a day in the life of piano monkey

my wee brother and i were always 2 years 2 months 20 and 2 days apart.  it was often a matter of fact for him to give me list of things that he wanted- he would say 60% (3 out of 5 wish list things) could be rounded up to 100% which really ticked me off (as i have not gotten anything from him in recent years! haha). i have numerous curious black-blue dots on random points of my body.  hands. elbows. calf. even on the middle of my back (right behind my heart, it was described).  he once asked me what those things were- i wondered if he was trying to be cute. 'of course, it's the pencil marks.' he looked at me with a slant, trying to figure out which part of me was the mad bit; alas, i had to remind him that thanks to brothers, i am covered in remarkable constellation map of some random universe, lovingly marked by my own flesh and blood siblings, each hand done with a sharp pencil.  and of course, there was no silence but a insistent denial of such episode(s). ...

my parents own a dry cleaners and a laundromat, just like a good old first generation korean business immigrant family.  when i realized that there were koreans who immigrated to north america as non-business immigrant, it totally blew my mind. i was fifteen.  there were scholars, business transfers, refugees, all kinds.  but till then, for three years, all koreans i saw were either transient population (students, mostly) or entrepreneurship immigrants. theyve been at this business for a long time now.  from my age 12 to now, 31, for nineteen years.  so probably the longest job that both of them have ever held (my dad moved around job to job whenever he felt like it).  and by this time, though i hardly ever go in to help, i do have a good idea what would probably need to be done. one of the things is coin counting.  i think it is very silly thing to talk of, 'intensive coin counting.'  we  all had jars of loose c...

(art from nataliedee.com. yeah for cake) hello wee brother.  your first negative birthday was an eventful one at the least. first of all, someone has already taken the kind liberty of dedicating you a mass on your birthday.  so couple weeks ago, the older ladies of the house freaked out that you wont get a mass on 25th. seems that it was no worries to begin with.  so though it's during the weekday and that mom/dad had power outage at the store in the earlier day (probably brown outs with all those suburban houses i swear), we all decided to have a mass-get-together kinda thing. ironically, we forgot, well, dad forgot to read the line that says: 'this mass will be a private service,' as the priest was going to be away from the city during a short retreat with the altar boys. so after much commotion, we got there to learn that your mass was in fact, being served somewhere in nice outside park of ontario.  koodos for style man. then we went...

i t is mr. minnow's birthday today, and according to british summer time zone, he's got about fifteen minutes till the day is over.  as much as i would like to be with him, it's not possible this year.  it does suck a bit, as i wasnt there last year either.  i looked into getting there on a surprise whim though the problem really was how to get back: going to uk was perfectly doable with a very cheap flight, but there were no real way to get back till september, without paying with arm/leg/chosen body part.  instead, monkey's here in yyz, thinking about the idea of birthday. i understand that birthday celebration can be quite artificial.  it's just another day to everyone else i suppose.  there are many people who shares birthdays and it is often common to move the 'celebration' to another day for everyone's convenience anyhow.  when you see another person, it is a given factor that the person would have a birthday, regard...

couple things from recent- well last two days really! this is new monkey residency from now till dec 12. that's really not that long is it- september is over and october will just roll on and then as you wake up sober from halloween madness, the trees will be naked and cold will hopefully roll on. beautiful cold majestic blue and grey. can't wait. inst of lloyd hall of banff center, which is what they give you as default, i asked to be located at farrally hall for some humanity. lloyd is nice but it's too professional. so quiet. all closed doors. farrally's got fireplace. no contest there really. i hope all works out alright, fire or not. monkey's gene pools turned 60 this year. both of them. as traditional koreans , they, well their friends decided to have a shindig at a local restaurant. monkey cake stuff was related to this. this was the first cake topper made for dad. flowery eh. take that dad. ha ha ha. i think it's rather nice. and that cake...