"Expectations"

(sorry this is not the painting i saw, but it'll give you an idea)

I spent seventeen hours on the train to see Monet and fell in love with Lucio Fontana. “Spatial Concept, Expectations” hides in the annex of O’Hara Museum of Art in Kurashiki. All day it listens to Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Matisse, and Renoir's admirers utter the word utsukushii (beautiful). They certainly are and deserve every adorations, but for me they dull in comparison to Fontana’s canvass. When I first saw "Expectations," my eyes immediately focused on the red sliced skin. I felt the sharpness of the knife that wounded it three times in clean deliberate strokes—violent—sleepless and yearning. Drawn I came closer and closer. Then just as by chance of my discovery, a museum attendant briskly passed by creating the slightest breeze that made the canvass move, spaces were revealed. Spaces that exemplified the constant movements between lovers: anticipation, declaration, hurt, pleasant surprise, withdrawal, desire, love, rejection.

The next day I remember running through the canals lined with willow trees, the smell of sembe (rice crackers) in the air and my feet barely touching the ground. I was running to see Fontana. I was running to see an image of love.

Rossetti's take on Love

To give, to give, not to receive!
I long to pour myself, my soul
Not to keep back or count or leave
But king to king to give the whole
I long for one to stir my deep—
I have had enough of help and gift—
I long for one to search and sift
Myself, to take myself and keep.

C. Rossetti

In this poem Christina Rossetti yearns for a relationship. She desires “to give”, to pour herself to another, and to be taken, to be ravished. Rossetti was similar to many intellectual women of the Victorian era in that she never married because the institution of marriage meant acceptance of biases imposed upon her gender by her society. The Victorian era divided women and men and allocated separate spheres for both. This isn’t to state that the male sphere was completely without its limitations. Certainly, Rossetti’s society was unfair for both genders.

As I read her work I’m glad that I didn’t live in this period, for I wouldn’t have known how to cope with its inadequacies and limitations. In many ways I think I would become cynical, and like Rossetti develop a negative view of romantic love, “No sooner have you feasted on beauty with your eyes then your mind tells you that beauty is vain and beauty passes.” It's sad to think beauty passes because it doesn’t. It changes. It transforms and replaces the fleeting beauty that first catches the eyes to something mystically sacred. Love is climbing trees; it’s about walking on its branches, and with free will falling with your arms open, as you descend be enveloped by the bluest endless sky, then landing on beds of daffodils with yellow petals staining your skin. This is love. This is she.

Untitled

.....and all you can do is understand that everything I ink undergoes fictionalization.

“You know you can get parasitic worms walking around bare feet,” I said as I look at the mud trapped between his toes.
“You should have told me earlier. I heard the call of crow billed drongo, I thought I could see it,” he said.
“Did you see it?” I asked.
“No,” he answered. He reached for a knife that was under my chair. The night before he used the same knife to cut triangle squares of watermelon. He scrapped his ankle with its dull side in short repetitive strokes.
“I am going for a swim,” I interrupted the silence that has formed between us.
“Uhhmm.”
In the daytime if he wasn’t showing me new species of insects, plants or trees, his words were completely rationed. I was in his world and I followed his rules. I too prefer silence. Words often fail, corner and defeat me. We speak five languages between us but in the daytime we were voiceless.
Frederik was my first lover. I’ve had boyfriends but never a lover. I was entering a new phase of relationship. I was undergoing transmutation, leaving my earlier ideals of relationship, its hope of a future. I was leaving behind words that I scribbled on my high school binders: love, together, forever, soul mates. I wanted a new word, more sober, impermanent and fleeting. Sober in wanting companionship. I no longer wanted to be wistful. I didn’t want to push my image of love to anyone because mine had been of dependency and need to fill hollowness. My past relationships were optimistic attempts to find love; along the way they became lessons of attachments and habit. I didn’t want to waste my youth in chastity either. I wanted intimacy but not the pain of goodbyes.
I first saw Frederik when I was leaving the island of Palawan and heading to Sabah. I just spent 16 months in Luzon searching and linking pieces of stories I remember, to stories offered to me by distant relatives, their friends and church records. I was curious when I saw him at the port. I was taking a local leaky boat and wondered if he had made a wrong turn somewhere. His clothes were worn out but clean. I studied him in intervals, taking short glances, cautious not to be caught. For the next month our path kept crossing. Our eyes met as we passed each other by the road. He became a familiar face amidst constant changing landscape and transient people. It wasn’t until I reached Kuching that we traded words. I can’t remember who initialized it but we established we were heading to Bako in two days. We agreed to share a boat to reduced expense. Hiring private jetties had been the biggest cost of moving from Sabah to Sarawak. My funds were dwindling and I needed to find people to share costs.
Talking to Frederik was different. He didn’t immediately ask where I was from or where I had been. Travelers at an instant will ask you where you are from and boast where they had been. I didn’t want kinship based on political lines of nationality. I was glad when he didn’t ask me. I didn’t want to explain. I wanted no narratives and he understood. I agreed to meet him at a bus station. The following day we hopped on a local bus that had no doors and windows. It was a half hour drive and when we got to the port we met a man named Abdul. Abdul was a tall man. His job transporting people from Kuching to Bako required him to spend countless hours in the sun which made it difficult to access his age based solely on his skin. Abdul spoke English to us, “One person, forty ringgit. Five person forty ringgit.”
“Let’s wait. Maybe someone will come,” I suggested.
“Okay,” he agreed.
We sat on a riverbank and stared at houses across. The stilt houses were still made of natural materials, I wondered how long before concrete and stucco replace wood and nipa. The more affluent families in Kuching had already made the shift. I made a mental note to pick up a book on Malay architecture.
Kids played nearby and I could still pick up the odd word here and there. The islands of Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia are categorized in the same family language. Distance and isolation created hundreds of regional dialects. If political lines were drawn based on language they would divide in hundreds of regions.
Luckily we didn’t wait long. The next bus dropped off a British couple and a young American man. The poor guy spent a rough night in a bug-infested hostel. His swollen body was covered in red welts. Punctured marks on his forearm and face displayed where bugs made their incisions. As we got on the boat, the first thing the British woman asked, “Didn’t you wake up when they were biting you?”
“I was too drunk and felt nothing,” he embarrassedly admitted.
Abdul started the engine and everyone grew quiet.

February

This month will be dedicated to love love love love love love love love and nothing but love. I shall begin with . . .

O' Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art though Romeo?

The days I used to walk in to a party and have men swirling around me are gone… actually those days never really did happen…. Today, I suffer from Bjork’s “I miss you but I haven’t met you yet” syndrome. I also just finished writing a paper on Romeo and Juliet—so this should justify my current mood. I’m in love with the idea of being in love. Scary! But wouldn’t it be wonderful to have someone say upon seeing you, “Has my heart loved till now?”

When I was young I thought love was on every corner, ready to take me on its arms and whisk me away at my convenience. I also thought that everyone would be single as long as I’m single and that happiness of the “Couple” world was a myth. This whole situation reminds me of an old friend. One day I got out of the shower and found her in the living room. She was having difficulty breathing. It was her 25th birthday and the absence of love rendered her sick. She thought that by twenty-five she would have found him. The only thing I could do was hold her. As I ran my fingers through her hair I told her it was going to be okay and that love will claim her. Love did claim her. The sad thing about this is that I don’t know where she is now. She joined the other world where people I used to know reside. I think one of the reason we lost track of each other was because she didn’t understand my lack of zest to search for Romeo.

Onsen please!

Kamikochi with Asuka and Tomomi in July 2005

burlesque in the old capital

On Saturday I went to a burlesque show in New Westminster. The show was a tribute to B-movies. It was well done. I laughed so hard that I cried. Jen enjoyed herself so much that she suggested to host a burlesque party at our place. She even got her character sketched up already, "biciclette mama." Ariel suggested that I should be the "the dictator." Funny though she didn't volunteer her stage name...hmm, that Ariel is a trickster, I tell ya. Good times!

30 blocks of thoughts

Hate it when I’m lucid on a Friday evening and have nothing to do but sit 15 inches from the computer screen, typing words and erasing them again. I’m actually missing my sleep deprived body and the fuzziness in which I interact with things. I shouldn’t have walked home from Broadway. The 30 blocks and fresh air in my lungs cleared the cirrus clouds in my brain. I really didn’t want them cleared. I wanted them to become higher level clouds; perhaps altocumulus would have been nice, not dark, but buoyant, unlike my current state. Mostly, I wanted to return to the last time I walked home from Broadway. It wasn’t very long ago. It was New Year’s Eve and I was on another planet. That night my mind raised so fast and I was experiencing a new sensation induced from the event that I stormed out of. But I couldn’t really recapture it. My memory had betrayed me once again. All I could concentrate on were people carrying plastic bags, fake flowers and Venetian curtains, the silver van that drove by again and again, the two Asian guys in their yellow Mazda on the corner of Victoria and Kingsway, lovers waiting for the bus and his shiny gold chain resting on his soccer jersey, homeless people curled in their sleeping bags with only two foot eaves and hard sidewalk for shelter, prepaid phone sign, fluorescent glow of a late night Chinese diner sign telling me I’m near home, gorgeous pictures of South Asian women with bindi on their foreheads and mehndi hands, the taste of his lips, mayflower restaurant and expecting pilgrims and members of Wampanaog tribe to walk out its door, more Vietnamese Pho restaurants, sky train and the wonders of engineering, and awesome nights in the land of the rising sun and the infrequency of that sensation.

Sunday and I'm in love

Wind. It caresses me in my sleep, graces my jaw line with its fingertips, whisper names that aren’t on the map. I feel its breath on my neck. It calls me.

Today I’m in love with my red goose down comforter, steam rising from my tea cup, the sound of rain hitting my bedroom windows, the simplistic beat of Meg White’s drums, with images on my memory cards that I thought I’ve lost forever, the eyes that look at me in the mirror, most of all with Salman Rushdie’s words.

"In the old stories, love made possible a kind of spiritual contact between lovers long separated by necessity or chance. In the days before telecomunications, true love itself was enough. A woman left at home would close her eyes and the power of her need would enable her to see her man on his ocean ship battling pirates with cutlass and pistol, her man in the battle's fray with his sword and shield, standing victorious among the corpses on some foreign field, her man crossing a distant desert whose sands were on fire, her man amid mountain peaks, drinking the driven snow. So long as he lived she would follow his journey, she would know the day-by-day of it, the hour-by-hour, would feel his elation and his grief, would fight temptation with him and with him rejoice in the beauty of the world; and if he died a spear of love would fly back across the world to pierce her waiting, omniscient heart. It would be the same for him. In the midst of the desert's fire he would feel her cool hand on his cheek and in the heat of battle she would murmur words of love into his ear: live, live. And more: he would know her dailiness too, her moods, her illnesses, her labors, her loneliness, her thoughts. The bond of their communion would never break. That was what the stories said about love. That was what human beings knew love to be. "

Aahhh! Rainy Sunday spent in my house coat curled in my bed beside a well written book. Afternoon tea with unexpected guests. Life is good. And the wind of change smells pretty.

my death in rhetoric's hands

My Rhetoric class pushed me over the edge today. The in-class assignment was easy. The prof asked us to provide a summary of Janet Giltrow’s Vagrant Voices first paragraph. She defined that a summary was hierarchy of terms; language functions from the specific to the abstract. This was how I interpreted her lecture anyway. I didn’t find her exercise terribly difficult as I thought I understood what she demanded of me. After 5 minutes we had to present our summary. And typical of this class, half of the people didn’t understand what she wanted. When it was time to present, it became obvious that some of the students couldn’t provide a summary for they didn’t understand how to conduct the specific summary she asked for, or were questioning the purpose of the exercise. In case, you wonder I belonged in the latter half. Students’ stabbed in the dark in hopes of giving her part of carcass she wanted. Of course, the meat they presented to the lioness where not up to snuff. I really think that all students could have provided her the goods if the instructor provided a clear explanation. Somehow, throwing names such as Derrida, Bakhtin, James Coe was supposed to orient the students to the relationship of language and the students’ role in the discourse. Ha!

I’ve sat in this class since September. I’ve listened to people worried about their GPA, about dropping the course; not being able to drop the course for it’s a requirement for their future academic pursuit. I’ve listened to the two pretentious women who believe they’ve something to say because they love the sound of their voice.

Since September I sat patiently. When she used big words I went home and looked it up. I read the articles she instructed. In my papers I used linguistic jargons even though I’m not convinced of their signified meanings, consulted my peers and appeared at her office door for clarification. I did this all for a mark. But somehow, today I couldn’t roll with the punch. I questioned her. I asked her what the point of the exercise was. She said it was to show that you understand the rhetoric of the literary criticism by using synonyms.

It must have been the cleanse Jen and I did but my head became light. All of a sudden I was arguing with her. I told her that there was no need to use a different word if the word provided by the author defined the article better than any other words. That authors do not have ownership of language, because by asking a summary from students that she was asking us to explain our relationship, our linguistic position; that the author should be taken out of this summary, that a summary was reiteration, by reading a text I am making sense of it within my experience; that a summary was a repetition, a medium that reveals my being and my relation’s to this world.

I think in my rant I bit someone’s head off, maybe two, not really sure. I just hate this pretentious bullshit that I must follow the Academia’s discourse because otherwise I am disrespecting the value of English academia. I don’t really care. I don’t want part of this community, nor will I regurgitate a belief system I don’t hold.

On a second thought I do want that A. Wait! Which words you want me to use again? Synonym. Paronymy. Homonymy.Whatever! Just give me my A.

Goofing around with Anya

Thanks for the pictures Al.

unpacking

My movie dates cancelled on me (thanks Anya and Mark :) Actually it's a good thing, I'm finally reading Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown and sorting out things that I hastily threw in my closet four months ago. I found my two missing memory cards and students' letters. The letters are hilarious and sweet.

painting 101

I spent the whole afternoon painting. I had no clue that painting is so much fun. This wall is not finish. I want to add some bluish gray streaks in the middle, or maybe rust color droplets. Can't wait for the paint store to open tomorrow. What do you think?

change change change

I’m worried about my relations with my friends, more precisely the stages that will soon come. It’s nothing personal against them. I love every one of them. It’s just I’ve seen this stage before. Time moves and we all change with it. Years ago I watched my friends get married, buy houses and have children. I ran from this. I told them not to make my wedding dress I was too young to marry yet. I wanted a different life away from Winnipeg. I felt reborn when I moved away. Yes, the whole world opened its door and different perspectives were shown to me. I attained new friends and said goodbye to the old. But the world turns and turns. And here I am at this stage again. People are moving forward. My friends’ lives are unfolding, as they should, but I’m stagnant. I feel gentle nudges from all directions. Actually, I’ve been feeling them for awhile. I also feel static and bloated. The wind of change is here and I need to learn what to do with it.

Once a upon a time in a land of 38th and Victoria, a woman who is adept at doing almost anything had a thought 48 hours before her finals--give her blog a new face. Inspired by a blog she saw from not so distant past, this savy woman ventured into an unfamiliar territory. "There's nothing to it," she said. "I can do anything." Humble she is not. So 47 hours before her finals she began her task. It wasn't very long till she finds herself in a land of encoded messages. She scoffed, "My knight and shining Help button will keep me safe from harm." She summoned Help with the magical tip of her index finger. She typed her request and promptly Help prescribed his guidance. Armed, she marched ahead. Proud of her self and her new design she uttered,"I'm brilliant" before she could even see what she had done. Convinced of her achievement she went to the kitchen and brewed some tea, she even awarded herself with the gooeyiest frozen brownie. All the while she thought of John Adams and all the Founders who surely would appear in her American history exam. She opened her book and dove back to the world of the dirty south, and still not checking her blog. Then 40 hours before her first exam she longed to speak to her friends. She opened MSN but it would not appear. Puzzled she called Help again. As always Help had many suggestions which she followed but none would allow entrance to the magical palace where her friends reside. "I should focus," she said and return to the Civil War, but before that she allowed herself 5 minutes to check her small community of bloggers to see a glimpse of their lives. She felt comfort and sadness upon reading their blogs. She wished to be in their presence rather than spend time with Hamilton and his economic woes. "In time, in time," she sighed. The minutes turned to hours, "But oh I have not seen the changes I made on my blog," so another 5 minutes was added to the clock . Excited she opened her blog but alas there was nothing to be found. "What have I done," she yelled.

[really don't know what i did, will fix it after my exams... i think my computer is broken...very sad...]

yes, my computer was broken. it had 211 system errors in it. thank goodness for the computer lab boy that cleaned my computer. when did computer guys become hot? a whole untapped resource....

on racism

Ariel and I encountered a crazy man on the bus while we were on our way to our top model party. We were dressed up and because of our peculiar hairdos people did a double look but this crazy dude thought we were evil rich people that deserved his anger. His first insult at us was that we were anorexics, and then we became fat cows, he commented on Ariel’s blue coat; he thought that Ariel spent tons of money on it and he proceeded to say, “Why don’t you shop at Value Village?” Implying that she was too good for Value Village, but the ironic thing was that Ariel’s coat was from a thrift store. And then just before he got off the bus he said, “If I had my way I’d ship all those Asians back.” I realized that this dude was nuts and I did feel a tad sorry for him, but I’ve encountered this type of anger so many times that it sticks. I should shrug it off…but I’m marked by it. The weird thing about racism is that it projects people’s inadequacies and failures. Instead of stepping up their game and facing their weaknesses, they turn around and dump all their frustration on people who are different or don’t share their views. This incident just reminded me of all the times that I’ve been the receiver of peoples ignorance. Like the time I was a hairdresser, this elderly woman said to me, “Oh you people make great maids”….when I was sitting on the beach in Thailand a drunken young guy asked me, “How much?”….or a Japanese person telling me that, “We were worried that you would look like a Filipina…well you do, but you’re different, you’re Philippine-Canadian”….or a drunk salaryman soliciting sex because my face represents the billion yen sex industry…The thing is as much as I hate this bigotry, I don’t hate it nearly as I hate prejudice from my own people.... “What? You think you’re white now?”….. “You think you’re better than us?”…. “Brown [Pinoy] boys don’t do it for you”…Morons!!! There’s nothing more that will please me than to find a Pinoy that I can connect with, and speak my native tongue. But being Filipino is not the only thing I look for when I date a guy…I will not date anyone just because we share the same origin. And no I don’t think I’m white. I’m brown and I’m beautiful. Similar to other displaced people living in Canada, in that I long for my country and my home, to speak a language I still dream in, but like others, I refuse to be pegged or to be limited to a certain ethno-social circle.
I am here! If my presence makes you feel uncomfortable—I’m not going to go away. If I don’t fit within the boundary your mind drew of what a Filipino is….WAKE-UP!!!

Top Model

Last night was the season finale of top model. It was the perfect occasion to strut our hotness, check it out at Ariel's blog www.arielkg.blogspot.com

I also want to give a shout out to Asuka and Sara. Happy Birthday!!!! And Sara...way the go for getting a grown up job, and what a grown up job it is Ms. Project Co-ordinator. Bulgaria is so lucky to have you.

First snow

I woke up to find that the outside world was covered in a thin blanket of snow. I was so excited that I grabbed my camera and went exploring. To my chagrin, I found the city empty. Even the kids that were usually out playing even in the rain were no show. I did find three people. The lady was walking so cautious that she didn't even notice me and the two people shoveling the snow thought I was odd. I felt like screaming, "Come out and play!"

ohh, if anyone can teach me how to rotate the image on my blog it will be much appreciated.

Rewind...Geret's Wedding

This August one of my closest friends got married to a wonderful man. I was so lucky to be part of their special day. They are going to Paris for their honeymoon this December. Baby you did well!!! Oooh...by the way Robb, I love the new look. It's sooo hot!!!

i've been screwing up times and dates lately. last saturday i was supposed to go to this wine and food gala at some hotel (see i can't even remember the name of the hotel) and i thought it was on sunday. i didn't realize my mistake till early in the evening and the event was almost over so i couldn't even rush to it. strange i've been so good keeping appointments before. i've rarely ever written schedules down, i've just always managed to keep them. its not even just appointments. i've been getting my classes mixed up too. it must be my mind being so preoccupied. or maybe because i haven't been sleeping lately, and when i sleep i have the most intense dreams. not good dreams but the ones you want to jolt yourself awake. lately my dreams have been about someone coming in and stealing my laptop and all my research papers stored in it. i keep having this dream, that i've been taking my laptop when i leave my house for a long period of time. i know border line paranoia. but you wouldn't think that if you know where i live. my neighbourhood is not cool at all, actually more precisely my landlord sucks. seriously, my place looks like a squalor. the hallways haven't been mopped since we moved here, that's about 4 months ago...there's garbage all over the hallways and parking lot, and some crazy person feeds the pigeons and crows every morning by throwing food on top of the garbage heap...arrrrgghh!! doesn't that make you want to come visit me...i should write all my friends each a letter and the headline will read, "come for a visit where wildlife battles it out everymorning right in front of her bird shit stained window."
another thing that's been on my mind lately is this girl i met on the bus. i was on my way home from school and i was just sitting there when i noticed this pervert who sat so close to me on a previous occasion. listen how creepy he was... i fell asleep on the bus, which wasn't that too unusual since my bus ride from UBC to home is about 45 mins. i woke up because i felt someone's skin against mine. let me just say when i sleep on the bus, my body is so close to the glass/window creating an extra 5-7cm space to further separate myself to the next person who might take the seat next to me. so when i woke up, i was shocked to see this middle aged fat man's body touching mine. he was wearing shorts and i could see the fat of his tigh spilling on my lap. instantly, i made eye contact, and he said, "you were sleeping." what's me sleeping got to do with you invading my space was the first thing that entered my head. i didn't even say anything, i was so repulsed that i got up and relocated to the back of the bus. and then, the creep sat beside another student who was also sleeping, she too got up. anyhow, i was on my way home, and this time the bus was packed. a girl was sitting beside me. i was in the inside seat and she had the isle seat. i turned around and i saw this fat man, the same fat man that takes advantage of sleeping students on the bus, hovering over the girl who was sitting beside me. so i said something to the girl. i said it in tagalog as i thought she was a sister. sure enough she was and she swung her shouders away from the creep. the next thing i knew, her and i were talking. the thing was that, it was unlike all other conversations i've ever had with anyone i just met. we skipped the shallow conversation and she just told me her life story. she wasn't pushy or needy or attention seeking. when my stop came, she also got off. she told me where she lived and i showed her my place. just before we parted she placed her hand on my elbow and she held on to me for awhile. i wanted to invite her up, give her my number but i didn't extend myself out to her. i haven't met anyone that lonely before. and i've been thinking about her and her situation over and over...and i wish i had done things differently. this was one time in my life where i could have given someone a part of me and i didn't... not that she asked for it, just i thought it was and is the right thing to do.

surprise birthday party

Last Tuesday was my birthday. And parts of the day Ariel and Jen were horrible to me. Jen told me she couldn't have dinner as she had to work. While Ariel dismissed my invitations to go out and celebrate. At six o'clock, I finally gave up and opened my textbook, I was ready to spend the night at home readingTitus. I thought it was a fitting text to teach me about vengeance and violence. I was just learning about Tamara's plot to bring Titus's vanished eldest son back to Rome when Ariel arrived at my house. I was pleased. I really didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to be one of those needy people that goes on a date (people Anya has told me about) with a stranger on their birthday because they have no friends to take them out. Nor did I really want to read Shakespeare's most violent play. I was such a perfect victim for I didn't suspect anything eventhough numerous blunders were done by Ariel and Jen. Ariel suggested this restaurant on Commercial Drive, I was so pleased that I said yes. It was funny because while we were at my house, Ariel dropped a hint, "Oh, are you wearing anything cool underneath your vest? You know how restaurants get so hot sometimes." Of course, I was clueless, and craved company that nothing she said really registered.

We took the bus to Bukowski's Bar and Bistro. And when we got there, all these beautiful people were waiting for me. It was amazing to see everyone. I was so happy! After dinner, Ariel, Jen, and Richard took me to Desire. Mark was so gracious to give us a ride. One of two hot men that gave us a ride that evening. My birthday was amazing largely due to Ariel and Jen's effort to bring all my friends in Vancouver together.

So yeah, I'm 32 and it feels good. The other day I stayed in bed till 9 in the morning. I laid there examining my body. The weirdest thing, other than my softer rounder belly (which is the result of long hours trapped behind my desk), nothing really shows my age other than my hands. My hands reveal different parts of my life. When I was seven, my sister was chasing me up the stairs and I got a sliver on my right index finger. I remember my sister with a tweezer in her hand trying to remove every single particle out, but there was one piece that was lodged so deep that we both gave up. And that piece of wood is still here to bring me back to that time in our old house on Tramo Street. My left hand ring finger has a scar the shape of a crescent moon from the time I sliced my finger using another hairstylist's chunking shears. It was the height of Rachel Green's hair sensation, and every third client that sat on my chair requested the Aniston look. I was so bored with the damned haircut that I experimented with different types of blades to achieve the same style. Those are only two scars amongst many. The numerous scars on my hands capture different moments in my life. As I age, they become an elaborate map of places where I had been and of people I shared time with.