Automatic Lights

Suddenly you live in a world of automatic lights and Margiela shoes. It took a month for you to figure out where the full length mirror was at his place (when you asked if there was one last time, he said there wasn't). Turns out it was tucked in the corner of the living room, tinted and sunk in the facade of the space. As he'd described it, his place is so "next level." All he really needs is a retina scanner on top of the finger print/code lock. Eddie would probably describe it as "brutalist," which is better than your first reaction to the behemoth. "What is this fascist building?" you'd remarked, maybe less about the architectural style than its formidable authoritarian posture. "This is my apartment." He replied, and you swallowed your words like you'd just accidently bashed about Shanghai to a Shanghaiese AGAIN.

It's not a gated palace or anything, but the saluting at the gate is enough to make you feel colonialist. In the beginning you smile and say your thanks, this includes major eye contact, an acknowledgement of mutual existence and respect, the general availability of the pursuit of happiness for all. Then one day you drop all pretenses and step into the New Yorker inside you after all. In your Damir Doma 100% ash viscose top, Nicholas K cargos, and white Margiela shoes, you try to fade into the background behind your Banana Republic sunglasses and purse your Dior #203 gypsy red adorned lips as if you belonged here, you really belonged.

You do. Maybe. Whatever that means. Even if the motion of flagging down yellow taxis in New York didn't really make sense to you, or that you came out of sample sales like you worked for Lane Crawford, the point is you're almost two years older and like he said, "it's a matter of mileage."

You're not sure what the mileage is about. You're absolute happiest you biked together from Chinatown up to Harlem and back, completely missing the Cinco de Mayo parade and the bike brigade, but it's okay because Central Park blew your mind when everyone came out to salute the warm weather. There were babies and dogs and lovers and families and hipster kids and babies playing with dogs and hipster kids playing with real kids. It's everything you'd imagined in dusty Beijing of what New York is like. The only difference is the stolen moment pierced with him, and you cradle this memory like a fading impression of a shadow, you try to hold onto the warmth as long as you can. You lay on the grass on top of his chest and watch the streaming silver from a kite against the blue and you want to stuff the moment into a bottle and turn it into a fucking music box.

Because at any moment you're probably willing to trade your Margiela shoes and Damir Doma top to spend 13 hours on the plane to watch him sleep.

Giant Wave

I dreamed a giant wall of water came to swallow us. It was obscenely green, crystalline, but somehow gentle. We were far away, Europe maybe, the rooftop of some obscenely gorgeous house (of course), filled with vines and flowers and beauty. We watched the wave of water come, calmly, as if facing certain finality, and yet undaunted. You and I will always be undaunted. Together, alone, together, or alone. When it came, it came gently, sweeping water to our toes, receding only to a foot of water. You held my hand. You held my hand at the pretend of the end of world. Here we are. Here we are. So we are. As long as you hold my hand, I'll be ok.

Daft Punk Man

You give away things. Empty the cabinets. Layer by layer. Consolidate. Toss it out. Like tossing out things from your life. Minimize. Centralize. It looks good on his kitchen. All these... things. You think you don't need things again because life is forcing you to be restless again. All you want, all you need, are few niceties, solid pieces for all weather. A friend asked, when's the last time you cried? You pause and think hard, and realize, for as emotional a person you think are, the last time you cried was over a year and three months. There was a guy and a song involved. You can't even think of a movie where you cried, and you always, always cry in movies. Clearly, you haven't watched enough movies, and had your heart shaken from the core.

In a year, you've gone from a size 6 to 0. You have no idea how it happened. Your heart is bleeding, seriously, bleeding all the time, but people think you've got these great walls, chiseled. You're poised and pretty to make up for the softer linings. Over the years, these walls multiply and weigh down your heart. Well, I'm too tired of this feedback. I'm going to knock down this wall before I lose myself.

So Hungry

So hungry, so hungry. It must be the jetlag, because I didn't eat dinner yesterday. I was hungry for an hour, then I went home and drank a glass of milk and proceeded on throwing away everything I own. To be fair, it's mostly Rong Rong, my dearest pack rat friend's shoes and bags that I'm collectively tossing away, but gone too are old heavy sweaters. The challenge: consolidate your life to four suitcases and a few IKEA bags for your next move. Donate your books and give away your plates, live a little without burden. I'm sorry but why do you own two framed poster? My attempt at adulthood = fail. No I'm not moving back to New York after a brief visit. If anything, my New York trip have convinced me of three things.

1) New York will always be there. 2) New York does not need you. 3) I do not need New York.

It used to be my dream to go back and forth between Beijing and New York, but within two weeks I'd missed Chinese food like cray, like more than I'd ever missed tacos and bagels. This girl at heart is a second-tier city Chinese girl. So boom.

Home

Hey baby we're in a different place again. These disheveled beds and unleveled grounds, the light that break through the window and marble floor unfamiliar to the toes. Hey baby tomorrow we'll be under a different ceiling again. "Who are you really?" "Are you ok with it?" As long as we do some Shaman rain dance to break the grounds, and keep Kendrick Lamar on repeat, and you never cut your hair, and we keep it real, and keep it weird. I can see New York in my eyes already. I'm in the office but my heart is in flight, and I remember every time descending in, the concrete grid city that glisten like broken glass and metal. "Do you think you'd want to go to Mars on a one way ticket?" "Don't you think we moved to Beijing for the same reasons? To be the first?" "No, I'm not going to Mars, I just wanna eat good food. I still have to go to Japan and try oxy-cotin." "Do you think I missed the train on that one?" "No, you're perfect." "It must be cool to see the rings of Saturn from the surface." I love the images that unfold when we talk. Like the storms of Saturn consorting with baby strollers in Solana. Half of the time I think I've entered a set. These spaces that shift and change, the only constant is your face in the dark, and I'll hold on to it just in case, Mars, Saturn, Kepler 22b and beyond.

NYC 2013. Where it's at.

Why I am enjoying misanthropy

1) Because I can go to bed by 10PM and wake up by 5AM.2) To go on a run. 3) And cook in the morning. 4) And ultimately go to work early. 5) And work on Rong's entire movie collection that she's passed onto me. 6) I don't like drinking anyway. 7) Square. I'm square. I'm like a grandma who only needs good music, books, and movies right now. 8) And work, I really need work or I'll go crazy.

I just want to work hard, and read hard, and watch hard, and listen hard, and love hard. Whatever it is that we do, let's just make it hard, on the rocks, ice cold, and suck it up.

Don't let the sunlight fool you

Just don't. In fact, wear UGGs in April if you must, because this 3 degree celsius night temperature is a killer, and even if you've got sunlight in your eyes, it's gonna hurt. Right, I'm sorry, but it's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt with every "fuck, fuck this fucking beijing fuck weather." You've finally got all this blue, but all you can do is huddle under two blankets with the air conditioner on heat. Your co-worker tells you to eat goji berries. Says it'll help with the cold. Says you're crazy to think it's cold.

Hey son, it's April 10 and cold, ok?

Thank God for Shanghai tomorrow. When I come back, please manage a hint of fucking spring ok Beijing? I love you baby but don't overdo it ok? You're like, gorgy in the sun, but that ain't nothing if the cement is cool and my bones are shivering.

Peace for spring. Peace for flowers. Peace for caterpillar leaves. Peace for fluffy cotton balls that'll soon attack our eyes and shit.

Call It Fate Call It Karma

The first sign of old age — your body is dead tired but your mind wakes up at 5AM anyway to a passive list of to dos — passive, because you're technically finally on a break for three days after a monster project. You're living in the age of stress, or you've chosen a lifestyle of "constant excitement" that everyone around you, from your co-worker, your friend, your lover, to your buddy on gchat seems like they've got tasks up their ass. Such is mid to late-twenties and the fear of missing out. I knew the moment I sat down at the Japanese restaurant and Camilla said, "wow, you look awful, have you been sleeping?" that I needed to sleep. Or rewind that, I knew the moment that I tripped on an escalator resulting in bruises up my ankles and knees that I needed sleep, like, get it together woman.

Everything on my list of to-dos for the next three days excites me.

1) Learn about Nike and everything there is to know about Nike for a client meeting. Fun, big fan of their branding/marketing/experience.

2) Finish reading this Ryan McGinley zine.

3) Finish reading Just Kids.

4) Internal management project at work, including, that damned wiki.

5) Zine project

6) Listen to the entire new Strokes album in order.

#1 and #4 are really giant work projects that if I don't bite on holiday I will choke by Monday. #2 & #3 I really should defer for subway rides. I just started storyboarding #5 and the whole process made me realize how much it is I really love publications. #6 is actually hard to do given I also have the new Bowie, Ólafur Arnalds, and Timberlake album, and my playlist is always random, and who listens to entire albums anymore, and to be honest, it's just not that good is it, o dear New York band? JULIAN CASABLANCAS SINGS HIGH PITCH. HAHHAHAHAHA.

Damn, I be such a square hipster if it weren't for China.

How to be Kind

This project has re-wired me in some way, ways that both celebrate and hurt my heart. One moment I want to shout in euphoria, the next I want to shoot myself in the eye. My body no longer knows how to sleep, and I wake up staring into darkness contemplating who it is I am anymore, the girl who that was, and the girl who will be.

Cruelty

"The author in you must remember that there are real emotions involved at all times, and you are not necessarily the master puppeteer." There it is, like a bullet to my heart, the truth. The truth of the cruelty you are capable of, and the vanity that blinds you from it. All this talk of authorship, of finding stories, in the end, you forget that in your curiosity, these plot lines you finagle with come with people and real emotions. It takes discipline, real discipline to practice kindness and sincerity. It is important to realize that in your attempt for life and experience, your actions as the principle protagonist in your own narrative will affect others. For all your talks of sensitivity, in the end, are you just a careless little fool treating others' as passive beings, existing for your grandeur?

Well, don't. No more.

Before I start writing apology letters in my head, all I can think of is, grateful. I'm grateful for you. For your sake, I will try to become a better person.

It's Like We

To be honest, they were the greatest romance of the summer. No, my own romances, however dramatic and incomprehensible, however poetic even, cannot compare to a drop of what they had, what we had. So, it is with the greatest, greatest relief that I'll crawl to bed tonight knowing that important people, important people are still here. Of course, after 14 hours of work, I'm not sure I can think through this fog of fatigue. I keep on pushing... keep on pushing for some outstretched boundary. Sometimes I feel like I'm on speed, a drug that pushes me to get more pain, get more pain, like my mind is programmed to only get off when there's pain, for gain, and nothing else matters. It's the only way I can get off anymore. Mentally. Physically. It's the only way I can feel alive, like I matter, like I exist.

A flywheel that can't be stopped, but, at least, with you, in that world we constructed, the ground feels a little more solid.

You&You

We marvel at each other so much that it's like Narcissus reached into the lake and grabbed a female version of himself. Imagine the ensuing fervor from two awkward, artistic, ambitious people, add the violatile mix of music, nerd, workaholism, mix it with geographic poles of New York, Beijing, Tianjin, that's us, Narcissus on a love drug--cocky, crazy, and magic. "I think we should savor this because it won't last."

By the time you're 27, it's not so much as "been there, done that" as, "been there, love there, but my god, more excited about the galatic beyond." Magnificent possibilities color our world like the way Shuya and his girl emerged from the end of Battle Royale. When you've died, or when you finally meet that someone, the world is just a beginning. "Had I known two people could be such a powerful source for solace and might, I might have searched harder."

He's so good at future-speak that I almost want to take notes. It's always been "we" since I've know him. "We have to go there." "We will get there." "We will be great." A strange sort of hypnotic power comes with two people. He speaks about it so effortlessly that you can only think of heartbreaks.

Don't get me wrong. I know this won't last. Don't get me wrong. I think we're cocky little shits. Don't get me wrong. Flaws will emerge and skies might fall. Don't get me wrong. We'll still be great, in our own little strange ways, two conspirators in a world untying at the seams.

Unravel

so when you come backwe’ll have to make new love

Textures. You feel the texture of table tops, carpets, lamps, windows, the way the soap rubs against your hand like silk kisses. You love exactly where you are but your heart is at another mind space. You don't trust it. You invade. You share every detail. You are delighted. You live the moments for some greater value than just yourself. You would do a lot for this one person. You barely know the facts but you know you would do a lot.

"You _know_ me."

"I don't even want to know that much about you."

Because moments past and moments beyond cannot stand against the moment now. We listen to Prufrock in the dark, T.S. Eliot's voice falling against the precipice, just like us, falling off the world of unreality. Some time ago he said, "I don't want to lose you." Some time later I echo in the dark, "I don't want to lose you." If I knew all this was about the fear curling at your toes as much as about the joy that seizes you at the fingertips, I would study more. I would study more about love instead of running aimlessly in the dark, trying to make sense of minds so far away.

The past is a thousands paths, and the future is a thousand more, but all we are now is a love letter frozen in time. So I won't be afraid of all things ephemeral. I won't be rushed to fit the puzzle pieces. I won't fear. I won't care. I will unravel.

Loss

He says, "You're in the nether. Let us be your tether." Only I interpret nether as "ether" somehow, and deluded myself into thinking that this detachment is more about going upwards than down under. Work grounds me to such piercing reality that it's good to be detached once in a while. Although my other reality may be as much about happiness as it will become a prolonged sadness. The worst part is the lack of self-awareness, that the very world view you have might be wrong, and that you are in fact reckless, lacking basic aptitude.

"You're better than this."

Am I? Are we? In the end, is my sincerity only grounded in words, feelings, and my actions run away like a headless monster governed by caprice? I don't even know. All I know is, it's devastating. Even if I deserve it. It's devastating to have lost you.

Rong says. "Do not lose yourself."

Should I have chosen to lose myself (be braver, better, smarter), than to lose you? Either way, the game is lost. I can't even get a song out of it.

Meaning

Brainstorming presentation strategies is actually EXACTLY how I want to spend my Sunday night. Fuck drama. Make your difference. Keep your head on your shoulders. Roll with it. Love hard. Fight even harder.

Paradigm Shift

This could a moment for paradigm shift. The people. The words. The decisions. It is important, at this point, to adhere to principles and yourself, however fragile your perception of the world is slowly becoming, however much idealism is being shaved from you. In the end, you have to admit to yourself that this is something you said: I'm not seeking stability so much as a story. At this point, I believe the things that scare you are the only things worth living for. I also believe that if the truth is so far removed from my perception, then maybe it is time to get a kick in the ass. I also believe what I told him so long ago, that "no matter what happens, I'll really be okay." So. No more. No more of this. In the end, we're all lonely souls adrift in the night. People think I'm an optimist, but it's because I'm a pessimist that I can stay aloft.

So. I'm sorry. No more. Whatever comes, let it come.

As long as we can get a good song from it.

Flywheels and Sasha Grey

"Friend to friend," I say, "I think I'm going a little crazy." I keep on waking up at 4:15AM, 5:30AM, 4:30AM.

"Too much ambition. Too much on your mind."

He's been waking up at 8AM, which, for a 25-year-old designer, is basically like waking up at 4AM. We're shouldering a lot. We keep pushing like we want to crush our bones for some weird, sordid, amorphous goal to prove that we are able. No, more than able, but brilliant, unique. I wanted to use the flywheel as a metaphor for Monday's big meeting, but instead I find it more appropriate for my life.

That is, I finally realize that by coming here, I've plugged certain variables that set certain things in motion, leading me to a life running on track toward some inevitable purpose. I have no control work or relationship-wise. Is this fate or mindful circumstantial, decision-making? So here I am, a flywheel spinning that I'm trying to keep up with. Friends call me workaholic in a wry, kind of sad way that I have a hard time believing still. Who knows, maybe I am a wry, sad little thing.

The THING is, the THING is, here's what I believe in. I believe in Sasha Grey. I believe that whatever we do, we might as well give it 120%. Whether it's fucking or working. That's what I believe in. Sure, one day I might collapse from exhaustion, and maybe lose a friendship or two from too much work. In fact, I have no idea how dating someone who is busier than me can be sustainable for either of us (except that it's more sustainable than dating someone who is A LOT LESS BUSY).

So that's that. Let the wheels turn.

For realz though, this is my last year here. It'll be me & R's legacy. Then WE OUT, son. WE OUT.

You Wake Up

You wake up, sometimes 4:15AM, sometimes 5:30AM, for no reason other than the fact that your body wakes up. You go on runs at the park nearby, you run with no end goal in mind, you just grind your teeth and keep going, because you have to. In the end, you make sure to climb the hill for the view atop, there you see the Forbidden City, spread out, regal, glorious, and you think for a second, that image is all you need for the rest of your life. No, you don't need anything else. All this discipline. All this work. What do you have in the end?

New York at Dawn and Dusk

"I'm leaving for Las Vegas tomorrow," he says, "let me know what you want me to bring back for you from New York." Before he left I'd said macaroons from 21st Street and Stumptown coffee from the Ace Hotel, but all of a sudden I realized I didn't want any_thing_. What I want is to emerge from the F train on 21st and buy myself one single macaroon and wander to 28th street and grab a coffee. What I want is New York beneath my feet and not a figment in memories. So I tell him, "I honestly can't think of anything." I honestly couldn't. I honestly needn't.

Instead, I ask him to take photos. Not a glimpse of New York through perfect images, but from his bike or office that'd he'd send in the moment. I have no idea whether I feel closer or further from New York since I've met him. We'd talk ceaselessly about it, and I'd think endlessly about it until one day I squeezed his shoulder and said: stop, let's stop.

He lives in a hyper real world where he defies timezones. As for me, I like the pain of longing and loss, for cities, for people, for things that cannot be gotten so easily. As for me, all I want back from New York, Las Vegas, London, or wherever he might teleport to next-- is him.

So dear macaroons on 21st and coffee from 28th, wait for me just yet, I'll be back when I need to. I'll crawl back if I have to, because I know you belong to me, I've never doubted it for a second.

Records of My Bloody Valentine

Nothing like riding into a Beijing night with My Bloody Valentine. It's enough rickety shoegaze to make you want to fold up your bike, crush your heart, and wrought iron with your hands. And, while it might seem like you are going somewhere, meeting up with friends, and carousing with your most social, mesmerizing, presentable self, your heart is really somewhere else on another planet, kidnapped. "We're from the same universe."

He said, and it's a good thing too, because human minds are just as vast.

"You are way too blindly optimistic," S said, almost infuriatingly. He is one among my many cynical friends in Beijing who subscribes to the idea that life is suffering, but once you face the music, perhaps happiness will be earned and savored. "Whatever happens, record this, remember how you feel so one day you can trace back and figure out what happened."

When he shook me hard with both hands out of love, frustration, and anger, I wished with all my being that there was a way to take out the demon from him, but in this life, we all have different roles to play. One day he'll look back and it'll all make sense again. M says, "we need you around to balance us out." You think it's the constant conversations and debates that will change people, but no, sometimes, all you need is a happy little fool to strike a cord.

I told him: "we all need anchors, some extravagant hope to guide us to great things," and that is how I will live. I know I'm hopelessly optimistic to the point of sickening. I know it takes deep-seated narcissism to think you can change the world, one person at the time. I know it's ballsy to want to be "giver," because "what makes you think you have something to give?"

"Everyone has something to give, whether it's time, friendship, or otherwise."

We end the night with me fleeing on my bike. M said, "I'm happy for you, Q," and in my delirious mind I wished that everyone, everyone could feel for a second what I was feeling. Even if it's fleeting. Even if I'm stupid. Even if as I fly into the night shouting some words at him that I'm sure he'll write into a script and then a truck comes crushing into my gut, that will be fine, because for one second, I felt life burning through my world.