last night i
dreamt in technicolor
we stayed up
until we pressured
the palms of our hands red

rested our temples on
bent wrists and big smiles
with all intention to touch
lips like big dimples
opening and retracting
tasting sweet pink
like flickering candles
through indigo nights

our voices
grew groggier
changed tones with
the spiraling hours
brown elbows grew
brawn on bed

our stealth fingernails
patterned like
gentlemen’s argyle
smoothing over
our stomachs,
grazing arms,
insides of wrists

this is a night
i wait for
redemption in dreams
we make color
in between
we made color
in between

a bedroom canvas
of limbs and tints
blanketed imbalance
slashes of orange heat
in kama position
until morning peaks
of yellow-purple swells
consume us into
a spectrum of fulfillment

written july 2011
janice.

Here. I want you to have this.
It’s an opening, and you’re welcome.
It’s a city, and in the palm of the city
is a lake. In the heart of the lake is a wing.
All the people, all the exhaust & sprawl:
it’s perfect. Let them sleep in you
when you sleep. And wake with you,
that you might know them and their streets,
and the light that makes them fall in love,
the light that has always been your light.

- Jeff G. Lytle

Spent Friday evening at one of the best bookstores in SF. I wanted to find a book about LA and my eyes landed on this one. Love it so far, hoping it gives me a better, critical look at LA.

janice.

Last night, something kinda funny happened.

It was on the dance floor. On a  space of slippery linoleum where some small amount of square footage hosted more bodies than it could reasonably fit. Against a rouge wall, in a group of friends put together by the likes of a college Filipino American student organization, brought closer together with Coronas, laughter and most importantly, music.

It’s a simply genius concept – music fills voids of sound and internal and external space. When used correctly and when chance allows, music works, saves, and if you’ve combined the right amount of happy hour extracurricular activities, then music can also make you smile at inane things.

You know how DJs like to spin regional records? They do ten to fifteen minute sets featuring music about and by folks from New York or the Bay Area or Los Angeles. And when they do, everyone in the club dances a little faster and moves a little more incoherently but things seem more natural somehow. Some people are happier when they hear a song by a rapper or singer from their hometown – it always feels good when someone shouts out something you know, especially if that something reminds you of your hometown! Or your hood, or your friends, or your favorite memory. It all gets to be something kinda funny, right?

Well, last night, I realized that as much as I appreciate and miss the explosion of the hyphy movement (in terms of its early 2000s exposure to the mainstream music industry), I actually think that L.A-born music and L.A.-based artists make me feel at home. For a moment, on that dance floor, in a city that reminds me of home, with people who helped make that home during our years in San Diego, I loved the sounds of Snoop Dogg, Warren G and Dr. Dre a little more. Music offers an entry point that constantly introduces me to L.A. things, and since I’ll be a part of that scene in less than a month, I got some more loving to do. After all, I knew there was a reason I memorized all of the lyrics to “This Is How We Do It”and “Summertime in the LBC” at age 11. Some of my proudest clubbing moments are spittin these tracks at the drop of a needle. Get ready for me, L.A., it’s time. I’m ready for you.

by Victor Solanoy

a blog post idea taken from my friend Maia

my heart belongs to familiarity. a place where people smile back. people who write back in handwriting. my heart belongs to tall tees, cuffed jeans, thick and winged eyeliner that is as dependable as the homegirls who put it on. a place walkable by low-top chucks, chillen nikes, wide streets, excessive cops in the name of so-called safety. to numbered streets with bars and victorian haunted houses that belong to hard-working crazy families and high school homies. the city that suffocates me the most, learned it like i was exploring a lover’s outlines, spent hours looking up and riding in cars too fast and too expensive for seventeen-year-olds. i remember it most from sidewalk wondering, concrete navigation, following trolley sounds and the scent of tempura batter leading me home from hunger. where kids got high off rolled napkins and behind middle school dumpsters, where my girls and i sugar rushed off of hot chocolate from japantown in our teens and fulfilled the downtown drunchies in our 20s. the place where we moved from one apartment to the next because the neighbor’s son showed himself to me for my friendship. to a room where i sat, wrote and sang to myself, hoping the room itself wouldn’t be upset with me for never leaving it alone.

my heart belongs to my mom’s language, to my mama’s mama’s mama’s mamaland. a place my mind drifts to when i smell anything burnt, sit on a beach where even the sand is darker-skinned, or when i see flies land on my food. to words that misfit english, to slips of tongue, to a people who wait, beg and organize for the same reason. to hopes that one day we could all afford to go back as a family under the guise of vacation when It’s Been Too Long and Because My Mom Cries At Night For The People Who Were Once Here But Are Not Here Anymore So We Came To Remember Them Anyway are not categories under reasons for the visit on embassy papers.

my heart belongs to flight. to putting books and old dairies in the same boxes as high heels and incense. to wine bottles and lipstick left on glasses. to goodnights. to unsteady hearts who are too scared to say. to a place of familiarity. to a place where people will smile back.

janice.

Yesterday, some folks and I were talking about age and the lessons learned when your birthday bookmarks shit you should know all about. I’m not yet a quarter century old and I know that I have intense reactions to how this world operates.

24. What will this year mean for me? I know I’ll be in LA. I know I’ll be writing. I know I’ll see how homesickness go and I’ll be committing myself to a powerful and solitary act. Lately, I’ve wondered about the news of the world that I can offer to a willing readership. I hope I retrieve some of my world news in LA. No idea what’s in store at this point. Still not sure where I’m gonna be living. Scouring the housing ads available to me and I either haven’t heard back or I just haven’t found something that suits my needs.

I hope this golden birthday stuff becomes something spectacular.

janice.

janice.

photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jver64/3514865887/

Holding onto sidebars and San Jose as much as I can before I make The Big Move to L.A. As much as I love finding myself growing and being challenged by traffic and citizen swagger in new places, I am not excited about minimizing my life into boxes. Seriously though, I never ever expected to move to LA.

After a summer that began with writing six hours a day, hooking up with amazing writers of color from Oakland to Brooklyn and living a life that is (now) full of teaching kids the decision-making process that is writing, I can really say that plans don’t mean much. There is only so much planning that I can do. I’ve built most of my young life on plans – on my plans and my parents’ plans. I hella thought that I would go from undergrad straight into a PhD program or that I would marry my first love or that I would go to a cafe to write when I’m sitting at home blogging. Plans are a great practice – one that I’ve exercised fully.

You shoulda seen me in high school! I was sixteen with a plan. And the fattest 8.5″ by 11″ inch planner that a girl could get at her local Staples. It was one mean piece of patent leather paginated perfection. It was filled with class events, hula practice times, meetings (I hate meetings now); I made front and back collage covers that I laminated myself! I even bought it with my own money from my first job that I held down for two summers so that I could buy a letterwoman’s jacket and a special yearbook that I totally forgot about saving for because, well, I fell in love and spent monies on dates and college applications. Shit happens.

“Shit happens” usually means “plans change.” Or, that the unexpected settles in somehow.

Plans layer and break every so often. This is a reminder to plan on having my plans mess up every now and then. Alignment isn’t linear. Even now, as I plan by combing through my social networks for roommates and apartments, I’m wishing I had a better plan so that I could navigate my way through Google maps and guesstimates. I hope that this journey brings me closer to building and making home in L.A.

Seriously though, I never expected to ever move to L.A.

janice.

I miss VONA. I got that summer camp feeling, yall. Like I just made hella friends after reaching the peak of my summer and I wanna go back to running around, exposing myself to sunlight and laughing at anything with folks willing to make inside jokes.

I learned so much about craft and the tools necessary to make a good story. I learned about using conflict, obstacles and character development to help me enrich my stories and poems. I worked on 1 short story, 3 poems and what will be the start of my novel. I re-learned a lot things, too. I won’t forget Evelina’s lessons about story shapes and how to climax.

So glad I went to VONA before I started my MFA Program. I’m definitely looking forward to building in LA and here in the Bay while I can. Because there’s so much literature, I believe there’s so much life!

Some of my VONA highlights:

- Taking a MySpace photo with Junot Diaz

- Not wanting to leave the VONA lounge and each other

- Giving up the opportunity to read my writing out loud & create a ridiculously funny skit w/ my workshop

- The VONA Faculty reading (Staceyann Chin is now my leader, too) & sitting with Alex the Fern

- Talking about sex & hooking up w/ Ate Evelina

- Becoming everyone’s youngest sister

- Smiling at folks and getting smiles in return

- Living at Brewed Awakening Cafe in Berkeley

- Going the whole week without getting any parking or traffic tickets!!!

- Living in the East Bay

These people are the reason why I am so tired, happy and full of VONA energy – but not the kind of energy that propels a full-length blog!

I must be a little crazy to be blogging every VONA day. This blog at the end of my VONA days is like running the last leg of a 4×4 relay race in a track meet. Writing throughout the day is full of energy and this overwhelming will to keep going. Today I felt like I knew more people. I feel more comfortable around folks. I’m still disciplining myself into this writing thing.

I think age was a theme for today. I also think most people of color are gifted with babyface or a longer-term ticket to the fountain of youth. Either way, people have been shocking me with their ages, the years they’ve spent in school, the residencies they’ve done, or the places in which they’ve published. Not shock as in disbelief, but shock that opens up more possibilities for more writers of color. It’s a shock that, if voiced, would say, “Wow, we’re really doing it. We’re here and now we need our work to be read.”

Anyway, I think I surprise people with my age when I tell them. I surprise myself, too. I’m 23-going-on-24 and I honestly reject the notion that people my age can’t write a memoir or that they haven’t experienced anything that merits a story, much less a book. Memoirs are my favorite kinds of books to read and I must say that the youngest writers and their stories are the most dynamic, hella raw and fresh. Their stories don’t disregard grammar, literary canons, or lazily avoid writing techniques. Their stories are, for lack of a better word, interesting. Their stories are truer to the story and not caught up in cloudiness. This isn’t to say that seasoned writers are old school, traditional and therefore unable to be dynamic. I’m just saying, don’t discount younger folks. Don’t discount young writers or emerging writers. I think it’s safe to say that I am a young writer. And let me tell you, I am hungry for this writing thing. Not for a book deal, not to be super published in a big ass or big named journal, but to be able to explore the various ways in which I can tell a story. Like all writers, I require time to process, create and share. I know that I need to read, submit, meet deadlines, set goals, make a writing schedule, and live life in between so that I can have material to write about. I know that I need to read out loud, perform poetry, travel, do crazy shit, risk not getting things in return, be weird, consume other kinds of art, network, learn, teach and blog. I’m working on it – all writers are, right? Ideally, yes.

What I re-learned today at VONA was that I need to continue to put in work. An MFA won’t guarantee me shit other than an immense amount of debt, but I do know it will guarantee me the time and space I need to temporarily disconnect and write.