Mon, 8 June 2004
Dear Rob,
No need to call. I don't think you'll want to hear more complaints and rants anyway. Last night I
went out drinking. Got drunk enough to tell them that I have decided to try it again with you and am roomming with you next year and that I am asking them to understand and trust that I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and that it was not a rash decision. Long ass run-on. I realize the risk and am willing to take it, and I want them to support me. One said she does not support my decision, but she'd be there for me when I need. The other went off the handle, accused me of making "rash" decisions (she specified that just because you spend a lot of time thinking and debating and doubting does not necessarily mean that the decision is not "rash." I guess now I know all the parameters of what constitutes a "rash decision," and I completely agree.) She also said that she does not respect me, because I am weak, because I don't have strength in myself, because I am so dependent on a man. And that no, she won't accept it, and that if i choose to room with you, then when i fall, when the decision turns out to be wrong, she will not be there, etc. I was drunk, nauseated, pissed off, hurt, and every other goddamn peachy feelings, so i couldn't help it--i cried and hiccupped and wanted to get the fuck out of there. This morning I drove the landlady to the airport, then cried some more when I got back. Now I'm thinking, "Fuck it." I want to give it another try with you; I believe that you do have something you genuinely want to offer, and that's all I need to go with. I want to know what's it like to have a peaceful relationship, even if it means I have to adjust to a different kind of relationship with different rules. So you see, no need to call me back, because I'm not crying anymore.
I also want you to know that this has put me in an awful mood and I dont really want to talk to anybody for a while.
Remember Rob, the gate is always open; leave when you have to; change your mind whenver. I would be fucking bored out of my mind if both of us have to think that we're stuck with each other just because we fuck. I want you to be clear: I am only two dimensional. No expectations of further depth, further strength, further whatever else, okay? I can't handle being reminded that I am two dimensional like this all the time. There's a lump in my throat and I am imploding into it. Fucking A.
q.
Fri, 18 June 2004
Dear Rob,
In Clarice Lispector's "Passion According to G.H.," there is a quote: "For now, the first timid pleasure
that I feel is being able to say that I have lost my fear of the ugly." This quote is even better: "During
the time that I am writing and speaking, I'm going to have to pretend that someone is holding my hand. ...In the mean time I am inventing your presence...I shall invent your nameless presence and with you I shall start to die until I am able on my own not to exist, and then I'll let you go. For now, I have you, and your warm, unknown life is my only internal organization, I who without your hand would feel unattached within the enormous space that I have discovered."
"I'm going to create what happened to me, only because living isn't tellable. Living isn't livable."
Love you--you know that, don't you? Tell me if you still love Christina and still want to live/be with
her, because that would be okay too. Don't know why I have this damn nagging idea that you do. I would still care for you--I don't think it's something that one can just cut out or delete.
I'm slowly reading Fanon's biography, along with Said's memoir, Culler's book on structuralism, and
finally, finally, finally, Foucault's Archaeology of knowledge. The Culler book goes very well with
Foucault's AK--at least the ideas in there are making connections for me. Reading these two makes reading the two biographies very difficult.
I'm going to munch on some bread then head out to the bookstore to read. Still sick and nose running, but I have to get out of the house for a while--have been couped up in here for two whole days.
It's raining outside. Perfect weather--so very me!!
Don't forget to miss me and love me!
later.
q.
Tues, 6 July 2004
hi rob,
i'm at home. got back yesterday. this morning my brother took a butcher knife, cut down all the plants in the back yard, then drove somewhere with the knife with him. my mom sat at home, scared into immobility. she was thinking that he was gonna kill someone with that knife. she asked me if i know how we could get him into a ward. i said not unless we can prove that he's a threat to himself or others. fuck. i guess let's wait until he kills someone, or chop their arms off. then he came home,
eyes all red and bleary like he'd been crying for hi life. relief to my mom--no sign of blood. my dad
asked me in hushed tones if i could go see the nun at the local budhist temple and ask her if she knows of any ancient indian way of curing madness, since she was in india studying for her phd in budhology.
Wed, 7 July 2004
hi rob,
my brother's in the hospital. inpatient treatment. he talked and cried so much while we were waiting for the doctor. i'm going back to the hospital in a little while to drop off his clothes and things. i'm
tired. warning: i may change plans about next year. i want to save money, so maybe i'll do the work
exchange thing. if i get my thesis in at the end of this summer, then i could do some part time job in the fall and maybe full time in the spring. lots of possible plans are going through my head right now, with strong preference for quitting school and looking for a job.
anyway, gotta go. talk to you later.
q.
Thur, 8 July 2004
hi rob,
i'm sorry. thanks for understanding. i have headaches. my mom cries all the time. i have been
driving my parents to see my brother for the past two days, and it's been very hard. i was with him when they took him to the hospital, and i was hardly able to keep calm. now everything reminds my parents of my little brother. he tells us and the doctor that he wants to try to fight the voices himself, but they're trying to convince him to take medicine instead. my parents are so upset...they don't like the restrictions of the hospital (makes them think he's in prison) and wants to bring him home. they're also freaking out because they'll be in vn for a month. i told them that i'd come visit him everyday while they're away, but that doesn't seem to help any. don't know, maybe they're gonna cancel that trip.
i'm trying to think structurally...i don't know, grab onto something stable. my mom is a huge believer in the vnese traditions of spirits and feng shui and stuff, which is great thinking material. for ex: we're going to have to throw away my brother's bed and repaint his room. only my parents or two of my brothers (two specific brothers) can do this, for reasons that she won't tell us until it's done. she also said that a couple of days before he went to the hospital, she saw his "aura" changed into something very strange. she also saw some kind of vase that he had in his room, very "dark" and "foreboding" looking, so she took it out and smashed it. she would tell me all these fun things in between sobs.
i think my mom's reactions are very typical of the southern colloquial culture. there's certainly a lot
of fun materials in this particular stream, and certainly influenced by other southeast asian
cultures.
my dad told me earlier today (after going in to see my brother and seeing how strictly guarded the place is) that the reason the place has security all over the place is not to ensure the safety of the patients but to ensure order for the outside world. and he's never read foucault.
i've been playing billards on the computer a lot. no reading at all.
it's good to hear you are doing well and reading and writing and working hard on your persian and stuff.
my whole jaw is hurting..i have a habit of crunching my teeth together under extreme conditions. now i have to go prop my mouth open.
don't worry, i'm doing well. i just need to know that you're thinking about me and still want to be with me and i'll be good.
q.
Fri, 30 July 2004
you fucking me over again, rob? will you please get the fuck off your ego and be there when i need you, you fucking selfish asshole? you need to stop screwing me with these irritating little hints. you've already used them once, no need to use them again.
q.
Sun 5 September 2004
dear rob,
thanks for your email. i'm healthy. i have gotten a new place in the hills, and i like it much. it's
quiet and peaceful. and it's mine. i have your things. i'm in hiding at the moment, but i can box
them and leave the box in the office for you on tuesday.
k, bye.
q.
Showing posts with label my awesome love letters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my awesome love letters. Show all posts
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Love letters, batch #1: movies, Murakami, and nightmares
Thur, 20 May 2004
Dear Rob,
I tried calling you calling you calling you but you weren't there. I woke up exactly 1 hour and thirty
minutes ago. I dreamed of a girl--a rebel, my age, sometimes she was me, sometimes not. But I saw her, and I saw her rebel. She walked on top of things--cars, chairs, tables, climbed out of the window up high in the wall. She had locked all the doors to the house and lit it on fire from inside, before she climbed out to the balcony and watched the flames flare up. It wasn't regular fire. It was
congealed air; plasmic; globs of clear plasma, thin enough to move like fire.
Then she was running. And I was running with her. And there was another girl. We were
running from something evil. I was very scared, not scared for my life, I wasn't afraid to die, just afraid to be caught, because if I was caught, it would be by something greater than death.
We were trying to find a hiding place. By this time, there were only two of us--the girl, and me (and sometimes, I would be her). We ran into a club. It was something like a dancing club, and there was a moving stairwell, like an escalator except instead of steps there were round metal rollers, and we were rolled up towards the upper floor. At the top of this rolling escalator was a room; we were approaching it from the side--there was no door, just a whole side of the wall opened to us. There was a body, bloody, dead. A man dressed in white took a gigantic brush with red paint, stroked it once over the body curled on the floor, consecration of some sort. He said something, but I don't remember now. Then he took a hammer, a big hammer, and smashed the head of the dead body. He scooped out the brain, dipped it in flour of some sort, like how the chefs in Chinese movies often do, then dropped the flour soaked brain into a bowl, for soup. A woman dressed in black drank it, commented on its consistency, how the mental state of the brain matter when the body was alive immediately before death affected the consistency and taste of the brain. The she showed it to me--a clear liquid with clear bubbles, like fish bubbles. I remember an image of a girl--she was screaming, or something... I woke up, and I was scared. So scared. I also had a nightmare a few nights ago. I remember waking up with my eyes shut tight, afraid to open them, afraid to look over to where the chair was else I might find some black shadow sitting there staring at me. I went to sleep because I couldn't stand being awake and not thinking, not living in a way, but now I can't go to sleep, too scared to go back to sleep else I might go back to my nightmare. It might catch me in there. I might burn.
So I woke up and began reading Murakami again, just to finish reading that book that started so horribly. Dance dance dance--that's what it's called. What do you know, another nightmare. The book is about nightmares. I woke up from one, then opened up someone else's. From one to the next. Everything's so dark. My dream was dark; this book is dark; outside it's dark. Better someone else's than my own. Wish I could go to you now.
love,
q.
ps/ the john felstiner's biography on paul celan came today! and yesterday i read an interview with murakami--i really really like him! superstar. wonder if i will cross path with him someday....when i'm 50 and visiting tokyo, and if he's still living there, perhaps i will?
Tuesday, 25 May 2004
Hi.
Hope you are well and content and happy with family and mom's cooking. I finally finished my paper in 2 hours yesterday (after a couple of days of not being able to write a word). I wanted to write you yesterday and tell you about it, but the excitement fizzled out when I remembered that you're not here to go to the movies with me.
Anyway, it looks like I'll be moving my stuff to a storage after all. I was just told about an hour
ago that I need to rent storage to put my stuff because my best friend who is moving into my old apartment is going to need the closet space. I said I would move my stuff, of course.
Moving and boxes and things--these are too big for me. Usually I would have somebody else do it, that's what brothers and boyfriends are for. Now I have a headache just thinking about it. Of course, this means that I'll be sorting out all my stuff again, throwing out more books and more clothes. I just may give them all away, leaving just the bare necessities--meaning 75% of my books and clothes for a month.
This email must be very boring. I am very boring. I am also bored. I think I'm going to walk up the hills and hide there somewhere until evening. Then I"ll go to the movies. I want to see Shrek 2 and Spring Summer Fall Winter.
I miss you, did I tell you that already? I know I don't have you--you have not ever really loved me, you were always busy loving too many people--but that's okay, doesn't change the fact that I miss you.
Last week was great--greatest week as far as I can remember being happy. But let's be honest--you
probably can't give me more than a week's worth of your time out of a year--the rest is divided between your work, your self, and your other loves. Somethings I should never ask.
Sorry, I guess I'm tired, uninspired, unconvinced, and feeling so damn alone...as if i've been fucking abandoned....feel like packing up and going home. You don't want to live with a person like this, do you? You may have seen the side of me that gives a lot, but you haven't seen the side of me that needs a lot, and it seems that a lot of the things that I need others for are the same things that you need others to do for you. The practical stuff. The big stuff.
I'm off to the hills. I send you love.
q.
Sunday, 30 May 2004
Dear Rob,
I accidentally erased the message you left on my voicemail, and now I'm mourning! :(
But, I look forward to getting a letter from you! Yay! It's been four or five years since I last received a letter from someone. So I guess visiting you in Ohio is out of the question huh? In any case, it'll be good to be back home. Can't wait to take my brother driving all over the place. I'm sure my dad will be going along too; he'll want to. I want to drive for a week...to do nothing but drive and sing along to love songs, for a week.
I miss you. I try not to form expectations as far as you are concerned, because that will (as it did) put
pressures on both you and me. That, of course, means "no LOW expectations!"
I like writing emails, can't you tell? Helps me feel like I'm actually in communication with you (duh!).
When you called today I was out in Thoa's little garden, weeding. Weeding can be a lot of fun. I did
hear the phone ring once, but it was somebody with the wrong number. I had thought it was you; what a bummer it was when it wasn't you!!
I go now. I've bored you enough, yeah? Oh, forgot to tell you: last night I dreamed about you.
There were two of you--one was real, one was a double. When I finally figured out which one of you was the real you, you told me that you were married--and with a mistress!! What do you think that means?? Rhetorical question. Its cause and significance are already very obvious.
Good night, sweet.
q.
Thur, 3 June 2004
Dear Rob,
I received your letter on coffee filter paper, recycled and too thin, ink running and smearing your
thoughts. I want to write you a reply, but my thoughts ran out and smeared as well. I read your
letter while walking to the elevator, by the way, while stepping down the Dwinelle front steps and while sitting on the benches next to nobody. So no, I wasn't drinking. Neither was I smoking. What I did do afterwards is drive to the bookstore. A grand partnership, you and I.
I also realized that when you asked me about writing, you meant my thesis. Well, as far as that goes, it's not going--I haven't written a word or given it anymore thought since I last talked with you about it. However, earlier today, I did stop by the library and got the call numbers to a bunch of books
from the Cornell stacks.
From margaritas and barbecued fish, I got myself two ibubrofens and sporadic minglings of sleep and dreams. That was last night.
Today, I know that you don't really care for this email, this kind of babbling uncontrol-ability, so
I'll stop.
q.
Friday, 4 June 2004
Dear Rob,
I went to the Serendipity bookstore on University Ave this afternoon. The place is a great mystery. I
spent about an hour in there, still couldn't figure out what their shelving order is or how much they
charge for their books. It was overwhelming, the amount of books and journals and leaflets they have in there. Next time I go back to that place, I would like to go with you; I think you will figure that
place out quicker than me.
I also went to the Signal bookstore on Euclid. Bought a book of poetry by Paul Celan (it's great! AND it has the german version next to the translation), the first volume of Robert Musil's "The Man Without Qualities," and Murakami's "South of the border; west of the sun." Didn't you say you like this one of Murakami's?
I've also been on a movie marathon, one movie per night. Saw Dirty Pretty Things, but don't like it so
much. It was great at first, but by the second half of the movie, the hero's clean-cut righteousness and
the filmic cliches about love and justice really went to overkill. Have you seen Russian Ark? I like it--es ist sehr schon! (there, i can now claim my knowledge of the german language!)
"Under My Skin" is morbid (to the max!), but highly captivating and ruthlessly haunting. I recommend it!
I miss you, Robert. This is unnerving; you are becoming metonymic of a safe space. I have to be
careful.
Wish you more luck finding a place for the summer. If worse comes to worst, you can always cook your heart out in the fall. Revenge of the chef, part I.
q.
Dear Rob,
I tried calling you calling you calling you but you weren't there. I woke up exactly 1 hour and thirty
minutes ago. I dreamed of a girl--a rebel, my age, sometimes she was me, sometimes not. But I saw her, and I saw her rebel. She walked on top of things--cars, chairs, tables, climbed out of the window up high in the wall. She had locked all the doors to the house and lit it on fire from inside, before she climbed out to the balcony and watched the flames flare up. It wasn't regular fire. It was
congealed air; plasmic; globs of clear plasma, thin enough to move like fire.
Then she was running. And I was running with her. And there was another girl. We were
running from something evil. I was very scared, not scared for my life, I wasn't afraid to die, just afraid to be caught, because if I was caught, it would be by something greater than death.
We were trying to find a hiding place. By this time, there were only two of us--the girl, and me (and sometimes, I would be her). We ran into a club. It was something like a dancing club, and there was a moving stairwell, like an escalator except instead of steps there were round metal rollers, and we were rolled up towards the upper floor. At the top of this rolling escalator was a room; we were approaching it from the side--there was no door, just a whole side of the wall opened to us. There was a body, bloody, dead. A man dressed in white took a gigantic brush with red paint, stroked it once over the body curled on the floor, consecration of some sort. He said something, but I don't remember now. Then he took a hammer, a big hammer, and smashed the head of the dead body. He scooped out the brain, dipped it in flour of some sort, like how the chefs in Chinese movies often do, then dropped the flour soaked brain into a bowl, for soup. A woman dressed in black drank it, commented on its consistency, how the mental state of the brain matter when the body was alive immediately before death affected the consistency and taste of the brain. The she showed it to me--a clear liquid with clear bubbles, like fish bubbles. I remember an image of a girl--she was screaming, or something... I woke up, and I was scared. So scared. I also had a nightmare a few nights ago. I remember waking up with my eyes shut tight, afraid to open them, afraid to look over to where the chair was else I might find some black shadow sitting there staring at me. I went to sleep because I couldn't stand being awake and not thinking, not living in a way, but now I can't go to sleep, too scared to go back to sleep else I might go back to my nightmare. It might catch me in there. I might burn.
So I woke up and began reading Murakami again, just to finish reading that book that started so horribly. Dance dance dance--that's what it's called. What do you know, another nightmare. The book is about nightmares. I woke up from one, then opened up someone else's. From one to the next. Everything's so dark. My dream was dark; this book is dark; outside it's dark. Better someone else's than my own. Wish I could go to you now.
love,
q.
ps/ the john felstiner's biography on paul celan came today! and yesterday i read an interview with murakami--i really really like him! superstar. wonder if i will cross path with him someday....when i'm 50 and visiting tokyo, and if he's still living there, perhaps i will?
Tuesday, 25 May 2004
Hi.
Hope you are well and content and happy with family and mom's cooking. I finally finished my paper in 2 hours yesterday (after a couple of days of not being able to write a word). I wanted to write you yesterday and tell you about it, but the excitement fizzled out when I remembered that you're not here to go to the movies with me.
Anyway, it looks like I'll be moving my stuff to a storage after all. I was just told about an hour
ago that I need to rent storage to put my stuff because my best friend who is moving into my old apartment is going to need the closet space. I said I would move my stuff, of course.
Moving and boxes and things--these are too big for me. Usually I would have somebody else do it, that's what brothers and boyfriends are for. Now I have a headache just thinking about it. Of course, this means that I'll be sorting out all my stuff again, throwing out more books and more clothes. I just may give them all away, leaving just the bare necessities--meaning 75% of my books and clothes for a month.
This email must be very boring. I am very boring. I am also bored. I think I'm going to walk up the hills and hide there somewhere until evening. Then I"ll go to the movies. I want to see Shrek 2 and Spring Summer Fall Winter.
I miss you, did I tell you that already? I know I don't have you--you have not ever really loved me, you were always busy loving too many people--but that's okay, doesn't change the fact that I miss you.
Last week was great--greatest week as far as I can remember being happy. But let's be honest--you
probably can't give me more than a week's worth of your time out of a year--the rest is divided between your work, your self, and your other loves. Somethings I should never ask.
Sorry, I guess I'm tired, uninspired, unconvinced, and feeling so damn alone...as if i've been fucking abandoned....feel like packing up and going home. You don't want to live with a person like this, do you? You may have seen the side of me that gives a lot, but you haven't seen the side of me that needs a lot, and it seems that a lot of the things that I need others for are the same things that you need others to do for you. The practical stuff. The big stuff.
I'm off to the hills. I send you love.
q.
Sunday, 30 May 2004
Dear Rob,
I accidentally erased the message you left on my voicemail, and now I'm mourning! :(
But, I look forward to getting a letter from you! Yay! It's been four or five years since I last received a letter from someone. So I guess visiting you in Ohio is out of the question huh? In any case, it'll be good to be back home. Can't wait to take my brother driving all over the place. I'm sure my dad will be going along too; he'll want to. I want to drive for a week...to do nothing but drive and sing along to love songs, for a week.
I miss you. I try not to form expectations as far as you are concerned, because that will (as it did) put
pressures on both you and me. That, of course, means "no LOW expectations!"
I like writing emails, can't you tell? Helps me feel like I'm actually in communication with you (duh!).
When you called today I was out in Thoa's little garden, weeding. Weeding can be a lot of fun. I did
hear the phone ring once, but it was somebody with the wrong number. I had thought it was you; what a bummer it was when it wasn't you!!
I go now. I've bored you enough, yeah? Oh, forgot to tell you: last night I dreamed about you.
There were two of you--one was real, one was a double. When I finally figured out which one of you was the real you, you told me that you were married--and with a mistress!! What do you think that means?? Rhetorical question. Its cause and significance are already very obvious.
Good night, sweet.
q.
Thur, 3 June 2004
Dear Rob,
I received your letter on coffee filter paper, recycled and too thin, ink running and smearing your
thoughts. I want to write you a reply, but my thoughts ran out and smeared as well. I read your
letter while walking to the elevator, by the way, while stepping down the Dwinelle front steps and while sitting on the benches next to nobody. So no, I wasn't drinking. Neither was I smoking. What I did do afterwards is drive to the bookstore. A grand partnership, you and I.
I also realized that when you asked me about writing, you meant my thesis. Well, as far as that goes, it's not going--I haven't written a word or given it anymore thought since I last talked with you about it. However, earlier today, I did stop by the library and got the call numbers to a bunch of books
from the Cornell stacks.
From margaritas and barbecued fish, I got myself two ibubrofens and sporadic minglings of sleep and dreams. That was last night.
Today, I know that you don't really care for this email, this kind of babbling uncontrol-ability, so
I'll stop.
q.
Friday, 4 June 2004
Dear Rob,
I went to the Serendipity bookstore on University Ave this afternoon. The place is a great mystery. I
spent about an hour in there, still couldn't figure out what their shelving order is or how much they
charge for their books. It was overwhelming, the amount of books and journals and leaflets they have in there. Next time I go back to that place, I would like to go with you; I think you will figure that
place out quicker than me.
I also went to the Signal bookstore on Euclid. Bought a book of poetry by Paul Celan (it's great! AND it has the german version next to the translation), the first volume of Robert Musil's "The Man Without Qualities," and Murakami's "South of the border; west of the sun." Didn't you say you like this one of Murakami's?
I've also been on a movie marathon, one movie per night. Saw Dirty Pretty Things, but don't like it so
much. It was great at first, but by the second half of the movie, the hero's clean-cut righteousness and
the filmic cliches about love and justice really went to overkill. Have you seen Russian Ark? I like it--es ist sehr schon! (there, i can now claim my knowledge of the german language!)
"Under My Skin" is morbid (to the max!), but highly captivating and ruthlessly haunting. I recommend it!
I miss you, Robert. This is unnerving; you are becoming metonymic of a safe space. I have to be
careful.
Wish you more luck finding a place for the summer. If worse comes to worst, you can always cook your heart out in the fall. Revenge of the chef, part I.
q.
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