It’s the right start only because I can’t come up with a title and there is a sign right next to me that says it. I’m running out of ideas, I’m running out of gas, juice, things.

It’s been a long while since I’ve come back here to this writing place. I took a break last week due to Thanksgiving and I took one yesterday simply because I was hung over and I had a lot of errands to run. So, coming out here wasn’t in the cards for me.

But here I am, the last post for a while….or maybe until my year-end diatribe, who knows. But we’ll see.

* * *
For Thanksgiving, I drove up to my cousin’s and stayed with them over the holiday. It was a nice time. I had fun, just chilling and relaxing. Didn’t feel pressured to go out and party and socialize because they, like me, are home bods. For the most part we didn’t do shit and that is all hunkydory in my book. I’m not going to complain.

But in a way, going up there, opened my eyes on many things that I already realize. It just fortified my previous thoughts about myself and my little quirks and situations.

Listening to my cousin and her husband talk about their marriage and the big issues that are coming up with kids and family, it just makes me feel…like a kid again. Not that I’m a kid, small, not being able to do anything. No, it goes back to the sense that I don’t feel like an adult.

They’ve been married for three years and they are taking their next step in their lives, children, together. They’re having the grown up discussions and their spats, their bickers, and all that seems so adult. All that seems so much like a marriage.

All I can do is listen and chime in. I see many of their road blocks. I see their side of the story. I see everything. I don’t have a simple solution to their problems. My philosophy is just do it. Stop worrying. Stop planning. Just do it and shit will sort themselves out.

Worrying and planning will only hinder and disappoint things. I can see that they are so loving and giving and that they will make good parents and I do want that for them, but it’s just a matter of compromise.

But again, I’m not in their shoes. I’m not the ones making the decisions, so it is way too easy for me to just say, do it. Go do it and sort it out when the problem arises.

DO IT.

It just makes me wonder am I ready. Do I think I’m ready to have those talks, to make those decisions with my significant other; if I’m ever so fortunate to find her. Would I be able to compromise and go along with it or will I be the strong stubborn mule that I am now, not willing to bend? I don’t know and that is what scares me.

There might be times where I’ll sometimes sacrifice many of the things I want to appease someone, but I don’t know if those times are still here. I’m stubborn. I’m opinionated. I’m argumentative. I don’t know if it’ll work. But it is something that I need to learn.

Looking at things, as much as I would love to be a parent, as much as I want kids (7 as I tell people), I don’t know if I’ll be a good parent. I just don’t know.

It scares me. Parenthood is scary. I’m not going to lie, it is. Every parent can tell you that.

As I see many girls at work, and my dear friend Susan who is about to give birth, and they’re around my age, I look at me…where am I? Not even close.

I know I’m young, but maybe I’m too young. Too selfish and immature to be ready to marry and have a family.

Like my cousin, I want my kids to know Chinese. I want them to be able to speak it. Ngai (my language…a sub dialect of Hakka), Cantonese, and Mandarin. I want them to speak it all, be educated, and just know the language. It’ll be easier for them to communicate with the elders in my family, especially my mom. I want them to have that advantage. I want them to know and understand the culture, because I grew up with it and it is a big part of my life. It is a part of who I am and had a part in shaping me into who I am today.

It is what it is. The only way I can think of doing that is to either put them through Chinese school and speak to the kids in Chinese. All Chinese all the time. It’s just how it is going to be.

I’m not worried about the kids learning English, because they will be constantly surrounded by it, with school and what not. But the kids must learn Chinese.

I don’t know, looking ahead, it just seems so far out of my reach. I have a feeling that things are going to change with the coming of the New Year, but maybe that is just my optimism talking. I really don’t know what is going to happen, but something might happen soon. Maybe I’ll find that special someone or maybe not. Let’s just say that I’m not holding my breath.

All of these hard decisions that comes up, that I think I’m ready to tackle them when the time comes, but since they are not here, I don’t think I can tackle them. Just way too stressful.

I guess in a way, I like my life easy. Not think so much. Just do my shit and move on to the next shit and just not think.

Sigh…..

* * *
Another good thing that happened at my cousin’s is that I got to play with their brand new puppy. He’s so cute and adorable. I want one. I want him.

I don’t know, I feel sad for Pickles being home alone and everything. It seems he’s having his fits again, peeing on the floor. Maybe it is time for me to get another dog, so he’ll have company, but I don’t know. Can I handle another dog. More responsibility in this slacker life? I just don’t know.

Maybe I’ll just play by ear, but most likely Pickles will get a Relish this new year. We will see.

* * *
I knew this about myself a long time ago as everyone in my family says that I’m like my father. Mostly it is due to the physical aspect of it, but while I’m up there with my aunt and uncle and their family, it just seems that I really am. Maybe it is just a Ho thing, or maybe it is a Chinese thing, or maybe it is just me being me, but I tried to pay for lunch and dinner when I was up there.

Growing up, I see my dad and uncles always fight for the bill as we all went out to go eat Dim Sum or we had a big family dinner out at the restaurant and what not. I always see them for 10-15 minutes fight for the bill, stuffing money back and forth into each other’s pockets. I never understood it. Every time I see it, I just laugh, because it is just a sight to see. Grownups fighting like that.

But I understand fully. It is just out of respect and you want to do something nice for them. I do that with my friends, take them out to dinner for the most part and what not, family too. I understand now.

So, while I was up there, the day after Thanksgiving, my auntie and uncle took the family out to eat pho for lunch. An aside, the pho was really good. The noodles were very very crisp and that made the difference. But, anywho, I finished mine so I thought I’d just go pay. I stood up and my uncle looks at me smiling. “What are you doing?” he said. My reply….nothing. So I went to the register and gave the person my card. The next thing I knew my auntie was right behind me screaming in Viet at the lady not to take the card. I was like don’t listen to her. Take the card and finish the transaction. Fucking stupid Viet. I should learn it though I hate the language. Makes me hate the language even more. So, I got shot down at my attempt to pay. Fine. I sucked it up.

Later that night, my auntie wanted to take me out to dinner because she has to work on Saturday and won’t be able to see me. So we all went out again along with my cousin’s husband. Claim Jumpers. So, we ordered and everything. Thoughts of being burned at lunch still in my mind, I still want to pay dammit. I needed to pay dammit. But, I wasn’t sure about the approach. I went to the bathroom, my opportunity to track down the waiter and slip him my card. But I didn’t. I should have, but I didn’t.

When time came to get the bill, I slipped the waiter my card and told him to put it on that. Everyone at the table stood up and argued against it. Six people screaming at the waiter to do this or don’t do that. He freaked and told us to figure it out as he threw the check and my card on the table. My cousin’s husband stepped in and handed him his card…that fucker took it.

I just want to do a nice thing and it didn’t work. So sad, so disappointed.

But sigh.

I’m sure I wrote about this many times already, but I’ve always been fascinated by my nightly dreams. Some nights I’ll remember them and other nights they’ll be distant memories gone at the moment my eyes flickers to life.

I’ve been fascinated with them ever since my senior year in high school when I had a very telling dream. There were just so many things going on in that dream, though I remember it very clearly. The gist is that I’m off on my own, taking the direction less traveled. Where everyone is making a left turn, I’m making a right. But, the thing that gets me is that I’m always being chased by someone. I’m not sure who, but it is by someone.

It’s been a while since I’ve had an anxiety dream like the one listed above; dreams where I’m being chased or attacked.

Usually my typical dreams, well dreams that I do remember are once again, I’m off on my own, doing my own thing. BUT instead of being lost, or having the feeling that I’m lost and that I’m trying to find something or find my way out, I have direction. I know what I’m doing. I know where I’m going. It’s just that it takes a long time, so in the end; there really is no resolution to my dreams. But I have direction, no longer lost. There’s a far off purpose that is just out of reach.

These dreams are much more different than the dreams I had when I was younger; always lost and trying to find my way. I was very lost in life during that time. Very little direction and purpose in life. But luckily, things are better now.

Which brings me back to a dream I had last night, or maybe it was this morning? It just seems I’m having similar dreams for the past few weeks; dreams along the same vein as the one I had this morning.

I’m not sure how the dream started, or where I was particularly or what I was doing or how I ended up where I was. I’m not even sure where I was. All I know was that it was a school.

Again, not sure what I’m doing there. It starts out typically how many of my dreams start out, me alone going someplace. In this case, I was trying to get to a class or a lecture. I walk into the school. It’s large, impersonal, a labyrinth of walls, halls, and rooms. It’s vast, and there were parts that look like a grand opera house lobby.

I go about my business, trying to find this class I’m supposed to be in, but I can’t find it. I need to be there, because I’m late and the lecture is starting. Apparently, there were a few girls (students) who are late also. I ask a security guard or someone else where the class is. He pointed in a direction. I go.

I go through hallways, corridors, doors and doors. I get a little anxious as I step outside into a grassy wooded area that is like a mysterious jungle in the tropics. I’m getting a little anxious. I’m not sure where the girls were, but I had a feeling they were following me. I know to get to my class I have to go through this jungle. It’s dark, but light from the full moon shines brightly down. It doesn’t make the jungle any less intimidating.

I plow ahead through the jungle and the tall grass. I needed to go. It’s my purpose, to get to class. My destination is just past this jungle. I march on. Then a vine reached out and grabbed me. I freak out and started to run and more and more vines reach out to grab me. Eventually the vines got me and I couldn’t go anywhere, and that is where I woke up.

Now, usually I try to analyze the dream or ask Susan to help me interpret the dream, but there is no need for that. I already know what the dream means. I’m just anxious about certain stuff in my life right now. I know what I need to do, but I can’t focus, or I’m scared, or there is always something in the way distracting me, holding me back and in this case it is the vines from the jungle. It is holding me back.

What is it that is holding me back in reality? Most likely my ideology, my fear of failing, or my typical distractions of over analyzing things and obsession.

Just funny how things are that way. It’s been a while since I had these anxiety dreams, but they are here.

Ultimately, there are just a lot of things happening in my life right now that I just need to deal with on my own. They aren’t things that are drastic or life changing. They are just things that I typically fret over or obsess over and I’m just trying my damnedest to just let it go.

I have faith that I will overcome them, as I focus on other things.

* * *
It might be a little too early for this and don’t typically do this, but I think I’m going to make some resolutions. It’s not going to be these New Year’s resolutions or anything of that matter, but they are more about things that I think I want to do, should do, to just grow and be more outgoing. When will this happen? Maybe the year coming up or maybe now, next week, or some other time. I’m not really sure.

I just know that this year was the year of tough decisions, the year before that was the year of change, and every year is the year of living life and growing up and change, and the coming year will be no different. Maybe that’s the thing that I need to work on? Maybe that is the thing that I need to master to become a better person than the person I am now and that is to just go out and experience and live. I think I may be ready for it.

Most likely, it’ll just be me doing these things, doing these things I am interested in. They won’t be these big posse extravaganzas because I don’t have a posse. Most likely it’ll just be me doing these things. My source: The LA Weekly.

I’ll look through it and maybe find an art gallery opening, or just go to the museum, or just go mountain biking or just biking somewhere which I thought I was going to do when I got my bike, or just go to some play or go and just do something. Me alone against the world, finding my groove and just finding my thing. No one with me. Just me out doing my shit on my own.

Might as well get use to it because I think that is how things are going to be. I know it isn’t going to be forever, me being alone, but I know for the time being, it will have to be.

I know for the most part, I already do some of these things already, just going out alone. But mostly it is for films. Films I want to see but no one else and I’m cool with it. But let’s just expand that. Let’s just do it and not be held back by my laziness or my misanthropy.

I still have a lot of time left between now and the end of the year to think about my yearly year-end diatribe reflection piece. My yearly bah humbug to all things.

Again, I will be up in my second home when I write that and hopefully I can come to terms with the things that happened in my life and learn to expect with a tinge of optimism that things will be equally tougher and equally better for the year to come.

* * *
Maturity.

I would like to think that I’m mature, mature for my age. It seems that I have always been, but that maybe because I’m just stale, but I would like to believe that. I do believe that the decision I made a month ago was a very mature thing that I did. I laid out the situation and my reasoning and it was what it was.

Sure there are days when I do obsess over the decision that I made and overanalyze everything, thinking if I made the correct decision, such and such. But deep inside, I know I did the mature thing and did make the right decision. Again, it all goes back to me having to do the proper thing and be noble and all that chivalrous bullshit that I came to learn about myself. I have this Knight in shining armor complex. Fuck it.

But maturity. Again, I have it on many many levels, but there are times when I feel that I am immature. There are times that I feel that I have so much growing up and learning left in me to do. I know it is true, that we all learn and grow till the day we die, but I just came to the realization that I still have quite a bit more learning and growing left in me.

I know I joke that I am an old man and I think like an old man, but there are certain times where I feel like kid. Deep inside, I’m a big kid at heart. Other times, I’m the grumpy old man.

All in all, I just feel so immature when it comes to certain aspects of relationships. Flirting. I flirt like a grade-schooler. Not cool man. Not cool man.

I think I just need to grow up on this and just be cool and distant. If I like someone, don’t hit her. But it just seems that I only hit people that I kind of like, but more as friends. I tend to be a little more hands off on girls that I actually like. I don’t know why. Like, I’m an ass all the time, but with friends, I’m more of an ass. With girls I like, I’m still the ass, but not as much. Just one notch down.

I think I need to change all of that and just grow the fuck up. Just grow the fuck up.

I’m approaching my thirties and I’m not “young” anymore. I just need to be more debonair, more suave in my approach on this front. This is assuming that it is going to happen again anytime soon.

I think I have gotten into that phase where I’m just taking time off from all things girls. I think I’m just going to start now. It happened after Sheilah and for a short time after Cat, but I think I need to start it up again.

I told Susan I’m going to take a vow of celibacy and become a monk. I’ll be that celibate monk that knows nothing of the flesh anymore. Eventually I’ll be the born again virgin. Masturbation is still a must of course.

I don’t think I can have an excess of built up sexual frustration without going ballistic and crazy. Release is good. It keeps me sane and functional.

So, here now, I think I’ll try to live up to that. To just be a little bit different and go against what I naturally do when I am playful and flirtatious and just be cool, chill, distant, not interested. Just not be so touchy feely and hitty and abusive (not that I am)…I just need to grow the fuck up.

Let’s see how well it works.

Looking around, I see the shimmering and shining bulbs that usually accompanies the dreaded holidays of year’s end. Christmas ornaments, wreathes, and shiny dangling stuff.

I know it is early, way too early for me to say this, but, bah humbug from this forever scrooge. It’s just way too damn early to put these things up. Thanksgiving haven’t even passed yet, and here we are with these declarations of all things Christmassy.

All I can do is shake my head, sigh, and give another bah humbug.
* * *

Assumptions and ignorance. I’m usually known of doing one of those on a normal basis, making assumptions. I made one and I spilled my pot with angered frustrations and words and directed them towards an unsuspecting Selena. It has come to light that I didn’t have the right, for the things that she was referring to wasn’t about me.

The change in the air wasn’t about me but of someone else. The fucken ass isn’t me, there’s another. Not about me.

But I guess it is something that I do, because I was the last person with this DC heroine, but, I could see what she is referring to now…well maybe a small part of it. Some parts, I’m still lost in the cloudy mist.

I think for the most part, things are okay between us now. Things are fine as she called and we had a talk to clear the air of my assumptive misunderstanding of all things that are happening. Then there was a catching up, a how do you do, and all things of what is happening in our lives. Just a friendly talk as friends should talk. Not bad and I’m relieved, glad that things are better between us.

So, an all apologies go out to Ms. Kyle. I’m sorry for going off on a rampage with my jumping to conclusions. Sorry. Lo siento.
* * *

Focus. Keeping occupied. Freeing my mind from the restrictive thoughts of all things girls and lady wise. Just trying to focus on work and blind myself in all things work and creative things, finding the inspiration to do the project that I have whole heartedly committed myself to.

Focus.

Things are progressing, moving on as I am getting more and more confident about the duties that I need to do and what I have and will create in the next few months. I will focus a majority of my energy and my attention to that, rereading the script, looking over my storyboards, thinking through logistics in my head, figuring out if my choices that I will make are the right ones that serves the story.

Hopefully so as I get together with another creative mind tonight, my creative partner, the writer, to hear what he has to comment, suggest on my choices that I have made.

It’s going to be a busy few months for me with vacations, family, holidays, writing, shooting, auditioning, working and working. It’s going to be a busy next few months.

Going back to my cave, hiding in the dark as I just focus, focus on things that matters and trying to get certain things out of my head.

Stop the obsession of all things that are irrelevant and just not look, pay attention to any vices that I may have. Just be me. Alone.
* * *

Heavy sighs next to glamour flickering next to these stringy sparkles that lights my eyes. It causes a distraction, making me focus on other things that I shouldn’t be focusing on.

Heavy sighs of contemplative thinking of things to come. The blank future that I am the master painter to make the next Mona Lisa, but my inspiration is gone as I have no idea what the spirit of the canvas is.

It escapes me as everything else has escaped me. It is ever so elusive as it runs and runs, hiding from my creative control, trying to find another.

Focus is tough as there are too many glowy orbs in my brain to focus on, each outshining the other biding for attention and focus. How do I choose what to focus on when it is a pin ball effect of ping ponging Christmas lights of shimmering goodness in my mind, blinding my eyes on what is the true focus in my life?

How do I choose when one pops into focus and goes dark as another goes pop goes the weasel and my attention is focused elsewhere.

Just a mess, a jumbled mess in my mind that I find it hard to do anything else but to think and complain and to just blah the everything in my head.

Lost connections of misguided intentions. Lost connections of correct decisions but full of regret as things need to move on.

Letting go of things that I never had, but holding onto the things that I once had; the short time together that just felt so right.

But I had to be noble, just, right and proper, making the mature decision and doing the mature thing. Who would have thought that this immature person around certain people can make such grown up and mature decisions?

Now this adult is crying like the five year old that he knows he is capable of being.

Holding and hugging, posing and just cheesing for the soul capturer with the cousins that are so much younger and innocent and pure. Just pure joy in my eyes and outpouring of happiness of appreciating life at such a young age. Never lose the innocence that you have.

Brighten my day, brighten my smile as I hold the little one and it just felt so right holding one in my arms. Just felt so right.

Hearing that it is time, that my mother is aching for one. I know I know, but it takes time and I have to take it slow. Things can’t be rushed, can’t be rushed for I am new at this and I’m afraid of taking risks, even though I take many.

Heavy burdens lie in breaking hearts, those that are not mine and the one that is. Pain, misery, depression, guilt, and just a fucked up sense of why do I have to do it will just plague my mind if I break another or go about life just breaking hearts or getting my poor lil’ weak one broken.

Looking blindly in the bright night; trying to find the glimmer of hope that is for me, the perfect one that is for me, but it is tough in the darkest of dark. Just a glimmer is all I hope for.

Even when there was a glimmer, things will just get in the way that will make me be an adult about things and just have to extinguish the glimmer, killing it, nipping it, before it shines and explodes into a supernova killing everything including itself.

The complications of life is something I face every day because living means facing these difficulties and just going through the cycles and obstacles that life brings.

It seems that I’m able to blog my usual rhyme time nonsensical whimsy that use to flood these pages of mine.

Spic and span and out of my life as things slowly fade into non communication as it needs to be to help end things on a smooth note.

There’s a sense of optimism in all things. Things might just work out in the end, solidifying the necessity of me making the decisions that I had to make for the greater good of the things to come.

Maybe it will end happily ever after, maybe not. Maybe I’ll just get my shot to understand what it is that I need and maybe it will be the same for my fix.

Going through withdrawal from this new drug, is slowly becoming easier and easier as I have expected it to be given the time away. It has to be done, but there are times of relapse as my urges and doubts try to persuade me to make that contact, to get another fix, to get drawn in and get addicted again.

As a lifetime drug addict, I have to be careful for it is very easy to get off the wagon.

Fix fix fix. I need one. I’m aching for one, just one slip, one little taste, a sliver of hope that it is just there for me to shoot up whenever I want. I need. I desire my fix.

Going through my usual motions of rehab and slowly all will be gone and I will have a new addiction. I think I may need a new addiction to get past this one.

A fresh new drug to just get a taste of so I can forget the last one. I wasn’t in it enough to just latch on and call it my drug of choice. I’m open to new drugs, new tastes, new fixations.

Maybe the next one will bring something else. The perfection of bittersweet harmony that is just missing in my life.

My blood flows through the richness embracing all experiences that just go and go.

Walking through life in this old age of mine, I can’t help but not get excited over everything anymore and be more and more critical about everything. Nothing wows me anymore. Nothing blows me away for my old eyes have seen everything generations and generations before.

This old soul has resurrected in this old young body and it is now just waiting for its turn to go off in the slumber. It is just trudging through life until that time, looking for things, hoping for new things that might just blow him away.

Inspiration of change and hope as the new elect will be in charge, bringing promises to do things that I agree with. Hope. Change. Inspiration to make the world a better place, a all open commune of people caring for other people, helping everyone out.

Change.

There is a change in the air and there is no denying it. There is a change in everything everyday and I am just a pawn to these changes, going with the flow, feeling the motions, and taking it all in. I go about my business enjoying the ride and will be nothing but grateful once it is over.

Negative, critical. Judgmental. A difference of opinion.

Through experience, one develops opinions about everything they come across and I have come across many things and have developed many many opinions about them. Many will not agree, some may, and all in all, I’m happy to discuss and share.

Some see this pessimism as I just don’t like many things or nothing excites me anymore for it is nothing novel, nothing new, but drawn in and consumed in mass by the mass. Typical and mundane.

A spark of novelty, genuine ingénue that just inspires the fuck out of me. Where is my muse? I throw that out as I am in search of one.

This might be the end of me as I realize that if there is a earthquake right now, I’ll be no more as I’m not sure how this structure will hold as I am sitting near the edge of the third floor. It’s a long long drop with lots of Christmas decorations to bury me. What a way to go.

Winding unwavering in this journey through life taking all the punches it has to give and complaining about it later. That’s all that I can do and hope for the best.

Things are changing as the year of tough decisions are coming to an end and a new year begins in the next few months and it makes me ponder of what is to come.

It will bring forth a brand new decade in my life and close out another decade. A milestone…which just hit me that the year end diatribe of reflection might be a different one that might span my twenties and things to look forward in my thirties.

Thirties. A new decade in life, the new adulthood, the new twenties. Will I be reliving my twenties again or were my twenties really my teens as I just came to being and finally found myself.

I’m sure it will bring forth a new sense of assuredness as I go about facing life as a true blue adult that I always thought my parents were when they were in their twenties. With the certain responsibilities that make them adults.

So many things to think about, so many things to ponder for this over analytical introvert that it almost explodes out of his head.

Listening to these 1s and 0s that pour through my head and I don’t understand 90% of the words that flows, but it has been my life for the past two and a half years. It is a strange phase I’m going through, or is it a phase as I am becoming more and more detached and out of the loop with the English music that i usually listen to.

Looking around and people watching as I write down this big long nonsense as I try to pass the time is what I usually do.

Someone of my kind slowly picks up a fork filled with her tempura and rice and places in her mouth as she talks about something that I don’t know to the friend in front of her.

Tweens and teens go into stores in their flock that they are normally found in to just browse and shop and find the latest of the latest fashion that they think are fashionable so they can be too cool for school when they go back to school and then when they finally come of age to realize that they aren’t really that cool to begin with and will finally start growing up and seeing the world in a different way and realize that she was foolish to think that these materialistic adornments really don’t make a person too cool for school but it is one’s attitude and personality and genuine livelihood that makes them cool in the eyes of her peers or anyone’s peers.

I’m not too cool for school, not even borderline cool. More like luke warm in nature but it is my nature to be luke warm as I’m always complaining that it is hot which is uncool as I try to pump up the AC to make me cool. The artificial way of mechanics that has nothing to do with the coolness that we are all talking about.

Sitting and laughing at the nonsense that is just spilling out of me right now as I try my damnedest to avoid the work that I know that I need to do, but I have another week and I think it will happen tomorrow as I need to look it over and think about the discussed changes and apply the changes and submit it and look at the returned changes and then compare them and see how they can be fit together at a given time to be determined in the not too distant future.

Reaching my limit as I usually tend to do, but since I’ve come out an hour earlier I’ve added another hour to my schedule but it just seems that it is only my original limit that I can stand as I have another hour and I don’t think I can keep this up and I don’t know what else to do as I do know I have many other things that I need to get to today, so in a way I just may end things today or keep it short or maybe I should just go about and finish my hour and just go about my business as my quickly thrown together go with the flow scheduled was originally planned.

I will hear from the drug today as I have faith it is the drug that will try to get me to be addicted again and I have no will power not to answer the drug since it is a drug that I do enjoy. I have faith that it will happen but I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. Faith faith faith with my weak will as I don’t know how I will handle my addictions to this drug.

Again, looking, searching for a new drug to get my mind off of another drug but I did declare that I am done and through with drugs as I am trying to go to rehab and be drug free for the remainder of my days. Drugs are bad.

Say no to drugs goes the afterschool special that I kind of paid attention because as I was enticed by it during my school days, I was never given the opportunity to try for I was too afraid to try and just too damn shy to do anything about.

Shy shy shy is what I proclaim to be with my antisocial behavior.

I use to have a girlfriend but I’m difficult as I tell Serena and apparently they all know that I’m difficult.

A widely known fact about my difficultness but yet I am young and there is hope and hope is what I’m looking for I guess, but there is hope for I am young.

I’m difficult difficult hence the no surprise that things are what they are and that I am once again the lone wanderer that I know that I will be till my end of days.

Overdramatic and strongly worded; the be all end all of my drama queen ways, but that is me as I am melodramatic and everything is big and big for that is my life and everything revolves around me even though I do know and realize and understand that life really doesn’t.

I am small, insignificant in this world. My existence has no impact to this world. The only impact is only to my small group of friends and family that I have touched in my 29 and some change years of existence.

I am okay with that, not making ripples in the world but in the background, the deep still pool that ripples are made on. Just being there experiencing the ripples that may or may not come its way. I am okay with that.

Small and insignificant is how I want to be in this world, not making any impact for I don’t think I can deal with the pressure and the responsibility of being something more.

What is it? What is there to say? What is it that went wrong?

How could things just go from that to this to that again? I don’t understand how thing just ended up here?

Maybe it is because of the diatribes that I write that just ruffle the wrong feathers, but what about it? What is it that went wrong in this scenario of friendly conversation of just superficial talking for the sake of talking? What is it?

Questions with very little answers as I sway this and that way trying to figure out the solution in my head.

There are no solutions to come, because it is just one of those questions that are beyond my comprehension. It is a calculus story problem when I’m only in algebra II.

It’s difficult and I’m not going to pretend that I understand.

I guess in a way I see what happened, but I don’t understand why it resulted in the angered angriness that happened? I don’t understand.

I don’t understand and I guess it is something that I just won’t understand at all till my dying day.

I have come to a conclusion that I just need to calm the fuck down and just calm the fuck down for the sake of calming the fuck down. There is no need to do the things that I need to do, but this is my place to write to get my angered frustrations and to empty my brain. This is my place for me to see and those who are in the know.

My space.

My place.

But I guess it is not my place at all. Apparently. I don’t know what it is but I like to write uncensored with only my knowledge to guide me. Strangers read and see but they don’t really see and understand the haps and the mishaps that are happening.

In this day and age of the lonely traveler, a good outlet is all he needs and requires to just get things out in the air to clear things up and to just blah with the blahing best of them. To just get things off his chest and to just unwind and just be who he is.

If that’s a fucking ass or a dick or a bitch, then so be it.

It is my place to scream to the world, the empty void, the BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH of everything that is just happening.

Sure I got a hand in making things happen. Sure I got my hand stuck in the cookie jar, found and prosecuted at the things that I have done. But they were my choices to make and I base them on what I think is right.

Is it wrong of me to read words that were meant to be read? Is it wrong of me to be literate and curious? Is it wrong of me to feel a sense of elation at words that were in an off-the-cuff way directed toward me and people in the know? I am a part of the party and I am going to that party, not just to party, but to party.

What is it that people expect to read in these little rumblings of mine? What is it? A change? A pang of guilt? A difference of opinion? A sadness?

I spill things, my emotions, feelings, thoughts, dreams, opinions, all things me in this dear ol’ friend of mine; this therapy that makes me feel a little better each day, to help me deal with what shit I have to deal with in my life. This is my place, my blog, my life, my thoughts, my shrink, my salvation.

Mine.

I know that I don’t write pretty words. I know that things I write in here will rub people the wrong way. I know I will hurt people with the things I write in here, whether I meant it to hurt or not, it happens. Shit happens. Life happens.

I’m a fucking ass. Sure. Okay. Fine.

I succumb to that fact. I am a ass.

A pissed off asshole that just wanted to share his thoughts on forward movement and happiness. I guess it wasn’t my place to do it. I just like to know that things are getting better, things are looking brighter, things are just much better off. I like that, I would like to know that…and it does ease my mind to know that.

But I guess it was wrong of me to think about it. I guess it was wrong of me to put my feelings down for my small audience to read. I guess it was just a fucking asshole thing of me to do these things.

I’m a fucking ass. Fine.

Sigh.

Sighs upon sighs upon sighs. This has been my life lately. Just endless sighs and blahs to pass the time.

I guess this one will make me a even bigger evil ass, and this time, I’m doing it on purpose. I’m doing it because, I might as well.

Sigh.

Anger. Anger management.

I know I have anger issues. I know I get festered and frustrated on things I don’t understand.

I’m just not the most patient guy. I’m not the smartest guy. I’m not the most understanding guy.

I’m not anything.

If it needs be that I need to keep my finger shut on all things regarding my thoughts and my actions and all things about me, if that is the case, I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I can censor myself on that front. I know it is healthy to help people along and that it is selfish of me to just go about my daily business of clearing my mind, my thoughts, spilling my brain out for all to see, but I can’t take all the blame and responsibility of everything.

I can’t. To be fair and honest…I just can’t.

I have to rethink things now. I have to rethink my actions, my approach on certain things. I just have to be hesitant and think things over and reevaluate everything. I just have to.

No one is ready. No one is ready for any of this. No one is ready for the future and everyone is just stuck, stepped in the dried molasses which sticks on you like superglue.

A forced stuckness of stale movement. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to be. Just nowhere.

There’s nothing in the future anymore.

I can’t see anything anymore. All is gone, for I am blind. It’s not even blank but a silvery misty haze of unexpectedness and foreign actions that aren’t mine.

It just seems that my life is out of my hands again. My choices, though I believe to be true, just makes things worse and worse. Just constant doubts when there shouldn’t be any doubts.

Just a ickiness of not wanting things to just whatever. Just nothing but that haze which I can’t see through…beyond my grasp and my comprehension.

I don’t’ know what to do. My heart that once beat with guilt just seems to given up on that and just beat for the sake of beating. Tired, frustrated, given up on all things; it has nothing else to do but to beat without rhyme or reason. It is beating only because it can and doesn’t care about anything anymore.

It has succumbed to being the bitch of life’s complications. It has become a bitch, a bitch that it knows that it doesn’t want to be, but it has to be because it can’t not be.

I’m a bitch. My heart’s a bitch. A bitch for pain.

Angry and tired. Frustrated and tired. Tired and tired.

What is it? What is there left to do? What do I need to do to make things better?

Sigh.

Tired. I’m just tired of everything. I’m just tired of everything and everything. Tired.

Why can’t things be easier? I know, I know, matters of the heart just complicate everything to the nth degree.

Sigh.

I never meant my words to hurt. I never meant to cause any tears, anger, frustration. I never meant to do anything malicious. Never did and never will. But I do understand people take things the way they take things, because it happens. But, genuinely, I never meant to cause any pain. It was just a declaration that I’m elated to see progress. Just a thought that I am glad things are better.

No more. No less.

Sigh.

There’s a change in the air. There’s something that is happening. There is something that just goes and goes. There is time ticking away.

Change.

It is happening. It is going. It is healthy.

There is a change and I am happy for it. I am happy to know that things aren’t stuck in the past and that there is forward movement.

Drifting away, in and out of your memories and soon I’ll be gone in the way that I should be gone. No more pining, no more hoping. I will be just me and you will be just you. There is a change and I am happy for it.

Stuck in the past. Stuck on me. Those are things that should not be the case and just focus on what is. What is here. What is now.

I am really glad to hear that you are moving on. I am really glad that you aren’t thinking about me anymore. I am just really glad, because I really did feel bad for what I’ve done and I’m not the type of person that anyone should ever put such investment in.

It was not my heart to hurt, but it was shattered by me and I am ridden with guilt. But….c’est la vie.

Moving on. Living life. Going out. Partying. Being with friends. All things that are good, all things that I wish for you to do, and it seems that you are. I hope that you are truly happy right now and things are getting better for you.

Eventually, maybe we’ll get in touch again. I know it is up to me to reach out, and hopefully one day, I’ll be able to; to reach out and not be a enemy, but a friend. Hopefully I’ll be able to do that.

* * *

On my mind, in my head, are just clouds and clouds of thoughts, regrets, happy things, and just life in general. All things that cloud my head that I dwell on because I’m just that type of person that dwells on everything and anything. From the minute to the expansive. Everything.

From life lessons learned, unlearned, to the hope and desires and the I don’t know of the future that is just moments away and yet so far away.

What is to come of me? What is there for me? What am I to do?

I tell myself constantly in this blog and in my life in general not to be stuck and just move on and live life and focus on the here and now. I have done that…for the most part, but there are times when my mind does wander to the past and evaluate things with the hindsight-twenty-twenty that we’re all so familiar with and just wonder….Did I make the right decisions?

I know it was just last week where I said that I live and die by my decisions. There are no regrets. There aren’t…well, not yet. Maybe there are regrets, but I’m just the type of person that knows that the decision is made, what’s done is done, and that I can’t go back in time to change it anymore. I can’t do anything; it’s out of my hands. I just have to live with the decisions I make and make peace with that choice.

It’s me, all me.

There are just so many distractions that are pounding away in my brain that I just find it hard to focus and just do anything that is worthwhile or anything that I need to do or have set my mind to do. I have reach this state of apathy and a general ennui of blahness that just lingers on and on until that moment of motivation that strikes me and I’ll do only a split second of work before the ickiness plagues my ambitions again.

But there are just sometimes where I power through, try to keep busy, and just sit down and punish myself and just do. Sit and do.

I punish myself in other ways.

Again, there was a recent change in the air and I told my friend about it. She asked if I was sad and I told her no. I’m not sad. Was I lying?

She said, “that’s awfully mature”

It is mature, but what other way is there to be about it but to be mature. What other way? It doesn’t make me sad to know that she’s moving on. Again, I’m glad, happy to know that she’s moving on and that she is able and strong enough, as I have known her potential to be, to pull herself back together.

Yes, it is mature. I have to be. I was the one that made the decision that led us to be where we are at today. I was the one that made things difficult and ended things. I was the one. I have to take the responsibility and own up to my actions and be mature about it. There is no reason for me to be sad about it. None. All I can do is to own up to it. There is no point in holding onto something that I made happen. I let things go and there is no point in latching on and wish that she would just not move on till the end of our lives.

That’s fucked up. It’s selfish to want that. I’m not that type of person. She’s moving on. It’s a joyous thing for her. There is nothing sad about it. I have to be mature. It was my choice.

But am I sad?

I’m not going to lie. There were days that I didn’t think about her as I found a new fixation or I was just so focused on the job at hand to think about her. But recently, as things slowed down, I’ve been thinking about her more and more. Maybe it is this change that brought about my fevered contemplation of all things us and what I did or maybe it is just around that time where it generally hits me and I just focus on it. I’m not sure, but I’ve been thinking about things more and more.

Looking back at all the times we spent together. Looking back at everything, the good, the bad, the good and the good. Everything.

It just makes me realize as much as I hate giving up my space, as much as I am such an individual, so independent, I do actually miss being in a relationship. I miss having my companion by my side to experience things with, even though they are small and insignificant daily mundane trivial things. I do miss it.

I miss having that person to hold. I miss having a sweaty palm mashed up with my palm. I miss the tender soft kisses. I just miss the acts of being in a relationship.

I see my shortcomings as a man. I see my shortcomings as a man who has very little experience in being in a relationship and don’t know the ins and outs of actually being in a relationship. I see that I did take things for granted and I do see that I’m a very strong person with very strong opinions of how things, how my life should be.

Lessons learned. Lessons unlearned.

Maybe it was my fault that things ended so badly. Maybe I should have been more communicative about everything. Would that have mattered? Would that have ended things on a brighter note? Would it have?

I don’t know. Things I do ponder nowadays from time to time. The dreaded what ifs…but again, things are all said and done. No going back. No turning back. Only forward moving, forward thinking.

Thinking ahead. Looking ahead.

This place I am at is a familiar place. This general blahness of ennui. Borderline.

What is to change? What is to happen? Why this dwelling?

It happened before as I just stated. The three month mark of just things happening when I just reach that sense of blahness and doubt the decisions I made. At that time, I was able to fix things and move on by focusing on something else. Family.

Will I have that to lean on now? Or will it be something different now? I don’t know. I just have to wait and see, wait and see.

It seems that is what I’ve been doing lately. Wait and see, wait and see.

* * *

Obsessing and stalking of all things. Hoping for the best on both fronts. Following up and seeing what they are up to on all fronts.

Things that I know I am doing and things that I know I need to stop and eventually well.

And mostly it is because with time, I will forget and make it easier for me to move on. With time, things change and I’ll be able to move on as the time of mourning is over.

I do admit on certain fronts, things are easier to laugh at now. I have made many decisions in my life and many that I do know are right, but I do doubt them.

I spoke to many about them and I hear different sides of the same coin. They all sound fair and makes sense to me but deep inside there is only that one side that I hear and feel comfortable with and I just punish myself and doubt myself about it.

It is natural as I am the over analyzer, thinking everything in and out and thinking about things through and through, spinning it around and evaluating things even more.

I don’t think I’ll ever change on that front for that is who I am. I am just that person; the introverted person that just over think things.

Do I ever do anything on impulse? It just seems that times I do and other times I don’t.

I think things through and through in my head for such a long time and when it comes time to act in a way it just seems so out of the blue, but at times, it just feels so methodical and planned out and deliberate.

What is to come of me and my future?

* * *

Maybe I just need to succumb to this illness that I am infected with. Maybe I should just embrace it. Maybe it is the reason why I’ve been such a sickly pickle this whole year. It has been the worst year health wise for me. Maybe the toxic fretting, dwelling, obsessing is just finally getting to me.

I should just stop. Stop it. Kill it.

What is it that I need?

I think I should just finally do what it is that I keep telling that friendly friend that is having her life sucked out by the symbiote that is within her. I should just stop dating or think about being in a relationship and just end up alone.

Of course she rolls her eyes, or I would assume so as she types it out, and says whatever. It’s a old tune that I sing, but never followed through.

Even the blazing red head that I hang out with time to time even says whatever as I scream my anthem of “I’m done, I’m done. No more dating”.

Maybe I should just be done and not think of it.

I do know that I like my space. I like my independence and to be on my own, not having to compromise on all things me. Maybe this is for the better. It’ll be easier.

Dash away my hopes and dreams and yearnings for a family of my own. My own family could or will understand. I do have a son, a furry son, but still my son none the less. IT will work out for me. It will.

To be single, to be me, who I am now for the long long term. I think it is possible. I think I will actually be happy with it. I think it will work…..

Maybe I’m just kidding myself…maybe I’m not. But I guess we will always have to wait and see. Wait and see.

Taking time away from that front. Just taking time and keeping to myself. Just keeping time and stop being playful. Keep to myself, turn inward and just focus on the things that I am known to focus on from time to time and that is my work. Just turn inward and become the boring person that I know I am.

Just turn inward.

Maybe I should just finally do it and not focus on the opposite gender. Just be on my own. I think it is for the best, right now.

So. Here, now, I do declare. I’m not looking. I will fight the urge to be in a relationship. I will end up alone as I self-deprecatingly do declare and joke. I will make that a fact….on certain conditions of course.

Conditions that if someone does come around; someone who strikes my fancy and is available, that I will and do try to make things work and take all the lessons that I have learned and be open-minded to learn more; be more flexible; and hopefully do make things work.

But other than that loophole, that condition, I just don’t need to focus on that, the relationship, and just focus on my writing, my work, my photography, my life, and living it to my desire.

Maybe all this time, it has been holding me back.

I’ve always put the romantic ideals of being in a the “perfect” relationship on a pedestal and I do know it doesn’t exist. I should just throw away any idealistic romantic notions of love, relationships, happily-ever-after and just focus on the dry solid reality of boring work work ambitious work.

I make that declaration quite frequently and I never stick to it. Hence the “whatever” from my friends, but I think I should stick to it so it won’t be empty words. I need to stick to it.

Strip it away from my consciousness and step on it. Away with stupid love and relationships. Mash it up to little tiny pieces and flush it down the toilet. Flush, spin around and around, gurgle. GONE.

Just focus on what is important right now. Just focus on the things that matter right now. Work. Work. Work.

All work and no play makes Phong a dull boy. I’m a dull boy already, so that makes no difference to me.

All work and no play makes Phong a successful boy. And success is what I want.

I am young and life is long. I have lots of time to play when I’m dead (I know, that doesn’t make sense, but go with it).

These foolish ideals has taken up a lot of my life and caused many sleepless, angered, sick nights. No more as I throw it out with the bathwater with future babies included. Gone.

A decision that I need to make and I am making it. Live and die by my decisions. Gone.

Maybe it is a bit overdramatic, which I do tend to be, but maybe it is something that I do need to do.

It is usually around the time when you least expect it, even when you aren’t searching when things actually happen. I’m not hoping for it, I’m not going to think about it, I’m just going to live it and see where this blank nondestined future has in store for me.

Another week and another week under the weather. Another week and another week without anything physical. Another week and another week without exertion. Another week and another week bedridden.

I don’t know why my immune system has been so weak this year. I just don’t understand why. This is the worst year health wise, easily getting sniffly and mucussy. Not cool.

But hopefully it will get better. Hopefully I’ll just man up and head to the doctors for a overdue checkup and let her know that I’m having some issues and she’ll prescribe me something that will take care of it forever and ever….well at least until I get better.

I think it is just a matter that I’m getting old and that I need my precious sleep. I can’t just stay up late on a whim and not feel the effects of it a few days down the line. General body fatigue, a slow mind, scratchy throat, sniffles, and mucus. Just a general blah of icky sickness. Icky sickness.

* * *

I laugh at the Delicate Flower as she is done with me.

* * *

Strangely, but surely it happened. Sometime yesterday, whether it was at work, or not, but an overwhelming calm in my heart happened. It slowed its beat, steadying itself to the natural rhythms of ok-ness and just continued to beat without any strings, pressure, and yearning. It just beat along to its own tune.

There is a strange calm Zen that is just flowing through me. No more. No mas. Just a whateverness that flows through my veins as I just sit here and type my diddly.

There isn’t that questioning and doubting of whether I made the best decision or not. There’s just an overwhelming calm that whatever decision I made, good or bad, is the right one and that things will turn out in the end, whatever they may be.

I will be okay. I am okay. It isn’t the be all end all that I usually make things out to be.

I am screwed. Yes, I am, but it is a okay screwdness that I am use to and know how to let go; given time of course.

There is that optimism again. There is that overall things will be okay jolly feeling that comes out of nowhere. It is the thing that I need to just calm down and face the day without the obsession that I’m known to do.

Just let it be. Just let it be.

* * *

Following up on Selena Kyle on the posts of faces and it seems that she’s doing okay, moving on. It seems that she’s just having fun and I’m so happy for that. She’s moving on, doing whatever she needs to do. I’m happy for that.

Good for her.

I do genuinely hope that she’s doing okay.

* * *

Old, but full of energy. Burning off their morning doses of caffeine, they sit and argue every weekend morning about whatever they are arguing about in their own foreign tongue. They sit there, all five of them, just talking, not caring about anything that is happening around them. This is their bond, their group of friends that share the same morning routine every day.

Coming here for coffee from the golden arches, which is pretty darn good, and just sit and talk.

Maybe they are talking about politics, world affairs, the motherland… The list goes on and on, as they sit intently listening to each other laying out their opinions, their thoughts and waiting for others to respond, hopefully igniting a full on debate of clashing thoughts, boiling the blood, bringing them to life.

To sit here and just sit here with old friends, brothers, family and just discuss and talk. Things that excite me, that make me think, push my envelope and my way of thinking. Things that I love.

I wonder what will happen when I get to their age, if I get to their age. What will happen?

Will I have that? Will I be with my cousins in the morning and just actually talk about shit?

* * *

Talking.

I was up in the northwest recently, Portland, OR for work. Work was work, quick and easy; overall a free vacation; a free visit to family.

I spent a day with my cousin’s wife, my cousin, and their two kids. It was nice. I loved it, just being with the kids and just catching up.

I know I love kids, and I know I want kids. After Ashlyn in Reno, I kid that I don’t want any kids, because she’s just a wild animal who is much much smarter than I am. I only kid, if only I’m fortunate enough to have a smart kid like Ashlyn.

But just being with my cousins’ kids, I just realize that yes, I do want kids. I do want to hold them and have them hug me back so tightly like Mason does.

To just have them smile at me, knowing that I will keep them safe and I will play with them and protect them.

It was just a good time with family overall. I loved it and it will forever be in my beloved memories.

It kind of brought back flashbacks of me babysitting for Emerson while he was younger when Julie and Phinney came down for a company thing a few years back. The horror. The horror and pain of Emerson crying as he wakes up in a hotel room with a stranger. But eventually he warmed up to me and his mac & cheese.

But, no, it was just great spending a quiet day with Julie and the kids at the park. And all we did was just talk. All we did was just catch up and talk about family, how we’re doing, what’s going on, such and such.

That’s the thing with my family. We just don’t talk. Well, the Ho’s in our family to be exact. We just don’t talk about anything with substance, not our feelings, what happened in our lives, etc. etc. etc.

I know it is a family thing, and a cultural thing of saving face and what not; not wanting other people to know about our shit.

That is one of Julie’s biggest gripes about the family, we just don’t talk. We never did, and hopefully that will change.

People know me. I have no secrets, a open book, that is more than willing to talk about anything and discuss everything, whether personal or not. I’m just a open guy that loves to talk if it is of anything that has substance. But I’m not the type that pushes it on others and family if they aren’t willing to. Therefore, I don’t. Not unless they bring it up or I bring it up and they latch onto it and lets the boulder roll. That rarely happens.

What surprised me was a conversation I had during dinner with Phinney and Julie. I brought up to Julie earlier in the day that whenever I went up for Christmas, Faith would invite Hien and me to go to church with her family. She would precursor this invite with a note stating that Matt wanted us to go, but was too embarrassed to ask.

I don’t know the veracity of it, but it is sweet. I love to know that they both care about the two of us, me to want me to find salvation. I don’t find it offensive that they want me to go with them. It is thoughtful. I know my thoughts on religion, and they know my thoughts on religion and the church. I don’t look down on them for believing what they do and hopefully they don’t do the same to me; and I know I don’t feel that way. They respect my choice of believing in whatever faith I have.

I don’t know if anyone else in the family got the friendly invite to attend church. I don’t know. But Phinney thinks that Faith wanted to ask me because they are worried about me and maybe Hien also.

He believes that they worry about me because I did make the choice of moving down here to be on my own away from family. That because I’m down here alone with no one to look after me. Also, maybe because I’m so vocal about being away, and so opinionated, so sensitive, that they just worry about me. It’s sweet, but I don’t know why, it just gets me to hear that family sees me that way. To actually see me for whom I am, the opinionated and sensitive guy that makes his own choices to do what he needs to do.

Then he talked about my family blog that I wrote back in November. He read it and just went on discussing the part about my uncle.

Again, I told him I never heard about that story before until just recently. Julie chipped in saying that it is because we just don’t talk. Our family’s fatal flaw. But it was just great knowing that he actually read it and that he’s actually willing to talk about it. Maybe he just knows that I’m desperately in a way searching for my roots, wanting to know about my family, everyone and where we came from. That I’m looking for my sense of history, so I can place who I am and where I came from.

We just went on discussing that uncle and him saying that pretty much I got it down right and that my Great Uncle has every right to be pissed. But like me, what he then said is absolutely right, it happened so long ago. Let bygones be bygones. There’s just nothing we can do.

He sees a change in this uncle, coming to family events and just trying to reconnect and seeing that a daughter of his is making an effort to acknowledge our side of the family.

Just funny looking back at family and seeing how certain family connected better than others. Others are off living their separate lives whereas my family and this uncle’s family always got together and hung out. I grew up hanging out with this cousin and his siblings. His father was my favorite uncle because I would always go to their house on the weekends and just hang out and play. We were a close knit bunch.

We never really connected with the other families. Some because they lived so far away, but others that lived locally, we just never connected with them. We grew up apart, not knowing each other. There were some that I haven’t seen for 10-15 years at a time. Others that are just so weird, more hermit than myself that we just never found common ground.

Family. Just baffling how different many of us are even though we share the same blood.

Thinking ahead, it just seems sad in a way how things are going to change. Most of the culture and traditions will be gone because as the older generation slowly disappears we will pick up our own Americanized Traditions. Family is just drifting apart because we are all growing up and becoming more and more focused on our shit than family shit.

It was great to hear a little about family history and a little bit about my dad especially from a cousin that is within my generation. He’s like an older brother to me, and that’s how we address each other as brothers, not as cousins. He would tell me how things were at the farm back in Vietnam and how my dad taught him and his brothers how to shoot a bow and arrow, slingshots, and the such.

It just brings tears to my eyes to know that my dad did that.

It also touched my heart to hear from Julie that Phinney is sad that his dad and my dad aren’t here to see his kids. It just breaks my heart. It is true, it is heart breaking, and my heart is breaking now as I fight back tears in this public place trying to get this down.

It just makes me think of when I do have children. My favorite uncle won’t be here to see them and my dad won’t be here to coddle and spoil them. He isn’t here to teach them things that he taught me. My children won’t be able to see how loving their grandfather can be.

My heart breaks as I fight back tears. Breaking…broken.

Family.

But we all have to grow up and focus on our own shit, not worrying about anyone else because each of us is all grown up doing their own thing.

I do see how even our close knit family is slowly drifting apart because we are all growing up. Many of us are starting our own families, starting out in life, living our own life, that we just don’t have time to focus and worry about anyone else. We just hope that one day we can get together and just talk and open up.

Weddings and Funerals.

It just seems that our family only comes together for those two things. If it isn’t for a wedding, then it is for a funeral. Two big events, yes they are, but nothing more. The two extremes; a addition and a loss. Hopefully one day it will change, but again it just seems life gets in the way of everything.

Life just happens and we are too wrapped up in it to just reconnect.

My cousin says one day we’ll all just sit down and just tell me what life was like back in Vietnam. He said life was just life, but it just sounds so foreign to me. I’m just so interested to hear what it was like. I would like to take him up on that offer and just sit as a group, many generations together and just talk about how life was, how life is. Just talk. Hopefully one day it can happen, so I can just sit back and recollect and put it down for posterity sake, for my sake, so I know how far I’ve come in my life, in my family’s life.

* * *

Morals. Pride. Ethics.

It just seems that I’m full of it and that for some stupid reason I have this innate urge and disposition to do what is right. I see things in the old chivalrous way that is quickly fading. I have to always do what I think is right and fair.

I don’t know why it is that way. Well, I do know why. My parents taught it to me, to do what is right. But sometimes I do think it has gotten in the way of me doing what I want to do and therefore I doubt it and just hate it when I have to do the right thing.

What has it gotten me, being this nice and proper guy? What has it gotten me?

Nothing but the respect of others.

Respect? Does it matter? It goes back to the whole face thing? I could care less about face, just a matter of just.

I see both sides of the coin. I know the pros and cons of both side, reevaluating things before I even make a move and a decision, but always always, I have to take the higher road, the fair road, the just road.

I find it irksome. I wish I can just be a dick and say fuck it and do what isn’t right even if it means hurting people. I know I say it time and time again that it is okay to hurt people, but to do it maliciously, that is something I can’t do.

That would be wrong.

Maybe it is just my naiveté or just my idealism that is getting in the way, a world where things are fair and just happens because it is the right thing. I know the world doesn’t operate in this way, me being the cynic that I am, me being the jaded soul that I am, but there is that hope, that idealism that I do hold on to.

Not long ago I made a fair, just, and honest decision. I had to, for my sake.

I had to do it because it was the right decision to make, for my sake, for my sanity, for my heart. It has to be done.

But I wonder if it was actually the right decision. I wonder do I regret making this decision, constantly playing it in my head, psyching myself out, creating doubt.

I can’t lie; there is a doubt in what I did, in the choice that I made. Regret? Maybe, maybe not.

I’m just not sure if it was a smart decision or a stupid one.

I hear from both sides. One side, I made the absolute correct, fair, and honest decision and on the other it was just plain dumb.

I’m thinking in ways that no one thinks anymore. It is just old school and I need to operate in the here and now where chivalry is changed and dead.

For the most part, I just don’t understand the game. I’m ignorant.

Should I or shouldn’t I?

Even now as I sit here, I doubt my decision, but at the same time, deep inside the calm Zen state of mind, I did make the absolute correct decision.

My coworker didn’t think so and says I should keep that in mind when I am presented with another similar choice. I fucked it up.

I should have gone on and never brought it up and just go about having fun and treating it like it was what it was.

I’m the nice guy. Even though I have been a dick and a asshole to many people, my ex for example, overall I am the nice guy. Nice guys finish last, or so it seems that way.

Because we always have to do the right thing and just let things go because it is the fair thing to do. I wonder if people still think that way or am I a dying breed.

Funny, it just seems that girls say one thing in what they want in a man. A nice decent guy, but they always end up with the asshole. Why? Because they can fix him. Because I don’t think being treated like shit is something they go searching for.

Maybe nice guys are boring. I’m boring. They’re safe, they are proper.

Ha, I don’t know. I just don’t understand.

But I just feel that I’m just this nice guy, who does the right thing because it is the right thing to do and I don’t get the thing that I want out of it.

An asshole in my situation would have gone along with it and continued to hang out and maybe make a move, showing her that he is a better option than the one she currently has and that she’ll defect to him.

I see the point. I understand the reasoning in it, but for some reason I can’t do it. For some stupid reason, it just screams WRONG.

Even Hidalgo said I should just do it.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I know for me, I will always make the stupid right decisions. That’s innate in me to make those choices. I can’t make any other choices. It always has to be the right one. There are no if and or buts about it.

This is me. I guess I should better get use to making the dumb right decisions and live with it and not obsess over it.

Like I said, I live and die by my decisions. I should practice what I preach.

Things are getting easier. Things are still tough, but things are finally getting a little easier. Easier to breathe, easier to just let go and move on.

I don’t know why it is that way; maybe I’ve just gotten older and have a realistic understanding of the world.

Life is life.

Sometimes, things will just go your way. Other times, it just doesn’t. Whatever comes comes and you have no say in it. You absolutely have no say in it.

You are presented a situation, and you have to sit down and evaluate. You got to compare the good, the bad, the in between and make a decision base on what you know and have to stick to it like glue. There’s no turning back. None. You made a decision.

I made a decision. I live and die by my decision. Everything that I’ve done up to this point in my life, up to this minute, second, all come about by choices that I’ve made in my life. I made one today and I have to stick with it.

I really wanted things to be different. I really did hope that things turned out so differently, but it didn’t.

I know me. I know the type of person I am. I know my heart, inside and out. I know what I can do and what I can’t do.

I made my decision, and let’s just hope that there are no regrets on my part from it. I know there won’t be. I just have to stick with it.

But again, these decisions that I’ve made has gotten easier in my life. They aren’t so life and death like they use to be; not so dramatic anymore.

It was a decision that I made to make things easier on me. And in the long run, it will make things easier.

Things are out and up in the air. There are no secrets. Informed and explained. Understanding.

Sure I will lose some great times, but it has to be done.

I will not forget the times. I will not forget the talks, the joys, the cheers. I will not forget, because it has been a while since I’ve experienced those things. It has been a long time since I had such a great time where I’m completely relaxed and was able to just talk and get to know someone.

Relaxed. No regrets.

It will be in my thoughts for some time to come, but eventually it will fade into my memories, ready to be pulled up at any second, but it will be in the past. It’s not immediate and fresh anymore; with each passing second, it fades away. The pain subsides and I’m back to where I was not so long ago.

Me, myself, and I.

Not so long ago.

Not much has changed, but everything has changed.

Two little letters, put together to cause the biggest confusion of mass confusions.

Two little letters, when put together doesn’t even make a word, causes doubts and the usual “what the fuck?” that is happening in my life.

Two little letters that dashed my hopes, dreams.

Two little letters.

The weather is turning. The seasons are changing. The cool cold air has arrived in Los Angeles and I guess we are heading into the “cold” season of the City of Angels. Maybe it is because of this change that things are changing in the air. Maybe it is because of this change that I am getting the inkling feeling that I will be sick again. I don’t know, but I do know there is a change in the air.

I welcome the newfound weather in this city. It is a quick and nice change of pace from the hot heat that I still have not grown accustomed too. It is just too hot for me. It’s just weird weather when last week we were reaching upper 80s and now we are in the mere upper 60s.

No wonder I succumb to the bug that is floating around. To this day, I still don’t think I’m at 100%. Not yet.

* * *

Looking back at some of my earlier entries again last night and today; reading what it is that I’ve gone through at that time, the emotional state that I was in, it just blows me away how much I’ve grown up and changed, even from a few short years ago.

I’m able to write an write and spill everything out onto these blank pages of mine, whatever that seems to be troubling this pea-brain of mine, whatever that is wanting to spill out, and it helped me work things out. I’m glad to have found a therapy that works for me, and a relatively cheap one at that.

Writing. My therapy. A hate that I learned to love because it just opened up so many facets of my mind and shaped me in many ways to be who I am today. To be able to just write things out, getting it out of my system and seeing, reading, and understanding my problems and then realizing what it is that I must do to fix it.

I’ve came a long way from that really nice, soft, gentle guy who tries to please everyone, no matter who they are. The guy who is so considerate that he thinks of others before he puts his comforts and happiness first. The guy who is easily pressured to do things that he usually doesn’t.

I’ve come a long way. Every day, so it seems, seems to be a day of discovery, of what I’m capable of, finding new facets of me to explore and manipulate.

It is approaching that time of year again. It is approaching the end of the year, for the yearly diatribe. My how this year have gone by so quickly. A blink of an eye and it is gone, and there were a lot of things that happened this year.

Lots.

But there is one thing that keeps coming up with some of my colleagues and friends. One thing in my life, in all aspects of my life that I have noticed and is a point of repetition.

THIS IS THE MOST STRESSLESS AND HAPPIEST TIME I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN MY LIFE.

There is a sense of zen in my life. A calm, cool, collective everything is A-OK and I have nothing to bitch about. I’m not saying life is perfect, but life is pretty damn near it. Life.

I’m sure a lot of it has to do with the new job I got this year. The change of scenery, the change of environment, responsibilities, the appreciation I got for my efforts took a lot of the stress out of my life. Before, everything was just pressing down on me. Now, the responsibilities and the expectations are different. I’m surrounded by all of these IT guys that knows what it means to be in IT. They understand the life, the job, the duties, and they know what the expectations are because they all have been through it.

Maybe the job is relaxed too. Chill. No pressure. We go about our daily business like we do with anything else. As long as the job gets done or if it is a problem, it is a problem that stumps all. Everyone is involved to help figure things out if it is an issue that is beyond my abilities. I have help. I’m not alone.

My office mates help too. They are genuinely decent guys. Funny. Cool. Dorks and geeks like yours truly. We all understand our job and we are just there to do it. No stepping on other people’s toes. Just there to do our job and to help out where needed.

* * *

I don’t know what I’m trying to say today. I don’t know what I’m trying to write today.

There’s just a lot of things that are rumbling and bumbling its way around in my head, bouncing off the echoey walls where it just clatters with its deafening noise and it ripples with other noises from other thoughts and now my brain is just a mess of dissonance.

Reading an old blog of mine that I wrote way back in 2004, I realize that this is the point in my life where things started to change. This is the point in my life where things took action, because it was a point in my life where I started to see myself for the first time who I really am.

I started to see the core of who I really am, this person before you today.

I vaguely remember writing it. I think it was Labor Day weekend in good ol’ Fresno. I wasn’t out at a coffee shop writing. No. I wrote this lil’ entry in a handwritten journal of mine.

Since then my writing took a different turn. Instead of the more direct passionate writing that started my journal, it became the lyrical whimsy that filled years and years of entries. The mish-mash rambling styles of philosophical speak that makes no sense.

It was a time where I just let my thoughts run free and jot everything down. It was the time of my soul searching. All those nonsense had a core purpose of disclosing who I am and what I was thinking. It was the second phase of my therapy.

The first was tackling my anger, writing everything down. The other was focusing on me, the way I think, the introspections that makes me who I am today. My thoughts, my philosophies, my rules in life.

That entry. It sparked the beginning of something that was needed to get me, my life back on track.

I realize the entry before is the first one of the newfound free flowing writing that I got comfortable with, the philosophical jib-jab of late night ramblings that spilled out everything that I was thinking in my life at that particular moment and that sad depressed phase that i was going through. That was the beginning or near the beginning of my road to recovery. The road to me. The Phong before you.

It just seems that I’ve been a lost soul for quite some time. Confused as to what my life means and what I’m to make of it. Questions in the ether that just cloud my mind during that time, always asking what am I? Who am I? Where am I going? The ultimate questions of figuring yourself out.

The Quarter Life Crisis really got to me. It was a big part of my life. It was a answer to what I’m feeling, to know that I am not alone. Well, from that entry, again, it only applied to the first paragraph, of not knowing what it is that I want and the finding myself out.

Life just seemed so different back then, constantly dark and black. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel as it collapsed in on me. But then for some reason, some time, things took a turn for the better. I don’t know exactly when, but it did.

It seemed like a slow subtle change in me. It was a gradual ascension to who I am, as layers and layers of this onion peeled away to reveal the true heart that is me. I do not miss that point in my life. It was rough, sad, but I am glad that I experienced it and conquered it.

And here I am today with a much better understanding of who I am today. What I’m willing to do and what I’m not willing to do. A better understanding of why I am the way I am and a sure found knowledge of who I am and in a way a sure confidence of the decisions that I make.

Life is good. Life is damn good.

I don’t know what came first, me getting better or me thinking optimistically? I think there was a mixture involved as I got a glimpse of who I am, saying to myself that I’m not this bad person who’s always angry at everything, who is a victim, who was dealt a bad hand.

I realized that I made that happen. I made those decisions. My decisions affect who I am and my happiness. I need to do things that I am comfortable with and that benefits me and not other people. Me. It’s all about me.

* * *

I think I’m done today as I really do need to go to the bathroom now and I need to make my movie. I think I’m done today because I have no clue how I came about writing what I just written. I had no idea what it is that I wanted to say today, but I managed to say something. I don’t know.