Saturday, March 27, 2004, 1am.
Dear C,
I am extremely tired, but not for lack of sleep. For a variety of reasons, I am feeling too disturbed. When I got back home, I spent the rest of the day with two friends of mine, catching up (for us, one week is a very very long time to be away).
Reading your email last night was painful--too emotional a response. I swear, that'll be my undoing--overly intense responses to things. As hard as it may be, I just have to say it, I guess. It's over, C. I'm sorry, you're so wonderful and kind and interesting and awesome, and I am not. I can't give you what you need. I'm sorry.
I write this email for two reason, both of which are for my benefits:
1, to share with you what I'm feeling and thinking with regards to Friday night. This benefits me, because it will help get things off my chest and let me breathe a little better. And 2, to allow you an opportunity to look through the crack into the 'Inner Circle of Fabulous ME.' This benefits me because...because it'll help get things off my chest and...get you on it. Ha.
Okay, so, to begin. Where do beginnings start? Mine started at the car. No, even before that. A different beginning, but a beginning nevertheless. Even before
that beginning too, but maybe that's going back too far, and its significance would have little meaning to this present beginning (whose meaning rides on its direct relation to you and me after Friday). Well, so I choose--it's that beginning, that one, where I began to contemplate without reservation the possibility of us--you and me--getting together. I was then still calm and very cool--something that I have learned to acquire...you know, talk the talk but sit the walk. But that beginning wasn't supposed to begin anything until much later, after you've left, after which I
was going to decide to write an email (or perhaps a letter...or perhaps send a telegraph, or invisible message, or message in a bottle, or postcard from the North Pole, or in codes) letting you know of my then current contemplation. So that was the very different beginning.
I was happy to be seeing you again, but I was cool, until I saw you approaching in the car. In that beginning, I experienced a little jump, and that was very surprising, so surprising, in fact, that I allowed myself to slip into cruise control and just...let things slide. [Fact to know about Quan: she uses a lot of commas and parenthesis.]
And then the rest, you were there. [Fact to know about Quan: she's a lazy writer, which affects her semantics.]
I know you are hurt, which explains why receiving your email was painful. You are hurt because you feel rejected--of course, it's natural, that one should feel hurt when one is rejected. I had a doubt--when you said, "I've said it (I am sorry; I cannot give you what you seek)" two times...in Chinese." I had a thought to ask you if you think you're going to need to say it again in English, but, eh, that was before everything started to happen. The jist of it is that I think I have reason and control, and I always think I can handle it, but in the end, always, my emotions get the better of me, so I slip and let myself slide, and then afterwards, unable to get up.
It was a one night stand, C. But despite my rationality (rational and rationing; personality of me), despite what I may be saying and what it may sound like, I've somehow managed to invest quite a bit of myself (physical nakedness aside ...from aside, and that's how a song was born, Louis Armstrong, That's How A Song Was Born).
So, after coming back, I started to replay the story, scene by scene, checking and rechecking, reading and rereading the dialogues, diatribes, even the elegies
and silly-loquies (had there been any, which would still make perfect sense). Then I didn't like you very much for a moment because you, your tenderness, your quiet patience, are making it very difficult for me to be rational.
In the end, it has gotten so much more complicated than I had anticipated from the beginning, but then again, that's how it always goes. I asked my best friend, whose opinions I trust, whose heart I find precious, why that is--why it hasn't ended when the clock said 6 A.M. She said, that's because you really like(d?--I couldn't really tell--that's my non-native speaker ear, could never really tell when someone's speaking the past tense or not, except when it comes to matters
of the verb to be) C, and you were exposed. Then I laughed and said, well, yes, I was, but there were blankets all around. [Fact to know about Quan: repeat:
she often talks the talk and then go hide, cause she gets scared shitless after the fact.] [Fact to know about Quan: she always could not prevent herself from
doing.] [Fact to know about Quan: when she's in her head running around in a closed room, her sentences suffer.] [Fact to know about Quan: you are able to
see read this because she wants you to see this incoherent part of her; now it's up to you to listen to what she says, but don't jump to the conclusion that this is all there is.] [Fact to know about Quan: maybe it is.]
Make up a tune, any tune, as long as it fits, and that's how jazz was born, and that's how jazz was born.
So I end up: I don't know. Friday was weird. Yes, it was a weird Friday. But, today is only Saturday, and there's still Sunday left.
Which leaves my request: do not go out of your way to be kind--it won't do me any good. I know you already as kind and gentle, so you don't have to do anything to be so. When I stabilize, I will write you.
Salute,
q.
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