Joyce Carol Oates?

I thought I only had respect for Deborah Eisenberg, Mary Gaitskill, Donna Tartt and Marilynne Robinson among the female writers that are still alive and at work. Yesterday, after a three hour conversation in the cold outside of Pinkberry with Liz, I came home and cracked open a short story collection I had bought at a second-hand bookstore on my way home from Jane's wedding in February. Liz and I didn't even talk about books but our conversation in general made me exuberant and I was in the mood to devour something.

I read Chekhov and I finally understood. I finally understood what he was doing and what was so brilliant about him. There was a full page picture of him in the anthology and he had beautiful eyes. His eyes reminded me of Reed, the boy that I met in Iowa so many summers ago.

Then, I read two stories by Joyce Carol Oates and I was enthralled. I had read a couple of her stories years ago and they had fallen flat on my ears and had not reached me in any way, except leaving an impression that she was an old white lady that had lived in cloistered middle class neighborhoods most of her life. In fact, her name was synonymous to that. It was probably because of the combination of her three names. Joyce, Carol, and Oats. It really can't get more boring than that. 

The only impression I had of Joyce was that she was insane. I still remember sitting in the auditorium at Skidmore College at the NY Summer Writers' Institute. She was talking about running and someone trying to talk to her, and I sat there thinking, 'This woman is craycray...' 

But I suppose every artist is.

But yesterday, I was blown away. And the only reason I chose to read her, probably, was because Alice Munro had recently received the Nobel Prize in Literature and she is sometimes compared with Joyce Carol Oates. Made me want to read Oates again to re-assess.

Anyways, so I came to the Central Library to get a hold of a copy of The Wheel of Love, which is actually out of print. The librarian let me borrow the book even though there was only one copy of it in the library for reference. I felt very grateful.

After finding out just how unbelievably prolific Oates was, I thought to myself, 

'She must not have had any children,' and checking on Wikipedia, I was right.

The article also said she would be teaching her last semester at Princeton next fall. Her name and Princeton pictured together with a classroom, brought back that longing and tugging in my heart. The desperation of wanting to be there. Of wanting to have somebody to talk to and share these things with.

I never had that education, I never had that community.

I was standing in the middle of the Literature Department at the Los Angeles Public Library and reminded myself that I had access to all of the conversations I could have with anyone dead or alive. 

Anyways, I need to get up earlier. 

I wish the library opened earlier. But whatever.

Somehow, I have to make this work.

sleeples in los angeles

I can't sleep.This is driving me crazy..I think I need to buy a stash of bedtime yogi tea. Haven't had that in over a year. What's going on? :(

어제 새벽2시까지 글 쓰다가 혼자 새벽에 마루에 앉아서 이런저런 생각을 하게 됐다.
어쩌다가 싸이에 끄적거리게 됐는데 "끄적끄적"이 긴 하나님에 대한 생각을 정리하게 되는 글이 되어버렸다.
그리고 마지막에 내가 끄적인 말을 보면서..
그렇게 하나님과 싸우고 힘들어하다가
결국엔 내가 돌아왔구나
라는 생각이 들었다.

그리고 어제 새벽 4시 30분까지 편지를 쓰게 됐다.
오늘 편지 부쳤다.

이제 정말 내가 할 수 있는 모든 일을 다 했다고 말할 수 있다.

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Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.














-Robert Hass

My grandparents when they were young. My grandmother passed away several years ago and my grandfather is 95 years old now.

In Transition

I was listening to my ipod, slightly sleepy, comfortably seated in the back seat of a black cadillac on my way to JFK on Monday. The driver was a quiet and well-mannered young man who minded his own business. It has been raining in New York for almost a week but the day I was leaving, the sky had cleared and everything was clean and bright.

I sat in the back seat of the car thinking,
"I wish this car ride would never end."

I didn't want to be back in LA. I didn't want to be anywhere.
I just wanted to be in transition. Just like this- alone, listening to music, the scenery changing and irrelevant.

Unless, perhaps you are like myself, then we can meet at midnight at a cramped bar in Soho, huddled together at the bar, drinking bacardi and coke and cranberry juice and talk about music and art and writing, and how the Manhattan skyline reminds you of home even if the sense of home is lost in the actual streets.

Up in the Air

Let's see. My best friend just moved from New York to Singapore with her fiance. They won't be back for at least three years or never, since Peter wants to start a business in Shanghai. Their wedding is going to be in Singapore possibly during the semester. There's a high chance I won't be able to attend. My sister, who was staying with me for a couple weeks, went back to Seoul for a month, before she takes off to Madrid for a workshop, and then back to Boston. My crew from college is currently living/working/married in London, Madrid, Dubai, Seoul, Hong Kong and have no desire to visit or live in the U.S.

I'm helping a good friend ship all his stuff to Korea tomorrow because he's leaving back to Seoul on Saturday. My Seoul friends are attending the Dubai friend's wedding in Bali in June, but since that is way too far from where I am currently situated (without the money to travel around the world) I can't attend that wedding, either.

As for family, my cousins in New York whom I bonded with during my stay in NYC are moving to Hong Kong next year.

Everything and everyone being up in the air all the time - a reason for my anxiety.