i found myself at mona tonight downing tall glasses of beer and maintaining that soft buzz which so effectively insulates me from the constant anxieties and insecurities i’ve had to battle throughout the day. i close my eyes and just think nothing. pitch black. i block out the noises, the low hum of people talking around me. i feel good.

and then i hear jazz. there is a bass, a bass guitar, drum set, and alto saxophone. alto saxophone! i keep my eyes closed but i see myself standing in my room, playing on my shiny gold yamaha alto sax. yes! i remember being voted “most musically inclined” in middle school because i was first chair saxophone in my band and a jazz soloist for a handful of songs. i remember trying to figure out monk’s milestones or making up my own rendition of the pink panther. i remember trying out for region jazz band and not quite making it because i kept messing up the beat on the auditon piece. how sad! such trauma effectively ended my jazz aspirations…

but tonight i listen and listen. it’s some white dude wearing glasses who plays the sax. quite skillful. his band members are also all white, and if you close your eyes, you might even think they were black, the way they let the music flow and riffs run. i tell wook to notice how the sax is the star voice. when the sax guy rests, it just sounds like background music running on repeat. sure, the bass and the bass guitar do some clever melodies, but they’re both very subtle. even the drum solo, impressive in its array of different sounds and fast pace, lacks the pitch variation that makes the sax so damn sexy.

what impressed me the most about the whole jazz ensemble was that i can tell that these guys practiced hard as hell together and spent many long hours learning the music, but when they performed it, it looked as if they had just met that night and were improvising as they went along. jazz has that quality – the ability to accomodate improvisation and simultaneity while remaining within some fixed structure. it’s a shame that i am pretty tone-deaf and unable to keep a consistent rhythm, or else i would probably pursue jazz more seriously. but then again, it wouldn’t hurt to bust out the sax again and play a few tunes.

it’s sometimes sort of funny if you sit down and think about why we have things like a “new year” and “years.” i mean, the number 2005 is such a sign of hegemony on the part of western civilization. i won’t go into details because i’m too lazy to research anything and write anything coherent about this matter, but purely on assumptions and speculation, i know a “year” in scientific terms reflects the time it takes earth to go around the sun yada yada… but then there is the political/religious implication of the number of years itself… all this business about some latin acronyms that basically mean “After jesus Died”… and of course, not to slight anyone, i’ve heard from my jewish and muslim friends about their own years and how it’s like something in the five thousands – and i’m sure my chinese buddies know what year it is when they bust out the mooncakes, but sometimes it feels like the year is irrelevant and it’s more important to remember which animal is this year’s mascot. ok, so i guess my point is – we just take for granted all the things that are done each year and not really think about it… well, we live most of our lives that way, and that’s why we do things like partake in capitalism, go to college, care about our families, without really knowing or caring to know how, why, and does it have to be this way. not that i’m any different, perhaps even a bit unoriginal, for bringing it up. as long as it’s a source of humor, i guess it’s worth looking into, or else it’ll probably be depressing. so yeah, 2005, hooray, a new year, a moment for some nostalgic reflections on 2004, and of course, those new year resolutions!

a few words about 2004
i don’t know what to make of this past year. it was pretty exciting at times and then it was pretty lowly at times. and then sometimes, when it was supposed to be exciting and great, it felt pretty low. or when i remember something i thought was exciting and great, it isn’t as valuable a memory as i thought it would’ve been. well, before i get whiny, i should just suck it up and say that everything went by so fast, in such a blur, that it’s really hard to pinpoint a collective emotion or memory of it.

a few highlights worth jotting down:
– finished my term as KSA president; it was a good time, i learned a lot, and got close with some cool people.
– lost in the ccsc elections; pride slightly injured, but it worked out for the best.
– interned at the NFL; it sounds cooler than it really is, but then you feel good when you tell people you work there.
– failed miserably at making someone like me back; trying to figure out if i tried too hard or didn’t try enough.
– felt that i was a pragmatist (and still might feel that way, although i forgot much of their philosophy – read menand!).
– finally felt comfortable talking to (new/different) people although more practice is still necessary
– decided to try finance and got a job with lehman brothers; a mix of ego, peer pressure, some obsession, and luck did it.
– got a flurry of web design jobs; took wook as my business partner; many sleepless nights of making money.
– took a more active interest in film; made two short narrative films – “wallet” and “the sell out.”
– went to san francisco in august (for a week) to visit warren; explored the city on my own during the day; beautiful.
– wrote a controversial story that got published and stirred some trouble at school… more to come of that.

i can probably go on and on about fond moments and even some awkward ones that dotted my 2004, but making a list like that can be quite tedious and i know i’ll never feel satisfied about the breadth of its coverage. but to be generic, and to highlight the solitary moments rather than the wonderful moments spent with friends, i must say that a few things consistently gave me joy in the past year:

– a cup of coffee at starbucks and an hour’s worth of good reading
– a walk across 49th st. from broadway to park early in the morning
– watering my plants (they’re beauties)
– the first sip of beer from a cold bottle after work or a thursday class
– waiting in anticipation for the latest michael vick highlight on nfl primetime (i know, kinda out of place)
– finding the right book in the butler stacks
– doing my tie right on the first try (very rare)

as cynical or sarcastic i may get from time to time, i can’t deny the fact that i am an optmist at heart — an optimist in that i only see the best of what’s to come and that everything happens in order for me to build on and to progress into something, someone better. i guess that isn’t pragmatic at all and i’ve taken to dislike the word “progressive” because for me, it just implies a sort of arrogance that defies that randomness of this world. but then again, i’ve lived my life as if i am always trying to keep things in order and to arrange it in a way that is linear and predictable. ok, so banking was a sudden choice i made, but did i ever think i wouldn’t do something that made a good deal of money? perhaps the decision had been made a while ago and i just needed to admit it. 2005. my last year in college. my first year being out there.

a year ago, i wrote about the idea of each year having its own “theme.” i re-read these “themes” and they weren’t even themes (except 2003) but just inane string of words that helped me to recall some of the major events of each year. i will try to rectify such an egregious error with a line that actually resembles a theme for 2004.

2004 theme: anxiety.

it’s usually associated with a bad thing, but i feel like it can be a good thing too. the anxiety to please others, the anxiety to meet expectations, the anxiety in trying to establish status, the anxiety to feel and be “cool,” etc. it’s been a source of discomfort but also a source of strength. i hope 2005 is more about easing those anxieties and just doing things for the sake of doing them, nothing more. happy new year.

on christmas day, i woke up at 3pm, ate lunch with my family, played some basketball with nigi and wally, came back home and watched korean dramas while eating ramen, and went to wally’s to play some poker. i lost really quick in poker and waited for the others to finish the game. i fell asleep on wally’s couch and by the time the game was over, we all left and went back home. what struck me was how today (yesterday) felt less christmas-y than the days leading up to it. well, this could be just another one of my entries where i get all nostalgic about how holidays used to mean a great deal and now just pass by without a trace, but i’m going to type up a passage from v.s. naipaul’s a house for mr biswas that really captured, for me, the essence of a day like today:

‘After breakfast – tea and biscuits from the drum – the children waited for lunch. More whistles were silenced; more balloons burst. The girls seized the scraps of the boys’ burst balloons and blew them up into many-coloured bunches of grapes which they rubbed against their cheeks to make a noise like heavy furniture dragging on an unpolished floor. Lunch was good. And after lunch they waited for tea: Sumati’s cakes, a local and fraudulent cherry brandy doled out by Chinta, and icecream, made by Chinta again, who, against annual evidence, was supposed to have an especial gift for making icecream. And that was that. Dinner was as bad as usual. Christmas was over. And, like all other Christmases at Hanuman House, it had turned out to be only a series of anticipations.’