So

There was a show (the show was terrible) It was a graceful lake, but it did not look like a girl

or a boy.

work in progress

Rain and is thin, and the term sunset is under fierce debate between the glass of our balcony door and the electricity of the skyline. But your small and easy eyes, made of fog and ink, have invented in them the most profound awareness of the moment. I open the balcony door, and the typhoon becomes my hair.

Later, I’ll almost lose my sense of belonging. You’d trade me in for a sun coin, if you hadn’t already. One to hold in your white palm, cold as if alive. And it’d stay in your pocket. Every time you’d feel it between your fingers remember the gold glint off the clean edge.

The glint will remind you of a tin

time,

Time leaves and the ocean on the orange horizon is licking up the sun into lines, but it is the sky who has the largest, darkest mouth. no one wanted this,

sitting in a vat of cold
oil, wishing for a Friday.

Positive Negative Spaces or Just an excerpt of a mishmash story 1 for LTWR100

The next morning Thanh wakes from a terrible dream about growing penises on her body. It was terrible and disgusting so she tried to forget all about it, but parts of it felt so uncannily real that she would rewind her mind to start thinking about it again. She would remember that one part where she attempted to piss standing up. She was surprised she didn’t piss in her sleep. But it must have been because of that odd position she was in on the couch that made her dream this, and she also had no blanket to cover her.

Jonathan had already left for work. There's a note on the coffee table from him, but she ignores it. She called in sick and fell asleep on the couch again.

It was right about yesterday when she realized she had to leave. She was walking on the way home and heard children yelling. Two elementary school boys were fighting each other in an empty lot covered in a copper sheen.

“Hey!” she yelled. “You two, stop that!”

She grabbed them away from each other. They must have been in first grade. They lunged at each other again, wrestling free from her grip.

“Give it back! It’s mine!”

“No! Finder’s keepers!”

“I saw it first!”

The kids started tumbling toward the ground again, and Thanh desperately reached for the object from their hands and pulled the thing away from them.

Something felt wrong. She stood between them, all eyes on her clenched fist. Thanh slowly opened her hands to reveal half of a lizard’s body. Suddenly she felt a sinking feeling, an urge to pee. She shuddered; staring shocked at the nasty entrails running off her wrist. One of the boys took advantage of the odd slowness of the moment and snatched the thing away, laughing, while the other one chased him. Thanh sat down to let the nausea pass, and wiped the goo off her hand with the grass and flowers. She imagined the dying lizard in her hand again, trying to collect some sympathy for the animal she just murdered. Instead, she just felt relief.

I need to move out, she thought, and then laid her head down in the grass. The daisies above her were terrifically metallic in their sheen.

rabbit update 6

It ran in our house! My grandparents caught it in the morning, stuck it in a bucket and told us to drive far far away and let it go. We went to church and children were amused by the furry living being, who was probably scared as fuck in its white hell hole.

On the way my mom said, "Grandpa always says he's annoyed the rabbit eats our flowers and veggies, but whenever the rabbit doesn't come at it's scheduled time of day grandpa turns to me and says...Ah? ...where is the rabbit?
where did he go. I wonder if something happened..."

So we wonder if Grandpa hates or loves the rabbit, but i realize the many things we love we hate doing, just a little bit.
People with anger problems say they hate being angry, but can't stop when they start bombing. Some depressed people say they hate to be sad, but they keep on rehashing the things that make them cry. Crying and yelling are kind of orgasmic in their catharsis. And in the most wonderful and terrible ways, it is the things we find repugnant the things we keep needing. In order for the prince to love the princess that much more, he must slay a terrible dragon. Or else she's just a common whore on the 10th floor of some random building. Those who love resolution must also need conflict.

Whatever this rabbit is my Grandpa will miss waiting every evening and morning to chase it away.

Goodbye. Sorry for the scary car ride. Watch out for coyotes and cars and shit.

Ike Sampson, Jerry Flaherty, and Faulkner Guo

Bryce and I play this game when we're bored where we try to guess the names and deepest desires of random people we see on campus or wherever we are.

When I dropped him off at LA, it was fucking hard cause I don't know too many latino or ethnic names. LA is like level 10 for that game, while UCSD is like beginner level.

UCSD: "Connie Fung. Noah Le. Steven Chiang."
LA: "Holy Fuck that's ah... like a Vijay?...Jose? Monica? Rosa? Guadalupe? Huevos?"

Oh man. And then I start feeling racist so it's no fun. Anyway, since he's at USC I've been emailing him and I wanted to do this thing were we come up with a character profile and a story with it.



So Ike Sampson's got the build of Mr. Rogers. He's old, maybe 55, and he's fixing a huge, 4 ft tall, wide Xerox. The parts are on the floor, and he's adjusting his glasses, drilling when the copier finally makes a noise. Ike's relieved; it's printing something. Is it working? It spits out millions and millions of copies of someones ass, and then prints out a lot of random websites, and then some dirty pictures. He stands there with no facial expression for a couple of beats. He rubs his forehead, slightly frustrated. He sees a pretty girl in the porno picture on the ground. He turns his head to look at it. He then looks around for people, adjusts his glasses, and kneels down to pick it up.

4 hours and 23 minutes earlier a dark room- to suited men turn on the light, it's the same office space. We see Jerry Flaherty (chubby, talll) and Faulkner Guo (nerdy asian guy), and they're sneaking in after work. They come in drunk and recently laid off. Faulker gets on the computer and says he's going to send millions of emails of gay porn to his boss. He actually doesn't get to the gay porn and get stuck, distracted at the regular-old, boobs and pussies porn. Jerry says Oh man print some for me.
...
Next shot they are trying to vandalize the place, but cannot do it because they are too straight-laced. They try to throw papers around but they eventually reason that they are important papers. They eventually just TP one lame plastic topiary in the corner.
...
They try to break the boss's mug but they cant because they're scared. They try, but never let it go. Faulkner says lets test drive it with this other cup. They drop a small random mug, and it makes a loud noise and chips a little. They are terrified and convince themselves maybe there are other things they can do.
...
They try to steal things from other people's desks. Jerry says, oh man i love Angela, I cant steal her post its, she always brings pie on fridays. Faulker says yea, lets get back at Thomas. He's a jackass. They get to Thomas' desk and see pictures of his family in his desk and figure they don't want to steal from him either.
...
They see alcohol in their boss's office. They try to open the locked door. They fail and shrug it off.
...
Jerry and Faulker sit in their adjacent, now empty cubicles.
Jerry says now what. Faulkner says, Man we should have planned this out better.
Jerry's eyes light up. My Porn! he says. He looks at the printer/copier, the same one Ike Sampson was working on. The porn isnt printing. He pounds on it. He opens the copier top. He has no idea how this machine works, actually. Then he gets a great idea.
Wait, I got it! says Jerry. i gotta do this at least once in my life. ooohh man. it's like the movies.
He pulls down his pants.
Faulkner: whoa man. dude, what thing-in-the-movies? Not gay porn, is it
Jerry ignors Faulkner and pulls down his boxers.
F; WHOA MAN, give me a warning at least, Jesus Christ! (he looks away)
Jerry does not mind, he's got one thing he's thinking about. he's climbing to sit on top of the copier. His butt is surprisingly LARGER than the surface of of the copier. you can see his flesh spilling over the top. He tries to look for the copy button but it should be under his fat leg
MAN, Jerrry says, Faulkner! how does this thing work! come here!
Faulner: dude I am going no where near your white ass, Jer.
Jerry: COME on we have done NOTHING today this is IT.
F is reluctant.
Jerry: Seriously. just come over and figure out how to copy my ass.
F thinks about it.
You know what, F says, you're right. All these years (uber long monologue about how it fucking sucked to work here, how its stupid that every time he gets laid off he has to go to a company exactly the same and to the same fucking thing, Jerry urges him on with "Hell yeah"'s and "Amen"s")
He finishes with, "I've kissed so much ass and taken so much shit these years, and if i have to see your ass while i'm doing this, well fuck it! I am a free man now I can choose whose fuckin ass I am dealin with.
Jerry: I am honored to be your friend.
F: I respect you.
J: Me too.
Faulkner lifts up J's leg hesitatingly, presses some buttons. It is all dramatic. The copier starts going! There is light underneath moving! They high five.
The sounds of the copier start... and then...slowly...fade.... The copier dies, crushed a bit under Jerry's weight. they hear a large crack.
...

The next shot they are standing in front of the broken copier, the glass on top cracked, sobered up.

Well. Faulkner says. I think that's good enough.
J pats F's shoulder.

rabbit update 5

Grandpa pops in from the back door into the living room with a big crooked smile.
"Lailai! Our little friend is on time and reporting for duty! Hahaha..."
He goes out again.
I hear him through the door, shooing away the rabbit angrily.

extraction

tiny strings of blood are slip out of my mouth when i spit. it is definitely appetizing.
for like.
maybe
a vampire.

"I still can't face jello. To me, jello is the food of illness, dental work and death."
- Random Wisdom Tooth Extraction Forum Person aka BeaN

On the other hand, rice porridge is a happy food of breakfast and delicious.
And when you invite it to your mouth it brings its savory fried pastries friends.

rabbit update 4

It is the last straw. vegetables are ok, but eating flowers?
We have fenced off our garden with a white fence to protect our greens. The petals of all the small soft flowers are mostly nibbled off.

no more rabbits. now it is ant season.
Though smaller, ants are definitely less cute.

I gave my cousin some chocolate.

My mother is against unhealthy foods, so fried things and sweets are banned from my cousin's diet as long as he lives in the US.
Although, a couple of days ago I was abetting his sweets addiction. But I did get the bag of candy for free. I mean, who else is going to eat it, right? No one under the age of 10 at this point is within reach, and why waste a perfectly good bag of candy.

In broken English, he acts out the situation in which I am the dealer and he is the addict, my mother being the police interrogator.
"Ey, do you have the?"
"Oh yeh yeh, I have" (opens imaginary jacket)
(gunpoint) "STOP! FREEZE. WHAT IS THAT"
"OH nonono , nothing!"
"GIVE ME IT!"

I gave him the Funsize Mr Goodbars, Crunch and Hersheys and I took out the dark chocolates. They sit on my desk next to my computer. I started out with 5 and I have only eaten 1. There are only two left.

Mysterious disappearance of Dark number 2:
"咦， 孟凡、我这么只有剩3个糖？” (Hey Meng Fan. How come I only have 3 left?)
“哦～我吃掉了一颗” (Oh...cause I ate one.)
"I knew it."

Mysterious disappearance of Dark number 3:
Later, I am online buying books for him I eye him pop another one of my darks in his mouth.
"Hey! I thought you didnt like dark chocolate!"
"(mouth full) Oh... Sorry I didn't realize. I just saw candy so I ate it."
"What! So you stuff it in without even thinking!?"
"Heh heh..."

Never again! No chocolate for you.

"Lailai, can we go get fried chicken?"
"Oh. Okay."

learning chinese

from the zero-start, first grade level is pretty sore-thumbs and brain-freeze, also bringing to the surface again in a sort of stirring-up-the-starch-in-the-miso-soup kind of way, and suddenly the tofu-cubed memories of a horrid chinese school experience are in motion.

(In this metaphor, the slimy seaweed pieces are the curly-permed-almost-pubic-like hairs atop the chinese teachers' heads, the gritty taste in my mouth similar to the one i would feel in my stomach when they read things in an exaggerated tone, as if we were babies.)

on the one hand I really wish I had continued to learn chinese, but on the other hand, going through such a vulnerable stage as puberty with added psychological trauma was something I am glad I cut out of my life early. I don't think I would have been strong enough to overcome the situation with the right attitude either. Continue this Saturday-School terror and I would grow resentful of these gracious volunteer A-yi's and Shu-shu's and my fellow students instead of now looking back on them with a sort of forgiveness and understanding.

My least favorite memory of Chinese school:
For most of my Chinese school years I had one close friend. Kun abused me much to her amusement, but I knew she was probably angry or bitter at things that had nothing to do with me. She was funny and we shared the common and perplexing suffering of being in the same class as 2nd and 3rd graders while we were already in middle school. We laughed together at our silly and hopeless situations.
People also confused us both in Church on Sunday for being the same person, probably because we both were social outcasts, had large foreheads, wore thin and round gold-rimmed classes, and parted our hair in the center. But we shared the loneliness and thank God. I didn't mind, not even when she kicked in the back of my knees to make me trip. I didn't mind because I didn't trip and it was kind of a funny feeling, your body propelling forward without you knowing, and then at the last minute, pulling yourself back as if you were a spring bouncing up.
Her father taught Go as one of the after-Chinese school extra-curricular culture class. Go is the game with black and white pieces and the object of the game to win as much territory and kill as many of your opponent's pieces as possible. It was a war game and Kun was aggressive. She'd be my partner because we were friends and that's how you did it in middle school; you cling as hard as you possibly can to social safety, lest you be swallowed by the waves of-- uh
whatever it is we were so afraid of.
In Go, when the opponent's pieces surround you from four sides, your piece gets removed, like in chess. But even when the opponents pieces may not surround a cluster completely, you could be stuck anyway. If you try to escape, you end up killing even more. The opponent doesn't need to remove them, and you can't touch them. The pieces are left sitting there, stuck in this limbo, liminal space, in a double-bind, a catch-22.
One time, Kun was winning all the games. Well, actually, she always wins, but this time I wanted so desperately to win one. For some reason, perhaps out of deep resentment, I felt an evil hateful feeling each time I saw her pluck my little black pieces out. When I saw that I was losing, I felt as if I wanted to cry. But I didn't cry because I kept the tears and convulsions deep in my stomach so no one could see it. I almost-cried because I thought I was a failure. At Chinese, at math, at Go, and at making friends, at just keeping my cool. I almost-cried because I thought I was so stupid to cry about a game. But as much evil-hate as I had for Kun building up at this point, I almost-cried most of all because even if I won, the thing I wanted most desperately and stupidly, I thought maybe Kun would be mad and she wouldn't be my friend anymore. I sucked it all up and had it storm up in the nerves of my brain. I stormed, thinking I couldn't win at all.

My favorite memory of Chinese school:
I am in my Junior year of high school, 16, my self-esteem perhaps above-average for most girls my age. I haven't been in Chinese school in a couple of years. The principal asks my mother if I'm available to teach an after-Chinese school culture class. It's a 1st to 2nd grade drawing class, and all I have to do is do a step-by-step drawing on the board in front of the class and have them copy it. It's rough at first, handling 20 kids. At first they are reluctant. I know how it's like. More school after Chinese school? Come on. I want to go home.
But I am determined to make this class cool. To make this my anti-experience of Chinese school.
They warm up to it. They like that I am young and understand English. They also like my choice of stickers for rewards. My stickers are awesome and are not lame like other A-Yi's, and I let them choose. I do not punish them for telling me that I do things wrong. I say sorry when I make a mistake.
I ask the kids what they want to learn how to draw next. I offer them the options for a vote.
"So, next time, do you want to draw DINOSAURS?"
"ooh! ooh!"
"let me finish...or Pokemon?"
"OOOHHH! POKEMON!"
"POKEMON!"
"YEAH!"
There is no vote. Next class is Pikachu.
The youngest kid in my class is in kindergarten and his mother must sit in class with him. He calls me Miss Lai Miss Lai and his mother says he talks about the class at home and wonders when the next drawing class is, is it tomorrow? No Joshua, it's next Saturday. How many days is that?
The class is such a silly class. I teach no long-lasting skills whatsoever to children who will forget how to draw sharks and animals the next day. But I am filled with pride. His mother calls me over and tells me that Joshua has something to show me.
He flips to a drawing of a tree with a million apples, on the tree, off the tree, filling the page up to the sky. The next page is the page he wants to show me: A million colored Pikachu's filling the page from the left to the right.
"WOW," I say. "That's good! Very good. He's talented. And ... 真的很努力， 哦." (very hardworking)
His mother smiles a tired smile. I will think later maybe Joshua had a learning disability. Just being 5 years old doesn't mean your mother must sit in class with you.

One time he asks me how to draw a cockroach. I draw it on the side and he copies it dutifully, down to the lines in the wings.
It is the best damn cockroach ever drawn by a 5-year-old.
It is the cockroach to dominate all the bad things that have ever happened to me ever.
In my psyche, Joshua's cockroach leads an army of Pikachu's across a huge Go board, destroying the rigidity of black and white, replacing each piece with a small and crayon-red apple.