why i love j

from august 2002

good morning sweetheart. i miss you so much right now. it's 4am and i just heard an old message from you on the machine...

your voice is so sweet and welcoming. it feels like home. just wanted to leave this note and tell you how much you mean to me. i will love you forever. see you soon. jay

you're short and sweet-
down to your little feet-
with skin so fine-
and eyes that shine-

for a truer love there's no need to look
our love fills every page, of every book.

hotel themes

i'm listening to hotel paper, one pop weakness of mine.

i have recurring dreams of two types of hotels. one is a very fine hotel with baroque detailing on the walls and ceiling. there is a small, narrow elevator that takes me up and down different rooms. last night my godbrother, also my first crush, was involved somehow. don't remember much except that his mother was in the hotel room and her vibe was that she was telling me about how life is, or something like that. another night, we were stuck in the elevator trying to get to the top of a long tower that had stairs leading up to it. we had also been running up and down the floors of the hotel, like my cousins and i used to during formal filipino medical association PMA events like new year's eve. except we were grown and they weren't my cousins, just random friends.

the other "hotel" is really an apartment building, a bit rundown with fucked up apartments in it, built in various ways. my brother ted was living in one very interestingly designed apartment which had a ladder leading up to it.

writer's life

i don't know how people can just decide to give up other things to become a writer or "artist." i get all my ideas and energy from dealing with work and other things, then hanging around my apartment all day on saturdays thinking up grand schemes and writing or thinking about whatever i want that pops into my head.

today i've been thinking of all the communities of people to which i belong, from my book group with bobby, simone and eva or my little snickering trio in the back room at work - that is, me and my office mates kendra and dave - arguing and discussing and bashing things and ideas. the nycoc group and icc dfers. susan and on, the world travelers group - how could i forget the brilliant and exciting older "siblings" i've always wanted (along with bobby of course). the new group i'm trying to tap are the genius level artist/writer/liberal types in my family. i'm so lucky to know these kinds of people.

i wonder what my mom would think if she could step into my life. i think she's finally starting to understand it. i told her how i like having just a small amount of money, enough to take care of things and have a little savings, because it forces me to be creative. she seemed to get it just then! a breakthrough.