nothing lasts forever

it was the very last time i was going to see her. we made promises that it wouldn't be, but you know how those things go. days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and months turn into years, but i suppose it really doesn't have to be a bad thing.

we had met at a friend's birthday years back and hit it off over some cocktails. we didn't really see each other seriously until much later, but we cruised into it hot and heavy. it was that love like molasses, deep and heavy. thick to the touch and and all encapsulating. we drank each others worlds and were happy to be lost together. two kids with no fore or hindsight, just a dangerously addictive need for the other.

we promised so many things to each other. so many trivial things. so dependent on each other that we would go through withdrawals when the other was away. we moved in together pretty quickly. we played house and things were nice because we felt like it made us adults, living together and sharing things. her cooking, me taking out the trash, her decorating the house, me sorting out the bills. we grew together and forgave each other's mishaps and bad habits. maybe forgave is too strong a word, overlooked.

we never thought that things could fade. we thought that we would stand the test of time, that we were different from every other couple. in our minds our love was as great as those remembered in the annals of time. how young and naive we were.

those little overlooked mishaps and bad habits turned to belittling comments and sardonic quips. we snapped at each other, forgetting what it was that had brought us together. and soon we were at each other's throats, trying to tear the other to pieces. we broke each other down from the inside out. so much for love. so much for forever.

like everything in this world, nothing lasts forever. i knew it was the end and so did she. we just didn't want to mutter the words. we were scared to lose everything that we knew. all the time we had been together. this little world we had created. an end of an era.

she said she needed to get out. that she was going to move back with her mom. just for a little while. that it was just the break we needed to clear our heads. to maybe work it out with some space. "they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder" she said. her beautiful lies. and i ate them up.

we cried and cried and wouldn't let each other go, but it was for the very best and we both knew so in our hearts. i guess i just made it out like she was just gonna take a little vacation. that she would be back in a little while and things would be good again. like a drug addict going off to rehab. but i was wrong.

she packed up and i dropped her off at the train station. she kissed me before she got out of the car and looked at me with sad, sad eyes. i could feel myself welling up. she turned to leave and made her way to the platform. she turned around one last time before the staircase and made a heart with her hands and mouthed "i love you" with the last smile she could muster.

it was the very last time i was going to see her. we made promises that it wouldn't be, but you how those things go. days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and months turn into years, but i suppose it really doesn't have to be a bad thing.

get up, get out, and do it again

i wouldn't say that i've had the best summer ever. it's tough getting older, trying to hold things together, being responsible. if i wasn't coaching water polo, i don't know how i would have made it over these last few months. it's weird to think that a group of kids could have so much impact on my life. i guess the only times i dislike the job is when i see the devastatingly defeated looks on the their faces after a loss. it crushes me.

i look at them and just see potential. potential to be whatever they want. to work them to the very extremes of their abilities, only to make them get up, get out, and do it agin. sometimes i wish there was someone in my life who would push me to go harder, to go faster, to not ever give up, every fucking day. telling me that it's going to suck today, but maybe tomorrow will suck a little less.

it might sound a little sadistic, but i make it a point of making one kid puke a week, at least for the first few weeks. i want them to learn limitations, to understand the point where your body just says no. i've seen dozens of bloody noses, black eyes, and one kid actually getting a tooth knocked out during a match. and i revel in it, it makes me feel young.  pride just doesn't fully encapsulate how i feel when a kid gets his nose busted and still has the heart to jump back in the water. there's not many people with that type of character.

i don't think i can do this forever, the pay isn't great and the hours are crap. the boys always ask if i'm coming back next year and i honestly don't know. i feel so very unsure of my life at this point. i want to move to new york, i want to get out of here, i want to travel for months on end, i want to run until my memories can't catch up with me. but i've got this big ass dog, i've got these bills to pay, i've got paintings to make, and i don't think that i'm just quite finished with what i need to complete here.

defeat is never easy to deal with. i can't stand to lose. it's never the wins i think about when reminiscing. it's always the defeats, those moments you wish you had made a better move, done something a little different, not made so many mistakes. but you only really learn about yourself through some crushing blows. it's only when you get a real nice fat gut check that you really start to make some major life decisions. i've seen so many kids quit. so many kids about to turn the corner, but instead turn tail after some hardships. there's nothing you can do, it's just not in some people's dna.

i would like to think that i have a strong resolve. that i am made of a character with substantial fortitude. but lately it's been tough. i've been letting my own doubts seep into my life, into my work. unsure of the next move, the next stroke. lost. really. but sometimes in life as in water polo, there's nothing but to get up, get out, and do it again.

handyman

i'm doing a bit of traveling in the next several months. i think a lot of it has to do purely with escape, but a lot more so because i feel like my life has become banal. i want to shake things up, get out there, feel young again, but these are all immaterial things.

i know that no change in scenery, no woman, no friends, or family will ever help me change things. they mean a great deal to me and my life, but no one will save me except myself. it makes me feel utterly lonely sometimes thinking about it. what if i can never shake this monkey, what if this is as good as it gets?

as i get older, i've started talking to my parent's a lot more. i suppose i don't really ever tell anyone anything really, but it's nice just to hear their voices and to hear about their day and so on and so forth. they live a 14 hr. flight away, so getting to see them doesn't happen often. it makes me sad sometimes, but then i think about my mom badgering me about some infinitesimally mundane thing and i'm not as sad anymore.

i've been doing a lot more drawing lately. for some reason i've been avoiding the studio like the plague.

friends come and go and most always, it's for the best.

sometimes i just need a hug.

stick a needle through my eye.

i've always felt that the true spirit of a man is found in a fight.

no matter what, their voices never completely leave me.

my friend recently called me a lovelorn fool. maybe she's right. maybe it's time to stop fixing the end of every relationship with another relationship. i stop for a moment and realize that i haven't been single since my early 20's. now, maybe it's just time to fix myself.

if you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all

job interview

i recently went in for an interview for a full time position. suit and tie type shit, sit in an office, jokes at the water cooler, everyday grind type shit. i got offered the job on the spot and really i don't even know why i went in for the interview because i knew that i would never take it. i suppose it was just an ego thing. validation. to say that i could do it. make a nice large steady paycheck. i'd like to think that the branch manager just liked the cut of my jib.

i asked her if there was any way i could take a part time. i told her that i still had my own things to do, dreams to follow, and that i couldn't commit. i feel like i've said this shit all before.

i'm just not ready yet, maybe i never will be.

sometimes if the front door is locked you've got to just sneak in through the kitchen window. i've recently been able to paint some murals at the facebook hq in menlo park. it's been fun, busy, hectic, and sometimes very intimidating. i'm painting in building 10, which is filled with lawyers. i've already had people coming up and saying my art is "scary",  "inappropriate". a female lawyer said one of my pieces was too risque and asked me to cover it up.

we are finishing up tomorrow and hopefully painting a new building in a few weeks. keeping my fingers crossed. hugs and keeses. 

d

cole and penelope

cole was a very tough boy. not to say he was mean or cruel or bad, but he was just tough and didn't take shit from no one. he kept to himself quite a bit and liked being alone to do his own things. he lived a very simple life and that's the way he liked it. sometimes he went out to have beers with his friends or went out to parties, but mostly he stayed home most nights. happy to partake in his own hobbies, away from the world because he did not trust most people and rarely let anyone in. it's just the way things were and nothing and no one was going to change his mind.

penelope was a very sweet girl. not to say that she wasn't strong or bold or sturdy, but she was just very sweet and smiled through everything. she was a social butterfly and liked to be out and about because that's where her charm shined through. sometimes she stayed in and read a book or dabbled with paints, but mostly she was out in the world. happy to spread her love into the lives of others, because that's the way she had been brought up. what made her most happy was helping others. it's just the way things were and nothing and no one was going to change her mind.

cole went with girls but he had never really truly been in love. he had said it or thought he had felt it before, but in retrospect he knew that he was merely just saying the words. happy to see them light up and going along with the motions. but it never lasted. he always got bored. because really he didn't know love. he never went that far to open his heart, to truly care about anyone else but himself. in the end, he always wanted to be left alone. to do his own things.

penelope went with boys and she had felt love before. she had said it and knew in her heart that it was true, at least there in that moment because sometimes love fades. she was happy to know that something so beautiful could be shared and she lived for it. she always gave what she could, but the boys eventually walked all over her and she always got burned. she always went for everything with an open heart because she had very much to give. in the end, she just wanted someone else who would feel the same.

cole and penelope met one day. it wasn't anything exciting or romantic or melodramatic. no sparks flew, it wasn't love at first sight. they just met and exchanged numbers. he invited her out later that week to a dinner party and really thought nothing of it because she was just a girl that he met. penelope showed up and all his friends liked her because that's the magnetism she had. cole was quiet and aloof and stern, because he did not like to show anything and at the end of the night he hugged her goodnight and walked her to her cab.

they went out again in a few weeks to a movie and held hands. he walked her back to her house even though he was late for work, because she lived in a bad part of town and he wanted to make sure that she got home okay. cole liked penelope quite a bit, not because she was a very sweet girl, but because he knew that beneath her very sweet demeanor was a very fragile thing. he wanted to her to be safe and strong. penelope liked cole quite a bit, not because he was a very tough boy, but because she knew that beneath his very hard shell he was a very sweet boy. she wanted to show him love and how to love.

they started going steady after a few months. he invited her over to holidays and they eventually met each other's families. their relationship grew and gained strength, like the foundation of a home. they made plans for the future and their dreams. they never said they loved each other, but penelope was teaching cole. slow and steady. cole taught penelope to be tough. and penelope cole to be sweet. they showed each other things that the other did not know. they were good together. they were in love but neither ever said it, happy to have the things the way they were. to feel love truly and deeply.

they had been going out for a little more than a year. friends saw the change in cole, he was bright, he smiled. not to say that he wasn't tough, but penelope had begun to break down his wall. friends saw the change in penelope, she was aloof, she held her ground. not to say that she wasn't sweet, but cole had shown her how to depend on herself.

but this is not a story with a happy ending. when two people love each other truly and deeply, there can be no happy ending. cole and penelope started to drift apart. their conversations of life and love dwindled. inevitably cole got bored. inevitably penelope felt walked all over. and you know how this story will eventually end.

cole was a very tough boy. not to say he was mean or cruel or bad, but he was just tough and didn't take shit from no one. but penelope had opened his heart.

penelope was a very sweet girl. not to say that she wasn't strong or bold or sturdy, but she was just very sweet and smiled through everything. but cole had shown her fortitude.

one day penelope packed her things from cole's and said that she had to go. what they had had faded and there was nothing else to do, but to end things. he was not going close the world off anymore. penelope had shown him to love. she was not going to be walked over anymore. cole showed her how to be tough. they hugged and cried and cried and kissed. but it was the end of things. a very beautiful thing. it's just the way things were and nothing and no was going to change their minds.

t shirt time

it's hard as fuck to sell paintings. at least it is for pissant artists like me and my boy hak lee. so i thought let's just make some mother fucking tshirts. affordable, sexy, and a free fucking billboard everywhere you go.

the t shirts are 100% cotton with the image heat transferred in full color. they are pre-shrunk and good to go.  they have been made in a very limited batch and once they go they're gone til forever.

if you would like a tshirt you can call me, text me, email me, or write me a letter. first come first serve basis.
















hak lee is a korean artist living out of the tenderloin. his studio apartment is his studio, love box, study, dining room, and lots of other shit all jumbled into one. all profits will go directly to him because really, he can't be eating instant ramen for the rest of his life.