Tag Archives: things that keep me from going to bed where my husband is waiting

Rally to Restore Sanity: Perspective is everything

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This is today.

I wish I were there. But I am here at home, trying to restore my own sanity, in a very personal, trivial way.

Some dear friends that I have the honor of getting to know were there on the Mall in D.C. witnessing history: Nancy at Mature Landscaping. Renee at Life In the Boomer Lane who actually wrote an excellent post about WHY she was going to the rally.  “Dufmanno” who was there with all her family who traveled from New York, New Jersey and Maryland. I cannot wait to read their recounting of this historical day!

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While we are waiting for our blogosphere personal news reporter to take a breather and share with us their stories, here is the most basic, yet important, piece of information about Rally for Sanity that got me all excited and scream BOOYAH! to the monitor:

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According to CBS, an estimated 215,000 people attended the rally today. This means:

Sanity, 215000. Crazy, 87000.

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Sanity won. Who knew?!

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Jon Stewart’s closing speech deserves to be quoted in full as Rolling Stone has honorably decided to do (Note: You can find a nearly comprehensive transcript of Stewart’s speech on Rolling Stone since they did not want to reduce the 10-minute speech to a mere sound bite. Or you can watch the 12-minute video here). I am however guilty as charged since by Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V I hope to be as close to awesomeness as I possibly could…

There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and tea partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rich Sanchez is an insult — not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put forth the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish between terrorists and Muslims makes us less safe, not more.

The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything we eventually get sicker. And perhaps eczema. Yet, with that being said, I feel good. Strangely, calmly good, because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a funhouse mirror, and not the good kind that makes you slim and taller — but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass like a pumpkin and one eyeball.

[As a metaphor] These cars… Everyone of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear — often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.

And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile-long, 30-foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river…And they do it. Concession by concession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go, then I’ll go… Sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute. But that individual is rare and he is scorned, and he is not hired as an analyst.

Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together and the truth is, there will always be darkness.  And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land. Sometimes it’s just New Jersey.  But we do it anyway, together.

If you want to know why I’m here and what I want from you I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me.  You’re presence was what I wanted.  Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder.  To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine.  Thank you.

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here are some of the signs that made me chuckle:

no images were found

(Sources: HuffPost, National Post, Chicago Press Release)

And, drum roll please, here’s my favorite one, hands down, or inside…

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I was able to watch Saturday Night Life on television (as opposed to on Hulu) tonight while I folded the laundry, as part of my “Restore My Sanity” one-woman rally the eve before Halloween… In the cold open, Joe “The Veep” Biden (as hilariously played by Jason Sudeikis) asked Americans to gain some perspectives by comparing themselves to the Chilean miners. They sang their national anthem every day while trapped underground. They prevailed. And when they were rescued they wrapped themselves in the Chilean flag as if Chile had just won the World Cup.

For people that complain, Biden/Sudeikis has a checklist for them:

Are you above ground?

(Long pause)

That’s it. That’s the only item on the checklist.

Don’t be the whiners. Think of the miners!

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Courtesy: www.maturelandscaping.com

Update: Here’s the post by Nancy at Mature Landscaping about her experience at the Rally. Here is the sign sported by her group. It is awesome.

You did not heed the warning from the man in Chinatown

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There. You did it again.

Remember in the movie Gremlins? No water. No food after midnight. And of course the rules were immediately broken, WTF that nobody EVER EVER listens to those who live in Chinatown? Seriously? monsters were created and hijinks ensued.

Do not feed a closeted egomaniac.

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You never heed the warning.

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Blame this raging Navel Gazing post on Silvia @ A Bourbon for Silvia and Trish @ Patty Punker. They gave me water and fed me food after midnight. So to speak…

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So after they broke the feeding rules, they now want ME, the monster they have created, to follow some rules… Fine. You have to at least obey your own Dr. Frankenstein(s), eh?

  1. Thank the person who gave you the award.

    2. If you have never visited A Bourbon for Silvia, please do. “From here – Under the water” is one of my favorite posts. Ever. It makes you want to go skinny dipping. Not in a drunken teenager and Imma gonna live to regret it way. But in a good, self-realization way.

    If you have never visited Patty Punker, please do. She has a foul mouth and is proud of it. But underneath that hardness is one of the softest and truest heart. (Now she’s going to kick my ass for saying this about her…) Her “wtf work bathrooms” is epic. She’s my kind of working woman.

  2. List 7 things about yourself your readers do not know.

    3. Awww. You want me to talk about myself? No. I can’t possibly. I clearly do not like to talk about myself and that’s why I have a friggin’ blog!

  3. Award 5 bloggers who you’ve recently discovered.

    4. Well, this has to wait until I am done talking about myself! Because this post is all about me. ME. ME!!!!!

    *Cue maniacal evil laughter* <— For real. Do NOT click if you are at work!

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It took me a while to come up with things that I have not shared with you already…

  • Ok ok. This is a good one: I am an oversharer. And then I feel guilty for oversharing because I don’t want to burden people with my oversharing. Rinse and repeat.
  • I am full of contradictions. I am a Closeted Extrovert and a Closeted Introvert rolled into one. Implosion any minute now.
  • I am hormonal all the friggin’ time. I swear I am affected by the movement of the orbiting Moon.  I never fake cry. I can force myself to cry. And when I cry, it is for real.
  • This is going to make me sound crazy, but I am the most self-deprecating egomaniac ever. EVER!
  • Like Patty Punker and Wicked Shawn, I *heart* polka dots, so much so that I created a tumblr dedicated to polka dots in May.
  • I may have minor OCD, as evidenced by my obsession with going through ALL pictures with polka dots in them on google (current count: ~5,900,000). Once I start a task, I cannot stop until I am done. The way I deal with this? Start nothing. Can you see how blogging is seriously affecting my mental health? There is no end in sight to this thing!
  • I am cynical and gullible at the same time. Or maybe I am just an idiot who has been lucky so far. My brother once told me that he could hear the music by twirling a cassette tape with a pen through one of the holes. I believed him. I was in junior high then, and coincidentally I was the Valedictorian-equivalent in my class.

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Sadly, the time alloted for me to talk about myself, again, has come to an end, today. Now on to passing this award on to five beautiful human beings I have recently met…

Ok. Pause. One more thing you need to know about me…

  • I suffer panic attack whenever I need to do something like this: choosing, and by this act of choosing, excluding others. THIS has got to be the hardest part for me as a blogger. If I read your blogs, that means I think you are beautiful inside and out. I have very limited time so I am very selective. I may not be by for a while but it is because I have decided to have more sex. Or the attempts any way…
  • Another thing you need to know about me: I am a sneaky bugger. I have figured out that if you tell people you cannot do something because you need to have sex, people will understand. Oh god, please do not let my kids read this. Or my blog in general.

    • *Cue maniacal evil laughter* <— Seriously. Do NOT click if you are at work!

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Here are five of the beautiful bloggers that I would like to introduce you to, if you didn’t know them already:

Mature Landscaping – Southern and liberal. Come on. You know you want a piece of it!

IslandRoar – I swear it is because she is a good writer and not some ulterior motive for being invited to Martha’s Vineyard one day…

Fuck Yeah, Motherhood! – Anybody that uses single motherhood and long-hour job as an excuse for not parenting well should read this blog. She makes it sound so easy even though you know it cannot be easy.

here where i have landed – She came from Asia to the US around the same time I did. She lives in beautiful downtown Chicago. She is a working mom. Not hard to see why I lurv her, eh?

Bar Mitzvahzilla – Jewish and liberal in Arizona. She is fighting a good fight there!

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. For real.

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Oh man. I should have written this post Thursday night or Friday early morning when I was still riding the high from being at a live taping of my favorite radio program, Wait Wait Don’t Tell me. Instead I am suffering from the backend of the pendulum swing, crashing hard, filled with doubt and self-loathing.

This is a confession from a self-proclaimed dweeb, dork, geek-lover, fangirl, star-struck middle-aged woman who behaved age-inappropriately on Thursday night.

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1. Stuff that I said about how I never develop crush on celebrities? Total baloney, it turned out. I had the biggest grin on my face and was giggling like an idiot the whole time I was getting autographs from Peter Sagal, Carl Kasell, Charlie Pierce, and Paula Poundstone. (Roxanne Roberts left by the time we finished our “shopping spree” at the Wait Wait “Shameless Commerce Department” – a homage to another popular NPR program, Car Talk).

I am going to chalk it up to these brilliant people being so humble and so gracious that I could not but be awestruck by their total awesomeness.

I was also giddy from being swept up by the “camaraderie” in the auditorium. It really does feel incredible to be surrounded by like-minded people. For a second, I thought I could understand why the teabaggers go to tea parties.

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2. I was so star-struck. I didn’t even care that I failed to bring a “real” camera with me. Just being there was good enough for me.

What a fucking idiot was I? Who went to an event of a lifetime and did not even think of bringing their camera?

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3. Yes, my friend and I bought a lot of souvenirs. Well, Linda had to buy something for everybody she knows: lucky woman. She is surrounded by people who actually would kill her if she went to the Wait Wait taping without bringing home something for them.

Me? Not so lucky. Probably would have been more like a taunt if I gave my co-worker Idiot America by Charlie Pierce.

“Awesome! This is like Disneyland for Liberals!” I exclaimed with 100% sincerity.

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4. I stumbled forward when it was my turn to talk to Peter Sagal.

“Hi. I brought my own sharpie! This is like Disneyland for the Liberals!!! Ha ha ha.”

Peter. Silence. He might have raised his eyebrow.

“Who is this book for?”

“ME!” I might have squeed. Definitely giggled. A lot.

Peter. Silence. He might have raised his eyebrow.

“May I take a picture of you?” I added, out of breath, “I’ll just Photoshop myself in later.”

Bad habit of mine: pathological need to be funny when I am nervous.

Peter. Silence. He did give my phone a great smile.

Peter Sagal. THAT is a smile, right?

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5. Although Peter Sagal was my fangirl fanmatron crush, it was beyond cool to see Carl Kasell in person.

It was surreal to WATCH Carl introducing Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me…

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6. Carl, as I had imagined, was very gentlemanly and very gracious. While I was getting an autograph from Carl, Charlie Pierce said in his booming voice, “Somebody here must have done some shopping!” I looked up just as he noticed his book in my arm.

“Good. Let me come over and sign that book for you!”

Yipeee! In my mind, I jumped up and down while clapping my hands.

“I am sure Carl and I can multitask!” Charlie said, as he took the book from me.

“Would you mind if I take a picture of both of ya together? I’ll just Photoshop myself in later…”

Serisouly, dude. Enough with the stupid joke already…

“Sure. I don’t think Carl and I have ever had our pictures taken together before!”

“Cool! I hope this does not mean [insert failed attempt at coming up with some apocalyptic phenomenon to show how witty I was in front of friggin’ Carl Kesell and Charlie Pierce. Smooth. Very smooth].”

Carl & Charlie. Together. Squee!

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7. I lurv Charlie Pierce. Even more so after I read the introduction to his book, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free.

Actually he had me at the title of his book. But oh wow, the blurb for this book made me cry out YES YES YES!

The Culture Wars Are Over and the Idiots Have Won.

A veteran journalist’s acidically funny, righteously angry lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States.

With Idiot America, Pierce’s thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated.

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Charlie walked over to the other end of the auditorium when he learned that he hasn’t signed Linda’s copy. With Linda there, I finally had the courage to ask to have my picture taken with my crush.

“Do you want me to send you the picture?”

“Sure!”

“Give me your address so I can send it to you! Ha ha.”

Oh, I am having a heart attack remembering this while I type. Ugh.

Charlie had his arms on both of us. Squee!

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8. Although the taping is live, the show when aired will have already been edited. It’s very interesting to watch them doing the retakes.

This clip shows Carl doing a retake of “GGGGOOOOAAAALLLLL” in honor of World Cup.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zaBx9R2Yk8

It is unfortunate that I failed to successfully record and save the first “GGGOOOOAAAAALLLL” Carl did. He must have gone on for longer than a minute  (It felt like forever) and the audience was screaming and whooping and pumping our fists (Ok, maybe I was the only one that did the fist pumping since the audience was more refined than say at a rock concert…) His face turned red towards the end: I was so worried that he was going to pass out!

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9. Things I would not have learned about Peter Sagal if I were not there on Thursday:

  • He was a snake charmer in Michael Jackson’s video Remember the Time. Unfortunately it was left out of the final cut.
  • Peter DID shake hands with MJ. And, according to Peter, “shared a moment.”
  • He was an extra in Drew Barrymore’s movie Doppelganger in 1993.

Here is the video clip (taken with my Blackberry so apology for poor quality) of Peter disclosing his stellar resume in the entertainment industry.

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10. Paula Poundstone was the funniest. And the most gracious. For starters, Paula said matter-of-factly, “Listen to three kids whine” when asked what she will be doing this summer.

I am having such a girl crush on her as I relive my “time with her.”

We had to wait to meet Paula Poundstone because she actually talked with every single person that asked for her autograph. When it was my turn, the excitement of the night has made me completely lose my mind. I could not stop laughing.

She wrote,

Lin, May things always strike you funny. Love.

For 24 hours I have been replaying our exchange frame by frame, tormenting myself, wondering whether she thought I LAUGHED too much. Now I saw the word, “LOVE”. I am just going to take it literally. Paul loves me. Period. Life can go on again.

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11. Linda wanted the book to be for her mother-in-law, so Paula wrote,

Linda kept on yelling out things about you during the show.

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12. Linda told Paula her name is “Lin-da”, so I said, “And I went without the Duh,” which took Paula by surprise. She paused, thought about it, and chuckled.

PAULA POUNDSTONE LAUGHED AT MY STUPID JOKE!

BOO-YAH!

Did I tell you I have developed a crush on Paula?

When in doubt, complain about your spouse…

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I have nothing.

Tis 3 am 4 am on Sunday morning, I am supposed to have published a post on Saturday to meet the NaBloMoFo objective: Guess. One post every day. I have only three more posts to go. For someone who has not filled out a journal past page 10 since, eh, ever, I am actually quite proud of myself for having come this far. Yet, I have nothing. Is it possible to have Writer’s Block when you are technically not a writer? How bad you ask? So bad that I am humming this in my head …

Now THAT is bad, huh. You believe me now?

This brings me to present you with yet another filler post called…

Things My Husband Said that But for the Mercy of god My Children Didn’t Become Orphans with One Parent in Jail…

Scene 1

I suffer from severe morning [sic] sickness. So severe that as soon as I started heaving, I knew I was pregnant with Mr. Monk even before I peed on a stick, that I lost 10 lbs. in the first two weeks in my first pregnancy and almost 20 lbs., in my second pregnancy, that I practically lived by the toilet throughout the entire pregnancy, that I did not stop involuntary vomiting till Mr. Monk was born, that I felt I was starved for nine months and made the mistake of making it up by gaining weight after the pregnancy when clearly I should have done it the other way around…

This is not about how my husband took it upon himself to name the toilet The Porcelain Throne, as in “She is worshiping the Porcelain Throne again.”

On our way back from a routine checkup, after the doctor reassured me that my rapid weight loss during the first trimester was not endangering the baby especially since it happened the exact same way with my first born, my husband claimed that he had a theory about WHY I AM PUKING MY GUTS OUT, and also about WHY I AM HAVING IT TOUGHER THE SECOND TIME AROUND.

“Oh, really?” I was curious. With sincerity.

“How much did you weigh when we first met?”

“Hmm. 155 lbs. I think.”

“So when you were pregnant with [the oldest], you were like what? 165 maybe?”

“Yes…” I don’t care who you are or what kind of solid-fortress relationship you have got going there. Nothing good is going to come out of a pontification on a woman’s weight by her husband. Nothing.

He got really excited now. “You see. You lost about 10 lbs. in two weeks right? So you quickly got down to your ideal weight.”

“Ok…” Again. Nothing good is going to come out of the said husband mentioning the word ideal weight. Nothing.

“You were a lot heavier before you were pregnant this time, right?… [Mulling it over] You were like 180 lbs. no?”

Oh. For the love of god. Please see my comment above.

Taking a deep breath, I corrected him, “No. I was like 172. TOP!”

“Well, but you WERE heavier.” He got more excited because he could see his theory was going to be proven. Soon.

“Fine.” Heh heh. We all know what THAT means.

“So you see, this is the NATURE’s way to get you down to your ideal weight as soon as possible, again.”

He didn’t say it, but I could hear the “Ta da!” in his voice. Unfortunately, he was NOT joking. This was for him a scientific theory. Or, at least, A theory. I could SEE the words forming in 3-D gigantic block letters. With Jazz hands.

TA-DA!

 

“So… are you saying that I am throwing up because I am FAT? I am FATTER so I throw up MORE?”

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In case you are wondering, NO, I did not murder him right then and there. No, I did not divorce him either.

My apology to all the foremothers before me that have fought for our liberation. My apology also for the fact that there is not going to be a SCENE 2. I thought there was going to be but I ran out of steam. I am now all indignant all over again. And as you know, indignation drains your energy faster than an amorous vampire bite.

As a consolation prize, here is a short vignette of Things My Husband Said… in case you haven’t got enough of this Tomfoolery Jackassery:

 

“What does NaBloPoMo mean?”

“It means National Blog Posting Month.”

“Huh?”

“*sigh* It means I have to write a post on my blog every single day for the month of November.”

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“Do you know, *cough*, that December is NaBloJoMo?”

Nice try.

No dice.

There should be a law against laziness… (Wo)man up, Award Time!

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On 17 October 2009, the lovely Jane over at They Call Me Jane temporarily lost her mind and shared with me another award that she just won.  It is displayed below as Exhibit 1 Exhibit 2:

Kreativ Blogger Award

If I don’t end up in the nut house, it is partly because the love and support from a stranger, who no longer feels like a stranger any more, and her name is Jane.  I am not saying this because Jane has given me two awards.  Two awards!  That’s got to count as something, right?! She is one of the most level-headed, fair, rational, understanding, sensitive, thoughtful, and wisest people I have come to know through this thing invented by Al Gore. Her blog is like a fresh breath of air: a thinking blog that does not put your to sleep.  And the most important thing is?  She is REAL.  She is NOT pretentious.  She is naturally cool without having to say one single cuss word.

At this point, after reading her blog on a nearly daily basis, Jane can say nothing wrong in my book.  If she says, one day, and this is purely hypothetical, people, that she is actually a bunny killer, Imma gonna guess it is the bunnies’ fault.  Just sayin.

It took me more than 2 weeks to officially “accept” this award because I have to come up with 7 random things about me.  I guess nothing X-rated is allowed…  And you all know, at least those who have read my blog on a semi-regular basis (i.e. more than 3 times in the past 6 months), that I am Asian, more specifically, Chinese.  There goes my Number 1 through Number 3: Hi, surprise! I am Asian/Chinese. I can speak/read/write Chinese. I like rice. (I DO! DAMN IT!).

Ok.  Here it goes, in no particular order:

  1. I am secretly obsessed with angels.  As in, I believe in them.  Or, I strongly wish they are/were real, even though I am not Christian. I envision them to be the angels in Wim Wender’s “Wings of Desire” (Der Himmel über Berlin). NOT the Nicolas Cage one. Oh, god, no.
  2. I am agnostic because I am too cowardly to make up my mind.  I want to have my cake and eat it too.
  3. I am a classic insecure overachiever.  Psychotic.  A bit bi-polar.  I guess I should have added these to my “About” page. Oh well.
  4. Laziness and fear of embarrassment are the driving forces of my life.
  5. I played Lizzie Borden in a play when I was in graduate school.  In fact, I played a few other homicidal characters, including Hamlet and one of the women in “Unfinished Women Cry in No Man’s Land While a Bird Dies in a Gilded Cage” who gets to wield an ICE PICK!  (I was totally typecast, I suspected…)
  6. Being on stage was the only times when I felt completely free.  I miss that feeling with a heartache, barely noticeable except during the night, when I am writing to nobody.  Like now.
  7. I also played Billy the Kid (adapted from Michael Ondaatje’s book) and I had the best lines in my acting career:

After shooting Gregory
this is what happened

I’d shot him well and careful
made it explode under his heart
so it wouldn’t last long
was about to walk away
when this chicken paddles out to him
and as he was falling hops on his neck
digs the beak into his throat
straightens legs and heaves
a red and blue vein out

Meanwhile he fell
and the chicken walked away

still tugging at the vein
till it was 12 yards long
as if it held that body like a kite
Gregory’s last words being

get away from me yer stupid chicken

I am kind of depressed now because I just realized that none of these things that I have shared with you I share with my co-workers after more than 5 years working together, in a very small office space.  Because I don’t think they are interested in hearing about it.

Without further ado, I am going to pass this award along to….   Drum roll please…

Tomatoes on the Vine

Velva’s food/cooking blog is more than that.  She genuinely believes in the simple ritual of sharing a meal as the way we create and maintain a community.  Besides, it is always yummy to look at the photos.

booshy

On her blog, Jessica comes up with ideas.  Lots and lots of ideas.  I honestly cannot tell you what her blog is about.  But I enjoy reading her ramblings.  They make me smile.  Her latest “scheme” is to get everybody to come up with a “I am thankful for” list and send it to her before November 24.  So why not?!

Life is Not a Movie

I think Robin is a bit insane.  I said that with affection and as a compliment.  She is a woman of many talents: a radio show, a photography blog, and who knows what else.  Warning: She is an avid Kevin Spacey fan.  So don’t say anything bad about Kevin. Or introduce yourself as Mrs. Spacey.  I never know what to expect when I click on her blog every day.  But it is always a nice surprise.

My Wildlife’s Words

Jennifer Lynn is a wildlife biologist. Seriously, I’d never thought I would meet someone in that line of business.  She is saving the earth for all of us!  And her observations of life are full of interesting perspectives that will make you go, How come I’ve never thought of it that way?  (Well, you would have if you were a wildlife biologist.  And if you are, do let me know!  I’d never thought I would meet TWO!)  She is probably going to protest and say, “I don’t write about THAT topic on a regular basis.  It was an one-off special edition. Limited time only.”  But her post on Elk Vagina, yup, you read that correctly, is educational and hilarious.

Where Insulin Meets Insolence

Lynn is a great writer.  She has a great way with words.  And metaphors.  (Well, duh, all great writers are good at these things.  This is why I am not a good writer).  This post is one of my all-time favorites: Four on the Floor.  I think she should publish some of her essays.  They are that good.  This is her personal blog where she can be, well, “insolent”.  Her essays are over at “I have measured out my lives in MP3s”.