Posted 4:43 PM by Anonymous

Esquire's What A Man Should Know About A Woman-CONT.

#8. Don't kiss and tell, even if you're really proud of yourself.

My Commentary: Um, maybe only if she's a slut and the whole world already knows it. Otherwise, I doubt you would if she was a real keeper, right guys? Let's hear it for those locker room ego-trips! *towel snap*

Posted 12:49 AM by e*star

Unsent Letter

In a recent entry in my personal site, I noted the more angst-ridden people that Diaryland tends to attract as opposed to the more commercial Blogger. NOT to say that one is better than the other. Honestly, I just liked the free comments and stats that came with the fee to get rid of the banners. :)

Just wanted to show you a small, personal work: an entry in the site, Unsent Letter. The site is for people to post letters that they were obviously thinking but would not send.

Here's my unsent letter. It's to my ex.

I guess I *am* angst-ridden. :)

*e

[See Miss angst-ridden Esther's new bio section! She looks hungry...for customers. Sorry, I edited your post, Esther, for clarity. -RG]

Posted 10:26 PM by Blah blah

From my quotes page:

Happiness, I have discovered, is nearly always a rebound from hard work. It is one of the follies of men to imagine that they can enjoy mere thought, or emotion, or sentiment! As well try to eat beauty! For happiness must be tricked! She loves to see men at work. She loves sweat, weariness, self-sacrifice. She will be found not in palaces but lurking in cornfields and factories and hovering over littered desks: she crowns the unconscious head of the busy child. If you look up suddenly from hard work, you will see her,---but if you look too long she fades sorrowfully away.

---David Grayson

Posted 6:10 PM by Anonymous

Esquire's What A Man Should Know About A Woman-CONT.

7. Women do not desire to be introduced to a new brand of perfume.

My Commentary: ?

Posted 5:16 PM by Blah blah

Asians on American TV

On RBJ, Ben wrote:

"I would like to see Asian representation that doesn't involve:

-delivering food
-being a gang member
-fighting or kung-foolery
-playing an FOB who's crazy about American white women
-playing a prostitute
-portraying a robotic (or inhuman) businessman
-as some jungle-inhabiting enemy fighting against the forces of "good" or western civilization

In effect, I want Asians to represented as ordinary people devoid of stupid stereotypes and novel hype."

Good one, Ben.

Posted 1:20 PM by Blah blah

Take It Seriously. No "Tough Love" Crap.

At the end of yesterday's debate on RBJ about Mr. Sparkle's suicide threat, it turned nasty. Some people lashed out at him, telling him to "be a man, stop whining," etc. While it might make those people feel good for five minutes to tell some total stranger off, it could have serious consequences on someone, that vulnerable, who has come to US for help.

Someone who is forced to post his struggles with suicide publicly on a message board must not have anyone to talk to in his own life. He must be at the brink already. He has hit bottom. He hates himself. For people to kick him while he's down is like spitting on a dying dog. We must respond with tact and extreme caution. We must show respect and compassion for what he's going through and TAKE ACTION.

The Internet lets us all get lazy as passive spectators to others' ups and downs. We are used to clicking through from blog to blog, using them for our own amusement, like channels on TV. But these people's anguish is real. It's not for our entertainment. When the time comes and you are needed, please please act!

I quote from a memorial website for Kevin Hogue, the Berkeley student I mentioned below, who jumped off of a 10th-floor balcony this April.

"I was one of the last people Stars Pyre [Kevin Hogue] 'spoke' to before he made that fateful decision. I knew he was having a difficult time sorting things out but had no idea how close he was to the breaking point. You can imagine my horror when I gave him the online equivalent of a slap on the back and a hug, told him I would be out of town Saturday and most of Sunday, but would speak to him on Monday....and then came home to find he suicided soon after I talked to him. I don't know what I could have done since I had no idea his life had reached that inevitable turning point. Maybe I should have left him my cell phone number. Maybe I shouldn't have gone; perhaps he thought I was brushing him off or trying to get rid of him. There had to have been something I could have done. I dropped the ball on this one and now I can only say that I am sorry and hope I do better the next time.

If you never do anything else, please read the next words I have to say and take them to heart. I'm speaking as someone who has tried all too often to cross that final bridge and failed for whatever reasons. Always, always take talk of suicide seriously. To say that the ones that talk about it or don't succeed aren't serious or won't do it is a myth. Don't try the 'tough love' crap on them if you aren't going to be around to monitor the results; you just might push them over the final edge into oblivion. Sympathy and pity might not be what they need or what they will respond to, but by the gods, don't lash someone already in obvious conflict and pain with harsh words and then walk away. Have the courage to stand by them and finish what you started because you don't KNOW what affect your words will have on the person in crisis.

I hate the word 'threat' in 'suicide threat'; it makes it sound as though these people are playing with their lives and trying to solicit favors from their friends and family. It also makes the situation sound a lot less serious than it really is. I don't know what you would call it, but it isn't a threat. The person talking about killing themselves feels they have nothing to gain with any other action and so most standard input (attention, gifts, etc) isn't going to change how they feel. Treat these comments for what they are --- the preliminary planning sessions for the taking of a life. Friends are precious commodities and I didn't have very many of them, certainly not enough for any of them to consider their lives worth throwing away. Stars Pyre stood up for me on an important issue once because he felt I was right even though my side of the argument wasn't the popular one. I owe him my existence because he understood the concepts I expressed above and took the time to connect with me at a crucial moment when things could so easily have gone the other way. I am alive and able to have an impact on others' lives because he had an impact on mine through one simple act of kindness. I wish I could have made him see that; maybe then he wouldn't have been so willing to throw his life away."

Posted 2:58 PM by Blah blah

Carlos wrote this about yesterday's incident. Thank you, Carlos!

Thank you

I wanted to express my heartfelt thanks to everyone who worked on talking to, calming, and encouraging Mr. Sparkle today. People involved included Carlos, Frostee, Brandon, Ami, Arnold, Eugene, and I. Brandon posted an especially touching story about the death of his girlfriend in a car accident.

Most of my thanks go to Corine (aka Babysakura), who spent at least TWELVE HOURS working on this problem. (See her website for more details.) She helped calm him down, encourage him, and open him up to talk. She didn't eat. She prayed for him. When he finally realized that people DID care about him, that he WAS making an impact, he slowly started to change and think about others instead of just his own problems. He said he'd go see a doctor---a breakthrough!

I was very impressed by Corine and applaud how she acted in this crisis. She was persistent, compassionate, and very sweet and caring. She was also clever and made wise decisions. Three cheers for you, honey!!! You were his guardian angel.

I also asked Sandy if she would share, with the man, some of her experiences with deep depression. She wrote a long entry on her blog about her story. Read it. An excerpt:

Life is not worth living if all I feel is pain. I carried the same mentality with me into the psych. ward where I was kept for 2 weeks. The notion of "finding happiness within myself" seemed inconceivable.

And I won't lie and say that I'm fully recovered from that incident. I still have my "bad" days, and a bad day for someone who is depressed isn't just waking up late in the mornings and not having a cup of coffee. Some days I feel like I weigh 300 lbs and everyone I run into is staring at me, silently mocking me behind their cold stares....thanking the dear lord that they're not me and they don't have to face that wretched reflection everyday. And yes, I feel like that often...just a few days ago actually....

Suicide came to me like a evil force digging into my brain, whispering its deluded promises of resolution to me. I don't know how, but I drove those voices out.....I rode it out on my mountain bike, I smoked it out, drank it out, cried it out...did whatever it took to get me into the next day. That's all it takes to start your new path. First, baby steps...soon you're striding along and you won't look back at suicide as a option... I often laugh and make jokes to my friends that everyone should be "institutionalized" at least once in their lifetime. It really opened my eyes to many things and forced me to realize that life is precious and having to shave your legs in front of a guard is NO fun!

Thank you, Sandy! Of course this story is not over. But we all accomplished something important today. And I am very proud of that.

Posted 6:41 AM by Blah blah

Suicide Threat

Oh my God. This guy Mr. Sparkle started a debate on RBJ about One Good Reason for Him Not to Commit Suicide!

We've never heard much from him before. I take all suicide threats VERY VERY SERIOUSLY. I cannot believe that what people tell him in this public debate may actually influence his decision to take his life.

Please show him your support! And help to find out more about him (in case we need to call the police). He is not the first person on RBJ to talk about suicide. Anna (Enygma) also posted a very suicidal entry a few weeks back. I was alarmed and wrote Carlos about it. We both wrote to her privately.

Esther, the Korean Berkeley grad, told me how in March and April 2002, two guys at UC Berkeley (my university) killed themselves within three and a half weeks of each other. In March, Nicolai Rosen suffocated himself in an office with a plastic bag. Then April 4, Kevin Hogue jumped off of a 10th-floor balcony to his death. What's more eerie: both of them had websites and wrote blogs. Both killed themselves at Evans Hall, one of the tallest buildings on campus (and thus a suicide magnet). When you know someone online and read him daily, then he's gone, it's a doubly tremendous shock. You wonder how much more you should have paid attention, should have tried to get him outside help.

PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH:
- Here's Nicolai Rosen's website. See how much he takes a "fuck the world" attitude and follows anarchists like Eric Raymond.
- A memorial page to Kevin Hogue (Stars' Pyre). Kevin Hogue's LiveJournal site. See how, just days before he did it, people would not take him seriously and mocked his depressing rants. Could that have helped drive him over the edge?

I am no stranger to suicide threats. Someone close to me threatened suicide once on a website. This was no joke. I read it and freaked out. I like to think I helped save this person.

A pretty, intelligent Taiwanese girl, Theta (YunJu Tai), whom I knew only from a series of emails we wrote each other, killed herself on Feb. 10, 2001. I've linked her website too. She was a physics student at Taiwan's top school, National Taiwan University. I wrote the whole story here and here.

Let's show support to Mr. Sparkle, everyone!

Posted 2:24 AM by fan777

one morning... you fall out of bed and the light hits your eyes and outside, it is blue and white and green and, for a moment, you don't remember where you are or when it is. somehow the stray beam entering your window seems all too familiar, like a stray beam that entered a different window a different year ago... a memory that belonged in oblivion... and you think she's still beside you. the perfume of light slips in; mistaking the warmth for her is easy... you turn around...

and what if she were still there beside you?

would the ocean of worry, frustration, and sorrow you've bottled up inside your head find a way out through the corner of your eyes? a prelude to storms, the life you've been leading would be a nightmare dismissed... and then you turn around and blink, she's gone, turning to nothing and you can't help but think... was the moment all that magical or is memory a sweet wine, the slow ferment of thought into something more delectable than ever before?

i'd die if you were the coffin. morbidity and this localized, concentrated, centralized consciousness. how sad a life must be when it insists upon dwelling in the dark of yesterday. a year ago, life made sense. two years ago, life was beautiful. three years ago, life made the upswing into zen.

i'm wasting, wasted. the fractal mind that implodes... you're my opium if life were a drug. addicted to your illusion. illuminated.

i bet you think this song is about you. it very well could be. or you could very well be mistaken. good afternoon.

Posted 7:13 PM by Anonymous

Esquire's What A Man Should Know About A Woman - CONT.

#6. Less than .05 percent of the male population is attractive enough to ignore chivalry, and most women over the age of twenty-five prefer to admire such men from a distance.

My Commentary: I guess that's true. An ugly chivalrous man is hard to miss.

Posted 3:00 PM by Blah blah

I can't believe I forgot to post this:

Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Carter, With Jab at Bush (NY Times). BRAVO, President Carter, sir!!! I've admired his post-presidential career ever since he founded the Carter Center in Atlanta and willingly got down and dirty to help build houses with Habitat for Humanity.

Jimmy Carter is a noble and inspiring man. This prize is well-deserved and long overdue. I have the greatest respect for him. Another men whom I think should win the Prize are diplomats like Richard Holbrooke (now U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.), an important mediator in Bosnia, and statesmen like ex-Senator George Mitchell (D-Maine), famous as mediator in a 22 month set of negotiations in N. Ireland. They have had to help negotiate peace between peoples with the most atrocious, deeply visceral hatreds.

"The Nobel Peace Prize, which carries a stipend of $1 million, recognizes the 39th president for his 'vital contribution' to the Camp David Accords in 1978 (text of the Accords), his 'outstanding commitment to human rights,' his work fighting tropical diseases like guinea worm and river blindness and his continuing interest in furthering democracy. On Monday, Mr. Carter, 78, is off to Jamaica to monitor elections.

More than any other ex-president, Mr. Carter, a Democrat and former Georgia governor, has stretched the gravitas and star power of the Oval Office to promote democratic values across the world. Unlike his peers, he never joined corporate boards or went on the lecture circuit.

Instead, with seemingly endless energy and his signature toothy grin, he has trudged up mountains to meet with warlords, cajoled dictators into granting more freedoms and found a second career of 'waging peace,' as he calls it. Everywhere he goes, so does his wife, Rosalynn, his most trusted confidant." There is a great love story enveloped in there between Jimmy and Rosalynn.

Posted 8:54 AM by Blah blah

Sour Bob in Chicago is a 27-year-old guy in the process of getting divorced. I find him witty, eloquent, and touching. He's now on my reading list. He wrote:

I Am A Hell Of A Personal Ad

NOT YET DIVORCED MALE Paunchy, premature-gray, pasty white. Underemployed, financially unstable, potential problem drinker. Poor disposition, nakedly narcissistic self-pity streak. Seeking intelligent, sensitive female who won't mind that I'm still married to and in love with my first wife. Baseball fans preferred.

Ladies look out!

By Eleanor:

You know he/she is bad news...

...when your second date is basically a booty call.

...when you've been dating for a year and a half and you have yet to meet his parents whom he sees like every weekend.

...when you've been dating for a year and a half and you ask him to call you later, and he says "Why, what is there to talk about?"

...when you've been dating for a year and a half and you ask him if he wants to go out Friday night and he says, "I don't know what I'm doing yet Friday night."

...he tells you on your third or fourth date that he isn't looking for a relationship but you try to make it one anyway.

...when he tells you he is trained in Israeli hand combat and can kill another person with his bare hands.

(or so I've heard.)

Moment of Zen
By Mary:

You know, it's sad to watch a relationship deteriorate before your eyes but not be able to let go of it, to keep hoping some great miracle will occur because you both want it to work out so much. Opposites may attract, but there's something to be said for having things in common.

Bad signs:
1. He never laughs at your jokes (i.e. you're actually funny, too)
2. You cannot find any common ground in one of the following: movies/tv/music/restaurants/interests
3. You hug, but never kiss.
4. The common silence between you is not a comfortable one.
5. You don't know his friends, but you're pretty sure if you did, you'd hate them.
6. He knows your friends and your friends hate him/think he's a tool.

Don't let this happen to you. Don't think it can't. Be on the alert, friend, or you too will be in a loveless relationship that you're not sure you want out of; some might call this laziness, but I prefer convenience enthusiast.

P.S. Sour Bob advises me to find a nice, cool Texas boy to move on to. I have a nice, cool Texas boy, but you see the issues above still apply. Also, I'm not convinced there's a ready supply. Pity.

Posted 4:47 PM by Anonymous

Esquire's What A Man Should Know About A Woman-CONT.

5. Women do not wish to be trifled with should they, on occasion, order dessert.

My Commentary: Dessert is a woman's right. None of that 'a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips either.' Eat up!

Posted 9:44 AM by Blah blah

Found this from Lucee. If it slows down the loading of this page, I'll remove it:

[Removed]

Posted 12:58 AM by Blah blah

From Crush to Love

[Syclick replied to what we said below. Click on his link. HILARIOUS:

Me: My view is: commitment helps to build and develop love. It's not the other way around. Love is a conscious decision, not just "a feeling." Feelings tend to be as unreliable as the wind.

Syclick: Yes, folks... You can find this and many more wisdom-packed quotes in Memoirs from Raymond's Blog, now on sale at Amazon.com

You picked my kissy kissy face, Syclick!]

I just posted in RBJ again. Jo (Sodapop), a girl in Toronto, said:

"Sigh... I think I'm really flighty when it comes to relationships and such. I've never been in a serious relationship before. Not because I can't commit (well.. this is part of my question), but I don't go out searching for dates. If someone that catches my eye comes along, then it's a good thing. Other than that, I don't mind being single.

But the thing is, sometimes it happens that, if I'm crushing on a guy, no matter if it's someone I know well or not, I always let it get in the way of something. Right now, there's a guy that I'm starting to crush on. I don't know him well though. But we've met. But I know I've been more attracted to other guys, like my previous crush. I know a crush isn't pure love, but...

How do you know or how do you let go? I can see a bigger chance of something happening with this guy than the other, but I don't feel as attracted. Not yet at least. But I seem to always find myself pulling back to something that can be good, just because I don't feel the initial attraction that I've felt with other guys (even if I've never dated them)..."

I replied:

HUH? Sodapop, I cannot understand your post. You sound like you're contradicting yourself.

Please clarify your post. Maybe it will help you work out your jumbled thoughts.

It sounds to me like you are expecting love to follow some neatly planned script:
1) You feel initial attraction
2) You get a crush
3) You start feeling more serious
4) Then if all the initial doubts and the probation period are passed, you start making a commitment

You're confused and not sure if you're following the script, and now you are thinking of bailing out???

C'mon girl. Life and love are messy. Nothing follows a script. Be patient, try to appreciate and enjoy your relationship and dating RIGHT NOW, without thinking of the past or future. Live in the moment.

Let it simmer. Don't be a jumbled mess of doubts, worries, and confusion. How do you think that makes a guy feel, seeing you so indecisive and unsure of yourself like that? It hurts his confidence and makes you seem less attractive.

Then MAYBE after enough time, you both will trust each other more, open up more to each other, and that simmering pot will begin to BOIL.

Give it a chance!

My view is: commitment helps to build and develop love. It's not the other way around. Love is a conscious decision, not just "a feeling." Feelings tend to be as unreliable as the wind.

You make a tentative decision to stick with a person on whom you have a "crush." That means trying to appreciate him, work out potential issues, and deepen the relationship. It means not looking at other guys for now. Sure, it's a risk and, yes, you don't have all the information.

But if you keep waiting for more certainty before that initial commitment, you will not be able to make the essential first step towards love.

(And Grace, if you are reading this, I AM trying to follow my own advice. Wink.)
______________________
My 2nd post:

Sodapop, I don't mean to sound all wise and infallible myself. I struggle to maintain these ideals too.

Here's an example:

I have been writing my online journal for over TWO YEARS now. And I "love" my journal.

Now which came first? How have I lasted this long, when most people quit after a few months?

Did I feel an attraction to journalling, write a few entries, develop a mad crush on my journal, then deepen that into a commitment?

NO!

I know I enjoy writing. First I worked very hard at laying the foundation for a successful website. Then I posted some good quality entries. Then I just simply decided to write write write, no matter what.

At first, I didn't have much substance. Not enough info to tell if I sucked or not. If it was worth spending all this time.

But I didn't care. I believed in it. I had decided to do it, and damn it I did it.

Now I can truly say I LOVE my journal. Is it because my journal somehow seduced me? No. My love is in proportion to the amount of effort and sweat I put into this project. Love was the byproduct.

The same with relationships and with everything else.

Posted 11:09 PM by e*star

"Picasso had his blue period, his red period...I'm in my platinum-blonde period."

-Hugh Hefner, on MTV's Cribs, regarding his seven platinum-blonde live-in girlfriends.

My thoughts: I could go on and on about unashamedly objectifying women and women's tendency to accept this common practice in society as such and even milk it for all its worth (e.g. living it up in the Playboy Mansion as a Playmate), but really. I think we've been through this all, before.

*e

Posted 4:39 PM by Anonymous

Esquire's What a Man Should Know About a Woman-cont.
#4. If you're single, the tango will do the trick. If you're married, the tango will also do the trick.

Possibly even with your wife.

My commentary: It sure is sexy as hell. And if a man can pull that off with a daub of Polo's eau de toilette, man, I'm puddy.
____________________
Mira's sexy new avatar:

Posted 3:26 AM by Blah blah

I LOVE this story! Hahaha!

Charities find that nudity pays (Cox News Service):
___________________
In today's precarious economy, charities seeking to raise money are finding that bake sales just don't cut it anymore. But stripping sure does.

Taking it all off is really taking off as a new crop of bare-all calendars featuring plain folks shedding their inhibitions for worthy causes is on sale for 2003.

The groups range from female wool spinners who seek to confront "the ageism and size ism in our culture" to the Rotary Club in Brattleboro, Vt.

The Rotarians persuaded 53 men -- bankers, lawyers, real estate agents and physicians -- to appear mostly nude in its 2003 "Men of Brattleboro" calendar....

The calendars all have one thing in common: They aren't beefcake or cheesecake calendars featuring thong-clad stick figures with breasts, but ones that show the bags and sags and every last wrinkle of do-gooders of all ages.

And if you think people won't pay to see their pear-shaped neighbors draped only in a bit of netting, think again.

The various charitable groups all say they were inspired by the highly successful "Ladies of Rylstone" in England. Those British ladies, ages 45 to 60, were pillars of their community who posed nude for a calendar to raise money for leukemia research. Their 1999 calendar was so popular it was published again in 2000 and wound up generating an eye-popping $700,000.

Selling well in the United States is the $25 "Still Magnolias" calendar. It features 26 women from Aiken, S.C., each at least 60 years old (some are in their 80s), wearing little more than jewelry and strategically placed props.

Posted 12:37 AM by Blah blah

Please check out the new people I've linked, guys. I've marked them with *'s on the left column. All good.

School Shooting in Australia

Oh my God! A man brought handguns to the Humanities Dept. at Monash University in Melbourne. He shot two dead and injured five. Frostee says the shooter was an Asian guy and the two dead were also Asian.

Corine's friend Ami says: "I was just outside the building about to walk in when it happened. Sigh....God I'm in tears right now. As I stood outside the building frozen, I suddenly realised my friend coming towards me with blood on her hair. She was on the same floor as the shooting."

Here's the RBJ discussion about it, going on right now.

I'm awfully sorry to hear this, Ami, and I'm very happy you are safe! You and your schoolmates have my deepest sorrow and condolences.

We ourselves here in Silicon Valley came "this" close to a similar experience in January 2001. A cute 19-year-old Filipino guy planned to massacre huge numbers of students at DeAnza Community College, in Cupertino. It's close to my parents' place. He planned to walk into the school cafeteria at lunchtime armed with pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, and two sawed-off shotguns.

Posted 5:26 PM by Anonymous

Things That a Man Should Know About a Woman-cont. Esquire Online.

#3. One follow-up to an unreturned phone call is acceptable; two is stalking.

My commentary: Well, not really. But you gotta know when to take a hint if it's there.