Things You Should Read

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Instead of reading my blog, here are two things I came across today that you should read over the weekend:

From the New York Times, A Gay Former N.B.A. Player Responds to Kobe Bryant, by John Amaechi, who in 2007 was the first NBA player to come out. We have all heard that Kobe called a referee in the heat of an argument the F-word. Many came to his support, claiming that it’s just the way the Sports World, the good ol’ boys club works. Mr. Amaechi begged to differ, in a rational, respectful and persuasive voice.

Here is a quote from the very powerful, and may I say, surprisingly well-written (yes, I have my bias against people in sports. SORRY!) article:

Many people balk when L.G.B.T. people, even black ones, suggest that the power and vitriol behind another awful slur — the N-word — is no different from the word used by Kobe. I make no attempt at an analogy between the historical civil rights struggle for blacks in the United States with the current human rights struggle for L.G.B.T. people, but I can say that I am frequently called both, and the indignation, anger and at times resignation that course through my body are no greater or less for either. I know with both words the intent is to let me know that no matter how big, how accomplished, philanthropic or wise I may become, to them I am not even human.

 

 

With a title 9 Things The Rich Don’t Want You To Know About Taxes, how can you not be intrigued? Unless of course you are this guy:

The "NEW" GE way indeed...

These are the 9 secrets:

1. Poor Americans do pay taxes.
2. The wealthiest Americans don’t carry the burden.
3. In fact, the wealthy are paying less taxes.
4. Many of the very richest pay no current income taxes at all.
5. And (surprise!) since Reagan, only the wealthy have gained significant income.
6. When it comes to corporations, the story is much the same—less taxes.
7. Some corporate tax breaks destroy jobs.
8. Republicans like taxes too.
9. Other countries do it better.

Charts and numbers galore!

I love spam comments as much as I love Hallmark cards. Until I realize they don’t mean it

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I know many of you have written about spam comments lately. Like the piracy industry, the spamming industry gets smarter and smarter each time we retch up our defense against it. I have been observing the improvement in quality in the spam comments I have been receiving and been amazed by how much I could learn from them.

Seriously. I have always had a hard time composing comments that go beyond, “AWESOME!” “I LOVE YOU!” “*LIKE*” and “Where is the *LIKE* button?” and “*LOVE*”.

I said all these things from my heart every time. And in all fairness (to me!) there is no reason why I would stop loving your posts so why should I stop saying “I love you!” just because I say it too many times? But sometimes I was indeed worried that you all may be a bit tired of these recycled comments and accused me of being lazy.

Below are some ACTUAL spam comments I have received that made me go, “Awww. Somebody loves me.” And then immediately when I realized I was being duped, “WTF?! So they did not really mean it? They just want me to go look for their puppy inside their van with them? Asshole!”

Here’s my theory: someone, or rather, some people from Hallmark are moonlighting as Spammers. Read the following heart-felt praises bestowed on this blog and tell me it is not plausible…

Let’s start with some short yet very sweet comments: (Are you ready with pen and paper to take notes?)

Excellent post I must say.. Simple but yet interesting and engaging.. Keep up the awesome work

Very nice and helpful information has been given in this article. I like the way you explain things. Keep posting. Thanks.

Thanks for sharing. Sharing is caring after all.

 

Then there are the comments where they are so grateful for the information they found here:

This is a smart blog. I mean it. You have so much knowledge about this issue, and so much passion. You also know how to make people rally behind it, obviously from the responses. Youve got a design here thats not too flashy, but makes a statement as big as what youre saying. Great job, indeed.

This is actually my first time here, really good looking blog. I discovered a lot of fascinating stuff within your blog particularly it’s discussion. From all the comments on your articles, it appears like this is really a extremely popular website. Keep up the good work.

I would like to start off by saying, thank you for supplying me with the information I’ve been searching for.I’ve been surfing the internet for three hours searching for it and would have given my right arm if I would have located your site sooner. Not only did I find what I was searching for, but found answers to questions I never even thought to ask myself. Thank you for your wonderful web-site!

I just discovered your web site on yahoo and see that you’ve got some fantastic thoughts in this post. I specifically appreciate the way you’ve been able to stick so very much thought into a relatively short submit (comparitively) which creates it an thoughtful post on your subject. IMHO you put a lot of good information in this submit not having all the filler that most bloggers use just to make their posts appear longer, that is ideal for a gal like me who doesn’t have a lot time cause I’m usually within the go. I often get so frustrated with so many of the final results in the major SE’s due to the fact they frequently seem to mostly be filled with filler content that frequently isn’t quite sensible. If you don’t mind I’m going to add this post and your weblog to my delicious favorites so I can share it with my family. I appear forward to coming back to read your future posts too.

 

Oh how I wish the following comments were really meant for me. “Every other blogs suck. You are the best!”

Too often bloggers take the time to write quality detailed posts like this and people fly back, absorb, and move on. I want to thank you for sharing this in depth knowledge with us. Hope you can keep up your blog and not fall into the 80% who eventually abandon their blog.

What a wonderful blog. I spend hours on the internet reading blogs, about tons of different subjects. I have to first of all give kudos to whoever created your theme and second of all to you for writing what i can only describe as an post. I honestly believe there is a skill to writing articles that only a few posses and frankly you have it. The combination of informative and quality content is definitely extremely rare with the large amount of blogs on the internet.

 

Then there are the “Story-telling” comments with so many details that make me wonder whether some out-of-work screenwriters have also got into this trade as well. I almost wanted to track the spammer down just so I could let them know how much I enjoyed the stories. One of them has got to be titled “Thanks for Lunch”…

I knew I was right. My friend and I placed a bet about which web site was superior. I thought your webpage was much better created, but she believed this post on trendy style ideas was much better. We rounded up 5 family memebers who had not seen either website prior to to read them each more than. Majority chose your site. Thanks for maintaing a great site.

Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!

 

My FAVORITE so far is this comment that made me go, WOW. Honesty is indeed the best policy!

This guy just came right out. Said it like it is. Called a spade a spade.

He is if nothing an honest spammer. You’ve got to respect that.

But the Kitchen Sink

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(This post was written while I was waiting to board my flight)

My flight is at 9:05 pm on a Sunday night. Tonight.

It is really not a surprise to those who have been living in this part of the world for a long time that the weather went straight from Winter to Summer. Forget about that bitch Spring who’s been a no-show anyway. 86 degrees. People were out and about in hot-weather clothing, including sandals and straw hats, as if we were in the more fortunate coastal areas. I HAD to take the kids out for a drive. It would have be hubris if we had simply ignored what Nature decided to bestow on us on a whim.

The result is that I had absolutely no time to pack for my business trip. The taxi ended up waiting for me for 10 minutes. Whenever I pack in a hurry, I overpack, almost comically. So now I am sitting here, waiting for my flight while taking stock mentally – since I never have the foresight to NOT put my “unmentionables” on the very top in case any TSA agent decides to ask me to “Please open your luggage right here, ma’am, right in front of the horde eager to distract themselves from the boredom through the security line.”

 

Now I am taking stock of the things that I have packed:

1 lightweight denim jacket – it is supposed to be in the 70s tomorrow

1 trench coat – it is supposed to be in the 30s on Wednesday night

2 ironic shirts from Threadless – I have to work with some software engineers and I need to prove to them that I am more than just a pretty face. (I am saying this IN JEST. Most of them are less than 10 years younger than my 13-year-old… I am however hoping that my matronly presence will prove encouraging…)

my trusted Aerosmith t-shirt – Just in case some of them are into Classic Rocks

1 Banana Republic white dress shirt with French cuffs – In case I need to “Power Suit” it up

1 Boden shirt in bold purple patterns – In case I need to appear to be BOLD and “Think outside the box”

2 black drape-y tops – in case I need to look feminine and young(er) and sexy with my boobs hanging half way out (Will most likely not be used. Again)

4 old t-shirts – in case I decide to, and have time and energy, to work out. Or at least I could sleep in them.

1 NEW pair of workout pants from Costco – My first ever workout pants. So what did I wear before these? I either wear my pajama pants or I go pantless. What? I only work out at home and only when the guilt becomes too much to bear.

1 pair of pajama pants

2 bras – (Do you say “Pairs of bras”? If not, WHY NOT?) so total 3 bras. I am kind of expecting the weather to be hot and I do not like sweaty boobies. ’nuff said.

A handful of undies that I grabbed before I rushed downstairs because the taxi was here

A handful of necklaces (Ditto)

A handful of silk scarves (Ditto) – I like to dress up like a flight attendant. Leave me a alone!

I also have failed to pack SOCKS. And NO running shoes. So much for my good intention of wanting to work out while away on business trip.

I guess those 4 old t-shirts will all be used for sleeping.

If you have been keeping track and doing some mental calculation, you’d notice that it sounded as if I were about to run around town with my bare nekkid behind showing.

What? No mentioning of pants?

PANTS. Ugh.

Now it has become clear to me: I think pants are overrated subconsciously.

For all these various styles of tops, I have only packed one pair of jeans.

Let’s try not to wipe our hands on them, ok?

 

 

 

 

Hubris, Or, How Blogging/Tweeting Makes Everything Seem Funnier

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Hubris.

In case you are worried that all your kind compliments may have given me an ever-expanding ego, No Worries, my friend…

I emailed several of my Annie Lennox+Sabina-From-The-Unbearable-Lightness-Of-Being inspired photos to The Husband. I got one line in response from him:

What are you planning to do with those pictures?

And this came only after I hollered at him across the room, “Hey, you never said anything about those picture I sent you the other day!”

“What pictures? Oh.”

 

Instead of wielding the knife I was holding at that moment, I actually put it down and picked up my iPhod.

 

Being able to channel my wrath this way actually helped me see things in a very different perspective. As soon as I typed it out inside my head, Click click click. THIS IS SOME FUNNY SHIT! I told myself.

Twitter has saved his life so many times if he only knew. I cannot understand why he has a problem with my Twitter obsession…

 

What is a blogger worth if we cannot live what we preach?

The other day I so smugly quoted Frank Wedekind

Any fool can have bad luck; the art consists in knowing how to exploit it.

 

Oh, I thought I was so witty.

Of course disaster struck. In the form of bubbles.

Did you know that Dawn dish washing liquid is blue just like Jet-Dry?

Did you know that the compartment for rinse agent is built into the dishwasher so there is no way to detach the thing when you need to, say, dump whatever was put inside out?

Did you know that adding dish washing liquid into the rinse agent dispenser instead of Jet-Dry is 10 times worse than using it instead of say, Cascade?

Do you like bubbles?

Did you know that it is a futile attempt to scoop out large quantity of bubbles with a bowl because you cannot easily dump them out, so light and fluffy?

 

Did you know that it took at least 20 rinse cycles and a mountain pile of towels to undo the bubble-producing power of Dawn inside the rinse agent dispenser?

 

The ordeal — I did not go to bed until 4 am — was made easier to stomach because the whole time I was thinking, “Wow. I need to turn this into a blog post!” totally channeling Frank Wedekind.

While I was on my hands and knees wiping the bubbles off from the bottom of the dishwasher after the Nth time, I was narrating my actions inside my head. I felt detached. Somehow it made the whole thing funnier. It got even funnier when I envisioned the narrations on silent movie dialog cards.  Soon I was watching myself in a silent movie, accompanied by piano scores, running around, trying to stop the bubbles from oozing out in vain.

 

 

Hilarity ensued.

 

All this video needs is some nice music from the Twilight Zone series…

Narcissus: A Rambling in Four Parts

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I saw these for sale when I made an emergency run for coffee at the store: a dozen for $1.99. I normally do not buy flowers, the same reason I do not make the bed: What’s the point? But I made an impulse purchase that day and I am glad I did. Whenever I pass by them, which is all too frequently since they are sitting on the kitchen table now, a smile pulls into my face. Flowers do that to you. Besides, they are so much cheaper than a diamond necklace.

 

I held out the daffodils the way He-Man pulled out his Power Sword, screaming: “By the power of Narcissus!” Willing Spring the coy bitch to finally show her face.

I did that often when I was young: holding up my umbrella, yelling, “The omnipotent gods, please endow me with the power of miracle!”, the Chinese dubbed version. I harbored this longing to be a super hero, or a swordsman. All of these fantasies involved me cross-dressing incognito. There is a lot of theorizing available behind a cross-dressing story such as HUA Mulan (Don’t say “Fa” please. Use the historically correct pronunciation, in Mandarin…) : being male in appearances somehow signified a path to empowerment and freedom, provided you are not found out.

 

Back to Spring. Or the lack of sighting of that pesky bitch forever running late or simply no-show even after she had RSVP’d when the universe was first created. The sky was dressed in blue and adorned himself with glorious white clouds yesterday, waiting for her.*

Whenever the kids and I see the sky looking like this, we’d say, “Look! The Simpsons!” And we all could hear the intro music to The Simpsons wafting in closer from behind the clouds. Or maybe it’s just me.

 

Back to the lingering thoughts of cross-dressing. Sister Merry Hellish recently wrote a great post on “Men in the corporate culture, their ties, and the women who fight them” aptly titled Sex, Ties and Reconditioning. She had asked several bloggers to send her pictures of themselves wearing a tie, and I am honored to be one of them. You really should click over and read the post. Actually, don’t even worry about finishing this post and leaving me a comment (srly sometimes I wonder what I myself would say if I had to comment on the gibberish coming out of my keyboard…). Just stop and hop over there right now!

As always, assignments of self-portrait stresses me out to no end and I did not pick up the camera until the last minute. In the end though, I had to admit that I had a lot of fun posing with a hat and a tie inside our powder room, holding a camera with my right hand, snapping pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror. I, a 40-year-old woman, was playing dress-up in a tiny bathroom, in the middle of the night, by myself. And I had not even been drinking.

Do you ever wonder now what your parents were doing when you were sleeping back then?

It was really late when I sent SMH my submissions, and I knew she waited up for me so she could work on her post before she went to bed. I continued to play with Picnik.com, or what I like to call, A Woman’s Best Friend. After much cropping (for you could see the toilet in the original picture AND I was wearing a pair of hot pink pajama pants underneath. They were only $5 on sale!), massive editing, and over-applications of effects, I have to say I love how I look in a fedora* and tie.

The funny, and slightly disturbing thing is how often I stare at this picture of myself ever since. I know it is not real: Too much cropping and softening and posterizing effects have been involved. But it makes me feel strong inside when I close my eyes and see myself in a hat and tie thusly. Does that even make any sense?

I hope I can manage to retain this mental image of myself channeling Annie Lennox (who is a very strong outspoken feminist. Yes, she does not deny that she is a feminst) on days when I feel oh so unworthy of working side by side next to all these men around the conference table.

Self: I can’t do this any more. These men think I am an idiot.

Annie Lennox:

You’re a bird in the sky now baby
Earthbound
Feet on the ground

 

 

Today, in a very self-serving way, I am going to declare that we all need a little bit Narcissus in us.

 

 

 

* On second thought, I guess we can’t blame Lady Spring for not showing up this weekend after all since blue tux & white ruffles combo inadvertently conjures up the image of Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber…

* The fedora actually belongs to Mr. Monk, my 8 year old. I now am convinced that every man and woman should own a fedora.

 

Can’t Hardly Wait

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Some random associations from a picture I took this Sunday.

Budding.

Can’t hardly wait.

Spring Awakening.

Frank Wedekind

Frank Wedekind who in 1906 gave us a play criticizing the sexually repressed society with depictions of group masturbation and other subjects that scandalized theatre goers.

This quote attributed to Wedekind which made me chuckle because now whenever some trivial disaster happens in my otherwise mundane life, I think, “Yeah, a blog post has written itself!”

Any fool can have bad luck; the art consists in knowing how to exploit it.

 

The Lulu Plays by Wedekind.

Lulu, the complicated, contradictory femme fatal and victim, in a play that scandalized the audiences in the late 19th / early 20th century with its nudity, implied and not so implicit sex act, rampant confessions of lust and obsession, and an openly lesbian character.

Louise Brooks. Playing the role of Lulu in the movie adaptation of Pandora’s Box.

Louise Brooks. Writing a memoir many decades afterwards, so uncannily described how we feel now when we sit in front of our computers and pour our hearts out…

For two extraordinary years I have been working on it – learning to write – but mostly learning how to tell the truth. At first it is quite impossible. You make yourself better than anybody, then worse than anybody, and when you finally come to see you are “like” everybody – that is the bitterest blow of all to the ego. But in the end it is only the truth, no matter how ugly or shameful, that is right, that fits together, that makes real people, and strangely enough – beauty…

 

 

 

 

Sucker Punched

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Warning: This post is a RANT with a heavily identity politics bend. So if you have no time nor patience to listen to People of Color whining “Oh no not that wah-wah we want to be represented crap again!”, please just ignore me when I come back down from my high horse.

I AM BACK! PEOPLE! Remember what I said? That a good case of justifiable (or not who gives a shit? Not me certainly!) indignation is the best way to get me all fired up and ready to go?!

Go like AKIRA!

 

Kicking and screaming like Sucker Punch!

 

I read an article on Racialicious today that made me pause everything I was doing to write a long comment. It surfaces up all the internal debates I have had about identity politics, about ownerships, about representations, about who gets to represent whom, about the gaze.

“An Uncomfortable Silence: Why Is Geek Media Keeping Quiet About The akira Remake?”

Long story short: the manga series and anime films AKIRA have long been revered by fans all over the world, including the self-professed Otakus in the U.S. (I should really write about “Otaku” and the adoption of this self-identity by the youth / geek culture in the U.S. … Focus. Focus!) There has been a rumor for many years that a major adaptation by Hollywood is in the works while fans all over hold their breath waiting for the announcement of WHO will be playing their beloved biker gang in a post-apocalyptic world. Lists of actors have been floating around and it becomes more and more alarming to the Asian American community as EVERYONE attached to play to lead characters so far has been… Lily white.

The GEEK community, usually considered to be progressive and presumably to be more aware of the reality of “racial diversity” in major urban cities in the U.S., has been quiet about this. NO protest. NO griping in the chat rooms.

Seriously? If even the self-professed self-identified Otakus have deserted our cause, why does Hollywood have to give a rat’s ass about under-representation by Asian American actors, especially MALE actors?

 

Anyway, here is my long comment. I am sharing it here in case the editors over at Racialicious deems my comment unworthy of being published over on their site…

Thank you so much for this article! I was just lamenting this fact of Hollywood coopting the fringe Geek Culture (manga, anime) and “Whitewashing” it to try to mainstream it all in the pursuit of something NEW to revitalize the at-risk film industry (Hello YouTube!)

I saw the trailer for Sucker Punch and it looked like a balled-up conglomeration of every Otaku’s fantasy from anime and mange rolled into one. As far as I could tell, all of the lead girls (yes, they are MEANT to be objectified as girls, so no disrespect on my part) are blonde and so pale they glow in the dark. “So this is it? We can’t f*** get a break? They are taking away manga and anime from us too?”

(Let’s not go into the whole obvious issue of the problematic of perpetually objectifying women in the name of empowering them through hyper-sexualization…)

On a bright note, actually, now I think about it, I am not sure whether this counts as a plus or minus but the ONLY U.S. movie I know with an Asian American male lead who is NOT a kung fu master and who actually gets to kiss and gets the girl aka Debbie Gibson (sorry about the spoiler; and IF you don’t know who Debbi Gibson is then you are too young and I shouldn’t be talking to you…) is Vic Chao in… “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus”…

In this post-Obama juncture, I have many people telling me that we are a “color blind” society and I should NOT be so hung up on race/ethnicity/blah blah blah, implying that by not letting go I am being the “racist” myself because I seem to be the only one seeing race. Now I get it. “Color blind” means “Universal” which in turn applies to “WHITES ONLY” as in “White actors/actresses can represent any culture especially in the post-apocalyptic universe previously residing in manga/anime aka Japanese culture”. Sorry. I’d better stop since I am merely repeating myself: I have written about this in my graduate school more than a decade ago.

Apology, Pet Peeve and Two Horses’ Asses

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Dear Internet,

I miss you.

Yes, in these past two weeks, you still see me coming around once in a while, reading articles online, sharing random pictures on Facebook and Twitter, and flirting with my lady friends with my witty one-liner tweets. It has been still only Drive-by Interneting, which in my book does not count as taking care of my second life, my Social Media life.

I have been a bad blogger friend. I am very sorry.

I had to get on the plane for a business trip the day after I got my root canal, which I later realized was only Part 1. The 3-day trip turned into a 4 day trip when I was assigned to a new project. I got home on Friday night, unpacked and then immediately packed for our trip to the Wisconsin Dells. In case you don’t know, Wisconsin Dells is where Kitsch is defined.

“Kitsch is the inability to admit that shit exists.”   Milan Kundera

 

A visit to one of the giant indoor waterpark complexes, actually Ginormous would be the right word used to describe these monsters, is a definite renouncement of hipsterdom, of coolness. Something that declares, “Resistance is futile. The middle America will get you.” A surrender to suburban, bourgeois, parenthood.

There ain’t no shame in that. I guess…

“No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.”   Again, Milan Kundera

 

Onward, suburban soldiers!

I enjoyed an hour under Novocaine and laughing gas this Monday to finish my root canal, and as a consequence, for the next couple of days I was keenly aware of the existence of my tooth that’s supposed to be now nerveless (Is that NOT the point of root canal?) while I did the road warrior thing again. On Wednesday night, my flight home was delayed and I have not slept in my own bed for a full night for almost two weeks by now. But of course. I found mouse poo in our pantry. All over. Even on the top shelf. WTF? Flying mice? I spent two hours cleaning and throwing half of the stuff in the pantry away. I set up a trap and yes, I have blood on my hand. Figuratively. The Horror. The Horror. Still, I took a picture, but of course. Maybe soon I will write a post about how I felt like the Mafia this morning and a serial killer by night fall. For now though, before I go upstairs to be with my bed for (oh shit now only) 5 hours, could I just share a pet peeve of mine with you?

 

This has been bugging me forever... Is it just me?

 

As for the two horses’ asses in the title… I should not have fact checked. Because I did, I now cannot in good conscience post this interesting FACT about railroad gauges, wagons, wheel ruts, Roman Chariots, horses’ asses, and then back to train tracks and space shuttles. SNOPES.com ruins all the spamming fun… FACTS are sometimes quite inconvenient indeed.  Sheesh. I am going to bed.

 

Affectionately yours,
Signed The Third Horse’s Ass

“Give Me Novacaine!”

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I have had problems with my teeth since young. Actually one of the dentists I saw in the U.S. flat out told me that it is largely hereditary, that I would have developed problems with my teeth sooner or later, that even if I were born and grew up here, the land of BEST DENTAL CARE IN THE WORLD, I would have had bad teeth. Long story short, I have had numerous root canals done back home when I was fairly young. I am pretty sure they were all painful since dentists back then seemed to not believe in anesthesia, and the patients assumed that pain was just part of the deal.

The only thing I recall now is that once the pain was so excruciating that my entire body tensed up, my hands clenched tightly into fists , and it took more than an hour for my hands to relax to uncurl themselves. When it happened, the dentist simply told my mother that I was too hyper-sensitive and she could seat me in one of the chairs in the waiting room until I could function normally again.

I remember feeling guilty about not being able to sustain the pain.

I only started remembering all these yesterday when I went through my first root canal here in the U.S.

I also recalled the first time I saw an American dentist for a, relatively, trivial tooth decay. When I winced because of a slight discomfort, she immediately stopped whatever she was doing, “Did it hurt? I am so sorry. Do you want a shot?”

I was startled by her genuine concern over a pain so minor that I laughed. I wanted to tell her how happy I was but I did not for fear that she’d think I had gone mad.

 

This time the pain started last Friday evening. It was not really pain per se, but more like a dull sore that made my skull chamber hum. All day and all night. I finally was able to see the dentist this Monday and was given the bad news that a root canal was necessary.

“Could I have the laughing gas?”

“Of course you could!”

Laughing gas + Novocain. I was set. No, I did not dream Britney Spears or even John Stamos. But, I did see colors, and patterns. Generally enjoying myself in such a legally drugged up state. All of a sudden, I saw bursting colors, and the straight lines in the patterns curving at the end and breaking into flowers with brilliant colors.

At first I could not pin point the sensation. Neither what nor where. The colors were ricocheting all over inside my head. Then gradually I felt it. It was emitting out of the spot where the doctor was sawing with an endo file. Gradually I realized that sensation that I was feeling? That sensation was PAIN.

I should say something, I thought.

I should at least make the noise, OUCH.

But I did not care. I could still see the colors bursting while the end of the straight lines curving upwards into a floral shape.

Maybe pain is normal. I thought. Maybe for a root canal, I am supposed to feel pain, I thought.

Bursting. Pain. Boom. Colors.

I could not make myself care.

 

Unfortunately I was not allowed to walk around hooked up to the laughing gas. As soon as the mask was removed, the pain became more and more acute. “Was I supposed to feel the pain?” I asked the dentist.

“Oh my goodness. Of course not!” she said apologetically, “Some people are hyper sensitive to these kinds of pain. You must be one of them. Why didn’t you tell me? I could have given you another shot. Do you want a shot now?”

I had missed the window of making this root canal a pain-free experience. Wouldn’t have made any difference then, I am guessing. The persistent pain seems to be what comes afterwards. For the rest of Monday and today, I live in constant awareness of the shape of my skull.

But no colors. No bursting flowers. Just blinding white behind my eyes when I squeeze them shut.

 

 

 

 

Thirteen

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My firstborn is thirteen today.

It’s official: I now have a bona fide teenager on my hand.

I am still wavering about whether I should have made this birthday into a big deal or not. I hope he was not expecting a big to-do. I hope he was not expecting a PlayStation 3 this morning as he opened the box containing a bunch of Wii accessories. They are all in black. That should count for something. If he’s disappointed, he did not show. This kid, No. 1 Son, is turning out to be a surprisingly thoughtful young man, despite his natural tendency to be a sarcastic smart aleck. (Well, I wonder where he got that? And son, if you are reading this one day, notice that I did not call you “smartass” on this post dedicated to you on your birthday)

He has shown great capacity for kindness and empathy (even though he could have shown more of this to his own younger brother…)

He has shown great potential for wisdom (despite the day-to-day harebrained ideas and actions).

He’s given me hope that he will turn out to be a-ok when he declared in the first week of being a 7th grader, “I’ve decided to not worry about being cool any more.” THIS and many other small moments were what prevented me from Homer-Simpson-choking him “You Little!…” during the more trying and frustrating hours.

To be honest with you? I am freaking out. I have been at the state of perpetual freaking out ever since I became a mother so nothing new here really. My husband knew me so well that in 2003, when No.1 son was only 5 years old, he flat out told me to skip the movie “Thirteen”, “You are going to freak out even more if you watch that movie.”

 

My freaking-out state reached a crisis yesterday when I received this SMS from No. 1 son:

 

 

By the time I got home from work, he’s already ready to forgive me, well, kind of, because I could not stop laughing even as I was apologizing to him, mind you, with the utmost sincerity.

So what did I do in the wee hours when my oldest was turning into a teenager during his sleep? I made someecards. What else?