gongzuo gen nanpengyou yi wai wo zai xiang wo shi shei ne? xiangzai zhiji hao mi ren. meiyou naozhi, zi you huenluan! yi tian dao wan.

i’m totally exhausted!

i’m listening to... crustation with bronagh slevin.

i have a million events to plan and such and i want nunnnnnaaaaaeeet. hard to pay attention. maybe it’s the weather… maybe it’s more general… dude, i have no idea… .. . i just know that i lit a fire under my own ass two nights ago and now it’s gone already… it’s just the whole… “i feel like i have it in the bag!” thing, only to discover that the bag disappeared. (the bag disappearing being fucked up shit with the event i’m throwing in new york… ughhhhh. cryptacize.)

—

[about last night...] >>> a draft which will be changed out later…

It was one A.M., and I was returning to my bicycle after a midnight lunch date with my friend Blake, who works night shifts. We had just had a deep conversation about ethics and the social responsibilities of individuals who wish to do right in the world, and I was feeling pensive. It took me a second to realize a man had abruptly emerged to my right, walking with me along my route. He apologized for his stealth and for startling me; I responded with, “It’s cool, man.” He in fact had not startled me, so lost in thought I was.

Dressed in multi-colored layers of sweatshirts and vests, the man was quite obviously homeless. He dove right in, the first words out of his mouth being rants. But he stated them in a way that was more like a camp counselor animatedly telling tales than of complete nutcases screaming obscenities, and I felt no fear. Gesturing slightly behind us, he shared, “That woman is insane!” but I saw no woman behind us; in fact, I saw no one behind us. The question, then, was whether he had pulled a woman from his mind’s fiction, or whether he had encountered her quite long ago and bitterly sustained the memory until he was finally able to release it upon another unsuspecting soul. Unbeknownst to me at the time, that question would reemerge throughout the conversation, as I debated whether the events he described were truly myth or reality.

As we passed Powell’s bookstore, he discovered a clove on the ground and picked it up, all the while verbally announcing that he didn’t particularly care for cloves but wanted a smoke. He was kind enough to ask me if I was a smoker, though these were only slight tangents from his life story, which he simply couldn’t share quickly enough. Through his rapid-fire reveals, I gathered that he had formerly been a Merchant Marine who found it abominable that a ship was docked in the city’s port without the proper permits, the boat’s mere existence supposedly a threat to the health of the water in the surrounding area. He also mentioned had recently been picked up by the police for trespassing, and had subsequently been driven thirty miles out of town to a jail, where he had to pay more than two hundred dollars to leave. Everything he spoke of was tangential, like fragments radiating outwards to smaller and smaller ends. Continuity was minimal, each varying exploration into a different subject matter criss-crossing with any number of the others, weaving a stringy mess of webbed information that my brain could barely comprehend, much less provide proper documentation of.

I soon discovered his name was Shermann — with two N’s, as he was quick to point out. Shermann seemed a proper man. His mind was without a doubt deteriorating, but his spirit seemed intact. At no point was he rude — generally quite the opposite, in fact. He questioned me about myself as though he actually cared, and surprisingly, he remembered when I told him that I was Chinese and that I had an older brother. Humorously, he questioned how my brother would like me talking to a white guy, and I could only say, “It’s cool, man; we grew up in a white neighborhood,” and he replied, “Oh okay,” but later made the same ludicrous point, insinuating that my brother would probably beat him up for being a white man who was wasting my time. He incorrectly assumed — firstly, that I lived with my brother; secondly, that my brother would give a shit; thirdly, that my brother would at all think Shermann was trying to date me if he were to see the two of us together.

Shermann also apologized on numerous occasions for wasting my time. But though he would apologize, he would again resume speaking, perhaps because he needed to; at one point, he noted that he simply needed someone to talk to about his problems — though not in so many words. Instead, he chose to spend his word usage in ways my mind cannot even begin to comprehend or recall. Shermann spouted off so much advanced terminology that I was unsure of whether he was crafting new words on the fly or rehashing bits of knowledge he had explored in the distant past. By mixing in scientific — or pseudo-scientific — terminology with sociolinguistic garble and themes as widely varied as conspiracy theories, government figureheads, and space shuttle landings, everything was confused diction evading all dictation.

I was left baffled. What did I know concretely? Shermann had mentioned that he was a former Merchant Marine, that the government had left his veteran self without financial aid, and that he was trying to make his way back to Idaho Falls by way of a job he had just attained for moving concrete at a rate of $15 an hour. All of these things seemed unequivocally true, but the things he mentioned outside of himself begged one to dissect Shermann’s life.

After discovering I was Chinese and could read some Chinese characters, Shermann pulled a Chinese newspaper from his bag. Cigarette burns had burned off faces of realtors and other advertisers, but to Shermann, these faces he had burned did not belong to realtors; they belonged to political figureheads of Korean descent whom he had known personally — though they were clearly in a Chinese newspaper, their names Chinese, to boot.

He wished for me to decode the newspaper for him, but my skills were lacking. He proceeded to dissect the content for me. He had fashioned many a tale despite not being able to read the text; from the photographs, he had crafted fully-encapsulated back stories. A photo of a man swathed in military garb inspired a list of names — John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and so on — with hints towards conspiracies. He questioned me about the names by posing questions without roots; I had no idea what his goals were, but knew only that he was asking questions from the intonations in his voice. Being as ignorant of presidential knowledge as I am, I had little stock with which to answer to his gubernatorial inquiries, but I did vaguely catch one point, where he was, I believe, asking me whether it was a grand idea for one to sue the government for leaving veterans behind. But even this line of questioning was difficult to ascertain, for there was no clear end and no beginning, thematic continuity dissolving in his head just as soon as he spoke of it.

The culmination of narrative bliss, though, lied on the back cover of the newspaper. There, a full-color spread with plenty of photographs highlighted a space shuttle take-off. Again, Shermann barraged me with scientific and pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo, but there are a few points I sifted from the debris — about space shuttles flying upside-down and being powered by coals, about secret miniature robots emerging from asteroids during the FDR-era, about certain equipment in space shuttles being formed from liquid titanium despite resembling plastic to the layman.

All of Shermann’s impassioned ramblings led me to wonder what his past was truly like. Had he truly seen some insanity as a veteran? Had he once been a brilliant man whose mind had simply deteriorated? How much was fiction, how much fact? There were no answers here, though. No ends and no beginnings, for even if one wished to question Shermann about the roots of his stories, they would most likely be long gone, banished to a world where even the storyteller himself could no longer distinguish fact from fiction.

他妈的！

管。
不管。
管。
不管。
太难不管。
太没有用管。

问题在这儿：
所有写的有多少好坏，多少黑白，多少真假？

好喜欢在这里问完成没有用的问题。
胡说八道。

油死了。

—

今日寻找了这个网站。
有意思。
我不太念得懂，
这折而已：
http://www.chinese-poems.com/bo6.html

明日給个朋友。
没什么意思；
之是想打开来一点。
打开来什么？
神秘的。

上面那一诗：

花非花
霧非霧
夜半來
天明去
來如春夢幾多時
去似朝云無覓處

huā fēi huā
wù fēi wù
yè bàn lái
tiān míng qù
lái rú chūn mèng jǐ duō shí
qù sì zhāo yún wú mì chù

Bloom not bloom
mist not mist
Night half come
heaven bright go
Come like spring dream how long time?
Go like morning cloud not find place

The bloom is not a bloom,
The mist not mist.
At midnight she comes,
And goes again at dawn.
She comes like a spring dream – how long will she stay?
She goes like morning cloud, without a trace.

– Bai Juyi (白居易)

—

BABELFISH TRANSLATE OF THIS PASSAGE, HAHAHA.

His mother! Tube. Does not manage. Tube. Does not manage. Too difficult not to manage. Too does not have the useful tube. Question in here: How many qualities all writes has, how many black and white, how many genuine and fake? Good likes in here asking that does not complete the useful question. Talking nonsense. The oil died. – Today has sought for this website. Interesting. I not too read understand, this booklet: http://www.chinese-poems.com/bo6.html Tomorrow will give a friend. Has not supposed the meaning; Is wants to open a spot. What opens? Mystical. Above that poem: The flowered non-flower fog non-fog midnight comes the dawn goes and comes like spring dream several over:00 to resemble toward the cloud not seeks place

well, alright, then.

life is pretty good, man. starting with this:

i went to one of the best shows of my life last night.

beyond that, though, what else?
life has been pretty busy, starting mostly with pretty basic creature comforts.
good food, good conversation, good music, (and a little bit of) hard work.

九月一号我们开始这个：

createordie365.wordpress.com

dude, where to go next with my life?!

加油

funny, aaron and john and co always call “cool” stuff “oily” and yesterday shawn realized that in chinese, “加油 (jia you)” = “add oil”, and it is the thing that people chant to encourage someone to do something better… i totally didn’t put 1+1 together in that scenario! so funny!

anyway, went to helsing junction yesterday, and it’s too bad we couldn’t stay again tonight, because it was really friggin fun! there was some emdee-em-aye-ing and it was pretty remarkable… been years since i’ve really felt that way. arrington’s set ruled, as always, and jesse’s video showcase thing was also very, very lovely. good times. we had to come back pretty early (after floating down the river… despite being on my period… hahahahahahahah… luckily my pad did not come detached) because tori had to attend a meeting. :[ woulda been nice to stay longer, but it was also nice to have tori come along (andrew bailed to have personal time and to do work), so it was a double-edged sword! arrrr. oh well. i’m sure everyone who’s still there is having all the funs for me 8[ helsing junction’s a mini-festival, really, but it’s the best festival i’ve been to this summer… it’s sooooo chill and relaxed. and people are so not ragers… like, everyone was in bed by like 2am! it was really, really cool. i can’t say enough good things about it… and it’s on an organic farm with really rad food!

pretty much didn’t sleep last night. we grabbed tent from the car and then tried to set up it and failed!! it was a borrowed tent from callie, which none of us had ever seen before, and there were ZERO lights! probably better we didn’t try. but it was really much better sleeping out in the open, i feel like (other people this morning thought we were kind of crazy, though). got home and passed out from like, 1:45pm to 7:45pm (with intermittent text-messaging nightmares). fun times…

eavesdropping does a body good.

funny ass conversation i eavesdropped on, while waiting at the new orleans airport:

chinese mom calls someone on the phone, and then hands the phone to her kid.

mom: guess who it is?
kid: (to person on phone) you sound familiar…
mom: guess! if you guess, she’ll love you!
mom: you can’t tell by her voice?
mom: you can’t tell? you’re dead for sure!
kid: (cries)

“you’re dead for sure” is bad in english, but it’s pretty colloquial in chinese and not that out of the ordinary… or that harsh. so it’s really hilarious that the kid starting crying. haha!

crazy chinese emails!! part one.

Chinese people are fucking crazy. Especially old Chinese people. And this, by the way, is only one example about how similar fucking Latin Americans (at least Peruvians) are to Chinese people. All with their crazy theories and herbal remedies and shit. Read on. I particularly like the “intestines” one…

用餐後不要做的事 * Don’t smoke- Experiment from experts proves that smoking a cigarette after meals is comparable to smoking 10 cigarettes (chances of cancer is higher). *不要用餐後抽煙 -專家的實驗證實用餐後抽煙 比一般 時間抽10 根香煙有更高的致癌機 率。 * Don’t eat fruits immediately - Immediately eating fruits after meals will cause stomach to be bloated with air. Therefore take fruits 1-2 hours after meal or 1 hour before meal. *用餐後不要立即吃水果 -用餐後立即吃水果 將導致胃部因空氣而腫脹。因此在用餐後的2 小 時或是用餐前1小時 吃水果是比較理想的。 * Don’t drink tea - Because tea leaves contain a high content of acid. This substance will cause the Protein content in the food we consume to be hardened thus difficult to digest. * 不要在用餐後喝茶-因 為茶 葉通常含有高酸性。 這種酸性物質將導致我們 所攝取食物中所含的蛋白質變硬，因此會比 較難消化。 * Don’t loosen your belt - Loosening the belt after a meal will easily cause the intestine to be twisted & blocked. *用餐後別鬆開 你的腰帶- 用餐後立即鬆開腰 帶將讓你的腸子容易糾結和阻塞。( 這個觀 念怪怪的，不曉 得有無 翻 譯錯誤？) * Don’t bathe - Bathing will cause the increase of blood flow to the hands, legs & body thus the amount of blood around the stomach will therefore decrease. This will weaken the digestive system in our stomach. *不要在餐後洗澡 -洗澡 時會使得血液流向手、腳 和我們身 體的其他部位，因此會減 少胃部中的血液量，這將會使得我們胃部的消化能力變差。 * Don’t walk about - People always say that after a meal walk a hundred steps and you will live till 99. In reality this is not true. Walking will cause the digestive system unable to absorb the nutrition from the food we intake. * 飯後不要散步 -大家總是 說 “飯後走 100 步可以活到99 歲 “ 。但是那個觀念是 錯誤的，用餐後的走動將使我們消化統沒有足夠的 能力從我所攝 取的食物中吸收足夠的營養。 * Don’t sleep immediately - The food we intake will not be able to digest properly. Thus will lead to gastric & infection in our intestine. * 用餐後不要立即睡覺 -這樣 我攝 取的食物將沒有 辦法得到適當的消化，因此可能導致胃部和腸部的感染。 * Don’t forget to forward the e-mail to others - If you forget to forward the e-mail to others, your friends may never know the information. *