Category Archives: random

Fall

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Pumpkin spice latte is back!

I am not ashamed to admit that every year I look forward to the arrival of fall because of this.

I have been waiting for fall... partly because of this.

You have heard this a million and one times, I am sure. But fall really is my favorite season.

Despite the annoying process of reorganizing my clothes and shoes according to the change in season. This year I think I am going to be honest with myself and get rid of the pile of clothes that I have mentally labeled as “Keep for when I am back to my pre-kid weight”. If it has not happened yet after thirteen years, it probably ain’t gonna happen.

 

I went to bed at almost 4 am and when I woke up at 8, I still had Amy Winehouse on my mind. Her voice is haunting.

 

I need to make a confession: (Because it is funny in a tragic, pathetic kind of way. And also because I believe somewhere out there, someone is going to read this and go, “O.M.G. I thought I was the only one that did that! I can now finally stop feeling guilty!”. Or so I hope. You are welcome. And feel free to pretend so I feel better about the whole thing and can finally stop feeling guilty. Thank You!)

Last Wednesday, I took my usual 6:30 train home and when I got into my car and started driving towards the TKD school to pick up Mr. Monk, it was already 7:15. I had been listening to, yes, sorry, here she is again, Amy Winehouse on repeat, when the screen on my phone flashed, indicating an incoming call. It was not a number that I knew so I decided to ignore it. I mean, who actually calls people now, right?

Here is the thing: whenever I listen to music, I get lost in it. I really really do. That’s probably the point of good music to begin with, and probably happens to everybody so yeah you are probably smirking. But I mean I forget everybody else. Including my kids. I forget that I am a mother. A wife. A cog in the machine. I am just me. Enveloped in the sound and the beat. Me alone with myself. In my mind, I am doing all sorts of interpretive dance to the music, often in a way BEFORE incongruity is detected.

When the phone “rang” (how many phones nowadays that still actually ring?) for the third time, I decided to answer it.

“Mom?”

“Who’s this?” I actually forgot that I have a kid.

“It’s me.”

“Who?”

“Name withheld for protection.”

Oh, right. My son. My youngest child.

Oh shit. Something must have happened since TKD did not end till 7:30. Any time you get a phone call from your child, there is trouble at hand. They don’t really call you just to find out how you are doing until they become parents themselves.

“Where are you?! What happened?!”

“I am at gymnastics.”

At this moment I became completely disoriented because my oldest is the one that has gymnastics practices. Did I get my children mixed up? What’s happening to me?

“Why are you at gymnastics?” I was genuinely confused.

“You told me to come find brother if you don’t show up at the choir practice…”

I had completely forgotten that he had choir practice every Wednesday and I was supposed to pick him up at 6:45 pm. At 6:45 pm, I was still on the train! Just like that. Forgot about my child. A black hole opened up in my memory and he fell through it.

 

The feeling that you have in your gut when you suddenly realize you have forgot to pick up your child from somewhere?

 

Body and Soul. I want to break free.

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My favorite album of all time is A Night at the Opera by Queen. On some days I would simply listen to the whole album over and over again when I am driving. Volume turned way high. Windows down. (And yes, it helps me imagine myself as a badass. Why?)

On some nights, I prowl through YouTube, watching Freddie Mercury, and cry.

I wish I’ve had the chance to see him perform live on stage.

The regret gnaws at me and that’s why I am obsessively staring at the screen, daring him to come back to live.

Tonight I am specifically obsessed with I Want to Break Free. I have just been staring at this picture for about 5 minutes. And it is 1 am now. Yeah, I know. I need help.

 

 

Another person lately that’s been making me really really sad and mad at the same time is Amy Winehouse. When I am not replaying the A Night at the Opera CD in my car, I am listening to her Back to Black.  I cannot get enough of the rawness in her voice. When she sang, (and yes it’s a cliche) she poured her entire self into it, she did not hold back. Perhaps that was why she was so lost at the end. The tepid air was conjured into a torrent of emotions. Here’s little old me, listening to the breaking in her voice as I hit the repeat button over and over, cursing at her for getting herself killed at the age of 27.

With a talent so vast as hers, it’s almost like her cross to bear to give us more. To give us all.

As I watched most of the videos of her live concerts though, it soon became obvious that she was lost, in pain. In some she could not even remember the lyrics. Such talent. It’s heart-breaking. It makes listening to her songs a multi-faceted exercise.

Fortunately, there is this new video of Tony Bennett singing Body and Soul with her that hints at the joy she must have felt (when she could) from being able to create beauty such as this.

 

This is 100% random rambling. Tis 2:30 am now. I have been suffering from severe allergy attack this week. I cannot breathe. I am probably delirious and hallucinating.

Oh how I wish I could watch Freddie live on stage. This is going on my Bucket List. So you know, I will go through life without being able to cross off all items on my bucket list. So be it.

A Reason as Good as Any

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Conversations that happened yesterday…

(Proving that thank goodness I work fulltime so I don’t spend too much time talking to my kids…)

 

[On the way to lunch]

13-year-old: My friend is jealous. He thinks we have the coolest license plate ever! [Be rest assured: It is dorky.]

8-year-old: Oh, mom, we should keep this car forever so we can keep our license plate.

13-year-old: Dummy. We can keep our license plate even when we have a new car.

Me: Actually they have made the rule so that people can pass down their license plates to their kids.

8-year-old: You mean when you die, we can have the license plate?! Cool!

Me (failing to be concerned by his excitement):  Actually you two will probably fight over it. We need to get another cool license plate.

[A lengthy discussion ensued regarding what other cool (and equally dorky) license plate we could get]

[At the restaurant]

Me: Ugh. I forgot my ring… Speaking of my ring. I need to update my will. Now that I have lost both my engagement ring and my wedding ring, I no longer have anything to pass down to you.

13-year-old: Nice job, mom!

8-year-old: You mean you have written down what we are getting when you die? When you die, do we get everything?

Me: Technically, no. When a person dies, and if they’re married, their spouse would get everything. That’s how most people set up their wills. Oh, remember that Mr. Monk episode? (Yeah, we are polite to fictional TV characters) Remember the guy had to pretend that his father died after his stepmother? They both already had kids when they got married. The husband left his son everything; the wife left his daughters everything. The man actually died before his wife, so the son would have lost everything. That’s why he went through the trouble to make sure that people think his stepmother died after before his dad.

[Pause while the boys digested the twisted plot line]

8-year-old: Can you do me a favor? Can you and dad never get a divorce so this thing won’t get so complicated?

 

Porn for Women

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You can say that I have given up on attracting more male readers… Since I am of the Drastic Measure type of bitches: It is All or Nothing to me, I have decided to actively repel men*, esp. the straight kind. Let’s go all the way, baby!

 

This is a real book.

The Cambridge Women’s Pornography Cooperative asked women, young, old, rich, and poor, “What really, really gets you hot?” Armed with their findings, they worked day and night to create Porn for Women.

(Granted, the book should have been more accurately titled “Porn for Straight Women”… And some of the things attributed to the men/actors are plainly condescending, if not insulting, to women IMO, such as “Ooh Look! The NFL Playoffs are today. I bet we’ll have no trouble parking at the craft’s fair.”…  At any rate, I hope you all get the chuckle or drool out of these…)

 

Some choice pornographic photos from the book:

 

I found the following on Flickr:

(This one, to me, is more about fairness: Yup. If you make the mess, you clean up the mess. IMO, most men that claim they love to cook do not have to clean up the pots and pans afterwards. If they had to clean up afterwards, they would not have used three pots to cook one dish!)

 

 

 

As Liz Lemon would say:

I want to go to there.

 

 

* I understand that this is an affectatious** statement: by claiming that I am actively repelling men, I am implying that otherwise they would have visited this blog in drones. It’s like I prefer to think to myself that people dislike me because 1) they are racists, 2) they hate my gut. The truth is, I am deeply aware of this, they probably simply dislike me because they dislike me.

** The use of the word “affectatious” is itself ironically affectatious.***

*** The fact that I pointed the above out is an act of affectation.

**** And so on, and so forth.

***** I don’t really worry about the fact that I have few male readers. In order to prove myself to you, I will talk about menstrual cycles next.

****** Why is “MEN” in the word “MENstrual”?

******* Come to think of it, I think Elly has beat me to it [i.e. talking about menstrual cycles] with this video she posted on her blog called “Her First Period”.

******** I really should turn my footnotes into a separate blog post. And I am writing my footnotes before I write the post proper, and am having more fun doing this.

******** Do people even read these footnotes?

Just sit down and relax, honey.

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I heard this study that was published this May on the radio today. The headline is:

Men relax best when wives are doing housework chores!

 

My first question was: How is it possible that I did not hear about this until now?! Is the Universe conspiring to keep this earth-shattering news from me?

You are probably thinking: “I need a study to tell me this?” I know. But it is always nice to have your suspicion confirmed by rigorous scientific research.

For starters, the researchers “measured stress hormones and daily activities”, specifically, they “sampled saliva repeatedly to measure cortisol, which increases in stressful situations”, a most objective measurement: so there is no arguing that women only feel more stressed because they bitch about everything and they CARE MORE about whether the dishes are done, the laundry is folded, and the floor is not covered with random objects.

The study was done with researchers observing “30 dual-earner couples in Los Angeles, each with at least one child ages 8-10. Most had two or three children. The average marriage was 13 years and the average age was 41… Over four days, two weekend days and two weekdays, researchers tracked activities at 10-minute intervals.”

And here are the highlights of their findings:

  • For women, healthier cortisol levels resulted when their husbands spent more time pitching in on housework
  • For husbands, more leisure time was linked with healthier cortisol when their wives spent more time doing house-related work and less time in leisure.
  • Men, when they come back home, tend to be alone in a room.
  • Women, when get back home, tend to be with one or more children doing childcare.
  • When women are alone, they tend to be doing housework; When men are alone, they tend to be relaxing.

(Note that none of these families have YOUNG CHILDREN. I can only imagine the discrepancy to be even more skewed between men and women were babies and toddlers present in these households studied)

 

You know what? All my feminist sisters could throw banana peels at me. I am not outraged by the research findings at all. Nope.  Au contraire!

I. AM. ELATED.

Why?

Because I am going to remember this research next time I hear about some other woman talking about how her husband pitches in, 50-50, and then I will not secretly hide in the bathroom and cry.

Because I am normal. I am NOT alone. I am part of the statistics. Part of the cogs that make up normalcy. Like the common stock photos showing a man reading newspaper while his wife vacuums and him lifting his legs up for the vacuum out of consideration.

Kapow! Woohoo! I am doing a happy dance while I survey the disaster zone that is our house and also my weekend project. (If you call housework a PROJECT, you feel more accomplished and less housewifery…)

 

It is truly a relief to know I am simply part of the normalcy.

 

Why not?

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I sometimes wonder why I have not become an alcoholic.

I like myself better when I am just a little bit drunk. Like now.

The state of knowing that you are drunk, knowing that perhaps you should not have leaned out the car window and shouted at the guy across the street but you could not help it. Because it felt like the right thing to do. When you are simultaneously listening to the angel and the devil sitting on your shoulders: The should and the should not. And you are just buzzed enough that you listen to the devil even though otherwise you would have listened to the angel.

The devil asks the right question:

WHY NOT?

 

The WHY NOT. Yup. That is the one.

That is the question that gets to you when you are just the right amount of drunk, isn’t it?

Perhaps I should not have allowed the kids to run around all over the carnival on their own after dark. Nor should I have allowed them to have unlimited intake of sugar.

Perhaps I should not have jumped up and down and WHOOP! when your very interesting friend suggested that you all go to her boyfriend’s bar in the downtown area of Small Town, USA, now that the carnival is closing.

Perhaps I should not have agreed to bring all the kids to the bar now that it is past 9:30 in the evening.

Perhaps I should not have the first vodka+cranberry since I have had 3 drinks at the carnival already.

Perhaps I should not have allowed the kids to play pool and darts at a bar, complete with local townsfolk, drunk and otherwise.

Perhaps I should not have tried to engage the drunk man at the bar who said more than once that he was going to dance on the bar.

Perhaps I should not have mentioned the song Tiny Dancer to the man when he started talking about his little buddy Joe, who was invisible (but of course), that he took out from his pocket and put on the bar and whose sneakers the man asked your more-than-alarmed girlfriend to hold on to.

Perhaps I should not have found the man amusing. Or agreed with the man that Tiny Joe existed.

Perhaps I should not have my second drink. Or the third.

Or talked to the regulars in the bar. All of them were regulars, except us, of course, the way a bar in Small Town, USA is.

This was a place I would not have walked into if I were sober.

These were the people, the Small Town USA people, I would not have the courage to interact with (hey, stereotypes go both ways) if I were sober.

But why not?

So I did.

 

Never for a moment was I not self-conscious of the strangeness of me being inside the local bar where the real Americans, as Sarah Palin likes to claim those who are her people, hang out. But why not?

 

As I became the responsible adult and told The Husband that we needed to leave and bring the kids home, I found two of the bar patrons sitting on the sidewalk next to our car.

Hey. Is the midget going home now?

One of them, some guy that had a friendly conversation with me about Queen and David Bowie and Freddie Mercury and Under Pressure, pointed to my 8-year-old and joked.

Why not?

Oh yes. They are all midgets and that’s why they have the right to be at the bar at this hour. You know, we do not practice prejudices against midgets here.

His friend who just told me that he’s not had a break from working 16-hour days for over a month and is finally having a day off tomorrow sighed.

Isn’t this place just turning into San Francisco now? Are you telling me that we are becoming like San Francisco now?

I paused because I thought I’d misheard. He continued,

It is becoming more and more like San Francisco. I personally could burn a few buildings down in this town.

At this point I was no longer as drunk as I had thought.

Hey, it is the Fourth of July. We are celebrating freedom and independence! Come on. You said you will have tomorrow off!

The guy took a sip of his beer.

Yeah. I am just going to drink more and more and get saltier and saltier.

His friend raised his eyebrow and chuckled at the word,

Salty?

He took yet another sip and frowned.

Yes. Salty.

By  now it was almost midnight and  The Husband has got into the car with our kids and the other boys we were bringing home for a sleepover. (Why not?) I got into the car. As the car spun around, I leaned out the window and yelled,

Happy Fourth of July! Cheer up!

The man looked up, still grouchy, and yelled back,

Goodbye Sweetheart.

(Yes. Of course. The Husband made a motion to indicate that he was going to throw up upon hearing the word “Sweetheart”)

 

As I am still buzzed and am Blogging Under the Influence. I do not think there is any moral to this story. This is of course not a social commentary since I failed to confront the man. I simply needed to share. That is all.

On the other hand, how drunk could I be if I am 1) typing on a computer, 2) all the time thinking I need to go and clean the bathrooms because my mother-in-law is coming tomorrow and I have to leave home early for a 9 am meeting at work.

Later gator.

Happy Father’s Day! Really. I mean it.

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At 11:50pm, both boys were still awake. Hey, no judging! Summer vacation…

Mr Monk, my 8 year old: *sigh* In 10 minutes, I cannot be mean to dad any more.

Me: Oh, you are right. It will be Father’s Day.

Him: (Shrugs) Well, enjoy it while it lasts!

Me: (Thinking to myself) That’s what she said!

Best. Baby. Book. Ever. Go the Fuck to Sleep!

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Just admit it. You've wanted to say this many many times...

 

I got something from The Husband last night. Something I believe that will allow him to forget my birthday this year. Honey, you are already forgiven!

THE best baby book ever. Really. If you know someone who just had a baby, or who is going to have a baby, RUN, don’t walk, and order this book for them. They will love you for it.

And it is possible that you may be saving their sanity.

If you have gone through this, the so-called sleep training, you probably have said this, nay, SCREAMED this inside your head, many many time.

WHY won’t you just SHUT THE FUCK UP and GO TO SLEEP?!

Yeah. That.

Then you probably felt guilty for screaming inside your head at your kid.

Yeah. That too.

Well, I hope this book will help absolve the sense of guilt you feel from time to time. No. You are not alone in feeling this way.

The Husband and I also really bounded overnight by staging dramatic readings of this book. I have to say, he did an awesome job in expressing the frustration. I did not realize he’s a method actor esp. when he was saying all the F word in his reading. Very convincing. Mine? Not so much.

 

Just when I thought this could not have been even more awesomer. Guess what? They have an audio version of this. Professionally done of course. Go ahead and guess who is the narrator.

Guess!

Ok. Fine. I will give you a hint.

Get out of here! Right? For real? For realz.

 

 

 

Dear Internet, I love you. That is all.

Now… for THE. BEST. THING. THAT’S. HAPPENED. ON. THE. INTERNET. Since yesterday when the world was given NPH’s opening number at the Tony Award.

Now, you know what I am going to say right?

Yup. Imma gonna go the fuck to sleep myself.

Fuck Yeah Neil Patrick Harris

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Tony Awards.

As a quote unquote Theatre Person (Notice how I spell Theatre the “wrong” way? Yeah, that’s the sign I AM a theatre person) who nevertheless has been living so far away from the epicenter of theatrical creativity aka NYC, I always find Tony Awards a bitter sweet event. Wishing does not bring about peace. Let me just put it this way. Still, once in a year, I bask in the glory, vicariously through television broadcast and now more than ever YouTube, of the community of thespians.

I will shut up now so you could watch the opening performance at the Tony Awards last night. NPH. “Broadway: It’s not just for gays anymore!” FUCK YEAH AWESOME!

 

 

 

Tru dat! And while we are at it, shouldn’t somebody go and sign him up to host the next Oscar now too?!  Oh, what am I saying? Just sign him up for everything already!

 

p.s. I have to thank Brahm for posting this video first!

Spitting Blood

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I am sitting here trying to catch up on the million things people just piled on my desk with a pool of blood in my mouth.

I don’t know why but I keep on thinking of Brat Pitt from Fight Club.

I don’t remember whether he lost any tooth inside the Fight Club or not. I guess you really cannot talk about it. But I just lost a tooth. So I win.

I did have my oral surgery today. All I remember now is:

  1. I was worried that I would have to be like Liz Lemon from the Valentine’s Day episode and pretend I actually had a ride home. I did. My babysitter came through.
  2. The doctor put the needle not very gently in 3 different places before he was able to draw blood.
  3. The doctor not very gently used something with very hard bristles all over my gum which made me, mind you, I did not cry once during my root canal in March, cry quite a few times. “Are you sure I am supposed to be feeling this pain? Am I not supposed to be sleeping now as you kept on telling me?”
  4. The doctor kept on yelling, “Open your mouth. I cannot see anything!” and complaining, “You have a very small mouth.”
  5. I restrained myself from laughing out loud and saying, “Tell my husband about it.”
  6. I woke up from a dreamless nap which I thought was only 30 minutes, but 2 hours had already passed.
  7. I felt around my mouth with my tongue and my tooth was gone.
  8. The doctor failed to volunteer any information to me. I had to yell, “Can I ask you some questions?” in my groggy state from my chair for him to come into the room. “So what did you do today?” And he told me to take it easy, one thing at a time. I fucking want to know what he’s going to do with that big giant hole in my mouth. He told me to wait until I see him again next week and we can talk about it.
  9. I checked my phone and saw an IM from my boss asking for something that he has never asked me to do, knowing also that I was going under the knife today, actually, at that specific hour. I fired back with enough bitchiness probably never has been heard from me before.
  10. The tooth that was taken out was the same tooth that has undergone the root canal not too long ago. And the salt that was added to the wound? I have just paid for the crown for it. It’s like renovating your house right before they decide to demolish it.

What the fucking fuck?!

 

Ok. I need the Silverlining Man to the rescue…

  1. I now have an official diagnosis from a medical professional that I do indeed have a very small mouth. Here is a note from the doctor, honey.
  2. I cannot eat hard food for the next week. Here is the same note from the same doctor, honey. Eh, I mean, I will probably be able to lose my tummy fat (yes I know this is kind of contradictory to my previous Rah Rah post about Ruby the Anti-Barbie…)
  3. I will probably finally put my Vitamix to good use. Bacon smoothie anyone?
  4. The doctor did NOT say that alcohol is not allowed.
  5. I am still walking in Cloud 9 because of this episode from yesterday…

When I was waiting for a taxi to come by outside the office building yesterday, a truck made a U Turn and stopped in the middle of the street. The guy on the passenger side poked his head out of the window and yelled at me,

“You are really attractive. Wow. Really really attractive.”

Mind you, he did not use the word HOT. Or SEXY. Or GORGEOUS. Or BEAUTIFUL. And I was not showing any cleavage. In fact I was wearing a plain black t-shirt.

I thanked him for making my day. I believe I may have even curtsied when I thanked him. I am still thinking it was probably a bet, or a random act of kindness, or candid camera, or Punk’d.

I am just glad he saw me yesterday and not today.

 

Ok. Got to go and spit out the blood that’s almost overflowing inside my puffed cheeks.

TMI?

Definitely.

But you like it, right?