for larry & chris & lisa & quynh & hel & jenn

larry took me out to dinner the first night i was back. back. that makes it sound like i never left for good. we sat in la mediterranee for nearly two hours. it felt like two minutes. he brings out a part of me i've spent my entire life running away from, avoiding, denying. he gives me strength. and courage. and from that fateful night before the december LSATs, the first catharsis he'd introduce me to, i've never been the same. and he paid for my dinner. i shouldn't have let him.

chris woke me up after i had fallen asleep for merely ten minutes. swung his leg over me. embraced me. hugged me like a giant teddy bear. i don't remember how long we stayed up, talking over the annoying hum of his toilet, his body flopped on top of mine. i complained about his weight. but i never told him how good it felt just to have someone close to me like that. intimate. as intimate as we could ever get.

lisa is one of the only people on earth who could make me feel guilty for not drinking. she has that power to make me do things i wouldn't normally do. in a span of one evening, i had more drinks than i've had in the past four months. asparagus salads, reisling wine, fried olives, muscat & espresso, she is the perfect combination of sophistication, class, intelligence and beauty.

quynh was my tennis partner. i guess there's always been that sort of unspeakable bond between us. for christ's sake she's smacked me with a tennis ball before. my body apparently got in the way of her serve. i can't not lie to her. i always seem to be pouring out my heart to her. she's seen all sides of me. the good, the bad, the ugly. the even uglier. and i don't understand why she's still there. but she is.

helen intertwines her legs with yours when you sleep next to her. i woke up with my legs connected intricately with hers. and it didn't feel weird. it just felt like...helen. nothing is ever too much with her. we have no boundaries. god, sometimes i think we should. but fuck that, it wouldn't be the same. she cooked for me, drove me places, massaged my scar. wait, no, she poked my scar and made it itch for an entire day.

jennifer. my mom said we could be like sisters since we're both only children. she's always taken care of me. in an odd way i'd say she's almost like an older sister. which doesn't make any sense since she's younger but what's details anyway. she listens. and with just a look, a slight touch, a hug, she can change the course of my emotions from sad to relieved.

i missed many things. that i know. but for what it's worth, i have the rest ingrained to my memory. for someone who claims she's better with words than anything else, i'm suddenly at a loss. because i think, in many ways, no words can ever describe the way i feel inside. that's damned cliche. but someone once told me that cliches have merit. i think she might be right.

ayer

I had one of those days today that reaffirmed my somewhat faded belief that there are certain people out there in the world that can make you entirely happy just by being there.

It’s to talking to the point where your mouth is completely dry, and the back of your throat aches for water. And not caring that you’ll probably wake up the next morning with a throbbing sore throat; and continuing to talk.

It is seeing yourself in another, or parts of yourself that you wish to be, parts of yourself that have slipped away, parts of yourself that you desperately hope others see.

It’s about understanding, really understanding, sympathizing, empathizing, relating, communicating, feeling, wishing, dreaming.

It is growing up, a bit with each moment, wiser perhaps, experienced nonetheless. It’s realizations, spurned from each other’s thoughts.

It’s to friendships you thought could never exist given the circumstances. It’s to friendships, let me get that correct; it’s to friendship, born among crazy conditions, and sustained through technology. It’s to being somewhat alike, and relating to one another, and duck eggs, hanging animals in Chinatown, light blue birth stones we cannot recall the name of, and hopefully, that same comforting feeling you get when you know you’ve truly found something remarkable.

I had one of those days today.

insomnia

this never happens. what's going on? it's almost 4:30 am and i cannot sleep. my eyes are tired, my body is tired, but yet i'm still wide awake. i tried reading a book. at this rate i'll finish it. i tried browsing the internet. if i continue, i'll probably buy all of urban.com. i tried talking to chris. and i continue talking.

i'm so going to be a crazy person tomorrow, wired on coffee and talking a mile a minute.

such is life.

MASTURBATION for the soul

you don't want to miss. trust me.

into the mystic

for a great deal of my life, i never really thought i had a father. well, i know, i'm not stupid, i have a father, but i've never really seen him as a father figure. my mom used to say (and still does for that matter) that she was raising two kids, because my dad can seem 12 at times. and sometimes she even used to say i was more mature than he ever could be, but deep down, i knew it wasn't true. children aren't supposed to be more mature than their parents.

my dad's the type of guy that hates when people cry. when i came home from the december LSATs with tears streaming down my face he took one look at me, scoffed, and turned the other way. "why are you crying, instead of always crying, why don't you do something about it". he's the type of person that hates arguments. he can't talk about feelings. in many ways he's as stoic as a marble statue from the 15th century.

he's never really been good at comforting me. more often than not, it always turns out as some sort of criticism. and ironically i have him to thank for that, because from a very young age he taught me how to bear words of criticism. take it with your shoulders high, never flinch. listen to people. they may not always be right, but take it. it'll build your character.

i remember many instances years ago when people would meet my dad for the first time, clad in skater shoes, billabong t-shirt, and hurley shorts. "that's your dad?!" and secretly, i've always been a bit proud. my dad is unique, different, albeit a bit strange and perpetually suffering from a mid-life crisis, but isn't everyone anyway? he's the guy that would indulge in double chocolate chip shakes with me, let me drag him through the all-terrain snowboard park only to yell at me afterwards for being so reckless thinking i could scale a 6 ft rail, and without fail, make fun of my mom with me at the dinner table every night.

the first memory i have is of my father burning my hand. that sounded wrong. let me explain. the first memory i have is when i'm about 3 years old...or was i 2? either way, it was the middle of the night, and i was hungry. so my dad woke up, and carried me to the kitchen and was cooking me eggs. apparently he told me to place my hand over the stove to feel it's warmth. i was 2, how was i supposed to know the difference between placing my hand over the stove and putting my hand on the stove?

all my life i wanted him to be proud of me. and maybe that's why i regret quitting softball so much. because those four years i spent in the red dirt scraping my knees, having line drives come straight at me, striking out, stealing bases, making double plays...were the four years i could definitively say my dad was proud of me. wait, i remember another instance. senior year of high school, when i got into berkeley and had listed my major as statistics. my dad thought i would become an actuary (i probably can't even spell that word correctly). needless to say, i obviously didn't. "another dream down the drain, what is sociology anyway?"

and it hurt. i can't deny it. daddy's little girl has to always live up to his dreams, his expectations. it wasn't until recently that i started realizing that in many ways, he has shown his pride, i just didn't know it. up in tahoe last week, my aunt was saying how it's hard for many of my dad's sisters to show up to family gatherings because they were embarrassed...of their own children. "phillip? he's a bum!" "did you know james did time in fresno?"

i started to look back, and realize that my dad has never missed a family outing, like ever. over the dinner table one night in tahoe, he started talking about how i spent so much money studying in berkeley. and said i should have taken the scholarship and attended uci. i hated how he always brought that up. how he was always reminding me i could have saved him more money. but i started realizing that it wasn't his way of making me feel guilty. it was his way of saying he was proud of me, for getting a scholarship. okay, it was uci and everyone got it, but still, he doesn't have to know that.

when i look back, it was my dad who let me go my way; it was my dad who accepted, without protest my quitting of softball, my decision to study sociology instead of statistics, my request to spend the next month in europe. he still mutters comments about how i gave up a softball scholarship, how sociology is for losers, and how i have no logic to ever be a lawyer, but i can see past it. regardless of all the uncertainty that hangs over my head right now, how i have absolutely no clue what i want to do with my life, i know my dad will always be there. and he may not say it all the time, or at all for that matter, but at the least expected moments, i can feel an ounce of his pride. which is all i ever wanted.

while watching animal planet

erika: there's this book i read over and over in elementary school. it's called "where the red fern grows" and in the end, big dan is killed by mountain lions and his sister little ann is so sad she basically dies of a broken heart! i cried all the time when i read it.
dad: dude, i spared you of that pain. see? you don't have to be sad because you have no brothers and sisters!
erika: ....
erika (cont'd): that's the worst reason i've ever heard of denying me siblings.
dad: hahaha, yep!

for larry who never fails to make me laugh, to the point of tears, because he's just that damn hilarryous.

and because he said he'd make out with me. without hesitation. yeah, baby.

dan: i fell in love with her, alice.
alice: oh, as if you had no choice?! there's a moment, there's always a moment; i can do this, i can give in, or i can resist it. and i don't know when your moment was but i bet you there is one.

from closer

finalized

it's done. officially. (amy darling, you can stop nagging now)

from may 9 to june 7, amy and i will be traversing europe. i can't even begin to put into words how excited/thrilled/scared/eager/terrified/enthusiastic i am about this. how am i going to overcome the language barrier? can i handle being away from everything i've known for a month? what if i can't find a coffee shop every morning?

screw that. i'm going to europe. and i'm going to have the fucking best time of my life.

mostly because i'll be with one of the few people i trust/admire/envy. and because i know she'll make damned sure we'll be nothing short of exceeding all our expecations. and because well, simply put, she's one of my favorite people in this entire world.

i just hope she won't pull an amy.