not holding on to something/holding on to nothing.
written: 8:59 p.m. on Sunday, Mar. 30, 2008

First, I should be banned forever from undertaking any sort of holiday-planning and management duties. I stupidly booked the wrong night for one of our Europe accommodations. I emailed them two nights ago when Mag called me to tell me about it and I've yet to receive a reply. What the fuck? And since I'm talking about our Santorini, fucking Greece accommodation, I'm thinking it might be cheaper to just cancel it and forfeit the deposit. Why? Because if they don't reply my email tomorrow, I'll need to call them to ask them about it. Calling to Greece = long distance call, obviously. But more importantly, I'll be calling to Greece. I've never heard a Greek accent before in my life. By the time both sides are done making sense of each other's accents, half an hour would be gone.

Okay, I exaggerate, but I think it's a very real concern. At least the deposit is just like 3 euros? Or 4. I can't remember.

AHHHH OH MY GOD I JUST CHECKED MY EMAIL AND THEY REPLIED!!!!! OH MY GOD I LOVE THE GREEKS NOW, THEY'RE TOTALLY AMAZING!!!!! There's free pick up from the airport to the hostel too! OMG the guy that wrote me back is SO my hero!!!!

Right, I'm super relieved that's fixed. But it's quite funny, the whole booking wrong night nonsense. Because prior to that when I was booking the London accommodation I booked like one night instead of three (or is it two? I can't remember). Mag called me and she couldn't stop laughing at me. Thanks ah.

So very obviously I've never done any sort of holiday-planning before in my entire life. All my trips were family trips and thus settled by the parents. Going to Taipei needs absolutely no booking except for the flight; my aunt's husband always picks us up and we always stay in my grandparents' apartment. It's no wonder, then, that I appear to be half-dazed or drugged, or more likely 100% Hooked on Cook (for Santorini anyway; for London, I declared that I loved him and I did but I wasn't even half as obsessed as I am now) to the extent of brain damage when I made the booking. Hahahahaha. Well, I'm glad it's fixed. Santorini is already awesome.

In other news, I've done NOTHING the whole weekend. I'm so used to using the Bell's Palsy as an excuse not to do work that I'm really buying into my own lie. I mean, seriously, WAKE THE HELL UP YELEN. Your face is 85% back, even 90%. The fatigue is gone. YOU'RE JUST BLOODY LAZY. Going out, doing work, talking - you're just bloody lazy.

Fine, I'm just bloody lazy. I'm also inflicted with a disease that is supposed to be really terrible, but which is making me exceptionally happy. That disease is called, in laymen's term, Serially Obsessed with David Cook to the Point of No Return-itis. In scientific terms, it's called Serialobsessionwithdavidcookitis. Symptoms include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Waking up at 7.15 a.m. the day after the performance episode aired to YouTube his performance repeatedly and read about him;

2. Spending practically all your waking hours YouTubing his performances and reading and talking about him;

3. Right-clicking to save a picture or document and having your "David Cook OMG" folder as the first folder that pops up;

4. Listening to his songs intently in your head, such that you have no idea what your mom is saying to you when you're purportedly having a conversation with her;

5. Hating Kristy Lee Cook (not related to the superior Cook) for reasons not related to her fuck-awful singing and voice, in particular the way she KEEPS HANGING ON TO DAVID OMG DIE BITCH DIE;

6. Furiously analysing his career prospects from two starting points - if he wins Idol, and if he doesn't win Idol, and getting riled up and sick in your stomach when you picture him releasing some cheeseball Idol Inside Your Heaven-esque kind of shit song as his first single, and also getting riled up and sick in your stomach when you picture someone else but the Best, a.k.a. David Cook, being declared 2007's American Idol; and

7. Getting legitimately upset when you imagine David putting out a crappy Daughtry-esque record, because that is so totally not his sound, and his selling out will totally annihilate you.

(Ooh, I just realised that I haven't used the word 'annihilate' in a very long time.)

Unfortunately, the prognosis for this disease isn't very good. As a matter of fact, there is no cure, no treatment, no support groups, but plenty of enabling groups. Thus, the sufferer will probably never recover. It also doesn't help when the sufferer of the said disease actually loves the disease, and is only calling it a disease to give a vague semblance of bemoaning it, so as to give another vague semblance of having her fledging sanity near-intact to the world.

But the truth is, I'm both lazy and distracted by David Cook and also other things on the Internet, like LiveJournal and its awesome communities that allow me to criticise other people's writings, which is always fun. On the bright side, I downloaded a few self-determination articles from HeinOnline. On the dark side, I haven't read a single one, and some of them are like 60 pages long.

I wish school could stop existing right about now. I'm so lazy and unmotivated, and the whole Bell's Palsy shit really threw me off-balance. But above all else, I'm exceedingly lazy and a part of me has stopped seeing the point.

Okay, I'm now trying to decide if I should talk about what I was thinking about over dinner that's related to law school and writing, or whether I should talk about David which is of course much easier, though exceedingly boring to everyone else. The problem with talking about the former is that I actually need to think and put effort into it, and I'm quite sleepy now and, yes, lazy, so I'd rather talk about the latter 'cause at least I wouldn't need to use my brain.

I've decided - I'll do the easy one first, even if the paragraph that preceded the previous one flows more logically to the law school/writing point.

Cue David Cook ramblings; skip if not interested.

So for some really strange reason, David's solo CD is on sale on Amazon.com in mp3 format. It's strange because apparently the AI contract forces everyone to take their stuff down from the Internet and when I was trying to find ways to buy David's CD, I was told that he was barred from selling his CD while he's on Idol. Because, you know, Idol and 19 Entertainment are evil and greedy.

About two days ago I got wind of the news that Analog Heart is for sale on Amazon.com. I didn't form an intention to buy it; I didn't see the point of buying the mp3 files when, you know, I already have them. What I really want to buy is the actual physical CD with the artwork (David designed the CD cover - he majored in graphics design in uni. Have I mentioned he's perfection personified?) and everything. But even if I wanted to buy it off Amazon.com, I can't, because as usual, it's only for sale in the USA. Whatever.

The point is, there's been absolutely no promotion for the album sale. But the news spread like crazy wildfire via the Internet, and by the combined power of word-of-mouth, his most powerful performance on Idol yet, and David's general magnetism and awesomeness, the last I checked, Analog Heart is #5 on the mp3 albums download chart, and David is like, in the top ten of the best-selling artist chart. I think Analog Heart peaked at #3 or something.

Have I mentioned David is amazing? I found more Axium songs today. I must say, though, that they basically had two sounds: Hard and soft. And within these two sounds their songs all kind of sound the same. I'm not crazy about every single Axium song the way I'm crazy about every single David Cook song, but I do really love the vocal acrobatics that David did on a few Axium tracks. Basically, I just love hearing him sing, period. I don't think anyone really has a concrete idea what it does for me, because I don't even know myself.

It's weird, I'm waaaay too old to be fangirling a famous person, but I am. So there you go.

Another thing? Someone saved David's MySpace page before it was taken down. The good news is, he listed himself as a non-smoker, which means he totally PWNS my ex-boyfriends. He also listed himself as agnostic, which means he's my soulmate. The bad news is, the links to his blog entries don't work anymore which means the titles are staring at me in the face, AND I CAN'T READ THE ENTRIES. Oh my godddd how torturous! I spent 5 seconds googling "david cook saved blog entries" until I decided it was a complete waste of time. Besides, I already have his Xanga entries to make me happy. Hahahaha.

Lastly, I watched some AI interview with him and Brooke White, and David is SO. BLOODY. FUNNY. I about died of laughter when he described himself as a "Jack of all trades, master of none" and went off about how he was very good at eating and sleeping, and how if the Idol thing doesn't work out, he'd enter a hot-dogs eating competition. I love the guy; he's such a dork. I want to marry him and have many pretty Eurasian babies with him. With his pretty eyes and pretty lips and my overall acceptable appearance, I'm sure we'll have gorgeous children. Like, totally.

Oh wait, we're already married. Erm...time to consummate it, dammit!

David rambling over; on to something else now.

On a much more serious note, I was thinking about writing and law school again and I still cannot help but feel like I might not be making the right choice. It's no doubt the best choice, but best and right aren't necessarily one and the same.

I've been scouring through writing communities on LiveJournal, looking for a place to post the story I mentioned a few entries ago to get hopefully constructive feedback. In the process, I realised two things:

1. Most people who think they are writers, in reality cannot write to save their lives; and

2. I'm deathly afraid of offering my work up for criticism because I'm insecure about my writing.

Point #1 speaks for itself, but I'll just add that sometimes I find myself unable to comprehend the kind of things that people churn out. I read a piece in which the writer - and I use this word loosely - used a number of "big words" such as "farcical" and "anomalous" in such a clumsy way that I just knew that she flipped through the thesaurus for those words, just to appear "cheem". You can't just use a word as a synonym for another without understanding its nuances; the sentence will just be really awkward and clumsy, and I will end up needing to try damn hard not to laugh.

But having said that, just because I know what good writing looks like, doesn't necessarily translate to me having the ability to produce good writing.

Sometimes I like that story a lot, and other times I cringe and I hate it and I want to delete it forever and ever and ever. But what's certain is that whenever I think I have mustered up the guts to post it and to invite people to criticise it, I chicken out and tell myself to do it some other time, which never materialises. It's incredibly frustrating and double-edged: on the one hand, I want to know if it's good or not; on the other, I can't bear the thought of being told that it's bad.

What is obvious from this discourse so far is that I have a severe lack of confidence in my writing abilities, existent or otherwise. The fact that I automatically add qualifiers like that also proves my point. But what's certainly true is that despite the lack of confidence and the constant second-guessing, I still love writing. I don't just love writing; I love it, and I cannot do without it. It inspires a sense of purpose and invigoration in me the way nothing else does. It's like finding a soulmate, your one true love if you believe in that crap, and having that wonderful, indescribable and rare feeling of everything falling into place into a perfect picture. It's the other half that completes me - it is me.

I didn't spend two years resisting law school for no reason. I thought last semester was me wising up, but lately I'm beginning to wonder if it wasn't me cowardly taking the easy way out after all. Obsessing over David Cook for the past month have kind of opened up what I thought was a sealed deal. He graduated with a major in graphic designs from University of Central Missouri; he didn't need to work as a bartender to make ends meet. But he did it anyway because he wanted to pursue music. He moved to Tulsa to further chase his dream, and he told his parents that he'd give himself until age 26 to do it. Then American Idol happened, and his solo CD which he produced independently using his own resources is now #5 on Amazon.com.

Maybe we're all just waiting for our one big break; maybe David got lucky and American Idol fell into his lap. If he hadn't accompanied his brother to Omaha to audition, he'd still be stuck in Tulsa bartendering and struggling to make it as a starving musician. But at which point do you tell yourself that enough is enough, that you can't wait any longer, that you have to assimilate yourself into Real Life and Society?

More importantly, why is it that some of us never bother to wait, to work for what we want, and have the patience to see it pay off? Maybe it will never pay off, but how would you know unless you try?

The difference between David and I is, while we both have something that we're passionate about, one is willing to work for it and to chase it, and the other is too afraid to do so.

I can dress up my cowardice and call it Just Being Practical and make myself sound all noble and say that I want to be a lawyer because I want to help the poor and fight for justice and whatever, but the truth is, law isn't my first choice career. It wasn't even a career path three years ago. Frankly, the only real reason I'm continuing down this path is because I don't believe in my writing ability, and I'm too afraid to find out that the dream is elusive after all. How would you know unless you try? You'll never know because you're too afraid to try.

I can't even put myself through the stress of getting other people to critique my work; what of trying to write a novel (when I currently cannot write anything) and finishing it after lots of blood and sweat, just to have it rejected pretty much everywhere? To put it plainly, I have no balls, and not even David Cook can inspire me to grow a pair.

I thought this was about the money at first. It's always easier to opt for the $4500 than it is to slave it out waitressing and whatever, going the starving writer route. I suppose at some level it is about the money, but fundamentally, it's more about the lack of confidence, the fear, how I'm deathly afraid of trying. Let's not even bother trying to work out the logistics and the details; at the most elementary level, I can't get with the idea of trying. I love writing, but I can't do it. I can't risk failing at the one thing that defines me.

And yet, how it defines me, how I love it.

And don't tell me I can do both. The reality of the profession, of any profession, is that once you're thrown into the madness, you won't have time for anything else anymore.

So yeah, there you have it. Retreading old grounds. Except I'm no longer as angsty or bitter as I am wistful and...sad.

David needs to be my boyfriend to knock some sense into me. I'm sure he'll totally support my dreams because he's just that kind of guy, since, you know, he spent I don't know how many years working as a bartender to pursue his.

No, but seriously, I really feel quite sad about it. I feel like I'm just going to be chained to the profession, to be stuck doing something that I don't mind doing and probably have to do, and not doing what I want to do.

Okay, my head is hurting. I don't want to think about this anymore.

While we're on the subject of dreams though, I'll like to add to the boyfriend list thing in the previous entry. He must not tell me to give up my dream. Any guy that does that should just die.

PS. To those searching for Hello lyrics and David Cook's height: I would love to know how tall he is too, and I don't have the lyrics to Hello. I think it's much easier to google "Lionel Ritchie Hello" since, you know, Lionel did the song first? Annnd you won't hear Hello on my blog because I have a strict no-music-on-blogs policy that I won't bend even for David. Still, thanks for coming to my blog via googling my husband. David needs to be googled. He's that great.

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010