drive

The guitar has seen more use this past weekend than it has for the entire year++ that I've had it, and the stinging feeling in my fingertips are starting to feel good rather than painful. The strangers who call themselves chords and shapes have seemed to finally decided to sit down and stay awhile - perhaps out of amusement at my attempts to befriend something so foreign to me. And I can almost reliably pull off the beginnings of an easy song (ignore the creepy videos - there's a play button next to the song title).

I just ordered a book on Amazon that would raise the eyebrows of those who know my lazy ass well. And I'm already trying to build up a list of more to come. The trick, of course, is finding the time and the place along with the right amount of motivation, but this time around I'm not giving up so easily.

I went to my first non-basics training two weeks ago, and the second one last week. The second class was both fun and intimidating - I was paired with so many shodans that night that "relax" was probably the last thing that I was able to do. One even kept vigorously shaking my arm to loosen it up before proceeding with a sankyo. And it didn't help that my pinky toe left a bloody mess on the mat that night (all better now; I didn't even feel it). I haven't gone since then, but I hope to return tomorrow night, and if not, I'll be there Thursday night for the New Year's training from 11:30-12:30. Will be the first New Year's Eve in awhile that's not spent at home acting all emo about being alone too.

And this weekend I am going to cook - though I wonder if it's really considered cooking if the end product doesn't turn out to be edible. Any suggestions on what a complete newbie should start with? Perhaps I'll even make some miso shiru that Jane-sensei has been talking to me about for quite some time now.

For now, that will have to do. Don't spread yourself too thin, I warn myself. Start small, focus, and go from there, lest you lose interest from making little progress on many rather than faring decently on a few.

I realize that my newfound motivation stems from a foolish dream, but it's motivation nonetheless. I also know all too well that I've been here before, with the same motivation and the same dream years ago. But this time around, I say to myself, it's going to be different. This time around, I am following through; I am not going to let reality break my spirit. I am not going to simply get over it and fall into complacency. Even though I'll never make it a reality, I will come out of this much richer from the experience.

And just in time for the new year too. Totally coincidental, but I suppose these could be the first New Year's resolutions that I've ever made in my entire life.

2010 is the new 2007. And I've got so much catching up to do.

it's been awhile

two cups of boba in my hands and i'm on top of the world. hope my friends don't mind me ditching them halfway through our workout. hope they don't suspect a thing either. as i cross the soccer turf, i'm grinning to myself at how much of an idiot i must look, grinning like that. but let the world laugh, i say to myself. they're just jealous.

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collapsing onto the frozen field, i find myself buried in nearly two feet of snow, surrounded by bags of leftover 2-liter bottles and party snacks. home is a mere minute's walk away, but i feel completely lost in the dark. and i'm tired... so, so tired. more tired than i have ever been, and in likelihood, than i ever will be. i had spent more energy than i could afford to borrow, and the sinking feeling that it was all for naught is just too much to bear right now. for once in my life, i feel entirely without resolve to get back up. i want to just lie here in the cold forever. and so i do just that. time passes. get up, I tell myself. you've got to keep moving, even though you don't know why.

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driving home on the 101, going probably too fast to be remotely considered legal. if i crash and burn, at least this joke of a life will be over with. wonder how the cop would react when he sees me breaking down in front of him, should i get pulled over. what had i done wrong? where did i start screwing it all up? never before had i had felt so confident, so sure of myself. for once in my life, i knew what it was like to believe in myself. to think that i was worth somebody's attention. and then to have it all come crashing down on me. a large part of me is still in shock from it all, but deep inside i know - i had seen it coming. good things don't happen to me. why would this time be any different?

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sitting at the back of the lecture hall, watching as the initiation ceremony proceeds. there's hardly a face i recognize in here. i really should be more social with people my year or below me. but what's the point? i won't be here for much longer. it's great to be an officer who doesn't have a part in the ceremony - i can just chat and surf the web on my laptop. all of a sudden, something... no, someone enters the room and catches my eye, and i find myself paying closer attention to the ceremony. i message my roommate, saying there's a cute girl being initiated, and he jokes that we should all sit next to her during dinner and hit on her. they start calling roll, and the next thing i know, i'm typing excitedly into my laptop. "holy shit. her name's also..."

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curled up in a hotel bed that's too large to be comfortable, far away from home. far away from both homes. one helluva dream, i tell the empty room. so far from reality. "was it worth it?" stop kidding yourself. you were expecting too much. wanting too much. everybody else is fine with it, so why shouldn't i be? get your head out of the clouds, and stop dreaming about silly things. i'm just another normal human being, no more deserving of attention than the next awkward idiot who comes along trying to be friends. but i'm different, i say. i'm special. yeah you are. special. so's everybody else.

i will post this

The ratio of drafts to actual posts in this blog is approaching 10:1. The lengths of those drafts vary across the spectrum of one-line thoughts to pages written and then tossed aside. Some of them I'm too ashamed to actually release into the wild, for fear that it gets read by people I don't want to read, and others just never came out in the way I meant them.

Part of the problem is that my thoughts seem to collect together just fine as I'm driving (or, back in Boston, walking) around or as I'm about to drift off to sleep. But the moment I try to put it all down into concrete words, everything sounds silly, tiredly repetitive, trite, or otherwise pointless. Half the time I'm just copying what someone else has already thought of or said anyway. The rest of the time I'm just copying the way they've said it.

Not that originality matters, but when it feels like nothing I can come up with on my own is worth posting, I just stop trying.