mayumi

I don't usually do this...

2009-09-10T00:22:00.001-07:00

but I'm not going to cheat myself [or you] today, so I'm going to share something personal.

On November 15th, 2004, a good friend of mine called me and told me I absolutely had to meet her. I was confused because there was an urgency in her voice, but I couldn't read it. She refused to tell me on the phone so I rushed over to her. When I saw her, tears peeked from the corners of her eyes every time she blinked, and after a short "Hi, what's wrong?" she told me--Christina Cho died.

By this point in my life I'd heard of a few deaths. Someone losing their grandparent. Some distant relative in another country passed away. In middle school a student lost his mother. He was out for a month, and when he returned we didn't know what to say, so we just kept on going, because what words are there for something of that magnitude when you're not even a teen and have a limited scope of life? My great grandfather was on his deathbed in my grandmother's house and I was there when he passed--along with my grandmother and her sisters--and I watched, objectively, from the top of the stairs as my family joined in grief. I knew people came, and then they left, but they were distant deaths and I was far from the life lived in between.

But Christina didn't just die--she committed suicide. Christina was 19 years old. Christina had a brilliant mind and was in her second year at UCSD studying some type of science I would never dream of touching in such detail. Christina studied her ass off, and she was recognized time and time again for it. She gave back to others--we bonded through a community service organization we were heavily involved in. Christina had a beautiful voice. Christina could make me laugh at the silliest things. But something I didn't know about was eating away at her, and it hurt me like hell that this was what it silently pushed her to. Sure, she would say some things that suggested she was fragile, sad, unhappy on an online blog...but it could've easily been confused with the teen angst that can rip through us during those turbulent years. Or maybe she just hid her depression well. I wish she would've talked with someone that could've helped. I wished like hell that I could've been there to do anything at all instead of the nothing that occured.

I hadn't spoken to her in months. I was here, she was there. We led busy lives. I heard she'd gotten a boyfriend, and I was happy for her. I didn't hear from her too much, but I believed we could come back together sooner or later. I had no idea what was going on in her life, but I thought of her from time to time and missed her, but thought she was happy.

And then one day her boyfriend decides to drive his motorcycle down from LA to visit her in SD. There is heavy rain and she tells him not to come, but he insists, so she agrees. Something goes wrong and he's in a terrible car accident. He's in ER. He dies. She grieves. Their families grieve together. She feels horrible that he was on his way to see her, and blame weighs down on her. Not more than a week later, we lose her.

Losing her was one of the hardest things I have ever experienced in my life, but I was able to transform the heartbreak into something positive when I received some wise words:

Take a quality of Christina, and apply it to yourself. Christina was a hard working person. Whenever you feel as though you can't do something, think of her and her work ethic. How she could always do the impossible with spectacular results. Just think of her and do it for her, and she'll live on with us forever.

Her death made every petty worry in my life at that time seem so trivial, and it made me want to live. It made me want to be hardworking because she was, and she always inspired it in me. It made me do my best and never give up, because she would never let me when I was down. She was so supportive.

So everywhere I go, I take this with me, and when I think of her I try not to cry, but smile. Because that's what she always told me to do--smile. So I did, I do, and I always will.

Depression and suicide are not topics people should shy away from. We should be able to talk about these things, be aware of early signs, and know how to treat it.

Today is the World Health Organization's Suicide Prevention Day. Please spread awareness.

Oscar Wilde

2009-09-08T16:41:00.001-07:00

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation"

i used to care

2009-09-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

about writing. every single day, even if it was a silly, meaningless post.

it was a good routine. i think i've been in survival mode too long. once i can relax, it will flow.

until then, i flounder in the "existential angst" of jon arbuckle:

"Although the wind"

Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.

Izumi Shikibu

lady

2009-08-28T02:16:00.000-07:00

i liked the way the server remembered me at dinner the other night.

my sleeping patterns are erratic. the past few nights i've been up until 3:30am/4am. last night when jeffrey came to visit me i KO'd before 11pm. i sleep so much better when he's next to me. we really do sleep in different intervals though. boourns. today i worked another unexpectedly long day: 11a-8p. i don't like getting in there early because it's likely i'll work a 12 hr day. tonight i napped from about 10pm-12:30am, in and out with phone calls with my rover and am still slightly wide awake. i want to take a shower but there's a dead moth on the floor and i cannot touch it, and i think my roommates are already in bed so i don't know what to do. i can't even pee, it's right where i'd put my feet. maybe it's my grandpa. don't they represent those no longer here? i don't know what to do, so i'll just sit here with phoenix's 1901 on repeat until i devise the perfect plan.

i love and hate that my days/weeks/months are so planned out. cleaning my room at day break.

left branching syntax :]

2009-08-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

"This Be The Verse"

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Philip Larkin

...

2009-08-18T00:09:00.000-07:00

i hate that the things that made me strong broke the people i love most.

this is not how i wanted to end a 12hr work day.

this week wants to eat me alive.

Dear Man Whose Marriage I Wrecked

2009-08-10T21:33:00.000-07:00

If it's any consolation, when your wife took me
in her mouth, I closed my eyes and pretended

I was a piece of wedding cake. I was the instigator,
bringing her flowers so often her co-workers

nicknamed me carnation hands. At night, I'd look
at the stars and slither my petals through her hair.

It was like we were on Mars--me staring over
her skull at one moon, her gazing at another.

What I'm really trying to say is I tumbled into her
arms like a thousand reluctant dominoes.

I mean, isn't it odd--how you can buy a lap dance,
phone sex, or blowjob in a snap, but can't

pay a person a dollar to just sit next to you
on a park bench and simply hold your hand?

Jeffrey McDaniel

i love this video.

2009-08-04T00:58:00.000-07:00

Happy.

2009-08-04T00:31:00.000-07:00

Laura Trice

2009-08-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

Willard Wigan

2009-08-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

Shel Silverstein

2009-08-02T23:57:00.001-07:00

"I would hope that people, no matter what age, would find something to identify with in my books, pick up one and experience a personal sense of discovery. That's great. But for them, not for me. I think that if you're a creative person, you should just go about your business, do your work and not care about how it's received. I never read reviews because if you believe the good ones you have to believe the bad ones too. Not that I don't care about success. I do, but only because it lets me do what I want. I was always prepared for success but that means that I have to be prepared for failure too. I have an ego, I have ideas, I want to be articulate, to communicate but in my own way. People who say they create only for themselves and don't care if they are published...I hate to hear talk like that. If it's good, it's too good not to share. That's the way I feel about my work. So I'll keep on communicating, but only my way."

The Uses of Poetry

2009-07-25T20:15:00.001-07:00

This was a day when I did nothing,
aside from reading the newspaper,
taking both breakfast and lunch by myself
in the kitchen, dozing after lunch
until the middle of the afternoon. Then
I read one poem by Zbigniew Herbert
in which he thanked God for the many beautiful
things in this world, in a voice so absurdly
truthful, the entire wrecked day was redeemed.

by Harvey Shapiro

How Many, How Much

2009-07-23T10:24:00.001-07:00

How many slams in an old screen door?
Depends how loud you shut it.

How many slices in a bread?
Depends how thin you cut it.

How much good inside a day?
Depends how good you live ‘em.

How much love inside a friend?
Depends how much you give ‘em.

by Shel Silverstein

(500) Days of Summer

2009-07-21T23:33:00.000-07:00

YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS FILM!

The Company You Keep

2009-07-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

Elementary, yet true. Wildly appropriate at the moment:

It is better to be alone than in the wrong company. Tell me who your best friends are and I will tell you who you are. If you run with wolves you will learn how to howl. But, if you associate with eagles, you will learn how to soar to great heights. "A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of 'friends' he chooses." The simple but true fact of life is that you become like those with whom you closely associate – for the good & the bad. The less you associate with some people the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people. As you grow, your associates will change. Some of your "friends" will not want you to go on. They will want you to stay where they are. "Friends" that don't help you climb will want you to crawl. Your "friends" will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those that don't increase you will eventually decrease you.

Consider this:

· Never receive counsel from unproductive people.
· Never discuss your problems with someone incapable of contributing to the solution, because those who never succeed themselves are always first to tell you how. Not everyone has a right to speak into your life. You are certain to get the worst of the bargain when you exchange ideas with the wrong person.
· Don't follow anyone who's not going anywhere. With some people you spend an evening: with others you invest it.
· Be careful where you stop to inquire for directions along the road of life.
· Wise is the person who fortifies, his life with the right friendships.

AMY TAN

2009-07-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

C.K. WILLIAMS: POETRY OF YOUTH AND AGE

2009-07-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

J.J. ABRAMS' MYSTERY BOX

2009-07-07T20:13:00.001-07:00

TOM WUJEC: 3 WAYS THE BRAIN CREATES MEANING

2009-07-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

RICHARD BRANSON @ TED

2009-07-07T19:57:00.001-07:00

RIP MJ SHIRTS

2009-07-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

RIP MJ.
Contact jeff [AT] neighborhoodprints [DOT] com for more info.
White shirts available too!

Variations On The Word Love

2009-06-30T02:23:00.000-07:00

by Margaret Atwood

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love , you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
This word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.

DAMN.

2009-06-25T20:06:00.000-07:00

i feel silly saying something felt off today, but it did. i read a chapter on death in "norwegian wood" and i couldn't sleep last night. i checked the time at 12:21pm and as soon as i went online at work there were CNN reports about his having been in the hospital. it was too weird. it really shocked me. i grew up with MJ. i always felt for him. he had such a tragic life. but he was so talented. i loved his music videos. i loved watching specials about him. it's crazy how many have grown up and been inspired by him.

RIP MJ

PIKTURA

2009-06-25T04:14:00.001-07:00

i had something important to say but i can't remember what it was, so i'll just leave you with these. i took the first and last. the rest by jeffrey: