A New Year?

2013 New Year's Resolutions:
>Work out and develop a pronounced body aka GET MUSCLES
>Get a full time job or get an internship that will lead to a full time job with white people
>Abstain from drinking soda, eating candy, and staying out later than midnight
>Substitute tea for coffee
>Go jogging every day along West Side Highway for an hour
>Smile
>Be myself
>Get a girlfriend WHO LOVES ME

First off, it does not feel like a new year. What is a new year supposed to feel like? The hands of time have fallen off the face of the clock and the pages of my calendar have been falling off faster than I can peel. I don't know what has come across me for the past few nights but I cannot sleep until 5 or 6 in the morning. I would stare at my computer screen and shuffle among Youtube, Netflix, and smut, and then consider visiting my bed. Until five in the morning I am kept awake by a bright computer screen, my faithful lamp, and an open door that allows the darkness of the living room to look at me. I can hear the quiet of my parents' sleeping and the occasional groan of the refrigerator communicating with my stomach. I have committed myself to no midnight snacks and sweets. In order to combat my bad breath, plague buildup, and tooth decay I must abstain from eating anything after I brush my teeth. The worst part about staying up past 3AM is that I become incredibly lethargic and dizzy that if I slept an adequate eight hours I would still wake up groggy and lethargic. I must sleep before 3AM, but this is unlikely especially when I think about her almost every night for the past seven days or so.

I raced to Chinatown's Division Street after my homegirl invited me to a party where she was deejaying at. I visited the apartment so that I could support my homegirl in her passionate endeavor as well as mingle for a bit. But I could not stay for long because my parents had expected me to get home in time to say Happy New Year to them once the ball dropped at midnight. So I got shitfaced after a peer-pressured shot of Belvedere or Grey Goose and hopped the train for home. I entered my apartment with an Asian flush and my mom sniffed alcohol on my shirt. I dreaded a hangover but by the morning my lightheadedness had left. I have low tolerance; I am gone after one single shot and two glasses of beer. Although Shawn has introduced my palates to Coors Light and Sapporo Light, I still cannot absorb alcohol. My parents do not drink or smoke, so they condemn my picking it up.

This New Year's Eve was not as jubilant or festive mostly because I was not in a festive mood. I was too preoccupied with waiting for her texts and hearing from her. But I knew that this wait would consume me so I decided to shelf her and hug my parents, go through the motions of saying happy new year and flee to the arms of my warm bed. I barely watched the television or glimpsed the concert. I haunted my bedroom, my computer screen, Facebook, and my closet. I kept pacing around and checking my cellphone. Any shivers or murmurs could signal her text and I had to respond to it. I should have known that "love" makes people do stupid things. Aaron told me that his friend once paid for a girl's plane ticket, from Washington to NYC, to meet her. When they met, the two did not get along and the dude wasted his money on the girl whom he wanted to woo in person. But was I in love when I decided to go to these lengths to make her happy? Was I in love when I waited for her in the cold? Was I in love when I paid for all her movie tickets and graciously paid for her meals? Was I stupid for pursuing her all this time?

Shawn cornered me on the phone and asked me whether or not I knew that this girl has feelings like I do. He wondered if I did not consider her feelings. He shot at me, "You're not the only one who has feelings...maybe she's going through the same thing you are." Sure, I accept this: She might be going through a phase of indecision, disbelief, or even indifference. She may have decided to reject me but she cannot say it because she doesn't want to lose her face when telling me the news, or maybe she doesn't want to hurt my feelings so she just passes the time and denies that it ever happened. Maybe she thinks that with time she can mend her friendship with me and continue treating me as a friend, only this time she will make our friendship an explicit business instead of "leading me on."

The entire week I consulted five or more of my friends for advice. The most resonant advice came from Hippie Lou who said that I had been rejected by someone immature, someone who is hiding her true colors from me and it is a sign that a relationship will not work. He thinks that I should be grateful for her sign because it deters me from getting with her. He says that I should accept myself and fish in a different sea because the batch of women I've encountered are simply different from the women I really need. Hippie Lou's perspicacity reminded me of our similarities: we both seek passionate, romantic, genuine women who love us for who we are, not women who pass nice guys for assholes and prefer to be played multiple times in bed. Lou and I share a mature mentality that a woman needs a nice guy who can offer her companionship and genuine loving from the only organ that is organic: the heart. I asked Hippie Lou if I should change the bait and said that I'm the bait; I should change myself because he thinks I am wonderful and beautiful the way I am. Speaking to Hippie Lou makes me feel happy inside, maybe because he confirms me and makes me feel special and loved and normal. Most of all, he makes me feel beautiful. Hippie Lou sealed the conversation by encouraging me to date older women who share my level of maturity. If I had the mind of a nineteen year old it would be easier to reach my crush but I have the mind of a forty-year old stuck in a body of a twelve-year old. Bummer.

Talking to Edison is a revitalizing experience because he is younger than me. I haven't spoken to anyone younger than me in ages, besides my infant-sized students (exaggeration). When we first hung out for noodles and then dessert I was reminded of a younger me perhaps in the infancy of my college years, wide-eyed, curious, interested in reading philosophy and fleeing from the conformity all around me. I hated seeing people believing in the shit that the news and government pooped on them with. I hated the inactivity and inaneness that engulfed me so I sought higher, intellectual knowledge by burying my head in books. Little did I know this knowledge belongs to white people, it's white people knowledge and it only perpetrates the system. Well, remember this: if you can't beat them, join them. What startled me was when Edison doubted his intentions; he wondered if he acquainted people only so he could syphon advice or intellect from them. Is it ill-intentioned to know someone just so he can steal their knowledge and then leave them? Is this cruel or immoral? I've never really heard of this claim besides my own claim that some college chicks take advantage of my brains by studying with me during finals week but when all exams are over they act like they have never seen me.

I need a hint; I need a hint to just let her go. Drop everything and release her from my grip, from my memory, and go pursue sleep. Go count sheep. That's what I want to do. One day I will get the hint and do as I was told.