on goodbyes

me: ...its just easier for me... so, merry christmas...have fun whatever you do at new years, and have a good 2010 ok?
her: i understand...take care. bye
me: bye, i'll miss you
her: i'll miss you too. have a good year...don't drink too much

--

so we decided to part ways as we close onto Christmas and NYE+2010. in retrospect, it's probably better for me too on a personal level as much as it hurts to admit. "friends, lovers, or nothing..." i chose nothing given circumstance, at least until i can figure myself out and she does what she has to do. we decided maybe we'll get back in touch [but not back together] next winter, when we figure out our lives. it was hard to admit to myself that this was probably the best choice because i know that a lot can happen in a year. there's no guarantees and we'll be in different phases of our lives. in a year, our trajectories will have changed. in essence, i guess i chose "nothing" with the false hope that we'll have a better shot next year even though i knew we'd grow apart. the end of the end.

it's okay though. it's never easy making the right choice

at this time last year, i landed my job and my life took off. i spent christmas & nye alone and i guess i'll do the same this year.

slowly but surely...

slowly... and surely i am learning that the links to my past are dissolving. links of course, being people. feels like the people i've held up and envisioned as my closest are fading into memory with some already lost and some i'm losing a grip on.

i sit here and think about what has transpired over the decade as we close out the 2000's and think about the people that have come and gone, in and out of my life. most of them quickly, some lingering, some comfortably coming and going, and others constant. ghosts. i think about how people are never permanent and that is perhaps why we seek love, considering we're raised as children to believe that marriage means forever and we all want a witness to our lives, forever. it's natural for people to come and go. we all make new friends over time and new best friends that stick with us for a phase in our lives, only to phase out as we enter a new one...right? right?

why is it that i get a little disheartened when i feel like people i cherish slip away from me? it's simply natural progression and the methodical me realizes that; nonetheless i can't help but feel..."lost" when this happens. i realize it's nothing personal for most of these and that it's just the natural course of life--not everyone's runs parallel. i realize that even i have changed (or grown) and these changes are catalysts to the dividing causeways. i realize it all, yet here i am feeling crappy about the way "things turned out" [with everyone].

and even with constants...friends, lovers, family, i become unsatisfied and seek anew. i seek new relationships because i may at times feel unhappy with what i have and all it does is make me miss what i had. i get bored with what i have and like the excitement and discovery of new people, except it all feels superficial. if i'm not happy with what i had and not happy with what i get, what the hell will...

i think i'm immature

i used to think i was pretty mature for my age but i think my age has caught up to a maturity-plateaued-pha. every week i learn something new about myself and about how i perceive or react to certain things and find myself laying in bed at night wondering why i acted a certain way or why i thought certain things... and it all boiled down to maturity. i'm just too naive in a lot of things and when hit with reality i can't handle certain situations in the best way and really, the "correct" way i would assume a mature person would handle.

if i'm confronted i usually don't argue. i avoid conflict and i believe this is a problem. a lifetime of non-conflict has led to not being able to deal with truths and sometimes makes me feel childish.

i've also become a critical monster and i don't like that. i don't like what i've become this year. this was an eventful and fun year but in retrospect, i don't like the attributes i've picked up (or rather, let grow) this year and i think i'm a different person from before. a different somebody who doesn't like what he sees in the mirror anymore. really.

a dose of reality
i realize it's normal to argue in a relationship but it seems i don't argue that much. is that a problem? and when i do argue i feel horrible and like a child. is that a problem? one can only avoid conflict for so long before vines untangle and oh.. what's that old addage.. what a wicked web we weave, while at first we practice to deceive? how honest am i, really?

--

as an aside, my coworker poked fun of me earlier today because he always asks me about artists, events, things to do, and in general just conversational and sociable stuff. that of which i always reply, "nope never heard of it" or "what's that?" he pointed out that i'm pretty clueless about a lot of real life things and i vehemently agreed. i really am. "what rock did you crawl out from?" hahhaha... on that note, something i've never heard of and i learned about today is dolsol bimbimbap. must try

attention

i guess in a way you could call blogging, facebook, twitter, and all that jazz just simple ploys for attention. i personally hate being the center of attention yet here i am blogging and socially networking and whatnot...shrug. my cubicle neighbor told everyone today was my birthday and coordinated bringing food in in celebration, but it was honestly really awkward. i don't really like being put on the spot with everyone staring at me (like those dreams where you're naked in front of an audience that i've never had) and a bajillion people walking by my cube saying congrats and asking what i'm doing for my birthday [of which, i always reply "i never do anything for my birthday"]. this is heightened by the fact that our department, financial reporting, never celebrates anything--not even christmas. we're a boring bunch, so why was all the attention on me today? it was one of my coworker's birthday not 3 weeks ago and there was no assembly around a table of food, no swarms of ants walking by with the obligatory "happy birthday, mike" and really no commotion, unlike what i had today. it makes me feel alienated--no one likes that snooty kid who gets special treatment.

i ask my neighbor why and she just tells me because i'm really nice and i'm cool. "nice and cool," i get that a lot. for the first three-forths of my life i got "you're so nice" and/or "you're so smart." the last quarter of it however, "you're so smart" has been replaced by "you're so cool." i don't know if that's a good thing and i don't really know why people think i'm cool (i'd rather be known as smart than cool if they were mutually exclusive, for the record). i tell one of our auditors at work and she tells me i'm being cute. OK...i don't get it. i guess i should just appreciate the fact that no one hates me.

anyway today--today i got a new one from someone else: "you're an interesting guy." i don't think i've ever gotten "interesting." that made my day.

insert music notes above my head here.

now that i reread this post, this really was an attention post wasn't it? gross

as an aside, anyone want to buy me this?


http://us.burberry.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3603845&cp=3146777.3771330.2175101&parentPage=family

i would be your friend forever.


p.s. did you know that STRESSED, backwards, is DESSERTS? happy holidays!

attraction

what is it that attracts us to the opposite sex? I mean actual attraction--not sexual but the type of attraction that draws two people together regardless of the circumstance, even if there's no obvious romantic intentions?

i've never been really confused about "feelings" (lol that sounds gay) before and i like to think my heart swings only one way at the moment but at the very same time, i keep playing with fire... i don't like her and she has a bf but there is something odd going on and it really really confuses me. plus i'll never be "that guy" but oi, what is going on??? just friends.. just friends..

whhhhheeeeeeeewwwwww!

nothing to fear but fear itself

I think my biggest fear in life (other than waking up in the middle of surgery) is being forgotten. Not the kind of forgotten as in fading from memories after the years go by, but rather the type of forgotten in terms of abandonment. This may date back to being left at Wal-Mart back in high school by friends, or the number of times I've been left after school, at a store, or at a bus stop by my fams (random: I've been left at a funeral before...doesn't only happen in movies). Either way or a combination thereof, it has sort of just evolved into a full-fledged insecurity. I think it affects my entire personality--how I go about talking to people and how I go about preparing for things, especially when I go out. I get a little worried when someone tells me they're going to pick me up because I wonder if they'll forget to pick me up. Emotional baggage I guess. When people do pick me up, I worry that they'll forget to take me home if I'm not near the driver when we're about to leave. This probably explains my independent nature and "trust issues." I don't like to rely on people because I have a paranoia that people are generally unreliable. I hate it when people tell me they can do something on this date and then forget they ever say it (very common in the text message age). My insecurities especially flair when someone tells me they are going to call me and never do. This all goes back to being forgotten. I forget a lot things myself but I never forget about people or what people say to me.

People think I'm nice because I'm always appreciative of everything they do. Little do they know, I'm just really happy they didn't forget about me.

It drives me a little crazy sometimes because I know it's a problem. I push people away (or don't let them get close in the first place) because I'm scared of relying on them. Trust issues, I know.

two things

ONE

I recently started listening to this album (well it just came out) and I am absolutely diggin' it. John's albums are interesting to me because they always grow on me after initial, lacklustre first impressions. "Room for Squares" was great because the debut songs were catchy (No such thing, Your body..) and it was easy to to just get into the rest of the album. "Continuum" and "Heavier" things I remember checking out when they were released and giving the albums a listen only to not play any of the tracks again for a long time. It would take something like constant radio plays (a la "Daughters") or some moment in my life where the lyrics of his particular songs coincided with what I was going through ("In Repair") to get me listening to the albums again and then I would, after continuous repeat, fully appreciate the albums and thus reaffirm my respect for John Mayer as an artist. I noticed that after "Room for Squares," most of the songs have an underlying sadness to them and it actually became quite depressing listening to his songs a lot. Actually I can't even recall a "happy" song other than "Your Body is a Wonderland" off the top of my head right now.

I was reading an interview with John Mayer where he was talking about his latest, "Battle Studies." I guess it's about aging and the constant battle with the opposite sex in accordance with the battle within yourself (having cognitive dissonance in what you want in different areas of your life and how it affects your relationships is what I gathered). I guess sadness truly is a source of music for him as he quipped that his music would be boring if he ever became settled down and happy and "boring." Sadness is the source of soul one of my friends told me, which leads to a source of good music. I suppose it is rather true.

Anyway back to the album: I like about half of the tracks right now. Among them, my favorite two are "Friends, Lovers, or Nothing" and "Heartbreak Warfare." I find "Friends, Lovers..." to be reminiscent of "In Repair" in terms of sound (but not really in terms of lyrics) and "Heartbreak Warfare" is really just classic Mayer, to me at least. "Heartbreak" is I would say the epitome of this album in that he's describing the struggles of being in a volatile relationship--the uber highs and the ultimate lows, the confusing, the arguments, the everything...so much goes on that it's literally warfare for the heart. "Friends" is about being in the grey area--self explantory I guess. I like this album a lot so far.

Sometimes I feel like I can listen to his songs and totally relate to the happenings of my own life. Then I think about how stupid that is because my life isn't as crazy and dramatic (and also because not everything is about me). It's fun to believe though. I always say, there's a song for every moment.

TWO

For the past two years (or more?) I've been looking for this movie: "Comrades, Almost a Love Story" (Tian Mi Mi). I couldn't find a copy of it to buy on Amazon (and I don't ebay) and was afraid of picking up international copies for fear of no-subtitles. There were no direct DL's or no working torrents to this movie. Netflix and Blockbuster Online both show the film but don't offer them in DVD or streaming. The working English title is totally retarded in my opinion but from all the reviews and the period of which this movie was made as well as the period(s) the movie travels through really motivated me to keep looking for it. I don't even know how they get the title from the original Chinese title of Tian Mi Mi named after Teresa Teng's oldie hit, but I digress. It stars Leon Lai (haha... Leon Lai...) and Maggie Cheung. I have a giganto star-crush on Maggie Cheung so don't get me started there. Oh and it's directed Peter Chan, who's not so bad.

Tian Mi Mi follows the story of two Chinese mainlanders who make the trek to Hong Kong in the 80's to pursue a new life. Maggie's character is a mainlander who only wants to make as much money as possible and in all honesty wants to be more "posh." She wants people to recognize her as a Hongkie or really, anything but a "China girl" mainlander. She does what it takes, dresses, and acts the role of a Hongkie all the while working menial jobs in order to get up there someday. Leon's character on the other hand is a simple guy trying to make money to bring his girlfriend to HK. Well, this sounds all simple enough until they Leon and Maggie's characters meet and fall in love (this makes for a weird love triangle). And here's the hook: they don't know if they're meant to be in love with eachother and thus begins a 2 decade journey of being friends, lovers, or well, nothing. Oh I forgot to say, I actually ended up finding the movie on youtube, lol. Thank goodness for "HQ" youtube and the ability to rip mp4 files from Firefox.

In the simplest form, I don't really like the story. After watching it and really catching all the intricacies of this film (and totally being gaga over Maggie Cheung in her hayday) I have to admit I love-love-loved all of it. The music, the cinematography, the acting, the interaction between the characters, the anticipation, everything. I really really liked how the background for this film spans two decades as we see the characters grow and of course the rollforward into 1997. Teresa Teng's tracks were absolutely perfect for this movie, like this clip below (what can I say, I'm a sucker for romanticism):



I also liked how it goes from HK to NY and above all, I absolutely loved the ending (I mean the very end, like, the last scene). Endings are tricky things in films nowadays that usually just leave people (or at least me) disappointed, but I really liked this one.

I do have to say though this film was very depressing and there wasn't much "lightness" that makes you believe in love. I'd say this film falls more in line with Wong Kar Wai's visions, which isn't a bad thing. But, even with all that sadness and realities of love, I'd still want to live a life like these characters with the ups and downs and I guess you could say I vicariously lived it through this film.

With that I end this blog on my favorite lyrical stanza from all of Battle Studies:

"Anything other than yes is no
Anything other than stay is go
Anything less than "I love you" is lying."