Echo

Often our blindness is what makes us dishonest.
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I put my dreams into words. My words into reality. I give it 70% tonight.
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Fucked Up.

this date seems significant and i was trying to figure out why. a lot of full moon pull. i searched  9/22 last year and found this:

i am a self-actualizing gemini, but don’t be mistaken. i am a raging sky, a tempest, a flood. a saharan desert of grains and grains of sand revealing everything and nothing. i am one tiny person, heart in hand, thinking, at the bottom of a silent ocean. i am human–fighting for what it means to be human, so one day, i will be familiar to anyone who has never believed in their own reflection.

dear other,
if anything should ever happen to me,
promise me you will write.

How Geminis Communicate

Brian: Ppppppppfffffttttt…..
Julia: bowchikabowbow!
Brian:

Julia: then you know exactly how i behaved at sarita’s wedding this weekend.

If you weren’t so stubborn about the things you can’t do, I would stake my life with you.

this is a dream i looked up because i happened to remember it:

https://juliashih.com/2007/07/21/1158/

this is a dream i found that i’d forgotten about. it astonished me:

https://juliashih.com/2005/03/15/793/

that’s some serious detail. that’s an entire twin-peaks world in there, all in the lifetime of a dream.

i’m a million different people from one day to the next…i can’t change…my mind no no no no…

No one has commented on my voice in a long time. I remember how B and I met. I was in a smoky house party, having just arrived and was talking to someone as I dropped off my coat, when from the other side of the room, a loud gay voice said, “Oh. My. God. Who is that voice? It’s like VELVET.” And that’s how Brian and Julia met.
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I read poetry at Sarita’s oceanside wedding today. People were commenting afterwards that they were crying and they loved my voice. One woman said that with my voice, everyone was having sex with me in their minds right now. Plus that I’m extraordinarily beautiful, with that voice and my ability to stand up in front of people and do THAT…it made her want to be my friend. Most important feedback was the bride. You nailed it, she said. Nailed it.
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Different night, different animal. Today I heard a story about elks who separate into old and young with the old sacrificing themselves to allow the young to live. In this case, in reference to jumping over an insurmountable chasm. I told the story of elephants who mourn their dead, crows who can not let one die alone, and my favorite, ants that come back for their dead. Then there was the story of the cow in the desert who stopped a caravan carrying water, by blocking the road. It endured a severe whipping but refused to move, until a soldier, going against his orders, filled a bowl of water and brought it to her. The cow didn’t drink, but bellowed, and moments later, a calf appeared.

From 8/30/10 1:55am:

Lap Dance Charlie

Gave in last night. Texted Tam– You boys wanna creep tonight?

It was my need to hunt compelling.

Shit. I stepped in it, I thought, when he texted back that it was his brother-in-law’s 40th birthday and his sister had hired a couple of dancers. And he was coming right over to get me.

Caged or exotic?, I asked him. But he never did give me an answer.

I suddenly felt I needed a low-pro night. It’s about boundaries.

He really shows up at my door, but he can’t get in because the gate’s locked and I’m not listed in the call box. I realize I like not having people be able to walk right up to my front door.

We head for his sister’s house but first we stop off at a house to pick up a cake. As I see him emerge from the shadows of the garage by the light of the headlights, I just know for a fact that inside the white box he was carrying was an erotic cake. And it was. With two of the firmest towers of tits framed by a shirt made of frosting that’s the exact facsimile of a shirt I’m pretty sure I own. It was beautiful in its own way, and it made me realize the gravity of the task given to me–to get these perfect tits to the party without mishap.

It’s a house party. Wow, I don’t usually go with people I don’t know well to houses I don’t know at all, out of fear of getting held for ransom. This dude is really pushing it, I think. We walk in with the cake and damn, I’m in it, this whole other reality I’ve just gotta roll with, like jumping into a midnight pool with my clothes on. All these strangers are looking at me like, where the hell did she come from, and the birthday boy asks Tam if this is Cathy, and he says, no this isn’t Cathy. And I take a deep breath because, who’s Cathy? But I’m here and I’m breathing.

Ham appears out of nowhere, and it’s good because Ham feels safe. He makes me a drink. I’ve gotta keep an eye on how heavy he pours it.

They’re watching music videos on BET (it’s the Vietnamese version of karaoke, except no one has to sing) on a giant TV built into a shrine lined with whiskey and cognac bottles. The host sits on a large padded massage chair that even has the space-boot calf compartments.

There’s some worry that the dancers are running late. They’d tried to come earlier than the arranged time, but since that didn’t work, they were over an hour late. I told the hostess, they better not show up smelling’ like Taco Bell.

Tam sits close to me and finds reasons to rub my back. Why are men always touching my back–is it me or them–but it is what it is. I’m not in an open place to connect so it’s all moot anyway.

These two bruthas show up with a gymbag, red lights on a string to cordon off an area of carpet and a blanket that they laid down inside the ring of lights. You know it’s gonna be serious when they have to lay down a blanket.

They set up a chair in the middle of the room and stand over it. I thought about how funny it would be for the birthday boy to be led in, expecting a stripper, but it turns out it’s a fight club. Like his wife organized a fight club for his birthday, and these two big black guys were here to beat the living crap out of him.

All of a sudden one of the girls at the party grabs my arm and in a frenzy of half English and half Vietnamese, she tells me that the girls are not gonna work because in the picture, they had big breasts, but she just saw them and they’re little. And the birthday boy likes big breasts?, I asked. Oh yeah, she said, almost wistfully.

The strippers marched in, and the lead girl was the bitch in charge. She laid out the rules how much everything would cost for them to do certain things or take off their tops, their panties etc. Everything required about $40 and she was vocal about stopping the show every few minutes to collect more money. She was like one of the street performers out on 3rd Street Promenade, only more naked. The other girl looked like she wasn’t the proudest for being there, but hey, she was gonna make it work.

They got the couple down on the blanket first, the birthday boy and Tam’s sister. This game’s called the Money Tree. People were supposed to lay out dollar bills on the couples’ bodies, and the dancers would get it. Thet basically got straddled and the women took their panties off and did a lot of rubbing, and that was it. Though there was one priceless moment when they were just getting started and thought someone was taking a picture of them on his phone, and the girls angrily stopped the show saying, we’re going to be naked. It reminded me of how the prostitutes in Amsterdam will have your camera thrown into the canal if you take a picture of them, yet for 50 euros on top of their normal fucking fee, you can pay to be in the room while someone fucks them.

They move on to give birthday boy a lap dance, then let people come up and do tequila body shots off them or lick whipped cream off their breasts and pelvis. Lead bitch was still announcing that everything costs money. By the time the lapdances started, I was kind of irritated. What’s the point of this? For what they’re doing, the awkward tease where these people have a woman’s pussy sliding just inches from their face, they don’t question what this is? They may as well be fucking. I was pissed off it didn’t turn into fucking.

I went to a sex club once and it altered me for a while. I didn’t want anyone to touch me for a long time. Sometimes I wonder if it was because of how disgusted I was watching people fucking like dogs, or because a part of me wonders what if I had participated. I’m a sure there’s a me somewhere with a life in balance from that decision.

Ham keeps calling me out that I should get a lapdance. The strippers are calling me out and I don’t want that annoying girl’s tits in my face. So I get out of it by asking the one brutha whose built like a defensive end if he’ll do a lapdance for the girl who was upset the dancers breasts were too small. He was laughing that he didn’t dance but he took off his shirt and did it and the women were screaming. The dancers commented he was more popular than they were. And meanwhile, Ham is determined to have someone dance on my lap. The brutha was big, and I like that. And we’d instantly vibed when he walked in the door originally. But I don’t like that it’s public. I don’t like that there are boundaries. I don’t like that there are people here who know me. And mostly, I won’t pay for it. When I want it, I expect you to know what’s good for you.

But Ham insists and brings the guy over. He shakes my hand. “I’m Charles.”

I introduce myself.

“This guy wants me to dance for you,” he says. 

“I don’t think so,” I say, and he says he usually just stands there and takes care of the girls but this is the first time he’s been asked to dance. I don’t really believe him but Ham and him are standing there all hopeful about it so I go with it. “Fine,” I say.

The thing is to look in a man’s eyes and not back down. See it all, everything inside of him, but don’t back down. Feel it, touch it, taste it, but don’t show him what you’ve seen. But let him know, all it would take is the twitch of a tail, and the next thing he knows, he’s on his back getting fucked by you. Sometimes, all it takes is just the trace of a smile and the glint of something cold and metallic, almost a taste, behind her eyes. He’s rubbing himself against me, tempting me and I think about how quickly things could change. How easily I could take the reins and give these people something they would never forget. I was looking at his skin, and I could feel his heat, his moisture. How quickly things could change and by the end of the night, my secrets would no longer be mine, and everyone in the room would be fucked twelve ways to Sunday, even if I never touched them. Someone was sprinkling dollar bills on my head, and I was looking at this giant man crawling on me, daring him, how far is he willing to take it. And I’m thinking, what’s the point of dancing when…

Now he’s looking at me kind of shy and unsure as he moves his hips above me, wanting to know what’s next, where do we go from here. Wanting me to want him, but I’m looking inside him for something else. The music is throbbing around us, as organic and demanding as the pull between two human bodies and I can already see in his eyes I could take his reins, I can feel them deep inside his heat, but I always require they be handed to me.

The big bruthas. Always tempting but again, I’m not into strippers. People as sexual objects you can look but not touch…it’s not my thing. I would rather have the real thing than pay someone I don’t even want to tease me with it.

Ham seemed satisfied that he was able to make the lap dance happen. I told him really calmly that if any photos surfaced I would come after him. Photos are an accent language, never the substitute for actual words or worlds.

The girls do their grand finale where they bring out the birthday boy again, take off his shirt and have him lay face down on the blanket. The cover his back with shaving cream, pull out a razor and shave his lower back, lift up the back of his pants and spray a mound of cream onto his ass then bop him on the back of his jeans so the shaving cream squirts all up inside his boxers. And that was it. What a weird, fucked up thing to do. Not to mention anticlimactic.

Spent the rest of the evening watching drunk guys talk. Was introduced to a guy named Duke who said he heard a lot about me. Something about my catwalk.

A guy thought I was Thai and apologized profusely when he found out I’m Chinese.

I went home, happy to be alone in my own bed.

And so there’s a change, in your emotions.
And all these memories come rushing
like feral waves to your mind.
Of the curl of your bodies,
like two perfect circles entwined.
And you feel hopeless and homeless
and lost in the haze of the wine.

–airborne toxic event

I’ve been planning to go to Amber and Jason’s wedding, but when I’m stressed I procrastinate on making firm plans so I didn’t book my ticket until two nights before I was supposed to leave. Got reamed on the ticket, couldn’t find a place to live so B and Amber promised to find me a bed or couch in B’s cabin (they’d rented 3 gorgeous vacation homes in the valley at Gold Beach. Amber said if I get him drunk enough, he would probably end up sleeping on the floor and I could take his bed. That usually is what happens.

Big long weekend, but I book a Saturday flight to give me time to distance myself from work. The flight gets delayed hours, and I get lost in the middle of the Oregon forest as my GPS goes Mercury-Retrograde wonkie and leads me into the middle of nowhere. Incidentally, this vendor that I’d just met last week covering an account for another salesperson was on the flight with his daughter. It was a tiny 40 person plane with propellers flying to the middle of nowhere California, and in walks this guy and it’s weird because it’s out of place and time. And I remember him quite distinctly because after our buyer introduced us and we finished a meeting, she asked me if I thought he was good-looking even though he was older (in his 40’s, I believe, but his hair’s all gray). I told her I bet he liked his women younger, and probably has a vivid imagination (ie dirty mind). And now he was on this plane with his ethereal, European-looking 9 year-old daughter, for a split second, I thought this happened because on a cosmic level, this is what happens when you make conjectures about people in that way. He says he’s visiting his parents who have a house just over the Oregon border, and I tell him I’m on my way to a wedding. He was really helpful, advising me to get my rental car first because the luggage would take time. He was right–they took another half hour to unload our bags.

I changed from shirts and jeans into a dress while navigating the mountain roads. For a stretch there, I was passing trucks in my bra. But I got changed up by the time I found the place, after making four more wrong turns (Later, everyone would admit having gotten lost multiple times trying to find the place). I hadn’t gone to the bathroom since before my flight, and now 5 hours later, really had to pee, but when I went into the bathroom of the house that was hosting the cocktail reception, the bulb was burned out. Unbelievable. Had to get ready in a dark bathroom with the door cracked.

B’s letting his hair grow out. I’m suspicious. He’s rocking the “older gentleman with money” look. What’s he got going on in LA? It’s like old times. He’s the closest thing I ever had to marriage. Someone asks how I know everyone and I say I lived with B in LA. Oh, you’re the roommate, she exclaims. We were almost common law, I say, and B interrupts, we still are! I look at him and ask, what do you mean?

We are according to the state of California when we file our joint taxes, he said in that dry tone where I can never tell if he’s serious or kidding.

I glare at him, kinda want to laugh, but kind of afraid he’s serious.

Amber and Jason look beautiful and she tells me she really thought I would have appreciated the poetry and spirituality of the ceremony. They had asked me to write something for it, but I hadn’t been able to find a place to write something worthy of their wedding. They showed me the poem they did choose, The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, and it’s the right choice. The moment must have been beautiful:

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

The wedding was supposed to be out on a plateau overlooking the forest, but a gale blew in out of nowhere. We were watching all trees in the valley sway with the force of this wind and I said, this is a storm caused by the uniting of the forces that Jason and Amber. Their passion. This guy Keith got a faceful of dust.

I think I just got some of that passion in my eye, he said.

They moved the dinner back into the master house where we’d had the cocktail reception, and this felt like the right thing, because a huge house party is in line with Amber and Jason’s personalities. We brought in every chair we could and ate and drank family style. There was a grand piano and I went through the crowd, trying to find a girl who was willing to sing while laying on top of a piano Fabulous Baker Boys style, and when I found a girl who agreed, I couldn’t find anyone who could play piano. It worked out even better though, because I’d pumped the girl up so much about doing a performance that Amber and Jason would remember for the rest of their lives, at the after party, she went into a rendition of Naughty-By-Nature’s OPP. It was like a scene from 8 Mile, watching Eminem rapping in a basement. She was phenomenal.

I’d been asked to bring weed but I was really lacksadaisical about it figuring it wouldn’t be hard to find up there. Sure enough, after watching the bartenders for a while, I walked up to the dark hair Italian one. Where can I get weed?

You’re asking the right person, he said. I have a medical card and I grow.

He had two prerolled’s on him so we were all set. You guys are coming to the after party, I said, and they carried the coolers of beer for us down to the party house.

I told Amber, mission accomplished. I asked her if she wanted to smoke it inside or outside. INSIDE! she said, and we lit up right on the dance floor. It was an amazing, happy, joyous party. There was singing, dancing, inappropriate pictures. There was a human pyramid. And let me tell you, being one of the anchors on a concrete floor is hard on the knees. Now I get all those Catholic jokes.

The Italian bartender thought I was the coolest person ever. B already gave me an evil eye warning–do not hook up with the help. This other guy who reminded me of Maryland Brian didn’t make eye contact with me the whole night, yet when he was leaving he caught me and said, “I never said this to a woman before…well, outside my wife, of course…but that is a really nice dress. I mean, you’re wearing the hell out of that dress.” That cracked me up. Red is definitely my color. Later, the gay guys got into the mix of things. I felt someone full on grab and caress my ass. I whipped around ready to punch someone, saw it was the other gay Brian (whom I’d just met that day), and instantly chilled, saying, “Oh, it’s you. You’re okay.” Like he had every privilege to touch me, and I really didn’t care. I mentioned it to Amber and she said, “I was trying so  hard to get you and Brian  to drive up from San Francisco together. I figured something would happen.”

I thought about it. It was true. I’d had the option of hitching an 8-hour car ride to the wedding with this Brian, but I’d balked at the idea of spending 8 hours trapped with a stranger. B had sent me a message saying, it’s cool–brian’s one of us gays. you guys will totally get along. But I preferred to fly. Now I wonder what may have happened…some adventure into the militia weed-growing operations of Humboldt County? An alien abduction? Would we show up as our animal spirits? Would we show up married after a shotgun wedding with Elvis bearing witness? Pair my imagination and lack of boundaries with the fearless balls of an openly gay man, and anything could happen. Perhaps it was better that our forces didn’t combine. But we immediately took an inappropriate picture. I was definitely cupping his mansack and he was doing something to me I didn’t quite understand. I think we were both snarling. Enjoy the wedding photos, families!

This other guy, who’d come with his boyfriend (and was my partner in the sausage stunt) came up to me and said he just wanted to tell me that I have incredible energy. That I must be a very unique and dynamic person. Later, he and his boyfriend would both try to coax me into the hot tub when everyone else was stumbling into bed. The bubbling water was changing in the same pattern and hues as my headboard in Amsterdam and all I was thinking was how much trouble that got me into. I think that whether they are consciously thinking it or not, there are times when it’s not about orientation or gender or what. With enough magnetic energy, objects want to be sucked into one another. I thought about how it happens with straight men, straight women, gay women, gay men. They’ve all tried to kiss me or sleep with me. There’s this spark, and they want to touch it, feel it, be deep in it. They want to know how it tastes. And in that opening, I could give in. I could let them inside me. Because somehow, I’m already inside them.

Ideas sometimes live richer lives as ideas than as realities. And as much as I would love a story of how I seduced two gay men into the erotic experience of a lifetime in a outdoor hot tub under a dazzling star-filled sky, my need for discretion overwhelmed. Plus, they weren’t that hot. So I shared a bed with B, who woke me up thinking I was in the caverns of a ship deep in space with the most insane snoring I’ve ever heard. He’s definitely got sleep apnea.

We woke up the next day, and had to help do the dishes from the wedding party that needed to be returned to the rental place in Portland. The instructions were that they needed to be rinsed but not washed in order to get their deposit back, so we laid them all out on the lawn and hosed them. Parker, Amber’s dog, probably thought he was in heaven. Or amidst a dream come true, with over 500 plates laid out on the lawn, he went around licking all of them. There was a barbeque that night (I got to make the playlist!), Texas-style, which is where I encountered the previously-posted sausage that blew my mind. The father of the groom followed me around a lot, and he was always taking pictures. Considering I don’t really like to have pictures taken, it was kind of uncomfortable, but it was kind of cute the way he had a crush on me. So did his 5 year-old grandson, Andrew, who followed me around and gave me a whistle. He was a sweetie. If only I were 25 years younger.

We learned a new game that tt’s boyfriend Dave invented–FrisBeerSki. It involves two ski poles with the handles taped up to provide a flat surface. They’re each planted about 30 meters from each other, and an empty beer bottle is placed on that flat surface of the handle. Each team is composed of 2 players, who each have to hold a full beer in one hand. The teams take turn tossing a frisbee at the ski pole, trying to knock off the beer. If the frisbee hits the pole and the beer drops, the receiving team has to attempt to catch both the frisbee and the beer using their one hand available. The frisbee and beer are each worth 1 point. If you can make someone on the other team drop a beer, it’s worth 8. Game is to 24, switch sides at 12. Hella fun.

Had a deep conversation with one of the gay guys who talked about how weed saved his life. I told him that I felt the same way. He talked about how he was so torn up because he grew up Christian, and he was always told that people like him didn’t exist, and they were only sinners who were against God. And if that was the case, where did he fit in? I told him how I’ve always had an affinity for gay men because of their courage–once they have come out and decided that they themselves accept themselves for who they are and they were going to be themselves no matter what, there was nothing else to be afraid of. And that was something I could relate to. He was telling me about how in the last 2 years, he’d noticed cycles more, paid more attention to the moon and numbers. I was surprised. I told him that it has been the same with me. I’ve never been so aware and influenced by the rhythms of the moon and numbers as I have in the last two years. Since 2008. Cool dude.

Next day, I was on the same fight as B and his friend Sarah. The vendor from my flight in was on the same flight with his daughter again.

I’ve got another wedding this weekend. Sareet and Max. They want me to read a poem they selected–1st person narrative of what she likes about her partner. I told her I would read whatever she wants, but as long as she knows it’s not some kind of last ditch effort to get her husband. I like weddings, their energy, their hope and optimism.

I was talking with Winston yesterday. I asked him how long he’s been married and he said 3 years. He said he was previously married for like half a month. He’d been dating a woman in China for a long time, then she was going to the US for a job and didn’t want to be alone so she wanted to get married. So they did and a few weeks later, she went to the US. Then he followed her and when he got there, she told him she wanted a divorce. So that was it. His current wife he met through his sister in law and whereas his first wife was a career woman, his current wife only wants to be a housewife and is very specific on how the house needs to be clean, where each glass or bowl goes exactly. “It’s not going very well,” he said. It made me wonder, then why marry her in the first place?

Beware of falling angels…
Beware of drowning men.

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My coworker Winston came back from China and brought me a good luck charm. It kind of looks like my necklace (sidenote: recently someone was looking at it and asked me if it was a microchip).

Later he came to my cube to explain the difference between two softwares. I was sitting in my chair and he was standing right next to me, and I was basically eye level with his crotch. And he had his hands in his pockets so it was definitely demanding a lot of attention. Jerry suddenly popped up from his wall to say goodbye, and saw our positioning. He grinned. I grinned. It must have looked really funny. It was like we were both in on some private joke, but not necessarily the same joke.

At the end of the day, I want it all.

*****

Do you think he’s gonna marry his girlfriend?, I asked one of the women in my office.

Definitely, the woman said. That girlfriend of his, he’ll never find a girl like her. She’s one of a kind.

I smiled. I’m one of a kind.

I give it a 70% chance, I said.

No way, she said. Why?

Because I’m putting in about 30% effort, I thought but didn’t say.

I won’t step in. But I won’t step out.

1986. Challenger explosion. turning point.

task completed. i’m back online tonight.

My life is guided by a principle. When the world puts something down, I accept that it can move whenever it wants to. When I put something down, I expect it to stay put.
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No wait, maybe I should find someone who makes my knees strong instead of weak.
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The one who just the thought of hugging makes my knees weak.
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