"Half Acre" Hem

1.
She said, "You seem so calm."

But my loosening gums--my dental hygienist is convinced--are testaments of a tense life. She's noticed something about me, about these 20-somethings who drive themselves nuts trying to succeed. My parents generation, she said, lived a more balanced life, and subsequently did not suffer from such periodontal woes. They were less stressed; their teeth were squarely anchored.

"Is your job stressful?"
"I don't notice it."
"Do you sit in traffic?"
"I take the train. It's great."

We ruled out the usual suspects in our lineup. And all she could recommend was the incorporation of vitamin C pills in my regimen and perhaps an increased vigilance with my dark chocolate intake.

2.
I would like very much to make footsteps in snow. This is my New England fantasy. And I look up and breathe and think, "Of all the places I thought I'd be right now, why here? Why now?" I keep wanting you. There's nothing in the sky. I feel my lips are chapped. And to step on a wooden porch and kick the snow off my boots. And to come inside your small room that glows orange.

"Wings" Gustavo Santaolalla

Thought 1.
There are times when I feel I want to help the world. There are times when I think I can just pack up and join an ashram or help rebuild some huts in Ecuador. And then I think of the people who normally inhabit those fantasies and think, hmm, they probably would love to switch places with me. So I guess screw them. That's why I think donating to your favorite organization is good enough.

Thought 2.
I'm thinking about transferring to another office within the company. Maybe London for a couple of years or New York. But I can't stand the rain and snootiness of London and I can't stand the urinal stench of summertime in New York. My life is OK, you know. But sometimes I just get a little restless.

Thought 3.
What I'm most excited about right now is my 4am drive to the airport. I feel so good at that hour. I am most excited about standing in the cold with my bag and waiting and breathing the cold thin air and hearing the sounds and thinking of stuff. Stuff like, "Hmm, what's the point of accumulating wealth or knowledge, it's just more of the same, right? There is no point in that. So I guess life must be about love." I'm just kidding, I don't have those thoughts.

"Roscoe" Midlake

I knew, even before we drove out here, that it would end with me on the road walking in the same direction. Eight hours delayed. Jeans a bit dirtier. I can't recall the accident responsible for this stain on my knee. My pack has half a dozen cigarettes unaccounted for. And my shoulder is sore.

Three hours ago, I said, "I just want to feel the wind." You waited patiently. I realized then that graciousness--or perhaps mercy--is nothing but the postponement of separation.

You've disappeared westward and I head for the darkness of those mountains. Dust. Dust. Dust. Blowing in the still hot air. You were not supposed to believe what I said.

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"Atoms for Peace" Thom Yorke

I am the worst Buddhist. My wants rule my life. And on bad days I covet so desperately that I also become the worst Christian.

"Cigarettes Will Kill You" Ben Lee

My dream from just a few hours ago:

I.
I was on an overground train in New York. I'm sitting next to Natalie Portman. I want to talk to her, but I don't because I don't want her to think I'm a stalker. She smiles at me and begins to get up. I shift my knees to let her pass. I notice strange wide shoulders underneath that white sweater. She bows her head as she walks through the car, searching for a bathroom. While she's taking a piss, I write a poem.

All I can remember is that the first line includes the word "louse."

II.
I am suddenly underneath a television in the middle of this train, watching a Natalie Portman music video. But it is my poem she is singing and she's added a horrible line to the end . Did Natalie Portman just steal my poem? Why would she do this? She seemed perfectly capable of writing her own music when she appeared on Bravo's Inside the Actor's Studio. I wait for the video to end where it shows writing and producing credits. I run back to my seat. She's there with her svengali manager, who is dressed in a tight faded t-shirt.

"Why didn't you attribute this poem to me? I wrote that."

She just turns and smiles at me.

Cunt.

I begin to invade her physial space. I use my forearm to block her attempts to escape. I believe I also choked her.

III.
I am no longer angry with Natalie Portman, in fact we are walking the streets of New York City and are passing through a park. Snow has recently fallen and my Salomon shoes are not the right shoes. I wonder to myself if I brought boots. The snow gets through the shoe an melts in my socks. I say, "Hey, what's that? It's so beautiful." There is a black pinecone on one of the trees, but it is abuzz with small specks of golden light. She agrees that it's beautiful. There are golden specks of light everywhere.

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" Damien Rice

The last time I felt and looked like this--gaunt, emptied, beaten--I was a feverish boy staggering in the hallway, noticing anew the space and dimensions of doorknobs, runners and light fixtures. And the revitalizing coldness of bathroom tiles on my bare feet. I'm so tired. I do not recognize myself like this.

This morning, I ask for patience.

"Headphones" Bjork

If I could be the drug on your tongue, if I could swim in your blood.
If these accidental collisions grew patterns of intent.
If somebody lifted these gauzy rain clouds, several months late. They had no business here.
If we were blind and mute.
If it were as simple as the confluence of tributaries, identified by a new whole.
If I could leave these things behind and scale these walls.

These names follow me around. These disparate events are growing arms to reach each other and are aligning themselves under new definitions. I am cheap and jealous. I am plummeting into the negative half of my mind's amplitude. Where is the smell of Dharamsala? Where are these secret weapons I've been collecting?

How can we be judged on our successes, when they do not speak of the chaos that surrounds every event, and are influenced by those whose intent nor means we can control?

We do the best we can and I hope that somebody is keeping track.

"Olsen Olsen" Sigur Ros

I woke up at 4 this morning.

I was sleepy so this guy goes, here, take this. Hydroxycut. I said, fine, and besides, who doesn't want to burn a little extra sumpin' sumpin' around their waist right? What guy doesn't want the coveted V separation between the upper thighs and the lower obliques? I ain't too proud to tell you the truth. Shit.

So I've been running around unnecessarily around the office, like I'm cocained. And paranoid that people sense this frenetic energy coming out of my fingertips. Imagine my hands like the spiky outside of jackfruit and yellow lighting bolts coming out. And the sound of bees all around.

I want to vomit.

"Changes Are No Good" The Stills

I stopped working overtime for my job. I'm happy about that. I'm now rededicating myself to getting some other chapters published. Detached for months from this project has given me a bit of insight: Some of this shit sucked. The grammar is impeccable, of course, and the phrasing is precise and sometimes clever. But I was so concerned with length that some of these chapters lack the necessary focus to make it a compelling read. I'm working on a section now whose core element is a run-in with Osama Bin Laden. But I managed to talk about Disneyland, American commercials, the business casual beach attire of Muslims, a fist fight outside a restaurant, how many bottles of water I've drank, a fantasy scene with me and the president and another fight. Hmm, you know how sometimes nervous people talk too much as a means to conceal their ignorance or lacking confidence? This is what's going on here. Come on, boy, chin up.

Something else: This heat inspires both activity and lethargy. I woke up at 7 this morning after 4.5 hours of sleep, got dressed to play tennis, and went back to sleep until 11:30.

"Hide and Seek" Imogen Heap

"I know, but who was here first?"

Silly, really, for him to assume schoolyard ethics should have a place here. Of course this--the expectation that his rules would travel with him and instantly resonate with those he just met--was a mistake he'd made in the past, and one he continued to make on a perennial basis.

"Wait your fucking turn," he said. And to her, across the table, he mouthed, "Idiot."

Her delicate face, carefully embellished with the colors of moth and butterfly wings, falsely advertised a history and complexity in character that were largely absent. Surrounded by two men who were three choice words shy of a butter knife duel, she smiled. Perfectly still, vapid as ever.

His breaths had grown shallower over these last years. Despite irrefutable scientific evidence supporting deep, diaphragmatic breathing which he accidentally found on medical websites--he regularly browsed for pathologies for which he could qualify--he breathed like a very old man with a very large thing stuck in his throat.

"How I Made My Millions" Radiohead

It's like holding my breath and closing up my eyelids until they hurt and freezing the image in my head and zooming in and out, rotating it, trying to make indellible the nuances of its dimensions. And saying, "You're here, right here, inside, inside. Forever." But how can I make permanent that which was born from circumstance? A new smell, a distinct new blue in the sky, the lovely settling of food in my belly, a song, this one--an intermingling of forces cosmic in aggregation, chaotic in origin, never to happen again. How can something so pure and strong come from things so easily dismissed as the haphazard occurences of every day? I wish I could remember you, that easy smile, the way you treated others, a self-acceptance so vital it made others believe they too were deserving of love.

I was one of them. I was inside your orbit. And the faculties that held me up so well--analysis, skepticism, truth-finding--you suspended in your anti-gravity. But I have changed. I am smiling now, the kind whose gentle curve upward tries to conceal what the eyes cannot deny. I have the symptoms of a beautiful life, but I am sick of everything. And people know it from my eyes. Sick of what's around me, sick of the disease that's eating everybody around me, some know it and are struggling amid others who are unwittingly promoting its advance.

You said once you'd never leave, that you had moved inside me. And you said not to worry, you said, "You don't need to move to the mountains to be a Buddhist. It's up here." You pointed to my head. "And here." My chest.

"MJB Da MVP" Mary J. Blige

You know what, no, I'm not going to wait until my thoughts gel into clean organized thoughts. Won't wait for me to calm down, take a deep breath. I hate work. I fucking hate it. I wanted to run around the office ramming people into water coolers. Tackling them into the sharp edges of their hardwood cubicles. And smashing my forearm into necks, pushing them against lavender, sound-dampening walls. The truncated breaths associated with panic and assaults.

And I would grind my teeth at them. Stare at them directly and growl, "Don't question the quality of my product! I have flawless output!"

And a copy of my manifesto--again, flawlessly produced by one of our high-end all-in-one color laser printer/fax/scanner/copiers--will be thrown at each desk. Memorable lines include: "Down with the culture of mediocrity!...Lynch lazies!...Pass the buck and die!"

I'm cornered by people whose demands far exceed their capacity to produce. This leads to endless bitching and rampant finger-pointing.

I need to do push ups.

"Redemption" Bob Marley & the Wailers

This week is about integrity.

It is important to know when you will bend.

We are all whores, but you need to know your price.

"Wish You Were Here" Pink Floyd

And did you exchange
a walk-on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage?

"The Last Song" All American Rejects

Hopefully today's meeting was the last about this job. He said he'd called the 'bean-counters' and lobbied heavily in my favor. "Can we meet him halfway at least?" I appreciated this. This was to earn my trust. He then appealed to my perceived inexperience by saying, "You're making a very big mistake." He then appealed to my ego by saying, "I know by your DNA that you'll feel hollow if you returned to your old job. You have a great deal of pride in your work. The reason you had this opportunity in the first place is because of your work ethic and intelligence." He then called me an "Indian giver" and turned around and he then used intimidation by saying, "I don't know if anything else will come up for you, we're a very petty and vindictive department." He made a comment about me missing the bus and maybe this spot will be already taken by somebody else.

People who've made it in this company are people who are competent, persistent, but ultimately unambitious. Their success is attributable to their ability to slide into the status quo, their advancement is the result of a sequence of accidents that finds them at the right time at the right place. For a company this size, whose financial philosophy is very conservative, this structure works well. Improvements are made on a glacial pace, as a matter of evolution. Shifting paradigms is not in their interests. They cannot take these risks.

What I've learned about myself: If ego is unjustified confidence, then mine is big. There's no reason for me to believe I will be successful in a job whose prerequisite skills are nowhere to be found on my resume. But I just believe that I can. I was not intimidated by any part of this process and I'm proud of myself for that. I also saw an extremely competitive part of me that sometimes clouded my better judgement. I sometimes wanted to win so badly that I lost sight of the issues and interests that were on the table. I need to keep this in check because it's a hazardous quality in these situations. I realized that I can get stressed out and overworked, but that something switches right before showtime. I'm interested more in being respected than liked, but I also learned that it hurts me a great deal when people don't like me. I've found another tone in my voice, a stronger firmer one. I realized my patience is selective. I have a great deal with people I like. I have very little for those I don't. I realized that it is possible to fight for what I want and stay respectful.

"Nos Da Cariad" David Gray

I haven't felt as good as I did today in a very long time. The following are responsible:

1. Spoke with J. in the morning and yes, I will visit her in Philadelphia. I'm very excited. I can't wait to drink wine with J. And then to wake up early and do crossword puzzles.
2. Had a meeting at 9am with my boss's boss's boss's boss. She said I should not be short-sighted, said I should consider the opportunities, said she could not disrupt the equity of compensation for the group. I agreed with her and said I have thought of all of that. She said, perhaps I should think about it. I said, "I think I've already given you my answer." I had already declined it. "I cannot justify to myself working 60% more to receive just a 10% increase. I'm not comfortable with that." It feels good to say no to money. I hope this months-long fiasco is done. I've received attention because of all of this. My next step is to lay very low for the next 2 months.
3. The sun came out and it was windy. I felt with the right apparel I could fly away. Exactly two years ago, I arrived in Hanoi. I miss being out.

"End of the Day" Beck

I'm supposed to hear back about my stupid job tomorrow, wondering what kind of cockamamie plans about my new position and pay they've hatched. I've said no, and they've reconsidered their offer.

I will still say no.

The better part of my 8-hour workday was devoted to the careful selection of a Powerpoint template. I changed the colors around and then resourcefully parlayed copyrighted material into my very own, one-of-a-kind bullets. This is the kind of attention to detail that easily impresses the casual observer, and the average viewer of my presentation. It's the clean lines and cohesive identity of my visuals that will convince them of a material that is largely absent. In the battle between style and substance, style always wins. Substance without style is boring drivel that few are willing to interpret on their own. Style without substance is--at the very least--entertainment, and that's enough for most.

"Pink Bullets" The Shins

Two important conversations this past weekend have exposed the lopsidedness of my confidence. Tie my hands behind my back, hide my passport and stick me in a third world country and I'll be fine. Leave me in an interview wearing only tube socks and a wife-beater and I'll manage. It's putting my hand gently behind a girl's back, a subtle gesture of guidance and protection--I'm told; it's the awkward negotiation of personal space; it's the offering and the subsequent rubbing of cold hands; it's the steady pressure of my chest against her shoulder, as I hold the umbrella; it's saying, "No, you don't have to drive me home, my company will pay for a taxi." These are the things that make me sweat and stutter.

"Fix You" Coldplay

Earlier this week, I had dinner with somebody who--in a moment of clarity and reflection during yoga--realized something. At the age of 26, she had done much of the growing she was going to do. Her personality had gelled into its final shape. Beyond the incorporation of new slang, the appearance of some wrinkles, she saw in that wall-sized mirror, under those unforgiving gym lights, the woman she was going to be for the rest of her life.

"Baby Britain" Elliot Smith

Oh boy, what a mess, this stuff on my hands. I hope it wasn't premature when I said I had avoided all trauma that could've pushed me over the edge. Said that about a month and a half ago to a woman taking anti-depressants for four years.

According to the tests, I am in very good shape.

A friend drove by and said, "You're like digging at the sand and you think there's something 150 feet deep."

And I thought, "Why dig when I can just lay out?"

There was no traceable signs of parasites in my stool.

I never feel ready for shit, and yet here they come marching my way. I thought it was going to happen tonight, in the middle of a room, people sweating all over me, me breathing their nitrogen, and me in the corner, half-naked and chest heaving, the shape of my face narrowing and then I said to myself, "Who is this?" And I did not recognize the man in the mirror, the narrower face, the weirder right eye.

The last time this happened, I saw horns coming out of my brow, and my pupils elongated.

Before then, it was at my apartment and the shadows came and I found myself curled up into a ball in the corner of the room.

I don't have any STDs. I'm not diabetic, not hypoglycemic.

I said I'm not interested in distractions, but I fear what I may discover once I shake everything off. The instinct is to run, I've been told, to stop the system and evacuate. And if I could just be in that hut, on the bed, with a big bottle of water, some fruit and cigarettes and a thick book. The way I must cope with the factors in this world, those things I perceive threatening; I cannot do enough yoga, or drink enough water, or talk to my friends. I am continually having to improvise defenses and I don't know if I'm going to run out of ideas.

And I want to stop saying, "I'm OK, I'm OK, I'm OK."

I want to believe, truly believe that I am a man worthy of love, not as a reward for my goodwill, or for my successes as an employee, a traveler, a son, a friend. Love is not a consequence, it is a right.

And they said my heart is slow. My strong, strong heart that beats 60 bpm.

"Fix You" Coldplay

When you get what you want but not what you need.

"Olsen Olsen" Sigur Ros

I've known for quite some time now that everything I've always wanted to know I've known from birth. It's that thing that I feel in the stomach. It leads me down lit paths and some dark ones. It allows me to trust some strangers but not others. But as I got older, it was also this sense that experience and supposed wisdom began to challenge. The answer is to unlearn what we know, to strip away the fears and assumptions that eventually weighed down and muffled this guiding force.

Jared was a barista at Diedrich's. I've known him for two years but we've exchanged less than a hundred words to each other. My earphones and menacing I'm-working-right-now glare has precluded a more involved rapport. He got another job, I think at a Vans store somewhere south but tonight I saw him again behind the counter.

"What are you doing here? I thought you left."

"I did, but I'm back."

"Since when?"

"December."

I keep fighting for what I don't have. Keep wanting the unattainable. And it seems a bit silly now that in the presense of so many obstacles, I continue to choose self-deprivation.

"Where have you been? Haven't seen you around 'til recently."

"Yeah, I work downtown, in LA, so it's hard to get over here."

What I wanted to say, but what the established boundaries of our relationship could not allow was, "I'm sure it's nice to be where it's comfortable."

I will be turning down an opportunity to make more money, to increase my profile, to be in charge of something important. And in weighing out the pros and cons, it was the intangible gut feeling that tipped the scales. I am turning down a challenge and this is not in my nature. I am backing down and this hurts my pride. I am declining an offer and those around me won't understand. And in a way, I also don't understand it, but understanding is not always necessary for knowing.

"Love Vigilantes" New Order

Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes (this is when "Vigilantes" began to look wrong), Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes, Love Vigilantes (this is when "Love" began to look suspicious).

There are so many things running in my head.

Yes, it's time to own your past. This time, it's up to you. How a person like me, saved from a dumpster in Metro Manila (thanks to my mother's keen hearing and ready detection of children in distress) ends up where I am today. I'm smiling inside and I feel so 1989. And I say, "Coachella for the weekend with me! And, "I do not need this job. You see, I am a smart man, not a desperate one!" And "No thanks, Mr. Koo Koo Roo, I only want one side dish today, not two. You see, today's the day I choose how my life goes."

"Your Cloud" Tori Amos

What cannot kill you makes you stronger.
There's a lesson in here waiting to be learned.
God won't ever give you anything you can't handle.

I always had problems with these concepts because they seem like the rationalizations of the poor and oppressed; of people who keep finding themselves in the means of an end that may never come.

I'm thinking heaven was created because there really is no justice.

"Ceremony" Joy Division

Thoughts are those flashes between the synapses. It's the reaction between the chemicals, between the crap in my skull that defines me. That's a reductive conclusion; I've long suspected and now firmly believe that there is no difference between mind and body.

My camel pose was strained last night. I could not lift my hip as high as I normally do during rabbit and I could not manage the usually proud arc of my half-moon pose. Anxiety is stored in the mind, I once believed, but it slides down into the lower back, into the shoulders. Because I keep falling short of coping with the emotional counterpart, I dealt with the physical head on.

I was the last one out of the room, and if it weren't for the next class coming in, I could've stayed longer. The teacher took her shower then came back in. I said, "It's amazing how a tough week can really show up in your body."

"Don't worry about it Jose, you did great. Just don't be a stranger."

A professor once took me aside and talked to me. "It will never be easy, Jose, but it does get easier."

Wanting to solve all the problems is a noble goal, but one that may be too lofty to reach within one lifetime. I guess that's why we get several tries. In the meantime, I chip away at what I can.

And I'm fine now.

"I Will Follow You Into the Dark" Death Cab for Cutie

At 15 I thought by 17, for sure by 21. By 19 at 25, which I knew was the age when they'd let you rent a car without a youth fee. By 23, I had glimpsed it, and the murky photograph, worthless to most who held it, reminds me of the way my arm dangled off and dropped the book on the floorboards. It was the second story balcony, and I had no idea what I would face the following day. I read as slowly as possible and fell asleep.

The first thing he said--I believe it was six in the morning--was, "Did you get some?"

I smiled and said no.

We looked older, sure, the red and purple lights of the bar, more forgiving than the sun, which penetrated even the high altitude mist. Yes, you could tell her age if you looked at the skin around her eyes and yes, you could tell from the slack of my face that I probably had not been drinking enough water.

To want something I'm convinced it's a need. To need something it challenges my faith. To say nothing and walk away. When you walked inside that room and felt the heat of a disturbance that had since passed. The residue of movement, the fingerprint of something frenetic. Despite what the untouched bedsheets indicate, you felt--and knew--that something had just happened there.

If life is a sinusoidal wave, and amplitude is the degree to which we allow ourselves to feel. If the x-axis paid close attention to the years 15, 19, 23 please add 27.

"Warning Sign" Coldplay

It's funny how things creep up on you. Nowhere in my Excel worksheets did I plan for something like this, and that's why I know God favors irony in delivering his to-do lists. I've made a decision that has been long in coming and it brings a great deal of relief as much as it does a new array of fears. It's these times that count, when you're up against something that you can't wrap your brain around, with hidden dimensions you can't anticipate, with unmapped pitfalls. The sudden loss of breath, the caving in of your stomach. It's these times when you could so easily slip back into the known that you must push on. The onset of fear is a blessing because it tells you clearly which way to go: Don't turn around (it will follow you), don't sneak past it (it's much smarter than that), just walk through it (because that's what fear is most afraid of).

I keep telling myself that permanence is an illusion. Whether or not I did well on my SATs, well we were taught in high school to believe that it determined our lives. What school we went to, what major we chose, which job we chose, which relationships we nurtured and which ones we let go. Perhaps my friend is correct: Past and Future are illusory; Now is the only thing that's real. And I suppose what I need to do now is keep taking each step, one at a time, with relative disregard to where I may be heading, but confident that when each step is made in good faith I'll eventually land in a spot where I'll be fulfilled.

I've done this before, and all the things I keep inside, the secret weapon memories that make me believe that this, too, will turn out just fine.

"Thieves Like Us" New Order

I've accepted a business analyst position on a trial basis. I can't remember ever being this frightened in my life. When I get back from my trip, I will be thrown headlong into a situation I'm not qualified to handle. And because, clearly, I have not the substance for this job, I have to rely on mind tricks to get me through this. I'll let you inside my head:

Jose, please remember, that even as this situation appears daunting, you:

• Will try your darndest, and when you do this, you have a track record of avoiding embarrasment
• Are at your best as an underdog
• Were offered this position: If you fuck up, it's actually their fault for asking you to do it

I've had razorblade butterflies in my belly for days. I can feel the caldera of my stomach ulcer expanding. And still, these are the kinds of up-against-the-wall situations that enlivens dulled primal instincts and wakes my inner tiger. RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!

Hahaha. OK, this is really stupid. Here's the deal. I don't know how to do this, so I'll learn it and do it. Done.

"The Upper Peninsula" Sufjan Stevens

This song reminds me of simple things. I wonder if my preference for small, clean things is really just an aversion to the complex and ambiguous. At what point does a reaction become an action. I have been thinking a lot about what image people project, and how, at a certain point, truth loses currency. It's the stuff left after interpretation that we end up believing. So, success is managing others' expectations. Work has been difficult, but this show must go on.