2010. Really.

It's been a full six months since my last post, which found me musing on death as it was written very shortly before my grandma's life was overtaken by lung cancer. Considering the content of these past six months of my life, I've found it harder and harder to succinctly sum up the emotional state that I've found myself in.

Now it's a new year, and it's time to tackle the issue. I've considered this blog to be strangely therapeutic. It strikes a good balance between being available publicly, but mainly viewed (I think) by close friends that I know well - it's a journal entry that other people can see. It allows me to filter through and organize my thoughts, mark them down in a definitive way, and in so doing allows me to understand what's truly important to me at the moment.

So, here goes: in July 2009 my grandma died. The first half of the year was pretty much completely focused on my grandma's health, since it so immensely concerned my immediate family and all the goings on with all of us. Her death, as can be imagined, was particularly hard on my mom, which was hard for me to witness and react to properly. I felt so helpless during the whole thing, especially watching my mom and my sister get all nurse-like and take care of my grandma - and my dad in the mean time kept the household pretty much stabilized, helping out with whatever needed doing while my mom focused entirely on her dying mother. Meanwhile I was working full time in Oakland, sans car and plus leg injury - all I could do was get down to San Jose whenever I could and be there 'emotionally'. It was almost like I was there just for a sense of completeness - the family was 'together'.

Which is fine. It was all I could do, and I understand that. But it got me thinking a LOT about my family, and how much they mean to me. It's impossible not to think morbid thoughts when you watch someone die over a period of months - and the irrepressible image that kept sticking with me was one of any of us, my parents, my sister, or me - being sick, and dying, and how the other three would react to that. In a way the image was comforting, because I know that we would drop everything and be there for each other and do whatever we could. But it made me realize that I always want to be around for my family; they are, by far, the most important thing to me.

Part of this realization was the realization of an ambition of mine - I want to be capable of helping those that I love. This can be taken as very literal - if something happens to any of my friends and family, I want to be able to be there and help in whatever way I can. But I also mean it in a more vague, figurative sense: my growth as a person is not just for me, but for those around me. I would like to view myself as a support beam in a much larger structure, at all times, and try to take into consideration what my own strength as a human can contribute to a larger framework - beginning with my family and friends. I want, at all times, to strike a balance between myself, my ego, my individuality, and what my unique perspective can contribute to community on any given level.

This may seem like a bunch of lofty bullshit, but it isn't to me, and in fact I think it's more a realization of natural tendencies within myself than anything else. I've always felt supersensitive to the opinions of those around me. When I was younger this manifested itself as social awkwardness and serious self-esteem issues, and I ended up walling my emotions off and becoming very inward and selfish as a result. My 'ambition' as stated in the previous paragraph is really a mindset I've been slowly developing over the last few years as a way to cope with how sensitive I am to the opinions of others in the healthiest way that I can - a way to balance my own wants/desires/opinions with the constant influence I receive from other people, and reflect all of that back to others in what I hope to be a constructive dialogue. If I am to have a New Year's Resolution, this would be it.

I have had tendinitis in my hamstrings for more than a year now. This has been another major element in my emotional state, as it has hampered my mobility, my livelihood, and my goals in a major way. It has been incredibly trying on my patience, and has pretty much singlehandedly contributed to what ended up being a fairly lonely, introspective year. It has constantly forced me to think about my own health and well being during a time when I was trying my hardest to think about others' well being, and it has temporarily taken away one growing passion in my life that had previously started to play a major role in my lifestyle: Cycling. It also, combined with my familial issues, kept me away from my art studio in Richmond for a long enough period that I eventually decided it was not worth it to keep paying rent on the place, and moved my stuff out.

In a way, I've made it harder on myself than I had to - but only in a way. Tendinitis is something that usually can heal within a month, so I'm dealing with a rather strange/severe case - and one that continues to frustrate me, as the physicians I've talked to about it do not seem quite as concerned by its longevity as I am. Before I stopped cycling and started walking as minimally and slowly as possible to allow my legs to heal, my bike was my main mode of transportation. I loved it - I was figuring out better and more efficient methods of not ever needing a car, of transporting rather heavy loads, and dealing with biking in bad weather. I loved it enough that the 'inconveniences' of not owning a car were simply challenges for me - challenges that I would eventually overcome. After I realized that I was injured and needed to stop biking, I stubbornly refused to adopt another way of being mobile, because I continue to wait for the time in which I will once again be able to ride a bike. I take the bus when I need to, which sucks, and I walk when I have the time to (and I need a LOT of time, because I walk at about a fifth the speed that I used to). All in all, it's way harder for me to get around, and I've been having to ask for a lot of rides if I ever want to see friends. I can't stay out late, because the buses stop running at night. And in some aspects, my life just feels like it's in limbo, as I wait for my legs to heal and for my 'normal' lifestyle to resume itself - which should have happened some time mid-last year, so at this point I'm not even bothering to estimate at what point that will actually happen.

Through all of that, I try to stay as optimistic as possible, and do what I can to work my life around the obstacles. I have since October been building up a new bike, and continue to learn more about bikes in general, which has been a great way to funnel my passion for them into different areas. My new bike is pretty much nearing complete - before it comes out of the shop I have to decide on a stack height for the stem, then get the fork's steerer tube cut down so the stem can be tightened into place with the headset. I'm taking my time with that one, since I want the handlebars to be at a really comfortable height when I take it out for extended rides, whenever that may be. And as long as I'm injured I've got all the time in the world to get it right, so there's no real rush. Patience is one thing that has been forced upon this project, which in the end will work pretty well to my advantage, methinks.

I have also reconfigured my apartment to accommodate my art studio, and I am very close to resuming last year's projects in a serious way. I'm still working on the same stuff, nothing new to report there, and the time frame is starting to seem ridiculous. But y'know what, whatever. I am still just as excited about what I have going on as I was this time last year, and just as resolute to accomplish what I set out to do when I moved into the studio in Richmond.

I quit my job at Semifreddi's in December, to start working for Actual Cafe, which is just a couple blocks from my house. Aside from being a pretty awesome space to begin with, and the fact that we serve great food and coffee, so far I'm also impressed with the passion that the owner, Sal, has used to implement his ideals and motives behind opening the place to begin with. The purpose for him is for the Cafe to strive to be community-oriented - a truly neighborhood place, one that brings people together and gets them to interact. Both the name Actual, and the main tag line "Not Just Another Wi-Fi Shack" seem a bit pretentious; the first time I noticed the place being built, before I tried to get a job there, I was a little put off by it, honestly. But Sal takes it seriously, and through getting to know him and contributing to the atmosphere myself I've realized that it is in no way a selling point or a marketing scheme. So far, it's real, and it's exciting, and it feels a lot more fulfilling to take the food service and barista skills I've acquired over the past few years and implement them towards something that interests me. It'll be interesting to see how long that lasts.

Hrrrm. Anything else? Probably, but this post is long enough as it is. I think that's enough off of my chest that the next post won't take another half-year to write. Also, thanks to Nyk and Darin for your posts - it's really great to hear the thoughts of others on here. I hope you guys post again. And I'm really glad to hear things are going so well for you, Nikko.

MUZAK:

Baroness: Red Album, Blue Record - these dudes strike an incredible balancing act between bruising anthemic quality and immense subtlety. They are quickly become one of my favorites, and are definitely one of my most played.

Beach House - Teen Dream. Yes, just, yes. This type of music is not quite my niche as much as yours, Nikko, but I feel very comfortable within it with bands as good as this.

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion, Strawberry Jam, Feels, Fall Be Kind EP - Okay, so I've been kind of freaking out over Animal Collective lately. I now have great respect for them, and can't get enough of their albums. Initial opinion proven wrong yet again.

Vampire Weekend - Contra - The first album kinda slipped past my interest, but I've been digging this one. Kind of a guilty pleasure, almost, but not really.

Deerhunter - Microcastle

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

Spoon - Transferrence

Atlas Sound - Logos

Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth. Ooooh yeah.

Flaming Lips - Embryonic

Stone Roses - Stone Roses

Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation

Russian Circles - Geneva

These Arms Are Snakes - Tail Swallower and Dove

Boris - Heavy Rocks

Isis - Wavering Radiant

Shrinebuilder - Shrinebuilder

WERDZ:

Murakami: After Dark

Asimov: Foundation and Earth, Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation

Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep, The High Window - this guy, if you have not heard of him, was one of the originators of hard boiled detective novels. Incredibly delicious reading that perfectly straddles the line between artful and kitschy, much like a good film noir. I read 'The High Window' the other week while I was sick, wrapped in a blanket with sheets of rain and wind rattling my window. It was amazing.

Michael Chabon: Gentlemen of the Road, Wonder Boys, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Vernor Vinge: A Deepness in the Sky, The Peace War

Mikhail Bulgakov: Heart of a Dog

Robert Penn Warren: All The King's Men