Tag Archives: imma crazy like that

Circles

32 Replies

Scene: The basement of an upscale restaurant in a hip Chicago neighborhood

Cast: Her. And a throne of other women. It would be accurate to add “mostly young and attractive (and white except her and one other woman, though this has nothing to do with anything really…)” Being young adds 20% at least to the overall attractiveness btw. Youth is something the young does not know to appreciate.

Setting: A “women @ company” event aiming to “unite” women in the company. Tonight’s event is for a popular Chicago chef to share with her exclusive audience how she overcame the male-dominant restaurant business.

There have been several emails going out to all the women in the office promoting this event. Come meet your co-workers, listen to someone who’s braved the male-dominant world and made it, be empowered (well, they have never actually used the word “empowered” in any of the communications. It’s like we are so liberated now, and all these “women @ company” events have to be coached in a non-militant, non-aggressive way), and oh yeah, have some cocktails and food while you do all of the above. She was not planning to go because she does not have any friend in the office. She just joined the company this past year and for all her work duties, she works with a different office remotely. For all intent and purposes, the space she occupies may as well be a rental space. Proof? This office location had two holiday parties and she was not invited to either. Sorry.

Somehow she decided that it’s her duty to support this bourgeoning group, “Women @ Company”. It’s simply not nice to poo-poo these events and cry about women not being valued (or valued less) in the company. With the sense of duty and “Oh, how bad can it be?” thought, she walked the 3 blocks.

She was relieved upon entering the room reserved for private parties to see one of her cubicle mates. Great! Someone she knew. She quickly got a vodkacran from the bar tender who listened sympathetically as she recounted how the office holiday party in another city that she went to last week had only a not-open open bar. The bar tender, probably feeling sorry, gave her a heavy pour of Ketel One.

She stood around awkwardly with her cube-mate and a couple of women whom her cube-mate knew. She instinctively sensed that one of the other women would rather not be in this circle that they formed. You just know these things, right? You could tell from the body language. The angling out. The slight turning-away. The “Oh I am so relieved you are here because now I don’t have to be talking to this woman whom I don’t know and have no interest in knowing” expression when someone else showed up. So now the circle was broken into two. Inconspicuously. But not, unfortunately for her, imperceptibly.  Leaving her and her poor cube-mate whom she suspected was cursing her own bad luck, “Wait. I want to be in that other circle. The new one!”

Cube-mate quickly announced, “Well, I have to leave. I have to be home by 6 to relieve my nanny.” Yes, cube-mate is one of the few other women in the office with kids, even though cube-mate is probably almost a decade younger than she is.

With cube-mate gone, she’s left in an awkward position. “No matter. I will go get another drink!” Bar tender was happy to see her friendly face again. “Another one?” “Yes.” It’s amazing how almost all the bars she’s visited she never had to tell the bar tender what she wanted after the first round. She turned around with her new drink, and was faced with one of the most horrifying realizations. She did not have a circle to go back to.

AWKWARD.

 

She went back to the vicinity of the aforementioned new circle, just to test the water. No. Nobody made that slight movement to welcome her. She’s now faced with a tough decision: “What the fuck should I do now?”

Cellphones.

She took out her phone and pretended to check her messages in the midst of women engaging in delightful conversations. “This probably looks really rude. People are going to think that I am being a-social.” Chastised, she put away her phone quickly and braced herself. She turned around, took a deep breath, and slowly made her way to the bar. With a FULL drink.

The few seconds felt like eternity and the short walk felt as if it’d never end. Sorry for the cliche. But it is what it was. Nobody. She did not know anybody. Nobody acknowledged her presence. No circles opened up. She positioned herself by the bar, with a FULL drink, pretending that she’s waiting in line. For what? Her drink was fucking full. Yes, she could have finished her drink quickly so she could get another one. But she’s going to be faced with the same hell with a 3rd drink in her hand. She quickly decided that drinking heavily and fast by yourself in a small, and worse, well-lit room where it’s easily seen that you’re drinking heavily and fast by yourself was probably more pathetic than the situation she was already in. She moved back to the new circle and she forced herself into the circle by physically tresspassing the invisible line that formed the circle.

“Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt. Hi, I am XXX. Nice meeting you.”

Now, this was not her imagination: If people want to include you, they will move slightly to make room. If not, they will simply turn around in order to address you, without moving.

It was made very clear to her.

“Fuck. This is even more awkward than before.” She quickly thought. “Do you know what time the chef will start speaking?”

“Oh. She’s supposed to start at 5:30.”

“Ok. Thanks!”

The women went back to their conversation.

She moved away from the force field and looked at her watch. 5:15. She turned around to survey the sea of circles and felt her eyes getting warm.

She needed to get out of there now.

On her way back to the office, her tears started swarming out of the corners of her eyes. Luckily it’s winter and it’s already pitch dark. The turn of the event caught her off guard. This was one of the selves that she was not prepared to confront.

She resisted looking at the darkened shop windows as she walked by, as her vain self was wont to, afraid that she’d see someone from the past.

“I thought I’ve left you behind many years ago.”

And she’d been proven wrong. So. very. wrong.

Overload…

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Google announced Google Music (its answer to Apple iTune + Amazon Cloud) last week. I immediately started uploading all our music files to the massive google cloud. (It by the way took almost six days to finish). This plus my existing music drive in the Amazon cloud means that when the Apocalypse comes? I am all set on the disaster recovery front for my music files. Way to go, me! Because it is very important to keep a record of Air Supply and Petshop Boys for the resistance army while they fight against the aliens zombies (fine!) for human survival.

Then we received the Amazon Kindle Fire, and all hell broke loose. I have been “forced” to listen to Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Cloud Player, Google Android player and iTune. This is Big Love – Digital Music Edition.

(Yeah yeah yeah. There are more music services such as the old standby Rhapsody, last.fm, and the very intriguing turntable.fm. But I would like to be able to sleep once in a while so thank you very much…)

Hilarity ensued.

I did learn something though: Right before you get on the highway with your kids in the backseat, do NOT start streaming your music and hit Shuffle All IF Cee Lo Green is in your music collection. Just sayin’

 

At one point I caught myself listening to music from Amazon cloud, checking my Google Music stash on my Android phone and tweeting and Facebooking from iPad.

I felt like Lord Voldemort with my soul being divided into seven parts. Yeah, I need a strong shot of Ritalin.

And a break from trying to organize my digital life.

So I went and got a 10-plus-lbs honeybaked ham today.

 

Have a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving!

 

 

These boots are made for…

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When it comes to all these flash sale websites, I am a marketer’s dream girl. I think I give people in advertising like Don Draper wet dreams. I click on every email that MyHabit.com and Gilt.com sends me every day.

This undying support for people like Don Draper + the promise of free shipping and free return + the innate laziness that binds me to the idea of Internet shopping + fear of salespeople + firm believer in trying on clothing in the comfort of my own home + lure of the mental image of myself wearing boots in fall + never ever learning from the lesson called “Incongruity Detected” =

Guess who came home to two giant boxes that Mr. Monk can fit in and five pairs of boots?

 

Yes, I can hear all your screaming from here.

Now don’t get too excited. They are all going back because huh, I found out that my calves are the size and shape of winter melons.

And when I could not pull the zip shut along my left calve, I also discovered that my left leg is much thicker than my right leg, probably due to the Deep Vein Thrombosis (blood clog) that ran along my entire left leg when I was pregnant with Mr. Monk.

As I was sitting on the stairs heaving and grunting, trying to get these damn boots on and the zippers to zip up, I felt like I could understand the sadness and humiliation that Cinderella’s stepsisters must have felt. Ok, maybe just one of them. But still. I am Team Cinderella’s Stepsister now.

I did manage to get one pair of the boots on, with zippers up all the way. And I won’t lie to you, I liked what I saw. I started pulling on various dresses and skirts (because there is no way they are going over my jeans, get it? They are already busting at the seams… ) in my closet while wearing these boots. The dresses and skirts were transformed in a way that was totally unexpected with a pair of boots on. There is just something about boots that make you feel sexy and badass at the same time. They make you want to stride across a room with your head held up high, make you want to sing:

These boots are made for walking… Well, not really. There is no way these boots are made for walking. They are more like medieval torture device. But still, they look G.R.E.A.T on me.

Fortunately, I did not get carried away by self-indulgence because my teenage boy piped up, “Mom. You look weird.”

“What do you mean I look weird?”

“Well, take them off. They are not your style!”

“What IS my style?”

“They are not you!”

“What is my style then? … Jeans and t-shirts?”

“Yes.” He sounded exasperated now. “You look too hip in them.”

Well…

Unfortunately, all fun had to come to an end. It’s time to take them off, mostly because I was suffering stabbing pangs from leg cramp caused by shoving my calve into a sausage casing. More heaving and grunting. Midway through, the boots were stuck. By stuck I mean I had to pry the boots away from my calve by depressing the fat on my calve with my fingers while pushing the shaft down inch by inch. Eventually I had to give up and yelled for Mr. Monk to come and help me. This scene now bore some eerie similarity to the children’s story “The Great Enormous Giant Turnip”… complete with Mr. Monk falling backwards and landing on his tushie.

Hilarity ensued.

 

Coda: I am sitting here typing while wearing the boots. Yes I put them back on when the kids fell asleep. Yes I stare at them admiringly once in a while. No I am not so sure now that I am sending ALL of them back. I wonder how much liposuction costs?

“Are you ready boots? Start walkin’.”

 

Fly your freak flag high

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or maybe this is not such a good advice.

Sigh. I have had a draft of this post for a couple of days now. I was going to write about how we should all let our hair down, show our true colors, and let our freak flags fly high. Way high.

To mix the cliches, we should fly that flag up and see who salutes.

I am too old, and life is too short, for all this shit of trying to fit in.

I was going to write about in the past two weeks, I had been under the duress of performance reviews (Oh, I absolutely hate writing self assessment and writing reviews for the others stressed me out to now end. I’d rather drink milk. Ok, maybe not. But you know what I mean. Maybe you don’t. Then good for you…) Due to the stress and the serious lack of sleep, I came a bit unhinged, according to my honest self assessment. I caught myself breaking into songs and dance moves at work. I was constantly invoking the  Hyperbole and Half’s meme: Answer ALL the emails! Invite ALL the peeps! Cancel ALL the meetings! Write ALL the reviews! Complete with the raised arm (which nobody else around me seemed to get…)

I believe it was unsettling for the people who sit nearby.

In my head, I saw myself walking over the edge, letting it all hang out, and I was at the same time feeling conflicted, not wanting to show my crazy at work. I wrote a co-worker that I was worried I have been flying my freak flag too high, kidding-on-the-square-ly, and he responded: Your freak flag is one of the few things that keep me going here. Keep your freak flag high.

I broke down and cried.

 

Hi, it’s me again. You know, the two straight-up vodka me. I can feel the alcohol working through my veins even as I am typing this. I know the feeling well. I am trying to NOT be drunk and I am very conscious of my drunkenness. I have to make extra efforts to keep myself lucid and carry a cohesive conversation and keep my voice at a socially acceptable decibel. I am also paranoid of people finding out that I am actually drunk so I try to stay as socially engaging as possible while mentally checking everything that I just said, and then try to dig myself out of it. My English becomes great. My accent is mostly gone. Two vodka me is awesome. Life at the party. (Note to self: Being “life at the party” is actually a sardonic phrase when everybody else is sober)

Well, all that immediately went out the window when I made a gesture wider than my brain could detect and control and knocked it down to the kitchen sink and broke it. All before 8 pm.

Yup.

So I am sitting here back at home wanting to cry because it was a party at the neighbor’s and all the other neighbors were there. I have already felt like an odd duck in this neighborhood. We were finally invited to a party! Maybe this time we could blend in and people would think that we are normal!

I am such a hypocrite, am I not? After all, I was the one the tweeted, facebooked and tumbled:

Today’s motto: Let your freak flag fly high.

And I made these memes because I was so damn proud of myself.

 

 

 

We are going to start a goddamn movement! Complete with a parade. With them flags!!!!!!

Seriously though? I am horrified to think that those people at the party are just going to think that my behaviors were due to my being drunk and rude and stupid: I mean, what kind of people got that drunk before 8, at a WINE party?! I don’t know why it bothers me so much. So just want to let you know. When I said I don’t care what others think, when I rah-rah-ed about how you just need to be yourself, when I encouraged you all to fly your freak flags high? That was more hypothetical. In an ideal world. If I were an ideal me. I would totally fly my freak flag. All. Day. Fucking. Long. And out in the open too.

I think I need to go to bed now.

I will fly my flag tomorrow. Sober too.

 

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?

 

I just have one question…

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I went out for emergency shopping for Mr. Monk, my second grader. The school field trip next week requires in addition to everything else, RAIN FUCKING BOOTS. Rain boots. Seriously, where the fuck could I find rain boots on a random day?

So I ran to Target.

I also discovered that Targets carry clothes. (Ok, I have known this fact for a long time but they used to strike me as “For High School Girls Only”) Nice ones for $25 on average. So I spent almost an hour in the empty dressing room past 9 pm trying on spring and summer dresses. This is quite a big change from my usual ensemble of t-shirt and jeans. Now that I have to go to this new office with younger and hipper people, I have begun to wear jeans and blouses. And shoes with heels. I have figured this out: As a woman, you can wear almost anything and still look put-together as long as you are sporting a pair of envy-inducing shoes.

(With regarding the topic of the importance of possessing kickass heels, I will have to defer to the two sexy goddesses, Vapid Blonde and Wicked Shawn…)

Hey, a little bit of Retail Therapy, especially the French kind, would not hurt anybody, right?

Now I really just have one question…

 

 

 

Where the fuck did my waist go?

 

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…

PSA: I am a walking liability

32 Replies

This just in: Apparently I cannot say the word BOMB either.

This came up because Mr. Monk, my 8-year old, was crying before bedtime due to some teasing on his brother’s part and yelling on my part. When I put him to bed, I asked him why he cried so much and he said, “Because I am sensitive.”

“So you are like a snail?” I said, jokingly, hoping to cheer him up. Utter fail, I know. Snail? WTF, right?

“Why? Because you think I am slow?”

“No. I mean snails are sensitive.” Beats me really. I have never actually looked at a snail longer than one second before I ran away screaming let alone touched one.

“That’s dumb.” He said, with half a smile.

“Ok. Fine. You are sensitive like a bomb.”

“What?”

“A bomb.”

“A bong? What?” No, I don’t think he knows what a bong is thank you very much. It is hard for me to spell the onomatopoeia as Mr. Monk heard them because I could not tell the differences so please simply imagine the variations of what could go wrong when a foreigner is trying to pronounce the “M” sound.

“No. A BOMB.” I said it louder. Yeah yeah I know.

“A bon? A bom?”

“No.” I sighed. “A bomb. A bomb. You know. Like a walking time bomb?”

“Oh. A BOMB.” Ugh, that’s exactly what I have been saying for the past 5 minutes. Apparently not so as far as a native-English-speaker is concerned.

“You are saying it wrong. Make it less…. um… bointy. You know, less Boin’ in it.” Now he’s making up words to teach me how to pronounce a real word.

“Hey, now you know why I can tell the 4 tones in Chinese apart but you can’t. Remember how everything sounded the same to you and I kept on telling you you’re doing it wrong? I really cannot tell the differences between what you are saying and what I am trying to say. They sound the same to me. Isn’t it amazing? Now let’s take a moment to appreciate the wonder that is the human brain.”

The truth is? I gave up on trying to say the word BOMB correctly. I mean, it’s not like I am giving up much; after all, I HAVE managed to learn to pronounce PORN CORN perfectly.  Anyway, I won’t be using the word BOMB that often right? I just cannot be a terrorist, you know, if I were one, I probably would need to go into a store (probably Walmart) to buy a bomb some day and hilarity would ensue. Terrorists are people with no sense of humors so that would not work out.

I left the room and went to check on the 12-year-old. “Hey, guess what? I cannot pronounce the word BOMB either?”

“What?”

Oh for fuck sake, not again.

“BOMB. I cannot say the word BOMB.”

“Ohhhhhh you mean Bomb as in a time bomb”

“YES.”

“Say BA.”

“BA.”

“Now say M.”

“M.”

“Now say BOMB.”

“&*%$&” <– I thought I said BOMB but obviously I did not so I do not know how to spell it out.

“Wow. Way to fail mom.”

“Thanks.” Taking a mental note to make fun of him when he speaks Chinese. “Well, it’s not like I am going to buy a bomb or anything.”

“Yeah. But what if you are in a movie theatre, and you see a bomb, and you yell ‘BOMB!’ and people are like, ‘What? What did she say?'”

FUCK.

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Now you know why I don't call you Da Bomb any more... Nothing personal.

Things I learned today

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I will never ever be able to fold a fitted sheet perfectly no matter how much time I spend on it. Fitted sheet, consider yourself folded.

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Checking my email is never going to be “QUICK”. I will always spend more than “Just one minute” when I log in my email account. I will be tempted to click on the links in the emails and it will always take longer than I think to read and comment on a blog post. And when you forget about your child’s lunch, he will hunt you down and demand lunch, but in a nice way that actually makes you feel even shittier.

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Corporate brand image does not necessarily mean Caution and Stodgy and Prim&Proper. “Inappropriate” innuendos are allowed in official press release; sometimes it makes it a WIN.

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"Clipart - Housewife Washing Up at the Sink Whilst a Man Sits in an Armchair Reading a Newspaper"

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My husband has blue hair!