Englewood Cliffs, NJ

There are two places I go to be alone with my thoughts. It depends on whether I want my mind on the inside or the outside. If I want my mind inside, I go to a mall. Disgusting institutions, so oppressive that I shut myself up in my own little head. The commercialism, greed, wealth, products, the desire and wanting. If I want my mind outside, I go to the cemetery. Then my mind can be free to stretch out as far as it wants and nothing bothers me in the cemetery. It’s peaceful and I’m surrounded by tombstones and human remains. My world stops in the cemetery. Today I went to the mall.

I went to a small, informal high school reunion this evening. I don’t know why I went, maybe to be more mature and pro-active about how I treat my past and facing it. It was awful and annoying and I’ll never look back at high school again.

I haven’t mentioned my gerbils at all. Weekend and Wreathe. In the waning days of August, Hershey was dying. I thought Hershey may have been dying of loneliness since Sesame had died recently. I didn’t want her to die alone, so I sent Myung Soo out to the pet store to get a companion, even if it would only last for a short while. The car wasn’t out of earshot when Hershey went into her death throes. It was heart-wrenching and she died in the palm of my hand.

When Myung Soo got back, I had to decide what to do with the new gerbil, whether to keep it or not. We decided it was fate and that I was meant to have these gerbils so I kept it and named him Wreathe and sent Myung Soo out again to get another one for companionship. Thus, Weekend.

Weekend and Wreathe mated a couple days before Sakuko and I broke up and they had babies on the morning of my Japanese exam, December 17. They had a lot of babies that I don’t know what to do with. Since then Weekend has developed some condition which makes her itch and she has scratched off a lot of her hair. She has these hideous bald spots, but she’s as chipper and active as ever. I can’t figure it out. She’s paranoid now, though. She used to climb onto my hand when I put it in the aquarium, but now she runs away. Wreathe is fine through all this and the babies also seem to have some sort of rash, but none of them got eaten as far as I can tell. That was gross.


Cute Sakuko with cute Sesame in Providence over the Summer.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

I found a bunch of high school writings while I was looking for stuff to throw away. Mostly Senior year English class stuff. My writing was so different just four years ago, carefree and really pretentious. Of course I know my influences and who I was trying to be. Shameless. I could tell how troubled I was then, and I already had my critical view towards the world lined up. My memories and observations were very different back then.

What would I do over again if I could go back to high school? That assumes that there is a truth I know now that I would live out if I could go back and do things again. But there is no “truth”, nothing is constant and what I know and feel now may not be the same later. I know I felt a certain way back then, a way that was very real, and to say I’d go back and do things different would be saying it wasn’t real, it would negate the fabric of the reality of that time. My feelings created my reality. If there is anything I’d like to redo, it would be my future. My future could be a lot better. And since it hasn’t happened yet, there is more potential to change. As for the past, I wish it hadn’t existed at all.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

I’ve been running the gamut of feelings towards Sakuko, even touching on rage and betrayal. It’s very confusing and hard to deal with. Oddly enough, at the same time I’m having very forgiving feelings towards family, perhaps Audrey's influence on me. We may not get along or even like each other, but I don’t sense any malice or double-dealing in this family. Not that I know this family.

My thoughts drift back to this past summer. A very hot July 4. The streets around Providence lined with cars. We had a barbecue that day with a bunch of Bob’s friends. The sun went down, they all went over to some park to watch the fireworks and I stayed at the apartment to read and watch some TV.

What a weird summer, I stayed with Bob and Tom, with family. I’m not particularly close to them. We’re familiar and I respect them and extend courtesies, but we’re not warm.

Why do they live together? Do they need each other in some way? Do they get support from each other from other family scars, or is it just practical to live together? If they did, it would be passively, no doubt. They are closer to each other than they are with me, meaning they are close enough to yell at each other. When Bob yelled at Tom, that took me totally by surprise. I couldn’t imagine either of them yelling at me that way. I wouldn’t give a shit if they did, maybe they know that.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

This house again, the same old feelings. Stagnation. I can’t do anything here. I can’t think right. Life doesn’t exist in this house; it’s a shelter, a womb. Life stops, no responsibilities in this house and money takes care of everything. I don’t have to do anything, I can sit on my ass all day long if I wanted. This is what it has been for seven important years of my life. Whenever I wanted to run away, all I had to do was come here.

Two more weeks of this. I hope Lisa comes and visits for a few days at the end if she’s driving back to Oberlin with Wendell and me. I have to make arrangements to have Haruna stay also. There’s going to be a party at Wendell’s house, but I’m not sure I want to go, there’s a lot of people I’d rather avoid. I’m too annoyed at people.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

I’m in the midst of attempting to de-personalize my room. I don’t feel any attachment to the years I’ve inhabited this room. Those years are so far away and belong to someone else. A lot of baggage, but none it is mine, none of it has anything to do with me. So I purge, throwing away anything posing as a part of me.

I noticed that when I left for college, no one did anything to make the room at least presentable. Is that a way of identifying the room as mine? It’s not, it should be a guest room, and when I return from college, perhaps the room is reserved for me, but as a guest.

It’s been a brutal semester. I just finished one of my Junior semesters, I’m not sure which one. A lot happened, but not a lot of substance to it. There weren’t any “main characters” who had major impacts on my life. Nothing positive happened.

I broke up with Sakuko on the day after Thanksgiving. It was a painful break up and now I’m doing everything just to get her out of my life for good. It’s permanent, no chance of getting back together. We thought it was something so special, so permanent, that it would last. We wrote to each other almost every day in the beginning.

She knit me a sweater that had come to symbolize something permanent, it was commitment and dedication. It was her heart that she put into that sweater. It’s those reminders that are so painful.

Nothing's permanent. Isn’t that the most obvious thing? I never went into a relationship with that attitude. Maybe I should and see what happens. Go into the relationship with the full expectation that it will only last for a few months or a year. No expectations of permanence.

I had been drifting from Sakuko for a while. It got exacerbated, I think, over fall break when I met up with my cousin Audrey. She came to the U.S. this summer for college and it was really weird, there was an immediate closeness. I know Sakuko noticed something about our closeness. For me, it emphasized the lack of closeness between us.

Audrey and I have met before, once when I was eleven and she was seven, and that was not a good scene at all. If anything, we should have been lifetime enemies. We met again when I was fourteen and she was ten and that time was much better. She forgave a lot. Now it looks like we’re really going to be friends.

The things that Sakuko said, I can’t believe she said those things. She was drunk and the deterioration of our relationship was very stressful, but the things she said really emphasized what little communication and understanding there is between us.

I feel like such a failure.