Tag Archives: neurosis

Rain Drops on Roses

7 Replies

One of my favorite movies, as cliche as a cliche can be, is indeed The Sound of Music. I often thought to myself, “I should start a list of ‘My Favorite Things’ just so I could remember the little things in life, the fleeting moments, the silly indulgences, that make the sun shine, that remind me what it feels like to be free and alive.”

I should clarify that these are the things that demarcate the “me moments”. I guess this is ultimately a selfish list… These moments insulate me from the outside world, everything that is Not-me. They suck the air out of the space around me and create a vacuum that is almost imperceptible (except, of course, if this were literal, I’d be gagging for air. Duh.) Do you know the feeling you get when you put on a pair of noise cancellation headsets and you switch the noise cancellation voodoo magic on before you turn on the music? There is an indescribable (to me but probably not to somebody like Raymond Carver) yet tangible texture of tranquility, of emptiness in that split second.

To put it plainly, these are the moments that make it easier for me to imagine I am a heroin in an aimless, plotless European art-house movie, wandering the cobblestone streets looking for discarded playing cards appearing in random corners.

1. French bread sticking out from a paper grocery bag. ha ha.
2. Stomping in puddles in my rain boots
3. Burrowing myself into a pile of towels or bed sheets fresh from the dryer on a cold dreary day
4. Flowers sitting on my kitchen table. Or the idea of it since I seldom buy flowers…
5. A good book (or my Kindle) and a cup of tea or coffee
6. The sound of rain
7. The smell and fluffiness of freshly laundered plush 100% Egyptian towels
8. The scene in The Sound Of Music when Maria teaches the children to sing “My Favorite Things”
9. Toblerone
10. Falling into a perfectly made bed when I check into a hotel on a business trip
11. A bath surrounded by lit candles. Alone.
12. Hanging out at the Starbucks in the Metra train station with my laptop on Saturday mornings
13. Pathétique by Tchaikovsky, especially the 4th movement. No multi-tasking. Simply, listening.
14. December by George Winston. ibid.
15. Brushing my hair with long, calming strokes that are disturbingly similar to creepy brush strokes seen in scary movies
16. The feeling of my hair against my back when I tilt my head back
17. Lying inside a patch of sunshine coming through the window on the floor
18. Bench seat at a bay window
19. The delicate fragrance of flowers from a tea olive shrub
20. A piece of black forest cake, of course, at a quiet corner inside a darkened cafe. No ants.
21. A cup of tea on fancy china, with proper cup and saucer
22. Full moon that looks monstrously huge
23. Any moment when I am alone yet not lonely

This would be a laundry list that never finishes, kind of like my laundry in real life. Many more little things will be remembered and designated as a favorite thing only if I become self-aware and consciously register my enjoyment of it. That designation itself is fleeting for I will also need to remember to add it to this list. #FirstWorldProblem I know. This exercise has been good for my soul though as I walked through the minutes and hours today forcing myself to dig deep into the recess of my memory for the forgotten, precious moments that made me exclaim silently, “I am so glad I am alive.” Another #FirstWorldProblem yes. But you don’t live inside my head so please don’t judge too harshly my neurosis.

How to Suck at Tipping

10 Replies

I know that I suffer from a severe case of liberal guilt and that’s why I don’t think I can truly relax in places where there is a clear demarcation, often times physically, between the privileged and the underprivileged. You can accuse me of being a hypocrite if you want. I would not know how to defend myself. So there. 

I am in Shanghai now on a business trip. I never feel truly comfortable when I am in China because people mistake me easily for a local (I can fake a Beijing accent when speaking Chinese vs. my natural, Taiwanese-accented Mandarin Chinese) and yet they could tell that there is something off about me. They’d ask me where I am from. When I explained that I grew up in Taiwan and now live in the US, inevitably there would be lots of questions about the comparisons between Taiwan and China, the US and China, and the topic always leads to, uncomfortably at least for me, how I have a much better life.

“You went to good school.” They’d conclude with regret or longing or something in their voice, if the person I’m speaking to is from outside of the upper-middle class.

The hotel I am staying in provides massage services until 2 am. It sounded like an awesome idea: travelers with jet lags will LOVE to be able to get a massage when they have trouble going to bed anyway. So I called the extension and booked a 60-minute acupressure massage session in my room.

“So where are you from?” My masseuse asked as she tried to figure out in which direction I should lie on the bed. I was still confused because she had come in with nothing. Where’s the oil? The lotion? The blanket? The towel?

“Taiwan? Wow. It must be a lot nicer over there.” I tried to deflect the conversation by suggesting that people love coming to China nowadays because of the opportunities.

“More opportunities?”

“Yeah, you know. More land. More people…” My voice trailed off as I backed myself into a corner. Sure enough, she told me that she’s not from here. “We came from [another province].” Instinctively, I understood that she’d meant “we, the masseuses working at this hotel”. She was here, like many other migrant workers from rural China, by herself leaving behind two children and aging parents.

She told me about the farms back home, how before she got married at 23 she was already considered to be an old spinster, how massages were unheard of because god forbid if the neighbors got wind that either you got a massage from a man or you gave a man a massage.

She said that she wished she could visit Taiwan some day. I suggested jokingly that perhaps she should visit other places before Taiwan if she ever has a chance. “But when will I have a chance to visit another country? It costs so much!” I simply forgot how much it costs to travel, to fly on an airplane overseas. My plane tickets to Shanghai cost almost $2000 USD, which translates roughly into 4 months of her wages if she works every single day.

Finally came the question I dreaded the most, “How much are you paid over in the US?” (Yes, people do ask you this question sometimes.)

I gave a lame response of how salaries may be higher in the US but our costs of living are higher and also we have to pay more taxes. Lots more. She didn’t seem to mind my not answering her question.

“I am paid 100 yuan a day. I did so many massages today but I will still get 100 yuan.”

I was surprised. And embarrassed somehow. In my panic, I also wished that I had pretended to speak no Chinese. Then I felt extremely guilty and ashamed of myself.

“You know, you are smart [why’s she so sure of that?] and you went to good school [ibid]. Me? I don’t know how to do anything. No skills. No brains.” She said, matter-of- factly.

Fortunately for me our conversation veered off when she got to my derrière. She said jokingly, “You look so thin but oh your [backside] is so big!” I was not offended the least because I was so relieved.

“Hey. That’s what they call Son-bearing hip, ok? All the grandmothers loved me when I was young. They know I’d be popping out boy babies.”

“Oh, my butt is huge too.”

We bonded over son-bearing hips. And thick thighs. Yes, once I turned to lie on my back, she was surprised by how “there is no meat on your face”. She proceeded to wonder out loud how it’s possible that I could have such thick thighs since my arms and my mid region looked great. I wanted to hug her for the compliments. These were sincere and not backhanded at all.

By the end of the session, I had determined to give her a great tip even though tipping is a complex matter in China. Yes, hotel workers cater to Westerners may have come to expect tips, most Chinese are not accustomed to it. Some people actually resent the thought that “foreigners are training workers in China to expect tips from all”.

“I don’t have the exact change. How about you bring these to them and keep the change. Will they let you keep the change?”

She looked utterly confused. “Don’t you have exact change?”

“No. I am sorry. That’s what I meant though: go downstairs with the money, and keep the change. If I give you these bills, will the change go to you at all?”

“Oh no. No. They’ll never give me the change.”

“Ok, here’s what you are going to do: Give them the bills. Tell them I asked you to bring the change up to me. But then just go home.”

Now she looked scared. “They may catch me leaving with the money… I will bring the money to your room.”

As she hurried out, it dawned on me that this might not have been the best idea because what was I trying to prove? What was I trying to do to this poor woman so I could feel better about myself?

A knock on my door.

“Hi. Good evening. Here’s your change back.” Standing there, holding out the money was not my masseuse but a better-dressed, more cosmopolitan-looking young woman.

Somehow I was not surprised. Of course they wouldn’t allow her to bring the change back to me. I was saddened, imagining my masseuse’s disappointment caused by me.

Why did I try to meddle in somebody’s life?

Another knock on my door.

“Oh, I was so scared! Did she bring you your change?” Now she’s embarrassed. “I just want to make sure that you’ve got your change. They told me that I could leave. So I made a turn when nobody’s looking and came upstairs.”

Giving someone a tip should not made either the giver or the receiver feel as if they’re having an illicit affair. I was really upset at “them” by this time. The irony did not escape me of course.

Her eyes widened as I pushed the change into her hand. “What are you doing? You are nuts.”

“Well, you know. I used a coupon and I think you the person who did all the work should enjoy this reward and not me.”

 

It’s now past 3 am here. I am not sleepy at all. I don’t know what I am trying to say by recounting my encounter with my impotent conscience.

Maybe I am hoping that one of you will call me out on it as an atonement.

 

Lucky

10 Replies

Before she started telling you the story, she would have said, before anything else, “This journal entry has a happy ending.”

The red light on her phone was blinking. Somehow she’d missed a phone call when she knew that nobody would be calling her. Not on her cell anyway. Her husband was out of the country, her children only TXT now, and her mother would only call the landline (because she’d never bothered to give her her cellphone number) and always when it was way past bedtime (because figuring out time zone difference becomes a lot harder once day light savings time change is (not) taken into account)

The unfamiliar number shown had the local area code. With smart phones nowadays our relationship is discreetly judged by whether you show up as a name (from Contacts) or as a mere phone number. The persistent blinking red light indicated that the person had left a voice mail. She was annoyed. Really. Who in this day still leaves voice mails? She dreads checking her voicemails on the very few occasions when some un-indoctrinated people leave them. The problem is they never ever come out clear. Press 1 to repeat the message. Press 1 to repeat. Press 1. Often she ends up pressing 7, reasoning that if the message is important enough, the person will surely call back.

It was a call from some doctor’s office but she could not make out which. She did not think twice when she missed another call from the same number later that day. The call showed up as a mere number and therefore automatically deprioritized. Funny how stupid her logics sound in hindsight.

She jumped when her phone suddenly rang in the midst of the somber silence as she and her children huddled in front of the television, watching the retelling of the horror in Aurora, CO, unfold.

Hello. You need to go in for a follow-up. It’s probably nothing. But we just want to make sure. They noticed something… that looked… calcification…

She held her breath and blinked. She’d forgot about the mammogram the day before.

The doctor wants you to schedule an appointment with the hospital right away and she will fax the order in. Call me right back and let me know the time.

She knew that the doctor’s office was concerned when they waited to hear from her. She went back to sit in front of the television at first as if she had just received a phone call from a telemarketer. The chaos on the screen made her comment out loud how fragile life is.

Oh.

She remembered the call and what it could possibly mean. She wanted to cry.

What if? No… It can’t be, right? No way this is happening to me. Maybe I should be freaking out now? She asked herself. Let’s see how good I really am at compartmentalizing.

She shook her head violently. Stop thinking about it! There is nothing you can do about it except waiting until Monday morning.

When her mind immediately, out of habit, presented silver linings to the worst case scenario, “I can finally quit my job!” I am such a fucking idiot, she chastised herself, ashamed and worried that if her friends who had fought and survived knew this was her first thought, they’d be offended by how she’s trivializing the whole thing. It’s not a fucking excuse! This is no child’s play. For some people, this is real. Too many people actually.

She shook her head violently. Stop thinking about it! There is nothing you can do about it.

She did not tell anybody about the phone call. In fact, by Monday, she herself had forgot about the follow-up appointment and almost missed it. She woke up late on Monday morning because for three nights she stayed up channel surfing. She cried through Brideshead Revisited.

At the hospital, the technician made her stay for the result. Just in case he needs to see something more, she said.

When she pulled her book out from the purse, she felt guilty for not feeling anything. Maybe I should cry, she wondered, what’s the proper behavior at a moment like this? When the radiologist walked into the gowned waiting room and called her husband’s name, she was startled by how scholarly he looked. Almost bookish. Like a professor. He blurted out even before their hands parted, “Everything looks fine,” and smiled. “I didn’t want you to walk down the hallway wondering.”

The humid air rushed into her lung when she pushed open the heavy door to the garage. Her breath suddenly caught in her throat. She fled into the car and shut the door before the violent tears came.

You are such an idiot, she murmured.

My son turned 14 and I am wearing braces.

28 Replies

There are 6 teenage boys now in my house and they are staying overnight until tomorrow noon. Sleepover is a misnomer: there will be NO sleep involved. They will be up all night, taking over the house while I hide in my locked bedroom. Fortunately my boy runs with the nerd crowd so give them each a Wii remote control and time flies, as they say, Mario Cart style. Of course, when the sun comes up tomorrow, I will be ushered into the Dawn of the Dead (Tired): these teenagers, being outside of Asia where the Tiger Moms roam, are untrained in the Tao of Midnight Oil Burning (“OMG. The teacher gives them so much homework. My son spent TWO HOURS last night doing his math homework!” Yah… I bit my tongue for that one.) They all talk a big game, and yet we know, tomorrow they will be complaining about headaches and extreme exhaustion and whimper like little babies. Thank goodness tomorrow also happens to be my least favorite day of the year – I have a slogan for it too, Spring Forward My Ass –  so I am actually one hour closer to liberation.

Hurrah!

The lady brigade suggested lots of booze to help me survive the Night of the Undead. When in doubt, add Vodka. And sometimes, bacon. Unfortunately for me though, I have something in my mouth which, actually, is one of the biggest mistakes I have made in my life, I am convinced.

Last Saturday, I got Invisaligned.

Oh no no. Taking these suckers out is NOT an one-handed job. *He he. Rim shot?* All the glossy pictures featuring beautiful people do not show you the “anchors” on my teeth to secure the braces. These bumps make me look like a vampire (of the non-sexy variety) and make it a pain to take them out, and that means I basically have only limited windows every day to eat and drink. On the first day, I tore the bottom liner out of frustration and panic when I was dizzy with hunger. “What if I cannot take these things out and I have to stop eating for the next 12 months?!” On top of the dreadful task of taking the liners out (which reminds me of the first few days when I got my first contact lenses), I am also very very lazy, and I do not like the thought of having to brush and floss my teeth AFTER every bite or sip before I put the liners back on.

This is torture for a grazer. In this past week I have experienced thousands of moments when I thought about eating but could not. It’s revealing because, if not for my inability to do so, I would not have even given it any thought before I polished off say a whole bag of Sun Chips, or ate half of the strawberries while cutting them. Gone are the days to hold a cocktail giant beer glass and sip my Cranvodka the whole day night. No more lounging at Starbucks for hours. (Ok. Fine. I don’t get to do that anyway… But you get the point) I feel unsettled and restless the whole day, like something is wrong but I cannot quite put my finger on it. The promise of losing weight from this self-enforced starvation? Ha. I am half-starved for the past week but still managed to gain 5 lbs. HOW? Because when it comes time to eat, I eat like a starved person, like someone who has no idea when they are going to see food again. I now eat appetizers, main courses, AND desserts. After I am done with my meal, I survey the pantry and the fridge to find all things that I think I may have a cravings for later during the day and I shove them into my mouth.

At the same time, I also got a raging case of pink eye and was therefore rocking my geek-cred thick-coke-bottle glasses. Along with new braces, my weight gain, and the telltale rash around my waist band…

Liz Lemon: God, three weddings in one day, I’m going to be in Spanx for 12 hours. My elastic line is gonna get infected again.

I’ve had a week of low self-esteem, which meant only one thing: I needed food for emotional support.

Like I said, one of the worst decisions I’ve made in my life. So far.

Maybe I should try and top it with another bad decision? Maybe I should just say “Oh, fuck it”, and go have pizza, cake, chips and a big giant glass of Cranvodka tonight? I mean, it’s my kid’s birthday party right? I gave birth to that little guy (now measuring 5’10”) fourteen years ago so I deserve a night off from this mental torture device, right?

Happy Birthday, Number One Son! Let’s party! Separately of course. I am cool like that. You guys stay downstairs and watch mindless YouTube videos while I surround myself with all the food that I bought for you and watch an R-rated movie. Now who’s going to help mommy carry all the food and the bottle of vodka and cranberry juice upstairs?

Update: I did not even get to eat anything when the doorbell all of a sudden went off. “Are you guys expecting more people?” “No…” We opened the door and it was The Girls. Well, I guess I have officially thrown a cool party right if it’s been crashed? You’d be happy to know that after I corralled them into singing Happy Birthday and cut the birthday pies, I quickly grabbed my bottle of ready-made Costco Margarita (NO cranberry juice in the house!) and headed upstairs while leaving Mr. Monk, my 9-year-old in charge.

 

Thanksgiving is over. We can be snarky again.

35 Replies

F I N A L L Y!

Ok. I am joking. Well, maybe 50%. I am most likely kidding on the square, as is my MO.

I have been thinking about being thankful, for all the right reasons, like everybody else around Thanksgiving time.

When I went to the grocery store across the street for the fourth time in two days yesterday afternoon, I asked the cashier lady what time they would be closing.

“7 pm. Why? You want to come back again?” She laughed.

“No. I was complaining to you about coming here so many times, but then I remembered that you are still working on Thanksgiving Day, so I am kind of embarrassed for being a whiner.”

Somehow I couldn’t get our brief exchange out of my head.

How many times have I complained to a cashier in a store about my day? To the teachers at my kids’ childcare center? To a salesclerk? To the person behind a counter, any counter? To all these other people earning minimum wages (or hopefully higher) and lousy healthcare / retirement benefits (if any) who probably at that moment just wanted to wring my neck but were able to wear a plastic smile because their jobs required them to?

Here are what I am thankful for, for the not so politically correct reasons:

I am thankful that working for me is a choice and not a necessity.

I am thankful that though I work, I do not carry the stress as a sole bread earner.

I am thankful that I am able to treat my work and responsibility as the “second” income and therefore I am not as stressed out as my husband.

I am thankful that my life is comfortable enough that I can afford to be plagued by angst, ennui and neurosis.

I am thankful that my reality affords me to worry about ideology.

I am thankful that I can afford to be generous.

I am thankful for not having to think at all in order to come up with things that I should be thankful for.

.

.

I promised that I’d be snarky in the title so I cannot possibly let you down. Here it is…

I am thankful that Sarah Palin proved yet again that she has no business commenting on political issues or any other serious issues.

“Obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies.” — Sarah Palin on Glenn Beck’s radio show

(Yes, I’ll admit: it took me a while to try and work this gem into this post…)

“Which Sex and the City gal are you?”

39 Replies

I am going to bet that at one time or another 99% of the women were asked one or all of these questions:

“Which Sex and the City gal is your favorite?”

“Which Sex and the City gal do you want to be?”

“Which Sex and the City gal are you?”

I never knew how to respond. Because deep down in my heart, I know who I resemble the most, dread resembling the most even though I also know, deep down in my brains, that I am crazy (also self-presumptuous and self-delusional) for thinking so.

Laney Berlin.

Who?

Laney Berlin. From Episode 10, Season 1, originally aired on August 8, 1998. “The Baby Shower”.

It is no surprise you have no memory of her. My google search only came up with ONE picture of her:

Laney is the Fab Four’s former friend, or more accurately, frienemy and to Samantha, rival.

Laney Berlin. You can’t really describe her. You just had to know her. Chances are eight years ago you probably did.

Laney did A&R for a record label… Every time she went on a scouting trip, she came back with some hot new group… and a gynecological condition no one had ever heard of.

Those things make so many public appearances, they need a booking agent.

Disclaimer: Of course I am nothing like the above. I’ve never had a hot body for me to lament the loss over it. I’ve never had a wild, rebellious streak in my life, that is, until now… mostly inside my imaginary inner world, and even at that, with limitations. Tis sad that I channel Woody Allen even in my wildest fantasy.

In fact, Laney was another Samantha… until she found herself an investment banker, got married and moved to Connecticut. The Fab Four reluctantly went to Laney’s Baby Shower at her stereotypical suburban MacMansion surrounded by stereotypical suburban Stepford Wives. The gifts they brought? A fistful of cash. A bottle of Scotch. And pastel condoms.

Incidentally I gave birth to my first child in March 1998. I squirmed as I watched a dichotomy being artificially formed when the world of Sex and the City was split in two: Me and the pregnant, suburban Laney on one side; the gals on the other (And goddammit I want to be on that side with the Fab Four too!) and what happened when Laney tried to cross the bridge, back to the other side.

Laney, despite the outward appearances of marital bliss and contentment, felt regretful of her choices. Back  in the city, the gals found a pregnant Laney crashing Samantha’s party, demanding vodka (and attention naturally], offering to show her tits, and struggling on the stripper pole.

[Carrie] This is at once so sad…  and the most fabulous validation I’ve ever gotten in my life.

The image of Laney on the table surrounded by the party-goers who are obviously appalled has stayed with me since. I understand that 99% of the disapproval came from her being so “due any day now” pregnant and you simply DO NOT SHOULD NOT imbibe alcohol (and Vodka at that!) when a child’s life is at stake. However Laney on the table also symbolizes for me the attempt to grapple with the erasure of one’s (imagined or not) identity and the desperate attempt to retain/regain the last vestige of youth/freedom/autonomy/carefreeness/etc. It is that desperation that makes it so sad, that I respond to viscerally.

Every time when I behave like a wild child, act and dress against what I believe is age-appropriate and role-appropriate, flirt with strangers, skip down the sidewalk, party like it is 1999 (or 1997 aka 1 BC – “Before Child”), because this is who I am without thinking, I get a flashback of Laney on the table and I am immediately paralyzed by an onslaught of self-consciousness. I put myself in my place through the eyes of the others:

“Do I look like I am trying too hard? Too desperate? Do I look ridiculous? These people… What are they thinking of me? Are they laughing with me or at me?”

And the thought that I absolutely abhor:

“Do they feel sorry for me?”

I am desperate to not appear desperate. Insane? I know.

This is why every time when I am at a party I make a beeline to the bar and down 2 shots of vodka before the party starts for me. Because as it turns out, thank goodness, Laney Berlin can be warded off with alcohol.

Fallen From The Sky

“We don’t always have a choice on how we get to know one another.  Sometimes people fall into our lives cleanly — as if out of the sky, or as if there were a direct flight from Heaven to Earth — the same sudden way we lose people, who once seemed they would always be part of our lives.”

—  John Irving in Last Night in Twisted River

I have issues.

Ok. If you have read more than three of my posts, you probably have figured that out on your own already. By the way, thank you for staying after that realization, oh Brave One…

I am a social person. An extrovert. A vampire. I need to feed on people’s energy to feel alive. I revel in the small connections I make with friends and strangers. I become a great conversationalist. I am bubbly. I am chatty. I am flirty. I am fucking hilarious. I get a high.

I am also a recluse. An introvert. A hermit crab. I crash every time after I have battled through a social occasion. I replay everything inside my head. Over and over again. Did I say anything wrong? Did I offend anybody? Hurt somebody’s feeling? When I went crazy and all “I don’t fucking care what people think of me”, did I do something stupid? Was it obvious I am an insecure needy hanger-on? Did I come off genuine? Too genuine? Too genuine so as to come off as fake? Dripping with molasses? Was I too much of myself? And which one at that?

I don’t know why — Even though I’ll be the first person to tell you, all Chinese wisdom and Zen shit, that

There will always be somebody who dislikes you, for no reason at all, no matter how hard you try to get on their good side.

— I am dastardly bothered by the possibility that out there, there is somebody who hates my gut. This is a no-win situation of the pathological proportion. For example, when I am driving, I worry about what the other drivers will think of me. Will they be pissed if they are waiting for me to go through the intersection to make a left turn and I make them miss the light? I floor the car upon that thought.

I imagine the other driver thinking to themselves, “Wow. Appreciate that gesture, kind albeit reckless driver!”

Nah. Just kidding. I may be crazy but I am not delusional. I am fully aware of the futility. And the possibility this may be bordering on psychosis. (Oh, the irony…)

It takes one day for me to recover from each hour of my putting myself out there…  I was surrounded by strangers (women nonetheless) and more importantly, people who I genuinely would like to become friends with, for two whole days last weekend…

… … …

Yeah… This is gonna take a while…

I could not understand why I have been restless and jittery and utterly exhausted and prone to crying this week until I sat down and started typing out these words above.

I am going through withdrawal. The detox process has begun.

.

.

* I thought the whole night and decided to turn the comment function off. I did not write this post to fish for more compliments which many of you have kindly bestowed on me, deservedly or not. I just needed to get this out of my head, hoping doing so will help speed up the process or at least stem the tide that’s dragging me further away from what is deemed normal.

** No worries. I am ok. I am always ok.

I Comment Therefore I Am – Trolling

33 Replies

When I was in college, Deconstruction and Postmodernism were in vogue, later when I was in graduate school, Cultural Relativism was all the rage, and I thrived in the academic environment that prized my way of examining and understanding life and people from all perspectives.

In real life, this makes me a person with no strong conviction, I suspect. My penchant of looking at people and life in general from both/all sides made me a great research scholar or maybe even a good instructor but would not have done any good if I wanted to change the world. For starters, I am agnostic because I have not the guts to decide on one thing or the other. (At least that is MY reason for claiming I am agnostic). I often corner myself onto a slippery slope by empathizing to a fault.

These past few days I believe I came to some certain degree of appreciation for things that I have sorely despised:

Teabagging Parties and Internet Trolling.

Tea Party Protest Sign. Well, sort of. The gist of it.

I went to a live taping for Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and it was a blissful relief to be surrounded by people who shared my worldview, and I assume, my socio-economical and educational backgrounds. No apology was needed (except I did apologize profusely when I asked to take pictures of Peter Sagal and Carl Kasell. What can I say? They just seem too sublime to be asked to partake in such vulgar activities such as FANGIRL WORSHIP…) No explanation was demanded. I agreed wholeheartedly with everything that was said.

I can see why the teabaggers are drawn to these crazy tea parties! I thought. (Seriously. THIS can be very annoying sometimes…)

.

On the same day I went to the Wait Wait taping, I also discovered the titillating excitement of being an Internet Troll.

.

Ain't that the truth?!

.

I became obsessed with this post “How to Be a Good Wife” on Scary Mommy as soon as I saw the words: “Completing Him” challenge: Be the woman your man needs.

Long story short: Jill, Scary Mommy, found a post on a blog (which turns out to be a Christian, sort of “Come to Jesus” “Let’s know HIM and serve HIM well” kind of blog) that encouraged the readers to participate in an 8-week challenge that will help the women learn/make an effort to love their husbands. Some choice examples:

Make a list of 5 things you currently do and ask him to prioritize them for you of what is important to him. For example – a clean home, home cooked dinner, coupon clipping, service at church, having friends over for dinner, watching/doing sports with him, etc.

No complaining, criticizing, rolling your eyes, nagging, or giving him any friction this week. Enjoy a week of peace in your home!

Support his vision. Discuss his vision for your family. Where does he see your family in 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years. Share with us how you let your husband lead.

.

The most telling part about what this blog that Jill stumbled upon is all about? On that blog, another blog is featured called Raising Homemakers*. “Dedicated to inspiring, teaching and blessing mothers who have an interest in raising their daughter in godliness and preparing them in the arts of homemaking to the glory of God.” I kid you not.

* Sorry peeps. I am not linking to any of these conservative websites for many reasons. For one, trackback is a bitch. And really, why ruin your day or even week by checking it out, getting nauseous just thinking about it?

Anyway, Jill used these “challenge tasks” to come up with sarcastic/ironic remarks about how she planned to serve her husband and become a good wife for him.  Of course, the way her audience is (me being one of them), comments from Jill’s regular readers started pouring in.

Comments really were the best part there. Most of them were hilariously sardonic, and we were having a lot of fun, “building camaraderie” as I saw it, based on the same conviction which could be summed up by this comment left by Jen:

I let me husband have sex with me and he likes it. That is submission enough.

.

I was, however, disturbed and upset at first.

Do these women have girls? Why do they even bother encouraging their girls to study or do anything else if they expect grown women to do nothing else but allow their husbands to ‘lead’ them? In that case, wouldn’t the men prefer the ignorant kind? No talking up nor speaking up? Wouldn’t that just make this whole scheme a lot easier to maintain? Look at what’s going on in the fundamentalist Muslim societies. If girls are not allowed to go to school, yes, men there can continue to lead as long as they’d like.

I am getting riled up without even watching the video. I am sorry. I tried to be sarcastic and funny and yet I failed miserably.

.

Then Nic @ My Bottle’s Up alerted me to the aforementioned “I cannot bring myself to say it again” website…

OMFG! Should I click on it? My hand is shaking. Actually my whole body is shaking. Maybe it’s created by The Onion?! Please? Just lie to me…

Actually, I take it back. I visited the site briefly. And as a mother of two boys, I am going to be selfish and highly endorse such a scheme of producing wonderful homemakers who will take care of my boys much better than I have been and ever will. I never have to worry about my sons getting beaten up like Elin beat up Tiger Woods. And I can really learn to be proud of my boys when they show their women what their places are in the world. I wonder whether they also teach about ‘submission to parents-in-law since you know they gave birth to the man who is leading you so they are like on an even higher level’ because the last thing I need after raising these brats are daughters-in-law that talk back and don’t appreciate my gorgeous wonderful sons. Awesome!

And… I was back! To my sarcastic self again, baby!

.

Then “the other camp” found out the fun we were having over on Scary Mommy, very quickly, chaos and hilarity ensued. And that, my friend, was when I became so obsessed with trolling for things I disagreed with and made myself a nuisance in general. To this comment:

Serving Him and my husband is what I was put on this earth to do. I know where I’m going when my time on earth is complete. Can any of you say the same?

(The same woman also made the claim that her husband has never strayed because she’s never given him an excuse to… Oh yeah. It was very hard for me to sit on my hands and say NOTHING to that. I am very proud of my restraint)

I replied:

You are right. I cannot say the same thing because I believe in reincarnation and I have no idea yet what I will be coming back as. If I continue to do good the way I have, I sure hope I get to come back as a husband with a submissive wife who gives me no excuse to stray (wink wink). I seriously am looking forward to living the high life. So excited!!!

.

I also spotted a familiar face: The lovely Vapid Blonde was there at the party!

I am running right out and getting a pair of stripper shoes in which I will feed my husband bacon while he watches the Bruins win every cup and the Red Sox win every world series all day everyday….because THAT might be his perfect day with his perfect wife.

So I backed my girl up by praising her actions:

Right. Vapid. Work it, girl! Make sure you don’t give your husband an excuse to stray otherwise if he cheats on you, you will only have yourself to blame.

.

I was high. It was like drug. I kept on going back for more, checking for new development, cough cough, new opportunities for my comedic genius. Now, I am still not sure how the Gulf Oil Spill became involved in this heated debate, but the same genius asked,

Perhaps the oil spill exists for a reason. A punishment for greed? Ever thought about that?

It’s almost like she was a shill I put in the audience, she just handed it to me!

It’s the pelicans’ fault. Ever see how they gobble up all the fish in one big mouthful? Yup. Not just greed, gluttony too.

.

Eventually it dawned on me: This is silly. I wish conservatives and liberals would just stay out of each other’s blogs when politics, religions and gender roles are discussed. I am sorry. There is no way I am going to see things from the other side when these matters are involved. Try and explain to me why a woman needs to wear a chador and I will show you my bound feet. Cultural relativism my ass. Here was my final missive:

Blogs are not meant to be neutral or objective. Facebook pages are not meant to be neutral or objective. We have to agree to disagree sometimes. Jill did NOT leave a comment over on that website (at least the last time I checked). The fact is somebody went over to the other post and alerted people there that that post is being talked about here. (Wow, that sounded like I was describing high school, didn’t it?) The fact is you decided to come over and take a look and be offended.

It is really tempting for me personally to leave comments all over the Internet on conservative websites mocking them, criticizing them, but I refrain myself every time, because it would be like if I insist on watching Glenn Beck to get myself all riled up spitting blood. Better just walk away. I have read one blog post referring to mine in a negative light with insulting comments (yeah, I am not bragging ok? “Just ONE?” I know I am but a krill in this big pond and oh yeah Trackback is a bitch), I wanted to say something, to defend myself, to prove them wrong, but I walked away.

You can’t argue someone into changing their minds, esp. in the matters of faith/religion, and esp. when all this is based on ‘believing in Jesus/God’ as that very nice lady said in her latest post welcoming new readers. Did you really think you would be able to change minds, to convert people into ‘True Christianity’ that you subscribe to, by coming over here and yelling at people?

p.s. Actually I kind of wish it could work this way: imagine the lives that could have been saved from the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. Let’s just try to talk the other side into changing their minds!

p.s.s. You were so right when you said, ‘Heaven forbid that we might be right.’ That is why I am agnostic. I’ve got it all covered. Booyah!

p.m.s. Jill I am so sorry for coming back over & over again. I just discovered that being a troll is fun, no wonder people do it all the time!

.

.

Unknown Mami inspired me to turn my comments into a post because comments sometimes really are the best part! Besides, I am lazy. So why not recycle words that you have written?!

Unknown Mami

Last Day of Innocence

33 Replies

He may not know it but today marked an important milestone in my oldest’s life, and also in our life as parents.

My husband walked the boys to the bus stop this morning and he even took some pictures of them together waiting for the bus albeit with his phone*. This will be the last time they do this. My children will no longer attend the same school at the same time. It is kind of strange to realize this.

Today is the last day of grade school for my oldest child. After the summer, he will be a 7th grader, going on to junior high. I am dreading seeing it more and more as the end, or the beginning of the end, of childhood innocence for him. For us.

I am terrified. To me, junior high is alien territory. A murky space between child and teens.  Where the physiological development of your child propels them across the threshold of adulthood when they are still babies.

My baby.

I did not grow up here and all my education of the American high school experience and culture came from watching high school movies produced in Hollywood, starting with Porky’s. It suffices to say that Porky’s is not very helpful, nor is it reassuring, in preparing me for junior high because, well, all these movies are about senior high schools. Junior high schools are way under-represented in Hollywood. The only movie about junior high school in my recollection is The diary of a Wimpy Kid. A movie so unsettled me that I repeatedly asked my husband, “Is it really that bad? These kids are only 12?! How can they be so mean?” until he lied and said, “No, it’s just a movie. Now stop being so crazy,” and forced my children to promise me that, yes, they WILL tell me if they are being bullied in school because “I WILL GO KICK SOMEBODY’S ASS!”

Oh, yes. I am on full-patrol bully alert. I am sharpening my shuriken and start my 12-step training as a ninja assassin because God forbid if I make it worse for my children by giving those bullies a chance to retaliate.*

I went to an “Introducing New Parents to What Junior High School is All About” meeting a few months back. The principal gave us a rundown of the curriculum, the classes offered, the extra-curricular activities available, the amount of homework expected – “Two hours minimum, and more if they take a foreign language class”, and the rules especially regarding electronics – “NONE allowed. Don’t even bring them to school.” There was a walk-through of the school property, which I missed because my son did not inform me of the meeting until that afternoon, and from what I was told, an attempt to explain how the kids will be divided into two groups because there are too many of them, the Switch and Swap between classes, and something about the homeroom not being really important since the kids are based off of their lockers.

Lockers? You mean lockers from which things inadvertently fall out and the owner of the said locker will be ridiculed and thus be relegated to the Purgatory of the Uncool? You mean lockers where the smaller kids get shoved into by the bullies all the fucking time and nobody ever stops them or at least alerts the authorities?  Is it just me? Nobody else sees these lockers as potential hazards and should be purged from high schools? Or are the movies completely made up?

Good. Now I feel better. I should also stop remembering each and every high school torture scene I have seen.

Then there was the cafeteria. The pièce de résistance in every high school movie.  Although I mocked myself for taking the movies too literally, I soon realized, much to my dismay, that the significance of the cafeteria is not an exaggeration by Hollywood. I spent half an hour listening to moms rehashing and reviewing the cafeteria seating assignment process and policy shared with us new parents.

The kids will have a few weeks to sit wherever they want. The day before the designated day, an announcement will be made. “Tomorrow is the day!” On the designated day, wherever the kids are sitting and whomever they are sitting with, THIS IS IT. They have to remain in that seat for the next 3 months.

The moms seemed to be satisfied that there will be quarterly rotations. So I was too. After I made this mental note…

Note to Self: Child MUST attend school on THOSE FOUR days. Even if he is coughing up blood.

All this pressure to be COOL. To NOT be uncool.

I seriously admire all of you who have grown up this way, who have gone through and survived this unscathed. Just sitting here thinking about it, the pressure is getting to me so much that I want to slit my throat.  Because the boundary between COOLNESS and UNCOOLNESS seems so… fickle and arbitrary. One has no control over it. You become the hostage of your peers who are just as confused as you are.

.

.

As I watched the children at their 6th grade party having the time of their life, I wondered whether these kids knew that their carefree days were naught:  Did they know that this might be the last time all of them would be hanging out as a group and stay in such proximity to each other (for 100% innocent fun), no cliques in sight?  That this would be the last time the D.J. did not need Bill Pullman’s speech at the end of Independence Day to rouse everybody to participate equally, more or less?

My heart ached.

For almost all of them this was probably the first “dancing” party they have been to. They were excited. And awkward at the same time, not sure what to do with their long limbs when the music started pounding. While I wearily noted down a few kids that could be easily pegged as “future jocks and queen bees in the making” and I mentally gave them the Robert De Niro “I’m Watching You” hand sign, short and tall, small and big, boys and girls, they all acknowledged each other’s existence. They were all hanging out and being uncool together. Crossing that mile marker. And that made it totally cool.

.

.

*I started out wanting to write a sentimental piece about how my baby is all growing up and no longer a child. Apparently, my school of parenting is Unsentimental Parenting. Somehow this turned into an exercise in mental anguish and pre-battle prep and I am psyching myself up like Mr.  “I Pity the Fool” T.

.

*Correction: I forwarded my husband the email version that Feedburner sent me and he would like it to be known that he actually remembered to bring an ACTUAL camera with him that morning to the bus stop. That’s more than I can say, honey. You know how I only take pictures with my iNotPhone now.

.

* Yes, I email my husband selective blog posts of mine to 1. inform him what’s going on in this household because chances are he has no idea (and this may or may not have something to do with him being a road warrior). 2. prevent him from reading posts that I don’t want need him to read.

“precisely ninety-one centimeters from himself”

18 Replies

“Having been struck by a 150-ton meteorite, Henry has to adapt to living precisely ninety-one centimeters from himself.”

Once in a while, you come across something that so resonates with you to the point of altering your reality. Or your perception of reality. It’s like, all of a sudden, you can see yourself more clearly. You understand what is going on inside your head. You see what the root of your problem is. Yet to explain that something, or how or why, is completely beyond your command with words. Haunting. That is all you can think of.

Tautology: using something incomprehensible to explain something incomprehensible.

.

Exactly 91 cm away from himself…

.

I came across something yesterday.  The Bloggess mentioned it as “Painfully poignant: you should watch this”.  So I did. And I have not been able to stop thinking about it. Have not been able to stop crying actually.

If you have ever questioned who you are, where you are, what you are, why you are. If you live with the haunting that you may not be yourself. Or that if you are, then who is this other person. If you ever feel/fear that if you lie still long enough, you will for sure float outside of your body and look down back on yourself lying in bed, and you are scared that you may not recognize yourself. If you could almost precisely predict when you will have an existential breakdown.

If you wonder what it is like to have such chaotic thoughts inside your being. Watch this. “Skhizein“, written & Directed by Jérémy Clapin

 

Skhizein (short film) from Jeremy Clapin on Vimeo.