A Different Kind of Travel Diary

Berlin.

Now nothing but a token in my head, like a notch on a bedpost. I didn't want to take general pictures, at first, because I wanted it all inside, I wanted it to be all mine. No one and nothing can steal memories. They can take them away or destroy them, but never steal them. Then I took pictures, on my "sightseeing day", because the girl I was with did it. Conformity, mimicking to make a bond, more than trying to preserve visual memories. When I came, I knew there were only two photos I wanted and was going to get at any cost. The big arc, and the pieces of the wall at Potsdamer, and I wanted those for one reason only: proof. I was there. I had been there, at those locations, which were exactly where JYJ had been two days earlier. But when I took those two, I thought, in this modern age of internet, photoshop and reality-like graphic technologies, what kind of proof is a photo? No. I still cherish those two photos, but in reality there is only one proof: memories. All mine.

I've been emotionally haywire, it's starting to settle now. Haywire in my own quiet way. And though the dust has settled, the pigments sunk to the bottom of the glass and the water is clearer, I can conjure it back. Just take my little finger and gently draw it over the water surface and see the colors swirl. All I need to think is "I walked away, I left of free will." Being on my own in a foreign environment, I realized, happiness doesn't come in many forms it comes it one. One. And it has not been here for a while. I walked away, I left of free will, I willingly walked back into my cauldron of despair.

Loving someone you don't know is like an addiction to the pain. A pain that makes you feel more alive than ever, and then, when it settles, makes you want to claw your eyes out, just to a moment later be chasing the high again. I must never let go of my vow to never drink alone. I must never smoke a cigarette, and I must be careful with medicine. Because it's so easy. It's so easy to want the addiction, and once you want it, you're not longer steering the boat, you're just riding the waves, the ups and the downs. It's wonderful, it's liberating, it's an illusion of freedom so strong you can no longer see any other freedom.

Berlin.

Without JYJ Berlin is just a city like any other city, filled with people like any other people, and buildings like any other buildings. Sticks and stones, flesh and bones. But it's not about JYJ, you know that, just like it's not really about alcohol or pills or cigarettes. It's about that through my own madness, for one day only, I gave Berlin wings and turned it into something beautiful. And like all true art, it lasted only for an all too short time.

How to hijack a me.

Just saw a cute variant on the "bringing a knife to a gunfight" saying; "bringing a cop to a superhero fight" :D

I had like twenty things to say when I opened my browser, but after my daily Twitter, Gmail and GReader round I've been overrun with new stalker pictures of Jaejoong, the news that my CD is now on the way, and some very sweet comic pages. Wiped everything else. What did I do before that? How did I get here? Who am I?

selective memory

This is gravely embarrassing but I'm going to post 3 (horrible) images. They're all attempts at drawing a person, a real living one that I've seen quite frequently the last couple of years (although never in real life).
The first is entirely from memory. Been at least 24 hours since I saw a picture or video or whatever of him. It's also without "warming up" my drawing hand which might explain a shard of its suckiness.
The second image is an attempt at redraming that image while looking at reference pictures (Google). This was done rather quick and dirty, if I'd put my mind to it I could have adjusted it much more, and I'm not really satisfied, but it's there to provide a middle step.
The third is an "overlay", meaning I copypasted a photo beneath the drawing and redrew the lines that needed to change. It's not a "copy" exactly because it's still black-and-white linework, and since I started the drawing without a specific photo in mind I had to find a photo that had approximately the same angle and posture so a tiny bit of adjustment was required.

So why am I doing this? (Broadcasting my drawing failiures to the world, I mean :P) Because it's a fascinating. When I look at a familiar face I don't actually *look* at it. Neither do I really *see* it when I think of that person. When I was done with the first drawing I was rather sure it was at least decent. By the time the second drawing was done I was aware of that it lacked greatly but didn't quite know how to fix it. And then with the overlay, I can kinda see that it's him, but it looks terrible. (Although that's also because of my low drawing skills and the simplicity of the image.) The way he looks in my mind is probably somewhere between the second and third. How he really looks... I think I'm unable to see anymore. Maybe if someone knocked me on the head so I lost all memory of him. I remember clearly that I saw pictures of him long ago and paid him no attention, but over time he's grown to be the most handsome man on the planet. Clearly that doesn't have all that much to do with how the actually looks, because now when I studied him more as a visual composition - he didn't look at all like I know he does.
Is it me "filling in the blanks" with what I want to be there? I know I get the same feeling when I look at a friend or family member and really only look without seeing their face. I can think, Wow, she's really pretty or Was that how he looked?. Thinking of a person really only calls up some rough markers in my head. Hair, general body shape, general face shape, and for some people eyes. Then everyone have behavioral markers that aren't strictly looks but are effectively inseparable from their visual impact; their movement patterns, signature nervous habits, eye movements.

So beauty truly must lie in the eye of the beholder. Can a face be objectively, unemotionally beautiful? It can be structurally perfected I suppose. Symmetry and golden ratio and all that. But does that really make something we love? Beauty comes from the inside, to pull up another cliché - maybe it does in the sense that what you do creates behavioral markers that fill in the blank spaces with exactly what your watchers want to see?

If he really looked like how I see him in my head, would he even look human? Would I, if I saw him outside my head in the real world, even like what I saw? Actually, I think no. When I look closer at photos I always think it doesn't quite look like him. I think what makes him so beautiful, is all that he is that I know of, overlayed with the linework of my mind. We're all little artists like that :)

If you wanna know what he looks like on photo, just Google Jaejoong. Bother linking and shit.

What I Wish I Could Say Right

Hi.

Ignore whatever I've written earlier today, I was bored. But there's something I want to say. I've rewritten this post half a dozen times now over several days, trying to find a way to say things right, but I'm giving up. It will never be right. Some things cannot be expressed or shared. I will just state, because it's time to go public:

His name is Kim Jaejoong of Dong Bang Shin Ki, and he has it all. The shoulders, the jaw, the voice, the sense of humor, the eyes, the moves, the style. I will never meet him, probably never see him live considering where I live. That is of no consequence. He exists, somewhere, and for that simple fact I am forever and always grateful.

Always keep the faith.

"Dear Diary"

I should start a diary.

Every entry would begin; "This is what I would tell you today."

I would write it in a way so that I kept the recipient in mind, as if it was a conversation, or a monologue.

And who are "you"? One and many. Known and unknown. Named and unnamed. Flesh and concept. One day I imagine you might become one, and known, and named. But maybe not. For now, you're all these things, and more.

"You" are what makes me not alone.

Thank you.