So I'm cooking and calligraphing today again at long last--I have no idea how long it's been, actually: and all my dishes are tofu-centric, perhaps for no reason in particular. But aside from that, it was a pretty hectic 3 hours of TeXing last night, and after that fitful sleep, as usual, though I still haven't really gotten the hang of having the SP around me most of the time. But that's probably the only thing in between me and complete uselessness.

So I glossed over large chunks of the weekend: on Friday I lingered late and then went Columbia-ward, where I'm kinda sure I coulda run into Jizz Fang, an old nemesis or at least foe from the college Asian-antagonizing days. He and his porcupine hair were not quite a welcome sight, nor his all-white friends, though of course I wasn't pleased I had to make macho-small-talk with the imperialist white middle school history teacher who sees fit to make his unworking flip wife sign a prenup. So I managed to wander home before heading over to Joephet and Thai food.

Saturday saw reunion with Brandon, who's going for his PhD in history at the ol' alma mater, oddly enough, though he seems enthusiastic enough and is finishing his two year stint as a second-grade teacher in Houston. It's troubling I guess how quickly the past is sliding away from me, how little I even bother to wave it bye-bye, but of course that's either just growing up or growing old.

The evening saw a journey into Wanda's neighborhood for card-playing and really dirty stairwells and spooky walking around at night--it's eerie how the subway in some places can be very loud with voices from the street above drifting down through the grates. And all of this mean that I was and am terribly behind on my work. One hour left before paperduetime.

So somehow Joephet bought me a GameBoy Advance SP, the flip-kind with the battery pack and backlighting. Of course, this was touted as a break-up present, though apparently this is just a matter of convenience for his friends who condemn him for stringing me along, evidently, as we're not headed anywhere. But that's of course some sort of heteroteleological tripe I can't make sense of. Either way, the SP and I have become the best of friends, though this was wrought havoc upon my work schedule, as you might imagine--it's just addictive, these metroids.

So I've been drably literal here for quite some time, and I'm not sure if I can tell exactly why that is; maybe it's just the lockdown mode I've gone into to just try and reach break and the end of the year to catch a real breath, as this is one of those times when I have to begin figuring out ferrealz a longer term arc--the maladministration and buck-passing of my current school have fired me up in the admin direction, but I wonder sometimes, when I'm all puffed up on educational research, if that wouldn't be more successful, if somehow still short of my full ambitions.

I guess I've been saving how Joephet has nicknamed my pecs "Jigglypuff." And it's fucking scary to watch figureskating with him for all the sudden squeals.

I confess I kinda want a GBA SP. But I really can't afford to slide down that hill.

So I am tired, especially since I have had to deal with both a practice Regents exam as well as a visit from higherups, which was the usual sort of slice-of-life nonsense: to tap into an entire classroom in a moment, and indeed a moment of resistance against arbitrary testing. So I was acting like I was in a foul mood, while I really wasn't, a useful trick that Joephet has refined to an art. Ugh. But almost now in the home stretch for today, again.

So today began with such energy, but I got tired before long and needed a whole lotta coffee just to stay awake, though so far the research has been exhilirating if exhausting--I could see doing this for a living, or at least up to to a point... Other than that, just various committee-type manuevers, but little else beyond that, besides being marooned alone at home without an overcommitted Joephet and tons of work to finish, somehow. But with a mere 8 days left before break, and two of those consumed by parent-teacher conferences and a multicultural extravaganza, it's pretty much all clear sailing from here on out.

So I am surprised by how well today went, even if the usual math meeting is the usual mix of teachers who haven't done their assigned work, somehow--see, somehow the issue does return to one of trickledown Confucianist virtue that's missing more often than not. But then there are deeper issues here than just that.

Other than that, things went smoothly as my reserach began with an interview that was smooth enough, even if I have no idea what the larger-scale intervention will look like overall. I'm just trying not to think about the paperload in the coming days.

So I'm liking my parents more and more--maybe it's cuz they might soon be continents away, or maybe I'm just older, but despite the language barrier, I'm seeing more eye-to-eye with them. It's just a shame that I can't yet deal with them and Joephet at this point, though I dunno that he'd quite want that, somehow, as I don't yet exist to his mom, or whatever. But still. Definitely a post-move sort of conversation.

So I been lazy but I don't feel it: 11+3+7.5+3=24.5 hours of sleep so far this weekend, which does seem a touch excessive, especially since I've managed to get so little done today because in my haste to leave Joephet some undistractedness and to get some work done on my homefront, I left all my work at his apartment, and was barred reentry by his picky super. So I went home and got distracted in many ways, as usual, not getting nearly enough done on my interview protocols for the rest of this week.

The real question, as I reached full circle today in talking with John Blum about where it is that he should spend two year of his life teaching those on the end opposite from his in terms of white flight, I now wrestle is whether or not I've lost my edge. Sometimes it does feel like I've been able to squeeze out more than the usual amount of sharpness and insight, just by being under siege and being forced to produce so much with so little time. But I do feel as if my range has constricted since college--my current grad school connections are sporadic, my school friends are chummy but not exactly intellectual expansionists, and Joephet is the rest of my social world, and he has a skepticism toward my more analytic tendencies, dismissing it all as mere "semantics." Better that than syntax, though. I guess I most acutely feel this way because I feel so disconnected from art in any way--and when I do get those vague rumblings, I am without notebook... Could it be that I'm precisely missing the vague abstracted wandering questioning of white friends? Maybe that's it... Or maybe I've just stopped going to the comic book store (the more Thai fried rice for Joephet), and as a result have shrunken.

But I'm probably being paranoid--I'm reading more now than I ever have before--one great thing about Joephet is his books. And looks. Definitely the looks. If I didn't point that out, I'd have some splainin to do later tonight.

So yesterday was a pleasant jaunt into the East Village, enthusiastically chatting schools and school reform with the younger freshman sister of an old math camp buddy of mine--I don't remember ever being that idealistic or organized, as back in the day I was more conservative and Randist, in part as a reaction to the perceived intellectual weakness of my classmates, but mostly because of the shrill classed-out white "liberalism" of a particular nemesess of mine back my firstyear in college... But it's rare to have those grander structural conversations, as teachers are of course pragmatists by demand, and molelike in their need to focus in on the daily grind. Of course, I say this as I'm more panicked about my own research project than the larger shape and arc of things beyond...

Beyond that, I also managed to eat with Kenneth, after having gotten a glimpse at his man du jour, though of course that's more of a meet-for-coffee thing rather than a relationship, but that's necessarily a bad thing... And that was loud noisy new Japanese place banter and plannery, and mostly my amusement that the group of whitey that waited an hour for a table at this new supermarket-doored restaurant finally settled in to order shouchu and fried rice, which then took an hour to consume... Such a white thing. It's hard to imagine how I ever could have imagined dating one of them.

So I'm done at last with this week, which means that if I actually manage to make something of my weekend, I'll be in good shape for the two weeks remaining before break. When I picked up my glasses, they gave me a choice of hot pink or baby blue for my glasses wiper. It's strange to see so clearly, but even stranger to have wandered around this week, like many of my students do daily, I bet, in a haziness: no wonder they are so tentative sometimes... I don't know how I used to function this way.

I'm still trying to process how I should feel about my principal complimenting my on my pecs today. It'd be alright if he didn't have "bear" in one of his email addresses...

So my glasses have arrived though I've not picked them up, my landlord is leaving for what may be months, MiKTex is downloading, and most of my problem set I'm trying to TEX up is actually already written. So yeah.. It's pretty happy, though I feel as productivity could look better, somehow.

But I guess I'm to describe the disappointment of desired-object-completed-and-almost-in-reach-but-for-minor-timing-issues-which-force-you-to-delay-gratification.

It's hard.

So it's alternately amusing and troubling when you're so tired at the end of the last period before lunch that you join in the conversation about last night's episode of America's Next Top Model, heartily agreeing that Shandi's boyfriend could stand to be manlier and in a lower pitch. Other than that, today was pretty smooth, other than the bucket of water (mine) flung by one student at another, the fire in the bathroom, the continual pot-smoking in the back stairwell, and the absense of any real administrative presence backed by paperwork.

Other than that, I'm at college again, a bit swamped as usual, leaving things to the last minute, though of course this my most fertile.

And I'm afraid that things have reached the point where I must link to the following blog, which is the best specimen I've seen yet of het-Asian-Am-male sexuality in blog form. Of course, that's not saying much, I suppose, and I will provide more extensive comments in the forthcoming post. The droll side note is that while I am Curious (Yellow) is a Scandinavian film originally, I am Curious (Black) is the title of that infamous issue 106 of Lois Lane I've mentioned before.

So it's been quite a bunch of activity. Aside from the transition from modal logic into game theory that's imminent, I did the entire grad school thing, and it's strange, as I'm more outspoken in this class than in any other before--and that's counting almost all of undergrad, somehow. Maybe it's just a diverse and inclusive classroom. Or maybe it's just that other folks' lack of precision really pisses me off--I mean, how can you reach a quarter century on this early as a teacher without a robust distinction between naming and labeling?

Then it was off to the East Side to hang out with a radiant and rested Joephet resplendent in new though oddly-colored New Balances and the company of medschooly friends, with Joephet obsessing about his Asianness and identity, or somesuch nonsense like that. We made it home, though I was a Guinness and a watered down Knob Creek worse for the evening, and I woke up this morning with a slight hangover, and no real progress on this project for my masters I'm supposed to be doing.

This afternoon, I managed to finally get an eye exam and a new pair of glasses, though $200 seems rather steep, but maybe that's just me. I didn't transition to the indie-rocker glasses that Lex used to favor, in theory. And my eyes aren't much worse, though I was chuckling when the optometrist kept on demanding that I open my eyes further.

I've just now managed to shovel the walks, which was rather faster than I would have thought possible--all part of my campaign to kiss up to my landlord, who must love me, as I've been her unofficial real estate broker via craigslist for about four rental properties by now.

Now it's off to Joephet's for domestic bliss, bitter recriminations, assaults on my character and physique, self-absorbed exclamations, lowbudget TV, furtive work on my master's project, diverting reading of Chinese novels in translation, cuddling from the snow, and disappointed reading of my usual, unupdated blogs.

So last night I had dinner with D, who was having atypical dreams of leading a cult of oppressed ghetto youth past commercial misogynistic hypermasculine culture into a bright new world of dedication to their Leader and love sweet love. Or something. I was hazy on the details. My diagnosis: he needs to reproduce, or buy a puppy. I feel the same way sometimes, I suppose. Still, it's kinda odd hatching plans for brainwashing when you're sitting in a rotisserie chicken place, even if it is a caravan or carnival or whatnot.

So I have no idea what directin this week is going to take--I woke up far too refreshed for my own good today, almost an hour before I finally got out of bed, trying to force myself to get more sleep, just because it seemed like it would have been a good idea, somehow. Other than that, just struggling to come up with something or anything to do for the algebra project I've been working on. And it's rather difficult, I'm afraid, as I have no real direction and no real time to devote given the presentation I'm supposed to give--well, it's tougher than that--it's more of a facilitation of discussion. That's somehow dicey, given the course of things before--it gets all nasty and heterotextual.

So it's odd, this crusty memory I have--I've been gathering receipts for Teacher's Choice, and of course being me, I have no idea where they could be, which involves me looking all over the place, and just scrounging. Thankfully, I had trace-memories--of reaching up, somehow, on my bookshelves, and of my old wallet, which I retired around my birthday when Joephet gave me my new Kenneth Coleness. And sure, enough there's a receipt in the old wallet, and about three when I reach up and out of sight on my bookshelf. Who says the messy can't find things? Indeed, it's odd--I have the habit of putting things on top of shelved books. And so it was frustrating to go through so many other receipts that happened to be lying around, as most of them were Joephet-related expenses. So it's time to rebudget and do my taxes... hehe...

So it is fun trying to do Match.com's attraction determinator with Joephet, even when you're supposed to do it alone. It's especially funny because he gets all squealy at the ugliness and the cuteness, and when it comes time to "pick the guys you think would be attracted to you..." he of course goes apeshit, clicking like Ashcroft on Muslims. It's just fucking cute.

These weekends, unfortunately, end up being basically all the same. That is to say, with little accomplished in terms of the work that is looming more and more--I have retreated again into that Three Kingdoms sanctuary rather than face facts as to what I hafta do. That to-do list is not that deadly, I suppose: just a few proposals and the like, and it's only the Ides of March tomorrow. So it's not hopeless, and in a lot better shape than my glasses, which would now be down to metal and plastic lenses were it not for the three other substances currently being used to keep things together.

So I made it through another week, and this one was actually the halfway point for the Long March to spring break, even though the next two weeks will be consumed by data gathering for my master's project. Still, it feels enough like the home stretch to let my guard down a little, even if idleness is my enemy. Of course, if my spring break goes as planned, I'll be off protecting Skaren Hargey's farm from maurauders in New Hampshire, which is a pattern of life that must be in my blood--the bisexual Han emperors and on followed a policy of pacifying the Xiongnu or other nomads by Sinifying the frontier... ("It's a tale told by an idiot/full of sound and fury, sinifying nothing.")

So I went for another run at last and now am just half-veging out, finishing off the first half of Sanguo. Today was one of those surprisingly smooth days at school, where everything just manages to glom together in the right way, and about halfway into lunch you get this dim sense it's going to just be all right, even if after school you have to sit through a badly led meeting--if your principal can't quite run a meeting with perfect classroom management (because we're teachers) effectively with student engagement, how is it that they can expect the same of us?

So I am trying to figure out what it is that I can actually print out from the computer lab and read on the train, as I don't want to hit the library today and didn't bring many books beyond what I need to write my paper. I suppose there must be eBooks, and there has to always be Sanguo someplace, and I don't actually have past Chapter 60 as it stands, and surely they have a version that's in pinyin and not Wade-Gilles, though 'Ts'ao Ts'ao' is more impressive than 'Cao Cao,' and the latter is much more prone to mispronunciation as cow-cow, which is not at all intimidating.

Beyond that, I'm wondering why my wordcount on Word has a category for Asian/Korean words. I have none in my paper and feel like somewhat of a race-traitor.

So I am quite excited for Dawn of the Dead (use-mention don't fail me now!), the new version. I think I've been on a zombie kick for some reason--maybe it is because I had to fight Jill from Resident Evil on MvC2 today at the pizzeria, and she uses flaming zombies and zombiedogs against you. But the first movie (along with Night of the Living Dead which I first saw around the time O.J. was running from the cops, though he doesn't get shot by the white sheriff that ought to be his salvation after surviving a harrowing night of cannibalism, gore, and racial tension, a jarring shock and disappointment, the sort of futility that dawns on you by the end of each class period (though with fewer meathooks)) was gorgeously troubling, though I remember reading the liner notes back then and being rather skeptical of the anti-consumer, anti-bujii "message", more due to critical infancy than my current anti-propositional, anti-intentional streak. No, it's just a great story about being trapped in a mall. Surrounded by zombies.

So I stayed up (even though within a metre of my knitting needles, home set) until 4 am last night playing Metal Gear, finally defeating the evil cyborg zombie ninja (well, maybe he's just misunderstood, especially since he went from white commando to evil cyborg zombie ninja and Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai didn't even go that far), though now stuck on yet another boss. Sadly, school is more monotonous than video games, as there are very few satisfying boss stages.

It's been strange--due to work, I've been coming home to really work, rather than dropping by to do some errands to put in some time in case of landlord demands and then heading off for Joephet's. So I've been actually productive, even if I do miss Joephet rather much. And I've been able to work out, and I think I've been eating less these days, which is troubling--somehow a bagel and coffee, arroz con gandules y habichuela negra y pan along with three red plums and lots of Diet Coke plus a stick of pork souvlaki doesn't seem like quite enough food for someone who suffers quite as much as me. It's probably time to down a milky protein shake and edamame or popcorn.

It's frightening, meanwhile, how well I can still write without trying, even though my creative ambitions have largely ground to a halt, which is sad given one of the ninth graders I don't normally have today was going on about his action novel, starring two assassins (one male, one female) who are tricked by their mutual employer into fighting each other, until they learn of the deception and join forces in the name of good or mercenary values. Sounds a lot like Ecks vs. Sever to me. He didn't agree, but we did agree that Lucy Liu is an ugly cockeyed bitch (well, not in those terms--I am a schoolteacher, after all: it was more like "Verily, Lucy Liu is on occasion overrated given that she is rather cross-eyed and has freckles which are not considered marks of beauty in the Chinese tradition").

I don't know if I've ever mentioned Melancthon Zombie, but now's as good a time as any.

So it's been a dry spell blogwise, though one well-spent on minor nothings, celebrating as best I could Joephet's birthday, though too tired and work-distracted to be the right sort of armtrophy, and otherwise vaguely anxious about school and idly wiling away time on GTAIII, first killing the chinks, then joining forces with the lesbonips. Right now, I'm actually working on modal logic of all things, without the TV on or anything... It's rather frightening, how much more effective I am under pressure.

Today's class was on gay issues, and I began to see, amid the Slavic condemnation of "gay values" such as promiscuity (as if that, like most "gay values," isn't just a souped-up hyperglam hetero-value, that instinctive need to spread seed, to say nothing of the bujii materialism now purveyed by Bravo and NBC, which makes it no surprise that gays are more accepted in these post-industrial, consumeristical times), that the troubling reactionary streak in my classmates is due in part to the fact that many are vocational or physical education teachers, and others are the bujii immigrants who have bought into some broken version of the Protestant dream. But it's hopeless trying to educate educators past a certain point, at least on these sort of bujii values, which is the quiet purpose of the school system, the creeping reproduction of hierarchies.

So I'm just killin time before my exam, for which I've dragged myself out bodily in what seemed to be a superlong train ride, which was also somehow supergroggy. It feels like I've actually got some summer prospects, perhaps at Rutgers, and today went largely much more smoothly than I had expected, though still not very well inna final analysis.

Today at the staff meeting, I had to bear some extended discussion of hatching real estate schemes in order to make money, flippers, I believe they're called on Will & Grace. That's all rather sad, and it gets my clobber up, as they say. Meanwhile, my kids are apparently also William Hung-conversant, which is rather sad, as there's really so little to really say. Thankfully, they lack the satirical will to spin this out into any more devastating critique of me or any of my subtalents.

So I think they stole my bookbag. At least, I don't have it anymore, and it was on the train with me. Luckily, I doubt that there is much now gone from it that I truly needed--just a few notebooks, a few issues of the Nation giving some things that John Kerry's doing right (must be short news weeks), and a Schaum's outline. So it's still damn dumb, and annoying, and very much New York, but the only item of value I had in my hand, a library book. Still, it's a loss, but the art of losing isn't hard to master.

Now I just have to type up quizzes and bear the fumblings toward the meanings of Marxism of the duo at the computer next to me--it's really hard not to interject when the bourgeoisie are mistaken for the capitalists.

So I am without homebound ambition. All my good work happens elsewhere these days, whether on the train reading obsessively, or just doing integrals, as if for the first time ever, or at school and plucking the most out of every prep period. I feel very much off balance these days and have been losing my temper, or what passes for it these days. It's just that I feel as my kids should know better by now, about the little things. Or maybe my dissatifaction is just at the warmer weather and the fact that our heaters are still going pretty much full-blast. So it's a different season disaffective disorder. Which is still better than perennial ineffective disorder.

So I am repeatedly impressed by how racist, classist, reactionary, paternalistic, and downright Malthusian my college classmates are. It's hard to quantify, it's hard to pin down, and Joephet attributes it just to jadedness after teaching in urban settings, but I think it goes deeper to some sort of reflexive bujii entitlement and condescension. This self-righteousness is deep and offensive, reducing we fags who chose not to ham it up or wear our colors on the outside into these fissed queens, as a justification for the need for black kids to learn dual languages (with one more appropriate, authoritative), rather than actually questioning the power relations which move these bifurcations. Aside from inborn ethos and the inevitable blinding egalitarian pathos, I see very little admirable in the ideologies of my classmates: we are united by suffering mostly.

I suppose I have also failed to realize how white a profession I've entered, as I've worked mostly in contexts more minority-dominated, though that's no indicator of leftism, as there's plenty of Anglo-Caribbean conservatism.

I've taken up reading economics again, and plan on sharing my choice tidbits, as my Marxism has always been lacking in the empirical. But of course, it's not just my faggotry that makes me prefer the a posteriori.

So I been a little pissy today, for no discernible reason, though I suspect it was just the attitude of some kids walking into first period, and the emptiness of the classroom for far too long before anyone showed. It probably also didn't help that it was hot and clammy, and th ekids were restless, eager to go outside. So I was testy all day, perhaps in part because my students are not passing as much as they should, and all due to lack of work.

My ambitions--my time horizon--have all contracted of late, just trying to over the next hurdle and back into a warm bed. I can't explain why this is. Of course, it might just be that I've always been this way, or that I've not grown out of the college conditioning. I was reminded of this as last night I was reunited with Bessie and Alric, which is rather rare for me as typically I do not have the opportunity to hang out with college friends these days. But they largely represent a different modo de ser. No puedo explicarlo ahora, temo. I guess I'm soon confronted with a summer, during which Joephet has declared he'll be gone to Guam, and I'll be done with my degree with no desire to teach. So the most obvious option is utter, uninterrupted idleness, though I think I would prefer a summer of working on Skaren Hargey's farm. In this direction, I tried again to jumpstart my comics last night on the trainride home to Joephet's, but I was blanking--I am too far removed from the anger and discontent--I am too invested in the system that is making my life difficult--my school--and so railing has too limited an application. I forget how much my art has been tied to anger, pain, and besiegedness. And that makes it either authentic or sentimental. I'd rather it just have been good.

So, as promised... ti's time again for

Asianboi roundup

Alric is making progress. Well, at least on his novel, in which he has a character named after me, though that might change in final drafts. So he might well be back in my routine, who knows.

Joephet is making noises. He wants to go to bed in general. He's also making me very happy. Even if I'm rather mistreated.

Kean is making do. He seems disaffected from his blog, and I've not seen or spoken to him in ages.

Kenneth is making up for lost time, now that he's single. But maybe he's not. He's got the freedom, and seems better, though of course I was anti-Bob earlier and now sort of pro-Bob.

Lostin is making a mini-career out of restauranteurship, if only parasitically.

Rob Chin is making too much out of moving to the city and working a job. He'll be fine, even if he's a perpetual robochink and the possible subject of a new fiction project.

Thai is making out, but now more monogamously with his mysteryboi who's apparently great.