she's scared, he's scared

read the first chapter of she's scared, he's scared (written by the folks who coined the word commitmentphobic and who wrote the book, Men who can't love)  And then I got scared and ended up venting about 45 minutes to ms Voodoo about my ever so perfect relationship with E. 
First off, I can think of at least one person I am going to get that book for. You know who you are and your birthday's comin up...perfect excuse.
E's perfect, except I have this imminent fear I'm going to be blind sided and not see where the curve ball was comin from.  It's not him, it's me. And I frickin hate doing the asking... "where are going", "are we on the same page".  All legit questions but gee... I'd really like not to have to ask those questions, but I'm just so insecure these days, I need to hear it. 
la la la...
breathe mooncake, breathe...

100 things about Mooncake

*always wanted to do one of these, but never really found the time.  It's damn hard to do mind you. Didn't compile the list in one sitting-it was more like three weeks.  Finally finished it today...*
 

1)      I am from Singapore
2)      Singapore is not part of China contrary to popular belief, but was a part of Malaysia, if you know where that is
3)      I live in San Francisco, somewhere in the Sunset
4)      I have 2 stuffed animals: an owl, named Owl, that sits on my desk at work, and a cat, named CAT that sleeps with me
5)      I also sleep with a bolster- it is a long cylindrical like pillow. Only Asians use it I hear. 
6)      I am a side sleeper. 
7)      Sleeping on your back feels creepy because it’s the same position you are in when they put you in a coffin
8)      My kitchen is my favorite place in my apartment, although I hardly ever cook in it.
9)      My favorite activity in the kitchen is making coffee and reading the paper especially on the weekends
10)  I now have weekends available
11)  I used to spend weekends studying or catching up with reading
12)  I just graduated with my second Masters
13)  It's  in economics
14)  I do love economics
15)  I do not however identify myself as an economist.
16)  I am a Special Ed teacher by training
17)  I work with students with disabilities
18)  Other than the pay, it's the best job in the world.
19)  Growing up I wanted to be a ballerina, but my mother said that would make my thighs fat and hard
20)  Going to college I had dreams of becoming a journalist for the BBC.  That did not pan out.
21)  I taught kindergarten for two years while I was in college
22)  That was when I found my calling.
23)  I still graduated with a degree in European Studies and Philosophy
24)  I was chief Editor for my faculty newspaper
25)  I beat my then boyfriend to the post because I apparently did not hard sell myself. 
26)  He was very upset, until I said he could be deputy
27)  He’s a better writer, I have to admit
28)  But I’m a better "politician" so to speak
29)  I went to NYU after my B.A.
30)  So did the boyfriend
31)  And we broke up while we were there.
32)  But I love New York still. 
33)  I am a Yankee fan, as a result of my NYU days
34)  I didn’t start watching baseball til ‘98
35)  My favorite Yankee is Paul O'Neil.
36)  I bought a Jeter jersey cos it was on sale.
37)  I feel sorry for the Red Sox, but it's their own stupidity
38)  I don't have a favorite basketball, football or hockey team
39)  I do however like the San Jose Earthquakes
40)  Langdon.
41)  I used to hate San Francisco
42)  But I've gotten used to it, and like it a lot more now. It's where I call home.
43)  I miss the seasons though
44)  And wearing either next to nothing tank tops, or beautiful winter jackets
45)  I wear fleece on a regular basis now.
46)  I used to think fleece was for the homeless dudes.
47)  I spent $79.99 on my wind resistant superlight fleece from REI.
48)  I wear it everywhere
49)  The word spendthrift is an oxymoron, but an appropriate description of me.
50)  I have 45 pairs of shoes in my closet
51)  I wear about 12 pairs consistently
52)  Last year alone I bought 3 pairs of boots
53)  Shoes are a girl's best friend
54)  My last big purchase was a pair of 3 inch stilettos from Banana Republic
55)  I think BR is overpriced
56)  But I shop there anyway    
57)  I am a sailor
58)  I love the water
59)  The only sporting activity I can claim to be good at is sailing
60)  I've never placed anything less than 1st 2nd or 3rd in a sailing race.
61)  I cannot play any ball sports
62)  Except for ping pong- and even that I'm a very very marginal player
63)  The guy I’m dating now plays baseball, basketball and ultimate.
64)  He hasn't asked to me to play any of the above sports… yet.  Thank God.
65)  I'm not the sort that wears her heart on her sleeve.
66)  Did that once and got burned.
67)  Better the poker face I think.
68)  Love is always easier when you're watching it, not when you're in it.
69)  Although it's definitely better when you're in it than when you're watching it.
70)  I miss my family in Singapore a lot
71)  My favorite activity growing up was going to the beach and eating crabs with my father.
72)  I’m my daddy's little girl
73)  He still calls me boo boo.
74)  But I never talk to him about boys
75)  I think he gets jealous
76)  My mom is always eager to talk to me about boys
77)  But not til I was 25. 
78)  I'm now 28
79)  My mother is worried I'll never get married
80)  I was forbidden to date til I was 21
81)  I started dating when I was 15.
82)  My first real boyfriend and I are still friends
83)  He's a lawyer for one of the big five firms in Singapore
84)  Am very proud of him
85)  Will never marry him though- we have very very differing political views.  We will kill each other
86)  I own a silver VW Jetta
87)  I'd like to re-learn how to drive a stick shift
88)  I want a Z-3
89)  I walk/ bus/ bike to work usually
90)  I am an affectionate person
91)  I'm not opposed to PDA
92)  But I agree there are limits
93)  Morning cuddling is my favorite time of day
94)  In fact, morning is my favorite time of day
95)  I own a Krups coffeemaker that grinds coffee beans, brews coffee at exactly 6:30am every morning
96)  That’s when I know to wake up.
97)  I’m becoming a yuppie, I know
98)  I love it at times and I hate it at times
99)  I have yet to decide if I want to be, or can be Mooncake beloved mother and wife
100) But I think I'll have time to think about it.

terminal procrastination

even the internet is boring. i have outsurfed, outsearched, outmaxed my capacity.  i don't feel like working. i don't want to go home. i don't want to go to the gym.  i am in the doldrums of procrastination.  my to do list- well last week was rather productive so I only have like 3 more items on the list.  but it's the 3 mother items.  prep for stats class, prep for autism workshop, prep for testtaking workshop.
it appears if i don't get things done before noon, i never get them done.  really.  my brain can only function and focus before noon. 
but i need to get shit done.
it's times like these where i really wish i qualified for a hit of ritalin.  caffeine would suffice, except i don't want to walk up and down fulton hill to go get it.  yea, i know.  i'm bloody lazy.

A Wedding and a Funeral

I'm exhausted from the weekend. It's been a rollercoaster of events over the last 48 hours attending Tim's memorial services followed by a whole day wedding on Saturday.

It's already Sunday evening and I really on woke up 2 hours ago. The wedding wasn't first on my mind, even though my body ached from standing all day. I woke up missing Tim and wondering what would have, could have been different. It just isn't right, burying a friend at the age of 27. He would have turned 28 in about 8 days.

Part of the eulogy talked about how people didn't know how to deal with his bipolar disorder, how despite the disorder, Tim was determined to lead a full and complete life. And in many ways I know he did, but I also wish I'd expressed my own fears and worry about his disorder. I'm guilty of always wearing the professional therapist hat whenever Tim and I discussed it. I felt like I was at work talking with my clients. All that professional information but really no real support as a friend at all. I was afraid of fighting with him, of becoming the nag, or the one to hold him back. All this while I was afraid for him, of him and never told him about it. And yet I want to claim that we were intimate friends. What a joke.

I walk to work ocassionally from the corner of Divis and Fulton.  That's my route whenever I stay over at e's place.  I still remember that morning clear as a whistle.  Got coffee from Cafe Abir, sat down cos it was still way too early to go to work and was debating whether or not to get a copy of the Times.  Checked the cell phone for messages and there was one.  I don't think I was more shocked than I was confused about the information cos it said that Tim had commited suicide, which I knew could never be true.  But it also said he had jumped of a building, which I knew was entirely possible.  In his manic state, he always had a thing for heights.  I called Tim's cell phone, which of course was not on; called my good friend K, called T, who had left the voicemail, called my boss Tom.  Eventually I made my way up on Fulton hill to work. 

I didn't fall apart, and it was almost too hard to cry.  All it was, was just a nagging sensation and a sense of breathlessness. How could this be? And then it was this sense that I had failed him.  Did he know, when he fell?  Did it hurt?  Was he scared?  How could I not have been there to hold his hand in that moment of fear? 

How ironic that in our last phone conversation, he called to say goodbye before he left for China.  He said his goodbyes, I haven't.  And I don't want to.  At the memorial service on Friday, I was supposed to say goodbye I guess, but I didn't.  That nagging sense of loss and guilt and emptiness was there, and I want to keep it there.  I'm not ready to say goodbye. 

Satre defined the knowledge of existence as knowing the other.  You know you exist because you can sense the other watching you.  Would it be cheesy if I said I felt Tim's presence?  And that if I said goodbye, and let go of all those feelings of sadness, guilt, emptiness, memories, I fear that a part of my existence would be ripped out? 

Where does God fit in in all this?  I don't know.  But I read this great quote from John Muir this morning which sounds almost like Tim talking, reminding me gently that there is a greater reason for all this- for this existence, his existence and a life well lived. 

  By forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive Nature accomplishes her beneficent designs - now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood of water; and again in the fullness of time an outburst of organic life....
This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. - John Muir

California-ized

Anyone who knows me, knows that I've always been in love with New York and I love that city like a first love. And that's what she'll always be to me... my first love, first home in the US. And although she still occupies a soft spot in my heart, I've to admit that I've moved on.
I've moved on. My new love, and I hadn't realized how much I do love, is this city where I live. San Francisco, I love you. Your quaint streets, clean air, weird politics, even Bart and Muni. If you were a guy, I'd marry you, but I guess in city speak, you're home to me :)

too good to be true

e and i are doing really well. he came over last night and we watched baseball (all three games on tv), talked about how bonds is the greatest player alive (his opinion not mine) and had dinner at my favorite thai place. next week, we're going out with my ex choir mates to see fahrenheit 911. big milestone that i'm introducing him to this group. this is going so well, i'm even getting nervous on my dates and wondering which one is the last. life is so transcient, i should just enjoy the time now- regardless of the consequences.
i really like this guy. we've made it to three months. i hope we make it to six. don't know if that's a silly thought. i think like that when i'm out on long runs. i tell myself to try to make the first mile. after the first, i tell myself to see how things go after the second and then the fourth... etc etc. i guess that's how i'm thinking about our relationship. We made it past the first, then the second. We're going into month number 4 now. keeping my fingers crossed and hope we make it through to october (baseball playoffs).