1347 La Loma, Berkeley

December 1995

Ana Claire and I have been fucking. We're not in a relationship, we don't want to be. We just fuck. That's all it is - fucking. It's something I've never done before, I've never just fucked someone, so I'm savoring the word, its vulgarity and its brutal honesty. It's not completely cold, we're not completely unknown to each other so it's not purely carnal. She's a friend and we talk a lot, we just happen to fuck after we talk.

In some ways, it's a very twisted situation, but it's also perfect and probably what I need. When we first did it, I felt a wave of intimacy that just didn't feel right in the situation. It didn't last long; neither of us wanted this to become a relationship. It felt much more comfortable knowing that it was just fucking. We would get together, we would do something, then I would fuck her, she would fuck me. Amina, Shiho, I fuck Ana Claire, Ana Claire fucks me.

I wonder if I'm being naive through this. If anything, this is a rebound. I think she's on a rebound, too. From the start, all she wanted to do was fuck me to see what it was like to fuck me. That's totally fine with me. I’m in no position to make any emotional investment or outlay. This situation can't get messy. If things start going awry, it's thanks for the fuck, good-night. Wham-bam, thank you, ma'am. All the emotions in this are simply ambiguous.

Ana Claire has taken my relationships to another level. Her intelligence and raw ability are not to be questioned. There is an air of snobbishness to her. She doesn't give much credit to men as a gender and she makes no exception of me, so she makes plenty of assumptions about me which I wouldn't otherwise tolerate in a relationship. She looks down on me and doesn't know me at all. But she thinks she does. She'll never be able to appreciate me.

She balances her strength and her vulnerability pretty well. She's got problems and issues, but she's not neurotic or fucked up like so many other people I know. She's not scared or paranoid about anything I can see. She faces up to life and is therefore a breath of fresh air to me.

"Where did you get your name 'Ana Claire'?"
"From my grandmothers."
"They were both named 'Ana Claire'?"
"No, you fucking idiot," she laughed.

Ana Claire is a hormonal nightmare. She's very sexual and she knows what she likes. I find that intimidating, but I'm going along with it for whatever I can get. I don't know if I 'satisfy' her; I just do what I can and if she wants more, she can fuck around with other people to her heart's content.

It's funny that my motivation for getting to know Ana Claire is that she has a bass and has been interested in learning how to play it. I was interested in her learning how to play it so that I would know another Asian American person who plays an instrument.

But when I tried to teach her a part and get her to play it, it was like pulling teeth. I couldn't get her to pluck a note in my presence. She sent me out to get ice cream so she could work on the part alone. It's very telling. In our relationship and fucking thus far, she has been clearly dominant. She likes being dominant, or she wants to maintain dominance over any man. So then here I bring music, and music requires a degree of mutuality, and she can't do it.

Not even mutual, she's not dominant anymore, I'm the teacher, she's the learner. When she picks up a bass, she's not dominant anymore. She can't even pluck a string in my presence because doing so would be an admission that she's not dominant. So she sends me away to stake her territory to make it clear that she wants to feel like she's doing it herself without anyone else's help. It could just be me. Maybe she could take lessons from a man she's not fucking or from a woman. But the dynamic between us is that she's the dominant one, I'm the fuck-toy; I'm never in the dominant position and never can be.

Ana Claire is a perfectionist. She has very high standards for herself. She also has the ability to meet those standards. Which makes me feel odd since my standards are quite low. Not that I care, I kinda find it amusing; like what is this woman doing with me?

I have no idea where or how far this friendship is going to go. She does make me feel uncomfortable most of the time. I don't trust her. I have trouble talking to her and our conversations don't feel quite natural. But with the dynamics we've set ourselves into, I think eventually we're going to have to get closer, as friends, or we're going to drift apart. Either way.

It doesn't help that I'm going through a pretty difficult period in my life. I don't feel very social these days, I don't feel like reaching out at all to anyone, and no one is reaching in. I keep to myself. That doesn't help conversations.

*****************************

The betrayals. The callousness of Amina’s, the idiocy of Shiho's. Diem is also in that category of someone who has left my life with no good explanation. She doesn't write anymore and even when she wrote, she didn't communicate. She was once an intimate, now barely a pen-pal.

Truth to tell, I don't really care. The only thing that bothers me is the fact that a close friendship disappeared with no explanation; the fact that someone out there sees no value in me. Diem as a person, as someone who used to be a close friend, doesn't matter anymore. Amina, Shiho, Diem; it's all the same.

I'm not completely anti-social. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about people I've recently met, such as Ana Claire and Susan, but with people I've known for a while things are fine. Cat is just about my best friend now, I guess along with Nobuko, although it's hard to gauge a friendship when you're living with that person.

Things were great with Liz when I was back in New Jersey. I consider Liz my first real girlfriend since she was the first person I can say without a doubt that I slept with. Prior to her, I can only say it was experimentation. It was nice being with Liz. With Shiho gone, Liz is now the person I've known the longest. So different from Ana Claire. I probably could have fucked her if she wanted to.

It was so easy to let go of Amina when I was going out with Shiho. But now that they are in the same place, it is so clear that I loved Amina so much more than I ever loved Shiho. I told Amina that I would always love her first and most. It's still true.

I had a dream about Amina almost a week ago which is still affecting me. Amina and I were talking, I was asking her hard questions about what happened to us, not being warm at all. I have no idea what the questions were or what her answers were. The only thing I remember clearly is that at some point she moved behind me and put an arm over my shoulder and around my neck. I first reached up and held her arm against me, and then as I stood and turned, still holding her arm, I saw that she was crying and I started crying, too. And we both knew that we were crying for the same reason, because we once had something beautiful and we both let it go and it would never come back, and letting it go was the biggest mistake either of us could have made. I don't know if it's reality, it was the dream.

So yes, I still love Amina first and most and I probably always will. She can always have my heart and soul. I would never go out with her again, I'm not even sure I would let her back into my life as a friend, but I will always love her and she will always be all the wonderful things I saw in the three years I knew and loved her.

Series II, Roll 2 (Fujica ST605n, Ilford HP5):

Frame 26, 27 - Central Park, New York. These two shots are the same thing from either end of the path. The one with the sun in it is looking south, the other north.




Frame 34 - Piet Mondrian exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. I snuck this shot because photography was prohibited. Yes, it is three framed, blank canvases. Yes, anyone can do that. No, you didn't think of it. That's why you don't have exhibits at MoMA.


Frame 35 - Fixed telephoto lens for the Fujica. This is from my window at my parents' house. It was after I got back from New York and the sun was going down.

Series II, Roll 2 (Fujica ST605n, Ilford HP5):

Frame 12 - Going shooting down the Palisades.


Frame 15 - One of my personal favorite shots, taken down by the Hudson River Boat Basin at Englewood Cliffs. I actually entered this in a photo competition at my school and it won a prize!

Series II, Roll 1 (Fujica ST605n, Ilford HP5):

Frames 27, 29 - Berkeley, railroad tracks on Gilman Street:



Frames 31-35 - Shots taken on and around Twin Peaks:


Sutro Tower




bah, dirty negatives.

Series II, Roll 1 (Fujica ST605n, Ilford HP5):

Frames 22, 23, 24 - Fog in the Berkeley hills, across the street from our house:



Berkeley weather was typically foggy in the morning, but it would burn off by mid-morning.

Frames 25, 26 - Cat in her room, not thrilled to be photographed:

Series II, Roll 1 (Fujica ST605n, Ilford HP5):

Seacliff, San Francisco:

Frame 14 - This shot was taken within a half mile from the rest of these shots. It's not unusual for this to have been shot in complete overcast fog, while the others were shot in hazy sunshine of the fog burning off. I'm not absolutely positive these were shot on the same day, but that's what my records show, so I'm sticking to them.

Frames 16, 18, 19, 20 - A sinkhole appeared in the Seacliff area and swallowed an entire house. It was caught on film and aired on all the local news broadcasts. There wasn't much to shoot a few days after the fact. Just ongoing repairs. All of these shots are horrible, and are a good study in bad photography.

Series II, Roll 1 (Fujica ST605n, Ilford HP5):

Portsmouth Square, Chinatown, San Francisco:

Frame 7 - Again, don't know how to fix this shot digitally. Bottom needs burning from poor negative processing, and contrast could be boosted.


Frame 8 - Man, what poor composition.


Frame 10 - Again, I got a much better darkroom print out of this negative.


Frame 12 - Ana-Claire with Natsu's eyes. In her kitchen.

Living Room at 1347 La Loma

Series II, Roll 1, Frames 0 and 1 (Fujica ST605n, Ilford HP5):

Beginning Photography Roll 5 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)

Frames 28, 29, 30 - Three of Ana-Claire:



At her place on 24th and Valencia.

And one of me:

Frame 33 - At home in Berkeley

Beginning Photography Roll 5 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)

Frame 13 - Ana-Claire, Mission St. near 3rd St.


Frame 14 - Ana-Claire in an art exhibit, SFMoma.


Frame 18 - Not something you see everyday. Shot from Mission St., the rooftop is probably off Market.

Frames 21, 22, 23, 25, 27 - Walk along and down the Seacliffs





(note the wee bit of Golden Gate Bridge peeking through the fog in the last one)

Beginning Photography Roll 5 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)

Frame 3, 4 - Construction of the new Rte. 880, Oakland, CA, shot from BART:




Frame 6 - Corner of Valencia and 16th.


Frame 7 - Camera misfire in the Mission.

Frames 9, 10 - Ana-Claire:

not-so-flattering, perhaps

much better.

1347 La Loma, Berkeley

November 1995

How exactly should I feel about making it to the oral argument semi-finals for Appellate Advocacy? Crap! Big fucking deal, but my stress level has shot up double because of it. I was so much looking forward to getting oral arguments done with and having Madoka's boyfriend visit and go so that I could spend time catching up in all my other courses I've been neglecting for the oral argument for App Ad.

It has only been several months, but my patience has been wearing thin at home and I now consider Nobuko and Vikki just as detached housemates. Our friendships end at the front door. Lisa was out of the loop pretty much from day one, she just changed so much and she wasn't cooperating with any of us. You know a friendship is at an end when jokes aren't funny anymore and they become interpreted as attacks.

Ana Claire
It was beyond weird that while I was visiting Shiho in Japan this Summer, I ran into Ana Claire in Harajuku. We had just done a SHAG performance right before I went to Japan and neither of us knew the other was going to be there. Then on Sunday, Shiho took me to Harajuku, a park where a bunch of bands and performance artists just set up and play. A hip young scene, and we were walking down the sidewalk and watching the people doing their thing, and my eye catches this woman who is vaguely familiar. Then we make eye contact and I think, "Wow, looks just like Ana Claire". It took about three seconds to realize it was Ana Claire.

Then earlier this month, I drove Tetsuya, Madoka's boyfriend, to San Francisco airport to go back to Japan. That worked out for me because I was going to see Belly at the Fillmore and I wanted to have my car in the city. So after the airport, I needed to park where I wouldn't get a ticket during the day but could get to BART to go to school. I tried parking around the 16th St. BART vicinity, but after I parked, I realized there was a 2 hour limit. So I got back into the car and drove up to 24th St. and found parking and proceeded to the 24th St. BART.

While walking to the BART station, I arbitrarily decided to cross the street. I was going to cross at some point, but it was totally arbitrary where I crossed, not even at an intersection. So there is no wonder about my surprise when I crossed the street and Ana Claire was right there. There must be some meaning attached to Ana Claire. These "coincidences" can't be just coincidences. There is supposed to be something there; if not her, then some connection of hers. But if I'm reading the signs correctly, Ana Claire must be in my life at this point for some reason.

If I hadn't crossed the street at that arbitrary point, Ana Claire would have been on one side of the street and I would have been on the other and we would have totally missed each other. Has that happened before? What if we had not met through SHAG? Would the non-existence of SHAG in either of our lives altered our lives so much that either of us would not have been in Harajuku on that Sunday, or on 24th St. that morning? If we had never met, would we not have been in Harajuku in Tokyo in Japan on that day? That's possible, maybe SHAG changed our schedules. But if it didn't, we would have passed each other right by, maybe making eye contact, assuming each other was Japanese.

How about if we never met and both of those events occurred? We would have passed each other in Harajuku and then on 24th St. On what level would we have recognized each other? At all? Probably not. If we had never met, we would have been two random people who randomly ran into each other at two random places in two different countries at two random times and didn't recognize each other.

Shiho
Shiho was predictable to the last; it was pathetic. I didn't need to use half the tact that I ended up using, and I didn't use much. She didn't offer a single objection to breaking up. I handed it to her on a silver platter and she probably feels like the luckiest girl in the world. She didn't have to do anything, she just went right along with it. I made it clear that she had no say in it, though. Why did I do that? Because she had nothing to say about it.

It hurts, but I'm so glad to be out of that relationship. It was twisted and staying in it...I found out something about her character; I'm glad I got out. I knew nothing about her and she told me nothing. She didn't communicate anything to me. I put in so much and she gave nothing. We were substanceless in the end, and that's what hurts the most. The best sex, though, too bad the relationship was nothing.

I didn't show any of the resentment that has grown towards her. Maybe that's a good thing. It shows what this relationship was - she had no clue what I was feeling; never tried to participate or figure out the other side. It shouldn't be hard getting her out of my life. I just have to remember she was never really in it.

I was hoping that my trust would somehow survive all this. The thought occurred to me that maybe the reason why I've been so quick to trust people I've been interested in is because of good experiences with people in past lives. I was hoping not to taint my trust in future lives, but if it happens, it can't be helped.

At least one ancient, nagging question got answered. If I had tried to hold on to Shiho the second time we started going out, could I have? I didn't try because of Amina. The answer, I know now, is no. I know that when Amina and I started going out, she was also at the very least interested in someone else. I have no proof of it, but I know it. She would have been in a similar situation as we were just in, and she would have chosen the other person then, too.

I will never be anyone's second choice. Once there is anyone else in the picture, I'm gone.

Beginning Photography Roll 4 (Fujica ST605n, Tri-X)

Frame 10 - Nobuko. Blurry, but I think she would have wanted it that way.

Susan, Frames 12, 13. I got better darkroom prints of both of these shots. Couldn't anything with them digitally:




Frame 22 - Lake Merritt, Oakland, CA.


Frame 27 - Berkeley Marina at sunset.