I love waking up at 5am, even when I sleep at 1am. There is something about being up before the sun is up and having that quiet time to ease yourself into consciousness. I spend the time debating whether I should go to the gym and generally just trying to feel a sense of ease.

There is a luxury to getting up in the morning and not having to prepare to go into an office. My old routine (before I started traveling every week) was one-hour hot yoga followed by running around the Central Park reservoir (sometimes once, sometimes twice), coming home and meditating, taking a shower, and cooking scrambled eggs naked with a towel on my head. I got dressed and was at work before 9am.

Now the mornings unfurl. I don’t need a schedule per se, though I try to either cram my gym routine in the morning or go directly to my computer to work on whatever project happens to be consuming me at the moment.

The best mornings are silence, when I can get through them without uttering a single word except “one cold brew, please.”

I have to admit that I’ve always been kind of afraid of old people. Being Korean-American, I think that partially has to do with my natural deference for authority. I worry about self-censorship, about the role I’m expected to play, saying the right thing, relating to their life experiences. Maybe there’s something to the notion of being a bit closer to death too, but that might be a stretch. Continue reading Class of ’00 meets ’53 →

Eternal recurrence is the idea that the universe and all existence has been recurring and will continue to recur. I can’t claim to understand or even speculate on metaphysical properties of our universe – I mean, how would I know? I leave that to scientists with the brainpower and the equipment to measure and prove this theory.

What I can observe is that all of us do have recurring patterns in our lives. It can be almost pathological. Why is it that some people seem to lived mired in a string of tragedies while other seem to be stably gliding themselves through life? Why do some women end up in a series of abusive relationships while others have a queue of non-committal, wealthy men available to fly them all over the world?

I sometimes do think the universe does send you the same test over and over again in different contexts and forms until you’ve cleared that lesson.

Sometimes life themes find you. You are a mirror for the experiences you attract, so I guess you also find those themes.

Everything I’m doing right now seems oriented around finding and expressing my true authentic voice and self. Every Tuesday evening, I gather with a group of fellow writers, mostly women, to listen and critique each others’ assignments. By critique, I mean mostly compliment. It makes me realize what as asshole I was throughout all of school. I would not only debate everyone in the class. I would also tear the teacher down too. Healthy debate.

My first day felt like time travel. I walked into the little brick West Hollywood building and rounded the corner to enter a suite decorated with all sorts of art, writing posters, and an accumulation of artifacts probably dating back at least a decade or two. Eh, maybe three.

Jack Grapes the instructor was there to greet me. “Ah! You’ve been all around the world!” he boomed and welcomed me with an equally boisterous handshake. My email communications with him included him needing to mail and remail packets to places because I was no longer receiving mail at my apartment in NYC and a check sent by my friend because I was out of the country, wary of sending a check from Cambodia.

“Welcome to the Los Angeles Poets & Writers Collective,” said the TA, Lisa Segal. Continue reading Writing like you talk →

A simple Google search could clear that up. I moved for the month of February to Silver Lake, the hipster artsy area of LA. Like much of the rest of LA, there is still significant sprawl. It has some elements of walkability, but it’s still mostly designed to be driven.

Cold, rainy LA and warm, sunny LA are two different places. It’s hard to compare geography without that layer.

My apartment is quiet, artsy. It has a hallowed feel about it. My friend Lily came to pick me up the other day, and I think she was scared. “I’m at the pink house,” she said. I ran out to Decanso and saw her Volvo parked in front of a gorgeous pink house. “Uh no, wrong pink house.” I redirected her to my alleyway entrance. And to be fair, it does have a creepy motel vibe about it. It’s Silver Lake, not Beverly Hills. The scene may suggest murder, but you’re probably going to be fine. Continue reading Silver Lake or is it Silverlake? →