perpetually underwhelmed

The O(ri)ffice

2011-11-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

my friend often refers to heading into work as "going to the orifice"...we have a good laugh every time.

but it's quite remarkable how much work does resemble a loose butthole.
it sucks the lifeforce out of you...takes the dreams you'd fed into, and sharts it back out in your face, leaving only splatters of soul-curdling reality. almost everyday, you're reminded of how unremarkable your life has turned out...how much this mundanity diverges from the aspirations you once had. almost every skill diminishes. every creative muscle atrophies. every percolation of ingenuity is replaced with routine.

we flock to the miragey oasis of the water cooler in summer. we huddle next to the water boiler in winter...because misery breeds camaraderie. and when you're around the right people, you can still find laughter in the hopeless situation you've been thrown into together.

i think i've been doing a good job keeping it together considering everything that's happened this year...i've refrained from angry posts and belligerent rants for the most part this past busy season, despite it having been even worse than usual because of what they say were the "residual effects of the tsunami" or whatever. not to discount the tragedies brought forth by the natural disasters in japan earlier this year, but i just want to ask what the excuse has been for previous years. even so, we got through it. we didn't have weekends or sometimes even sleep but we found solidarity in adversity. and it felt like for the first time in a while, work was something to throw myself into.

i understand that a job is called a "job" for a reason. i understand that (at least for most of us) work is not a playground of jellybeans and nerf-gun fights. at one point in time, everyone's watched "The Office" and grumbled, "that's my life". but the timeless theme to the show has been that in the midst of this horrid abstraction are multidimensional people who may not necessarily be your besties, but from time to time become an unlikely source of inspiration.

if you've never seen the BBC version of "The Office", i highly recommend you abandon the highfalutin mediocrity of NBC (at least on a non-Thursday night) and watch it. it's only 2 seasons + xmas special. the bleakness of it...the despondence...is heartbreaking in a way that has yet to be captured--at least of the seasons i've seen so far--in the american version. it's worth it.

Tim: The people you work with are people you were just thrown together with. I mean, you don't know them, it wasn't your choice. And yet you spend more time with them than you do your friends or your family. But probably all you have in common is the fact that you walk around on the same bit of carpet for eight hours a day.

i've trudged on this shameful excuse for carpet the past three and a half years. in that time, a handful of good, talented people have passed through these halls. it's too sad to think these walls are only here to hold all the pipedreams that get left behind.

i hope that someday, we find something that's worth being a part of.

Windows

2011-08-31T09:27:00.000-07:00

AUGUST HOROSCOPES:http://www.austinkleon.com/blog/

when i was 3, my family went to the beach. despite nikki having been the newborn, i was the one that was the handful. my mom reasoned with me, "it's not summer yet so the water's still cold. you can't swim in the water yet, okay?" while nodding, they saw the mischievous smile spread across my face. they hot-potatoed my sister to secure her into the baby carriage but with me darting full-speed, i was head-first in the water before they could stop me. i got a cold...and a spanking.

when i was 5, my dad was fixing the roof. i was told, "don't go up there. it's dangerous and your feet will get stuck in the tar." but i recruited my sister and our friend and went up there anyway. as warned, we got tar on our shoes. coming down the ladder, my right shoe stuck on one of the steps and i fell backwards onto the concrete below. i wasn't hurt but the commotion drew the attention of the adults and i got in trouble not only for not listening but endangering my younger sibling and friend. i didn't understand why i had to be punished twice--once by the universe and again by my parents.

when i was 18, my dorm floor went skydiving as a bonding experience our first semester. i told nikki in confidence that i was going too...that it's sort of crazy "so don't tell our parents". my dad called a few days later to warn me that if i jumped off that plane, i could kiss my tuition goodbye. "how could you--accident and illness-prone--even conceive of trying something so stupid?" he asked. "don't throw statistics at me. YOU are that 0.1% whose parachute malfunctions and we hear about on the news of your splattering death." i didn't talk to my parents for a couple months after that.

when i was 25, i came home expecting to be yelled at for staying out until the wee hours of the morning. i had moved back in with my parents and i had heard "it doesn't matter how old you are--OUR house OUR rules" far too many times to expect anything less. instead, i was greeted by my parents with their arms around each other and an eerie smile plastered on their faces. "we're moving to tokyo!" they said, to which i responded, "we?" "yea!" they exclaimed. "you can make a decent living teaching english and write on the side! it'll give you 'the time' you're always saying you need to be creative."

i was excited with the opportunity but the timing was...off. i made artificial deadlines for decisions that kept sliding because i wouldn't commit. as he placed the memory card storing the deed to the house in my hand, my dad said, "i'm not gonna tell you what to do. but i will tell you this: indecisions become decisions too in the end. wouldn't you rather not let life and circumstances make those decisions for you?" then added, "your other option is status quo. sometimes, when there's an opportunity for change, you just have to jump and take a chance."

maybe it's the contrarian in me that just can't do things as instructed. but per the horoscope, i've glanced...a lot.

"whatever happened to that free-spirited kid that dove into the ocean with all her clothes on?" my dad asks. honestly, i don't know. i had promised myself i would stop being so prudish with my choices...that i would be a life-slore and try to take in every opportunity that presents itself...or at the least, regain some of the spunkiness i had lost over the years. but the impact of indecisions had become more than missed opportunities. i'd learned to first look down at the potential fall. and without even realizing, i was perpetually clasping to the sill.

but with august coming to an end...what comes next?
glancing is a fine sport...but i do enough of that as it is. and eventually--glancing or no glancing--windows close.

what i need now is the courage to let go and take that proverbial leap.
...though knowing my luck, it might very well be into an abyss.

Ashes to Ashes

2011-06-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

when you first came home with us, you fit into a shoe.

you made funny noises that made our mom sad and cry about how we were taking you away from your real mommy.

your pot belly was a taut pink and your breath smelled like cocoa. i liked blowing air into your nostrils to make you reverse-burp. i don't think you liked that very much...you always looked at me dubiously with those slightly droopy eyes but you still let me do it.

we ran around the house making scratches on the cherry hardwood and shed carpets of platinum blond. you grew so big, i needed to stretch out my heart just to make sure you fit comfortably inside it.

now, you come back to the place you last called home...attached to a letter from the vet. it's weird that you fit into a little wooden thing that looks like a music box.

nikki says you're gone now. that she can't feel your presence anymore. but there are still pieces of you around...in the scent-stained blankets of this makeshift bed and the eager carpet effusing speckles of white. but eventually, the blankets will get washed and the floors will be vacuumed. then you'll really be gone.

i guess hoping we still cradle a part of you inside of us is probably more for our sake than yours.

when mom and dad come back, we'll scatter you into the sea. and any particles left of you in this world will gently be broken down by the waves.

time will break me down along with these memories of you. eventually the wear of the world will also turn me into dust. then i'll return to the earth and maybe wash out into the same sea.

ashes to ashes. dust to dust.

Where the Sky Ends

2011-05-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

(painting by Nichole Macaraeg)

"does the kid and the dog remind you of 'Where Does the Sky End' or what?"

"i don't see the kid and the dog. am i going blind?
also, i think it was "Where the Sky Ends"--no 'does'."

"they're in the sketch by the tree.
i just realized my paintings are pieces of materialized subconsciousness. it's freaky"

"Where the Sky Ends" was the theme to the annual art & lit competition at our elementary school when my sister was 5 or so and i 7. every year, student participation was highly encouraged by teachers and prompts were sent home to be shared with parents.

when we presented the prompt, our parents asked "so where do you think the sky ends?" we answered with blank stares. seeing themselves as artistic souls, i suppose our parents really wanted to believe that we were seedlings bearing their untapped artistic potential.

"what's the world made of?" our dad asks. more blank stares. "it can be broken down into 3 components, can't it? the earth, the ocean, and the sky."

in an effort to fuel our creativity, they drove us around town. we first stopped at a park where just the past weekend, my sister's class had attached packets of morning glory seeds to balloons alongside letters to finders and released them all at once. "do you remember what you did here the other day?" nod. "good, good."

then we started driving toward the ocean where concentrated rays of sun were beaming through thick clouds and lighting up parts of the water. "doesn't this remind you of our trip to moneterey? you asked if the fishies sunbathe in the water." our mom says.

as children, we were clueless as to the profundity of this theme. we just jostled around with our limited past experiences and translated them well (i guess for children of our age) onto the thick acid-free watercolor paper. we consequently won first and second place in the school. maybe participation was super-low...who knows? but lately, somewhere in our collective subconscious, we were revisiting this message again.

"eve, do you remember how to swim? when you start going, swim towards the sky, okay?" our mom says.
"uhh it's usually called flying when it's in the air." nikki says matter-of-factly. and we all chuckle a little.

much to the chagrin of local surfers, there are barely any waves today. if eve's legs still worked, this would be an easy swim. the sinusoidal bulges in the water transform into gentle lapping waves when they reach the beach. we look onto the horizon as if they will bring forth answers from the edges of the earth...but all we know is that this ocean will be here just the same tomorrow...but she won't.

we waste so much of life on useless shit...and at the end of the day, we still feel like we're playing catch-up...like we're constantly running out of time. wading through a muddled reality to get to the moments that we actually want to hold onto.

maybe wherever it is that eve is swimming to now...maybe there, when we transcend to the metaphysical, those nagging feelings dissipate and we become pure entities absent of emotions like regret and resentment.

eve already had a pure soul, so she didn't need further cleansing...but the rest of us could sure use one, especially if we don't want things weighing us down from seeing her again.

if i can ask you to wait just one more time, could you meet me at the edge?

it might be a while...but i'll see you there, where the sky ends.

5/18/11

Hover Craft

2011-05-04T18:21:00.000-07:00

"fuck."
"what?"
"that porta-potty was nasty. there's stuff splattered everywhere. i felt stuff seep through the seat cover. i probably have hepatitis or something now."
"gross. you shoulda hovered."
"whatever dude, you try it then. i'll give you $20 to go take a dump in it."
"why?"
"cuz you said you need to go and you used to rave about how you were the master in the art of hovering. so hover over the nasty thing and successfully take a poop--germy splatters and all. then i'll give you $20."
"why?"
"i just want to see which part of you trumps the other. the part of you that's OCD or the part of you that wants to prove me wrong."
"no."
"fine."

she turns and starts talking to her. and more so than the earlier dare proposal, something irks me as i watch her. not only has she ruined him for me...she has to assert dominance in this realm too. the loose knot created by their linked arms is a final dagger in the back of my brain. no matter what, i can't undo what's already happened...and somehow, that's become the only truth that matters.

my impassive stare occasionally catches her furtive glance. is that supposed to be cute? do people find this alluring? i can't help but roll my eyes at the ongoing conversation of ticking clocks and viable eggs. you must be fucking kidding me, right? or am i the only one whose head is sufficiently scrambled by the continuation of this subject?

then she turns to me. we dance around in conversation for a bit, then she closes in.

"i don't want things to be weird between us. i mean, it's not awkward, is it?"
"well, kind of...especially at the beginning, it was."
"...oh. well, let's not be. anyway, how is he?"
"um...childish...?"
"oh really?"
"you don't remember him to be?"
"haha...i don't remember much. he was like 5 guys ago."

her flippancy makes my eyeballs feel heavy in my sockets. i blink and look down momentarily as if to shake off whatever look i fear i'm sporting. fortunately when i look up, i can tell she has moved her conversation on to someone else. her arm links again and they trail away.

"what was that about?"
"i don't know. her not wanting it to be awkward..."
"...thereby making it awkward."
"yea, pretty much."
"that was physically painful to watch."

[shrug]

i suppose i'm not the master of the hover craft, after all.

at the end of the night, we make our trek back to suburbia. despite there being a fair amount of time before the dry season hits, the sliver of moon in the sky tints the rolling landscape of darkness with a gray-white sheen. one hill folds onto another, making wrinkles in the earth.

"what are you looking at?"
"i dunno......looks like white elephants."
"what?!"
"the hills. nothing...nevermind..."

Everyday is Groundhog Day

2011-02-02T13:19:00.000-08:00

i barely settle into my chair, when a friend messages me "spring's coming early according to punxsutawny phil!" i don't know what warrants such exclamatory excitement so early in the morning, so i decide to pay tribute to a former coworker's daily utterance and message back "everyday is groundhog day".

incidentally, not long after i left the company, this former coworker of mine took an extended disability leave due to a nervous breakdown caused by work. yes, she was a bit of a drama queen but our department was the company's scapegoat. in the throes of an increasingly saturating market and having both the director and vp removed and replaced with nimwits, she and i were usually the focus of management-incited witch hunts. she must have gone over the deep end with no one to share in the despondence.

my then-director had nurtured the department for over a decade. but just the same, it was ripped out from under her on the ceo's drunken whim and was promptly given to his butt-ferret. now, this company wasn't some mom and pop shop like the one i work at now. it was a sizable operation that (i assume still) produces several reputable consumer product labels. i was hired under the original director and vp. it was my first job out of college. i commuted from south orange county to the godforsaken valley--a 3-hr commute in traffic, one way--for 6 months while i looked around for an apartment during the ridiculous pre-burst housing bubble. i was young, ambitious, and..actually hopeful. despite having a pea-sized bladder, i toughed out the wrist-slitting-inducing drive armed only with a mug of green tea and the lunch my mom packed me. the lunch never actually lasted until lunch since i would eat in the car as i reached the 5-mile halt around LAX...all in the name of a career. but it wasn't long after my probationary period ended--just as i started getting the knack of things--that the director and vp's removal was announced. despite having been plentifully jaded in those first few months, i was still flabbergasted that a corporate decision would be based on an oracle found at the bottom of the ceo's whiskey glass.

obviously, with the department being the company pariah, neither my vp nor director had any real clout...but at the least, they created meatshields for the spit and stank hurled in our direction from upper management's stenchy mouths. at this rate, it would be a long shot--as i have now neither the inclination nor the appropriate career track--but if i were to get anywhere in corporate america, i would probably owe most of it to them. they filled the gaps of my somewhat fragmented undergrad education, taught me corporate formalities and business correspondence (both in english and japanese), showed me both the methodical efforts of risk analysis and the necessary fervor behind crisis management.

but alas, after 4 years of having left that company, i sit here...at a different company...in a different industry...at a different gray desk...still a glorified gopher.

every so often, i see these people who lined the nascent path of what i thought would someday turn into a career. their disappointment is palpable as i either rant about the foibles of my current job or respond to their questions in monosyllabic apathy. like encouraging parents of an underachieving child, they continue to say, "i know there's still potential in you". but as i stumble through the last bit of early adulthood, i wonder how much of it is untapped potential and how much of it is just a sheer lack of any real ability.

like the groundhog on this fateful day, i scurry every morning for the scent of ascending spring. my daily anticipation for a hint of sun quickly clouds over with the realization that everything is at once different and the same.

心の短歌 1

2010-01-29T16:50:00.000-08:00

身だしなみ
整ずる気力
なきにしも
笑顔で営業
下僕の如く

1.8.10

Waiting for Dogot

2008-04-12T16:19:00.000-07:00

"how's life without eve?"

......empty.

about 24 hours ago, i took my last walk with eve around CdC.
and as of about 12 hours ago, eve no longer resides here.

i got home today and sneakily opened a container of chocolate-covered almonds expecting to hear a thud and that light trot down the stairs at the sound of cpg (consumer packaged goods). but alas, neither were my expectant ears greeted with those familiar sounds nor was my lap slathered with a large pool of drool.

eve's existence was very much what made this house a "home" and without her here, this place is just a collection of white walls and a roof. i had never really resided in this house for more than a month or so at a time until this past year. the fam had moved while i was away at college so this house always felt to me like an in-between-housing type of place.

my rather simple room set-up had not changed much during the 12-month period: a super-crappy TV set nearest the doorway, a queen-sized bed (my best investment in the past few years) situated next to the window, and the make-shift desk strewn with semi-important documents and random cords resuscitating a dying laptop. i'd often gaze out the window to assess the weather-appropriateness of my attire or the chance of rain in the coming days...even if i hadn't planned on stepping outside. nothing obstructed my 5' by 5' view save for eve occasionally jumping onto the bed and joining me in the activity. she would position herself at the edge of the bed and look out the window with a most wistful gaze. what was so interesting about that view, i don't know...but we kept gazing...as if our gaze would somehow will the unchanging landscape to morph into something new.

it is a widely held belief that animals have no self-awareness, but i often catch eve displaying such expressions that make me think otherwise. but we, humans, are animals too afterall. with her basic immediate needs fulfilled, who's to say eve hasn't ascended Maslow's hierarchy to self-actualization? if not, perhaps it is her heightened perception of reality that hinders her from reaching sublimity. perhaps she is all too aware of her limitations as a furry person thereby propelling her mind into a canine quandary of how she fits into the world.

i watched four seasons come and go through that window...looking at the peach tree whose crest now reaches the bottom of my window.....sitting...staring...waiting for the last leaf to fall at autumn's end then waiting for the first blossom to bloom at the sign of spring...and somehow always missing the moment it happens. slowly but surely, the world changes...and i will sit here dolefully breathing in the scent of clean linen clinging to the waft of hot air blown into my room by the adjacent vent.

when i patted eve's head as she boarded nikki's car, she turned her ears back...the way she does that makes her look like an arctic seal. she perceives things on a similar brainwave as my own. she probably understands me more than most human beings ever will. and i know she knows...about the boundless void...the inevitable doubt that encroaches on the finite mindspace that holds all the things we've somehow managed to demystify. "figure things out," nikki said before driving off. indeed. i cannot let my dog 1-up me...

and yet, here i sit in this now empty, eve-less room...still looking out the window...still anticipating a sign......always waiting...waiting for dogot

For Every Season...Churn, Churn, Churn~

2007-09-07T01:31:00.000-07:00

although autumn equinox is a good 2 weeks away, labor day pretty much marks the unofficial end of summer.

this has been the most active summer in my whole adult life. i'd gotten myself out of a major rut and no longer seek solace in beer bottles in a dark moldy room. and though my life is far from ideal, for the first time in a really long time, i feel like it's okay. i've come to accept that some things will forever be a mystery to me and that a certain amount of complications will always persist. i have no predilection for drama but maybe drama's what keeps things interesting...no? well, yea probably not, but as long as it's not life-threatening, i'm not gonna stress too much about it.

next week, i will actually have to [gasp] go into an office for a longterm project. even with the more-than-desired commute that friends have warned may "take a toll on my happiness" however, i'm fairly confident that i'll be ok. 2 words: jeans & t-shirt...(or is it 1 + 2-word hyphenate?)
the past few days have been a mad rush of laundry and other cleaning. it's about that time again when i grudgingly do my quarterly ironing. i hate ironing...but the idea that my crisply pressed wardrobe will indefinitely hibernate in the depths of my closet leaves an unanticipated feeling of bittersweet.

i imagine everyone's psyching themselves up for the long week to come be that in the shape of another business trip, the onslaught of post-holiday work, or juggling work and school as i cross my fingers that my friends' forgiveness about the failed hawaii trip (due to my lack of funds) won't fade quite as quickly as their post-vacay glow.

i sit here staring (probably with a vacuous look on my face) at the slightly off-centered Morro Bay souvenir coin which had unfortunately been churned several times in the wash before being rediscovered. it now has lost its copper sheen and instead sports an artfully antiqued look with bits of lint embedded in the small crevasses.
i look back on the many adventures, big and small, from the past few months with new/old/reacquainted friends and family and realize that for someone who is as invariably angst-ridden as i am, this summer has been one of many emotions.

of course, my inner cynical child hasn't died off completely. from the corner of my brain spreads the inescapable truth--these memories will be adulterated by the drudgeries of our daily lives and, like the penny, will too soon lose its luster.