David Sasaki

This is my girlfriend, Mari. She’s beautiful and she’s kind. I love her very much.

As many of you have already realized, this post had very little to do with butterflies and everything to do with her. Our encounter was to be brief and fleeting if at all. True to form, I showed up in chanclas and a t-shirt. She opened the door, I lost my breath. Photos don’t do certain people justice. “Nice of you to get so dressed up,” she said and we both laughed. The tone of the evening was set.

There was wine and thai food, conversation and laughter, twinkling eyes, and two cocktails. She drinks whiskey, straight up.

I had never thought about it until that evening, but when we let go of a hug, it’s a meaningful gesture. It means I’ve had enough of this, our embrace is over, it would be awkward to not let go, I’d be pushing boundaries, a hug doesn’t last longer than a second or two.

That night I didn’t let go, I couldn’t. It was a hug that deserved a perfect 10, even from the Russian judge. In a couple days I would leave for Seattle, then Venezuela, then Brazil, then Argentina, where I would find an apartment, a favorite cafe, a group of friends.

— Yes, when someone changes the subject three times in a row it means that they’re uncomfortable answering the question.
— No it doesn’t, it’s just that nothing really occurred to me …
— Then you could have said that. You could have said, “I haven’t really thought about it” instead of changing the subject three times … because, obviously you were uncomfortable.
— You can’t tell me I was uncomfortable. You’re not the grand arbiter of what people feel or how they react. There was no reason for me to change the subject, I just did.
— What do you mean there was no reason! Of course there’s a reason. There’s a reason behind everything we do.
— Ummm, no there’s not. You have this image of how everyone should be and when they don’t fit into your boxes then you say they’re not being honest with themselves.
— What I’m saying is that there’s always a reason behind everything that we do. Maybe it’s subconscious. Do you even know what that means? It means you’re not aware of the reason. It means you’re not aware of why you changed the subject, but yes, there was a reason.
— You know, I remember I used to have this very narrow view of how everyone should be and how they should act too, but you’re going to have to realize that not everyone’s the same and you’re going to have to accept that. Some people really do things without any reason. Just because …

In Art of the Novel Milan Kundera argues that Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina marks a new era of Western literature. Specifically, he argues that Anna Karenina’s decision to kill herself was a revolutionary act in the novel precisely because it made no sense. There was no reason, no logic behind it. And that, argues Kundera, is closer to the reality of human nature than anything that had ever come before. If the purpose of the novel is to shed light on human nature, then Tolstoy was the first novelist to admit there are some things that just can’t be understood.

That’s a hard notion for me to accept. If there’s no reason for what we do, then why do we try to understand ourselves? Why are we held responsible for our actions? Why do we try to become better people?

Or, here’s a circular question: If there’s no reason for what we do, then why do we do it?

“You bloggers, I just don’t understand you,” a friend of mine said over the phone. “It’s like you guys have to analyze every single thing you do; from what you buy to what you watch to who you hang out with. I mean, doesn’t that take away from just enjoying life without questioning and documenting everything?”

That was the same question I was asking myself last night, sitting on a cold tiled bench in the BART station, too exhausted to be miserable. My pale hand resting on Mari’s warm, thin thigh. To the left of us, standing, was an East Asian kid lost in his headphones. His figure was slumped in loneliness, his eyes staring blankly ahead, not at the opposite wall, but through it. There was a familiarity about his posture, his disconnectedness, that reminded me of my last metro ride back to the hotel before I got mugged in Caracas.

Why do I have to try and understand every god damned thing? Why am I so desperate for answers? Why can’t I just shut the fuck up and smile and enjoy life’s contradictions? Why do I obsess over making sense of every damned incongruence in my life?

“Why don’t you just love first and let everything make sense afterwards?” she had said.

This is my girlfriend, Mari. She’s beautiful and she’s kind. I love her very much.

Some of my favorite's are on this list ... which means I should probably give the other 950 or so a chance. [via Seyd]

"posing as female bloggers; topics include: catching cold; having one’s mood ruined; being accused by men of acting childish; feeling sleepy all the time; being driven nuts by dumb co-workers; craving and eating red caviar; being allergic to pollen."

I remember asking myself once, “what have I got if everything else gets taken away?” If I lose all my money, every single one of my possessions. What if I were to lose everything I’ve ever written, every photograph I’ve ever taken, what would I be left with? “My body and my brain,” I remember thinking. My health and my memories. The books I’ve read, the places I remember, the miles I’ve swum, cycled, and run.

But that was the wrong answer.

My flight didn’t arrive until midnight. I couldn’t sleep or get comfortable on the plane because of the painful sores on my back. By 1 a.m. I had cleared immigration and picked up my baggage. And soon, outside, there was Raman to pick me up, to give me a place to stay, to buy me beers and dinner.

Raman and I have been friends, roommates, brothers, enemies, travel partners. I’ve wanted to kill him countless times and I know he’s felt the same. But when I was down, he was there for me without any questions. Just like I would be for him.

When we lose everything, we’re left with much more than just ourselves. We’re left with the bonds of friendship and love that we’ve invested in. As we go through our lives and our choices reveal our priorities, it’s a lesson worth remembering. A lesson worth far more than two thousand dollars and 80 hours of lost work.

Coming from Caracas’ thick, humid smog, the salty sea air of Santa Monica is intoxicating. As is the autumnal sun and familiar, quiet roar of the ocean.

The first couple days I was still a little jumpy. Walking to the Apple store on Third Street Promenade, a shadow came up quickly behind me and immediately I turned around with a clinched fist just to find a pretty girl cycling by on her beach cruiser.

At the crosswalk a female police officer called out to a woman jaywalking right in front of her. The cop gave her an amiable look of mild disappointment. Then a homeless guy came up to the officer asking for directions, which she offered with a friendly smile while turning down the volume on her walkie talkie.

I’m as guilty of cop-hating as the next 20-something liberal, but looking at the officer do her job I was overcome with a rare sensation of something nearing patriotism. Yes, American cops misuse their power, but not nearly like what frequently occurs in other countries.

My work was very supportive and gave me time off to relax and get back to normal. One morning I ducked into a news stand and bought the premier issue of Good magazine. The theme of the first issue isn’t what you’d expect from a cosmopolitan, liberal magazine: “I Love America.” It features celebrated writers like James Surowiecki, Gary Schteyngart, and Neal Pollack. All contemplating why they love America and why they want to make it better. Each article spoke to me. Definitely recommended.

I also had the time to finish a novel I’ve been reading for far too long: Wallace Stegner’s The Big Rock Candy Mountain. What follows is an excerpt that probably won’t be of interest to anyone other than me, but reading the last hundred pages of the book (written in 1943) was like reading my own thoughts before I was able to get them down on paper.

Well, where is home? he said. It isn’t where your family comes from, and it isn’t where you were born, unless you have been lucky enough to live in one place all your life. Home is where you hang your hat. (He had never owned a hat.) Or home is where you spent your childhood, the good years when waking every morning was an excitement, when the round of the day could always produce something to fill your mind, tear your emotions, excite your wonder or awe or delight. Is home that, or is it the place where you want to be buried yourself, choosing the garage or the barn or the woodshed in order not to mess up the house, but coming back anyway to the last sanctuary where you can kill yourself in peace?

Still feeling good, bubbling with the sun and wind and the freedom of movement, the smell of the burning oil in the motor like a promise of progress to his nostrils, he let himself envy the people who had all those things under one roof. To belong to a clan, to a tight group of people allied by blood and loyalties and the mutual ownership of closeted skeletons. To see the family vices and virtues in a dozen avatars instead of in two or three. To know always, whether you were in Little Rock of Menton, that there was one place to which you belonged and to which you would return. To have that rush of sentimental loyalty at the sound of a name, to love and know a single place, from the newest baby-squall on the street to the blunt cuneiform of the burial ground …

Those were the things that not only his family, but thousands of Americans had missed. The whole nation had been footloose too long, Heaven had been just over the next range for too many generations. Why remain in one dull plot of earth when Heaven was reachable, was touchable, was just over there? The whole race was like the fir tree in the fairy-tale which wanted to be cut down and dressed up with lights and bangles and colored paper, and see the world and be a Christmas tree.

…

How did a tree sink roots when it was being dragged behind a tractor? Or was an American expected to be like a banyan tree or a mangrove, sticking roots down everywhere, dropping off rooting appendages with lavish fecundity.

…

Was he going home, or just to another place? It wasn’t clear. Yet he felt good, settling his bare arm gingerly on the hot door and opening his mouth to sing. He had a notion where home would turn out to be, for himself as for his father - over the next range, on the Big Rock Candy Mountain, that place of impossible loveliness that had pulled the whole nation westward, the place where the fat land sweated up wealth and the heavens dropped lemonade …

On the Big Rock Candy Mountain
Where the cops have wooden legs,
And the handouts grow on bushes,
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs,
Where the bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the cinder ducks are blind -
I’m a-gonna go
Where there ain’t no snow,
Where the rain don’t fall
And the wind don’t blow
On the Big Rock Candy Mountain

A disappointing victory of tits over ass ... if you've ever taken your weblog too seriously, this should serve as a reminder of what people are actually interested in.

I miss these two.

Not a bad bio ... this dude needs a blog.

this is what I've been looking for. Props to guillermo. "Candor ends paranoia." - what a great quote.

I knew this book must have already existed.

I'm highly highly skeptical that security warnings popped up when he/she sent an email with dissident names.