Showing posts with label 12. February 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 12. February 2012. Show all posts
Thursday, July 12, 2012
The Black Swan
Day 332: Sunday, February 5, 2012I got a call from Mari saying that an acquaintance of ours, who works for a really big publishing company in Japan, had proposed T.B. to his boss and got the approval for it to be made into a book. When I heard the news, I didn’t quite believe that it could get passed so easily (or at least that they didn’t know what they were getting into and would back out when they did) because the logistics of it being made into a book, especially in Japanese, seem quite difficult, so I kept my expectations low.
After I told Mari to arrange a meeting, I walked around wondering that if it were really true, would I still want to hire the girl to do it since the last time we had met to work on the TB zine, which has been dragging on for six months now, the design- instead of getting better- was getting much worse. When I confronted her about it, she confessed that she could no longer see what was good about the project anymore. Moreover, her face, when we first greeted each other on the street, was like she could no longer stand me either.
Yesterday, I decided to try riding the community bus home, which only costs 100 yen. Soon, I found out the reason why it was so cheap because it takes an unbelievably long time. After nodding on and off again, the bus finally approached my neighborhood. Suddenly, it turned the opposite direction, which made my heart flutter. After a few more turns, it corrected its course and I realized that it was just going a different route, which was the same route that the girl that I like and I took to get home after Yosuke’s exhibition opening- the route where I carried her on her bike and as she stood on the bolts of the back wheel, she suddenly squeezed my shoulders once and then twice in her little hands for no reason, which made me tense up inside… Looking out the window now, I could feel my heart flutter again. I slumped down in my chair and realized that even though I thought we were both getting sick of each other, I was wrong and was still in love.
Day 335: Friday, February 10, 2012
I feel like I have nothing to write or photograph anymore. After being locked up in my house for the past month and a half editing Modern Times, I finally began forcing myself to take walks, but always come back frustrated with barely any pictures taken. I have no idea how to keep T.B. interesting for one more month- let alone one more year. I guess the question is how do you keep passion going after so long?
I’ve been reading a Japanese comic about wheelchair basketball where a high school kid, who got into a car accident, is now coming to terms with the fact that he can no longer use his legs. Before the accident, he was the biggest asshole who had ever lived, but afterwards, as the story progresses, he gradually becomes humble and a human being once again... Lying in his hospital bed at night, the kid keeps reliving memories about his father and how they played basketball together when he was a child and he finally realizes that after his dad had abandoned him and his mother, even though he had always continued playing and eventually became the star of his high school basketball team, it was no longer any fun- he had just been going through the steps. Now when he no longer can play, he lives and breathes it. Eventually he will play wheelchair basketball and his team will probably win the championship, which the story has been building up too, but the comic hasn’t gotten that far yet.
This afternoon I introduced my publisher and the gallerist to each other since last week I changed my mind and decided to do Modern Times instead of Talking Barnacles for my exhibition. When the meeting was over and I was walking my publishers to the station, they asked me if I could choose, who would I want to do a talk event with at my exhibition. As I tried to think of someone famous- since they wanted someone famous- I realized that I no longer had any heroes… I was blank.
Afterwards I had nothing that pressing to do and nowhere to go, so I just wandered. I finished my exhibition plan this morning, which I had been stressing about and I thought I would feel better than I had this past month, but I don’t. While I was wandering, I realized that pretty much my dream was coming true- I had my first book coming out as well as my first legit photo show in a major gallery, but for some reason, I was not happy. I was much happier when I first started Barnacles after the madness of the first week and when we came back to Tokyo from visiting Yuki’s parents. I walked around with a purpose- as if God was shining a light on me- and I was filled with inspiration, which is something that is hard to come by.
When the sun was going down, I gave up on taking photos and headed home. While cutting across Yoyogi Park, I noticed something in the distance that caught my eye...
... and as I got closer, I realized that I had found what I was looking for. Unsurprisingly, his painting wasn't very good, but it wasn't about his skill or talent that had moved me, but something much more basic. When I left, he was still painting.
Mimi-chan Returns
Day 338: Saturday, February 11, 2012
It’s Saturday and I’m at the gym. No one’s here so I can listen to my own music and can climb in peace with my own thoughts. After this, I will be meeting the girl I like to talk about the T.B. zine. Actually I have to tell her about how I used my allotted money to pay the bills so I can’t release the zine quite yet as well as I’m no longer doing the Barnacles exhibition, which I originally asked her to design fliers for- all which is not very good news for her and I worry that she will be more mad and sick of me than the last time we met... but today, for some reason, I feel much better. Maybe after being so down yesterday, things look brighter; and the bad feelings I carried since I met her last are no longer there.
I realize that I’ve been writing about her for nine months now... After I found out that she had been reading Barnacles, I always believed that I could win her over with it, but now as it drags on and she told me twice that she doesn't want to be with me, I know that each time I write about her now, I’m just killing what slim chance that I hope still exists. In the end, what does it mean to like someone to the point where you think of him or her everyday for almost an entire year; and is it all meaningless if they don’t like you back? Yuki and I had a conversation yesterday when we were making dinner together. She mentioned that it is exactly one month till the anniversary of the quake, or the beginning of T.B., which was my original deadline. When she asked me what I was going to do, I told her the truth, which was that I didn't know because knowing when to quit is one of the hardest questions to answer.
After the gym, when I’m on my way to see her, she texts me that she needs another fifteen minutes to hang her laundry, so I tell her I will just wait outside with Mimi-chan until she is ready. When I get to her house, I make a clicking sound and Mimi-chan runs out on cue. I haven’t seen her for maybe four or five months and immediately notice that she has gotten fat. She comes over very needy-like and puts her paws on my knees. I understand what she wants so I sit down on the ground and she nestles in my lap.
Ten minutes pass by and then fifteen, but I don't mind...
Eventually I look up from petting Mimi and there she is walking towards me in the cold without a jacket, covering her mouth, and smiling at the both of us. Right away I can tell she is no longer sick of me anymore and right away I know the answer to my question: I don’t think it was meaningless these past nine months because in the end, even though she could not give me what I wanted from her, she gave me something else- what that is? I have no idea, but I guess I will someday.
Day 342: Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Had a meeting with the editor from the big publishing company about Talking Barnacles this evening. He told me that we had passed the first round, which involved getting the editorial department’s permission. Next we would have to get the approval of the sales department. I was very excited it because from what it sounded like, it might actually be possible to make a book in Japanese. He asked me who I wanted to design it, and I mentioned the girl, stating that it was good to have someone who actually knew the work well, and, to my surprise, he agreed immediately. I contacted her after the meeting, and I could hear over the phone that she was excited too.
I knew this day would come… After coming home exhausted from a long meeting, I opened the kitchen door and saw Ian and Yuki finishing their dinner. Ian said with a serious look, “We were just talking about you,” which didn’t sound good. Apparently when Yuki was home alone this afternoon, a stranger came by asking for me. “You are Yuki!” he said, looking excited to see her when she answered the door and then kept apologizing for coming by without notice. After they had been talking for a couple of minutes, she eventually realized that something wasn’t quite right, so she asked him, “Are you Patrick’s friend?” which she had naturally just assumed before because he knew who we were and he was a foreigner. He hesitated and then answered, “I think so…” In reality, he had written me twice about T.B., but we had actually never met. Before he left, he took a picture of Yuki as well as our house. Even though Yuki said he seemed harmless enough, I could tell that my roommates were a little bothered and actually so was I, especially after I heard that he had painstakingly gone through the entire blog to find the only photo with our address in it, which I had forgotten to Photoshop out. I apologized to my roommates for having their privacy intruded upon and hoped to God, he didn’t run into Hayato or any of our other neighbors. We then discussed what would happen if T.B. got much bigger in the future as well as what we would do.
Afterwards, I went upstairs to the office to check my email. When I opened my inbox, I found a letter from the editor of the big publishing company, which was earlier than I had expected since the meeting was scheduled for tomorrow. He thanked us for the sample of the zine and the translated materials we gathered, but in the end, like I had originally assumed, he realized that it was too early and too hard to pitch something like T.B. to his company. The only way we could actually push the book was if I could get someone really big to translate it or, ironically, in his own words, "if Modern Times ended up selling well and I became famous in Japan.”
Hello @#($@#*,
Yes, I agree that we should still make the zine too. :) There are a couple of things, which I think we can add to the zine to make it better that I would like to discuss with you when you have the time.
I'm sorry that the post from the other day made you feel bad. Half of me wishes you didn't read T.B. because I know you don't feel the same way as me, and every time I write about liking you, you must dislike me even more... but at the same time, the other half of me wants you to read it because I cannot tell you these things in person.
The only thing that I never wrote about in T.B. was why I like you. I know you probably don't want to hear about it, but one reason that I should tell you now is because you believed in me from the start and that meant a lot to me. Once I saw the first sample of our God Only Knows book you made, I understood that we were a perfect match; and from that day I believed in you too. The only time I questioned you and your talent was that day at the cafe... and the only reason why was not because of your skill or work but because I could see that you no longer believed in T.B. which, in a way, meant you no longer believed in me… and the whole time I knew it was all my fault because I started writing about you again recently. Anyways that bad feeling lasted for a week, but only for a week. I'm sorry about the Black Swan post but that was just my feeling at that very moment in time, and it has passed.
This past year has been the craziest year of my life, and I never really believed in fate until I actually recorded all the randomness down in detail and saw it laid out in front of me. Even though it's bad to say, I believe that the earthquake and Willy's death were supposed to happen when they happened... I also believe that I was supposed to meet you and especially that we weren't supposed to be together as a couple as I had originally assumed because I probably would have never understood what it means to really love someone without this long hard struggle. I've been growing up a lot this past year and what I have learned is that even if you don't like me back, it's okay because my feelings for you is teaching me to be a better person. I know now that if you really do care about someone, you just want them to be happy- and if that person is happy, then you are happy too.
Yoroshiku,
P
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