Drowning on dry land

Going outside is such a challenge. It means putting on clothes that actually match and aren't just picked up from the floor. It means putting on shoes, which is a bother because since I can't lift my toe it keeps getting stuck, and if I'm going to wear any other shoes than the usual ones I have to move the thingy. It usually means being restricted with time, both with actually going and with sleeping and eating and all other necessary things. It means being responsible and reliable and to keep up the social agreements of the world. One of those being, all business is conducted at daytime. And daytime is worse.

Going outside means walking. Disregard the pain, the discomfort, the appearance. It makes me feel like half a human. Then going outside usually means bike. Disregard that I have to step sideways to get next to it among the other bikes and swing my leg over it, both of which require ridiculous effort. I hate it because it means having to lift my foot onto the pedal with my hands because my leg isn't strong enough, and if I didn't feel like half a human before, that definitively does it.

And it means that when all of those things are done, there waits another hundred times more. Places, people, things. What to buy, where to find it, what to do, who to meet. What to say, how to say it. A million tiny details that every human lives with, so why does it sometimes feel like I'm drowning in the details... in life. Whenever I need to go anywhere, my heart cries; "why do I have to move?". It's like this giant momentum thing. Here at home everything is where it's supposed to be, which is exactly where I left it. I don't have to think because I already know, and I don't have to move far, and most importantly, I could crawl around if I felt like it and perhaps my roomie would be perplexed but it would feel okay.

Going outside makes me feel something isn't right with me, and consequently, that something is wrong with the world. It's not just about the leg. It's all of it. When I'm out, half of the time I'm working hard to distract myself from wanting to go home, and the other half I wish everyone else could go home so I could be alone where I am. So yeah. I have a problem. Sucks.

I wonder if you guys know that stuff like in that previous post is sort of like the other side of this. This is me whining - that is me appreciating life. I should write a mirror post to this one. Sort of like "Going outside means smelling the fresh air and seeing the endless sky", except you can do both through a window... maybe "Going outside means getting a new view of things, experiencing new things and meeting new people." That works. Not today though. Today I just wish I could make it not become tomorrow, when I have to go out to go to school.

A Spirit World of Concrete and Glass

Early morning. Evenly gray sky like a single stroke of a brush across the atmosphere. I'm biking along the streets of the outer rim of the city, no cars, no bikes, no people. Only the swirr of the wheels and sense of the earth's powers as I lean to take a corner and experience the soft, powerful feeling of physics in perfect harmony with the metal contraption and my own body. It makes me feel at peace with the world. It makes me feel poetic.
I enter the blocky neighborhood of two-story buildings. The square windows, black in shadows, stare out at me like the gaping void holes where the soul has fled. Their darkness promises solace, sleep and safety. They do not lie, but they are as cold on the inside as the stone is to the touch.
It is the wind that puts me in this mood, perhaps. Like a searching spirit it rushes between the maze of buildings, whirls around the city, voicelessly whispering "where are you?". It blows right through me as if I was a ghost, and I feel its cold touch on my skin and on my heart. "Where are you?"
Perhaps I walk the spirit world. Perhaps there are a dozen people around me, laughing, walking, looking, but I am on the other side of the veil and the cold, sharp air leaves me hearing nothing but my own breath, seeing nothing but my own hands and the canvas, the background, of buildings with gaping dark holes and grave silence.
Nothing moves. The maze is absolutely still as the wind crashes against the walls, writhes and turns and rushes ahead and veers around the corners like a wounded animal fleeing for its life. This is humanity without its bestial side, I think. This is humanity stripped of its nature. Perfect angles that adher to reason and stay utterly, completely still. This is our spirit world of concrete and glass.
Next time I turn a corner there are trees, bowing in the wind, shaking their leaves at me. I stop the bike, feel the forces of physics work with me and against me as I press the breaks, feel rubber against asphalt through the metal frame, and I smile at the trees. They fill my ears with white noise as if to say, don't do this, don't look at the world so hard, just let it be. They are like well-meaning aunts, the trees. Annoying you out of love and concern, while you smile and nod and ignore them.
I think, the spirit world of concrete and glass is a place of perfection. Of absolutely silence, of ethereal beauty, of thoughts and feelings greater than myself. I think, I am the luckiest human alive to get to tap into it like this. It is worth everything.

Last Minute Girl

Masquerade party tomorrow evening and I don't even know what I'm going to dress up as. The theme is "heroes". Apparantly, however, most female heroes have a requirement to meet about how much skin to show, most preferably legs, at least the kind I generally think of. Or they have spray-on latex clothes a la Underworld. I'm ruined by popular culture, perhaps. Florence Nightingale or Mother Theresa? I wanted an Asian person anyway, more importantly than gender actually, but I can't seem to think of anything that's good, recognizable and easy to make a costume of. My superhero name should be Last Minute Girl.

What I have decided is that I will someday dress up as this flashy lady, although in her alternative clothes that can't be found on the internets because they don't meet the required skin shown, where she actually has pants, but that will have to be a later project. She's badass enough to not be the usual fare of Power Girl cheerleaders, and she has purple hair and a cool mark that will require face paint so wheee. And not to underestimate - she's a ninja so she doesn't wear heels!!! She's not actually Asian, in the original version, but... well... Marvel Universe is a marvellous thing, and if you want that further explained, and see how many times this girl has died and been rescurrected, look here.

It's also hard to shake the idea I had to cosplay Buttercup from the PowerPuff Girls. Anyone want to be my Blossom and Bubbles? XD You could do so much fun with their clothes and a bit of imagination.

Hmm..... Kim Possible?

Smygreklam från Disney för Antipiratbyrån?

Det här är ordagrannt undertexten från Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's end precis i början:

"By decree , all persons found guilty of piracy , or aiding a person convicted of piracy , or associating with a person convicted of piracy ... ... shall be sentenced to hang by the neck until dead ."

Om man nu tar detta och kör genom Google Translate så blir det:

"Genom dekret, hittade alla personer skyldiga till piratkopiering, eller hjälpa en person som dömts för piratkopiering, eller umgås med en person som dömts för piratkopiering ... ... döms att hänga om halsen tills döda. "

En oskyldig bieffekt av statistisk maskinöversättning, eller en gemensam effort från Disney/Google/Antipiratbyrån? ^_~

Chisel to the Stone like a Blade to Flesh

I think I'm done.

Life feels like a series of momentous moments linked together by a string of luck and chance that determines how those moments turn out. I remember my moments clearly. The time I really looked at myself in the mirror the first time. The time my mother said my brother looked up to me, without any sort of jealousy, despite... everything. The time my father brought home flowers for no reason and I saw my parents kiss the first time. The time my grandmother kneeled by my mother's bed and said, with the biggest honesty I've seen in my life, that she wished she could have taken this hell, cancer, instead of her. The time my mother said, sitting in a chair somewhere, that she felt like she had a great responsibility to take care of me because she'd chosen me. And now lately, looking in the mirror and seeing my Korean self looking back, and fighting with my father to the point of him saying if I wanted to walk away and never speak to him again, then fine.

If life is a marble statue, I believe genes and blood is the stone, and these moments are the chisel. But how the chisel is put to the stone is determined not by either of these, but by chance, luck - by how we choose to process them. And I think I'm done processing these last two now.

From looking in the mirror I was forced to make a decision if I liked what I saw. And I decided I liked some parts and didn't like others, and that I would choose to change those that I liked the least. I have. From hearing of my brother's feelings, I made an effort to understand him, and learned to see the world more like he does and respect his point of view. Now I'm jealous of him sometimes. From the kiss, that my parents, however unlike a storybook their love is, love each other in their own way. From my grandmother I saw the infinite love of mother and daughter, and like an inmate seeing god I can't deny it. From what my mother said of my adoption, I learned I never want to be a burden to anyone, I never asked to be and to my power I never will - I will never be a duty but a choice. 

The most recent two are linked. My mind was spinning with seeing my Korean side, and I couldn't pick it apart, I couldn't settle it. Something was nagging on my mind but I couldn't figure it out. Then we fought, and I walked away hurt and angry and confused and frustrated. It took a long while to process that one, and it ended up linked to the other. But I think I'm done.

It's difficult to put words to this one. I'm still conflicted. I still believe I'm a Korean and am unsure of what that actually means. I'm still hurt about what dad said, because emotions can't be controlled like that. But I feel more like an adult. I think what I realized is that I also make sacrifices to walk my path, just like I've seen the things my dad sacrifices, and mine are just as much and as little worth as his. I rebelled against the idea that he would sacrifice other people around him, but I think that what he really sacrifices is himself; risking to end up alone. And I realized that I am no better than him; I am ready to sacrifice him to walk my path, even if that's not what I want. Stubbornly, stupidly, he has raised a daughter who is just as stubborn and stupid. And that is the road I will walk. 

Then the words are spoken again, "cancer". Someone else, somewhere else, linked but not too close to me, but to someone else. I hear it and I cry. So I'm wondering... does my father cry? Does he speak to anyone? I don't know. And I'm thinking, my path will not be like that. I am not alone, and I will never sacrifice that. Another momentous moment, another lesson learned for life. While somewhere else someone else has been told their life is about to end.