And that was how Brett Easton Ellis started his debut novel, Less Than Zero. Bumblebee's recent status update sort of reminds me how a fussy past sometimes can come back at the most inconvenient time. Some of you guys know I am a photographer, so I have a huge amount of photographs in my hard drive, many photos go way back to a time I don't want to remember. And today, while I was trying to keep my archive manageable, I came across this old family trip photo from Las Vegas. In it was some people posing with costumed people in Caesar's Palace. It's really funny how it triggered a series of memories.

Some years ago, I accidentally came across the blog of the guy who dressed up as the Roman soldier in that photo. I was like, "Hey! I saw that guy in Las Vegas!" And indeed, it was him, when I found the photo in my hard drive. Then I read carefully about what he said. He basically said he was pursuing after a career as an actor, and he had been a star athlete in high school, and he was trying to provide for his family working in Caesar's Palace.

Random memory like that bothers me a lot.... It's just a photo, and the pure coincidence why I came across his website years ago (and I always wonder why I've had plenty of these "coincidences" throughout my lives), and now years later, it still bothers me what he said when I found the photo. Perhaps even more due to economy and life experience. It wouldn't bother me this much if he was not pleading for a job in his blog.

Then it reminds me of a blog where Justin Guarini recalled his American Idols days. Blog a commenter said he was a major failure because he only sold 150,000 albums and bunch of brats making fun of him online. While at the end of Santa Monica Pier (where Pacific Park is), I once saw a cute guy singing his throat dry and I felt he would be lucky to sell five albums that night given how busy that place was and how little people reacted to him (and he kept on smiling). And the same night, off the pier someone squat herself on the sidewalk, covered herself with a blanket on the street, as if in shame, with her newish luggage roller by it. All I could remember was I thought she must be a new homeless, because how could she keep her luggage if she's been here long (or he..., I don't know, but I think it's a she for some reason).

I know I shouldn't look back, but sometimes past comes back uninvited....