2.5.98

The dryer is working perfectly. I'm actually enjoying doing some laundry. Also, I did a sort of pre-Spring cleaning today. The clutter and general disorganization has exceeded even my tolerance level.

I got hit with a brick of sadness. Sudden and unexpected, it took me way down. I think the anger over the pay thing and the disappointment of not having "done" anything because I was out lunching with friends. These days I hate idle time, even as much as I covet it. Some CBS pre-Olympic special was on TV and that turned the knife. I’m an Olympics junkie. I love the media hype, the sports events. Maybe when I was little I aspired to be an Olympian. Then it was always a possibility; now, at 26, it most assuredly is an impossibility. Every time I think of something that I have passed by and is somehow forever irreversible even at my age, I feel so sad. And angry. Is it the cultural obsession with youth that causes this? I don’t know; I’ll leave it at that anyway. You know, I could be there. I’m closer to Nagano than probably any other Olympic venue in my history. But we didn’t go. Idle time. Idle finances. Without money we can’t just hop on a plane to Asian destination unknown. I am so jealous of other expats who travel to Bali, Hong Kong, Japan, or China, or anywhere. I wonder how they do it, because we can’t. Days here melt into one another. I try endlessly to fill that time with knowledge; at least I can leave from three years of idle time knowing more. Catherine was talking about Tongdaemun in the car, telling Christine that I knew Tongdaemun and that I’m a good person to go with. I remembered the summer trips there with Yvonne and Catherine, laughing in the taxi or cooing over moshi. I had this feeling of reminiscing The Good Times. Haven’t experienced that before about my time in Korea. It was startling and sad. Time passes and I want it to pass even more quickly, but then I realize it’s gone and I want it back. I will miss her. I already miss Yvonne. Two friends moved on and now I have to make new ones. It takes time to forge comfort with people. The kind where you don’t have to ask questions about them anymore, but can assume or build upon the basic knowledge of the other. It’s an effort to repeatedly climb to that plateau. Dave and I are supposed to go skiing one of these weekends in Feb. I was so excited about it in early January when I first made plans. Now I’m feeling like I might not want to go. It’s not true; I do want to. It’s the hassle that’s keeping me lazy in planning. We have hotel reservations but not arrangements for transport nor even ski clothes. Dave’s apprehension about the cost is getting redundant and it all wears me down to the point where I can’t feel excited. We should probably go and maybe I will work on it in the next few days. Our house is a mess. Clutter everywhere, as is the norm. Could be the cleanest joint on the planet (which it isn’t, but what if) and it would still look messy because of all the crap strewn about. Too much to always keep organized. While watching the Olympics thing I was looking around and hoping a gust of motivation would blow my way and I’d chip away at some of the piles. The way I live is antagonistic to my tastes and what I aspire to be. That contradiction is the source of much self-loathing. I suppose I’d be happier if I could just accept the truth about myself. While watching the Olympic show, I suddenly regretted having written all that stuff about Koreans and the IMF. I understand better than I let on their lingering hostility toward a former colonizer. I read an excellent paper illustrating that sentiment just recently; a lot of puzzle pieces about this culture snapped into place as a result of that reading. Re-conceptualizing nation-states as people, it’s easy to understand the grudge. To me it is like, say, having a sibling who treated you like crap. Somehow the parents didn’t really notice that abuse and the sibling has never had to accept responsibility for the harm caused. When the sibling moved out of the house, they became super successful and everyone who knew them was just delighted by their achievement and personality. Your inability to achieve as well as your sibling is always in the forefront in all discussion of you. Meanwhile, you suffered still from the unhealed wounds of abuse that all others are to easily ignore. The situation at that nation-state level is, of course, more complex; still it’s that kind of pain. Anyway, I was watching that show and CBS’ hype about Japan and Nagano sounded weird - like not right - and maybe even a little condescending. I hate that. Living in Asia, if I learned anything as an American oaf, I learned that Americans really treat Asia like some kind of mythical fantasy place more than they view it as a collection of valid cultures and people surviving, with breadth of experience just as woven as ours. Protective. Odd this love/hate thing I have going. I feel protective because I have knowing, but I am not assimilated and therefore remain an outsider. Outsiders always carry a chip. Ask the Koreans: They know what it is like to be the "other"; they bear a chip heavier than most.

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