Day 328

I had an interview with a Chinese newspaper the other day. The journalist turns out to know both my mom and dad. He said something like, "Oh, you have good lineage." I'm not sure what that means but I took it as a good thing. The interview was set up by a family friend, Aunt Anna, who has taken a nice interest in my writing. She sent out some query emails to two Chinese publications and a few days later, two interviews! I'll be conducting both in my amazing Chinglish.

This particular writer actually has quite the story himself. He was in the Army for twenty years as a war correspondent. He wrote a book in 1985 about an ex-soldier who has been wounded and lost an eye, and then he moves to America but isn't sure if it's the right place for him. He said they printed 90,000 copies of the book at the time. That's a huge number. If a book sold 100,000 copies nowadays, that would be a runaway best seller. Due to a larger population and less competition for publication, it was semi-normal for a book run back then. I think nowadays if you had an initial print run of 30,000 you'd be leaping for joy.

Part of me wishes I had the ability and training to do interviews. I love learning about people and asking them all sorts of questions. I'm pretty much curious about anything. Strangely, I hate reading interviews, especially the ones with celebrities or musicians or whatnot. The format loses me for some reason, even though the words are much more direct than through a story that has the occasional quote. I'd really love to follow someone(s) around and try my hand at documenting their words/life.

I love reading the spotlights and profiles in Entertainment Weekly or Rolling Stone. It's like you find an angle, spin it out, and then get to tell the world what you think the person is like. The skill of interviewing is something I'd be interested in acquiring.

I've had thoughts about coming up with mini-profiles and articles about people I know in my life (or even strangers?) but it's difficult because sometimes in trying to tell a story, you might have to say negative or possibly offensive things. For example, what if I wrote that someone seemed "flippant, superficial, immature, or uncultured?" They'd hate me forever!

But if someone is willing to be a test subject, I'm game to try profiling them. I really admire the people who can capture a person's look or persona with just a few sentences and details. I'm wholly incapable of it so I should really practice.

Day 316

Whoosh, and there goes the summer. It's only mid-July, summer weather has finally arrived to San Diego, and I've yet to actually get on a surfboard. Sadly, I already see the sun setting on Summer 2009. This month it's writing by mid-day, hang out by night, hitting the beach whenever I can, and then a return to San Francisco by early August. There's quite a few visitors slated for SF in August, led off by Des and Andri, and then Greg and Caroline. My biggest dilemma right now is whether or not to go to New York in August, before Palak's wedding. While New York in the summer is my favorite, half my reasons for going won't be there. Still, when has a New York trip ever been bad? That's it, I'm committing. I'm going. If I don't go anywhere with my summer, I'll feel like it's been wasted.

I've lately been feeling like if I don't go somewhere out of the country soon, my entire year will have been wasted. I've been asking around to figure out what sorts of programs allow you to go overseas and they pay for your room and board. I guess I could teach English, I mean, I speak it. But I'm not sure that's a good solution to what I'm looking for. For two seconds I even thought about the Peace Corps. But I hate the Peace Corps, and I couldn't commit for longer than three days anyway. Pretty much, I just want out somewhere.

So what else? Well, not much really. The first draft of my next book is due in August, and this time I hope it'll be two hundred times better than the first book. People have been asking me how EC is doing and to be honest, I don't know. The publisher doesn't tell me and it's hard to gauge sales otherwise. I feel like I'm not putting enough effort into doing the promotional and marketing bit, seeing as this is such a commercial work, but I'm also not quite entirely sure what I'm slacking on. I think I'll work on a book signing somewhere, just to have the experience. Maybe I can do one in New York! That's an idea. What I really need is someone who knows someone famous to give them a copy of EC and then they can be seen carrying it around. Quick, someone tell me who they know that's a celebrity. Go.

The other day, I had lunch with a family friend, call him Uncle Dragon, which is a too literal translation of his name. It was the type of talk that I probably need more of, and in the past I'd normally balk at, but I don't mind it nowadays. The "how are you" and "let me give you some advice" talk. You know, fatherly talk. I realized recently that it seems like most people have advisors to whom they ask about life decisions. Not minor ones but big ones. Maybe it's a parent, or a close friend, or a sibling, or something. When you find yourself at a crossroads, or even if you're not, these advice people tell you what they think of how you're doing.

I don't have these people. My life decisions aren't really bounced off of anybody. Not that my life decisions are all that serious or necessarily hard to solve, but I generally think about something, figure out what I want, and then announce it. This may not be the best way about things. While I certainly don't like being told what to do (I mean, isn't that what my Mom is for?), I'm beginning to suspect that it's somewhat abnormal to not seek counsel from anyone.

Uncle Dragon gave me some good advice, and some personality analysis. We mostly talked about jobs and career, and what it means to have self-respect. He made some excellent points, about me lacking patience and unwillingness to go through the lows to achieve the highs. I don't think he was necessarily very on target all the time but it's good to hear things from "the wiser" once in awhile.

I really wanted to ask him something, but I wasn't sure he would get where I was coming from. I wanted to ask, "What's the point (of all this)?" But I didn't want to get into a tangent about religion, or having a family, or being happy, or any of that. I just wanted to thank him for his time and to make him feel like he helped.

When I'm older, I wonder what sorts of advice I'll be giving, and how it'll be received.

"Young people don't know anything -- especially that they're young."
-Mad Men-

Day 311

I wonder how many people are in love with Claire Danes, or were in love. With Angela, I guess, more accurately. I'm watching her talk to Letterman at age sixteen. It's a bit inconceivable that sixteen year olds are like this. I mean, she pretty much looks the same now, and her subsequent appearances on Late Night aren't necessarily more poised or more mature, or older, etc. I mean, compare her to the awkwardly spazzy Kristin Stewart, who was eighteen when she did her "star" turn on Letterman.

I'm trying to figure out, in watching Claire talk, if I've basically templated my dream girl out of some combination of Angela Chase, Natalie Portman (mainly Marty in Beautiful Girls), and Dorothy. All young naif-ish girls who are mature beyond their years. I'm pretty much destined to date young I've decided. Why fight it? All this and I haven't even read Lolita yet.

Recently, I've been having talks with people about the themes in their love lives. What types of people they are attracted to, who gets attracted to them, etc. For the most part, we're all old enough now where history is a big enough factor to go back and pick out some patterns and such. What I'm discovering is that I pretty much haven't moved past adolescence as far as what I'm attracted to.

What I have learned to do, is verbalize and pinpoint better exactly what I'm looking for. A new trait I think I like, for example, is neuroticism. I like people who read into all sorts of little things. Nervousness as something to talk about. If someone is super neurotic, it generally means they're really observant -- and we won't run out of things to obsess over. Now, while I know I'm attracted to this, I'm not sure if that's a good thing. Heavy neuroses might lead to terrible relationships (especially with me), but yet it's a quality I'm instantly attracted to. It's like I like that emotional and mental high maintenance, but if I were to actually date that, it would be a disaster.

I want to start a service (or write a book) about the importance of that first real relationship. I'm often of the idea "date that first one, get it out of the way, move on." But that really doesn't give enough importance to your first real significant other. Shit, that stuff will reverberate with you forever. Talk about being ruined for life. Anything bad (or good) in that first relationship and you'll be stuck figuring it out for the next fifteen years, or living in an infinite loop if you're destined for a tragic love story.

My service would provide parents and friends with the knowledge that their child will have the perfect first boy/girlfriend. We'd even do a psychological profile and figure out the best way for this perfect first person to exit their life gracefully after a year or two. Puppy love is fun and cute and all but we all know that there's no better way to scar yourself forever than through those first experiences.

This is probably a million dollar idea, but I'd only charge an hourly fee of twenty bucks or so.

Also, in talking about people recently, I've been using the term "gravity" and "attraction." Some people have attraction, some people have gravity. In short, attraction only works on certain types of people. Like magnetism, there's one pole that attracts and one pole that repels. People with romance gravity however, just suck the opposite sex right in. "She's got strong gravity, any guy who hangs around her will end up liking her." I have to refine this theory and come up with some examples, but it looks promising already.

L.O.V.E. Story

Strangely, I don't have much to say post-Lynn's wedding. It was a great time, it was almost exactly as expected, and there were some really memorable small and big moments. Recently I feel like there's been a lot of events and I've been trying to furiously scribble them down in my journal but it's a losing battle. The more you try to write down and remember, the more you're likely to forget.

We talked late on Saturday night, after the wedding, about having some sort of telepathy machine to allow us to experience things from someone else's perspective. I think I'd settle for just having a machine that allows me to experience things (again) from my own perspective. Like that Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett movie, "Strange Days." They had a technology that allowed you to record your memories and emotions, and then play them back via a CD player thing. I need one of those. Actually, technology is far enough along to strap a pinhole camera to your body at all times, so you could kind of approximate it, but that would just be weird. Right?

Things can happen so fast that you don't really reflect on them enough, or allow the impact to sink it. That's the tragedy, I think, of a busy life. Not that I have one. I just have an extensive journal awaiting updates, which keeps me seemingly busy.

The most touching moment for me? When Ed sang Nat King Cole's "L is for the way you look at me / O is for the only one I see / V is very very extra-ordinary / E is even more than anyone that you adore can." He held the mic in one hand while holding her and dancing with the other. It was romantic in a very real way, it was public yet private, and it was incredibly sweet. Bravo Ed.

The place they had the wedding was gorgeous. Entirely outdoors, acres and acres of beautiful trees and foliage. It was reminiscent of PZ and Amy's wedding actually, the way different events were held at different locations. And the pre-hype was no lie, there really were white tigers on the premises, even if I didn't see them for more than one fleeting moment as we drove by. I'm not sure what kind of venue I expected but it wasn't this. Like wow.

Lynn and Ed exchanged their vows via haiku, which was irreverent, different, and apparently, ultimately, them. Like Babbs said, "I didn't know why I didn't expect something like that from Lynn. I should have known, I just didn't guess." That sums up my thoughts about the whole wedding. Of course this was going to be an impeccably planned and beautiful wedding, with class and taste and fun involved throughout. And of course she planned this totally stress free and had everything turn out perfectly. This was a Lynnchen affair after all wasn't it?

I kept an orange and brown napkin from the wedding. It somehow mysteriously stayed with Dann through dinner and then transitioned to his back pocket while he was dancing, and it made it all the way back to the hotel room. He left it there but I nabbed it because I thought it would be nice to have something tangible to remember the weekend by, aside from just pictures and memories.

There is some sort of karmic shift in the world actually, now that Lynn is officially married. I have a tough time pinpointing it. I've tried to speak to some people about it but I'm not sure everyone understands. It's not like this is just someone else who got married, another in the long string of celebrations. This is like Lynn getting married. It means something. It's not as quaint as people having crushes on her or liking her and now she's taken. It's not about Lynn representing this ideal partner for many, in group discussions. It's not about Lynn being a different person or leading a different life now that she's married. It's about something else/more... and I can't quite put my finger on it, or articulate it, and it probably only feels this way to a handful of people. I need to find those people and have a conversation about this.