I found another reason why it’s awesome being a dark-skinned gal: No need to use questionable triangular-shaped white make-up sold for $1.99 in the drugstore. Just use Foundation #1. Ivory. Done.
p.s. I supplied my own dark circles. Kind of sad really…
p.p.s. Yes, I did the same thing last year. Hey, why fix what ain’t broken right? Or, if it’s too broken, just leave it alone and call it art.
The trouble with trying to raise conscientious kids is that I am absolutely not perfect. As a matter of fact, on some days, in some moments, I am absolutely the worst. And my kids would not hesitate to call me out on it. In fact, I believe they cannot wait to catch me with my foot in my mouth. When that happens, I feel guilty and feel like a fraud. Being exposed as a fraud and a hypocrite, to me, is a worse feeling than being caught doing something bad.
And yet I cannot seem to change. Yes, they do keep me on my toes, but I slip up, probably more often than I care to admit to myself.
Number One Son (NOS) told me about his friend’s birthday party, “Oh, and he said that in addition to bringing a gift, we should also bring something for the food pantry.”
“Wow. That is very nice.”
But of course the Miss Manners inside me could not keep her mouth shut.
“But it would’ve been even better if he had said instead of a gift, we should just bring a donation for the food pantry.”
“And what? You know everybody is going to bring a donation AND a gift anyway… You have all these weird subtle rules that you don’t want to tell people but you expect them to just know. Like your passive aggressiveness, silent treatment, death stare, your ways of being polite without bringing attention to it. But if people don’t follow these rules, you judge them on it. You are so judgmental mom!”
I admit: I am the Queen of Passive Aggressiveness. Oftentimes it comes out because I have been taught to never ask for things or for help. Someone else has to offer it to you on their own. But when someone really does offer you something, you have to refuse it at first. It looks bad if you accept the offer right away.
I pointed out to my kids how their cousins in Taiwan always respond with “No, thank you” when they are in someone else’s house and the hostess asks whether they’d like drink or food.
“They are being polite by saying no at first in case the person that did the asking had only done it out of politeness in the first place.”
“WHAT?!” The boys looked at me like I was insane.
I know. After putting these unwritten rules into actual words, it sounded insane to me too. And stupid. But somehow we grew up and we learned without ever having the rules spelled out, and after so many years, it’s still like a pre-programmed automatic switch inside me.
Anyway, after NOS so succinctly summed up the essences of me, there was nothing else for me to do but to mull over this. “Hey, can you tell me the things you said about me just now? I need to go blog about it.” “Ha ha ha. Good one, mom.” But he gave me the laundry list again anyway, not without the nervous side glances to make sure I was not secretly boiling inside. I vowed to watch out for my passive aggressive behavior. I want to be a better parent. At least a parent that does not drive my children to years worth of therapies.
Five minutes later, NOS asked me to do something for him (one of those 100+ random things that your kids ask you to do by yelling, “MOM—–“)
I yelled back upstairs, “I AM NOT TALKING TO YOU. I AM PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE REMEMBER?!”
DOH!
From one of my favorite sites, PassiveAggressiveNotes.com
For this past week I have been thinking of this line by 20 Prospect “There is something unholy about being able to cross the world in a day,” which succinctly summed up the experience of traveling to the other side of the world and dealing with the consequences, as he so poetically yet accurately described jet lag:
Sitting there in the dark… my heart whistled like an empty shell, waiting for my soul to catch up to my body.
.
While I re-adjust back to the time zone and life back here, and more importantly in the context of this blog, to my role as a virtual resident of the blogosphere, a cog in this massive social network, here is a short post that has nothing to do with my trip…
.
.
Many years ago when I was trapped in the house with a strong-willed, persistent toddler that refused to sleep and to be happy and wanted nothing else but me and my unwaivering attention, I thought about running away. Of course I did not. An old friend from college saved me by asking me to select, translate and edit a book of classic English poems, dedicated to the subject of love. The objective is to have the book published before Valentine’s Day. It is a shame that the book is now out of print because otherwise I could send it to you all in lieu of Valentine’s Day cards: at $99NTD a pop, approximately $3 USD, the book is cheaper than most of the Hallmark cards.
It was an interesting experience working on a collection of love poems, including “How Do I Love Thee” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, naturally, when I was decidedly not in any mood for love. In fact, my heart was filled with resentment and guilt, anxiety and angst, panic for a life gone wrong, for the roads not taken, for the dreams unfulfilled. It felt surreal when I was writing the afterword: cynicism was out since the filter through which to appreciate a love poem has to be drastically anti-cynicism; I took on the role of an old woman, the future me who was at peace finally, encouraging the married young women to not lose heart, to force themselves to remember what it was like before all this.
Love. I remember.
(Looking back, I now winced at the cheesy English name I picked for the book. My sincere apology)
I do want to share with you my favorite poem from the selection. Taxi by Amy Lowell.
.
.
.
.
Ms. Lowell has another poem that is just as brilliant and packs a powerful wallop of visual punch right to the gut. Here it is:
.
Fireworks
You hate me and I hate you
And we are so polite, we two!
But whenever I see you, I burst apart
And scatter the sky with my blazing heart.
It spits and sparkles in the stars and balls,
Buds into roses – and flares, and falls.
Scarlet buttons, and pale green disks,
Silver spirals and asterisks,
Shoot and tremble in a mist
Peppered with mauve and amethyst.
I shine in the windows and light up the trees,
And all because I hate you, if you please.
And when you meet me, you rend asunder
And go up in a flaming wonder
Of saffron cubes, and crimson moons,
And wheels all amaranths and maroons.
Golden lozenges and spades
Arrows of malachites and jades,
Patens of copper, azure sheaves.
As you mount, you flash in the glossy leaves.
Such fireworks as we make, we two!
Because you hate me and I hate you.
I went back and read my blog from the very beginning to see when and how the politicizing started. The answer comforted me: I started my blog around the time Obama was running for the U.S. President and Sarah Palin just came on the scene. So it has been doing the job it was meant to: a place for me to vent my frustrations and a platform for me to say out loud my half-baked ideas and thoughts. I did not suddenly jump on the liberal bandwagon because it was cool or because I developed some sort of crush on Rachel Maddow. I have started composing an essay explaining why all of a sudden I have become such a gay-loving liberal hate-monger. I have also started writing about WHAT’S WRONG WITH FOX NETWORK because Mr. Monk, by coincidence, asked in a frustrated tone, “What is so bad about FOX News?”
I am now immobilized by the fear that I may be pushing these people to the other side simply because I am being rabid. I would have, out of spite, if I felt I were being forced to take on a certain perspective; I am a bitch like that.
All this agonizing, I am afraid, will probably not see the light of day because I can see the criticism on FOX NEWS easily perceived as a personal attack on its viewers. And, raise your hand if there is someone from the older generation in your family who watches FOX News exclusively? Raise both hands if that someone happens to be your mom or dad? Yeah, that’s what I thought…
And if I am seeing ALL THIS TEA-PARTY MESS as more than simply “Politics as usual” which many people would brush aside by saying either “I am not political” or “I don’t care about politics” but rather as a all-too-real assault on what this country stands for, NOT discussing “politics” I am afraid may create a chasm, and yet, discussing “politics” may also create a chasm.
I want to know where you stand and yet I am afraid to find out.
Angry Birds came to the rescue.
Great for people with anger management issues. And also for people with avoidance tendency.
The descent to madness was rapid: I “discovered” it (as one of the LAME VERY LAST Adopters) on January 3rd and I have not been able to STOP thinking about the game, wanting to play the game, hearing the music, the chirping and the snorting, and seeing the birds hitting all sorts of obstacles even with my eyes closed.
There is a reason why I never try any illegal substance. Mine is the obsessive, addiction-prone personality.
10 signs I am far-flung addicted to Angry Birds:
10. I skipped at least three meals and stayed up until 3 am because I needed to BEAT a level.
9. I YouTubed tutorials on how to beat individual levels. Normal for my 12-year-old, not normal for a 40-year-old woman.
8. My oldest shook his head at me and sighed. But I think he is just jealous because I am getting higher scores than his old ones.
7. I told my youngest that I have gone through the whole being a kid crap and I have paid my due, therefore I get to play the game whereas he had to go to bed.
6. At Mr. Monk’s TKD class, a kid saw what I was doing, “Ooooo. ANGRY BIRDS!” “Yeah. I am addicted. Don’t tell anybody.” “Ok.” He said, sympathetically.
5. In the total silence, I can still hear the chirping and the occasional snorting from the pigs, and the DARNED theme music.
4. I am so into it that my body tenses up when I am swiping my finger to fling the birds. The muscles in my neck, shoulders and legs are sore from all the tensing up. Seriously, WTF?
3. I cannot stop moving my body along the imaginary trajectory of the bird being flung by the sling shot. It’s not like I need my new addiction to be even more embarrassing and conspicuous…
2. I did not bother to get coffee from Starbucks at the train station because I was too occupied.
1. When I was reading my last post after I hit the publish button, I noticed that all the lines of words were tilted. I then realized that I was imagining the lines to be tilted, and the letters to be toppled. This was a new low and it is kind of difficult to explain:
I was seeing the lined-up words as lined-up pigs and wood/concrete planks. And I had this immense desire to sling something into the midst of these words to smash them into pieces, like so:
.
.
Yes. Please send help.
“Incongruity Detected” is a term I learned from this laugh-out-funny post from Hyperbole and a Half, the girl with the indomitable spirit who makes hilarious illustrations for her blog posts with MS Paint. That post of hers is titled “Expectations vs. Reality“.
Oh boy, did that post strike a cord within the deepest recess of my being.
Sometimes I think I come off as Unnecessarily Humble because I am an ultimate narcissist: I am so awesome that I can afford to show humility of a pathological degree.
Yeah. That.
You see, inside my head, I live a different life than reality. It’s like I have my own personal Matrix.
I watch people dance on TV or in the movies, I visualize myself doing the exact same graceful movements. I tap my feet. I sway my upper body (’cause I am a Couch Dancer). I’ve got rhythm. I get so swept away by my mental image that I am convinced IF I stand up now I’ll be able to do JUST THAT.
It’s the same with singing. Inside my head, not only could I sing I’ll Always Love you, I could carry that high note to the very end. I stopped believing in that when I actually opened my mouth once and lived with a sore throat (= strained vocal cord muscle) for the next three days. Ok, admittedly I am not Whitney Houston. But I can sing like Eartha Kitt, inside my head. Low. Husky. Raspy. Yes, inside my head I have a low, husky and raspy voice. I mean, if I have trouble hitting the high notes, it has got to be because I have a husky voice, right? There is no other explanation. By the way, since we are going down this road, let me just point out that inside my head, I can also slink across the piano like Eartha Kitt. Oozing seduction.
I can if I just try.
So when Neil over at Citizen of the Month announced the Fifth Annual Blogger Christmalhijrahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert, I thought I’d just go ahead and perform one of my favorite Christmas songs, Santa Baby. I even used the Web Cam… The result?
Incongruity Detected.
Fine. I cannot be sexy and seductive like Eartha Kitt. You know, sometimes inside my head I can sing like Zooey Deschanel. Ok. I thought I’d change the plan and sing one of my favorite winter-themed songs, Baby It’s Cold Outside. Leon Redbone has such a low and resonant voice, next to him, inside my head, I sound absolutely dainty and innocent and adorable.
So if you ever wonder what happened to me: I don’t write. I don’t read your posts. I don’t comment. I don’t visit. I don’t even reply to your comments on my own friggin’ blog. I was consumed in an epic battle between Reality and Fantasy.
I waited every night until the kids were asleep. I sang. Again and again. I tried singing in the bathroom to get the acoustics going. I stole the microphone from Wii to see whether it would make a difference. I used the toy “microphone amplifier” that we got for $1 at Target. I sang standing up. I sang sitting down. I drank hot tea incessantly to calm my overworked throat (yeah, I was not doing it right I know). I needed to pee every five minutes as a result. I did not go to bed until after 3 am for at least three nights in a row.
I ended up recording myself singing the same song on my iPhone 50+ times.
Incongruity Detected. Every single friggin’ time.
Finally after midnight on the day of the submission deadline, I was so exhausted, actually falling asleep when I was listening to the playbacks, I had to make a judgement call and come to grip with reality: Ain’t gonna sound like Zooey Deschanel. Better cut my losses and be done with it.
So here it is, despite the Incongruity Detected (and I figure that you don’t care since you are not inside my head), for your viewing pleasure (oh, yes, I added visual goodies to make my singing bearable. Hint: Think “Cold. Pussy.”): My performance at the Fifth Annual Blogger Christmalhijrahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert.
Why, you ask, do I wish to humiliate myself if I am so devastated by the Incongruity Detected?
Eh. Please see Paragraph 3.
Please do check out the actual concert, especially since Elly @ BugginWord (another girl with the indomitable spirit) performed at the concert too!
My thanks to A Vapid Blonde, 20 Prospect, Tomatoes on the Vine, and Laura @ Hey What’s For Dinner Mom for providing pictures that without a doubt are improving the sales of hot chocolate.