Bus 71 at 4am

4am on Christmas Eve and the 71 Bus to Farragut Square pulls up to the Silver Spring Station. This is what I have to resort to in order to catch a 6:50am flight. The doors open and the eclectic mix of people pile on. There is the old Haitian man who speaks English with a french accent. His smile is always on, like he is constantly and happily intoxicated. There is the Honduran man, either going to work or getting off work, dressed in flannel and carrying a styrofoam box of food. There is a witch doctor who's hair is wild like his eyes. He wears a black rain coat, big hat and carries what looks like a large stick of fossilized wood. I've seen him before around town. He doesn't beg for money. I've seen him stand on the corner down my the trains and stare intensely at people. Watching the march of penguins to and from work.

 

The Bus driver greets us with 'Good Morning' and a 'Happy holidays'. He is a big man, happy that it is Christmas Eve and delighted to be taking us to our destination on a nice warm bus.

 

The Honduran man tries to sleep and the Witch doctor stoically stars straight ahead, resting his hands on his lap. The Haitian man starts talking in gibberish. He is very skinny and old. His tweed suit is too big and his caber hat rest to the left. He turns to the witch doctor and says, 'I believe you have seen into the abyss.'

The witch doctor says nothing.

The Haitian man, straightens his hat, looks at me, drowsy and tired, and says, 'that man is not a man.' 

I nod yes, clutch my carry on and keep my mouth shut.

The bus driver yells back to the Haitian man, 'Listen, it is too early to get peopel riled up. Sit back and relax. Just relax.'

 

The Haitian man looks at me again. He says, 'he has seen a place with no time and space. He is no longer a man, but a apparitian. You see him, but he does not see you. He sees only your heart beat.'

I say, 'should I be scared?'

The Hatian man looks at the Witch doctor closely.

 

The Witch doctor says to the Haitian, 'leave me alone. I do not know you.'

The Bus driver takes a left on to 7th street from Georgia Ave. We pass by Howard University. The bus driver yells out another warning, 'it is too early, my man.'

 

The Haitian looks over to me again and whispers, 'fear only if you have something to fear.'

The bus dirver is right. It is way too early for this. It's still pitch dark out.

 

The Honduran man looks up to see where we are, and looks around, obvious that he is bothered by the talking that interrupts his sleep.

 

The Haitian man comes back to me and points at the witch doctor, 'that man has experianced nothingness. It is a place void of good and evil. It is void of man and woman. I have never seen it, but almost once.' He starts speaking in French and not partically looking at anything.

 

We are in Chinatown and my stop comes up and I leave. I tell the bus driver 'thanks.' He says, ' you have a good Christmas now' and is laughing as he closes the door.

 

The streets are full of rats scurrying back and forth as I walk to Union Station, wondering what had just happened. There is a world of darkness and shadows, apparitions and unexplanable voids. The chill you get when you looks down a dark alley is real. The white of eyes you see in the deepest and darkest corners are really there. But maybe in this world of flourescent lights and the ambient sounds of the city and the machines around us, we pass them off as our imagination playing tricks on us.

Stories are coming

"Just choose something and do it," they say.

Another weekend with the family

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Holiday Stress

Usually around this time of year things are suppose to slow down around the office. There should be less deals going on, people have recieved their bonuses and are happier and jollier. There is something different in the air this year.

 

SK keeps running into my office, eyes red, hair dishelved asking me,

 "Hey, are you going to be here next week?"

"I'll be back Thursday, SK." I have already told her three times.

She sighs..," Well, could you set this up to be done and this as well. And we need th fax cover pages for these states when the SEC gets back to us with that letter. You know what I mean. Oh and that Press release that needs to go out..."

"Yes," I say...and could you please remember to breath in between every seven syllables!

"Well, they are not filing till next week, but we need the White Plain's newspapers directions and contact info, just incase."

"Sure, SK. I'll get on it"

 

Three minutes later Roho walks into my office, smoothly slowly, but not in a slick way. Think Bill Lumberhg from OFFICE SPACE.

Roho sips his coffee and says to me, "So how is Illinois coming along."

"Well, I've left six messages in the past three weeks and no response."

"Hmm yeah, We're going to need to get that out as soon as possible. By the way, Texas needs some work on as well."

"Sure, Roho. I'll work on it."

 

Then there is the shuffle of Partners who want to talk sports, the Receptionist and night secretaries who like to talk about their personal problems and the entracacies of dating three men at the same time. ANd these precarious relationships seem to only become filled with more drama as the holidays approach. "What should I get so and so... and you think by getting him this, he'll take it as something more?" "No, L. A box of chocolates for a guy is just a box of chocolates."

 

KTW walks into my office,

"So have you ever done Saving Association convertions before?"

"Convertions to what?"

"MHCs"

"I've worked on them"

"Well, there is a cap to a few of these convertions and RS wanted me to have you do them as to not over exceed the cap."

"Sweet"

"Yeah, we have a bunch of models, and we'll probally start after the holidays."

"Paralegal hell"

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing. sounds good."

 

And now I've been seriously trying to keep up with my writing and reading, being social with the associates and partners during the holidays and friends, working on my NYC teaching fellowship application, I haven't done ANY CHRISTMAS SHOPPING!

 

So this is what they mean by holiday stress.

 

The nice thing however is that I have friends that care about me, a lot of them with a lot of care..especially a roommate and his J.

 

Relativity

When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.
Albert Einstein

Yuck

Johnny Damon a few months ago:
There's no way I can go play for the Yankees, but I know they're going to come after me hard," he told MLB.com then. "It's definitely not the most important thing to go out there for the top dollar, which the Yankees are going to offer me. It's not what I need."

Johnny Damon today:
''They were coming after me aggressively. We know George Steinbrenner's reputation. He always wants to have the best players. He showed that tonight. He and Brian Cashman came after me hard. Now I'm part of the Yankees and that great lineup. We're going to be tough to beat."

"I'm very happy starting a new career. I'm sad to say goodbye to some of the greatest fans in the world. Unfortunately they had to see this day, but it's time for me to move forward."

''My message to Sox fans is I tried," Damon said. ''I tried everything in my power. Unfortunately I know they are going to be upset. I'm always going to remember the good times, the World Series, the three out of four years we made the playoffs. I want them to know I appreciate them and I tried. I know they will continue to root for the Red Sox and they should. I'm going to try and win another World Series. That's what I have to do."

Bad bad news

I cannot put into words how disappointed I am. Johnny Damon has signed with the Yankees. Somewhere along the line, The Red Sox administration just messed up. I heard about the signing even before Larry Luchinno had heard. And in typical Yankee form, Steinbrenner swoops in with his big wallet in the middle of the night, pays Damon a butt load of money and turns him into a Yankee.

 

Obviously, Damon did what was better for him, more money. But think of all the little kids who cheered you on and wore Damon disciple wigs and called you their favorite player. Think of all the fans who loved you and cheered you on. We thought of you as a franchise guy, someone to look up to and here you are selling your body like a cheap prostitute to the evil empire.

 

No matter, Mr. Damon. You are dead to me. And if I do see you on the streets, I'll ask for your autograph and then toss it in the nearest trash receptacle.

 

...that was a bit bitter.

post your secrets

I went to the Post a Secret exhibit today in Georgetown. Here is the actual Blog POSTASECRET

It was very provocative. The project itself is very insightful. People send post cards with thier secrets to a perfect stranger who posts them on his website for the world to see and judge. But I don't find myself judging at all. I find myself trying to reason. Keeping secrets is a very human thing, and I think by exaiming these confessions we have an instant insight into today's societal norms and values. We don't have to wait for a historian to look back and put into context what we valued and what we looked down upon at this exact point in time.

I have always been fascinated by the website, but there is something about seeing the postcards upclose, to see the handwriting and then sharing a common experiance with the other voyours at the gallery that makes the whole experiance very intense. There is sense of safety when you are able to read something from a book or watch a movie by yourself, or even view a website on your own, but when you do it as an audience, the effect is stronger. It reverbarates longer because it's instant confirmation of your own initial reaction. You experiance this confirmation by observing others body language and facial expressions. I really enjoyed seeing how other people reacted to the things I saw. You become curious at which postcards they direct the attention of the person their with to. It's natural to want to go over and see what they are pointing at, explaining or questioning. It was interesting to see what made people smile, laugh, and sadden.

Besides the postcards, the space is sparse. Lots of light, white walls and very open. The post cards are the main and only event. There is a small room with a movie playing. There is melodic rock playing with interim periods where The All American Reject's song my didrty little secret plays. I liked how the exhibit was very organic. There were a few of the interesting postcards blown up to huge wall sized canvases, but the majoraty of them were just put in batches along the walls for people to stroll along and observe. There was no order to it, but as you puruse along, the exhibit itself develops into a beginning, middle and end for you. Each person's experiance will be differant. Some people may be drawn to certain colors or postcards more then others. I myself spent a good hour just sitting down and going through the books and reading about how the project started and how it has continued to develop.

Going by myself allowed me to linger longer. Sometimes I'm afraid my fascination with someone's secret is revealing my own secrets, the ones I may even keep from even myself. One of the secrets was a post card that stated, "Sometimes I just want to be alone, but I don't want to be lonely." That definetly hit a spot. There were a few funny ones. And there were some very shocking secrets. A lot of the secrets were about relationships with significant others, very Camu's The Stranger in ways.

Not so surprisingly, a lot of the secrets were sexual. After watching Kinsey (great movie) and writing papers on censorship in British media, I found out we live in a very sexually repressed society, but i'm sure I didn't have to tell you that because we all tend to have our sexual hang ups and insecurities.

I feel that sometimes this blog is a big POST A SECRET project for myself. I read a qoute somewhere from some dude that said, writing is a process of self discovery. I guess it is true for me. And if this is a huge post-a-secret project for me, I wouldn't have it any other way then to just have it public. Then I am free from my secrets. It's no longer a burden.

Maybe one day I'll post up my sexual hang ups and desires.

Anyway, I recommend checking out the exhibit and definetly the website.

Weekend line up

Tonight

Gym, Dinner, Clarendon Grille for some brewsky's and live music

 

Saturday

Laundry, Gym, Pats game, and Georgtown for Christmas shopping and art galleries

 

POST A SECRET EXHIBIT

 

THE DR. IS IN THE HOUSE

 

Sunday

'100 Years of Solitude' NYC Teaching fellowship application and Boston Teaching Residency Application.

Amazing

Pilgrims flock to see 'Buddha boy' said to have fasted six months

I sometimes write e-mails at work

This is one for the records. Context: I'm explaining how I will talk about an abscence of a friend and my current situation at a future New Year's Party.

 

Of course. What do you think I would have said? We'll she is now pregnant with twins, is thinking about joining a commune in the keys and selling pencils to the local school children to support her addiction to twizzlers and peanut butter. Mean while, her life partner is getting a masters in stone therapy and silver working. They both hope to one day open a store specializing in crafts and salf water taffy.

I'll have to break news to people that i'm staying in DC till May. I'll have to explain why and my explanation will be as follows: Well, a worm hole opened up in the space and time continuum over my bed one night. I climbed in a lived my life exactly as I had if I had left in February. Turns out Boston is going to have a very bad winter and while joy riding in a snow Mobil during an early march snow storm on Beacon Hill I run into a group of humans who fell through the space and time continuum about 5,000 BC, hence the bad winter. Turns out one of them is an early ancestor of mine, So the only way for me to not disappear was to find the next worm hole and send everybody back to their regular space. It all worked out in the end. My mom complained about all the hair in the bath tub and my sister was a brat about the smell, but I think we all bonded at the end of it all. So here I am, back in my space, fully dressed with a glass of champagne and an appetite like a cave man.

The First Christmas I Remember

The first Christmas I can recall was when I was four. My mom, my dad and I were still living in East Boston in the little one bedroom. My Uncle Phoung was also living with us. It's strange to say he was living with us because he was us. At the time, he was attending high school and I don't think there was a day in those four years where I don't remember him being around. We lived on the first floor of that five unit, tan building. It was cozy and warm when the snow started to fall.

I remember Christmas Wreaths being sold at the local Stop N' Shop and a painting of a big red bow around the McDonald's sign. Everywhere we walked to, people rang bells and said "Happy Holidays." Coming back on the Blue line from my cousins house in Quincy, I would stare in awe of all the lights on all the warm homes.

In school, I learned about a man who wore a red suite and lives at the North Pole. My preschool teacher could play the piano and so we sang songs about a flying, red nosed reindeer, A snow man who wore a top hat and smoked a pipe and a silent night.

Like all people who have moved away from their families we had to start our own traditions. In my families case, they had escaped from Vietnam and so had to start from scratch, especially with a holiday they have only observed from a distance. My dad sat down with me and watched 'Charlie Brown's Christmas special. I turned to him and asked him, "Can we have a tree?" He said, "Why?" So I naturally explained to him about an old man who watched me sleep and makes sure I'm good, and how this reindeer flies with a glowing nose and who could forget about the snowman that smokes a pipe. I told him that Santa comes down the chimney and leaves presents for me. He said, "We don't have a chimney." I said, "use your imagination, dad." My dad looked at my mom with the same enthusiasm and said, "lets get a Christmas tree."

My mom, confused by this holiday, asked her co-workers and her friends in her night English class, "what do people do during Christmas?" Which prompted her professor to tell stories about her own Christmas while growing up. People exchanged presents, were nice to each other, decorated trees and celebrated the birth of a man named Jesus. She talked about spending time with family and how her mom cooked a big dinner on Christmas Eve and then they went to their grandparents house on Christmas Day. My dad's boss at McDonald's gave him an extra check and told him to have a Merry Christmas. And so my parents were set on making it one.

Getting the tree wasn't difficult. They sold them in the lot down by the Stop N' Shop. It was what to do with the tree once we got it. We had brought home one a little bit too big. After hacking it with a butcher knife, my dad was ready to pull out our Fig tree and stuff the tree in the Fig's pot when my mom came home with a red and green Christmas tree stand and a white tree apron. One day their four year came home from school and tied a piece of paper with colorful pieces of macaroni in the shape of a star to the tree with a piece of yellow yarn. We all went out to Woolworth's one night and picked up Christmas lights, like the ones we saw on the houses, red, blue and green ornaments, and a lighted star that had a picture of Jesus in the middle. We decorated that night too. My uncle came home from playing basketball and he had silver tinsel which we threw all over the tree.

Two days later a big brown box had arrived at our apartment. My mom was shocked, she hugged the post man and told me to come over and help her open it. It was a box full of toys! They were from Santa Claus and all for me and my cousins. My first real football was in that box, too big for my hands. We set aside things for my cousins and wrapped them. I didn't learn a long time later that my mom had written a letter to the post office addressed to Santa Clause. Someone had picked it out and they had put together this box for me. When my Dad came home I said, "since we didn't have a chimney, Santa delivered our presents by mail." I was 14 when I found a draft of that letter my mom had written, even at that age the magic was real.

Christmas Eve came, and all my aunts, uncles, cousins and our family friends crammed into our tiny place. They sat around and talked about Vietnam, their own experiences with this holiday, and this country's strange customs. My cousins and I played games of tag, hot hands and waited patiently (as patiently as a group of three and four year-olds could) to open our presents and play with those. The house smelled of fried rice, egg rolls and incense. There was the smell of charcoal was from the charcoal pot that kept the sea food soup warm. There was no dinning room table. We sat intimately on the living room floor, on a blanket, in a circle around the food. Each smiling red face was family and that was the first Christmas I remember.

100 years of solitude

Currently reading Gabriel Garcia's Marquez's '100 Years of Solitude.' It's about the rise and fall of a family and their town. I am overly impressed by Marquez's ability to tell a story. I read 'Love in the Time of Cholera' about a year ago. I don't remember a day within those two weeks of reading that book were I put it down after a chapter or two without feeling satisfaction, like a good meal. It was a story of repressed unextishable love, secret love and expectations. Even though it was in the end, a love story, there are all these elements of mystery, of suspense and action. There were days we cheered on the hero and days where we sympathized with his opponet.

I wonder sometimes as I read these stories, could his charecters really exist in this world with that type of enviable passion? Can Florentino Ariza's repressed love for Ferma Daza burn on, mature and yet after 50 years, still burn like the teenagers they were when they had first sat on that bench. She marries a doctor, he waits the half a century, after her husbands death, to repeat his vows. Can charecters be defined by one thing? I find it unbelievable, but yet, I envy them. In the world of literature, they have to exist. Maybe envy is not the right word. I admire them.

We need these stories to create our own stories. Life happens and we have to make sense of it through myths and poems. We watch leaves fall and poetically they fall for us. We watch sunsets and it's like the sun is their for you. We turn all these externals into our own personal story. If we didn't have these stories, all we would really have a series of empty events with empty reactions. It is what seperates us from animals. It's not fake. The human mind wants to make sense of things. Things happen poetically because it a natural inclination.

The Red Sox had to beat the Yankees in high drama inorder to earn their rights as world champions and to end an 86 year drought. 86 Also means to throw out, deject, discard. Names after a bar in the Village called Chumley's bar and restaurant at 86 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village. They would refuse to serve customers who were to drunk and threw them out. 86 them. Like the Red Sox threw out the curse.

These are the signs we look for, this poetic happenings to really believe that there is something more then ourselves.

It's more then a reading of Gabriel Garcia Marquez that brought on this thought. It's always a girl, isn't it? And yes it is. How did you do it Florentino Ariza?

Sweet Caroline

Caroline lived down by beaches of Marshfield. My friend Matt and I use to drive down there to go see her, have ice cream called Moose Tracks by Hummerock Beach and then house hop to friend's houses we knew, hang out with their parents and dogs. We would talk about how we wanted to do great things, help people and live with passion. Living by the sea does that to people. You become overwhelmed by it's vastness so much so that you feel so insignificantly small. That was summer in high school.

One night in the middle of July Matt wanted to go and see Caroline. We drove in Matt's blue Acura for forty-five minutes down route 3 to Marshfield. We listend to jazz and it became a summer of Flamenco Sketches. We picked up Caroline and her friend Amanda and got Moose Tracks. The night was warm. Caroline with her ice cream in hand pulled Matt's hand and said, "let's all go to the water." Amanda ran along and I followed taking in the smell of salt, water and life. Amanda looked back at me, put a hand through her short brown hair and said, "come on, slow poke."

The waves rythmic beating on the shore washed over our feet as we stood in the sand and searched for the edge of the Earth. Far from the city,  Marshfield's stars shined bright. "I didn't realize there were so many," I said.

We all layed in the sand, Amanda's hand in mine and Caroline and Matt further up on the beach. "How many stars do you think are looking down on us?" I asked. "Billions," she said.
"There are a lot!"
 "Keep staring," she said, "you will notice more."

And as I layed in the sand, the vast sky of stars became brighter. Amanda and I saw five shooting stars that night. Before then, I had never seen one before. They shot across the sky dimming the light out of the other stars for a second. I felt small, but free and fortunate. Living by the sea with do that to people.

Hustlers

She spoke quickly. She said to me, " Can I ask you a question?"

An older black woman, perhaps sixty. She had speks of facial hair, her make-up was bright and clownish. She stood in the cold and walked right up to my face as I walked out of the barbar shop.

I replied, "Sure." My haircut felt good and I was wearing my new cable knit sweater, a treat for a hard month.

"Do you know anything about electronics? The trunk of my BMW locked up and I left my purse and everything in there. Are you a student? I called BWU, and they said the locking mechenism cannot be broken into."

"No, I'm a legal assistant?"

"Is that right, I'm an attorney for Donald and Dweyer, 1516 K street. Only the 3rd largest law firm in DC."

"Is that right?" I said. "No I've never heard of Donald and Dweyere, but I'm down on 17th and Penn. So sorry ot hear about your car."

Her coat was too big for her. Her face was shriveled and shivered a bit. Her eyes gave it away. They are vacant of compassion and hungry. I looked her in the eyes and she touched my arm and said, "Do you think you could loan an old woman some cab fare to get her spare key?"

Maybe she would go and buy a bottle of vodka an once of weed and laugh about the gullible legal assistant with a beau.

She said, I'll pay you a $100 plus."
I said, "How much?"
She said, "I need at least $60, the cab ride there and back."
"Listen, I can't spare $60."

She spoke more attoney talk, things about anti-trust, life as an attonrey, wines and the latest trends for the holidays.

It takes a lot for a person to beg. They place themselves at the mercy of others. My dad had always taught me that hard work will take you anywhere, and it has. It was never a verbal lesson, but more a way of his life which I have since picked up.

I told her to wait and I went to the ATM. She wanted to talk about Patriot Act regulations and said, "Hold on"

I took money from an ATM and gave her $40. I hugged her, told her I trusted her to do the right thing. She wanted to cry. When she hugged me, she remined me of my mom's elder aunt who lived with us in a one bedroom apt in East Boston with her two kids. I would want to sleep in her bed everynight because she would tell me stories. I hugged her for a while and told her, "I trust you, Ms."

I walked away to the gym, new hair cut, new sweater, a bit more humbled.

Holiday warm up

Our Christmas tradition was for the kids and now that we're all grown up, at least most of us, the traditions are changing as well. I think by staying in DC last Christmas, I was trying to keep the Christmas's I remember special and forever unchanged. I wanted to be with all my cousins and my sister. I wanted to stay up late and begin opening presents at midnight on Christmas eve. I wanted snow and to try on the present my mom got me - always a sweater, each and every year.

Maybe it was the same way this past thanksgiving. I love the holiday, but we were celebrating it at my Aunt's new house in Newton, I was no longer coming back from college or pleasurably sore and tired from a cold football game. I guess by trying to hold onto things of the past, we miss opportunities to create traditions for the future.

 

Just a thought now that the holidays are around the corner. I'm going to NYC for my company's holiday party this weekend. Should be fun and interesting. I have a post brewing in my head on How My Family Grew into The Christmas Tradition. just picture a four year old singing about a snow cone in the shap of a man who smokes a pipe to his immigrant parents.

Murakami

You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.

Most young people were getting jobs in big companies, becoming company men. I wanted to be individual.

In Japan they prefer the realistic style. They like answers and conclusions, but my stories have none. I want to leave them wide open to every possibility. I think my readers understand that openness.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that's how we've got to live.

~Haruki Murakami

 

Have you ever read a book that touches your soul? I just finished Murakami's Kafka on The Shore this past weekend. It poses so many questions between what is reality, what is myth and dreams, time and soul, conscience and unconscience. I'm still a bit lost in the world he created in that novel, so my writing has been a bit dreamy. In the meantime, I leave you with some of his qoutes I found he delivered in interviews.
 

Office vampire moments

I call her the Vampire. She walks in the lobby and says, "Why can't we call it a Christmas tree (talking about the national tree lighting tonight)? Aren't we a Christian Country. I swear this furry of foreigners, you know how I feel about that!"

And now she is talking about the guy from NYC who came here to upload new software on our computers. "DID you know DW was gay!? And did you notice the ring on his middle finger!? Why, I never."

LR (receptionist) says, "I didn't think that meant anything. A lot of people wear their class rings on their middle finger."

"Yeah, but the middle finger has a lot of connotations!"

Yesterday she went up to me and said, "I think Rich is an Anti-Semite."

"Why is that?"

"He doesn't talk to me"

"But Vampire, you're not Jewish."

"Yeah, but I have a Jewish last name."

a knock on the door

Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book

nor from tongue.

If knowledge of mysteries come after emptiness of mind, that is

illumination of heart.

~Rumi