holden caufield

sometimes... i just want to put my life in a box and stop time. maybe even turn back time and forget that we have to worry about a future.

emotion: listless. hmm...or actually incredibly filled by the spirit today but just as quickly, i felt it sucked right out of me.

i have no idea what's next and i know i can just sit and watch episodes of greek because i need to sleep and i need to connect to people and places. bla bla bla.

back to hulu. this is not exactly the life i had in mind. tomorrow?

swing of your hips...

oh boy, this song is great...
makes me desire/want for a better day that i know exists. does that make sense? it's somehow wraps me in love and community (yes, faith and desire...drowns me in love...pull me down hard). like ocean waves with far too much water that rocks you afloat and envelopes you like you've never seen and puts you at the top looking down on crashing whites - 8 feet of scary abyss and that's only above the water. below, a mystery. leaves for only one complete and satisfying feeling: awe of this great creation.

today, i get to spend the entire day with my dad. sadness comes a bit easier, but the joys are also higher. hmm...

brotherhood and community - i think i'm finding more of you and i pray (on a tangent) for santification (through suffering) and for wholeness in community with God and my brothers and sisters.

i am pretty sure i haven't made much sense at all. i think it is all about love for one another.

good day.

oh happy days

jazz downtown, amigos buenos, hotdogs --- no buenos, tarea, facebook all day, cool nonprofit campaign, trust in dios, hmmm...BEST PART OF DAY: dad was super smiley and happy. what happened? haha, god, all that praying worked? of course you listen, just wasn't sure how you were going to respond. Praying still.

we were in the hospital yesterday. dad had another seizure, this time i wasn't home to see it, but i've finally accepted that things are just going to be and i can't force anything to happen so i've been pretty content with life. His burden/yoke IS much lighter.

buenas noches.

Hortensia* (ha, what an awful spanish name...i'm going to make another one up)

litigations gone too far

really like this wall street article:

Law is supposed to uphold social norms of right conduct. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said that this was “the first requirement of a sound body of law.” By making people potentially liable for their negligence, law provides incentives for reasonable conduct. But the converse is also true. Allow lawsuits against reasonable behavior, and pretty soon people no longer feel free to act reasonably.

Welcome to America. Mud and reeds have been dumped on natural and necessary human activities throughout American society. Playgrounds have been stripped of all physically active equipment, like monkey bars, with the effect, among others, of contributing to a crisis in childhood obesity. Health-care costs are skyrocketing, in part because paranoid doctors are in the habit of ordering unnecessary tests to provide a possible defense in case there’s a lawsuit. Because of fear of legal claims, teachers can’t put their arm around a crying child.

Lawsuits are easy. Whenever anything goes wrong. It’s easy to come up with a theory of what might have been done differently. There could have been a warning. There could have been more supervision of the playground. The doctor could have ordered an MRI for the headache, just to make sure. Exposing people to liability against the standard of hindsight, however, creates not a safer world but one in which people simply avoid socially useful activities. Obstetricians quit. Seesaws disappear. Businesses stop giving references. The City of New York did, in fact cut the limbs off trees near playgrounds so children would not be tempted to climb them.

All life’s activities involve risk, and therefore the inevitability of accident and disagreement. The role of law is not to provide a consolation forum for those who have felt the misfortune of risk, but to support the freedom of all citizens to make reasonable choices, including taking reasonable risks. That requires judges, wherever someone makes a claim, to balance the seriousness of the risk against the social utility of the claim. Those rulings are the building blocks of our common law system, which, the English Law Lords recently reminded us, “is just the formal statement of the results and conclusions of the common sense of mankind.”

Judicial activism has a bad name. It’s one thing for judges to impose affirmative legislative mandates, like forced busing, but far more disruptive for judges to sit on their hands and let private litigants sue for the moon. Want to fix the legal system? Shine the spotlight on the judges.

The Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2003 p. A20

at the living room cafe

just finished a one page spanish paper on the Tlatelolco Massacre while observing three soon to be married couples meet with their wedding planner. it was distracting, but fun nonetheless.

*just thought i'd share that. i have no idea what it is like to have to plan a wedding/a marriage.

here, just as you are

sigh* great episode of grey's anatomy. i only started watching the end of last season and it's been a rollercoaster just like this crazy life (cancer, hospitals, doctors, interns, family, deaths, relationships...and friendships). So season right now and episode 3 or 4, thanks for the fun. it was a good ending, friends playing baseball at some ungodly hour after work - 5 hour long surgeries, hospital mergers, saving lives - maybe i'll get to do that one day.

it's a fun thought...this being a doctor. the not so fun thought: paying bills, studying for a really long time, every day for four years, and working around the clock.

i'm high on the two cups of coffee i had this morning from The missions restaurant on University (it was amazing, made my taste buds do a dance) and an entire glass of callahan red (a local brewed favorite).

chaos ensues but i'm very thankful for the friends i still have. so if y'all are reading this, i love love love my serious time friends. YOU.

just fyi on honesty, it means not holding back and being straightforward. why the bs? just why?
oy mamacita, tengo tarea para mi clase de espanol. y mas? surfiar manana? no domingo despues de inglesia.

I am still doing a lot of soul searching but i've had two weeks of constancy, if there's such a word, and it feels good. it's about acceptance and perseverence. i think i may be changing my blog title to daddy and me. or adventures with dad. today, we woke up, went to the missions. he didn't order but rather then let it get to me. i ordered and ate. it was yummy. he drank some coffee. then we went to saigon, but when we got there and almost out of the car, he stopped me and we had to turn around. we went to a new asian baguette place on el cajon (i already ate so i told him it was my turn to watch him eat). a couple of EMT's came into the restaurant after us (of no importance). he ate. i read a page of book of LA progressive movement. then home.

worked. then convinced him we should go to the park! Kate Sessions in PB rocks. got there. he refused to get out of the car. :( i pulled out the lawn chairs anyway and he got out :)
and we sat there. made small talk with guys playing beer hackey sack thingy as i walked to the bathroom. commented about the incredible view on top of this neat public space. we sat. i read another page. on my way to the bathroom, i thought about asking these guys if they would offer my dad a beer (all in my head). then minutes later, after sitting down next to dad in our matching lawn chairs. he pointed to the guys. i asked what he wanted... ah, of course, he wanted a beer. asked my dad several times in disbelief and inability to get the nerve to ask the guys if they could offer us a beer (though i'm sure they would have since we exchanged some words previously). i think because i asked him if he was sure so many times, he said no.
up we go, he was ready to leave. so before we left, i said how about one drive around to the other side of the park because the view is stunning. we went, he told me to pull over on the other side and to park?!! unbelievable, but whatever for, i couldn't figure it out. dad makes hand drawing of cylindrical container. he wanted me to ask this party of 50 folks if i could have a beer.

i said dad, probably not a good idea, maybe next time we come here, i'll bring the beer. why not?
then dinner at not so great thai restaurant in pb. and home... we talked. yesterday i shared with him pastor miles' interview with burn "thriver" and his wife. sorry i can't remember his name. hoping to shed light on his situation. we're not at our worst and somehow you just have to keep fighting, keep trying so at the very least you can say you tried and maybe it doesn't work out entirely the way you want it, but so what, you tried.

it was a good talk. maybe tomorrow, he will try and he will keep trying.
goodnight.

hello world.

no broken heart here, just a bit of reminiscing on life from 6th grade until now... that's a long time. In the player, my waiting to exhale sound track - mostly songs i cried to when i felt hurt - but today it is more of an opportunity to cherish all of those times and relationships that have gotten me through some pretty chaotic times. When I last heard this CD I was in a two bedroom apartment with my dad in north park where we moved after he and my mom got a divorce and today, i'm in a house that my dad, stepmom, and i had moved to in '98 (maybe earlier) (also, a long time). daddy is sick and not the same. not even close. my sister is married! with two kids! I am still figuring out why i am here and how much time i've wasted on nothingness. I keep reaching out, trying to get a handle on who my real friends are and where they are. New friendships with meaning are hard to form.

oh and before i let you all go with the lyrics to Whitney Houston's "Exhale" - this is a great quote - "What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories." - george elliot

Everyone falls, in love sometimes
Sometimes it's wrong, and sometimes it's right
For every win, someone must fail
But there comes a point when...
When we exhale, yeah yeah

Say, shoop, shoop, shoop...
All you gotta do is say shoop, shoop, shoop...
My Lord now, shoop, shoop...

2-Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you cry
Life never tells us, the whens and whys
When you've got friends, to wish you well
You'll find a point when, you will exhale

Yeah, yeah
Say, shoop, shoop, shoop..
Say shoobedoo...

Oh, hearts are often broken
When there are words unspoken
In your soul there's, answers to your prayers
If you're searching for, a place you know
A familiar face, somewhere to go
You should look inside your soul
And you're half way there
(rpt 2)

I say shoop, shoop...
Feels all right, you can say shoop...