Testimonial on Tony's Behalf

Tony,

Please forgive me. I am such a fool. I can't believe myself for dwelling on some insignificant unhappiness so obsessively during your short visit. Time flew by right in front of my eyes, and before I realized that I should be overwhelmed with our good times, you were already gone.

You probably felt hopeless in saving me. Please don't. Your visit meant so much to me that I can't thank you enough. For those few days, I finally escaped from my phobia of being alone. It felt safe and I knew that whatever happened or were about to happen, you would be right there by my side, making sure that I wouldn't fall. You are too kind. Sometimes I question whether I have done enough good to others to deserve this unconditional friendship.

So, thank you for coming, my friend, and thanks for rescuing me. Drinking on the roof while listening to Mahler 9 was the best time I ever had.

Lost

Lisa was right. I have gone completely mental.

During my last Pilates session, she unexpectedly interrupted our usual routine: "Are you okay? You don't look happy." What a strange thing she said! I was in quite a good mood that day and felt particularly light-hearted. Perhaps I was over-concentrating on the work-out. Perhaps I was getting impatient by the seemingly unprogressive pace. Or, maybe, just maybe, Lisa knew me better than I knew myself.

Earlier this morning, after a frantic 30-minute search inside-out of my apartment, the delayed truth dawned on me: the wallet is gone, for the second time in a short time of 3 months! Not stolen, but lost under my own carelessness. I searched in my memory but found no recollection of any last trace. It was just gone, along with my sanity. Dispersed into air. Dissolved into rain. Disintegrated into ashes.

Curiosity Mustn't Die

Several years back in one of my graduate classes, the professor one day asked our opinions on the Terri Schiavo's controversy but found no responses. The shock on his face would never escape my memory. He took off his glasses and looked around the room. When his eyes met mine, I felt a sudden burning on my cheeks, but was quickly convinced that everyone else's face was as blushed as mine - we were ashamed for our ignorance and terrified for the consequences. It seemed to be a long silence before the professor spoke in a trembling voice:

"I know that you are music students, not academic students, but that is no excuse. Do you read about what's happening in the world? Do you think and care about what's happening around you in your own lifetime?"

Of course we mocked the incident as soon as we left the classroom like any other immature students would do, but what the professor said formed into a stone of guilt, sat heavily on my shoulders. I couldn't deny the truth that I was young, ignorant and narcissistic. I glorified classical music as the only form of so-called High Art that glowed at a sacred and purified artistic level, which none other was able to reach, thus cared little of anything else.

Do you read? Do you think? Do you care? These words ring in my conscious and unconscious minds ever since, motivating my curiosity and preventing it from being buried under the sands of laziness.

What are you reading, thinking, and caring?

A Starbucks Incident

"Tall coffee Frappuccino please."

"Did you know that you could get a medium size with Only 50 cents more? Would you like that?"

"Uh. Sure!"

I never ordered anything larger than a Tall, or else I would have trouble finishing the drink. The cashier lured me into getting my first medium-sized Frap. "Oooonly 50 cents" sounded like a deal or a promotion of the day. Only when I quickly glimpsed the price board as I handed her the money did I realize that there was no special deal! 50 cents extra for one size larger is the normal charge for every type of drinks on the menu!

It has nothing to do with money but everything to do with a subtle manipulation! How could she trick me like that? How could I be so naive to fall for it?

She grinned, didn't even try to restrain her satisfaction from this small victory: "Have a nice day!"

You sneaky little nymph. No tip for you!

Ear-Plugs (Retry)

Let me hear nothing but my own breathing.
In the waves of each breath,
I am more at peace than a willow tree.

The randomness of poetry,
Could only be understood by a drunken tree.
As its leaves wave and wave at me,
Weep weep, weep, weep,
Rhythm or not,
I am more content than it can ever be.

No one could pierce through my transparency.
I am immune and I am saved.
The ear-plugs promised to protect me.

Oh the sea is slashing and the tree is crying.
Weep weep, weep weep,
I have truly got nothing but this pair of ear-plugs that keeps me safe.
So I put them inside my ears deeply.

While my mind becomes soothing,
I lower my guards and set myself free.
In the moment of so-called heaveness,
I allow myself to weep happily,
Weep weep weep weep,
Just like the willow tree.

Truce

Let us leave it like this:
We have different values.
And call it quit, call it truce.

I wondered what happened to us,
But I already knew the answer.
We have different values.

Value, what an intriguing word.
There is no right or wrong,
Selfish or generous,
Black or white.

We are incapable of understanding each other.
We have different values.
It's okay.
It's really okay.

Believe me that I didn't want to fight.
We fought.
We have different values.
The violence of verbal abuse has done harms,
So we better shut up,
Once for all.

I wish you could promise not to speak
Another word about us.
But that's too big of a request
That it's unfair for me to ask.
What I demand myself can not be demanded on others.

So let us just leave it like this:
We have different values.
And call it quit, call it truce.

Dream Sequence 5

In the first night, he was with some other woman; second night, a different one. But last night in my dream, he was with me.

I finally understood what happiness really was - a heavenly state in which one could be so peacefully satisfied that there was absolutely nothing more to desire.

He gazed at me lovingly. A incredible sensation filled and expanded every particle in my body. I felt as light as a feather, that even the most gentle breath would lift me up and make me fly.

Our little family. Our little world. Ours. His and mine.

It was real, wasn't it? It felt so real.

Then the dream took a different turn.

Suddenly I was standing in the center of a frozen lake all alone. Skating was never a talent of mine, but I was looking for an entrance or an exit, so I skated on the thick layer of ice. I was free. For a moment, I even thought that I was flying. Yet my heart was heavy and I could feel the warm stream that began to accumulate in my lower eyelids.

When the ice cracked into chunks, I didn't panic as if I had been expecting it to happen. There was neither resistant nor struggle. I allowed my body to sink into the water. It was supposed to be icy-cold, but I felt nothing.

"This is the end." I thought to myself but did not care a bit. Embraced by the water, I closed my eyes and let my consciousness drift away.

The Wind-Up Bird

It was calling for me in my sleep. The monotonous and persistent chirping patiently dragged me out of my lucid dreams. My ears perked up, trying to determine the direction from which the sound originated. As my other senses began waking up one after another, my eyes unwillingly opened last. Daylight had already broken into the room through my pink curtains. It was 6:17 in the morning.

At first, I thought it must be my neighbor whistling a ridiculous, high-pitched tune. A boring tune that was made of a repeated pitch and an occasionally lower pitch at precisely a minor third apart. Not much longer did it take me to realize that this sound was a rare bird-call rather than a hideous human-produced noise.

I gasped: it was the wind-up bird! I was convinced. A wind-up bird, that's right, the exact one that Haruki Murakami spoke of in his novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

What is a wind-up bird anyway? A mechanical toy bird that needs to be winded-up ever-so-often in order to mimic a real bird for the amusement of children?

Murakami gave life to this bird. "To wind-up the spring," he said. The bird and its strange chirp was heard throughout the novel, scattered but significant, each time as a premonition of a catastrophic event.

The bird was a myth. The bird was a legend.

And it was there, just outside my window, chirping away like no one's business. It reigned over other birds, making their chirps only a rhythmical accompaniment.

I hope nothing catastrophic is going to happen. If so, I will have to shoot the wind-up bird down in resentment to its cursed prophecy.

Defending S.A.T.C.

HBO's TV show Sex and the City was a hit alright, only to the female citizens of the United States. Many men expressed their dissatisfaction towards the show. Most of the complaints targeted on the egotistic female perspective reflected by the main characters' luxurious life-style and their attitude of "men are disposable."

The show was indeed controversial. First time on television, the topic of sex was focused as an essential element throughout the series. Blunt, shameless, at times brutal truth of human sexual behaviors blended with a sense of humor in the cleverly written dialogue, freed female viewers from awkwardness in talking about sex. The show was not just controversial. It was brave. It was daring. And it did make a statement.

But it wasn't just about sex. There was rarely any explicit nudity, which might have been disappointing to some male viewers. The show was about relationships and human interactions, from the female perspectives: how women think, feel, react, behave; how irrationally and emotionally they can be, in spite of right or wrong; their habits and their flaws. The facts were vulnerably true, all of them. The small number of men who secretly enjoyed the show might have the potential of making themselves better boyfriends because of their open-minded attitude in finding out what women are truly like. Though, men wouldn't understand SATC and are not expected to understand. HBO should have rated the show as NFM, i.e. Not For Men. But for them to accuse the characters as egotistic were simply an unintelligent mockery out of their own egotistic imbalance.

Please read under the lines, male friends! Everything is slightly more complicated than what it seems. When you thought Carrie or Miranda or Charlotte (excluding Samantha here) were treating men like disposable toothbrushes, they were only trying to take a failed relationship as lightly as possible, in order to protect themselves from being hurt. They were not heartless. Women tend to get attached quicker and deeper. They would give up everything for their loved ones in their search of the "perfect one." And it's not easy. After many heartbreaks, they eventually learn how to be brave. If what it takes to be brave is to say such thing as "men are disposable," please don't take it personally, for they are just trying to comfort themselves from another catastrophic break-up.

So what else were men offended by? Women's independence? Women's successful careers? Women's powers? Don't be offended, because those are true facts in this 21st-century. Men's odd behaviors? Well, yes it was brutal to see them on TV, but let's call it fair, the show equally revealed women's freakish behaviors. "None of the girls are even beautiful." Perhaps, but that's how real life is. You don't end up with cosmetic models, but real women, who might not be perfect, but beautiful in each of their own way. Maybe SATC should have a sequel, from the male perspective, if they'd like to get even.

Now the SATC movie is under the making (which I think would be a failure,) we should expect a full theater of female fans and a few unwillingly presented boyfriends.