7 year cycles and the age 33...

So my buddy Tomoko told me today that 33 is supposedly the worst year of your life in Japanese or Chinese mythology...I believe it...I also have this theory that 7 years ago, someone kissed me on the cheek when I had lipstick on my chin...Pretty embarassing...and I have been ruined ever since, and it is only this year that the cycle has lifted...I believe in 7-year cycles...Thankfully, I am 34 now...Heh...

Recovery video shoot with Pat Deegan...

So, I went to Albany, NY for the shoot and I met up with a guy named Tony Treyhan who was also appearing in the video...It was pretty coincidental because he lived in Cali in 1989 and was also a punk rocker...He lived with a guy who is now Rancid's drummer and we knew a lot of the same people...Rancid was Op Ivy except for Jesse...I knew a couple of the guys in Operation Ivy, especially Jesse, and hung out at the Gilman which was the club where all the greatest garage bands aspired to perform located in Berkeley, CA...The Gilman was a place where a lot of bands got their start...I was at Greenday's first show, and so was Tony...That was pretty wierd and yet very pleasant reminiscing about those days...We talked about what destroyed the punk rock culture...It was jocks, and racists, drug abuse...We both love Crimpshrine...Tony now has a son and is playing him punk rock music...Tony had been in a band back then too...

The video workshop was very interesting, discussing the balance between personal medicine and pill medicine and being able to be an expert on your own body and spirit in order to articulate what you need to the professionals...How feelings are not symptomatic...That was stuff I needed to hear...I gave a ten minute interview on my own experiences and that I am comfortable taking meds and that I will continue to do so until a time when there is another option open to me...

Update: I just got asked to appear in another video interview shooting the 15th of June about recovery for a software program...

Cuba revisted...

I found out Jose's grandfather was a leader in aviation...He wrote to me once and said it would've been great to hang out together at the Malecon...I didn't say anything then, but I remember that and wished that we did...I thought about him when I was in Cuba, especially because I stopped in Miami first...Feels like sliding doors...

New York Moment #1023...

I was standing in the post office line at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn and usually the wait time is about 45 minutes around lunch hour and so there was an older white man (There was a shorter line for handicapped and senior citizens that opened up, but the older white man chose to stand in the longer line because he said that's the only exercise he gets with his cane).. and an older black man talking about the music playing..."Is this Gladys Knight?" "No, no" the older black man interjected, "This is the Staples Singers...Yes, but they do sound a lot like Gladys"....Wow, that was beautiful...

My therapist is actually asking really interesting and challenging questions...I walk away thinking about stuff...Today he asked me about my haunted art project, AKA Modern Day Torture Chamber...I had done this for a show at school...Put ordinary household objects in picture frames that meant other things to me...After the project was done (I got an overwhelming response to this exhibit from my classmates), I felt those objects were haunting my apartment...He said I should try to collect stuff that will tell stories of healing...I'm not going to go overboard and start collecting crystals or anything...

Actually I started collecting classic boxing photos and posters...

He also made me realize that I'm a runner, I have been ever since I was 6 running away from home...Survival instincts, my therapist said...1978 was a different time period, the police brought me back home when I had no shoes or jacket in the evening, kicked out, my mom told them I ran away, and was covered with welts...Anyways, my therapist said that was extreme...I know in this day and age, social services would have taken me away from her...

I just got asked to appear in a video...

Representing the Asian population, I was asked to take part in a video interview with a psychiatrist discussing medications in Albany, NY. Not exactly an Academy part or a walk-on in a music video...Anyways, I accepted and so I'll be going to the state's capital...

What's weirder is I'm happy for him...

I think I am truly in love with someone. Maybe that's why I can be happy for Bob and his new life without me, why I was happy to talk to him...I am miserable in my unrequited state of love, but it is beautiful...Because I know that I only love one person. I have spent many lifetimes with him...For some reason, I dreamed of him for a couple of nights...And he doesn't care about me...He's got girls falling out his pockets...He's a snob...He's cocky and arrogant...But he's a gentleman...And I have been lovesick over him since that first night we met...He's the coolest guy to walk the earth, all the guys want to be like him and all the ladies swoon and I am not worthy, but then again, he's just a dirty grimy painter from the hood...and I know it's still in him to tag someone's face for having beef with him...I hate him because I love him so much...

What's weirder than talking to your first love?

My first love broke my heart by dating my friend after we were broken up...He could argue that I broke up with him and started dating other guys, I suppose, but the truth is that I wasn't ready for a serious relationship....I was 20, but that didn't mean that I didn't love him...And I never date anyone's friends...I didn't speak to him, though for several years he would try to talk to me since we frequented the same parties and knew a lot of the same people...Finally he came up to me on Christmas Eve 1996 when my family happened to be seated next to his at a restaurant and asked me to call him because he was on the East Coast, DC, I think and I was living in Brooklyn. I didn't want bad blood between us, so I happened to be in Oakland when he returned from his two-year peace corps duty in Mongolia in 1999 and I called him up and talked to his dad which was really awkward and doubly awkward because he had a girlfriend he met in the Peace Corps...I didn't want to dredge up the past, but my buddy Joe happened to mention his website, so I looked it up and he called me right back after I sent him an email...NYC is a big place, but it's really a small world...Man, we were nuts about each other once...Man, we were so young then...And even though it's weird to think about talking to your first love, it really wasn't bad...Actually it was very pleasant...Actually it's better this way, talking to him before we run into one another somewhere in the city...