If living with the thought of you is a sin, be aware that I am full of sins every night.











I wonder what kind of a fighter I am, if I am one at all. Am I the one who is newly recruited so I'm still shaking in my boots? Or am I a veteran of the war? Am I the one who continuously questions my involvement in something far bigger than I could ever imagine?











Relationships don't work they way they do on television and in the movies. Will they? Won't they? And then they finally do, and they're happy forever. Gimme a break. Nine out of ten of them end because they weren't right for each other to begin with, and half of the ones who get married get divorced anyway, and I'm telling you right now, through all this stuff I have not become a cynic. I haven't. Yes, I do happen to believe that love is mainly about pushing chocolate covered candies and, y'know, in some cultures, a chicken. You can call me a sucker, I don't care, because I do believe in it. Bottom line: it's couples who are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but the big difference is they don't let it take them down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship every time. If it's right, and they're real lucky, one of them will say something.











It's that feeling you get when you're stuck. Everything feels the same all over again. It's that feeling you get when you just want to run away.











I often dream of saving someone. Often times, a girl. Someone who is hunted by danger and crying in fear of the worst. That's when my dream-self swoops in to save the day. I hold her and become a protective barrier around her. Wherever there may be a threat, I become an obstacle in front of her. I feel like I would do anything to ensure her safety. All I want for her is happiness and peace. It's not until I wake up that I realize I often dream of saving myself.











Before I know it, weeks and months will have passed. I will blink my eyes and I will be right where I want to be. I won't want to blink again lest it all gets pulled away from me. I won't want to move a centimeter.

Please don't let it be a dream.











If I had the option of forever living in my dreams and was unaware of that truth, I'm afraid of what my decision would be.











This is a note you wrote me years ago. I find it every few years and it always makes me laugh, so now that I found it again, I wanted to share it with you...

10-22-02
Melissa, Melissa, Melissa. Can I share with you a little story?

So it's 1:42 am and I hear this shot. gunshot. Right outside my window and it makes me sit up in my bed. I look out from underneath the blinds and I see my neighbor outside the brick wall and across the street. He's standing near his mailbox with his shotgun poised and ready to shoot again. He's aiming towards the stop sign on the street corner. Why would he be shooting a sign? So I lean to my left and look down the right side of the street. There's someone standing there. It looks like a little kid judging by the short height compared to the stop sign. His son? His daughter? Or just some kid? The kid's hanging onto the stop sign pole with his left hand and his right hand is just dangling from his side. He seems pretty sturdy, doesn't seem scared. So the old man preps his gun and is ready to shoot and so he does. The kid's still standing there, doesn't even flinch. Left hand wrapped around pole and right hand just hanging there. So where did the bullet go? Did the old man miss? He puts his arms down and drops the gun to the ground. The kid unwraps his fingers and slowly walks towards the hunter. He walks what seems to be a mile but is really just a few hundred feet. When they're face to face, the kid barely reaches the old man's chest. They just stand there. A while passes and the kid knees the old man in the groin.

You know what I've recently found out about myself today? I have this fear of squirrels. I liked them before but now they freak me out. Probably because for the past few nights, I've had a short scene with squirrels in my dreams. Sometimes, there won't be any interaction. Just a quick flash of a squirrel. The fact that squirrels are rampant where I eat lunch at school doesn't help either. Lately, they've been dropping acorns on me and my friends. I don't like squirrels anymore...

Colette











It's this feeling you get while you're just sitting in an airport for an extra hour because there was a "plane change". That feeling is accompanied by the regret of not having brought with you sufficient material. You may also feel cheated out of a freeware game you downloaded thinking it would be fantastic fun re-living a text-based game only to discover the text commands make no sense and you keep getting killed by a zombie hamster. Soon, that all-too-familiar airport scent begins to waft around you like an unwanted guest overstaying his or her welcome. Kids are always on their worst behavior in an airport. That's their gift. Their damn, annoying gift.

Airports are a great way to study people. You have the people who distract themselves by trying to find something productive and seemingly-intelligent to do on their computers (ie. myself). You also have those damn families with their damn annoying little kids who keep.. breathing. But at least they're breathing in some of that airport scent. You often have the fat guy falling asleep in his chair. Ipod optional. For those without computers, there are cellphones to cling onto. Trying to strike up a conversation while not wanting to be the awkard and loud cellphone person. Sometimes, you'll get that one person with the fanny pack. What the hell does he keep in that fanny pack that he can't keep in his pockets? You can even get that quirky person with the musical instrument. Often times, it's a guitar. Sometimes, just sometimes, it can be a ukulele.

Then you'll see a kid or two with the video game system that you do not have and you begin to feel the urge to rip that sucker right out of the rightful owner's hands. At least with a system you haven't played before you'd be more entertained than trying to be one of those seemingly-intelligent and productive computer people. At least you'd be having fun and kicking some AI's ass. But artificial ass-kicking is probably not worth dealing with possible police intervention. Sometimes, if you're still enough, you can sense someone nearby who has clearly been drinking. But if you're too still, your eyes may catch the rather sickening couple who has no shame about any kind of public display of affection, including ear nibbling. And when you think the annoying little kids are gone, they come right back as if they're on some sort of yo-yo stroller. You push the stroller away but the damn thing keeps coming back.











I have this shit down to a science. Sometimes, though, it's not so smooth. Things can get complicated. Like, when I'm eating a pancake breakfast with hash browns, bacon, and eggs, I can't decide what my favorite thing is. I panic a little in my heart because I don't know how it's gonna end. But that's what life is all about. Thrills, man. Thrills. I start out all confident that I'll end with a bite of bacon but then, the sweet syrupy pancakes start to win me over. Then the hash browns, that unassuming dark horse, makes a comeback. And then the eggs are like, "Hey, we're the pure unblemished souls of chicken! Recognize!" At that point, all bets are off. It's anybody's game. I might go with bacon. I might not. Nothing's set in stone. Anything can happen. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Tat, You crazy fool! You HAVE to have the last bite planned out AT ALL TIMES!" But I like to live on the edge, Jack. I take chances. I flirt with danger. That's how I roll.











I have a lot of dreams. I'm trying not to forget them. I'm trying not to let the routine mundane engulf my greater desires. There are experiences to be had. There are still things to see and feel at the end of the day. Sometimes it's the waiting that tries to get you. Your own patience is a test of how great your desires really are. As much as you would love it, you can't always jump onto a plane or a boat and flee to where your heart seeks. Instead, you have to wait. You sit and stare as you feel the seconds pass by. Each second that could have brought you closer to where you really want to be.

They say patience is a virtue, right? It shows great character. The truth in that virtue is not how patient you are, but how strongly you try to silence the yearning you feel inside. That strength is truly admirable. Like chaining yourself down to a rock, you wade through Monday and Tuesday and April and May and the rest of 2008, while simply waiting.

You can pray or hope or tweak the actual circumstances to make the waiting more tolerable but it also depends on the other person or the other thing waiting for you. You may be struggling through the wait before you are released but what about the other end of the line? You are at Point A working your way to Midpoint B but is the desire at Point C also trying to get to Midpoint B?











The hard part isn't being the one who's dying. The hard part is being the one who has to cope with survival and loss.











What is the difference between believing that God exists and will save someone from evil and believing that rubbing green jade takes away someone's bad luck?











The only thing that consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is mainly what prevents us from thinking about ourselves, leading us imperceptibly to our ruin. Without it we would be bored, and this boredom would drive us to seek a more solid means of escape. But diversion amuses us and guides us imperceptibly to death.

Blaise Pascal - Pensees











It's that feeling you get when it seems like everyone is moving ahead and you're the only one standing still. It's that odd and uncomfortable feeling of actually being alone that you just can't shake.

You keep looking over your shoulder as if a lifeline will appear. You're expecting a tap on the shoulder at any moment. You turn around thinking you'll catch that person off guard before you can be surprised but the real surprise comes when you discover there was never anyone there to begin with.

You can listen to voices and watch the distant figures outside your box but, in the end, there are no faces for you to connect. All you get are the various parts to a complete person that is out there but so out of reach.

All you can try to do is wrap yourself tight to minimize the space around you. No more feelings of an expected person behind you. No more room around you for a voice to creep in.











It's tough.











They made
heaven
to discuss
the human race
because
sacrifices
run riot.











As the last of the protestors were dragged away by police from Queen's Pier Tuesday night, I could not help but feel emotions of sorrow, to anger, to helplessness. Hong Kong is losing its heritage, its history and its sense of self. We are stuck with a government that believes economics can solve everything but they are sorely wrong.











So just imagine all that strength expressed in a show of sorrow. We heard it in the wailing that went on the other night: a crying out, I presume, for some god or other to come and help them. Well, we know there's no such thing as any god: we can only be saved by our own exertions, and the same applies for the mules, whether they like it or not.











Here I am trying to find the religous man's God in these clouds. I keep taking pictures as if I'll find a face in them. The great chance for a grand change. It's a terribly exciting thing.











"All witchcraft comes from carnal lust," the malleus maleficarum states, "which is in women insatiable." The association of evil with women's sexuality, and the fear of women's sexuality from which it arose, was probably widespread then, much as it is widespread today. The most heinous crimes of which witches were accused were linked to reproduction: robbing men of their sexual potency, murdering born and unborn babies, and wanton lust. Men were protected from this heinous crime because Jesus was a man.











She bombarded me with perfume.











This aching feeling inside your chest. This pain that is making you double over. This push and pull game you play with yourself. Denying yourself the freedom and the truth while aching for the release. You tell yourself that tomorrow will be different because you will be different. You will no longer sit on your hands and bite your tongue. You will leap and never look down. You tell yourself that you will no longer beat yourself to a pulp.

This anger that you feel. This betrayal against yourself as you slide down into defeat because you were not different. Things unraveled just like clockwork as you delivered that last blow and you were knocked down. This bright light is shining on you and it burns inside. You honestly did not see that coming.

This feeling you get when you are only living life within yourself. You are a ticking bomb.











Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Immanuel Kant - Critique of Practical Reason











Tomorrow, I won't eat breakfast -- just half a cup of coffee -- and I'll eat half my lunch. Tomorrow I will go to school and I will sit in class so still it hurts. I will struggle to breathe and to look people in the eye. Tomorrow I will sit in class and suffocate through more than half of it and wish to God, just let me die. Tomorrow I will pretend that nothing is wrong and that everything is fine and no one will suspect.