Bye Old Blog!!!

Choose Our Own Adventure has moved!

We’ve moved to Choose Our Own Adventure dot com!

I realize it’s the same domain name as before.

But it’s different.

Kind of.

Trust me.

This blog will remain at chooseourownadventure.wordpress.com.

Love AND Luggage Part 2 coming right up on the new blog!

See you on the other side!

Jenn

Love AND Luggage, Part 1

For Jenn:

My one carry on.

Love Ryan

Coming up…

Coming up on the NEXT Choose Our Own Adventure…

Jenn and Ryan respond to “Is it Love or Luggage?”.

Does Ryan think his friends are LUGGAGE?

Is Ryan going to side with his friends or his girlfriend?

Are there sides? What is luggage? What about the Death Factor?

What do Filipinos and Catholicism have in common?

What’s the difference between Steve and Kealoha?

Between Ryan Matsumoto and Ryan Motts?

In fact, what’s the deal with all Jewish circumcising of Japanese names in this day and age?

What’s the difference between this day and age?

What’s identity?

Why was “Luggage” the most viewed blog Jenn and Ryan have EVER written?

What are memes?

What does the 4-D Venn Diagram look like?

What would Frank Gehry say?

Do articles and BLOGS about personal dramas contribute to the dumbing down of the WORLD?

Or the coloring of it?

Do we ever really graduate from high school?

Is Jenn Louis Vuitton’s Tribute Patchwork or Craiglist free Samsonite?

What’s eating Gilbert Grape? (Hint: Retardation)

Has Ryan been in radio too long and thinks we have to make teasers for upcoming blogs?

And… most importantly:

How much money did Jenn and Ryan make delivering flowers for V-Day?

It’s best friends versus girlfriend.

Ex-girlfriend versus non-ex-girlfriend.

Iolani versus Punahou.

Harvard versus MIT.

UH versus Cal State.

Mainland versus Hawaii.

Public versus Private.

Local versus haole.

Happy versus Un.

Possible versus Im.

Newspaper (yes, Hawaii Tribune-Herald is a real newsaper) verus BLOG.

Outcome versus strategy.

Left brain versus right.

Prefrontal cortex versus amygdala.

Crunchy peanut butter versus smooth.

Home versus far.

Blood versus water versus coffee versus ANGER.

Selling your eggs versus credit card debt.

Versus versus Versus

Verses, verses, verses.

ON THE NEXT… Choose Our Own Adventure.

Warning.

Dear Friends:

We are trying to re-do our blog using a slightly different program.  In the process, things might get totally fucked up.  The blog might disappear temporarily, but do not fret!  We are just trying to make it more badass, but unfortunately, Jenn’s website knowledge is limited and she screws up A LOT.

You have been warned.

We will be back.

XO-

Jenn & Ryan

Steve’s growth

Discovery Park, Seattle

Shit it’s windy./Look mom, I’m Chinese!

Father you embarrass me.

And what if it rains, genius?

I can’t believe Ryan just threw our only frisbee in the water.
Perhaps I could fetch it with this weird growth coming out of my penis.

Ryan. That jackass.

True that.

My only goddamn frisbee. What? He thinks frisbees grow on trees?

I don’t think he thinks that.

Oh.

I wish we were wittier.

Yea. Me too.

say la fucking vee [ryan]

I got a phone call from Hawaii the other day. A possible job. I might be going home…

2.07.08
Seattle Public Library, WA
4:51pm

It’s been a month since Amsterdam where I figured it all out.

Since then, one of my friend’s mom had a stroke, my other friends’ father died of a heart attack, and I found myself telling all of this to my dad recently, who was at the doctor checking on his pneumonia and double ear infection at the time. My dad has had 3 major surgeries in the last 2 years. It started when I left for Philly 2 years ago. Everyone is dying. Or so it seems. To me.

Everyone is fucking dying.

I was writing to my friend Kimi yesterday about the mountaintop experiences we shared at different times in Amsterdam. I wrote about how we all accept the fact that mountaintop experiences have to end, have to somehow descend from the top of the mountain to the valley below, and that, we shouldn’t do that, we should do anything else, but to let’s not do that. That even though it seems impossible, that we should never just accept a certain level of mediocrity, routine or–this is just the way it is-ness. Coming home from Amsterdam–which felt like the mountain–I couldn’t help but shout, at the top of my lungs: I WILL NOT FUCKING COME DOWN!

And so I did shout that.

I’m still shouting that.

I’m shouting that while coming down.

We always always come down. Always.

But I don’t want to.

That’s all I’m ever saying.

Fuck all that noise about how you need the sour to appreciate the sweet–fuck that. fuck that hard. fuck that hard, twice, with a chainsaw and no lubrication and very very abusive language. the sour is always sour, even when the sweet is sure to ensue, fuck sour, I don’t fucking want to accept the sour in order to appreciate the god dammed sweet, keep your fucking sour, your death, your sickness, your friends’ dad dying, even though, yes, we all know that that is a part of life, yeah, yeah, yeah, say la vee, I don’t fucking know how to spell the fucking french version, but you get it anyway, don’t you, sure you do. what is that, french, is that even french? I don’t know, you know what I fucking mean, say la fucking vee, such is life, we are all dying. shit. pardon my french.

breathe.

and here we go back to the mountaintop, ready?

curtains open. lights fade out. one spotlight shining on ryan. [spotlight is coming from ryan's own cell phone as he points it towards himself and performs melodramatic soliloquy to no applause]

metaphorical pom poms: check
metaphorical veneer: check
microphone: check

[we hear awkward microphone feedback. it's open mic inside ryan's mind. ryan taps microphone again and again--"is this thing on, is this thing on"-- no one is in the audience]

everyone’s dying, so let’s live! let’s eat banana pancakes, stay inside, pretend that it’s the fucking god dammed weekend…

[ryan waits for a response, which he calls "dramatic pausing"...nothing]

sometimes, fuck profundity. right?

[wipes tears from face even though he is not really crying]

Just say some Jack Johnson line and be trite. right? be pop music poetry. be commercial and easily taggable. keywordable. be marketable and catch phrasey. be all that we are not. fuggit. fuggit fuggit. Jack Johnson was right. He was profound when he said that banana pancake philosophy, pro fucking found. Make like it’s the weekend? god damn that’s good Jack. simple. fucking. truth. that’s it. that. is. it. that’s all you need to know. I’m not even being slightly facetious. It’s the god dammed truth, the same fucking thing I shouted on the metaphorical mountaintops of Amsterdam. make like it’s the god dammed weekend!

We never have to be stressed, passing our fears to each other like rats in a cage, never. We don’t have to do it. Viva la Banana Pancakes!!!

but of course, one day, Jack Johnson’s friend’s dad will die, and he’ll be like, fuck banana fucking pancakes, fuck them hard, right in the banana part, so that they become just regular ol’ pancakes. And that that’s ok. It’s ok to fuck banana pancakes every once in a while, just for kicks. Just to let your bananas out. Just for a quick stroll down the valley. Because it is fucking really hard to pretend it’s the fucking weekend sometimes, when it’s not the fucking weekend, you’re not in Amsterdam, you’re not high anymore, people are dying all around you, even people you fucking know and had char siu bau with, and you still don’t have a job, yes, I know, I’ve always known this, you haters, you crabs in my bucket, you people who have been trying to warn me that one day, ooh, one fucking day, it’s all going to come crashing down, ooh, you better watch out, you better not be so naive Ryan, you better realize that every mountaintop experience has a valley, that the sweet has the sour, that say la vee is spelled wrong, that blah blah blah, that your mother’s a whore. that it always always has to come down.

I know. fuck. I know. I know. fuck.

but I don’t want it to come down.

[lights out. ryan pouts to the rhythm of his feet stamping tantrums, still no applause]

I’m down.

I’m fucking down, aren’t I?

fuck!

In Amsterdam, I would have told myself, just don’t think about it. It’s all how you frame the information. It’s all how you bind the terms. It’s what you focus on. It’s your emotions being run by the reptilian part of your brain, and to not be swayed by that older, lesser evolved, animal part of you, which is concerned with death and fear and missing people you love and drama this and drama that; to just realize that it is all an illusion, that we’re 70 percent water, that we’re just chemicals god dammit. I would have told myself this; I would have shouted. I’m still shouting.

But I’m sad for my friends today.

I am sad for my friends’ families today.

I am sad that they will miss their dad.

I miss my dad, my family.

I am weak today.

I am not my blogs today.

I am afraid my dad will die and I will be here in Seattle because it’s just too expensive to move home to Hawaii, and what will I even do there? I don’t know what to do.

At the same time, I think, that that’s too much guilt and bullshit to carry around, and that fuck, not everyone can live near their dad all the time, say la fucking vee right? right? Is this thing on? but what will I blog when my dad actually dies? Will I be able to eat my banana pancakes, stay inside, and pretend like it’s the weekend?

I finally got the call. from Hawaii. We’re not going to be working together. Me and my friend. I don’t have my easy way home yet. Someone got hired instead of me, because he was willing to work for 2 peanut butter jelly sandwiches and a rub and tug, and he’s not even mexican. Even the radio industry is dying. It’s going the way of the 8-track cassette. I feel like someone who knows how to fix atari video games. Everyone, everything is dying today. To me. Right now.

Sometimes it hard to pretend it’s the weekend.

Sometimes all you can do is hi 5 Sisyphus while rolling your respective boulders back up to the mountain top, laughing, singing about banana pancakes, but knowing the whole time, that you’re rolling a fucking god dammed boulder up a hill while singing it.

say la fucking viva la banana pancakes!

Unemployment Hair

Employment Hair, circa 2006:

Unemployment Hair, 2008:

does it become me?

um…

i just find it very liberating and symbolic.

oh god.

funny looking [ryan]

.                                        wards,
sometimes I float up

in the middle of a conversation

and watch myself being watched

by myself;

listening to my

self listening;

distancing

my self from

my self in order

to be closer to

my non-self;

i am nodding, saying uh-huh,

i am not there at

all

i hear other voices, other dooms,

i am talking while talking;

another voice tries to talk over me in my head

i can hear the narrator from my biographical documentary

being taped years from now

speaking about me like I’m dead

because I am.

and then suddenly

whatever I was saying

and to whomever I was saying it-

all of it seems so

very small and unnecessary;

funny looking.

Yes, This is Seattle

Gasworks Park, Seattle

Dinner at Pizzeria WHITES

Carkeek Park

Split second shithead [ryan]

1.31.08
Seattle State Library, WA.
7:12p

The Seattle state library is large. It’s weird to be surrounded by all these books and no coffee. Everyone is quiet, and I finally feel forced to also be quiet– it’s rare. I’m loud. My friends all know how much. And yes, even though my “friends” don’t really know me in a lot of other areas– not because they are terrible friends, but because who could possibly know all the multi-dimensionality which is me [it's rhetorical, yes, but the implied answer is no one, ugh, backspin, pose]–but this, this they know about me and are correct. I’m friggin loud. I never come to the library. I’m here now though. I love it. I love to be in rare form. I love to be rare form, always. Hm. raise eyebrow. But if one is always rare, does the rarity wane? At what point? shrug shoulders. everyone thinks they’re rare. funny. Why are we all convinced that we are the only real true rarities? Is it, I mean, can it be, that everyone is rare? Simultaneously? People who think they know math say no, not everyone can be rare–Oh, I’ve done the number crunching analysis necessary, says me, O’ hypothetical math person, I know this is a mathematical impossibility, surely, something rare is only rare if it is unique, different from the rest… of course rare can’t stay rare if it’s the norm.

I think that we are all rare.

It’s the wondering if you’re rare that makes you common.

And a lot of people wonder. We’re always doing it.

A lot of people wonder, creating the illusion of a constant state of collective commonness, which in turn creates the illusion of rarity.

But this is all an illusion.

Anyone can be rare, always.

It’s the wondering if you’re rare that makes you common.

Wondering if you are truly rare, or just some average bum, temporarily renders the implicit rarity within you useless. You become common in that moment. You become the bum you fear you might become. You become worse than an animal who can’t second guess. You become unable to become. You become doubt. Doubt. Fear. Hell. Same fucking thing. I’m realizing that asking the question of–whether or not you are rare, whether or not you are the real deal, truly talented, or gifted, or kind, or loving, or loved, or thoughtful, or actually skilled in this area or that–is what makes you a loser, for that moment. A split second shithead.

Reader: Shit, do I do that?

me: LOSER!

O reader, you are not a loser, and neither am I, but yet, don’t we lose, often?

Often? Rare? What the? It’s all relative, who can answer such vagueness!

Everyone knows it’s all relative, but no one knows “relative to what!”

If you are convinced you are rare, truly convinced–then you are rare; even if for simply being truly convinced of it.

Show me someone who is truly convinced of this rarity within, and I will say wow, you really showed me someone, I was being hypothetical.

If we were to truly, once and for all, finally be convinced of how cool we all really are, we would, in that moment, become forever cool. We would solve ourselves. But who can be that cool?

Yes, the fonz, who else?

mm hm. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who else?

yes, yes, I agree, that’s it, those 3 people. and everyone else is asking the question, wondering–am I cool?

do I fit it?

do people really like me, or do they just make like they do?

They don’t respect me, when all I do is…

You know what, they’re just jealous…

You know what, I’m not like those others, I don’t do what they do, I’m…

All of this, just bullshit we say to cover up the fact that we’re wondering; wondering if we are for real; wondering if we are not the hypocrisy we see in everyone–especially our closest friends.

If you’re reading this saying, mm hm, that’s right ryan, I know a lot of people who could benefit from this here blog, I’m with you, I know what you’re saying, I never doubt my…

bullshit. you are the biggest shit head of us all.

We all wonder.

But let’s stop.

Wondering. Wandering. Losering.

I’m typing this furiously right now, to make up for all the noise I can’t make, or shouldn’t– I suppose I could, if I wanted to be a dick, but I don’t, not now anyhow–it’s the library, I get it, we’ve all technically agreed to the semi-silence, the monk-like audio-sphere of this here tax paid institution, and so instead of noise I make sense. Ugh. Feel that sense bitches. Sense pounding through these fingers like balls against the taint of your basal ganglia. Yes, I feel it’s appropriate to magically create a taint in your brain for kicks. If I was at borders, fuck everyone, I’m being loud. You came to study for your medical exams? Tough shit. It’s borders dumb fuck; I just had 2 expressos, die amidst my verbal spillage you common med student! Who fucking comes to study quietly at a caffeinated joint where they spin trip hop on volume 6 1/2? It’s a cafe fuck face, we’re talking, and we’re being loud.

Hi. I’m rare.

This is my half moon cyclops egg which I ate this morning; it too is rare.