25.01.2010
New job.
New city.
New home.
New season.
Newly single.
New travels.
New sport.
New hair cut.
New music.
New hopes.
New dreams.
New Projects!
New gratitude.
New direction.
New story.
(almost) New year.
“Ambition is the last refuge of failure.“ – Oscar Wilde
One of the most amazing lessons of this adventure of producing my own show, is how to not only accept but enjoy every moment that comes my way. The Bahagavad Gita gently reminds us: read more »
Dear Gigi,
Thank you for sending me an email at 6:53am to remind me that I should probably be posting on my blog right about now. Between walking for hours in the Phoenix heat to hang posters, selling my soul to get some publicity, and struggling to make some money with freelancing gigs so that I can once again lose it all on a production of BURST, I had neglected my most important responsibility: entertaining you with my words. So here is a post just for you:
I feel like a working single mother, slinging hash until midnight, then stumbling home with three little mouths to feed, in want of love.
read more »
Wow.
I come back from Vietnam, don’t write about being home in California, skip right over my trip to Manhattan and almost forget that I’m preparing to return to New Mexico. I’ve been too busy being here to remember to write about all the “theres.” It’s been so long, Not Keeping Score, that I almost forgot what you looked like.
[Scene: a fancy restaurant. Dim lighting. Sounds of wine glasses clinking can be heard. SHANNON, 28, sits at a table across from BLOG.]
Hello, Hanoi
(Part 11 of Many)
Across the street a man is loading into a hand-drawn cart dozens of red bricks. Each brick has 4 cylindrical holes, and one by one, he lays them on top of their comrades, each singing a soft little clank as they fall. read more »
Hello, Hanoi
(Part 10 of Many)
I’ve started Vietnamese language classes at University of Hanoi, and moved to Dong Da district, closer to the campus. I rented a room in a house, where the water is bottled and there is even a washing machine. So much for eeking it out local-style.
Hello, Hanoi
(Part 8 of Many)
More stories from my first couple of weeks…
* * *
It is Têt, and Bắc has invited me to spend this special new year’s week — a week so fantastic it is like New Year’s & Christmas & 4th of July & everyone’s birthday combined, I am told — with her family in Hai Phong.
On the bus we pass by fields green with rice paddies. The air is cold and bone-drilling. I do not want to write, but I have told myself I will write under all conditions. read more »
Hello, Hanoi
(Part 6 of Many)
Still remembering my first days here…
* * *
The rest of my day was full of pot holes and mud. Everything I wrote smelled like eggs, and I got lost 7 times over. When I got back home to Bắc’s place, I swore I was buying my plane ticket home.
Hello, Hanoi
(Part 5 of Many)
I am sitting on the bed– on “my” bed for the next few months, I suppose. It is a little over a foot off the floor, made from dark mahogany-looking wood, with a woven grass mat on top. My friend and host, Bắc, has given me a couple of extra blankets to act as “mattress” and sheet. An old camping sleeping bag I’ve brought from home has already proved invaluable, as the weather took a dive toward cold for the week of Têt. I have come to love my bed, somehow cozy in it’s simplicity.
As I near three weeks having been here, I smile to remember all that has changed, and all that hasn’t: read more »
Hello, Hanoi
(Part 4 of Many)
Of course, I am just as trusting of the Vietnamese family as they are of me.
Two hours ago I have stumbled in, following the signs for cafe and wifi, only to find myself sitting in someone’s dining room table cum coffee shop… and when I finally need to use the bathroom, I leave my laptop and bag (with wallet) in their living room as collateral. read more »
Hello, Hanoi
(Part 3 of Many)
We made it.
3 hours later than I set out to write, I am sitting in someone’s living room drinking strong coffee and sugared lotus seeds. The Xe Om driver, knowing a shortcut, made his way beautifully through traffic and dropped me off in the Tay Ho district. I have come to this street because my friend Jenny lives nearby, my friend Aaron owns a wine bar down the street, and I am confident that if all else fails I can beg them for some pity. It is the only place in Hanoi from where I can find my way home.
Hello, Hanoi
(Part 2 of Many)
If you think that traveling halfway across the world to live in a busy Asian city where you don’t speak the language, don’t know your way around, and have a very thin grasp on where you’ll find your next meal will make it easier for yourself to write that elusive novel you’ve been dreaming about– I have some advice: it won’t. read more »
Hello, Hanoi
(Part 1 of Many)
I love that Taipai airport.
Most of us may have lost touch with nature, and now run frantically toward technology to make us happy, but at least the Taiwanese know how to make a good substitute.
“Calling noise a nuisance is like calling smog an inconvenience. Noise must be considered a hazard to the health of people everywhere.”
— Dr. William H. Stewart, former Surgeon General of the United States
* * *
Outside, the air was cold and swirling.
“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the waaaa-aayy!” A car full people, laughing and yelling, the car idling, the stereo booming. Bright lights, banner ads, and music streams out of storefronts, festivities flaking across Union Square. There is a moment every winter where I stop loving Christmas and cannot wait for January 2. This moment is about to happen.
Hi, love. Another email for you, coming from the beautiful (but currently stormy) Cook Islands. I wrote you a little narrative of my day. Hope you like it.
Rough Seas do Shake, O Darling Come What May: A Story
Today we tried going out for another dive day. It is Sunday, and
everything around the island is closed (fairly religious here). It is
mom’s official BD, and so we thought a nice repeat dive, yesterday
being so great, would be just the thing. The weather was a bit stormy
again, but the dive place we went with said they were still good to
go, so we packed our bags and met them out from this morning.
I was already seeing ominous signs before we even started. read more »
The sun, ferns, salt and dark lager have bleached my brain. I am now sitting by myself at the (mahogany? kaori wood?) bar at a place called “Schnappa Rock” and enjoying a very tall pint while I write and look at the ocean:
I thought it would be fun.
A 6-day getaway to laid-back, green&lush Seattle. Hang with The Girls. Get a little crazy.
In SF, my “color girls” (3 friends I’ve known since about 6 years old) wouldn’t stop until the whole town was painted red, red, red. Only thing is, suddenly I’m… old[er]. And definitely, certainly, unquestionably un-hip.