i found out two days ago that a good friend of mine from middle school passed away in a car accident. he had a wife and a young daughter. more than that, he was just a good person. i'm not in the practice of saying posthumously that someone is a good person or was wise or kind or whatever just to sound affected or to say someone is nice just because you should. he was a really good person, very funny and kind, and i spent a lot of time with him during the summer evenings, playing tennis for 2 or 3 hours each day and during school.
we lost touch during college, but i think about him every now and then because he was just one of those people you don't forget. so i was really sad to hear the news. there is no sense to be made of it, though i try to. to top it off, he was the second in our class. another passed last year in august, after a 4 year battle with cancer. ironically, the two of them were extremely close.
so it left me a little morose this weekend. i just wonder what i'm doing and how i'm approaching my life. the way i think about things, the grudges people hold, what i allow to stress me out and upset me, and whether all these things really, really matter. because you see, i can still remember what it felt like when i was 13, hanging out with ben on the tennis courts till the bugs came out, and even what it smelled like on the courts on the hottest days. all those memories seem so close and so vivid to me, and even more importantly, he seems vivid to me, and our interactions seem vivid, and i can't just possible imagine that those interactions to another person have ended and will no longer be, especially when there was no warning or direction or sign or indication that such an ending might come. and if you had told the 13-year-old me that such an end might be in sight, i don't think i possibly could have fathomed in any state of being this outcome as being remotely likely to occur or that he would, in some fashion, cease to exist at a point where i would have expected him to exist infinitely long beyond that, or at least until some point of ending that was so far beyond any conceivable extent.
this is my stream of consciousness about something so incredibly tragic, i can't possible explain how angry i am about it.
i've tried to veer away in my blog in recent months from being too personal, the way i used to. but honestly, i was jostled from my conservatism by the need to just talk about this. and honestly, if you are being a stupid and foolish and petty in who you are and how you live your life, please stop. it's just not worth it.
i have waited and waited and waited and now, for the first time in three years, i'm taking a non-family vacation.
what does that mean? vacations with family is always fun and warm hearted, but it can be stressful... juggling parents' requests, sibling's request, seeing this person and that, always eating in chinese restaurants... speaking of which: a shout out to my asian brethren - have you noticed that wherever you go, your parents are always looking for the chinese restaurants? you could be in greenland in a grassland and they'd still only want to visit a chinese restaurant!! can't you eat tofu at home, momma?
(sorry mom. i love you :P ).
anyhow, we're off to mexico for padi training, some 95 degree weather, and all inclusive drinks. i'm going to come back so liver-damaged and hungover... but before that, some white water rafting. wee haw!!
holy beans.
i think i've discovered another hobby. augh!! i don't need any more hobbies! snowboarding, cooking, running, tennis, knitting, swing -- they need to stop! now!
anyhow, bf and i, along with some buddies of ours, headed over to mission cliffs to do some rock climbing. we strapped ourselves into the harnesses (read: instant wedgie), got quickie lessons on belay'ing and climbing basics, and were off. it was an incredibly hot day to go -- as you neared the top of the walls, your hands would begin to slip from the holds and you could feel the insane temperature gradient.
the one thing discovered about rock climbing is that it's mostly in the legs, and it's also a little bit of strategy. you have to plan your routes before ascending, and if you too frequently use your arms to climb, you won't have the energy to make it to the top. also, those little pegs in the wall actually are sufficient for your feet to step on, even if you feel you will fall off. the best part of the climbing is that it's a little meditative. it's just you and the wall, working together to get to the top.
after 3.5 hours of climbing, we headed over to safeway for groceries, and had an outside bbq as the sun set. a perfect saturday for an inperfect week at work. can't wait to go back.. looks like there's more gear to be had. i can't believe i've become such a gear whore!
so many questions. if you have the answer, please let me know:
1. bf's condo complex got broken into yesterday am. he took it pretty calmly, and his neighbor only lost a bike. anyhow, how do insurance companies know that what you lost was really what you lost? for example, i have renter's insurance. if anyting i keep at bf's was stolen, they have to replace it beyond the deductible. so how would they know i had a burton feel good, instead of the feel good es? receipts? who keeps receipts for that long? i know i have to file the police report, so are they assuming i wouldn't lie to the police?
2. two cars pull up to a street at the same time. they are each on adjacent driveways. the guy on the left wants to take a right. the guy on the right wants to take a left. who gets right of way?
3. A and B are on perpendicular streets. A wants to take a left onto B's street, B wants to take a left onto A's street. they arrive at the same time. who has right of way?
okay. i'm done asking stupid questions. just always wondering... but never got an answer.
i've been hearing about youtube for a while but didn't really look at it until last week, when a co-worker and i sang the "jem" theme song together while watching the opening credits on you tube.
i felt like exploring just *how* much the website had, so bf and i did some searches last night. we were impressed. it literally has everything.
amongst our searches:
voltron
thundercats
robotech
shirt tales
duck tales
gummy bears
gi joe
heman
if i had been wearing a hypercolor t-shirt and had my pants folded in and up in the mc-hammer style, i swear it could have been 1987. the most interesting part was seeing what bf and i watched as kids, and what we thought of each other's choices. it was a snapshot into our personalities as kids. i thought robotech to be so fitting for his scifi geekiness. he thought shirt tales to be too cutesy and cuddly. when i started singing along to duck tales, he got scared.
good sh*t, people. i recommend you take a gander if you want a stroll down memory lane.
okay. so sometimes i feel like sisyphus. i find a rock everywhere i go.
you try to make peace, and the olive branch is seen as a trojan horse.
you extend a helping hand, but instead you are meddling.
you work hard, but the product seems half unfinished.
holes everywhere you look. it's really, really stupid and really, really exhausting. then you get knocked over the head with some sense and then you realize, you were the one carrying the rock everywhere.
i'm dropping it. you're not my problem anymore.
i think i'm losing it.
the signs:
1. the phrase "anterior inferior frontal gyrus" made me really crack up today. like, i almost fell over laughing about it. but the thing is, there is NOTHING absolutely whatsoever humorous about it. like. at all. even for a nerd.
2. that i yelled at the woman who came into my office insisting that we were a neurology office, even after i politely tried to direct her elsewhere. after some pigheaded insistence on her part, i really do mean that i yelled at her.
3. that i'm writing everyone to tell them honestly, sincerely, how i feel about them. even if it ain't pretty.
4. i made an impromptu back massage appointment last night. i bit $70. ouch.
5. i've started saying "NO."
6. last night, i ate a tub of field greens and lettuce. and tub really *is* the right word.
i think i need a vacation. no cell phones, no one from work calling me to ask me how to plug in a mouse, or where the printer paper is, or how to do this or not. no more people calling me asking me for free therapy sessions about their crazed mom or some personality disorder. i want to go away. the three manuscripts and 5 poster submissions can wait. the montages of bilateral activation can wait. heck, even my piece of sh*t thesis can wait. i'll defend in august. where should we go? boss finally gave me the word, i'm ready to take the plunge. . .
HELP ME!!
here are my criteria:
1. warm
2. beaches and lots of clear water
3. foreign languages - ok.
4. culture : read ruins, architectural wonders - yes, yes, yes!
5. sleeping on the ground, camping, lack of showers - most definitely NOT ok.
6. 24 hour flight- not ok.
i've known for years that i share the same birthday with the dalai lama. it makes me feel special, even if it's just superstition that people born on the same day share some sort of karmic similarity.
then last night, while cleaning the apartment, a magazine i *never* read flipped open to a page that held my worst nightmare: 60 years ago, dubya was born on this here day.
that just triply negated my pride.
okay. so i have no idea what the gobbledygook up above means. but it sounds very much akin to what bf and i heard for almost two hours yesterday morning, when we meandered over to our second bikram yoga class. after weeks and months of running and biking and traveling around, and both of us feeling slightly burnt out at work, we decided to do a more calming activity.
bikram yoga isn't like most normal yoga. the room is set at 100 degrees. within 5 minutes, you're dripping in sweat, even if you're someone like me who usually doesn't sweat all that much (even after my 1/2 marathon, i was still relatively dry). it's so hot that the heat hits you like a wall when you walk in, and you feel parched to your core.
the amazing thing about it, however, is that you can do some seriously crazy sh*t. take for example, my one-legged tree. i was able to stand on one leg, grasp my hands around my other foot, and extend it out directly in front of me. you hold this pose for about 20 seconds. or the twisting rose pose, where my arms and legs were each separately entwined with each other and i was crouching 12" off the ground, on my toes. it's pretty amazing , given that i sometimes can't even touch my toes after a long run. it's even more amazing how incredibly sore i am. even with all the running, biking, weightlifting, or whatever i do, i feel like i got my ass seriously kicked by that class.
verdict: 4 out of 5 stars. will go again. except with more water and more towels. not recommended for the obsessively compulsively clean who do not like to sweat and/or be stinky. is especially enjoyable if you are next to bf who makes all sorts of grimacing-constipation-like faces in his exertion to be a perfect standing tree.