The screen displaying the words I'm typing is mostly white, with a white rectangular input box surrounded by a huge white box framing it. The border of the screen is black, because the cover of my laptop is black, pitch-dark but shiny black because of the reflection of the white flourescent light above it. Yet I feel like this desk is dimly-lighted, because even the white wall behind my laptop seems dark, not gray, but dark white. Beside my laptop where my hands are resting and working simultaneously is a black book that lies closed upon an open journal, the paper a dulled white. I have to read that book, whose pages are a slightly less dull white, but instead I am looking into another shade of white. Were it not for my purely brown desk, this would remind me one hundred percent of my room in Paris, with the wall pitch white and my black laptop with its screen frequently displaying white. Here, at least, there's a window to my right. Look out of it and you see pure black, except for a lone light in the distance, which is nothing but... white. On the wall I have affixed six papers with various kinds of information, all white with black teext. Only the silly putty used to attach four of the papers is yellow. The tissue box is yellow, but my view of it is obscured by the laptop, so most of what I see is white. The small stereo that my uncle gave me a couple Christmases ago, I think the one before college, perhaps, is the same shiny black as my laptop is. An Abstract Algebra textbook, black, but at least buried under books with yellow and blue covers, a picture with a purple frame, and a book called "My Mother Is the Best Gift I Ever Got," whose cover is a faded pink that looks rather white. The modem for the Internet connection in my house is on my desk; to an ant it would look like a skyscraper behemoth. To its left is another shiny black object, this time the router. It at least has the decency to flash blue. Oh, and my mug is black.
Somebody give me some color!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Smile
Sometimes it's just the simplest thing to do. Smile.
That's what my aunt tells my grandmother as she eats her oatmeal or whatever that chocolate-looking liquidness is. One, two, several times. Sometimes it's just what I need to do more. And what we all need to do more.
Like it does for my grandmother, it'd keep me healthy. I guess I just forget sometimes, or I think it's not honest. But a smile can turn things around, make everything much better.
There's not much to say. Just smile!
That's what my aunt tells my grandmother as she eats her oatmeal or whatever that chocolate-looking liquidness is. One, two, several times. Sometimes it's just what I need to do more. And what we all need to do more.
Like it does for my grandmother, it'd keep me healthy. I guess I just forget sometimes, or I think it's not honest. But a smile can turn things around, make everything much better.
There's not much to say. Just smile!
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday energy
Siphoning itself into the night, my energy departs from me, including the energy I need left to figure out what will get myself into bed without my stomach complaining at me like it has the past few nights. I need a food to fill it up but that won't be too easy or too hard to digest. Maybe I don't need to eat anything. Maybe I need to refrain from eating! Whatever, this conflict having happened before I don't know why it's come back, but it has. The worst problem, though, is the fact that I recently have not gone to bed before sunrise. No incentive strong enough to prevent that. The irony is that the incentive will probably come immediately after my summer class ends. But anyway, I'd like a food that has very little sugar but that still has a lot of content, that is, that's sufficiently large to give my stomach enough to be satisfied yet won't have enough energy in it to keep me awake much longer. As in, virtually anything in the fresh pastry section of any Japanese convenience store. What the hell, America? Apparently we give Japan 80% of its soybeans nowadays, so what's preventing us from using some of that stuff ourselves? THAT'S how you solve the problem with our food being a) bad and b) completely unhealthy. Use more soybeans. Hell, if we don't grow red beans, we should be. But if we are, we have no excuse for not making an pan (アンパン) all the time. The problem with eating that stuff, though, is that the shock of having that much red bean in my body (I'm very slightly allergic to soybeans) takes my stomach about a day to get used to. So I need to be eating that stuff fairly regularly in order to enjoy it without any displeasure afterwards. Meaning that if I go into Porter Square for an pan, I should get like six of them and put them in my refrigerator and hope they'll last.
And yet that, as it'd be for any perfectionist who can't find anything he knows he's made perfect recently, is not the only thing keeping me up. What can put me to bed more easily? Well, probably having a topic for my Japanese history research paper due whenever is one. I noticed about four people stay later today because they wanted to get their topics approved the class before the original due date (which is this upcoming Tuesday). Oops. I should've been working on that before, but you know me. Or maybe you don't. Well, I put things off as much as possible. よくこんなことを後回しにするね。(I just learned that phrase today from a Japanese song; I'm proud of myself for that.) And there's yet another one.
But I also put too much on my plate. And I've picked up the mentality (from certain people, well, a certain person, and it's not his fault) that I have to eat everything on it. So I try to do that, and I end up having a lot to shit out later. (You knew I would choose this image, not the ones that are all for the squeamish.) That's the story of things, and the story of America. Well, Americans can have bad metabolisms too, and that's another problem. This country...
At least that's the current story of America. Way back when (in the 70s) it was different. Now people are probably gonna look at us badly for having an overweight surgeon-general. What's the surgeon-general's job anyway, though? I don't know. If it's to suggest regulations on doctors, then I've got an easy solution for you, which is to follow the Constitution and take away that power, but nobody wants to hear that one. If that's not the surgeon-general's purpose then there's no easy solution.
It's hard to support positions that differ from what most people see or from the status-quo when you're just as ignorant as everyone else. Then again, I do believe we're all just as ignorant as everyone else in that we can only know a finite amount of information, no matter how infinite our power to memorize can seem. Still you've gotta fight to know.
And hopefully, that's still the story of America, or if not, it can become the story again. Fighting to know rather than to kill, or to continue past mistakes just to cover our collective ass whose size has been insulted. (And in terms of our influence abroad, rightly so.)
I don't want to end this freewrite on a foreign policy note. I do want to end it on something relating to myself. That's how it started and that's how it should end. But I don't know what to write, and that's cool too. So I guess I'll just leave a period here, and I'll make it open in the middle。
And yet that, as it'd be for any perfectionist who can't find anything he knows he's made perfect recently, is not the only thing keeping me up. What can put me to bed more easily? Well, probably having a topic for my Japanese history research paper due whenever is one. I noticed about four people stay later today because they wanted to get their topics approved the class before the original due date (which is this upcoming Tuesday). Oops. I should've been working on that before, but you know me. Or maybe you don't. Well, I put things off as much as possible. よくこんなことを後回しにするね。(I just learned that phrase today from a Japanese song; I'm proud of myself for that.) And there's yet another one.
But I also put too much on my plate. And I've picked up the mentality (from certain people, well, a certain person, and it's not his fault) that I have to eat everything on it. So I try to do that, and I end up having a lot to shit out later. (You knew I would choose this image, not the ones that are all for the squeamish.) That's the story of things, and the story of America. Well, Americans can have bad metabolisms too, and that's another problem. This country...
At least that's the current story of America. Way back when (in the 70s) it was different. Now people are probably gonna look at us badly for having an overweight surgeon-general. What's the surgeon-general's job anyway, though? I don't know. If it's to suggest regulations on doctors, then I've got an easy solution for you, which is to follow the Constitution and take away that power, but nobody wants to hear that one. If that's not the surgeon-general's purpose then there's no easy solution.
It's hard to support positions that differ from what most people see or from the status-quo when you're just as ignorant as everyone else. Then again, I do believe we're all just as ignorant as everyone else in that we can only know a finite amount of information, no matter how infinite our power to memorize can seem. Still you've gotta fight to know.
And hopefully, that's still the story of America, or if not, it can become the story again. Fighting to know rather than to kill, or to continue past mistakes just to cover our collective ass whose size has been insulted. (And in terms of our influence abroad, rightly so.)
I don't want to end this freewrite on a foreign policy note. I do want to end it on something relating to myself. That's how it started and that's how it should end. But I don't know what to write, and that's cool too. So I guess I'll just leave a period here, and I'll make it open in the middle。
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Santa Claus is coming to town!!!!
They always had Christmas in July specials on Disney when I was younger. I figured it was because there was nothing else going on in the summer, not too many holidays (NONE in August!), and really you can't keep your audience in a summer lull, or else they'll find things to do outside. Especially if they're kids. (Hopefully that'll still be true, that one of our American values is that kids can always and should play outside no matter how much we modernize our society.) But yeah, a summer lull.
That's what's wonderful about summer. If this were any other season, I wouldn't be studying shirtless right now. But I am, and it doesn't feel strange; instead, it feels at one with the environment. My shirt is in its proper place: discarded. This is summer. The wonderful time to relax, throw back, and relax again. Frisbee, pizza, summer songs, echoes of your voice as you yell it down the deserted street. The street where you can't understand why it's deserted, because who wouldn't be out like this on a summer night? Mosquitoes, yeah, just run around! I guess when you grow up you start taking night bedtime seriously? I would think that growing up would mean being able to go out all night and do what you could do as kids at night when you've got the chance to do it, having worked all day while the kids played. Well, I haven't been working all day at all, no, not anything close to it, but this seems to be the typical story among people I know. Work, go home, go to sleep, work, yeah. And why that during the summer? Every waking hour should be spent appreciating the best, the freest of the seasons.
I just wish that where we live wasn't so infested by mosquitoes and other anonymous flies; I'd love to swim through the heat of the summer darkness, first parallel to the plane extended from the flat sole of where my shoes were positioned, and then down my driveway, down into the cul-de-sac, and then up, above the construction (why are they building new houses when nobody can buy them?) and off to the sky, to Japan and back, and then once more to Japan and back, and then to four years ago and back, to that summer where I first learned what Japan was all about, then to the Atlantic Ocean, alongside Salisbury Beach, Crane Beach, Good Harbor Beach and Rockport, and all along Cape Ann and down to Cape Cod, back to where my grandmother used to live, back four to six more years to when she and my grandfather were still alive, and back to that point in my childhood where I would play with the new cheap (but infinitely golden in my imagination) plastic toys my grandparents had bought me and placed in that magical cardboard box, that magical cardboard box. That was always there... and forward, forward into time, forward into this present where I sit at my computer, and then back into my soul, the gust of wind returning like Japanese representatives on the Iwakura Mission in 1873 telling all their friends and superiors about their trip to Europe, about the wonderful things they saw and how it's still better back home anyway.
Someday I will have a dream like this, perhaps. About a whisk of wind that leaves my soul, departs, sails away, through the four dimensions I know, and comes back to me, and rejoices and fills my body with a vigor I haven't known in any sense, and relaxes with me, within me, all this before I wake up.
What a wonderful summer.
That's what's wonderful about summer. If this were any other season, I wouldn't be studying shirtless right now. But I am, and it doesn't feel strange; instead, it feels at one with the environment. My shirt is in its proper place: discarded. This is summer. The wonderful time to relax, throw back, and relax again. Frisbee, pizza, summer songs, echoes of your voice as you yell it down the deserted street. The street where you can't understand why it's deserted, because who wouldn't be out like this on a summer night? Mosquitoes, yeah, just run around! I guess when you grow up you start taking night bedtime seriously? I would think that growing up would mean being able to go out all night and do what you could do as kids at night when you've got the chance to do it, having worked all day while the kids played. Well, I haven't been working all day at all, no, not anything close to it, but this seems to be the typical story among people I know. Work, go home, go to sleep, work, yeah. And why that during the summer? Every waking hour should be spent appreciating the best, the freest of the seasons.
I just wish that where we live wasn't so infested by mosquitoes and other anonymous flies; I'd love to swim through the heat of the summer darkness, first parallel to the plane extended from the flat sole of where my shoes were positioned, and then down my driveway, down into the cul-de-sac, and then up, above the construction (why are they building new houses when nobody can buy them?) and off to the sky, to Japan and back, and then once more to Japan and back, and then to four years ago and back, to that summer where I first learned what Japan was all about, then to the Atlantic Ocean, alongside Salisbury Beach, Crane Beach, Good Harbor Beach and Rockport, and all along Cape Ann and down to Cape Cod, back to where my grandmother used to live, back four to six more years to when she and my grandfather were still alive, and back to that point in my childhood where I would play with the new cheap (but infinitely golden in my imagination) plastic toys my grandparents had bought me and placed in that magical cardboard box, that magical cardboard box. That was always there... and forward, forward into time, forward into this present where I sit at my computer, and then back into my soul, the gust of wind returning like Japanese representatives on the Iwakura Mission in 1873 telling all their friends and superiors about their trip to Europe, about the wonderful things they saw and how it's still better back home anyway.
Someday I will have a dream like this, perhaps. About a whisk of wind that leaves my soul, departs, sails away, through the four dimensions I know, and comes back to me, and rejoices and fills my body with a vigor I haven't known in any sense, and relaxes with me, within me, all this before I wake up.
What a wonderful summer.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Bored aggravated degravitated
It's hard to say I've never been this bored and frustrated in my life. Actually, no it's not, that was every Sunday in Paris. But I'm both right now.
One of my ways of relieving these feelings (it doesn't help otherwise I wouldn't be on here right now) is by throwing away stuff and deleting stuff. I wish I could just delete my whole fucking computer, only that would satisfy me. Then I'd suffer the consequences later. But imagine how awesome it would be if you could delete the Recycle Bin, never mind the nerds who already have.
This isn't how summer is supposed to be. Summer is supposed to be hanging out with your friends all the time. But my friends are all gone or working, I don't have anyone to do that with. Summer sucks like this.
July sucks like this. I hate July, for some reason. Just like March, July and I don't get along, as well as things like Wednesdays. Oh look, today's Wednesday. Sundays fucking suck too.
I have a class to do reading for but really? really? in the summer? No.
I've run out of original new shit. That's my real problem. It's a real problem too. Next thing you know I'm gonna be looking for a boyfriend. BEFORE the end of this month.
Uh oh, here it comes...
One of my ways of relieving these feelings (it doesn't help otherwise I wouldn't be on here right now) is by throwing away stuff and deleting stuff. I wish I could just delete my whole fucking computer, only that would satisfy me. Then I'd suffer the consequences later. But imagine how awesome it would be if you could delete the Recycle Bin, never mind the nerds who already have.
This isn't how summer is supposed to be. Summer is supposed to be hanging out with your friends all the time. But my friends are all gone or working, I don't have anyone to do that with. Summer sucks like this.
July sucks like this. I hate July, for some reason. Just like March, July and I don't get along, as well as things like Wednesdays. Oh look, today's Wednesday. Sundays fucking suck too.
I have a class to do reading for but really? really? in the summer? No.
I've run out of original new shit. That's my real problem. It's a real problem too. Next thing you know I'm gonna be looking for a boyfriend. BEFORE the end of this month.
Uh oh, here it comes...
Strength
Strength is something you don't know you have until you exert it. True strength, on the other hand, is the ability to know you're strong... what am I getting at here?
Run
One of the reason I do almost - oh, wait, most people won't necessarily know this. Yeah. When I'm on my computer(s) I almost always do everything from the Run menu. Well, I mean, I do things like this: I hit the start key, r, and then type iexplore google.com and hit enter. Or just google.com and hit enter. There are times where I type iexplore dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sinuous or for whatever word whose definition I don't really know.
One of the reasons that this is appealing is that I like the concept of running. But not like actually going running. I stopped doing this after coming back from Paris because I realized running is actually quite boring and not that healthy. Either I'm breathing in gas exhaust or the ridiculous amount of shit in the air - nature shit - that comes from the surrounding forest and swamp land. I found an alternate exercise anyway, with the pushup grips. But something's missing.
DDR's missing. I'm not finding it as fun as I used to and that's because of a lack of good new shit. This is a big problem. I'm also not producing it as easily as I used to anymore, which is puzzling and not fun.
I know I've titled a blog post "Run" before, and I know it's probably not on this blog, but if it is, well. There you go.
But I like the concept of running. Of being free from everything, of being nothing but movement with the wind. Like a feather in the floating world. Well, I wouldn't use the words "floating world"; maybe the "swimming world." Swimming as a notion is more peaceful. But I'm talking about running.
My world is a world of mixups and contradictions, too, just like mixing images of swimming and running, two things that you cannot do at the same time. They say that you can't listen to your favorite two songs at the same time and enjoy it, but what if the songs are two Nickelback songs? In any case, I am a walking contradiction. Most people don't get it. My friends do. Colleges didn't. I'm a "various strokes" kind of guy, different strokes for not two but ONE folk.
Hey, what you know about that? I know all about that...
I'm up until 4:30 AM again, aggravated. At myself, and at my current situation. Nothing's easy anymore. Every single thing requires I do it 100% perfectly or else I'll undergo severe annoyance. That's not just growing up, that's the approach of senior year. GRE Math and General GRE, my question-mark interest in Japanese (which leads to the JLPT and continuing the language class, though I guess I don't really have to study it seriously this summer; instead I should chill out and give myself a fuckin' break), grad schools grad schools grad schools, what to concentrate in for grad school (they don't call it "major" in grad school, which is kind of like how you can use the word 専門 (senmon) for specialty, concentration, or major but 専攻 only applies to college major), more lists and lists like this, on and on and beyond, I could go on but I won't. Hmm, that's basically it isn't it? It doesn't sound that bad I guess. Then there's the current class I'm taking, I guess.
I intend to go to the beach no matter what after I wake up.
I'm listening to the music of longing that I listened to during sophomore year, which was a year of longing. It wasn't too long of a year of longing but it was a longing year nonetheless. This list of music includes "Shawty" by Plies, "Bed" by J.Holiday, "Kiss Kiss" by Chris Brown, "Me & Mr. Jones" by Amy Winehouse, "What You Know" by T.I., "Hypnotized" by Plies, "Elevator" by Flo Rida, "Daylight" by Kelly Rowland, ... If you look at this list, it's not obvious how these songs communicate longing. No, I communicated longing through these songs. What I hear in all of these songs (and in all of T-Pain's songs, notably) is an undercurrent of longing, for instance, found under the raw masculinity of Plies's ridiculously ignorant-sounding voice. That undercurrent was so real to me, because I never really allowed my longing to express itself outwardly to the extent that I feel it. That's my problem, since that's still true today. And it's true most nowadays in terms of romantic longing, as it was sophomore year.
I'm venturing into unknown territory, and I'm not exactly thrilled to be doing this at a time when I need to solidify a switch of life for after-undergrad. But I need to do this, because if I don't I'm going to fail.
And that's not an academic fail, that's a me fail. Actually, probably the best translation from what I just said into English is that if I don't start looking around I'm going to fall.
How do I ease up enough to look around and step into the hot jacuzzi of sizzling romance? Ugh, it's definitely not by listening to Nas as my music player's shuffle sets me to... Yeah, I need to ease up. Cure my everpresent nervousness.
And it looks like daylight...'s gonna make me sleep shit again... man, I can't make it through the night anymore. I don't know why.
One of the reasons that this is appealing is that I like the concept of running. But not like actually going running. I stopped doing this after coming back from Paris because I realized running is actually quite boring and not that healthy. Either I'm breathing in gas exhaust or the ridiculous amount of shit in the air - nature shit - that comes from the surrounding forest and swamp land. I found an alternate exercise anyway, with the pushup grips. But something's missing.
DDR's missing. I'm not finding it as fun as I used to and that's because of a lack of good new shit. This is a big problem. I'm also not producing it as easily as I used to anymore, which is puzzling and not fun.
I know I've titled a blog post "Run" before, and I know it's probably not on this blog, but if it is, well. There you go.
But I like the concept of running. Of being free from everything, of being nothing but movement with the wind. Like a feather in the floating world. Well, I wouldn't use the words "floating world"; maybe the "swimming world." Swimming as a notion is more peaceful. But I'm talking about running.
My world is a world of mixups and contradictions, too, just like mixing images of swimming and running, two things that you cannot do at the same time. They say that you can't listen to your favorite two songs at the same time and enjoy it, but what if the songs are two Nickelback songs? In any case, I am a walking contradiction. Most people don't get it. My friends do. Colleges didn't. I'm a "various strokes" kind of guy, different strokes for not two but ONE folk.
Hey, what you know about that? I know all about that...
I'm up until 4:30 AM again, aggravated. At myself, and at my current situation. Nothing's easy anymore. Every single thing requires I do it 100% perfectly or else I'll undergo severe annoyance. That's not just growing up, that's the approach of senior year. GRE Math and General GRE, my question-mark interest in Japanese (which leads to the JLPT and continuing the language class, though I guess I don't really have to study it seriously this summer; instead I should chill out and give myself a fuckin' break), grad schools grad schools grad schools, what to concentrate in for grad school (they don't call it "major" in grad school, which is kind of like how you can use the word 専門 (senmon) for specialty, concentration, or major but 専攻 only applies to college major), more lists and lists like this, on and on and beyond, I could go on but I won't. Hmm, that's basically it isn't it? It doesn't sound that bad I guess. Then there's the current class I'm taking, I guess.
I intend to go to the beach no matter what after I wake up.
I'm listening to the music of longing that I listened to during sophomore year, which was a year of longing. It wasn't too long of a year of longing but it was a longing year nonetheless. This list of music includes "Shawty" by Plies, "Bed" by J.Holiday, "Kiss Kiss" by Chris Brown, "Me & Mr. Jones" by Amy Winehouse, "What You Know" by T.I., "Hypnotized" by Plies, "Elevator" by Flo Rida, "Daylight" by Kelly Rowland, ... If you look at this list, it's not obvious how these songs communicate longing. No, I communicated longing through these songs. What I hear in all of these songs (and in all of T-Pain's songs, notably) is an undercurrent of longing, for instance, found under the raw masculinity of Plies's ridiculously ignorant-sounding voice. That undercurrent was so real to me, because I never really allowed my longing to express itself outwardly to the extent that I feel it. That's my problem, since that's still true today. And it's true most nowadays in terms of romantic longing, as it was sophomore year.
I'm venturing into unknown territory, and I'm not exactly thrilled to be doing this at a time when I need to solidify a switch of life for after-undergrad. But I need to do this, because if I don't I'm going to fail.
And that's not an academic fail, that's a me fail. Actually, probably the best translation from what I just said into English is that if I don't start looking around I'm going to fall.
How do I ease up enough to look around and step into the hot jacuzzi of sizzling romance? Ugh, it's definitely not by listening to Nas as my music player's shuffle sets me to... Yeah, I need to ease up. Cure my everpresent nervousness.
And it looks like daylight...'s gonna make me sleep shit again... man, I can't make it through the night anymore. I don't know why.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Social issues, our generation, this generation, and beyond
As I watched Bruno yesterday, there was one moment in the movie that made me more uncomfortable than the others. Now, when I watched The Hangover, the worst movie I've seen this year (out of 4), the whole first half of the movie made me more uncomfortable than anything in Brüno. But in the latter, anyway, the point that made me more uncomfortable when I watched it was Ron Paul saying about 4 times things like "the guy's queer," "more queer than anything possible" or something like that. It hurt a little to hear that. Plus this was a day where I was irritated for seemingly no reason, probably because the caffeine acted as a depressant or something we don't realize, or because I didn't really want to be in Medford where there's tons of people, I dunno, but yeah I'm a little gotten-to right now. And I don't want to say that it's this. But this is the key that's gonna let me out, with the 下記 (below-written stuff).
Ron Paul is my favorite political figure. There is no one that even comes close to him in my mind. I agree with him on everything, period, relevant to politics. Including the Defense of Marriage Act. Opponents of Paul claim that this support is hypocritical to what he says about states' independence, and is unconstitutional with respect to the fourteenth amendment. That makes no sense. What DOMA protects against is gay couples getting married in a state that recognizes gay marriages and returning to their home state and asking the home state to pay the benefits that straight couples get from their marriage contracts. People argue that this is hypocritical, that the state is refusing to acknowledge the contract. It's not, because the contract is between the couple and the state where it was signed, NOT the state where the couple actually lives. In other words, it's the state that agreed to the contract that has to pay the benefits (and of course I don't see why it should have to if the couple isn't living in the state). It makes no sense and isn't constitutional to force the state that didn't agree to be part of the contract to give up the money.
This is what I call cheap activism, or better worded, dishonest activism. Like it doesn't make mathematical sense for a theorem to be true in all dimensions of a space just from being true when reduced to the case of the first dimension, it doesn't make sense to say that legalizing gay marriage in one state (where it wasn't even properly legalized, through the LEGISLATURE) is the equivalent of legalizing gay marriage in all states. It's totally dishonest for heads of gay rights organizations to claim this, or just uninformed.
Now there is a separate issue with the Massachusetts lawsuit claiming DoMA prevents Massachusetts from giving benefits to gay couples. If that's actually true, then that is something that needs to be fixed. Either that or Massachusetts is being sloppy itself and doesn't understand that it actually can do what it's doing. But if they're federal benefits, well... I've got news for you, but nobody should be getting those benefits: where does it say in the Constitution that the government has the right to award money to groups based on marital status and not to others? And that last thing I said is something Paul would agree with.
Anyway I've digressed a lot.
One of the biggest social issues of 現在 (genzai, the current time) is homosexuality. This was not so much true during the 60s. Yes, we're 40 years after the Stonewall riots, but before those there wasn't much attention that I know of on the issue. Now, in the US at least, homosexuality is one central social issue, with issues on homosexuality being heavily contested, although I'm not sure how seriously debated. This is an important point to souligner (emphasize). Whereas our generation almost takes it for granted the idea that homosexuality is normal. (And note that my statement also only applies generally in northern regions and among people who are more liberal or politically correct or who go to schools where they're expected to conform to people that are liberal or politically correct.) Those who take it for granted will necessarily have a lot of trouble understanding a) people who don't like or understand homosexuality and b) people who can understand the existence of people who don't like or understand homosexuality. I fall into category B and nobody has ever given flack to me on this knowing that I'm gay. I know, however, that such people might exist (and that I might be wrong on the last part).
When I generalized about our generation, what I said's probably not right. I tried to come up with another generalization about our generation, but I really couldn't. Because it's not right to make such generalizations, and in any case, they aren't true. But on the social issue, I think there's a great divide.
What I'm continuing to write is something that's very important for me to understand, given that I'm gay and my parents didn't like what I told them when I came out. We haven't spoken about my being gay for four years, almost, and that's a long time. Since then I've been trying to grow. I know that some things are best thought over before they're said, and I know that my patience on some things hardly ever wears thin. In fact, sometimes it's so thick and sloppy that it trips me over and I can't get out of it. But I think the letting the issue fall silent is a good idea, and best for me. I need some more resolution within myself. And what I'm trying to resolve is the idea that my parents couldn't understand me being attracted to men and not women.
I mean, that's all it is. And I have trouble preventing myself from dodging the issue, I have trouble pinpointing what it is I need to do. But charity begins at home, and home begins at understanding, so I can't really begin to talk to my parents in any charitable or kind spirit about this without some understanding first. Everything starts at me, because this conflict is fundamentally about me. It's not about some lofty ideals and which ones to choose, it's not about the social situations that we each grew up in, it's about the understanding that each one of us has as individuals, and I will not concern myself over their understanding before I get my own straight. Haha, "straight."
Here's what I've grown to get. One, I am masculine and will always act like it even if people see me otherwise. Two, the definition of gay is "attracted to men" and that's the only one I'll accept. Three, I value the values of my father and mother, more concretely my father's because it's much easier to understand what they are, and more intricately my mother's because they are also useful and artistically fruitful. Man, what am I even talking about? Three, I love my parents. I don't see why this should have to conflict with that, and they love me, I know. I've had a really good life with my parents and I don't think anything should interfere with that. I need to know why they don't understand me. In mathematical and musical terms, I need to prove the title of a song by the Fresh Prince.
Ron Paul has helped me do that, a lot.
Let's keep in mind how old he is. He's 73. That's really old. Wow, something just gave me a really warm feeling in my feet.
It's understanding that I can be loved even if I'm not understood. It brings a slight, undetectable tear and an invisible change of emotion to my face.
What you say. My explanation:
If you look at Ron's comments on homosexuality on Youtube, it's clear that he has reasoned (remember Al Gore's book title An Assault on Reason? No such assault here) out the position that homosexuality isn't wrong. But there's obviously a conflict here, between reason and belief. And it's fundamentally a conflict for him, not for us, not for the political sphere. That's something we all have to understand. Here's his conflict as I see it:
He obviously goes to a church that isn't very liberal, and has trouble with a liberal interpretation of the Bible. He stated that he and his family left the Episcopal Church because it was getting too liberal. If you have trouble with this, well, that's all good, but it's a separate issue from the political sphere and has done nothing malverse (did I make up that word? is it French?) to his political positions. That's something I respect beyond respect. I digressed again, argh. The conflict is this: one between what he's figured out via reason and what he's learned and been taught through all these years, what religion has taught him, what society has taught him, what the South has taught him, what EVERYTHING he was used to has taught to him. Voltaire wrote something called a Traité sur la tolérance (Treatise on Tolerance) and he was extremely tolerant to pretty much everyone... except homosexuals. But I have the utmost respect for Voltaire, as an artist (writers are artists, see Gérard de Nerval who was a journalist who badly wanted to be as free of an artist as the writers around him but was always constrained by his own inclinations towards precision and conservation of old details derived from his journalist mentality) and as a human being who made his mark on the progress of the world.
The fundamental truth here is you can't apply the same expectations that you would to friends your age as you would to your parents, your grandparents, an old man in Lubbock, Texas, or Voltaire. My dad always told me this - you can't expect the same things out of older generations that you could of present ones. Jefferson was a slave owner but I still have the utmost respect for him for the good things he did. Finally, hearing Ron Paul loudly state how Bruno was "queer" four times hurt, it really did, and he's probably instinctively homophobic, but he really doesn't want to be. I know that by things he's said before. And his way of solving the gay marriage rights issue is the only one I will accept for gay marriage to progress as it should in our society. Otherwise, with all this business of the courts legislating as they aren't supposed to and trying to get a federal amendment recognizing gay marriage (that part's not feasible anyway), expect a backlash like that after Reconstruction or after Prohibition that'll turn back everything the gay rights movement has tried so hard to fight for. And we've already had that backlash! When Massachusetts legalized gay marriage through the courts, conservatives got scared that similar things could happen in each of their states and got amendments passed against gay marriage that'll take years and years to unroll.
One thing that draws me to Ron Paul is that he seems like a better expressed version of my father. Yeah, I see a lot of my dad in him. And what hurt the most about my attraction to men being rejected was that my dad didn't understand, for some reason I knew not to expect such from my mom. But from my dad that was the ugliest of ugly surprises. Now I understand it. The thing left is for me to understand it instinctively.
For my dad it's possibly too late for that. He's 63. Ron Paul's 73; for him it's definitely too late. But if I can get my veins to believe it, my blood, get my heart to understand what I know my brain will always run around like girls running around a mulberry bush singing ring-around-the-rosie acting as though it doesn't understand it when it does but is just frustrated about my heart... if, only if, I can get that to happen, I think I might be really beyond happy. Is that my nirvana?
It's one, at least. There isn't just one, though, and I don't think of my future in absolutes. That's another thing I've learned to start inputting into my heart, like a new chip on a good motherboard. Should've figured that out in Japan, but I didn't, and I went to Paris. Should've figured this all out all along, but I haven't, and it's been four years since I last talked this over. I guess the time is now, whenever "now" is.
We'll see what comes up. But for now, one step is resolved.
Ron Paul is my favorite political figure. There is no one that even comes close to him in my mind. I agree with him on everything, period, relevant to politics. Including the Defense of Marriage Act. Opponents of Paul claim that this support is hypocritical to what he says about states' independence, and is unconstitutional with respect to the fourteenth amendment. That makes no sense. What DOMA protects against is gay couples getting married in a state that recognizes gay marriages and returning to their home state and asking the home state to pay the benefits that straight couples get from their marriage contracts. People argue that this is hypocritical, that the state is refusing to acknowledge the contract. It's not, because the contract is between the couple and the state where it was signed, NOT the state where the couple actually lives. In other words, it's the state that agreed to the contract that has to pay the benefits (and of course I don't see why it should have to if the couple isn't living in the state). It makes no sense and isn't constitutional to force the state that didn't agree to be part of the contract to give up the money.
This is what I call cheap activism, or better worded, dishonest activism. Like it doesn't make mathematical sense for a theorem to be true in all dimensions of a space just from being true when reduced to the case of the first dimension, it doesn't make sense to say that legalizing gay marriage in one state (where it wasn't even properly legalized, through the LEGISLATURE) is the equivalent of legalizing gay marriage in all states. It's totally dishonest for heads of gay rights organizations to claim this, or just uninformed.
Now there is a separate issue with the Massachusetts lawsuit claiming DoMA prevents Massachusetts from giving benefits to gay couples. If that's actually true, then that is something that needs to be fixed. Either that or Massachusetts is being sloppy itself and doesn't understand that it actually can do what it's doing. But if they're federal benefits, well... I've got news for you, but nobody should be getting those benefits: where does it say in the Constitution that the government has the right to award money to groups based on marital status and not to others? And that last thing I said is something Paul would agree with.
Anyway I've digressed a lot.
One of the biggest social issues of 現在 (genzai, the current time) is homosexuality. This was not so much true during the 60s. Yes, we're 40 years after the Stonewall riots, but before those there wasn't much attention that I know of on the issue. Now, in the US at least, homosexuality is one central social issue, with issues on homosexuality being heavily contested, although I'm not sure how seriously debated. This is an important point to souligner (emphasize). Whereas our generation almost takes it for granted the idea that homosexuality is normal. (And note that my statement also only applies generally in northern regions and among people who are more liberal or politically correct or who go to schools where they're expected to conform to people that are liberal or politically correct.) Those who take it for granted will necessarily have a lot of trouble understanding a) people who don't like or understand homosexuality and b) people who can understand the existence of people who don't like or understand homosexuality. I fall into category B and nobody has ever given flack to me on this knowing that I'm gay. I know, however, that such people might exist (and that I might be wrong on the last part).
When I generalized about our generation, what I said's probably not right. I tried to come up with another generalization about our generation, but I really couldn't. Because it's not right to make such generalizations, and in any case, they aren't true. But on the social issue, I think there's a great divide.
What I'm continuing to write is something that's very important for me to understand, given that I'm gay and my parents didn't like what I told them when I came out. We haven't spoken about my being gay for four years, almost, and that's a long time. Since then I've been trying to grow. I know that some things are best thought over before they're said, and I know that my patience on some things hardly ever wears thin. In fact, sometimes it's so thick and sloppy that it trips me over and I can't get out of it. But I think the letting the issue fall silent is a good idea, and best for me. I need some more resolution within myself. And what I'm trying to resolve is the idea that my parents couldn't understand me being attracted to men and not women.
I mean, that's all it is. And I have trouble preventing myself from dodging the issue, I have trouble pinpointing what it is I need to do. But charity begins at home, and home begins at understanding, so I can't really begin to talk to my parents in any charitable or kind spirit about this without some understanding first. Everything starts at me, because this conflict is fundamentally about me. It's not about some lofty ideals and which ones to choose, it's not about the social situations that we each grew up in, it's about the understanding that each one of us has as individuals, and I will not concern myself over their understanding before I get my own straight. Haha, "straight."
Here's what I've grown to get. One, I am masculine and will always act like it even if people see me otherwise. Two, the definition of gay is "attracted to men" and that's the only one I'll accept. Three, I value the values of my father and mother, more concretely my father's because it's much easier to understand what they are, and more intricately my mother's because they are also useful and artistically fruitful. Man, what am I even talking about? Three, I love my parents. I don't see why this should have to conflict with that, and they love me, I know. I've had a really good life with my parents and I don't think anything should interfere with that. I need to know why they don't understand me. In mathematical and musical terms, I need to prove the title of a song by the Fresh Prince.
Ron Paul has helped me do that, a lot.
Let's keep in mind how old he is. He's 73. That's really old. Wow, something just gave me a really warm feeling in my feet.
It's understanding that I can be loved even if I'm not understood. It brings a slight, undetectable tear and an invisible change of emotion to my face.
What you say. My explanation:
If you look at Ron's comments on homosexuality on Youtube, it's clear that he has reasoned (remember Al Gore's book title An Assault on Reason? No such assault here) out the position that homosexuality isn't wrong. But there's obviously a conflict here, between reason and belief. And it's fundamentally a conflict for him, not for us, not for the political sphere. That's something we all have to understand. Here's his conflict as I see it:
He obviously goes to a church that isn't very liberal, and has trouble with a liberal interpretation of the Bible. He stated that he and his family left the Episcopal Church because it was getting too liberal. If you have trouble with this, well, that's all good, but it's a separate issue from the political sphere and has done nothing malverse (did I make up that word? is it French?) to his political positions. That's something I respect beyond respect. I digressed again, argh. The conflict is this: one between what he's figured out via reason and what he's learned and been taught through all these years, what religion has taught him, what society has taught him, what the South has taught him, what EVERYTHING he was used to has taught to him. Voltaire wrote something called a Traité sur la tolérance (Treatise on Tolerance) and he was extremely tolerant to pretty much everyone... except homosexuals. But I have the utmost respect for Voltaire, as an artist (writers are artists, see Gérard de Nerval who was a journalist who badly wanted to be as free of an artist as the writers around him but was always constrained by his own inclinations towards precision and conservation of old details derived from his journalist mentality) and as a human being who made his mark on the progress of the world.
The fundamental truth here is you can't apply the same expectations that you would to friends your age as you would to your parents, your grandparents, an old man in Lubbock, Texas, or Voltaire. My dad always told me this - you can't expect the same things out of older generations that you could of present ones. Jefferson was a slave owner but I still have the utmost respect for him for the good things he did. Finally, hearing Ron Paul loudly state how Bruno was "queer" four times hurt, it really did, and he's probably instinctively homophobic, but he really doesn't want to be. I know that by things he's said before. And his way of solving the gay marriage rights issue is the only one I will accept for gay marriage to progress as it should in our society. Otherwise, with all this business of the courts legislating as they aren't supposed to and trying to get a federal amendment recognizing gay marriage (that part's not feasible anyway), expect a backlash like that after Reconstruction or after Prohibition that'll turn back everything the gay rights movement has tried so hard to fight for. And we've already had that backlash! When Massachusetts legalized gay marriage through the courts, conservatives got scared that similar things could happen in each of their states and got amendments passed against gay marriage that'll take years and years to unroll.
One thing that draws me to Ron Paul is that he seems like a better expressed version of my father. Yeah, I see a lot of my dad in him. And what hurt the most about my attraction to men being rejected was that my dad didn't understand, for some reason I knew not to expect such from my mom. But from my dad that was the ugliest of ugly surprises. Now I understand it. The thing left is for me to understand it instinctively.
For my dad it's possibly too late for that. He's 63. Ron Paul's 73; for him it's definitely too late. But if I can get my veins to believe it, my blood, get my heart to understand what I know my brain will always run around like girls running around a mulberry bush singing ring-around-the-rosie acting as though it doesn't understand it when it does but is just frustrated about my heart... if, only if, I can get that to happen, I think I might be really beyond happy. Is that my nirvana?
It's one, at least. There isn't just one, though, and I don't think of my future in absolutes. That's another thing I've learned to start inputting into my heart, like a new chip on a good motherboard. Should've figured that out in Japan, but I didn't, and I went to Paris. Should've figured this all out all along, but I haven't, and it's been four years since I last talked this over. I guess the time is now, whenever "now" is.
We'll see what comes up. But for now, one step is resolved.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Deep night
In the summer, there is no depth to night. It comes but doesn't last. It blooms like that flower over there, that Chinese plant's flower (if it's raised in America isn't it American though?) which comes and departs, leaving only its magnificent scent for the night, which we're back to again.
Many things go awry in the night, but in the summer, there's not enough room for that. The summer saves us, for some it breaks us. Summer is a season, just like oregano is, a, well, you know. It doesn't change too much of what lies under, but it can make it taste like it's not there. And when it's rice, though, really there's not much there but the usual. So sometimes what's there is the usual.
And there's the summer. But when the rain comes, that sucks, and the rain comes and drenches everything, yes, drenches, quenches the thirst of the grass... sometimes the raindrops, though, they're big enough to crush an earthworm. Or an ant. Don't you wonder if they ever do that?
Wonder where the gnats hide.
The summer sun heals pain if you let it. It increases pain if you let it.
I love the summer sun.
Many things go awry in the night, but in the summer, there's not enough room for that. The summer saves us, for some it breaks us. Summer is a season, just like oregano is, a, well, you know. It doesn't change too much of what lies under, but it can make it taste like it's not there. And when it's rice, though, really there's not much there but the usual. So sometimes what's there is the usual.
And there's the summer. But when the rain comes, that sucks, and the rain comes and drenches everything, yes, drenches, quenches the thirst of the grass... sometimes the raindrops, though, they're big enough to crush an earthworm. Or an ant. Don't you wonder if they ever do that?
Wonder where the gnats hide.
The summer sun heals pain if you let it. It increases pain if you let it.
I love the summer sun.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Happy Independence Day
July 4, 1776. 233 years ago, count them. This is when a small group declared its opposition to the familiar history of most of humanity. The opposition to the tyranny of a king who had no right to rule over these guys who lived so far away anyway. And why did he have no right to rule over them? Because the only natural way for government to have any authority is for it to be granted by the people. That is the principle upon which this nation was founded. Our own history is hypocritical, as is that of any individual or of any thing produced by mankind. But to never forget this principle is what I'm thinking about today. Thinking about never forgetting.
This is not a principle to forgive and forget. It has no need to be forgiven. Yet we have done just that, as though it were a sin. That's what I believe, anyway. And we continually forget about this and the other major principles that the Founders talked about.
What needs to be forgiven (first acknowledged as a sin) and not forgotten is the ridiculously absurd treatment of the people who already lived on the continent. The main conflict was the principle of private property against public property; but you can't start acknowledging the principle of private property just after having stolen property from someone else. This is not acceptable and must be remembered as one of the many stains and scars that this nation has to its name.
It's all about "certain unalienable Rights, ...among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.__...[T]o secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Thoreau talked about this, about not being part of any nation that he did not consent to be part of, even if he was born into it... funny that nobody ever talks about Thoreau as being a libertarian, God forbid anyone would suggest something like that. I haven't read much about him or by him lately, but I recall him refusing to pay taxes going towards the Mexican War... you do that today for the Iraq war and people call you crazy. Or you do that for other reasons and people call you a right-wing nut.
I don't think I'm necessarily a libertarian in terms of state government. If a state needs to regulate companies that have monopolies over electricity, or needs to provide or give funds to decent welfare programs for people that end up on the streets because they get messed up from being victims of abuse (and of course this isn't all of them, but how many of them!), then I can believe that. I'm NOT fine with that in terms of the federal government. It's clear to me that the system of government was specifically designed to give very little power to the federal government and give all other powers to the states, where the people can more easily control these powers that can be so handily wielded against them. Obviously enough, nobody has any respect for the separation of Federal and State today, which is something that is probably a direct product of people arguing that "states rights!" is a racist product of the dissatisfaction in the South after the Civil War. No, these rights were understood before and probably even well after that time. If you want inefficient welfare that'll leave people hanging, departments in the executive branch that unfairly bias farming companies with lobbyists and provide education programs that mess up local control of education, then that's what you're bound to get with a strong central government. And horrid economic troubles are what you can get with an INVINCIBLE central bank.
That's what I believe, regardless of whether I'm educated enough to back it all up. Nobody's really educated enough to back up everything that they believe, especially in the political arena.
At least the Declaration of Independence is behind me, with the Constitution backing it up. May "Nature's God" (see last sentence) bless America.
And happy Independence Day!
This is not a principle to forgive and forget. It has no need to be forgiven. Yet we have done just that, as though it were a sin. That's what I believe, anyway. And we continually forget about this and the other major principles that the Founders talked about.
What needs to be forgiven (first acknowledged as a sin) and not forgotten is the ridiculously absurd treatment of the people who already lived on the continent. The main conflict was the principle of private property against public property; but you can't start acknowledging the principle of private property just after having stolen property from someone else. This is not acceptable and must be remembered as one of the many stains and scars that this nation has to its name.
It's all about "certain unalienable Rights, ...among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.__...[T]o secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Thoreau talked about this, about not being part of any nation that he did not consent to be part of, even if he was born into it... funny that nobody ever talks about Thoreau as being a libertarian, God forbid anyone would suggest something like that. I haven't read much about him or by him lately, but I recall him refusing to pay taxes going towards the Mexican War... you do that today for the Iraq war and people call you crazy. Or you do that for other reasons and people call you a right-wing nut.
I don't think I'm necessarily a libertarian in terms of state government. If a state needs to regulate companies that have monopolies over electricity, or needs to provide or give funds to decent welfare programs for people that end up on the streets because they get messed up from being victims of abuse (and of course this isn't all of them, but how many of them!), then I can believe that. I'm NOT fine with that in terms of the federal government. It's clear to me that the system of government was specifically designed to give very little power to the federal government and give all other powers to the states, where the people can more easily control these powers that can be so handily wielded against them. Obviously enough, nobody has any respect for the separation of Federal and State today, which is something that is probably a direct product of people arguing that "states rights!" is a racist product of the dissatisfaction in the South after the Civil War. No, these rights were understood before and probably even well after that time. If you want inefficient welfare that'll leave people hanging, departments in the executive branch that unfairly bias farming companies with lobbyists and provide education programs that mess up local control of education, then that's what you're bound to get with a strong central government. And horrid economic troubles are what you can get with an INVINCIBLE central bank.
That's what I believe, regardless of whether I'm educated enough to back it all up. Nobody's really educated enough to back up everything that they believe, especially in the political arena.
At least the Declaration of Independence is behind me, with the Constitution backing it up. May "Nature's God" (see last sentence) bless America.
And happy Independence Day!
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Dog musings
I think sometimes that there's a fine line between feeling perfectly free and hopelessly lonely in the world.
My dog Samantha has a band around her neck. Okay, so today she whined all the time. ALL THE TIME. She constantly wanted company and/or food and/or to go outside and/or I'm not sure what she wanted. Also, she has one hell of a liking for beef, because when I cooked 牛丼 today (yes, I cooked 牛丼！(gyuu-don, beef on rice in a bowl)) she would not stop bothering me for it, and I swear she was about to go to sleep when she smelt the gyuudon in the microwave (this is me eating dinner at 2 AM and lunch at 7-8 PM) and approached me with inquiring eyes. No.と伝えて、犬が悲しそうな顔で犬小屋に帰った。 (I communicated "No" to her, and she returned to her dog-home with a face that looked sad.) 何でこの犬はそんなにしつこい？？？ (Why is this dog so persistent?)でも、この場合以外あまり迷惑をかけない犬だ。むしろ、この犬は私にいいじゃん。(But, except for this cake the dog is hardly a bother. She fits me rather well, wouldn't you think?)
Okay, enough Japanese for now. I lied. これは私の亡くしたおじさんの犬で、おじさんが死んでからこの犬を預かってる。でも私が最近ずっと海外にいてたから、そのときは家族（私以外）が犬の世話をしてた。だから、私が犬の預け方が分からないし。。。全然犬に食べ物をやったことがない。(After my uncle died, we started taking care of his dog. But since I was abroad pretty much the whole year, my family's been taking care of the dog since then. Because of that, I don't know how to raise the dog... and for various reasons including that I have never given food to her.)
That was pretty much a direct translation, but the ge~est of what I'm saying is this: I don't really interact much with the dog or take care of her. Yeah. Kind of weird. She's there, and I'm bored, and I know she's more bored than I am...
As I was eating dinner tonight, though, I was reflecting over the fact that all day I had heard that bell ringing from the collar around her neck. Wouldn't it be much more pleasureable for her to be her if I removed that collar from her neck? It would make it impossible for us (well, the older people in our house) to hear her coming, however, and I guess that's why it's still on her. But yeah, freedom. I wondered how long she's been waiting, how much pleasure it would bring her if that collar were gone from her neck. Would she then not go begging for food?
I realized that no. (This is an acceptable sentence in French. As far as I'm concerned.) She would like it for a second and instantly forget that she's been freed.
Sometimes it's easy to forget how much freedom I have. No, it's always easy to forget. But when you're not getting what you know you need, the word "free" can replace itself with "alone." But I have a feeling that, judging by my dad's personality, being free and being alone might be two things that are very close for me in my personality. But not a type of being alone in a crowd. Not a type of being in interactions with a low number of people (which the case seems to be more like for my dad). More like being alone in a small crowd that knows you. And I don't know what's up with that ABBA lyric about "Facing 20,000 of your friends... how could anyone be so lonely?" That doesn't make sense to me. Why would I want 20,000 friends? No, it's not that, it's just that I don't see how that's possible for me.
I wonder what it was like to be a dog before the internet. Haha, funny thing, it's the exact same. In terms of social environments. But wait. How on earth do they get along being so separated from other members of their own species?
Guess I don't get that.
I'm scrolling up, the Japanese on my screen is pretty. It's definitely a significant part of "this is my creation, I'm not going to study how I structured it, I'm just glad I created it."
And I guess I wanted this freewrite to mean a lot at first, but if it means just as much as hitting the "publish post" button, then that's fine too. But that's wrong - I know it means more than that. Much more than that.
What kind of dog is this.
My dog Samantha has a band around her neck. Okay, so today she whined all the time. ALL THE TIME. She constantly wanted company and/or food and/or to go outside and/or I'm not sure what she wanted. Also, she has one hell of a liking for beef, because when I cooked 牛丼 today (yes, I cooked 牛丼！(gyuu-don, beef on rice in a bowl)) she would not stop bothering me for it, and I swear she was about to go to sleep when she smelt the gyuudon in the microwave (this is me eating dinner at 2 AM and lunch at 7-8 PM) and approached me with inquiring eyes. No.と伝えて、犬が悲しそうな顔で犬小屋に帰った。 (I communicated "No" to her, and she returned to her dog-home with a face that looked sad.) 何でこの犬はそんなにしつこい？？？ (Why is this dog so persistent?)でも、この場合以外あまり迷惑をかけない犬だ。むしろ、この犬は私にいいじゃん。(But, except for this cake the dog is hardly a bother. She fits me rather well, wouldn't you think?)
Okay, enough Japanese for now. I lied. これは私の亡くしたおじさんの犬で、おじさんが死んでからこの犬を預かってる。でも私が最近ずっと海外にいてたから、そのときは家族（私以外）が犬の世話をしてた。だから、私が犬の預け方が分からないし。。。全然犬に食べ物をやったことがない。(After my uncle died, we started taking care of his dog. But since I was abroad pretty much the whole year, my family's been taking care of the dog since then. Because of that, I don't know how to raise the dog... and for various reasons including that I have never given food to her.)
That was pretty much a direct translation, but the ge~est of what I'm saying is this: I don't really interact much with the dog or take care of her. Yeah. Kind of weird. She's there, and I'm bored, and I know she's more bored than I am...
As I was eating dinner tonight, though, I was reflecting over the fact that all day I had heard that bell ringing from the collar around her neck. Wouldn't it be much more pleasureable for her to be her if I removed that collar from her neck? It would make it impossible for us (well, the older people in our house) to hear her coming, however, and I guess that's why it's still on her. But yeah, freedom. I wondered how long she's been waiting, how much pleasure it would bring her if that collar were gone from her neck. Would she then not go begging for food?
I realized that no. (This is an acceptable sentence in French. As far as I'm concerned.) She would like it for a second and instantly forget that she's been freed.
Sometimes it's easy to forget how much freedom I have. No, it's always easy to forget. But when you're not getting what you know you need, the word "free" can replace itself with "alone." But I have a feeling that, judging by my dad's personality, being free and being alone might be two things that are very close for me in my personality. But not a type of being alone in a crowd. Not a type of being in interactions with a low number of people (which the case seems to be more like for my dad). More like being alone in a small crowd that knows you. And I don't know what's up with that ABBA lyric about "Facing 20,000 of your friends... how could anyone be so lonely?" That doesn't make sense to me. Why would I want 20,000 friends? No, it's not that, it's just that I don't see how that's possible for me.
I wonder what it was like to be a dog before the internet. Haha, funny thing, it's the exact same. In terms of social environments. But wait. How on earth do they get along being so separated from other members of their own species?
Guess I don't get that.
I'm scrolling up, the Japanese on my screen is pretty. It's definitely a significant part of "this is my creation, I'm not going to study how I structured it, I'm just glad I created it."
And I guess I wanted this freewrite to mean a lot at first, but if it means just as much as hitting the "publish post" button, then that's fine too. But that's wrong - I know it means more than that. Much more than that.
What kind of dog is this.
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