Life As I Know It

drowning in my endless frustrations

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:16:00 +0000

living in two places at once but feeling like i am nowhere

"i lost my baby
i lost my darlin'
i lost myself
i lost my mind"

lost too deep lost for too long

kind of difficult to figure things out when i don't even know what there is to be figured.

you can do a colon cleanse, but not cleanse your mind. not really. no way to get all the shit out short of a lobotomy.

i want to be myself again...but i don't think that i ever knew who that was.

how to get the happiness back...
how to go back there and bring it into the present...

i think that i finally win one thing...and then get too close to losing everything else.
over
and over
and over and over
and over and over and over
and over and over
and over
again

between a rock and a hard place and a cliff and a glacier

i want my loves back

maybe restart would be sweet

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:30:00 +0000

kind of just wishing for death right now. feels like i cannot get anything right. and it seems that mistakes are not allowed for me.

any time that i do anything vaguely wrong, i get hated for it. i am only human, but he seems to believe that i don't get any mistakes. though i always forgive him for any slip up.

i don't cheat. i don't intentionally hurt or harm. but i get hated anyway.

too much shit right now. too much failure. too many hopes smashed into nothing.

going on 30 but i have nothing to show for it.

half the people or more that i grew up with are getting married and/or having babies this year. the rest already have. but here i sit. probably alone because i cannot be perfect.

too many things that i cannot go back and change. too many years wasted. too much done that cannot be undone. stuck so deep that i cannot get out.

just want to go to sleep and never wake up.

Parentheses by the Blow

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 08:50:00 +0000

fantastic song...kind of makes me want to find someone like this in my life.

Some philosophies fuel a belief in the self,
Constructed to keep one's goods on one's own shelf.
Built well you're a strong letter I,
With the feet on the ground and the head to the sky.
Now and then you can bend,
It's okay to lean over my way.
You fear that you can't do it all,
And you're right.
Even diligent day takes relief every day
From it's work making light from the night.

And when you're holding me
We make a pair of parentheses.
There's plenty space to encase
Whatever weird way my mind goes,
I know I'll be safe in these arms.

If something in the deli aisle makes you cry
You know I'll put my arm around you
And I'll walk you outside,
Through the sliding doors,
Why would I mind?

You're not a baby if you feel the world.
All of the babies can feel the world. That's why they cry.

魔术

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:48:00 +0000

yup. that's all i have to say at this particular moment.

it used to be tuesday.

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:17:00 +0000

damn. life just refuses to stop for anything at all.

and tool is so damn good. that is one band i for SURE discovered very late.
"listen to my muscle memory"
that concept of muscle memory fits all too well with this month...

and i just had to let go of the one geography and timing had to deny me the current chance of possibly having something...

but

life keeps happening.

"why can't we not be sober?
I just want to start this over.
why can't we drink forever?
I just want to start things over."

this past 24 hours has, of course, been nothing less.

than usual.

long morning ride to work. ate a qing cai bao zi that was more bao than zi. [yes, i have said this to myself in my head more than once while eating the ones from that particular place]
milk tea with not enough coconut bits in it and chocolate milk from a bag.

fell dead asleep in the front seat listening to the static on the radio that was just above a whisper.

wrote until my hand cramped copying shit so i could try to memorize it on the train tomorrow.
emptied the erroneous wet glue from the paint bottles. the ayis cannot think that i am ENTIRELY insane. they giggle at me. they try to talk with me. do their best to try to understand my shattered chinese. they know that i knit a lot. they do, too.

shopped for lunch after taping together blue paper and making a calendar. i so wanted just the veggies from Ajisen-our noodles are psychotically overpriced-Ramen...but they appear to have a new menu, and my veggies aren't on it.

wandered about in carrefour. settled on some kind of food-stuff with the boiled cabbage you get with the noodles. dissappointingly bland choice.

fended off max. felt bad about it. but i didn't want to talk to him. i didn't have anything to say and didn't want to be asked the same questions as always and told the same things.

peeked around the e4 website. i really enjoyed watching skins. i think i will have to have another go more slowly and look forward to finding the second season.

thought about someone.

finished marking up the calendar.
went back to carrefour and wandered about looking for several different kinds of brushes. i think that the computer cleaner brush will be interesting for them to paint with.

rearranged a lot of paint. i enjoyed that.

if only tracy would get more of a clue.
i don't think that i would care to work at such a brand new place ever again unless it is my own new place.

left late. even though i asked in the morning if we could please leave on time because i was supposed to meet someone at 7. sent him a message at 5:15 [15 minutes "late" even though we are supposed to leave at 4:30] to push it back.

fell asleep in the car again.
having dreams in a car[s...as there is quite a vareity of them] 2--4 times a week is bizarre.
having the effed up dreams that i normally have made even more looney by being in a travelling car is...something else.

got home to my roommate and her roommate watching some weird american movie that i believe could be a recent as coming out next week or as long ago as a year.

too a disappearing-water pressure-but-hot-shower. dried. clothed. wore my little blue-flowered shoes [and now have 2 or 3 blisters on my left foot to remind me of how long is has been that i have neglected my poor pretty shoes] to go meet an acquaintance.

he met me with a bottle of wine in a very pink bag.

i had thought that we had agreed to meet for dinner. he asked me if i had eaten mine, and i said, no, i just got home half an hour ago.
he doesn't tell me that he ate an hour and a half before.
so i don't know that it would have been fine for me to say, no problem, i will eat later, or, i'm hungry, you want to sit with me while i eat.

so we go to some commercial, but all in hanzi noodle joint. well, there was rice, too, but my defectiveness cannot allow too much eating of rice. and i honestly do not know what my lunch was completely made of. i suspect a little white culprit.

i find out that he has eaten already.

he apologizes too many times.
things lag more.
sweet man...but.
i think of someone for about the 6th time today.

we go to the movie theater next door. i giggle and remark at the fact that i own and have seen 3 of the 4 western movies advertised. he brings to my attention what is apparently the 2nd of some nick cage movie. i don't recall having interest in the first...but whatever.

he buys tickets. i suggested seeing a chinese movie as i didn't care about seeing becoming jane a third time yet, nor atonement twice in one week.

we wait for the theater to open for our movie. he flips through a movie ad booklet on the table. he points out atonement to me in it. tells me this is what he bought tickets for.

i am pshysically unable to raise one eyebrow.

good movie, yes, but i saw it MAYBE 5 days ago. and while it is good, one of the characters really got me riled.

he apologizes profusely again. goes to change them to something else.
he comes back. it lags some more. i try. keep trying.

i just feel pretty blank about it all.

sweet. well-intentioned.
but nothing stirs.

we go in. words like, 'director,' 'produer,' etc. are translated into english, as is the title, though it uses a V for U.

but whent he movie begins there are no subtitles. which i had suspected. sometimes they say there will be none, and there are. sometimes they say that there will be none...and behold, there are none.

this time there were none.
i liked picking out words. i can understand more than i could one year ago. not much more...but "it does not matter how slowly you move as long as you keep moving forward."

it was a family mimi kind of movie.

about 20 to 30 minutes in, i look over and notice that my acquaintance is asleep. curious...but uh...okay.
i continue watching.

he startles. looks a little strange.
i ask if he is okay. he says his stomach hurts. i ask if he wants to go. he says no.
[we are sitting against the wall 8 seats in...and here i glow in the dark...]
he doubles over for a bit.

i continue watching.

i mentally prepare to crawl over 6 people.

we get out, i encourage him to get in a cab and go home and go to sleep so that he can be okay-hopefully-for his driver's test tomorrow.

i walk home in my cahoots hoodie and my pretty little blue-flowered heels.

i come home to my roommate and her roomate watching something. no one says anything to me...i have nothing to say.

i peel off my tights and put on my curtain pants. peel off my long white shirt and put my hoodie back on. crawl all over my bed, roll a true white chick--that would be a white boy without the tobacco--and commence to watching two extremely good movies.

i left out the phone call while messing with the paint. he said he had heard. that he doesn't think that i should be staying home so much. that now he had to go into a meeting but that he would call me again.

this person that i told what happened in a phone message and got no reply. a message where i actually used the words "need" and "friend."
this person who had a birthday night out and i found out that it existed from someone else after the fact on a night when i had gone out hoping to find some people

[even though i was with a person...but at that time needed more than one]
[even though i did come across CiCi who sang me a song putting BOTH my names here in it, even though he is not all about people taking chinese names]

and didn't find anyone that i felt i needed to find.

this person telling me that he doesn't want to have to worry about me. don't make him worry.

i don't know yet.

and i keep thinking about someone.

forgot long enough to want to play particular, specific music.

then i remembered that he was the one that brought my attention to them.
how cool that he did.

i feel like unfinished...and unstarted...conversations with him linger in the air.

moving

around to the other side of the world.

belated 锌年快乐

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:55:00 +0000

i spent our new year's eve this year in my bedroom.

sickness caught from a friend the week before snuck in to welcome the holiday time...
the decade old trauma kept me half-antisocial half out too much.

living vicarious explosions through my lens documenting bits outside my second storey window

***the videos i took apparently will have to be added later as the add video option is not being kind to me***

from my stationery in the past week or so 1.1

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:28:00 +0000

I will never
hardly
lie to you
and maybe
I can
not
lie for you
either.

work for backs of calves: in chinese hanzi-------
monkey/sagittarius

we are quite possibly...
amongst ourselves...

...more rawly giving...
selflessly giving..
...than more other '*people*'...
than we would care to consciously admit.

and
we
tend
to
intermitantly
kick ourselves
for this.
-ouch.

I can cook
garlicky enough
to give
a half-Sicilian
hurtish
HEARTBURN.
period.

even my own thoughts seem
to forget me

never part of any circle. i
am such a broken line
that never learned how to
curve smoothly.

"you make me
better"
could even be said
to my
dearest
frenemies
just
enemies

while I am not altogether
altruistic... I believe myself to
be closer to the known definition
(almost verging on scientific *wink*
) of that word than is the
average female of my
"limited" experience.

*t.shirt/button/etc./apparel

-"you will be photographed"

". . ."
"maybe"

"my friends get me sick
and i love them."

22:52 20 Feb 2008
Hei gen...sandwiched
pleasantly
images of
Alice's catterpiller come
to mind

smoking through
a straw again.

the foreigner in the suit with
carrying
the suitcases

didn't forsee him in time

our eyes managed
to meet
unspoken secret smile

an unknown dear friend's help on
an unexpectedly
beautiful day
perfect weather
bits of previously
unvoiced dreams bubbled
a bit over.

drool?

wo xian xin wo ke yi
i believe that...
get further
get past this

i can
get further beyond

dope n dusted --
electric
guitar

...progression...on a roll...

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:02:00 +0000

1. Ever kissed a brown eyed and brown haired person?
yes. more than one...

2. Can you see a phone right now?
my amazing cellphone. guaranteed to be more unique and definitely cooler than yours.

3. What are you listening to?
the 10+ people in my living room speaking mostly hangzhouhua and watching some american movie.
i wasn't even told that this many people were coming over...
and i know most of them...
but i wasn't told...much less invited...

4. Where is it coming from?
my living room...which is right outside the open door to my bedroom where i sit...alone...on my bed...filling out this survey thing...knowing that it is past 11pm, and i know that my roommate knows that i work early.

this is so extremely fucked up.

5. Last thing you ate?
the chicken and broccoli and green bean and snow pea garlicky stuff that i made for my dinner...and lunch and dinner tomorrow.

6. What was the last thing you saw on TV?
some weird game show kind of program that i couldn't understand much of.

7. Who was the last person other than family you saw?
neo when he came to ask me for scissors to chop up some pot to probably be put in the little pipe i lent my roommate...and i haven't even been offered a puff.

8. Are labels/stereotypes good?
they could be the root of much evil

9. What is your least favorite bill to pay?
all of them...this month it would be the insanely high electric bill. and i don't even have heat in my room.

10. Song stuck in your head?
there have been about 12 different ones today. currently there isn't one.

11. Acoustic or Electric guitars?
eenie, meenie, minei, moe...

12. Do you dance while getting ready for whatever?
i am constantly dancing. so, that would be a yes.

13. What are you wearing right now?
hang on, i have to look...

my beloved cahoots hoodie, a grey, lightly ribbed, longsleeved shirt, my maserati (the band, not the car) t-shirt, white long johns, underwear that is too much to explain, grey ribbed leg warmers, one black and grey sock with a newly broken hole on the ball of it, one light and dark grey sock, one too-big pinkish purple hand warmer that i knitted last month, one tight, pink, almost perfect handwarmer that i also knitted last month, the amazing stone necklace that demi gave me, my jie half of the heart i bought to give the other half to demi, and 3 small hair clips.

14. What is the greatest number of people you've been in front of?
thousands. my friend anson made me go on stage with him and the other 13 members of his random rock band for his university's 75th birthday celebration.
i live in china. there were at LEAST several thousand in the audience.

15. Have you ever taken a shower while crying?
oooooooohhhhhhhh yeah.

i do a lot in the shower...

16. Do you like Techno?
good techno.

17. Have you ever made out on a plane?
...i don't THINK so...

18. Do you have leadership skills?
yeah, but i am a total schizo, so while i have leadership skills, i make a terrible leader.

19. Can you play an instrument?
i have been known to go through periods of attempting to play things sometimes. maybe when i retire (hahahahaHA) i will finally REALLY take up the cello.

20. Have you ever sat on a roof and looked at stars?
oh wow, yes. several roofs have been committed to memory.

21. Ever done that while talking on the phone to a boyfriend or girlfriend?
most likely. or if not a boyfriend or girlfriend, then at least while talking to a lover on the phone.

22. Have you recently gotten someone pregnant?
not unless i am a hermaphrodite with a dual personality...and somehow manage to mentally hide the erroneous sex organ from the other half...hmmmmmmmmm

23. Are there any animals around you at the moment?
there is a very large plush pig in traditional mandarin chinese dress inn the little room that has my package taped-together desk and my drying laundry, a white stuffed toy dog from the world carnival hangzhou (which is actually in xiaoshan) that i found in my last apartment and for some weird reason kept, there is a squirrel from u of l wearing the u's shirt, and i think that i hung onto my two wooden kissing pigs (they have a string in between them that holds them together and brings them back when you pull them apart), so they must be around here somewhere...and as always, the insane xiao maomen are lurking around somewhere in the apartment.

24. Ever thought you were going to get married?
yup. and i did. and that was a really bad thing to do with that person, as it turned out. so i put a stop to it.
now i haven't a clue if it will ever happen again...
...and i am actually quite okay with that.

25. Last person who told you they loved you besides family?
a max

26. Favorite time of day?
the good times. how can i possibly have a favorite time of day? all of my days are so very different, and when they are not, they are exactly the same...

27. Favorite food?
ANYTHING FROM THE MENU AT ZEN GARDEN...damn, jeneane----shit, i so cannot spell your name----i had forgotten how amazing the food there is...

lately, i think that ma la tang and hot pot effing rule!

28. Cat person or dog person?
it depends entirely on the individual animal. right now my daily life is living proof of that.

29. Got a job?
good lord, yeah, i do.

30. Biggest regret?
you just really cannot go back and change a thing in the past. so i am learning as partially conditioning myself to let go of any vague regrets.

31. What do you want the most?
to be able to speak and understand mandarin chinese and hangzhouhua.

32. Do you want children?
if it is the right circumstance and situation...i would like maybe one. i refuse to go through a pregnancy alone, but if i really want one alone, i will have one. obviously the circumstances etc. are not in alignment presently.

33. Are you a lover or a fighter?
very much both.

34. Last time you had butterflies?
been having a panic attack off and on for the past 2 hours...i think maybe butterflies are like little panic attacks...

35. How is your mood today?
it has been maybe more all over the place than any other recent time...

36. What do you do all the time in a car?
lately, sleep and knit. the 'car' in am in on a regular basis (i ' ' car because the actual vehicle changes constantly...just when i think i know all of the cars these people have...another one appears)

37. Do you like anyone?
i like a lot of people...but right now i am not feeling very liked at all. i am quite hurt...

38. Have you ever changed your clothes while in a vehicle?
many times. i change my clothes a lot...though there are people that change more. i have also changed my clothes sitting in a booth at a club. layers effing rawk! so many possible combinations and arrangements...

39. Who was the last person to make you cry?
right now, my roommate and my acquaintances in my living room are making me want to cry.

40. When was the last time you cried?
probably going to happen at some point tonight.

41. What is one thing you miss about your past?
being able to drink water straight out of the tap.

42. What is one thing you've learned about life?
STILL LEARNING...yup...every day...so many things, so many different kinds of things.

43. Is anyone jealous of you?
don't know why anyone would be at this moment.

44. Has a friend ever used you?
more than one friend, more than once.

45. Has anyone recently told you that they like you more than as a friend?
yes.

46. Who was the last person you drove with?
xiaozhou, "amy", and "tracy" home from work today. but i haven't driven a car since the first week of december.

47. Why are you filling out this survey?
because i have nothing else to occupy me at the moment.

48. What was the last movie you watched?
nana. and it was fucking awesome.

49. What is something that you want to do within the next week?
drink margaritas tomorrow night and get fucked up and listen to fun music.

50. Who last messaged you?
ding ding sent me a picture of a chipmunk. completely out of the blue. it was awesome.

51. Is there anyone you are excited to see soon?
yup. get to see my friend young and my mei mei demi tomorrow night. at leats that is the plan...and you know what they say about plans...

52. Do you use post-its?
i like to, but there never seems to be any around.

53. Do you like gum?
i like this one kind of wrigly's they have here. it is yummy.

54. Do you have more friends that are girls or boys?
boys. for sure. has been that way since about 6th grade.

55. Has anyone ever talked about you behind your back?
in the days of twice told, my name was put in various writing on the walls of the "girl's" bathroom stalls more than anyone else's.

here, at times i am talked about behind my back in front of my face. i stand out like a very sore thumb and cannot understand much of what is being said, and it is obvious that there is a good chance that i cannot.

56. Favorite boy name?
i have a lot...i have liked the name logan and the name luke for a long time...but i know that there are many others.

57. Favorite girls name?
annika elizabeth mackenzie.

58. What's your biggest fear?
honestly...i am not quite sure about what i fear...nothing truly ever comes to mind when faced with this question.

59. Have you ever cried yourself to sleep?
AGAIN, I AM FEMALE!...hear us roar!

60. Have you ever not been able to get someone out of your head?
yup.

61. Are you a player?
i have my moments. sometimes there is a game to be played...if you play it well...and the other player is good...there can be momentary rewards.

62. Have you ever dated/fooled around with a co-worker?
yup. it is rarely a good thing afterwards...

63. Asked someone out in the past few months?
in a sense.

64. Name 5 of your favorites:
1. my amazing blue fluffly bathrobe
2. getting lovely high and dancing in a good shower
3. making stuff
4. cannot ever live without music. had i not heard any within 24 hours of being born, i would have shriveled up and died. thanks to my saundra taking me to concerts in the womb and surrounding me with beautiful things and my mama and papa being amazing and feeding me music.
5. deep connections...that are mutually sustained

65. Is something bothering you right now?
not any more...conversation with the one that really matters to me was had. there are people that maybe i should explain my extreme shyness to...and i need to get further over it. so i am now a bit bothered by myself...but i will work on that, too.

66. What is it?
that i need to work on reinforcing the outer walls of my insecurities so that they might diminish somewhat...and it is hard...

i need some more people that i can talk to.
or maybe i just need to try to talk more to people?

67. Is there something else you should be doing at the moment?
maybe sleeping...if i was THAT type of person. but i am virtually the only one at work tomorrow. so as long as i get there...it really doesn't matter if i am hungover or exhausted or anything.

68. If you could have one wish, what would it be?
to have my own bar/laundromat/cafe/art venue...
i guess, basically have a venue and be able to sustain myself on the proceeds...and do it in hangzhou.

that, and to wake up in the morning and find that i can magically speak and understand pu tong hua and hang zhou hua.

69. How is your hair right now?
idiotic, rebellious in all the wrong ways...too thin...in a word...just wrong.

to my 'roommate'

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:11:00 +0000

i am offended
intrigued
confused
hurt
bizarrely lonely
right now

in my small, almost bare, living room sit from 8-10 people. most of whom i “know.”

i was not invited.
on a week night
i was not even told.

pot smoked from my lent pipe
and i always share
and i am not even offered.

it is one thing if 2 or 3 people suddenly arrive unexpected to me...
...it is quite another thing when it is 7 people...
anything more than 2 or 3 without warning is a rude offront.

i would never do that to you...
...why do you do it to me?
...why do i expect people to treat me as i would them?
wo ‘zhe ge ler’

yes. my chinese is pathetic. did you expect my hangzhouhua to be any better?

“why do you stare at me as if you had never seen a human before?”
apparently i do not appear to be human.
tonight i feel like i am being treated thus.

is everyone here really so thourougly two-faced?

maybe i put it all out there too much.

i wanted to live with this young woman
she said she wanted to live with me.
i told her i wanted to know her
i thought she wanted to befriend me
she had said she wanted to know me.

one night i told her i had a friend coming over that would probably stay the night
she said by the way, i have a friend coming, too.

mine left. hers didn’t.
the little old wife and husband
that are not boyfriend and girlfriend
but lives are at a glance intricately intwined.

my roommate has two roomates.
i live with 2 people, but i don’t have one.
i have friends in my living room...
but i don’t seem to have any friends.

i have never felt less of consequence before in my life as i do right now.

maybe the da ma
and the sprite very heavy with cheap chinese wine can help
and bending and twisting beautifully malleable wire

the knowledge that tomorrow’s time after work will be saturated with frozen margaritas
and some seemingly deeper friends.
my first mei mei.
i split the heart to give to her her rightful designated half.
she even gets the precious box
though i need to start a collection in this hemisphere.

so many strange material things constantly missed
catalogued in my troubled muddled puddley head
hoping that they will all still exist
and want to be found
...and hopefully easily transplantable...
upon my next return.

and so i am okay with it.
with everything...

...but next time...

some prior notice would be greatly appreciated...

i forgive because i appreciate your youth
...your lack of
decidely different
too much in unknown ways
experience

this time.

if it repeats itself in this way...i might cry...
and it might make me forced to make some changes.

spew much? but the spewage can be a good thing.

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:37:00 +0000

.2.18.08. 18:45
saved in the form of a phone call. from someone I missed. who actually lives here. at least he does for the moment.

maybe the most ridiculously complicated ‘relationship’ that I have ever been involved in. but at least I know the situation from the in depth beginning of it all.

.2.19.08. 2:40
oh my gosh lucero. slow dancing.

so my apartment room on st. anthony place. starting college again, but no longer as an art student. but still so deep into it.

jeremy and I were all but quits when I moved into that house.

living there sapped and zapped me.

it was also too close to where I had lived with jeremy. within 5 minutes walking distance. it was so cold that winter. that was my 22nd birthday spent at the melody inn with him to see the teen idols. I think maybe the spunks played, too. that may have been the night I got my “Japanese punk sucks” t-shirt that I love…even though the writing has more than disappeared from it due to 5 years of various washings. he gave me that coat that I so adore. it hangs out still in my poor parents’ basement.

i have lived in some strange dwellings.
is anything in my life not a clusterfuck of the bizarrely random.

and then led zepplin comes on.
that was even earlier.
i was not yet twenty.
with my 1978 white “Vovo” station wagon. fucking shit I LOVED that automobile…oddly similar to a hearse.

i would listen to them on cassette. through my headphones speakers that my papa rigged in tin coffee cans on either side of the stick shift.
because the original ones in the door went out.
and to get even replacement speakers and do it ourselves was so expensive.

my hair was the longest it ever was. it was so hot that summer. late into the summer. i was finally in college. and I had one of three to four part time jobs working for “Vector.”
I sold cutco knives.
the most awesomest knives ever.

oh my. ladytron’s ‘seventeen.’ jamie.
aw, fuck, jamie.

the red lounge in its heydey. maybe before I wholly knew what she had gotten herself into.
oh jamie.
where did you go?

that was a nutty couple of years, too.

when was my last down time?

maybe every february for the past ten years…it has just taken me a decade to begin to try to learn how to productively use it. i am trying to be resilient.

it isn’t easy, people, believe me. and maybe give me a break every once in awhile.

but actually, I think some of you do give me a break. and I shall try harder to extend a little pale, slightly crooked, knobby, freezing cold hand to you.

2:53
almost 3am on a Monday. singing softly to me streaming from my laptop speakers and all sorts of hopefully danceable music emanating from the pseudo-living room.

maybe if I can write more of it down, I can let it go more. get it out of me.

i am going to maybe do a lot of word vomiting. prolly in a lot of forms.

maybe at times I will go all turkey vulture on you.

fuck. my ears still hurt too often.

2:56
i think sometimes I get afraid of sleeping. because I dream. and waking up becomes more and more difficult. those kinds of dreams that stick with you so much of the next day or five.

为什么？我不领会。

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 09:05:00 +0000

the highschoolness of early twenties BOYS.

i am twenty-seven years old. i find absolutely no amusement in you playing "keep away" with my drink. nor do i want you putting my straw in your mouth and then setting my drink on the floor of the bar...especially in china when you KNOW what is on the floors...

i don't care if you think you are flirting with me...if you deem yourself old enough to go out to a bar and hang with those of us that have moved beyond highschoolness behavior in that department...you should have found a better way to flirt.

i don't care if you are threatened by me and feel like you need to try and assert your pitiful excuse for wannabe alphadogness. i will beat you down, little bitch.

and i have been here longer than you. and i will be here long after you have left. you haven't bothered to find out one actuality about me... you don't know me, what i am capable of, and who around me will back me up if i clock you in your face.

don't make me ask you to stop what you are doing 3 times. i will get loud. i will get pissed, and i know that i will be justified because you couldn't fucking respect the simple request of a person asking you to stop what you are doing with something that is not yours.

when someone stays, "stop. put my drink down," it in no way translates to, "please put my straw in your mouth and then set it on the floor."

what sucks the most...is that i am going to be subjected to sharing airspace with this jack off at a friend's party tomorrow night...which he was only invited to because he is a co-worker of someone's and overheard talk of it.

i am so bored with belligerent assholes... especially the tiny, anty ones that i am dying to just squash or burn with a magnifying glass.

one thing that can suck about supposedly looking so much younger than my age is that these tiny little boys actually think that they can school me when they are blacked-out drunk.

on a brighter note...looks like i get to see my friend anson for an hour or two tonight before he goes to his parents' home in haining for the holiday. i miss him lots. he technically lives in hangzhou...but he is almost always away doing inspections of factories for his company. he always makes me smile. he is actually quite possibly my oldest ongoing friend in china. so there is some happiness to be had...despite my cold which seems to have reappeared just when i thought it was on its way out.

humans and places and things got me going Thursday night...

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 08:09:00 +0000

it was totally rad. radical even.

this is what got written down throughout the evening and night on some of my stationery paper that i tend to carry around with me.

i think that ongoing act even got me laid well at the end of it all 哈哈！i have a particular "buddy" that is always turned on by me randomly writing as i do. kind of bizarre and extremely cool. and what can i say? i get lit in that way watching him climb rock walls in office buildings :-)

anyway. the typed bits have been rearranged a bit---wow...first time in ages that i am actually going to re-read what i wrote---but i am attempting to include photographs of the original point. doing this with my tiny little elph, of course.

i swear...if i cannot get a digital camera with a nice, big, lens (a wide angle one would be heavenly, too) within 6 months...i am not sure that life will quite be worth living any longer.

i do not remember the order that these were written, unfortunately, but i shall do my best.

we make friends of lovers and lovers of friends.*

we are masters of layers.**

we take up so much space and at other times none at all.***

we love rhythms AT LEAST as much as we adore words.

if we drink alcohol, maybe we can probably outdrink you...but most likely, you won't even notice when we do...every single time.****

we are very well-equipped.

we go through phases of truly enjoying very dangly earrings.

if we partake...we KNOW how to use pot.

we are teachers. we don't always want to be--and there are times when you will be refused that outright skill of ours...we are, afterall, only humans like you--but we do not know how not to be teachers.

we know. period.

we love our friends and always seize the opportunity to outwardly display that love whenever it arises. it is not altogether altruistic. we do it because it makes us happy.

you never know what you might find in our pockets...and we have MANY.

we savor the rare moments in which our minds are unoccupied...but in the savoring, the wheels start turning again, of course.

*here, of course, "lover" can mean so many different things. but it did initially come to mind used in the physical sense of the word, "lover." but as i was writing it down, it clicked onto many of the other possible meanings as well.

**layers are the bomb. layer clothing, layer art, layer food, layer drink, fabric, tile, hair, music, paint, metal, our lives...

***this came to mind and was inked because i notice how china is a very crowded place. i do take up a lot of space with all of my stuff that i often carry around with me. but i know how to make myself small. i know how to manage all of my junk...be it putting it on my lap and still being comfortable, folding things, rolling things, etc. i actually quite enjoy it. and some of my acquaintances are probably thankful for that.

****i knew that i had "ke'd" more alcohol than all of the people that i was with that night. i was drinking liquor and they were drinking chinese beer all night. and i knew that i had smoked more than all of them, because i carry my pinch hitter with me and while i can take the whole thing, they always share it with each other. but i was fine.

more than one of the were so faded that they had to be told when to go home and be put in a cab. the next day one of them--he got to the cab by himself, but he did need to have the suggestion of going home to his bed and his dog made--remarked on how drunk/high he was...and kind of just projected his level of intoxication on to me. i was rather crystal most of the night 哈哈！

and i am in no way saying that this particular person is a lightweight, by any means. i guess it is a simple matter of this:
Louisville-raised (meaning a city where the bars are open until 4m every night--and i started going to them at 16, where we get amazing super grass--it isn't all blue and i knew that at 12 years old, and residing in the state where bourbon and falls city were born),
half northern-irish, half sicilian,
moved out of the parents' house at 16,
has held a job of one sort or another since age 14.

pit that against mostly people that never had a drink before 18+, never smoked pot until they were older than that...add that most often i am at least 2 if not 7 years older... then add some other factors... yeah. i can outdrink you.

(note that this equation may only work when in china)

in the course of an evening night

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:15:00 +0000

I don't know about you, but this GG:

loves nothing better than getting pleasantly high and dancing in her shower

has been called "magical" by more than 4 different people

knows the awesomeness of white eyeliner and "high beam"

knows that she will be famous 24 years after she dies...has accepted it...and does what she can to leave her mark for the future

understands the importance of sometimes exhausting patience

has, on average, moved more than once a year in the 10 years that she has been out of her parents' house

Random Rambles

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 05:06:00 +0000

DoubleGs stick out like sore thumbs but are quite adept at utilizing camouflage...they have even been known to don a mask and bare their tummy at the same time.

They can be very happy living on and in their beds.

Jane Austen was one DoubleG Supreme.

..6:52am--7:13am going to kill the kitty cat.1.

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:51:00 +0000

yeah.

it’s been a long while since last…

the cats that live here…fucking shit, for real. if you can ever help it, don’t be around a once-stray, now-house-cat when she is in heat. no matter what kind of humanitarian/animal lover you are, within a week and a half, you will be reduced to fantasizing about chucking the damn thing out your second-storey window.

yeah. because I am a “girl geek” I have to say: we know that it isn’t so much a “girl” geek ‘thing.’ because we have such a love of words—in part because they are both immensely logical and at the same time infinitely creative in many forms—we cannot quite agree with the use of the word “girl.”

seriously. yeah. want to commit kitty homicide right now.

me, who spends hours being made happy by lolcats.com. yes. I. I am on the verge of being a kitty homicider.

the cat just threw herself into the other side of my bedroom door. she is mewing incessantly.

i love you, my Sweets…but ni gao cuo le! the kitties CAN have sex. they learned how. and I had to see it and try to stop it twice in less than 24 hours.

anyway…trying not to be so very fragmented…

so the use of the term “girl” doesn’t QUITE sit exactly right with me. one would think, oh, use the word ‘woman’ in its place. but because I am on of both…that doesn’t quite cut it either. and besides, we are of our zeitgeist. it’ll change eventually.

and you know…there are other fellow brethren “geeks” that don’t necessarily have the exact same breed of anatomical parts that I do…but they are/were/whatever male…or not. and they are still of us.

so maybe in my geekness, I prefer female geek. of the ___ and or just male geekage.

like I am di qiu ren…ni ne? and are we all…at least aspiring to be…why limit such a good thing to be?

but still call it whatever common and yet micro denominator that works for now.

i guess geek girl it must be for now.

i think my life is weird? shit. sometimes my MINUTES get weird. occasionally, seconds, even.

rollercoaster surprise. every time I think that it has slowed to a stop and I can again let my arms reach out beyond the confines of the car…I hand in another ticket. I truly have no definitive sense of the future.

hell, how could i? I haven’t even had yet to begin to process even the recently recent past.

i wonder what the people that live above my bedroom could be doing.

hell, I wonder about my roommate and what she does a lot. because I honestly haven’t a specific clue. hahaha. I cannot speak the same language as the young woman that I live with. ☺ wild, huh? Between he two of us, we maybe don’t have one entire, precise common language. Heheeee.

But I still love her. I am trying to learn her more and make life happier at the same time.

And work full time. yeeesshhh!

Hangzhou doesn’t get as cold as Louisville does…BUT:

No central air, or better yet, radiators. I have “a/c” in my bedroom, but this unit does not have the ability to get hot. What the flying fuck!!!!!!!

This is a rainy-ass place. Seriously……same as northern florida….but it gets colder than northern florida. Blech!

Anyway. At the moment I am oddly waiting on someone that I had no intention of seeing this evening. Least nothing premeditated. As mostly usual, had no idea what I would actually do tonight.

In any case…it has played and seems to be continuing to play out rather interestingly.

Maybe I’ll say more about it all later…maybe not.

On va voir.

I love being asked questions.

The cat is at it again, and I think the up neighbors have taken up tap dancing of sorts.

blah blah blah

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 03:34:00 +0000

time is going too slowly and too quickly at the exact same time. i had to go to hong kong a couple of weeks ago to get a new visa. it was totally all last minute and wiped out what little money i had. thankfully that part is all over.

unfortunately, they would only give me a 30-day visa. so now i have to try to get it extended here in hangzhou...which of course means that i have to pay YET AGAIN.

i am crossing my fingers that it will go through. i just need one to let me stay here until i go back to louisville in a little less than 2 months...where hopefully i can fill out the papers correctly and get my diploma and school records...and then hopefully be able to get a work or resident visa. i am tired of this bs.

i keep finding new things here.

neo is still on my mind a lot...though i have not speant any time alone with him in well over a month...maybe even well on its way to being 2 months.

i did randomly get to see him over the weekend...and then again randomly last night.

i had sent him a message just saying that i still miss him. he sent me one back and then called, asking when i wanted to see him. i was rather surprised...but happy.

ended up going to In Club because he said that he was there. kind of ditched antonia a bit...i took her with me to In, but when she wanted to go to reggae, i told her that i was staying.

antonia is mostly sweet...and i know that she means well...but at the same time, i have discovered that she just drives me fucking nuts. she is SO needy and clingy...and she doesn't really think. which friday night bordered on creating an incredibly obnoxious, unnecessary situation. i do not want to constantly have to baby-sit anyone that i hang out with.

i think that while i occasionally crave close friends...i will always be a loner at heart. i do not want to have to keep track of other people when i go out. they should be able to do their own thing. i mean, shit, if i am going to the bar to get a drink in a place that is incredibly fucking crowded, and your drink is full...don't follow me to the bar! it is unnecessary and ridiculous...i mean, i will be back in all of five minutes! sheesh!

i even had a conversation on msn with her, because she is calling em or messaging me almost every night for a week asking if i want to have dinner with her. she cannot even fucking handle eating alone! i told her that in this life...many of us are often alone. it would maybe do her good to try to become comfortable with being alone. she thought that was an incredibly ridiculous idea.
she also says that she is always making the same mistakes with guys that she gets into supposed relationships with. i suggested that maybe the reason why she rushes into these things is because she does not seem to ever want to be alone. that maybe she wouldn't rush into things with people she barely knows...and ending up miserable...if she could try to find ways of being happier alone. she also thought this was just plain preposterous.

i can no longer have any sympathy for her...nor do i want to hear about her "bad luck" with men...she says that she knows she keeps making the same mistake...solicits my advice, than pretty much calls me an idiot. i think the girl is going to have to stay at acquaintence level.

so even though i didn't really get to see just him, i had a fucking fantastic time friday night. but i do find myself almost just staring at him without realizing it. i feel like a fucking idiot. i do not want to have feelings like this for someone that i cannot even really communicate with. there is so much i want to know about him and talk with him about. and i cannot fucking do it. shit...it will probably be YEARS before i can... it sucks beyond comprehension.

their new place is hella cool. total cali. warehouse feel to me. i am so jealous.

i seriously need to get some art back iin my life. it has just been extremely too long since i have really created anything. it has gotten to be increasingly painful not doing so.

i think that next year will be really good. i could be proven wrong...but i have a slight feeling. in the very least, soon i get to go to louisville...which means getting to have my clothes and shoes here when i come back, among other things, getting a direly needed good haircut...that will hopefully grow out well...getting more of my photos and negatives here...and seeing people that i sorely miss.

for now, i just have to get through the holiday next week--hopefully i will be getting paid a little sometime soon, so that i can spend a bit during my week off---and then getting through 3 solid weeks of training in shanghai.

we shall se how it goes...as always.

"At this point in my life..."

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Tue, 29 May 2007 20:10:00 +0000

From the beautiful and soulful mouth of Tracy Chapman. Thank you, Mama and Papa for introducing me to her work.

Maybe half of this somg...and more...is true for me right now. All I know is that I cannot seem to stop listening to it. Enough so that I felt compelled to look up the lyrics to make sure that I fully understood them to the extent that I am able right now...

I think that maybe I am not doing the best that I can, though... That needs to change.

"Done so many things wrong
I don't know if I can do right
Oh I...oh I
Done so many things wrong
I don't know if I can do right...

At this point in my life
I've done so many things wrong...
I don't know if I can do right
If you put your trust in me
I hope I won't let you down
If you give me a chance
I'll try

You see it's been hard road
The road I'm traveling on
And if I take your hand
I might lead you down the path to ruin
I've had a hard life
Just saying so you understand
Oh that right now
Right now I'm doing the best that I can
At this point in my life

At this point in my life
Though I've mostly walked in the shadows
I'm still searching for the light
Won't you put your faith in me
We both know that's what matters
If you give me a chance
I'll try

You see, I've been climbing stairs
But mostly stumbling down.
I've been reaching high
But always losing ground
You see I've conquered hills
But I still have mountains to climb
oh and right now, right now
I'm doing the best I can
At this point in my life.

Before we take a step
Before we walk down that path
Before I make any promises
Before you have regrets
Before we talk commitment
Let me tell you of my past
All I've seen and all I've done
The things I'd like to forget
At this point in my life

At this point in my life
I'd like to live as if only love mattered
As if redemption was in sight
As if the search to live honestly
Is all that anyone needs
No matter if you find it

You see when I've touched the sky
The earth's gravity has pulled me down
But now I've reconciled
That in this world birds and angels get the wings to fly
If you can believe in this heart of mine
Oh if you can give it a try
Then I'll reach inside
And find and give you all the sweetness that I have
Oh at this point in my life
At this point in my life"

Vaguely Updating

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Fri, 25 May 2007 06:41:00 +0000

I cannot believe that I have been here for almost a year now...it feels like it has been so much less and yet so much longer than that.

I remember when leaving Louisville to go to Michigan or wherever else for a week or two seemed so incredibly devastating to me.

I have become absolutely disgustingly burnt out on teaching. The struggles that accompany working with these crazy private language schools has just proven too much for me. There are so many ways that they could be better...but honestly, I am not sure that I have the energy left in my to attempt to facilitate any improvements.

I am still working on getting my TEFL certificate, even though I plan on doing everything that I can to avoid having to teach any more. However, knowing my weird, random luck, I want to have it just in case. If nothing else, it could mean a meager living and a way back to Louisville if I get that desperate.

Lately I have been all kinds of torn. I love it here...but I also find myself unhappy. I cannot help but wonder if I will ever find a place that I feel that I actually fit in. Maybe I am just feeling sick for the very familiar things. Maybe I just miss being able to go out by myself and run into people that I know easily. Yes, I always did get rather tired of always going everywhere by myself despite running into people...but if I go out alone here, it is rare that I will run into anyone I know. Chinese people rarely go for the purpose of meeting people. I miss havign my own doctor and not having to go to the hospital and wait in lines, not to mention having to recruit someone who speaks Chinese to go with me any time that something is wrong. I miss being able to go to even Kroger to get something for a cold or pain or allergy attacks..even dealing with a yeast infection isn't so simple for me here.

But here I have a friend call me because a couple of days before they thought that I looked a little down when they saw me. I actually get invited places. If I am hungry after 10pm, I can walk less than a block outside of where I live and get incredible, cheap food made very fast right on the street. I can ride my bicycle most places that I want to go and taxis everywhere else. I do not have to worry about paying for gas or car insurance. I can get all sorts of movies to watch for less than $1 US. I can feel perfectly safe walking around this city at any time of night.

I am just absolutely torn right now. It has been keeping me up at night.

I am supposedly starting a new job the first week of June. I am a little ambivalent about it, but I will have a try... It should be interesting. I am sure that I will learn a great deal in one way or another. It could open some things up to me. I shall see how it goes.

I began my Chinese classes last week. Already they have changed the teache ron me, but I think that it will work out. It is such a crazy language. My teacher says that I have great pronounciation. I do better than I had thought that I would with the tones...but only really on single words...or no more than 3 strung together. I am struggling with the tones when there are 4 or more strung together. But i have only had 3 lessons so far. Hopefully with practice it will become easier. I am also working on writing my first 7 characters. NOT an easy task. Amazing how effortless people make it look.

I am anxious to go back and visit. Anxious to bring back some creature comforts that I ignorantly left behind. I think that how I feel when I visit and when I return here will decide if I am going to make a real,m true serious go of having a long-term life here. It will be damn close to a year and a half at that point.

Part of me cannot help but feel that I will have failed if I go back too soon. Which is so silly and just plain ridiculous. But I do feel like that.

I also have absolutely no idea what I would do if I did move back to Louisville.

Not that I have any real idea of what the bloody hell I am doing here.

While I can appreciate being "unconventional," as Papa puts it...honestly, it sucks. My life is so unreparably twisted up at this point. "I wish that I knew what I know now...when I was younger. I wish that I knew what I know now...when I was stronger." But it isn;t so, and it cannot be. But it really sucks. Sometimes these facts keep me up at night as well.

I am not so sure that I am cut out for life.

It is always the same damn problems...lack of motivation, lack of energy, lack of drive, lack of vision...

Things that I have come to realize that I want...well, the realization was probably too late...and now I have to transition to accepting the fact that they will most likely never happen. Time just ticks away much too quickly.

.februarily disjointed.

noreply@blogger.com (Cecil Belle, 乐台风) — Sun, 17 Feb 1980 13:23:00 +0000

.2.13.08.

was introduced to a lovely dancer last night.
he was honestly the best sex I have had in quite some time. not a thing bad about it. except that now I want more.

i once saw him when armin van buren played at g plus. he was difficult not to notice. absolutely yummy.

delicious. just what I wanted.

a totally fluid fuck.
the whole experience was lickable.

something is growing, developing to go on my ceiling.
as always I am having a thing with words.
joni mitchell’s stardust song is always on my mind.
and then it was in an episode of six feet under—a really nice episode, too—which I have been watching again lately…maybe just today and yesterday??...from the second season after having stupidly lent the first to ada—and so it came back to the front of my mind.

so now parts of it will eventually go on my ceiling.

my cold has made my ears act up again. such constant pain and uncomfortability. and this constant balmy nasty damp cold.
and I want my home to be a lot better.
but this dankness makes everything exhausting.

or maybe it really is all just because it is february.

and the lovely dancer just called me to tell me he will call me tomorrow night. or…”evening tomorrow, I call you?”

i love chinglish mostly because I know that I sound worse then that when I try to speak chinese.

no matter how elegantly I could ever possibly express myself in my native language…I wonder who(m) among my friends here will ever actually get even a tiny glimpse.

so I guess that I need to continue my attempts of expressing my ‘words’ visually.

.i totally got a buzz off of that phone call.

being some rich person’s personal chef would be an awesome job to have.

except maybe for when they are eccentric and then they get really crazy on you.

.2.17.08.

yeah. and this month sinks further in.

i do really try to get over and beyond it beyond so many things.
way too much that i have been in and of and wanted no part of. ever.perpetuated...

i finally broke away.there is still a lot of visible scar tissue. detectable.

*gots to add bunches to this later. i am tired and lazy from work*