At night, autumn winds sound like the sea is beating at my door. My ears perk; the waves recede, revealing the eerie caterwaul of cats fighting.

This weekend, I finally finished my damn zine, a zine that's been waiting fruition for years. I also attended APAture, hosted by the Kearny Street Workshop, which featured my on-line writings, among others (big bad chinese mama, worse than queer, flower drum song. . .).

Participating in an informal panel on Asian Americans on the Internet, I was suddenly nervous, unsure of myself. My tongue twisted into knots and my heart turned inside-out in its birdcage. If I touched my face, I probably woulda scalded my fingers. I don't even remember what happened or what was discussed, I was so discombobulated.

I've only been digital for a handful of months; could I talk about it intelligently?

Suddenly, the self I assert in this journal is questioned, mostly through my often crippling self-doubt: am I for real? (And why am I searching for authenticity? I should know, by now, that authenticity is a dream, something I imagine and search out through the fictions or truths that I mete out here.)

Yet, here I am, raw and vulnerable. I wish to communicate all of myself clearly, without equivocation.

But how can I when I'm so aware of inconsistencies, of an immaturity in thought and language, that this self, the self that writes, might contradict herself later?

Sometimes I click through old entries and wonder, What is this sentence, this sentiment, doing here? I edit, thinking, I shouldn't. This was written at a particular moment; editing only alters the memory. Nevertheless, I still insist on editing this growing body of fiction, even excising its appendages and minor organs, whole passages or entries, with a surgeon's incisive glee.

Somewhere in the near future, I might edit this entry. Would you notice?

Would you re-read it, wondering, What's missing here?

Still, I hafta bear in mind that I'm many selves constantly changing; if my writings didn't contain contradictions and inconsistencies, wouldn't that be inconsistent of me?

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