labelling old photos he came in from working outside with a sprightly gleam in his eye. We had been sorting pictures of their friends from when they were in their 20s -- around 1940? They're the kind of photos where everyone has creamy, perfect skin and wavy hair and are staring off into the distance at something beautiful. One of them was a lady friend of Grandpa's, Grandma was sure. So when he came into the room she asked him who the girl was, saying that she thought they had dated and that her name was Camille. He crouches down in that way he always does when talking to Grandma -- down on one knee like he's going to propose to her all over again -- mumbling gruffly, 'well, let's see...' and picks up the photo. A long silence that's trying hard to jog his memory ends with, 'that pretty girl went out on a date with ME?'

After a while he remembers -- they had gone on a date to an amusement park and rode a rollercoaster together (can you imagine...my Grandpa on a rollercoaster!!?). During the ride she smacked her head on the seat in front of her and had a swollen lip for the rest of the night. "So we couldn't kiss!" he says.

My Grandparents' 60th anniversary is coming up next year. Grandma still calls him 'her boyfriend.'

Revelations!!!

I have a plan.

Orangutan Online Dating

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4794279.stm

courtesy of Ruhi...

Grandpa Levy

This is Grandpa Levy.



He was my grandmother's great grandfather. That means he was my Great-great-great grandfather. I'm not sure about dates of birth or death but if we allow, say, twenty-five years between generations, we could estimate that he was born in 1850.



This is the note that we found with the photo:













It says: 'Grandpa Levy. Note fingers gone. Frozen off working pump handle on sinking schooner to keep afloat to get vessel into port.'

Notice the fingers.

Tintypes

I started helping my Grandmother on a little photography project she has been wanting to do for some time. It began as an innocent sorting and labeling of photos -- photos which happen to document more than a hundred years of family history. This photo here is of my Great Grandfather as a young boy. It was most likely taken in 1902.

My family has samples of some of the world's earliest photographs -- the tintype. Its a distant relation to the daguerrotype, the difference being that daguerrotypes are images in silver while tintypes are in...tin. They work by the same concept as modern photography -- light-sensitive material is exposed to light which imprints an image on the material. In modern photography, that material is film. In 1870, it was metal.

The collection we have has been sitting in a paper bag in a drawer for decades. It includes images of family members, friends, small children, portraits of lace-laiden ladies and dashing young men in their Sunday Best. The metallic background has preserved these serene and often melancholy faces for more than a hundred years. And here, still, they seem to stare back at me as if still alive, the light behind their eyes a living light and not just the reflection of fluorescent on tin.

Here for example, this is my Great-Aunt, posing with a friend sometime around 1900.

What I know of her is that her husband was a seafarer, she held stock in GE prior to and through the Great Depression (she herself, not her husband), and that she had one child, a daughter, who passed away in infancy and was never discussed even though her baby clothes were passed on to surviving cousins. And there it is, one life, summed up.

And this, this is Bill Starr, perhaps a good friend of my great-grandfather's older brother.

I've been obsessed with Bill Starr. I have no idea who he is, or why my family has so many pictures of him. He probably influenced the life of someone in my history, but how? And whom?

Finally, I have countless photos of young girls dressed in their most expensive clothes. They are the most melancholy lot. I have no leads on them. Who they are, or why I have their photo is a mystery. What did they become in adulthood? And did they make it that far?





And now to imagine that they lived and breathed one day long ago -- that they had families of their own, houses, thoughts, feelings, self-awareness...and could never have envisioned a world where a distant relative is so intrigued by their photo, had never seen a tintype, has a computer, writes something called a 'blog', doesn't wear a corset...