round the bend of 'late' and into 'morning'

I haven't updated this blog for about two months. I started this thing to write down my thoughts but I really haven't had anything to say. I actually haven't been thinking, preiod for about a month.

I've also been broke for about a month. But 'broke' doesn't really express my poverty with enough power. There's a really good word for it in chinese though, 'cheong'. It's a miraculously insulting combination of the words 'poor', 'screwed', 'loser'. I have cheong pretty bad right now. I'm at the point where you open your wallet and moths fly out. I don't even carry my wallet around any more because there is just no fucking point. Every now and then, I dig it out, dust it off, disinter it's pitiful contents(coupons, old movie tickets, straw wrappers, exhausted gift cards), and sadly reminisce about more fortunate times.

Being broke, or more accurately, cheong, is an eye the fuck opening experience. Everything in the world costs money. It makes life really hard.<--- can't believe I just wrote that sentence, what am I twelve years old?

write more later


7:55Am: Just got back from a night at Will's, and I haven't actually slept; it's the only way you'd catch me awake this early. Driving home as the sun rose was incredible, there are no other words. I like staying up late - but now I know that I've been an idiot.

How come no one has ever told me how beautifully the day breaks? How the sun peeks over the horizon, casting steady, hopeful light over chimneys spouting pale streams of mist into the sky? How have I not known this expectant quality of light, how a pure white glow on the horizon gradually bursts into blinding golden rays? How have I not experienced this silent serenity, this unassuming halcyon of quiet?

I wish had had my camera with me as I drove into the valley where I live. I flew hundreds of miles to get away from this place, but as I came down the hill and saw my home in the uninhibited glory of the morning, I realize - I live in beauty. I can't believe I've been sleeping the way I have - waking at dark, prowling the last bit of the night until darkness shifts impalpably to greyness, then crawling into bed and closing my eyes to this incredible vision of the morning.

It's a good feeling - or at least I think it might be - to wake as the earth around me wakes and sleep when it does. I feel sorry for nocturnal animals right now.

Another thing before I sleep. I'm getting old.

I'm turning 20 in about a month, but I don't mean that. I mean that I worry about my parents now. My dad is on a diet - salad and an apple - that's all he eats on the weekdays. Yesterday he was in bed all day with some infection; he missed Christmas dinner. I cook food - real food, meat, fried eggs - and leave it around so he'll eat it later in the night. I looked on him when I got back home. When he sleeps, his face is deeply lined and horribly drawn, as if his mind is tasked with some ferociously strenuous exertion. I wonder what my face looks like when I sleep.

My mom reads novels all day and dreams about winning the lottery and retiring when I graduate from college. I'm scared for her. and about what will happen when she retires. I want, with a sincere, honest desperation, for her to be happy, to thrive when she gets older and I leave home. What will fill her life? She has trouble at work - Tennessee will never accept a person like my mom, with her language trouble and fiercely Taiwanese ethic. Her mom, my grandma, is getting old, and always cries when she talks to her daughter on the phone. My mom's going to visit her in about a month.

My parents don't watch movies together, they don't go out to dinner. They live at home together; their only pasttimes are feeding themselves and going to work. The refrigerator always looks exactly the same every time I go home. Inexplicably, this scares me too.

Yeah, I'm getting old.

By getting old, I mean that I know what I want and I don't care about the things I used to any more. I used never think I'd get old. I used take pride that I was immature, that I was obnoxious and childish - but I don't care any more. My social life is settling down - I know which people I want in my life and I ignore the rest. I want to be myself, and I'm starting to figure out exactly who that is.

By getting old, I mean that in 5 or 10 years I will probably be the same person. Every year since I was young I would look back on myself and wince ruefully at the person I used to be. Every year I changed - but I think I'm done now.

This is probably a really boring post, and also too revealing. end and sleep