Tag Archives: there is a reason why I am not a philosopher

Repost: My Problems with “The Help”

Apparently many of my friends from my “real life” LOVE The Help. Love it. They are telling people on Facebook to “GO SEE THE HELP. RUN. NOT WALK!” including a dear dear friend who studied and wrote about Apartheid in South Africa. As I ponder how much I should share my perspectives with her at the risk of hurting her feelings and alienating her, I re-read my post from January 20. 2010, and nope, my view has not changed. Since the movie adaptation is receiving rave reviews all over and I have not seen my Anglo-Saxon lady friends so enthusiastic about a movie with an African American lead since The Blind Side (yes please argue why the African American characters are at most CO-lead, and you’ll be right in my book), I feel compelled to share this post from almost 2 years ago again.

Or, actually, skip this post entirely and go read My Brown Baby‘s post “I Was the Help —- and My Experience Taught to Dream Big“. If you have been reading my blog and liking what you have been reading, I have a feeling that you are going to appreciate very very much what Denene Millner, the autohor, has to say about the book, the movie and the reception of it. Peace out.

REPOSTED from January 20, 2010

I probably don’t need to publish this post on my blog. It is not appealing. It is not good writing. It will not make you laugh out loud. It is not even a proper rant. Besides, it is friggin’ long – I am amazed at how much I tapped out on my iPhod, and tedious. I am not even making any coherent argument, not to mention grammatical errors! Run-on sentences! totally exposing myself as a feeble-minded person. Even the title spells “MEH”.

That being said, I feel this pathological need to be on the record, I guess. Since I have been treating this blog as my diary, I want everything that comes out of my head to be on here. So, sorry about this… mental puke…

I brought the book, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett with me on my flight back home last December. I have had the whole flight between IAD and Narita to ponder on this book. I won’t even attempt at writing a review since I am really not qualified to do so. And at any rate, there are already more than 1,400 reviews on Amazon.com. Furthermore, all the book reviewers in the major news outlets have done so and waxed poetic on this book, with one of them comparing The Help to To Kill A Mocking Bird.* I will just make a list of things that I have been chewing on. By Tap Tap Tap on my iPhone (without a SIM) and therefore heavy editing involved thereafter.

Spoiler alert: If you are thinking of reading this book, you should skip this. I will also be 100% honest with myself, which means I will be contradictory, at times nonsensical, and possibly offending, especially if you love the book.

Confession first: I enjoyed reading this book tremendously. Cliché, yes. Truth is: it IS a page turner. For me. From the moment when I opened it in August when I first received it, I could not completely put Aibileen out of my head until the Christmas week, when I finally had time to sit down and read the book in long stretches.

The stories are riveting. The voices are, as much as I hate using this word because it is often confused with “stereotypical”, or at the very least “archetypal”, the voices sound to me “authentic”. That is, when I was reading it, when I was caught up in the drama of the story that was being expertly told, when I was kept in suspense as to the safety of the women, when I was hoping with clenched fists and a racing hear that they would triumph over evil and that justice would be done. Well, justice be done to a certain extent, in the strict confines of the story-telling.

Now I ask myself: How many Southerners do I know? None.

Do I know any African American domestic help? Nope.

What do I know about Southern dialects and accents? Not a thing.

So what do I know about whether the book is “authentic” or not? Hasn’t this always been the gripe I have against books like Memoirs of a Geisha? That a fiction novel, on account of its main characters being of a non-white race, is evaluated and praised for delivering an “authentic” portrayal. Do we even care whether Dan Brown’s characters are authentic or not?

Damn the identity politics theories I read, classes I took.

I cannot help, in the back of my mind, though I immensely enjoyed the stories of these women, that a white woman took possession of the black women’s stories twice, especially after I read Kathryn Stockett’s personal note at the end of the book: like Skeeter in the story, Stockett wrote the black women’s stories and gained wild success.

I understand the above statement reeks of identity politics, but I cannot help the gnawing feelings in the back of my head.

What bothers me even more is Skeeter’s cajoling, forcing almost, these women into telling her their stories because she was told that she needed to write something that nobody had ever written before in order to get into the publishing world. Throughout I was extremely uncomfortable with her motive: next to the all too real risk to the black women’s lives, her motif seems so trivial. Selfish even. What is the potential downside for her engagement in this feat? None too serious really. And indeed, there was a happy ending for Skeeter. But for Minnie and Aibileen the future remained uncertain.

Although I do wish something horrible would happen to the wrong-doers and was a bit let down when it didn’t, I do applaud the author for not cheapening the story by taking the easy way out. They are still in the mid 1960s in Mississippi and it is not like they are going to all of a sudden find true equality by the end of the book. I need to give the author props for not providing her White readers with an easy cathartic way to assuage the white guilt. “The villain that caused such misery is dead/appropriately punished, all is well in the universe. Now get on with your merry life.”

As I mentioned, the book received gleaming reviews. From White book reviewers. This could be racist on my part, and certainly identity politics at its worst as some might say, nevertheless, I feel I NEED TO know how an African American reader may feel about this book. NOT because a white woman from a privileged family in the South wrote this book, but because, again, despite my immense enjoyment of this book, and yes indeed I feel guilty for liking this book when I started wondering how my friends back in my graduate study classes would have said about this book, I cannot ignore the conflation of the tropes: 1. the White heroine being rescued, or finding self-realization, through Black folks around her that she does not socialize with, 2. Black people, unable to help or save themselves, being rescued by a White person.

I imagine this book already optioned by a movie studio. Or soon will be. Anyway you look at it, it IS going to be a great vehicle for some of the outstanding African American actresses, and god only knows how hard it is for a good script with a strong minority character lead to make it all the way to some head honcho’s desk. I do hope that the script and the actor that portrays Leroy would breathe some more life into him rather than the one-dimensional wife-beater. When in doubt, we reach for the things we share as women: abusive husbands, cheating boyfriends, sexist Chauvinistic patriarchs. In that process, our men are further demonized. Joy Luck Club immediately comes to mind. I can’t watch that movie without cringing. Not a single man in that movie is worthy of loving. Is it why it was accepted by the white mainstream audience? “Poor Asian women. They are so much better off over here. Away from their men.”

When The Blind Side came out, and the Internet was all abuzz about what a feel good movie it was, it immediately raised the mental red flag for me. “Feel good” means, to me, “Not for you. You are probably not the target audience/reader. Stay home. Otherwise you won’t feel good.”

I asked an African American columnist whether she planned to see the movie,

“No. We don’t consider that movie an attractive idea.” She said coyly.

* The surest way to incite heated debate against the worth of any book is to compare it to the beloved To Kill a Mocking Bird… So if you hate someone, yeah, go ahead and compare them to Harper Lee.

Meet Me Halfway. Cute vs. Puke

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I am sitting in the United Airlines lounge, home for the famous automatic beer pouring machine, (not quite) halfway back to Chicago, but already I stop talking to people in Chinese, and I am transitioning to my American self again. (My apology for falsely reinforcing the dichotomy of East vs. West. This is strictly personal: I no longer feel the need to look smaller by haunching or sucking in my guts, or to look cute and agreeable, or to bat my eyelashes innocently. Feel free to expand. Take all the space you want. Of course, I will still complain about any non-Asian person trying to impose such a rigid contrast between East vs. West or subscribe to the idea that Asian women are oppressed. Bite my contradictory, non-consistent ass if you wish.)

First of all, I just want to thank all of you to continue to visit my blog even when I am not able to reciprocate. Sometimes I feel that blogging is ultimately a selfish act. Or rather, the reason why I blog. Or rather, the reason why I started blogging which has undergone some significant change over the course. It is selfish because when I have limited time and energy and am forced to choose, I almost always choose to post blogs rather than to read and comment. It is both selfish and self-indulgent and at the same time, an act of self-preservation as I need to jot down what’s swirling inside my head so I can clear it through the process.

When I hit the publish button, it is in the ether, in some sense, no longer my concern.

Of course, most of these are random things I found amusing of which I kept mental notes so I could regale an audience at a dinner party one day. Who am I kidding? I don’t think there is any dinner/cocktail party in my stars. So I put them out there. Voile! Carte blanche. ’cause my mental Post-It pad is as thin as the free ones you find on the desks in hotel rooms.

I was assaulted by a wall of pink cuteness at the airport, a place you kind of expected to be safe from a culture that encourages its womanfolks, young and old, to be cute and adorable.

Kawai. Japanese for cute, adorable. 可愛 in Chinese. It is a cultural obsession.

When I packed for this trip, I consciously left out tops that are too revealing, knowing that any indication of self-professed sexuality would be frowned upon. Unfortunately, I misjudged and two of my shirts, when I lean forward, reveal my cleavage, and this caused some visible discomfort in strangers, both male and female. At first it was quite puzzling to me: judging by the amount of advertisements devoted to breast augmentation, next only to those devoted to weight loss naturally, you’d think that people are at least used to the idea that boobs exist. Isn’t this contradictory?

Paradoxically, this actually falls in line with the schizophrenic idea of the female ideal: If you know Manga and Anime, you know we want our women to be Innocent + Sexy. Somewhat different from the Madonna + Whore paradox, we want our women to be CUTE. Juvenile. Forever 16 or 18. (Can you imagine La Madonna dressed in pink and adorned with Hello Kitty?)

I am pretty sure there is an entire dissertation worth of theorizing here but I am just going to do Stream-of-Consciousness which is to say, I have no idea what the fuck I am talking about and I am just going to type them up as thought clouds appear.

Someone asked me how much I drank when I was home. The answer is none. I do not drink when I am with my family because first of all they assume/prefer to think that I do not drink. Furthermore, the ability to hold your liquor is not something that will add to one’s desirability (not that I am looking to be desirable, being married and all, but you know what I mean…)

I am getting a clearer idea of why I always feel so out of place when I am home: I feel awkward, physically. Even if I were rail thin, Bulimia thin (which would be just about right according to the standards here. Ha!), I would still have been too tall. Cuteness and I simply do not mix. It was already like this when I was in college: I tried to dress the part, cutesy prints, flowery adornments, frilly edges and all, but there was always this gnawing in the back of my head telling me how ridiculous I looked trying to look adorable when I was towering over 80%* of the female population, and probably the male too.

Puke.

I am so relieved now to be sitting here, sipping my Bloody Mary, showing my cleavage, surveying the world, narrowing my eyes and sitting in a manner that suggests Yes, I know I am sexy and you want a piece of this.

Incidentally, I was informed that in many restaurants and all self-respecting KTVs (Karaoke with all private party rooms) in Taiwan, you can find a mini version of the urinal in the men’s bathroom for puking. Ingenious, isn’t it? We should get these into the bars in the U.S., and of course, in both MEN’s and WOMEN’s Rooms.

* Number pulled out of my ass, in no way scientific.

“I am so happy you’re alive”

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The most exciting, most surreal, yet most unnerving, and embarrassing part of the evening with David Sedaris (yeah this totally sounds like I spent some intimate hours with him, doesn’t it? THIS is why I have a blog: so I can alter reality with the power of my words) came when, more than half way through the book reading, he said that he often would get 10 copies of his books in a foreign language and would keep a copy while giving the rest away. “I just got this book today. It is in…” Chinese. Please let it be Chinese! I thought hard. My fists tightened. “… Chinese. So if anybody here who can speak Chinese, please come to the book signing table after this, just come to the front of the line and I will give the book to you.”

Oh my god! I cannot believe this is happening! oh my god oh my god oh my god!

“Me!” My heart pounding, my head spinning, I forgot I was in the middle of a jam-packed auditorium, I shot up, yelling, my right hand outstretched. Fortunately, the theatre was darkened. As fast as I stood up and made a fool of myself, I sank back down in my seat again. Fortunately I was surrounded by the enlightened, liberal type so I only detected smiles and shared joy from my seatmates.

When the show was over, I stood up and immediately was crushed: the crowd swarmed the exits and there was simply no way for me to make a quick getaway. I decided to resign myself to the inevitable fate: I would be late to the table and the book would have been claimed, for shirley I cannot be the only Chinese person in the whole theatre…? If I give up hope now, it will save me from some debilitating disappointment. When things are too good to be true, you know it is too good to be true…

When I finally inched my way to the lobby, I got into a line that was surprisingly short. When I congratulated myself for the relatively short line, the lady in front of me kindly informed me that the line was for purchasing the books. I fought the crowd that were leaving the theatre to the other side of the lobby and saw a line that snaked along the corridor all the way back into the auditorium. As I accepted my fate and walked towards the end which I could not even see, something clicked. I did an about-face and marched to the front of the lobby where the table was.

“Excuse me, sir.” I said to the man that was at the very front manning the line. “During the book signing, he said he had a book in Chinese to give out and if anybody speaks Chinese, they should come to the table and ask for it.” I was so relieved when he did not dismiss me as an opportunistic nutjob and instead referred me to a lady who seemed to be in charge of the event. I repeated my line and she said, “Oh yes! Let’s see. We need to talk to his, ugh, his…” And she ushered me to the table as Mr. Sedaris was sitting down at the table.

I wish I could tell you that we had a ~~sincilating~~ scintillating conversation. Or that we hugged. Or that I took millions of pictures of him with his arm around me. (“Absolutely no photography allowed.” Several signs were strategically posted around the theatre, with one right by the table). Or that I licked him for the gals (after all, there was NO sign that said “Absolutely NO licking allowed!”)

Everything happened so quickly that I had no time to mentally prepare myself (and yes I knew I would meet him at book singing but I was expecting to psyche myself up when I was waiting in line! And no, I am not complaining about being able to skip ahead hours of waiting…) I was simply tongue-tied and brain-dead.

“So you speak Chinese?” He cocked his eyebrow. *melting*

“I can actually read this book. You see the two words literally means ‘Fire’ and ‘Flame’. And this is in traditional Chinese which means the book is from Taiwan and that’s where I came from!” I rattled off. He did not seem impressed or interested actually.

“I’ll give you this book and I can sign it for you. What’s your name?”

“Lin. L-I-N.”

“So Lin. What are you doing here?”

HUH? Is this a trick question? Should I say “I am here for your book reading?”

“Uh. I… live here?”

Certain that this answer was not enough, I added in rapid succession, “I came in 1993 and got my Ph.D. in theatre, got married and I’ve never left since.”

UGH. WHY did you tell him this? What the fuck does he care about this?! You are such an idiot!

“Is this book for you too? And it is Lin, L-I-N?” He asked as I handed him my copy of Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. I nodded and idiotically pointed to myself.

I had an out of body experience right then and there observing and criticizing myself and yet there was nothing the out-of-body me could do to change the course.

“So, Lin, what are you doing here?”

I want to die. Ok, maybe that’s a bit too dramatic. I want to cry. I have no idea what he means by this question. Is it philosophical? Existential? Is he asking me about the meaning of life?

“What are you doing here?” He asked again.

“I came, I got married, I had kids, I never left. And now I am in suburban hell.” I said, barely able to catch my breath.

THAT. is my best shot. W.T.F, Self?!

Now I want to die.

“Well, it’s very nice meeting you!” He extended his hand and I shook it. After that there was nothing else I could do but leave, trying to ignore the murderous daggers shot from the long line of people waiting to be up close and personal to brilliance.

I walked out of the theatre and I began to cry.

I know this is what you are thinking right now... I am sorry, ok?!

On the way home I could not concentrate on driving at all. I kept replaying everything in my head (Yeah, like you haven’t heard that before…) obsessively going through every tiny detail in my less than one minute of face-to-face with David Sedaris.

It felt as though I was given the chance of a life time and I blew it. <— Yes, I am a drama queen. The Court Jester in the Kingdom of Hyperbole. The rational side of me could see this perfectly. Now.

I wanted to kick myself but of course I couldn’t because I was driving, speeding away in the darkened highway besieged by sudden torrential rain.

“What are you doing here? What does he mean by that? And why did he ask me the same question more than once? Is it a code? Did he want me to tell him a joke? Did he want me to tell him something more than mundane?”

Then it hit me. I wish I had made up some sort of story about my ending up where I am. I should have said I was an acrobat. A magician. An origami artist. I should have said that I ran away from the circus I was traveling with and I am currently hiding in middle America, trying my darnedest to blend in.

I could picture his mind going, “Damn. How come of the 2 billion Chinese people in the world, I gave my book to the most boring one?!” <— Yes. This is gross self-aggrandizement. The rational side of me could see this perfectly. Now.

All I wanted was a do-over. To turn back time so I could regale him with my wittiness. The bizarre, funny, yet strangely universal story of how I landed here. In this way, the story I told would be eerily similar to his.

Instead, I raced home and collapsed in my conviction that I would never be given an once-in-a-lifetime so grand as this one and the self pity that I had gone and wasted it. <— See above. Thanks.

It took me the whole day staring at the autograph, and finally asking my son to decipher it for me, to realize the word is not feces or feeble but feeling.

If anybody needs me right now, I’ll be wallowing in my chamber with my smelling salt.

O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

I carry your heart with me

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I have been giving this a lot of thought ever since I started getting readers/commenters who, more often than not, became friends:

Why do the relationships I have forged online with people I have never met often feel a lot more authentic, real and immediate than those in real life?

This was what Wicked Shawn and I talked about yesterday when we met for the first time.

Me: We have just met. Why do I feel so close to you already?

Shawn: But honey (in her sweet sweet Kentucky twang. *melting*) we have known each other for a long time!

She’s right of course.

Just because we communicate by words, over the Internet, it does not make the connections any less valid. People used to have pen pals. Did they feel embarrassed when they told their family and friends about their pen pals? Did they worry about being mocked when they traveled to meet their pen pals in real life?

In fact, y’all know me, what I really think, what I value, my fears, my aspirations, and yes, my neurosis, a lot better than 99% of the people I know in real life. You may not know the names of my husband and children, you may not know where I live or what my house looks like, but you know the “real” me. I am not saying that in my “physical” life I am walking around faking or pretending. My existence here as words in the Interwebs is the essence of my being. Stripped of all adornments.

Well, I am going to contradict myself: sometimes when I think about this whole thing, I see this as my essence being digitized and so I am seeing all of us running around like Tron… So maybe not stripped of ALL adornments because you know, we’d be all carrying a flying disc…

Here, I am not so and so’s wife. So and so’s mother. Weird Asian lady who lives next door. My odd co-worker I have to put up with. The woman who works for/with me. The person who could not pronounce “Doug” (Thank you all!). The person who also apparently cannot pronounce “Don/Dawn” but somehow can “Shawn”. etc. etc.

You get to know me before your judgement/impression/evaluation/or whatever it is that people do when they meet a person of me is influenced by any visual or audio cues.

And this is why when we finally met (and hopefully meet) each other, after the first 30 seconds of awkwardness, we are going to behave as if we have known each other, like, forever.

I just want to thank each and every one of you that has ever visited, commented or emailed me; you have contributed to my improved mental health and self-esteem. The therapy sessions are working, and they are free! Thank you for letting me mooch off of you… Sometimes when life gets me down, I think to myself, “Hey there are people who actually think I am fucking awesome!”

Case in point: Attending conferences by myself is one of my worst fears. Today I had to do so for work. First I was afraid / I was petrified/ But then something clicked: I remembered my “secret identity” as the coolest awesome ass-kicking hot babe that you somehow led me to believe. (Fine. So what if I made the avatar myself? You are a bunch of enablers a girl can ever ask for!) So I behaved as one.

I carry with me your blind faith in me like a protective shield as I go about my daily life.

happy birthday, e. e. cummings.

Disclaimer: I look nothing like the avatar I made.

“Which Sex and the City gal are you?”

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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.

Congratulations, Charlotte, on winning “America’s Manliest City” title

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… despite having a girl’s name. It’s like a boy named Sue, isn’t it? You have been taunted and toughened and become the manliest of them all now that you are all grown up.

Mars Chocolate North America announced today the release of the second annual COMBOS ‘America’s Manliest Cities’ study – crowning Charlotte with this year’s top spot of manliness.

Mars, yes, the candy company, commissioned Bert Sperling, the people who brought us “Best Places to Live” studies (in case you have actually heard of these studies), to conduct the “America’s Manliest Cities” study for the second time. This is a marketing move, as far as I can tell, to promote Combos. You can check them out at Combos.com: Home of the Comboviore. And yup, they are really going after a certain demographics, hard.

Charlotte, N.C. now has chief bragging rights on manliness thanks to its top 10 rankings in the sports, manly lifestyle, manly retail stores, manly occupations and salty snack sales categories.

Naturally “salty snack sales” is one of the metrics. I wonder whether instances of men dying of heart attack and high blood pressure is also taken into account for the study. Have no fear because we know men dying will be well taken care of in these cities since the quintessential Manly Occupations (fire fighters, police officers, construction workers and EMT personnel) were added to the mix this year.

I don’t know what Manly Lifestyle means, in all seriousness. Can someone explain to me? Because here is my thought process when I saw “Manly Lifestyle”:

Watching sports, drinking beers, hanging around bars, shouting, yelling, hooting.

Smoking. Driving. Smoking while driving. Smoking while driving while using the earth as his personal ashtray.

Having big loud supped-up cars that can supposedly go very fast. But ooops. You live in a crowded metro city so your speed is constantly lower than 50 MPH. Better move to Montana (which is not on the list).

Wouldn’t you think that men who work on farms and ranches with their bare hands, and bare chest *swoon* should arguably be the manliest?

Hmmm. Brokeback Mountain. Oh. Never mind.

Well, the study did not say you have to be straight to be manly. I am down with that.

Hmmm. Brokeback Mountain. So it is kind of stupid that Wyoming is not on the list.

Wyoming should definitely be on the list.

Maybe that’s why they did not dare do “The Manliest STATES” because that would totally not be targeting people who may buy Combos and be caught dead with a bag of Combos in their hands walking around when their neighbors are wrestling with steers and cattle and other miscellaneous large animals that men in these mountainous ranges wrestle with their bare hands.

Maybe that’s why the study was confined to Metro Cities. So metrosexuals are not good marketing target for Combos?

Mars feel that they need to step up to market to “manly men” because, eh, Combos look kind of suspicious? Cylinder shape with gooey filling inside?

Do straight men naturally suspect eating anything that’s cylinder shaped? But they sure like hot dogs.

Ok. Focus: Men in metro cities. Think. Harder.

Construction workers. Jack hammers. Wolf whistles.

Wife beaters.

Marlon Brando. A Streetcar Named Desire.

Stanley is without a doubt a "manly man". Hot. But. What an asshole.

“Stella!” For once I just want to do this in the middle of a crowd.

Wife beaters.

West Side Story. Jazz hands. Definitely manly. Yup.

: Possibly the most macho Jazz Hands you’ll ever see

And my mind went on and on. See? It is all very confusing.

So here are the rankings of the 50 cities included in the study:

Charlotte, NC (▲ 1 spot)
Columbus, OH (▲ 5 spots)
Kansas City, MO (▲ 5 spots)
Nashville, TN (▼ 3 spots)
Baltimore, MD (▲ 32 spots)
Milwaukee, WI (▲ 11 spots)
Chicago, IL (▲ 39 spots)
Indianapolis, IN (▲ 1 spot)
Washington, D.C. (▲ 36 spots)
Philadelphia, PA (▲ 20 spots)
Denver, CO (▼ 6 spots)
St. Louis, MO (▼ 6 spots)
Columbia, SC (No Change)
Harrisburg, PA (▲ 12 spots)
Cleveland, OH (▲ 4 spots)
Orlando, FL (▼ 2 spots)
Salt Lake City, UT (▼ 1 spot)
Birmingham, AL (▲ 5 spots)
Detroit, MI (▲ 1 spot)
Cincinnati, OH (▼ 16 spots)
Richmond, VA (▼ 9 spots)
New Orleans, LA (▲ 5 spots)
Phoenix, AZ (▼ 1 spot)
Houston, TX (▲ 15 spots)
Oklahoma City, OK (▼ 22 spots)
Toledo, OH (▼ 16 spots)
Minneapolis, MN (▼9 spots)
Memphis, TN (▼ 17 spots)
Louisville, KY (▲ 2 spots)
Seattle, WA (▲ 10 spots)
Boston, MA (▲ 7 spots)
Atlanta, GA (No Change)
Providence, RI (No Change)
Dayton, OH (▼ 19 spots)
New York, NY (▲ 15 spots)
Jacksonville, FL (▼ 15 spots)
Pittsburgh, PA (▼ 8 spots)
Grand Rapids, MI (▼ 14 spots)
Dallas, TX (▼ 5 spots)
Rochester, NY (▼ 4 spots)
Las Vegas, NV (▼ 13 spots)
San Diego, CA (▲ 1 spot)
San Francisco, CA (▲ 5 spots)
Tampa, FL (▼ 19 spots)
Sacramento, CA (▼ 4 spots)
Buffalo, NY (▼ 11 spots)
Oakland, CA (▼ 3 spots)
Los Angeles, CA (▲ 1 spot)
Miami, FL (▼ 7 spots)
Portland, OR (▼ 3 spots)

I know there is a reason why I instinctively like Portland… Miami got beaten by San Francisco? I blame it on David Caruso.

Charlotte won the crown but Chicago is the biggest winner this year (and of course I am biased): Chicago had the biggest move in the rankings, going from 46th to 7th, reportedly due to the addition of the “Manly Occupations” category.

We clearly have the best Men in Blue (and Red and Yellow and White and Brown and Black and so on…)

The following is said without any trace of sarcasm. Seriously.

The Chicago Blues definitely deserve The Manliest Award this year because many of them are confident enough in their own skin and self-identity to host (and give permission for their fellow officers to host and attend – this is a giant step away from the stereotypically homophobic environment associated with police departments in general, and specifically the Chicago PD in the past) the 14th annual International LGBT Conference for Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice Professionals for the first time in Chicago, ending with the Chicago Pride Parade this past Sunday.

I salute you, officers! Rock those self-confident booties of yours!

Sexiness comes from being comfortable in your own skin. Rock on!

Waiting

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Let's go. We can't. Why not? We are waiting for Godot.

I have been thinking about this exchange in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot a lot lately.

ESTRAGON: Let’s go.
VLADIMIR: We can’t.
ESTRAGON: Why not?
VLADIMIR: We are waiting for Godot.

End of Act I. They do not move

This exchange recurs throughout the play. No progress is made. Nothing is changed. Both acts end on the same verbal promise for action that is never carried out:

VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?
ESTRAGON: Yes, let’s go.
They do not move.

It depressed the hack out of me when the lights dimmed on the two figures in the center of the stage: the same way they started; the same way they ended Act II. Immobile. Engulfed by the darkness, the unknown, eternity. The image and the thought haunts me.

They do not move.

A lot have been written, theorizing the allegorical meaning of Beckett’s tragicomedy. The meaning of Godot.

To me, I’ve always thought that Beckett made a mistake; he should have turned the label the other way around – a comictragedy. This is a tragedy about Didi and Gogo who are the prisoners of their own misplaced hope. This whole waiting thing causes the inaction. It would have been better if they have come to the conclusion that no one is coming. Things are not going to be better. Nothing is going to change their situations for them. But themselves.

I didn’t even realize I have been waiting. Waiting for something, for what I have no idea yet.

What are you waiting for? If you knew what you are waiting for, perchance an event, a sign, the other shoe, will it make everything more tolerable?

I compartmentalize. By spouting random nonsense here I am able to continue to not think. To forestall the unraveling. To keep it together. To carry on with no resolution in sight. To wait. Not remembering that I have been waiting.

For what I know not yet.

Let’s go.

We can’t.

Why not?

We are waiting for Godot.

Wanker Wednesday: My problems with “The Help”

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Now I ask myself: How many Southerners do I know? None.

Do I know any African American domestic help? Nope.

What do I know about Southern dialects and accents? Not a thing.

Damn the identity politics theories I read, classes I took.

I understand the above statement reeks of identity politics, but I cannot help the gnawing feelings in the back of my head.

I asked an African American columnist whether she planned to see the movie,

“No. We don’t consider that movie an attractive idea.” She said coyly.

WTF Wednesday: Fighting “I Guess I’m a Racist” with “I Guess I’m a Lazy Ass”!

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UPDATE (12-17-2009):

I realized that my attempt at satire actually makes it even more confusing. My apology. I will lay it out straight: The “I’m a Racist” ad is ridiculous also because it predicted on the faulty assumption #1 HCR is mostly about the African Americans #2 Ergo I have been accused of being a racist because I am against HCR. OR, if you criticize my criticism of HCR, you are accusing me of being a racist. In my mind, #1 is incorrect, and therefore #2 is incorrect. (This is the argument I was trying to make by invoking the fact that there are also a lot of POOR WHITES who are trapped in the poverty cycle AND the arguments, on both sides, seem to have overlooked their plights).

The new ad “I Guss I’m A Lazy Ass” I am proposing here is for the Pro-HCR camp as a comeback. And it is satirical. Hard to convey “satirical” tone with words since you can’t see my Quote Fingers or Jazz Hands… It plays upon #1. The assumption by many in the anti-HCR camp (anti-Public-option) that people without health care are lazy asses who cannot hold a job, etc. Why should we help those people out? #2. This proposed ad would confront that assumption. #3. The prominent representation of white people (a la the prominent representation by the final Black guy in the “I’m a racist” ad), as sarcastically proposed, refers to the common assumption that Poor White People are Poor NOT because they are lazy but because they are unfortunate…

Anyway, it serves me right to be smug enough to think that I can tackle such a controversial and complex issue. This is such a charged subject and as you can see I am confused myself. There is probably no need for this update either since you either got me (for which I am very grateful and would you please come to my house and explain me to my husband?) or you have moved on to more important things (I would have done this if I were you too so no hard feelings), but I feel that I need to clarify things because I am anal retentive. The bottom line is:

I would like to see the government TRYING to help the truly unfortunate out, esp. the millions of children that are not ensured, and if that means I have to pay more taxes, I am fine with it. Will they make some bumbling mistakes along the way? You bet ya. But the expectation of imperfection should not be the excuse for not doing it at all. Have all the countries claiming to be a democracy really adhere to the democratic principles all the time? Are there not corruptions, nepotisms, all sorts of Jackassery going on? You bet ya. Does that mean democracy failed and we should just write it off? I am sure the answer is no.

This I believe:

“No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and nobody should go broke because they get sick.”

The Original Post (as published on 12-16-2009):

Many of you have this feature called Wordless Wednesday every, eh, Wednesday. But me? Not talking? When I have my own soap box right here? Ha. Therefore I decided to start my own tradition called WTF Wednesday.

And conveniently, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, together: what do we have here?!

My token male reader called me out on an evasive post last week, half-assedly commenting on the “I guess I’m a Racist” anti-healthcare reform ad.

Yeah yeah I know I just also wrote this big giant navel-gazing post about how I am going to ignore all of you and just do whatever I want. So I am going to ignore you right now for mocking me…

Although I have blogged about how I feel about HCR, his comment struck a cord. I was caught red-handed for not following through with my oh-so-big announcement of how I am going to just go ahead and be myself. YOU GOT ME DICK! (No, he really is a dick. I mean, that’s what his blog is called. Eh, never mind…)

So here it is, a week later, assuming (hoping, actually) that I am preaching to the choir, FWIW:

The video is asinine to say the least. As Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell succinctly puts it, “THIS sucks the rhetoric air out of the room.”

First of all, the ads (and many comments circulating on the Interweb) unquestionably assume that RACISM operates on the individual level, rather than on the institutional level. Regarding institutionalized racism: You either agree with this, or you don’t. This is my pessimistic conclusion.

Furthermore, the ads (and the subsequent celebratory comments around the Interweb) wrongfully, yet effectively, turned the entire HCR debate around and recast the issue in an ultra emotional light, since most people do not deliberately practice racist beliefs and activities, and most people take it very personally, understandably, when they feel they are being accused of being a racist.

The real issue of HCR, in my opinion, is one about class: the Have’s vs. The Have-Not’s. And we need to recognize that in the U.S., the class issues are inextricably linked to race issues, due to our unique histories. Although many in the African American academia have challenged the “code words” used in the HCR debate, e.g. “Welfare Queens”, “under class”, etc., it does not mean that they are trying to “hijack” the HCR issue with race issues. The poor Whites will also benefit from an improved health care system. And do you know approximately 2/3 of all welfare benefits administered by the government went to poor Whites? Why is that in a discussion on HCR that could benefit all the people who currently do not have any form of health insurance across the board, we don’t hear about these non-non-White folks’ plights?

Somebody should make a video with all sorts of people speaking to the camera, “I guess I am a lazy ass,” to move the dial all the way to the other end: “You cannot afford health insurance, it must be your own damn fault!” Preferably featuring WHITE PEOPLE since as the thinking goes (as exemplified in the “I Guess I’m a Racist” vid) :
BLACKS <> NOT RACISTS : WHITES <> NOT LAZY ASS
Ergo, all these people that you saw just now? NOT Lazy Ass.

And definitely remember to show a mother with an innocent child who looks at her mother and asks, “Am I a lazy ass, mom?” That’s going to be some powerful shit.

I would have suggested Asian Americans in the vid to make the strongest point because of the whole “Model Minority” stereotype — You know: We work hard. We pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. We are good workers. We hunker down and keep our goddamn mouths shut. We never complain. Yada yada yada — were it not for the other stereotype of Asian Americans being immigrants and foreigners. THAT would have served the enemy’s purpose: LOOK. The HCR IS going to provide insurance to foreigners. OMG!

Some random lady “engaged” me on a debate on Twitter. Imagine debating someone on such a complex issue 140 characters at a time?!… Her argument comes down to: I have done my part. Why should I give more? The government should get out of the business of trying to tell ME how I should spend my (husband’s) hard-earned money. AND, this sort of sums up her position: “I pay tax because I HAVE TO. I give money to charity, through my church, already.” At that point, I said, “Do you seriously want to engage in a political debate with someone who was just talking about tits on Twitter?”

That was the moment when I became deeply convinced that there is NO way we are going to change each other’s mind. None.

That was the moment when I fell in love all over again with Jon Stewart.

p.s. Comedy Central’s blog post on this vid is called “I Guess I’m a Racist, Sexist, Puppy-Killing Psychopath Who Never Calls My Mom“… The title IS the comment.

p.p.s. The funniest, most scathing, most intelligently sarcastic, and in my mind, the most effective comeback was found on The AWL:

“I’m of the opinion that it’s always great to see an oppressed group of people attempt to reclaim a word that has been used in the past to cause hurt and shame. I’m thrilled for Republicans that they’re trying to take the ‘racist’ label back.”

GOLD.

The Absence of Alternatives

My therapy sessions…