Metaphorphosis.

So, I’ve mentioned Simple Jack twice before. I was really loath to mention him again but I had a startling epiphany this weekend revealing quite possibly the most bewildering, disturbing, and altogether disgusting parallel I could ever imagine.

His was a classic case of biting off more than he could chew. Trying to be something he wasn’t to try to get something he thought he wanted. From what I could decipher of his dribble, he had plenty of experience with docile brainless types. He was looking for more, not just a shell but a vessel with depth, full of thoughts and ambitions and questions and answers. Unfortunately for this crazy bitch it wasn’t until after we got together that I started to examine the cracks in his shell and noticed the fear seeping out. We were both slowly cracking because he wasn’t who he said he was, and was proving himself utterly incapable of becoming the man he thought he could be, and consequently he was completely ill-equipped to handle a CB like me. And so when he moved on, he stepped back, into the familiar realm of vacuous husks. And I spent a lot of time thinking, what a shame, that a being fortunate enough to be blessed with even this brief a period of consciousness chooses not to progress, not to advance, not to develop and grow, to be imprisoned by fear and thus self-fated to exist within the torturous cycle of dreaming, of striving, but never fulfilling.

And here comes the most unlikely of metaphors.

When I graduated from college, I went into banking because that’s what I thought I should do, since I went to school for finance and since everyone else seemed to want to do it (damn competitive streak). So then I got there, and I didn’t like it. I wanted more than that. I thought I was more than that. And that’s why I left banking, to go be more.

I swore I'd never go back. I poured money, brainpower, and time into grad school for a completely different subject. I thought post-graduation I'd get another job, I'd travel, meet different people and do different things. In short, I saw grad school as the door to Not Banking. But taking the unbeaten path is hard, particularly in a bull market when everything about the beaten path is attractive – the money, the familiarity, the fact that you’re en pointe qualified and can get there easily whereas others strive for it but can’t (fucking competitive streak!).

And so soon enough I found myself pounding familiar pavement. Why would I do that to myself! How could I be so stupid to take such a huge step back, to something I already knew was woefully inadequate! Did I just go back because it was familiar, despite not wanting it? Did I really “try” to get other jobs? Was it fear? Was I afraid of failure? Of change? That I couldn’t handle something more?

And that's where the metaphor ends.

The universe has a funny way of doing things. I understand that this economic crisis is the worst we’ve had since probably 1929, that people are losing their livelihoods and homes and ways of being. But to me, this is the second chance I thought I had already recklessly and shamefully wasted, and would never see again.

I don’t want to be the one who reached for something more but pulled back her hand because her arm got sore. Because the air got hot. Because she wasn’t sure what she was reaching for. Because she could look behind her and very easily grab something familiar, though less.

I love to dream and to strive, but I want to achieve and to fulfill, and I want to learn from what it takes to get there, to advance, to develop and grow, to be more than I am and what I thought I could be. I don’t think that as a vessel I am confined to a finite volume, I’m pretty sure I can keep filling up with life and still have capacity for more. Nonetheless, I don’t think I have any room to spare for fear. Even infinity has its limits.

So, that said, my lease is up at the end of June. Including school, I have spent nearly 12 years in New York, longer than I’ve lived in any other place. I love New York dearly, I grew up here, I found myself here, I became myself here. I will forever consider this my home, but I’ve realized that to truly break out of my cycle, home really isn’t where I should be right now. I know that I can resign myself to it or break out of it. And I also know that there ain’t no way in hell I’m fucking up this opportunity to get it right.

Accordingly, pretty soon, CB is hitting the road, and where she goes, nobody knows.

However, if you guys have suggestions for where I should go, what I should do, what I should eat, etc., then by all means enlighten a bitch! I said I’d get over the fear but I’m still working on that directionless part.

DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK.

I been here for years.

Doing a lot of shit I said I’d never do and then getting my ass kicked for it. When was the last time I wrote here? Who knows, who cares. Right?

Yeah. This is like when Sydney Bristow shows up 2 years later after being brainwashed and doing a lot of dirty work for the enemy, then she’s all, what Vaughn you married this blonde ho I was only away for like 2 weeks! And then Vaughn is all, bitch please you were gone for 2 years, and not just gone but like, DEAD.

Yeah. So, after 2 years, I’m back from the dead. Kind of.

REWIND.

Tantalus. Grad school. I finish up with that. I spend a month in Southeast Asia climbing hundreds of steps (all temples MUST be built upon mountains of steps) and exploring my emotional peak. I then go into associate training for banking.

Huh?

Stay with me.

I know I said I’d never go back, but I did. I totally lived up to my name, and I’m thoroughly ashamed. What the fuck was it? Greed, lack of creativity, sloth…

Whatever it was, it was a complete fucking disaster. Economy tanks (“It’ll never be worse than post-9/11” – my famous last words). Coworkers for the most part suck. When you’re not the brightest bulbs in the bunch, you gotta make up for it somehow… and that usually means you develop yourselves as ruthlessly manipulative two-faced douchebags, who either make a conformist bitch like me do all your work then drag her name through the mud, or never worked with me but feel like jumping on the name-dragging mud bandwagon. Don’t they sound delish and exactly the kind of jackals who can really nurture a career? Oh and they suck so badly, that I get myself into a pseudo relationship with one (albeit one who was not involved in mudslinging).

WHAAAAT.

You remember, that one I went rollerblading for and then didn’t call or visit or show any emotion when I ended up in the ER. Who, apart from being an emotionally unavailable and very likely homosexual sociopath (I’m pretty sure he’s the basis for the Simple Jack character from Tropic Thunder – yeah I have great taste), cheats on me with a college student who when I see her appears to be the living incarnate of those little trolls you used to put on your pencils in elementary school. And I’m not saying that to be mean. I’m saying that because it’s true. But funny enough, it was the same politically venomous environment that drove SJ out of the country and back to Europe. Though I like to think that I had a little something to do with that too.

But back to me.

So, to recap, what does being a conformist bitch get me? The unique, high profile, upwardly mobile opportunity to rot in a dungeon, 24/7, with Simple Jack in front of me dialing up hos, and a hundred thousand knives in my back.

And then it came.

I thought I’d be angrier about it. I thought I’d spew all the venom I’d been absorbing, I thought I’d spit it in his face and burn the place down. Instead I just took my money and ran.

“I’m going to have to let you go” = Red Sea parting.


Let my people go!

You know, the first time I got out of prison it hadn’t quite reformed me. I had a lot of fight left, I had a lot of shit to prove (“prove”), I couldn’t figure out how to adapt to the outside world. That was probably because it was a prison break, I bust myself out and when you’ve been fighting for so long, made a career of it, you just turn every corner looking for the next fight. And so when you can’t find a good one you do some bad shit and go straight back to jail, though in my case you do pass GO and collect a crazy signing bonus doing so. But this second time around, it’s different. I’m done.

I mean it.

No really!

And it’s not so much that I had to take 5 months to get here, the seeds of this decision were probably subconsciously planted a long time ago, and finally broke ground when the warden unlocked the gates. These lovely 5 months have just been detox, stepping out from behind the shadow of my former self. Sure, I’m bleeding cash and I have zero direction, but I'm shedding dead weight and my silver streaks are turning back brown. The only thing I haven’t kicked, as you may well have noticed, is the insomnia. But maybe I should just go with it, as some of my best ideas have been borne in a semi-somnambulant state. Regardless, psychologically, I’m in the best shape ever.

So call it what you will – renaissance, rebirth, resurrection. Doesn’t really matter as those things should all be happening continuously, if I’m doing things right. What really matters is, this bitch is back.

For real.

I do NOT look like Maury from Zoolander.

The mere possession of a velour track jacket does not make me Maury Baulstein. Okay? Get over it.

You can derelicte my balls, cap-i-tan.

Fun at the emergency room.

Well, rollerblading is all fun and games until you dodge a stroller and hit a brick and tear your chin open on the pavement and scratch up your elbows.

What adds to the fun is a bewildering 1.5 hour wait while bleeding through the lone bandaid given to you by the triage nurse.

And through all this, you have the stranger who kindly drove you and your friend to the ER, the doctor who calmly talked you through the suturing, the friend who patiently waited with you and took you back to your apartment.

But then you wake up the day after. And you hurt and you're still kind of bleeding and you can't bend your elbows, and everything, especially bathing, becomes a Herculean feat. And you've got cabin fever and you can't eat and you're celebrating womanhood and the whole cocktail of anxiety, adrenalin, estrogen, progesterone, and whatever else swirls you into a moody, emotional, depressed, desperate mess. And you make some calls and you send some texts and you write some emails, but everyone, including the guy with whom you recently became more-than-friends, is busy or has "other stuff to do." And then you start to cry, but you remember that the doctor told you not to get your stitches wet.

And that's when you realize that sometimes, it really fucking sucks to be alone.

Blacksburg.

After an absence of such unconscionable length I would normally begin with a lengthy, overgrown, but ultimately less-than-particularly-heartfelt apology, but in this case I will dispense with the formalities. I had been working on a few posts in recent weeks, dealing with everything from jury duty to racism (one and the same?), and was actually ready to post a few thoughts, when the shootings at Virginia Tech occurred. And so for the last few nights I've been pretty sleepless with not much else to think about.

Let me first say that this post will not be a laundry list of would-haves, could-haves, and should-haves from my egocentric perspective, as I do not stand nor ever hope to stand in the shoes of any of those involved or affected. Let me also make this clear - there will be no guilt, no blame, no politics. This is not the time. Instead, I will open up my personal history books for a while, which may give you some idea of the possibilities of mental and existential despair, for those of you who sit in the middle 95% of the bell curve and may not ever have needed to deal with such things.

Now that we are in Day 3 of the fallout, there is alot of talk about prevention. What can we do to make universities more secure. When will we institute stricter gun control. Why did Cho do this. Why was he so angry. Why didn't we see it coming.

Well we can't. We're not psychic.

This particularly ill individual was indeed far from a smokeless fire, but ultimately, his decisions were his own. Whatever oversimplified rationales society may slap on him as time passes, casting blame here on violent entertainment there on questionable security and everywhere on gun control, the fact remains that it was an act of free will. And you will likely never be able to fully understand it. He can perform for you his tragic fairytale through photographs, videos, and prose, and in his mind he is perfectly clear. But despite all of this, despite anyone's best efforts, no message ever comes across 100%. While the actual thought, the flash of light and energy between synapses of creation, is absolutely and undeniably perfect, the diffusion of that thought beyond the bounds of its womb always brings with it a certain degree of loss.

When you are at the edge of despair, staring into the blackness waiting for a response that you know will never come, you engage yourself in a bit of a struggle... because you want a response, you look behind you for a reaction, the interaction, you want someone to understand you, despite all your displays to the contrary. And so you start sending out feelers. And you wait. Did anyone notice? You hint a little stronger. And stronger, and stronger, until you cross the point at which maybe someone may have noticed, but the thoughts have rotted so badly that you no longer care. Fuck them, you say. They don't care anyway. They don't even know that they don't. And so you turn away from them for the last time, and decide that given the alternative of enduring a living hell of people who will never try to, let alone actually, understand, you'd rather jump.

There is alot of angst out there, alot of rage against the rich and the privileged and the "system," all of which so coldly victimize you... while they have it, you have not... though you know to the depths of your being that you deserve it far more than they do. The world is unjust. And you want justice.

But can you in a single breath create or, perhaps, in your view, exact, this justice? Do you even care to see that far? Could you if you tried?

Why me? -I would ask. I deserve so much more, I endured the more painful struggle, I labor so arduously every second of existence for the same things that you take so blithely for granted. You morally corrupt and intellectually vacuous shells...you have everything. You have it so easy yet you bitch and you whine and you rage about how difficult your pathetic lives are. Can you not see? Can you not see the difference between us? How can you not understand? What do I deserve? What do you deserve? What do you deserve?

It's a one-sided conversation, because no one answers back. I read somewhere that when these types of mental problems arise, boys tend to project outward while girls turn the anger in towards themselves.

Well, we all know that I am not the typical girl.

I honestly don't know if many high school aged kids spend a considerable amount of their consciousness dreaming up "Jeremy's spoken"-type scenarios, but I did. And it was indescribably, incomprehensibly, excruciatingly painful. Pain, you see, isn't a smart bomb, it isn't limited, it's not effectively contained. And that's why it's the weapon of choice, because pain causes collateral damage, because pain is a slow death. And I carried it with me all the time, and my cup runneth over with it... But ultimately true to girl form, despite the rage, the anguish, the pain, I didn't act on it, not immediately, and not physically towards others, anyway, though I can guarantee you that if there was a gun in that house, or if I had just an ounce more of courage while holding that knife, or if I had taken just one more bottle of pills, I would not be here typing this today.

I am by no means apologizing for Cho nor do I mean to mitigate the enormity of his actions. I am only trying to show you the faint line at which the bough breaks, the baby falls, and all hope vaporizes as the once passive, helpless, self-assessed victim bursts forth from the cocoon as victimizer, razing without discern, spewing forth pain in a final raging fire.

And that's where things get confusing, if they aren't already. Some people cross that line. They do it. They go through with it. Some of those people leave behind notes, in a last desperate effort to be understood. Some of those people mail packages of letters and pictures and videos, aiming presumably for glory. But all of those people, if they were still here, would be utterly disappointed. Because they have all left behind questions, the answers to which they were sure they had already made clear in their final act.

And on the other hand, some people inch right up to that line, they eye it, trace it with their fingertips, perhaps even extend a limb or two into the other side, once or twice, just to see... but they hesitate. Maybe it's worth it? Ah...but the permanence of it all... Maybe the next day or two will be better. Maybe next year, maybe next decade. And maybe that's it, that it's hope, or if not hope then at least curiosity, that keeps them on this side. Because no matter how bad it is, maybe, just maybe, it could be better later on. And maybe I'd like to stick around to see if that happens.

But of course, I still occasionally take a look at that other side, though less frequently now. And I've come to accept that while some parts of life fucking suck, it is what it is. There will be people who are better off, worse off, who are aware of it and who aren't. The universe is not out to victimize anyone. Ultimately, there is no grand conspiracy. And so within this revised existential framework, I am free to live as I choose. And as free will, like pain, can never be effectively constrained, I take care to use it gently.

I'm not really sure where I am going with this now, as it is getting late and I am running out of steam... but in essence this is a long-winded way of saying that the answer doesn't lie in gun control, or metal detectors, or politics or rhetoric or any of that bullshit. Sadly, there is no answer. Not everything is preventable... We're not psychic, we can't see the future, and so we can never be 100% sure no matter how strongly we suspect. But we can't blame ourselves for that. Sometimes, we come across the outliers. Sometimes, individual will and resolve is stronger than we'd like. Sometimes, shit happens despite our best controls.

And sometimes, hindsight is 20/20. But not all of the time.

In future posts I may explore this further, or examine other related issues or nuances. But for now, I guess I will leave it here. Deepest sympathies to the extended Blacksburg community. My heart aches for you.

Dear Conformist Bitch.

What a great fucking idea. As if shamlessly prostrating yourselves in my path weren't enough, now you ask the conformist bitch princess of darkness for advice on how to dress, do your hair, apply your eyeliner, live your life. Because I'm the shiny, glitzy, gaudy, luminous life-giving bead-bestowing beacon of falsified hope that will lead you all to salvation, like a gothic Joan of Arc, bareback on a butterfly with broken wings. Whatever.

dear cb,

i am generally dissatisfied with my career path at the moment. a friend of mine keeps telling me i need to go back to school. i think he's wrong but he still keeps bugging me about it. how do i shut him up?

yours,
Idle in Phoenix

Dear Idle,

Life is pain. Life is only pain. Dark, depressing loneliness that eats at your soul. Your friend is a conformist. He should live in a third world country and go back to school with the rest of the conformists, living paycheck to paycheck for corporate gains. Tell him to go back to his Justin Timberlake and his homework, that conformist asshole. He doesn't know what real pain is. If you were truly his friend you would slash out his conformist eyes with razor blades, if only to mercifully spare him the deep, dark meaningless abyss of existence.

Hope this helps!
CB

P.S. For a more detailed explanation of why school is for conformists, check here.

Lost in Translation.

In case you missed it, my first and only Flashback Friday to date (errr, profuse apologies for poor follow-through) dealt with my gut wrenching discovery of the absolute fakeness of religion and complete collective psychosis of the Chinese people. Well, those of you who know me know that I believe the overwhelming majority of people house more than a few bats and other active nocturnal creatures in the attic, regardless of age, race, or socioeconomic background. You know, the people who sing along to Borat's anti-semitic song without really comprehending what exactly they are chanting... And then there was the uproar afterwards, in which Jewish leaders expressed concern that while the song was obviously meant to be satire, many gentiles seemed to have missed the point... and that perhaps this throws into question whether the sketch should have been done in the first place?

Yeah well, despite the ridiculousness soon to follow this very paragraph, I for one strongly believe that we should not and cannot let the idiots stop us. Let the music continue.

The text of an email I recently received in response to my Jesus Beads post:

Dear blog author:

We recently came across your site, welcometoraisins.blogspot.com, while searching for fellow christian bloggers.

A small group of us have started a new site called Christian Bloggers. Our prayer and intent is to bring Christians closer together, and make a positive contribution to the Internet community. While many of us have different "theologies", we all share one true saviour.

Would you be interested in joining Christian Bloggers? Please take a few minutes to have a look at what we are trying to do, and if you are interested, there is a sign up page to get the ball rolling. We would greatly appreciate your support in this endeavour.

May God Bless you and your blogging efforts. We look forward to hearing from you.

Craig Cantin
Christian Bloggers
info@christian-bloggers.com

Artifical intelligence, while widely considered to be the revolutionizing wave of the future, is ultimately still controlled by humans. And when humans are kind of stupid, well... you know.


For good times, make it Suntory Times.

May God bless you and your blogging efforts.

Nothing like a visit with my father to make me appreciate my mother.

If I were only this lucky...

She may be mean, but at least she's rational.

Dad, on the other hand, is not. And so begins again the agonizing self-scrutiny of my unfortunate genetic stock.

I hadn't seen my father in five years, since my college graduation, which was only the second time he had come out east to see me, the first being my high school graduation four years prior. While my grandparents were still in California, I went with my mother to visit them every winter break, and my dad would drive down to pick me up. But once I graduated and started banking, I had no time to see anyone. And, as my mom said, my father had no interest in coming to see me. But I guess I was too young, stupid, and resentful to really grasp that at the time.

So, I thought, before starting work again, and since my father did so generously provide the bridge loan which is financing my tuition before my signing bonus hits, I would go to California for a week, to see him and my stepmother. From what I remember, they live like they are poor, eat crap for food, and constantly degrade other people's money (out of envy, I now understand), but I can endure that for seven days, right? Seven days is very short, right?

Or not.

My mom was right. Everything she said was right. Fuck!

The living room is now 50% books. There are books on the floor, the sofa, blocking the stereo, and concealing half the TV. Not like, lovely classic novels in the grand tradition of Anna Karenina or War and Peace. I mean books like, Forecasting Interest Rates and Mortgages for Dummies and More Beauty of Mathematics (this one is particularly horrifying as it indicates that the "beauty" of mathematics cannot be contained in just one burnt-toast-dry, heavy, insufferable volume). Dad thinks knowledge comes from books. As long as it's in print, it's gospel. During the week, he offers me Forecasting Interest Rates. I tell him that 1) I have zero interest in it, and 2) interest rates, similar to stock prices, cannot be accurately forecasted. He begins to argue, of course they can, this book says so. Well, what if I found you a book that said otherwise? Which one would you believe? But he bought this book at the Stanford bookstore, he says. Well, I tell him, I learned at school that they can't be accurately forecasted. And if the ivy league says so, then it must be true.

To my shock and awe, this silences him. My mother would have squashed me like an ant under a hiking boot.

To explain, my father prizes education - as in collection of degrees, not in true mental enlightenment, though he equates the two. He regularly mentions his PhD in conversation, relevant or not. When I was younger, I believed what he said. What else was I to believe? I lived with my mother, we had problems, and so here was this other parent that said something different. Slowly as I aged and started to hear more of that hell-formed union, I started to understand. But I have never understood as fully as I do now, after the total utter disastrous chaos that was my seven days in California. It's fucking California for crying out loud, palm trees and sun and shit. Yet all I wanted to do was return home sweet home and walk, alone, around my cold, wet, loveable New York. It's really a mammoth task to explain all of this with any sort of coherence to you, as I've been trying to give birth to this entry for the last five days. But since you are all clamoring for it, and unashamedly beseeching me to end my unwitting silence strike (you know who you are), I thought it only decent to try to provide you with something. So while I cannot detail for you everything that went wrong, as this entry would undoubtedly grow to unconscionable length, I will attempt to convey to you the deafening resonance of the major discordant notes in this requiem for a dream.

Capo, Ostinato, Agitato
Upon retrieving my suitcase at LAX (stupid liquid regulations made me check a carry-on size suitcase), my father goes to take it. I say, no, it's alright, I've got it. The man is 64, after all. He says, in all seriousness, "No, women are weak and are not strong enough for these kinds of things. These are things for men."

Alright then, Man, you carry the fucking thing.

Dissonante, Crescendo
On Day 2, my father begins talking about my mother and grandfather. I despise this. I fucking abhor when either side of the family trashes the other, and I very forcefully put forth this opinion to both sides while in high school. You may never want to open diplomatic relations, but I don't need to hear that shit. It is unfortunate enough that I am the demilitarized zone in between. I carry both of your war wounds. Don't make it fucking worse.

Anyway, my father has no self-restraint and continues to speak badly of my mother and grandfather, I don't understand how your mother can be so shortsighted, your grandfather acts uneducated, neither of them have any manners, they are not smart, they don't think. Why would your mother leave, she totally destroyed the marriage. She's selfish.

Excuse me? She's selfish because she got fucking tired of being beaten to a bloody pulp and having her life threatened at knifepoint, during and after her pregnancy?

I say nothing. He doesn't seem to understand that when the person you are talking to is sitting far back in their chair, arms crossed, saying nothing, looking defensive, that you should stop.

Fortissimo, Staccato, Feroce
Day 3. I really cannot even begin to relate this day to you as I have not fully digested it myself. This was a full day of mismash of cultural norms, poor manners, etc....basically we delivered some groceries to family friends who own a hotel, and do better than my father and stepmother. Had I known we were going there I would have dressed a little nicer. Also, no one told me how to address any of these people, and I was morbidly horrified when I could not properly address the grandparents (if you are Asian, you understand). We all looked uneducated. My father and stepmother kept talking about the family friends' money. My father belittles my stepmother numerous times in conversation. Dad offends the elders by repeatedly using a derogatory term in one of his nonsensical stories, blissfully oblivious to the averted eye contact and sideways glances. My stepmother attemps at least three times to get him to stop talking and leave the house, before he accepts their invitation to dinner.

Lost cause. We go. When the check comes, normally you have alot of fighting over who pays, in typical Chinese style. This time, both my father and stepmother look down. Silence. You could hear subatomic particles being split. The family friend takes the check without incident. After a few more seconds of this peace-shattering silence, I nervously thank the family friend. Because my father did not attempt to pay, and neither he nor my stepmother said even a word of thanks. I was completely ashamed. My first immediate thought was, I hope they don't think I am like that. My second thought was, I hope they don't think my mother is like that.

It was like, let's just say this - it was like Kenny McCormick's family going to the Brovlovski's for dinner. If you want the full play-by-play/six ways dissection, then you'll just have to ask me offline, or take me out drinking. Because fuck, did I need a drink. My brain is bleeding just trying to type this out.

Incalzando, Irato
Day 5, Monday. (Sunday, Day 4, was spent in my room watching the Travel Channel and a "Dog: The Bounty Hunter" marathon on A&E.) Luckily for my stepmother, she is still working while my father is on vacation, so she is not witness to any of this chaos. However, I am sure the events are twisted and replayed for her ad infinitum, with the stories becoming more and more deformed with each repeated telling. All these years...before she married him, did she know she would be living in a funhouse hall of mirrors?

Dad and I go to the harbor. While walking around, the conversation turns to game theory, which is a personal interest of mine, and which my father says he intends to study post-retirement.

Dad: But game theory cannot be applied to anything, like when people are not rational and follow their emotions. Then it is useless.
CB: Game theory is based on identification of preferences, regardless of whether you find someone's preferences rational. You can still use it if you have a sense of how the person would react emotionally, this helps you choose what decision to make in response. If it were useless in cases where people are emotional, which I believe is the overwhelming majority of cases, then it wouldn't be so prominent.
Dad: No, when people are emotional, then they are irrational and game theory is useless. For example, people always talk about how parents sacrifice everything, even their lives, for their children. This is obviously irrational.
CB: Um...how is this irrational? This is totally rational.
Dad: No, that is not rational because that is emotional and only humans have emotions. You do not see this in nature.
CB: Actually, parental sacrifice is one of the most documented phenomena in nature, in the animal kingdom. For example, with hippos, the mother hippo will place her body between her baby and the crocodile to shield the baby hippo from harm.
Dad: I have never heard of that before. Hippos and crocodiles live together in harmony.
CB: What? Crocodiles eat hippos. It's well documented. I saw it last week on animal planet. Also, the mother octopus chooses to shield her eggs instead of going out to find food, which drains her energy and makes her very weak. After the eggs are hatched and the babies leave, the predator fish come and attack the mother, and in many cases the mother octopus dies.

I could not believe I was really talking about this, and bringing up random facts about hippos and octopi as support for my argument.

Dad: Oh really, is that so.
CB: Also, if you want a male example, the father penguin shields the egg from the elements while the mother goes back to the edge of the ice shelf to hunt for food. Father penguins can freeze to death if they don't have enough energy stores, but they don't abandon the egg because the baby will die if they do.
Dad: Well, it's still irrational. My life is most important, it's number one. To give your life for your kid? That's irrational. I would never do that.

Well, thanks for letting me know. Just like when I was 16 and you told me you never wanted me. But then hey, knowledge is power, right?

Allegro con Fuoco, Furioso
Day 6. Day before departure. I am excited that I will be leaving soon, but sad that once I leave my father will probably lash out at my stepmother in some form. She shows no physical signs of battery. I figure that is because she is weaker than my mother, and would likely seek to avoid confrontation rather than fight. But what do I know. Mental torture, my mother called it. Well, I understand.

We go to the mall, my father keeps talking about some burrito place. I would have been crying tears of joy if it was a Chipotle, or anything reminiscent of my normal life, but it's not. Sadness. Anyway, we sit down, start eating, and he starts yapping about my grandfather again. Apparently, shortly after my mother and I vacated California for my grandparents' house in Taipei, my father called the house looking to talk to her or me, or something. My grandfather (very dominant patriarch, at the time my mother had already apprised him of the situation) picked up the phone and refused to let my father talk to either of us.

Dramatization of actual events to which I was not party:
Dad: I can speak to them, I have rights!
Grandpa: You have no rights. This isn't America. (Hangs up.)

I laughed out loud. That is totally like Grandpa to say that. But Dad is not amused.

Dad: Your grandfather is so uneducated. That is no way to treat people.
CB: That sounds alot like him.
Dad: But I was so surprised, when I saw him at your [high school] graduation, he shook my hand!
CB: Why wouldn't he, he has to....?
Dad: It means he admits he was wrong. (Breaks into wide smile)
CB: What?!

At this point I am nearly knocked out of my chair from sensory overload. It was like I downloaded all my mother's experiences into my neural-net and shared into her consciousness. This is how he interprets things? This is how he draws conclusions? He spends most of his waking hours talking about how logical he is, as evidenced by his PhD, that he's a man of science, that he is rational and not emotional...and here he is, making the most flimsy, tenuous of connections between two events 15 years apart...

Dad: He shook my hand, it means he admits he was wrong!
CB: (Sputtering) How is he admitting anything! That's just common custom! He had to shake your hand! It was MY graduation! He can't refuse!

Later, when recounting this conversation to my mother over dim sum in New Jersey, between her tears of laughter she says in Chinese, "You poured cold water on him." But I digress...

CB: Moreover, at the time, the man was over 80 years old, and his memory was already starting to go! Do you think he remembered that particular incident from 15 years prior when he saw you? You're lucky if he even remembered who you were!
Dad: But he shook my hand, he could refuse to shake my hand.
CB: NO, HE CAN'T. It's MY graduation. Everything ANYONE does at MY graduation reflects upon ME! It was only common courtesy and manners for him to shake your hand, he can't refuse because then it makes him, me, you, EVERYONE look uneducated. It would be poor. TOTALLY POOR.
Dad: No, you're just being too sensitive and reading into it too much. No one thinks like that. If I wanted to refuse to shake his hand I would do that.

DUDE, WHAT?!??! Are you FUCKING kidding me?

CB: (Incredulously) Would you do that? Would you really do that at MY graduation?
Dad: (Agitated) Why not? I can do whatever I want.
CB: But it's MY graduation. You are MY father. It would reflect poorly on the ENTIRE family. It would be poor. Really really poor.
Dad: Gee, you young generation are so selfish and arrogant. All you think about is yourself. You don't think about anybody else but yourself.

Am I really hearing this correctly? Quick, someone stab me with a spork and rouse me out of this nightmare.

CB: How is this selfish? I would do the same for you or anyone. If I went to a friend's wedding, and recently had a fight with another mutual friend, I can't refuse to shake hands! It would reflect poorly on everyone! If you had an awards ceremony and I didn't like one of your friend's kids, I can't refuse to shake hands, because it's YOUR ceremony and I would cause a scene! It would reflect poorly on you! I cannot believe that you would really refuse to shake hands with Grandpa at my graduation. That is really unfortunate.
Dad: What is between me and your grandpa has nothing to do with you, don't you agree?
CB: No. You can do that anywhere else, if you see him at a store, run into him on the street. But at my graduation it is totally, completely...uneducated.
Dad: I consider myself a pretty smart guy, I have a PhD, I'm not uneducated, your Grandpa is! This is only one very small example of how uneducated your Grandpa is, I don't care about this small stuff, your Grandpa and your Mom care about this kind of stuff.
CB: If you didn't care why have you carried it around with you for the past 25 years?
Dad: I can do whatever I want. If I refuse to shake hands, I refuse to shake hands. I can do whatever I want. You are so selfish. I can do whatever I want. I would have no regrets.

At that moment, I tried to will myself back to New York. I wanted to call my mother and apologize for everything I ever said to her in the heat of all those arguments when I was growing up. If she hadn't gotten me out of there, I would have been completely fucked up. If not beaten or knifed to death. What a complete fucking ingrate I have been. She is honest, brutally brutally honest, but even that is infinitely preferable to this.

When we get home, I go directly to my room. My stepmother gets home from work and I hear my father start to complain to her. I'd bet money that she'll be hearing about this for years to come. I only hope I have not caused her too much trouble.

Coda, Doloroso, transitioning to Andante, Legato, Lacrimoso
He does not speak to me for the whole night and even the whole 1.5 hour ride to the airport the next morning. I had never been so happy to see an airport. After checking my bag and passing through security (I would never put a bomb in my Pumas, mind you), I head into the first Starbucks I see, despite the snaking line. I sit down at the gate with my coffee and begin to reflect on the trip. At some point, while staring off into space, I sigh, "Holy shit." The guy next to me folds down his newspaper and says, "Rough business trip?" I laugh, and respond, "You can say that."

The plane ride was fantastic. I was all by myself in my row. They played a movie I actually wanted to watch. And we got to JFK early. When the captain announced that we were beginning our descent, I actually started sweating in anticipation, only the second time this has happened (the first being my last return from Texas, in a series of horrendous due diligence trips at my old job). Even though the baggage takes infinity plus one day to hit the carousel, I'm happy.

I gladly go back to New Jersey to see my mom, and over the course of a day tell her what I have just told you, and more. She laughs quite a bit, but she does turn very very sad when she speaks about my stepmother.

She did say to me in the car home from dinner, "you know, no one would have ever imagined this future for me. In school they called me the 'flower in the greenhouse'...everyone expected me to be sheltered, taken care of, that I'd find a husband with a good family, with money, with manners...it wasn't meant to be. But I left him and now I made out so good. I'm so happy. And I'm so happy you're normal."

Now I admit it was nice to hear that from my mom, though I consider myself quite abnormal. She has said many times in the past, a person both reflects and is reflected by their family. And after this experience, I thought, my god, even if I wanted to, I can't have children. I can't in good conscience pass this on. I have a responsibility to society to stop this in its tracks. And then I thought, well even before that, who would marry me? Would would in their right mind would ever marry into this?

And this was particularly sad, because just the existence of this thought in my brain indicates that I harbor some deep-hidden hope for it to happen.

A friend of mine recently called me and I did not recount this story in complete detail, but he gathered enough that my family troubles were worse than previously assumed. And he said that perhaps I was ascribing too much credit to nature, while he believed that the majority of a person is created by nurture. And then he said, maybe you should do that. Do what, I asked. Go have a bunch of babies, he says.

Reality check. Head yanked out of the clouds, feet back on the ground. Dude, what? Are you fucking kidding me!

Well, maybe he's right, about the nature vs. nurture part. I hope to god he is, because it would mean...that I'm not my father...and that whatever children I have won't be either... But still, this is all conjecture, and given my defective genetic stock, it might be playing with fire. Would it be prudent to risk it? Dunno, my biological time bomb hasn't started ticking yet. I'll keep you guys informed.

So, all in all, as summarized by my mother between spurts of laughter: "Sounds like you had a good trip."

Happy Conformist New Year!!

As predicted, here I am in my apartment alone. But honestly, I prefer this to standing in that conformist chaos that is Times Square, though in full disclosure I've never done that. I had a nice quiet New Year's Eve, whiling away the afternoon in a coupon-fueled shopping spree and then spending my post-dinner food coma reading Lucky magazine and watching documentaries about zebras and the threatened polar bears (polar bears, despite being all aryan-nation white themselves, can distinguish between colors and are attracted to brightly colored things, such as cerulean blue buckets).

Shortly before the stroke of midnight I switched over to one of the major networks, watched the ball drop, and during the glittery anticlimactic aftermath made myself some coffee to chase the can of Chicken of the Sea ("I know it's tuna but it says chicken") I had eaten only half an hour prior. Now that I am good and buzzed, it's time to write.

So, to start off 2007 by plunging eye level into a sea of conformity, I have decided to list for all you fellow conformists out there my resolutions, the majority of which I am sure will be scattered to the four winds and drowned in the seven seas before the month is out:

1. Exercise more.
2. Eat more veggies and omega-3 fatty acids.
3. Do assigned readings on time, which requires buying books at the start of the semester.
4. Buy higher quality things (I am worthy of cashmere sweaters and aged deerskin bags).
5. Be on time, at least 90% of the time.
6. Clean my apartment and do laundry more often.
7. Own my raisins more (corollary: wear more skirts).
8. Have an aggressive multicountry/transcontinental adventure post-graduation/pre-work.
9. Get my hair cut at least once a semester, with once a quarter being ideal.
10. Get out more.

And of course, because I am true to my bitchy self, here are 10 garish beacons of conformity that I would like to see publicly humiliated, spat upon, and banished in 2007:

1. The camisole + parka + miniskirts + Uggs combo, worn in both warm and chilly climes. Huh? Make up your mind, schizo.
   
2. The spiky-hair-gel + unbuttoned shirt + axe body spray cocktail. Mmmm, tasty... Not.
3. Tube tops in sizes larger than 12. Wow. Seriously, wow.
4. People who congregate in large groups inconsiderately blocking highly trafficked routes, such as corners of intersections, entrances and exits of major stores, and anywhere near my apartment or where I need to go. Where the fuck were you people raised?
5. Little kids singing and dancing to sexually provocative hip hop lyrics. While highly entertaining and novel to start, the disturbing factor eventually wins out.
6. Business school students, sucking their own short dicks, loudly enumerating for their fellow subway passengers all the major investment banks with which they have interviewed during the semester. Get the fuck over yourselves.
7. Another subway one: really fucking fat people who think they can squeeze into the sliver of a space between me and the lanky, gangly guy on the other side. Dude!
8. Other minorities who believe that it is perfectly acceptable to spit racist epithets at me. Hello? Do you own a mirror? On the color wheel, none of us are terribly far apart.
9. Tourists complaining in their grating conformist accents that my little city is too crowded or dirty. Then go the fuck home, conformists!
10. Fucking dumber-than-dirt, uglier-than-sin conformists who act like they are richer than Gates and more knowing than God, and demand to be treated like such. My perennial favorite. Go fuck yourselves.

Well, that's it for now folks. Despite the caffeine, this aging conformist bitch is tuckered out from all the non-excitement. Happy 2007! Y'all come back now, ya hear.


First thought: Aww, how cute.
Second thought: Where is his paw... no wonder he looks so content.

Merry Christmas Mofos - The Bitch is Back!

Ahhh....all I can say is, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I abandoned you in your time of need. I know many of you (and by many, I mean 3) were anxiously anticipating the last two Flashback Fridays, squirming in your seats, wide-eyed, waiting for the lights to dim, the movie to start, but it never did... I led you on. I toyed with your emotions. I blasphemously could not live up to your expectations. Fucking expectations, they'll screw you every time.

I was locked away in an ivory tower of extreme conformism, reading 4000 pages and writing almost that amount on topics about which I care not, then taking days upon days to recover... you know you're old when you can still pull all-nighters like you used to, but it takes something like three times as long to recover. Yeah, so all I can say is, this conformist bitch sucks.

As some form of appeasement, I felt the need to write you something, to show you all that I am still alive, and what better time than early the day after Christmas to do so. Um, mostly because I am again stuck in NJ (decaf...) and for the life of me I'm not sure what else to do. My body is on full out revolt against this place...my skin is breaking out, my hair looks terrible, think I gained a few pounds...am starting to blend with the natives...

So, despite the fact that I spent the last hour crying... about what, you ask? Well, let me attempt to renumerate for you the many sands that spawned that black pearl of pain - the pointlessness of school, looming shadow of work, arbitrariness of life, my mother, my myriad skin problems, my lackluster appearance (of which I am reminded frequently by #4 on this list), the fact that I am bleeding money, the dull, incessant throbbing of unrequited affection - you know, the usual suspects. And I did my usual, I cried in the shower so it would be easy to clean up, to wash away, with the hope that I would emerge emotionally purged. And as usual, the tears continued, onto my towel, onto my chest, onto the blasted pink tile... it wasn't until I was dried and dressed that I started to calm down and regain some semblance of normalcy. And I asked myself the same questions - What the hell spurs these episodes? Why the fuck must I have them so often?

And so, I decided, I would remind myself, on this Christmas, that things could be worse.

I read "The Year in Pictures" on the New York Times. War. Famine. Pestilence. And just plain damned bad luck. Soldiers younger than me getting shot in Iraq. Lebanese dying during Israeli airstrikes. Civil war in Chad and Sudan. Kids losing their houses to Katrina. Some guy getting shot by Dick Cheney.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

I, meanwhile, spent the year at a highly prestigious institution (it says so in the brochure) getting a degree that, though pointless, will look sexy on my resume; securing myself an enviable job (even though it was the same one I had before) with people I like (for real!); and making a couple of new friends while still bonding with the old ones. I spent today chasing the dog, who was sporting his swank new camo fleece coat (funded by yours truly, thank you very much), around my cousins' house while they played Nintendo Wii, then gorged myself at dinner that I didn't have to pay for with relatives I genuinely like. Except for a few minor blips - "your hair looks bad," "why would you buy that for them that's a stupid gift," "the smell of this candle you bought me is like knives in my nose" - it's been an alright holiday. And all in all, I can't say that it was a bad year. I've had worse.

So enough! Enough with the tears and the pain and the woe-is-me, at least for now. There are six fucking days left in 2006 and I have better things to do than cry. Like go to the zoo. Go shopping. Go ice skating (for the love of God, will someone PLEASE go ice skating with me?? Have been itching to do this since the night before Thanksgiving, when during a bout of loneliness and cabin fever I walked up to Rockefeller and saw everyone skating...with other people... in fact, I was the only one by myself there... but let's not dwell on this).

So I guess that's all you'll hear about tears for this year. At least until New Year's Eve, when I find myself all alone in my apartment, watching the ball drop, with nary a soul to face at midnight and wish "Happy New Year," and possibly hear it echoed back...

But at least I have my tree. And my tree makes me smile.



You know what also makes me smile? Swedish Christmas Goats.

For good clean Christmas fun, check out these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavle_goat
http://www.merjuligavle.se/merjuligavle/mjig_Bocken.aspx?id=52

Silly Scandinavians.

Merry Christmas to All Ye Conformists out there.