Echo

I would like March 3rd, 2010 to be a special day.

He was an olive-skinned kid with curly hair, edges still soft with baby fat. He looked about 17 but was probably somewhere in his mid 20’s. Despite being in way over his head and more than a little drunk, he was blocking the door of my car, trying to get me to stay. This had been going on for a good half hour and now I was tired and ready to go to bed. Alone.

“Do you know what the biggest difference is between you and I?” I asked him.

“What?”

“The only way you can get inside me is by fucking me. While I don’t even have to touch you to get inside you.”

He stares at me, his eyes and mouth poised for a laugh, just waiting for a cue. My gaze doesn’t waver. I’m completely serious.

“I’m sorry, that’s really hot,” he says.

I sigh. Little boys try my patience.

“You’re a little brother aren’t you?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

Why else would we be here, having this conversation, I think.

“You’re a little brother with an older sibling, probably a big sister, and either she was a complete cunt, or she was completely unaccessible, and the only way you could get her attention, to have any kind of relationship with her was by provoking an anger reaction. So you swing between provoking girls and trying to get them to feel sorry for you when the truth is, these girls can never give you what you want, because what you want is something only your sister or maybe your mother can give you. And you know it. But the truth is, you don’t really want to get close to girls because you have really ambivalent feelings towards intimacy. Maybe the root is some form of basic insecurity, or maybe the truth is…you’re not really sure you’re all that into girls.”

A straight man would have been compelled to address that last bit, but he just kept smiling that weird little frozen smile he’d maintained while I was talking.

“You can’t know me. No one knows me. I don’t tell anyone anything about me.”

“What, you think you have to tell people things for them to know you? You think if you stick your head in a hole in the ground, people can’t see you? You’re not invisible. People see you. The difference is I’m willing to call it out.”

“Who are you? How the fuck do you know so much about me?”

“Move.”

He steps aside, and I open my car door.

“By the way,” I say as I get into my car. “I don’t care if Smiles has been your nickname your entire life. Whatever you’re into, men or women, you need to start introducing yourself by your God-given name or make up a real one if you ever plan to get laid in this lifetime.”

Am I alive or thoughts that drift away?
Does summer come for everyone?
Can humans do what prophets say?
If I die before I learn to speak
Can money pay for all the days I lived awake
But half asleep?

I’ve been downhearted baby
Ever since the day we met

-primitive radio gods

going to visit my grandfather’s grave with my family.

i’ve watched you suffer
a dull aching pain
now you’ve decided
to show me the same
no sweeping exits
or off-stage lines
could make me feel bitter
or treat you unkind
wild horses…couldn’t drag me away.

–rolling stones, wild horses

If you liked the movie, The Prestige, you’ll enjoy this article.

while we were sitting in the “man cave,” after my dad’s friend mentioned i’m like this flower that my dad has spent a lifetime guarding, i mentioned to the guys why i get irritated with my mom sometimes when she keeps pushing me to find a nice engineer boyfriend. first of all, i don’t have patience for a boyfriend. i’m very busy. i’ll one day make room for a partner. i have room for friends. and i want to eventually end up with a good person, of course, but she wants me to find someone now, when i don’t want to settle when i know that if i get myself to the place i’m capable of getting, i could very well be on the level of someone extraordinary. who knows, maybe someday i could end up with someone who’s a world power.

my dad’s friends looked at him and said, “can she?” almost as though asking the creator what he has planned for the creation. my dad just sat there with his arms crossed over his chest, smiling that sly smile.

i found that exchange very interesting.

genesis

even though michael had invited some people over and had me make pasta, i stayed only long enough to get dinner on the table before heading to another dinner party my dad was throwing with a group of old family friends. his friend pj is the one who has two daughters whom my mom gave my brownies to a few months ago, the story that totally cracked me up. she said i should meet them. i showed up and people were curious about me because they hadn’t seen me in a while. to be honest, people are usually curious because i’ve always been mysterious and unique, but who i really am has been emerging and it’s nice being able to show people this. the more i present like me, the more people comment on how completely different i look. they usually say, wow, how did julia turn into this? (with “this” never being specified).

my dad has made no mention of christmas eve at all this week, but pj and his daughters started talking about the brownies and what a great experience they were. pj said he believed it was better than alcohol, and i said, weed never makes you go home and want to hit your wife.

my dad always has people over to drink whiskey and smoke cigars which they were planning to do that night, but added that they needed to try my herb. he proclaimed, marijuana is a good thing and should be legalized. my mom asked him to lower his voice because we’re in a restaurant, but his voice wasn’t that loud and he was pretty determined to be brazen. then began a loud, boisterous discussion about the benefits of legalization, carried on mostly by my dad and his friends. pj’s daughter who’s going to med school said she believed all drugs should be legalized so we could regulate them, and he said he believed prostitution should be legalized as well. it was incredible. these are chinese immigrants who are conservative, law-abiding citizens, yet they were being open about liberal opinions. i’ve been to these chinese banquet dinners and parents talk over us while the kids eat quietly without making eye contact, but here we all were, sitting around a feast of lobster, crab, prime rib, abalone, shark fin and other delicacies, talking about legalizing prostitution and getting together to smoke weed. the kids at the table were looking at me, wide-eyed and laughing. this chick shows up out of nowhere, and suddenly, their parents are cool.

my mom and i had to stop by another party, so we left, planning to meet everyone back at our house. we went to my aunt anita’s. they were just playing mahjong, a game my mom told me never to learn because it’s an addiction. i hung out with my cousins joanna and steph, trying out the food they’d made. my great aunt ma, sat down next to me on the couch and reached out for my hand.

i still remember you as a baby, she said. you had a really bony butt and it always hurt having you sit in anyone’s lap. that bony butt and plus, you were always squirming.

my cousins started cracking up.

aunt ma wanted me to sit on her lap to see if my butt is still bony. this week i’m weighing in at a solid 155. she’s in her 80’s. but i sit in her lap, supporting the majority of my weight on my legs so as not to crush her. she says that my butt’s not bony anymore and i tell her i have a lot more padding than i did when i was 3.

my cousins were still laughing so i tell them that my nickname as a toddler was “vietnamese boatchild” because i was so pale and thin i looked malnourished. thus the bony butt.

aunt ma puts a scarf around me because she’s concerned that i’m cold. i thank her as she resumes holding my hand.

ever since you were a baby, you were different, she said. the way you are with people, the way you take care of people, the way you’re concerned with people, you’ve always been special. i always treasured you because you’re very pure.

i told her that i know she has watched me grow up, taking care of me when i was a child, and it meant a lot to me.

the truth is, i always remembered her. when i was young, she was the goddess in my sky, the coolest adult i had in my life. i adored her. she was perfect. but one day, she saw some baseball cards in my room and looking through them, she was really disgusted by the black people. and that really broke my heart. i couldn’t face my disappointment that she could be racist, so i avoided her and didn’t want to spend time with her anymore. now that i think about it, i stopped connecting with her for almost 20 years, because i couldn’t deal with my own disappointment, yet i never confronted her. it was a shame to have lost those years. and finally, in my late 20’s, i come home with a black boyfriend. i was terrified of how she might react, but there was no reaction. she treated him as kindly as she treated me, so naturally, i wondered if i had misinterpreted all those years ago. but i know i hadn’t. i don’t know…maybe it needed to happen. maybe the point of 20 years of separation was to have the perspective on each other and appreciation of each other that we have now. things happen the way they’re supposed to happen. i had to journey away to learn how to live with the ones i love, accept them, come back to them, and whether or not she got over those feelings towards black people, it showed how much she loved me, how she was able to see past her own resistances to be able to accept and maintain her love for me. it’s incredible to have had this kind of love in your life.

tonight was a beautiful, intimate interaction with her. i told her i’m leaving on friday, so that gives us plenty of time to hang out. sometimes i can feel the squeeze of time, the knowledge of all that you’ll never know, all the depths, all the history, that reside between people as we walk in our temporary states. these are the things you will someday lose when those who are part of where you come from pass on.

we headed home and my dad and his friends showed up. i rolled for them and they smoked. most of them had smoked it before but my dad’s best friend hadn’t so this was his first time. one of the daughters was asking me about how i make the tincture for the tea, and i explained the process. i joked that i don’t want people to think i’m a drug dealer because i only give it, i never sell it. i’m about helping people, connecting, giving an experience. a lot of my life is based on moving around and then staying in one place long enough that someone comes by and talks to me, and the person who shows up is usually the person i’m supposed to be talking to. and i have these random connections, and it’s often people who are at a crossroads in their life. so sometimes i’ll give them something and tell them to clear a 5 hour window and think about their lives and questions. my mom chipped in that when they legalize, i’m going to make a lot of money. my mom is always thinking in business terms. i do go after success, and i do need security, but i don’t often go after money. i hope to just be taken care of financially and materialistically if i do what i uniquely do best. i want to use openness and truth to heal or boost people. using weed is just an effective method to disarm defenses. but i have others.

i sat down with my dad and his friends, and talked to them the way i do. i opened up a whole world. the guys said that they were very happy, and thanked me for this experience. they said it brought them back 20 years.

back to the last time you were happy?, i asked.

yes, that’s about right, they laughed. they reminisced about when they all met, what life was like, and the things they worry about now.

i told them they need to get together more, be together, have a place of their own. it’s good for them. they said they wanted a cigar room where they could get together and just shoot the shit and smoke cigars. i told them that’s a great idea because men need caves, places that had smoke and fire, things that symbolize men’s roots, materials that made them feel like men.

my dad’s friend pj jumped up a
nd toasted me saying, you’re my kind of girl. you understand.

over cigars and whiskey, they opened up to me. and as they talked, i listened and asked questions. they kept toasting me, saying that despite having met me over the years, they felt like this was the first time they really met me. that i’ve really grown into something quite admirable. pj picked a quiet moment, then said, boy, julia, you really surprised me. to think you would grow into this. your wisdom is exceptionally deep. and for your age, to see so much. that you can speak with such truth and see things so directly is truly a gift. i thank you for this experience.

and then they raised their whiskey, and i raised my diet orange soda, and we toasted. it was a beautiful and validating thing to say.

he said that he realized i had a gift when i used one sentence to sum up something he hadn’t been able to understand for 30 years. that in all these years he’s known my father, he could never understood what connected him to my father, why he admired him so much. but when i talked about how my dad is two different people, that he’s one person out in the world but he’s a silent man at home, he realized, that’s what it is–there’s a nobility in a man who can take care of so many things in the world outside, but when he comes home, he is silent and still. i asked him if his dad was this kind of man.

no, he said. but i am.

he was happy with that knowledge. he said he felt like after 30 years, he understood why he admired my dad so much. but i realized, the truth of what happened was that after all these years, he found something about himself that he could openly admire and love. i smiled at him, told him that he was going to wake up feeling a lot better, a lot lighter, tomorrow morning.

you think so?, he asked.

definitely, i said. it’s like a spiritual chiropractic adjustment that unlocks something deep inside.

you have a gift, he said. i’m very happy. you made me very happy tonight.

the mood was so positive that when pj announced that he’s a capricorn and he’s an asshole, i told him that it’s okay because it’s kind of what cappy’s are known for. i asked my dad who else is a cappy (my mom’s brother) and he thought about it then said, oh, i don’t want to think about that guy. i told him that pj understands, my uncle is just an asshole. you can’t take it personally because he’s an asshole to everyone. but if i can find a way to love my dad and a way to love my uncle despite knowing what assholes you are, then you two can find a way to come to terms with each other. my dad’s friends said that was very true.

i told my dad that i could invite my uncle right now, and we can smoke some weed, make some peace and lay this grudge to rest. and he had a capricorn backing him up who could vouch for my uncle that it’s nothing personal…he’s just an asshole.

my dad just kind of laughed it off, but he didn’t say no.

keep working on it, my uncle pj told me quietly. don’t give up. keep working on him.

my dad’s friend kc dropped a strange little bomb later in the conversation. he told me that he understood what i meant about my dad having two people inside him. he asked me if i’ve ever gone to taiwan with my dad, and i said no. he said you have to. when you see who he is there, the way people react to him, you will be shocked, i guarantee it. whatever your dad is here, he’s something powerful in taiwan. let me put it this way, when he shows up at the airport, i had better be waiting for him. wherever he goes, wait until you see the way people react, the things that happened. i promise you, you won’t believe it.

he points at my dad. this guy, he said. he’s big.

what is he, like the godfather?, i asked.

my dad’s best friend slaps his leg and said, that’s exactly what he is.

my dad says, yeah, i’m the godfather, mockingly.

his friend says, not the godfather exactly. bigger. he takes care of many people. so many people depend on him. not the godfather, but the mafia. the whole thing, all that power. you need to see what he’s doing there. you need to show her, boss, he said. she’s your daughter.

so does he have people killed?, i asked. i’m thinking about the analogy i always used about the us government and americans, how our government lies to us about its true nature, how it’s like your dad’s a mob boss and everyone knows, but you’re his kid and have no idea your dad’s a bad guy, but everyone else does. i’m wondering if maybe all these experiences of life are just the jigsaw pieces trying to show me what mine really is. what if my life were stranger than fiction? the dragon eating its tail. and while i’d thought i was the dragon, i find that my life, my world is really the tail. who is my dad, really? because in my world, he’s my greatest mystery.

my dad makes a flippant joke about my remark about having people killed, but k.c. considers it. he wouldn’t kill anyone but people tend to go away. i’m telling you, he’s big.

i think about this evil man who messed with my family’s business the last few years, trying a corporate take-over. i remember the first time i met him, before he reached his hands into my parents’ business, when he was working for my uncle. he’s this man who looks like a rat, and he’d tried to seduce me in his hotel room while on business and it was disgusting and a joke. i never told anyone about it because i didn’t want my family getting pissed and he’d stolen some money from my uncle and run off, so it was a non-issue. but when i found out years later he had come back and somehow gotten into my parents’ company, i told them that guy is bad news. i didn’t like to be around him because he’s the kind of guy i had a feeling would end up dying a violent death. he’d disappeared the last few years as my family has been fighting in the courts to get back the shares of the company. there are lots of investing message boards speculating about the whereabouts of this man, because he’s stolen money from a lot of people over the years. the rumor is that because the sec is investigating him now, he can’t step foot in the continental u.s. first word was that he was in the bahamas, then it was that he was living in a boat off the coast of alaska treasure-hunting. but no one has seen him in years. i asked my dad, are you the reason [this guy] disappeared?

no, his friend says adamantly. your dad wouldn’t do that. my dad just smirks.

wtf? are these guys fucking with me? or has this been the secret life my dad has been hiding all these years? or what if he’s the one i get it from, this magnetism.

are you a magician?, i asked him. i’m not talking parlor tricks. i’m talking about the real thing. i’m talking about your will becoming reality. because i wonder if it’s from my father that i’ve inherited my magnetic abilities. i do notice he’s a gambler who’s always in control, yet he won’t let us watch him play, but he always comes back with wins. he’s unusually lucky. and this trip, i noticed i was calling a lot of cards, getting attention for it. during one round, i told the table not to worry, that the dealer had a 4 hidden under her Queen. and when she flipped it to reveal a 4, the guy next to me was astounded. how’d you know that?, he asked. i’m psychic, i joked, even though i’m not. i just had a feeling. i did it a few other times, calling the exact card that landed, or asking for a specific card and getting it. after a few times, the dealer said, you really are psychic. but here’s the thing–i also called a lot of wrong cards, but people usually dismiss the wrong ones as wishful thinking, but the right calls as extraordinary. and i noticed that the more i astounded people by calling the right ones, the more i was winning my hands. the trick isn’t in psychically predicting the cards…it’s using the appearance of a trick to harness other people’s belief in magic to create a magnetic storm. and using that magnetism to assert will. if eno
ugh people believe in something, it can become a collective reality, so you just have to get them to believe in the same thing. i’ve never won that proportion of money at a blackjack table before. the whole table won big. maybe my dad isn’t a lord of organized crime, but has similar magical-seeming capabilities, but his are more refined and powerful, while my abilities are still in their nascence.

so i asked if my mother knows about this side of him and they said that my mother must know. but my dad was firm about saying she didn’t. he said she’d never gone with him to taiwan, they never go at the same time.

i asked him why they’ve never gone together and he shrugged mysteriously.

i asked him if it’s safe to go with him to taiwan and see all this. like could i trust him that no harm would befall me?

he said, yes.

would you be willing to take me?, i asked.

no.

c’mon, boss, show her, his friend said. your dad has a way with people. he makes things happen.

i told them that i didn’t trust my dad to go with him to taiwan alone. i said, did you know last week i was playing basketball and he rooted against me?

oh yeah! his friend said. he told us all about it.

i was incredulous. not only did he know he was doing a really asshole thing, he bragged about it.

but he told us you beat him today, his friend said.

no, he won, i said.

we’d played one-on-one earlier and he’d won by 2 points just taking shots on the inbounds, but i had scored on all attacking drives in the paint. i had wanted to play because i needed to work on my footwork.

he told us, today, julia has finally beaten me.

i realized my dad was finally conceding that i could play, something he’d never been willing to do. i’d beaten him once before, but today i worked really hard to play at my highest level. i even blocked one of his shots so completely, it dropped into my hands.

i told his friends that i’d been training all year to get really good, outplaying really athletic men. that this former college player told me that i move better than most male athletes last week, yet whenever my dad’s watching or playing, i just can’t seem to be that person or get to that level. that i’ve always felt that he was getting into my head and subduing me.

why are you doing that? she’s your daughter, his friends said, like they knew it was clearly in character with him to somehow be sabotaging me without any overt evidence.

my dad played innocent. i told them that it’s fine though, it really pisses me off so much that he refuses to acknowledge that i’m good, and i can somehow not play to my peak level around him that it challenges me, makes me work harder.

this is the thing about your dad, his friend said. you’re his treasure. did you know he’s been a particular brand of asshole for, what, 5 or 6 years now? from about the time you really left. he’s like a dog in that he’s loyal and passionate and he’s out in the world doing all this stuff, but you’re the one he loves most. you’re his jewel, his treasure, and tonight, we can really see why. so you went away and that created this longing. and now you’re back, and he’s a different person. but also remember, your dad…he fights everyone. it’s the way he has to do it because he’s been surviving for so long. he has to protect his feelings so he’s an asshole with the things he loves most but don’t take it personally. he would follow you anywhere. he talks about you all the time and you just don’t know it.

i look at my dad who’s just smiling that happy smile but his arms are so tight, hugging himself protectively, this man child who was both the greatest sun and greatest shadow in my life. i think about the discoveries tonight, how much i have yet to grasp. he has power on par with an entire family of organized crime, and i’d been guaranteed the extent of it is awesome and unbelievable. my dad secretly messes with my head, but i’m the treasure this great man is intent on protecting. and all these men have openly confessed to understanding what i can do with people, believing it has great value in this world.

the night was happy, and featured lots of laughter. the men would start talking about a memory and that would set them off into song. in the haze of cigar smoke, i could see the life in their eyes, young hearts grasping the happiness of youth with the wisdom of now. for an evening, a beautiful bend in time.

when they left, they each came up and shook my hand in respect, bowing and thanking me, a gesture usually reserved for elders. then they hugged me as people who have shared a deep, powerful experience together.

emergence. this is me. this is what i want to do with my life.

less than a minute into the new year, my mom and i started off with a spat. she toasted me to find a boyfriend, “a nice, kind, engineer earning a good income,” and i got irritated and asked her if this boyfriend was for me or for her, and that i didn’t want to hear it. so she smacked me on the head, passive-aggressively playful, and i smacked her back. thus ensued a 30-minute silent treatment with me apologizing first, then being mad when she accepts my apology and doesn’t apologize herself. then tomorrow morning it will all be forgotten, acting like best friends or rival sisters, depending on the weather. hello, 2010. some things will never change. like taxes, rain the day after you wash your car, and love/hate mother-daughter relations.

i’m not a patient person, but i’m capable of great patience. even when patience is not a trait, it can still be a discipline.

2010 New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Consistency
2. Lots of income
3. Claim what’s mine
4. The Art of Diplomatic Restraint – Even if you don’t like what you hear or people are wrong, you can still agree or say thank you and let it go. Pick and choose your battles. Only you can allow yourself to be provoked.

2009 retrospective

a transformational year–bigger, faster, stronger, wiser. the year i started glowing. celibacy and being devoutly single. personal power. the most magnetic year yet. stretching out my wings. getting serious. getting strong. bringing it up to the light then leaving the past behind. reaching out and touching people. my will becomes my way. training like a professional athlete. mornings in santa monica training with tyson chandler and kevin love. urth cafe and honey vanilla lattes. sunsets and strangers at the other room. abbott kinney and venice beach. medical marijuana. the brownie shaman giving out positive experiences. ballin’ like a fiend. not good for a girl, but a good ball player. coach mike. ignoring the siren call and six packs of big, black bruthas. living in orlando. the aftermath of a break-up, like detoxing from a hard addiction. nightly dream invasions and finally…silence…the peace of a bond broken. sarah, jef, truth and killer, drumming in rock band. writing and gyming. girl bonding. 3rd party marriage therapy. please don’t set me up on a date. dinner with adonal foyle who kept talking about sex. health scare with dad and an emergency plane ride home. father-daughter bonding. strawberries and dvds every night. childhood home packed in boxes and torn apart. dead mice and insects inside the walls carted off in the hundreds. finally, a home cleansed. 2 escapes to seattle for solitude. was good both trips. easy summertime in the city. sunsets, strangers, healing and magic. the missed connections guy. louca. the 47 year-old who wouldn’t leave me alone. reconnecting with josh–7 Grand, a group of 1940’s re-enactors, a couple of brownies and the awkward fear of looking each other too deeply in the eyes…a beautiful night, complications averted and the depths of a lifetime friendship take root. small birthday at home, opening up the back balcony–as cindy said, “most peaceful place in la.” jason won’t go home, staying until the sun rises but too passive to make a move. brian passed out in a little ball on the couch. good birthday. daisy’s bachelorette. i prove i can get along with other girls and they can fall in love with me. some really, really want to kiss me. reggie bush, corey maggette and the kardashians at pure. who the fuck are the kardashians. red dress and dancing. a display of power over big, black men, who follow me through crowds because i told them to. i could have ’em if i wanted ’em, but in 2009, the year i realized i only want what’s mine. this is a truth that holds power. stupid rob from santa barbara trying to cheat on his girlfriend. called out. the power of full moons…june, july, then august and ever after. the cruise to alaska. the beauty of meeting christian. time. magic. the dash. a newfound fountain of poetry and synchronicity bubbling up from a deep well through the surface of a cracked earth. the meanings of hello’s and goodbyes. bonding with edison and jonathan. seattle opens up a portion of map now suddenly available. magic magic magic. 09-09-09 and i’m there. a wonderful journey with michael. amber and jason–a symbol of positive partnership. seattle in the light, seattle in the gray, seattle laying naked and bare in a deep blue night mindscape. music everywhere. the triple door–giant aquarium, green dragon, my fish friend. the men of seattle like moths to a flame…can’t stay away from me but don’t know what to make of me. lots of truth and connections. lots of truth in connections. but i won’t give out my number because i’m committed to only wanting what’s mine. the birth of elixr. running along the water. a different sunset every night. watching the boats come in. a surprise visitor. a journey of words without meaning. a journey of meaning without words. a silence that reaches out and touches itself at the other end of the ocean. next level achieved. solitude and a plunge into fall. red, gold, orange littering the sidewalks with gray skies and rain, singing, i’m kickin’ through the autumn leaves and wondering where it is you might be going to. a torrential rainstorm, a problematic lavender dress and a beautiful wedding. basketball with steve and a near dislocated jaw. joining a women’s team and regressing back to high school. my first screenwriting contest in years. a determination to succeed. halloween in my pajamas. bonding with ching-wen. she’s the closest thing i have to a sister by blood. sweet sebastian. bad shoulder needs surgery. i put it off. thanksgiving turkey. rie, eric and seigo move to berkeley and closer than ever now. a realization that i want to be in san francisco soon. josh’s fiance is uber-threatened by me, but i am determined to be above it and make it work–his friendship means too much. pretending to not notice the digs and being nice, and one day, she lays down the sword and makes a genuine effort to bridge. joining his lunchtime basketball game. meeting shane. my need to hunt overwhelming now. eyeing him like a big cat eyeing a gazelle, while simultaneously being eyed by a prowling panther with dragon tattoos. no good, no good. it’s the jungle now. warriors games and mikki moore. a new t-shirt slogan. december comes on like a sleet storm, thundering train. the end of team bj, the formidable duo of brian and julia. the end of an era. giving up los angeles. a sad, sad goodbye to bring on a sooner hello. december ends politely with a neatly-made bed and a thank you note.

2009–a big year.
the dream of a butterfly that could possibly be real.
transformational, meditative, a patient year with glimpses of magic

i am thankful for 2009, the people, places and experiences that taught me, tested me, nurtured me, enriched me and brought me closer to myself and where i’m going. an 11 year ending with a full moon on a 9 day. beautiful and poetic. i’m sad to see it go, and i look forward to the new challenges and experiences of 2010.

and to the familiar faces within strangers i am soon to meet, i look forward to those days when we meet again.

happy new year, everyone. have a blessed 2010.

Just got back from Reno, on vacation with my family. Everyone got along beautifully and we had a great time. It was snowing and there were lots of people swimming in the outdoor pool, which was steaming from cold air contrasting with the heated water. I wish I’d brought my swimming suit. Won $450 playing $10 blackjack with my mom. Had a 5-minute snowball fight with mom and brother on the way home. Dad was in a good mood. Nothing else to report. Reno is Reno. Oh, mom got pulled over on a suspected DUI. She was just lost. A nice little brush with what Reno’s best known for, Reno911.

only a fool doesn’t change.

haha, my mom just came up to me and said, “I think your dad has been a better person because of what you gave him on Christmas eve. How many days can it last?” I told her it can last a lifetime if you gained wisdom and perspective, and believe in them. He just needed to learn how to relax without escaping, to back out of the corner that no one put him in but himself, to be present within a moment enough to see the world from a more positive, open perspective. His brother asked me for the tea and later said he went to play badminton and won two games. He was so excited. “I never win!” he said, “And I won twice in a row!” I gave it to him again on Christmas eve and checked on him later, asking him how he felt. He gave me this smile that lit up the room and said, “Happy!” My cousin said he was super nice the day he tried the tea, even taking the time to teach a kid how to shoot a basketball. I told him it often brings out the best in people, because you see the world in such an interconnected way, and you really want to be good and do good. You can’t look at it like the herb changes you, but that the herb allows you to recognize yourself, and bring out the best (truest) form of yourself. It’s not the herb, it’s you.

For me, it’s not about medicating people for short-term effects. I won’t give it to people to numb themselves (except people who have cancer to help with pain). I don’t agree with using this as a drug for escapism. This is about empowerment, not crutches. It’s about showing them a different perspective, seeing themselves as more holistic and powerful, seeing how they can reach their potential. It’s not about a short-term chemical effect. It’s about creating space to recognize yourself and your potential, to go after openings that will help you be the person you’ve always wanted to be, go after the life you’ve wanted. Stop using so much energy to fight or feed fear and anxiety…open up yourself to efficiently use your efforts towards positive changes and attainment.

My mom said to me the other day that when they legalize it across the boards, she sees me as becoming some kind of healer and spiritual leader. I smiled inside. That’s exactly one of my long-term goals.

yin and yang. everyone is both feminine and masculine, both dominant and submissive. it’s in the balance of true opposition, the real symbols, bringing them within complementation that springs forth power. if you are conscious of the whole of your being, all that is light and darkness, all that is within and without, you have the potential to tap into all that you are.

well, it’s done. my mom and i flew down to LA Christmas morning, packed up my place, and now my life is stuffed in a 10×15 ft. storage box. it was pretty unbelievable that the two of us packed up everything in a day and a half, and when the movers came and took everything away, it was sad to see it so empty. that place is the only place i’ve ever considered home. but it’s better this way. i’ve gotta do what i have to do so the sooner i get to where i’m going, the sooner i can come back. plus, renting it out will mean i can pay off the mortgage sooner. i would like it to be fully paid in 7 years.

i also think it’s necessary to have done this because when i get married, if we decide to live there, we can make it our place, instead of it being mine. we’ll have a fresh canvas to work with. i look forward to getting married, and telling my future husband who already thinks he’s won the lottery by landing me (because why marry someone unless you each think you’re the luckiest people in the world for having found each other?)…

“Oh, by the way, I have a penthouse in the heart of LA we can live in if we want.”

haha, that will be awesome. that place is the best place on earth. the energy is just unbelievable. even the movers were commenting how amazing it is.

well, end of an era. but without endings, there are no beginnings. so the sooner i leave on my journey, the sooner i can get back.

love you, ph400. see you soon, old friend.

this mercury retrograde is starting out gnarly.

first, we arranged with the movers to come at 8:30am on the 26th, so my mom and i booked last minute tickets to fly to la on christmas morning and start packing. she wanted to get everything done so we could make a late afternoon flight home and catch the warriors game that night. so i booked the tickets and the car rental online, but somehow, i got the dates wrong and booked the return on the 27th instead of the 26th. human error…totally my fault.

so my brother had to call the airline and change the tickets and at first they said all flights were full for the 26th, but he got us on a flight. when we got to la, turns out that i did the same with the car. since i went through hotwire, they said the extra day was non-refundable.

but i asked to speak to a supervisor, and i explained that i understood that this was their policy and i totally knew it was my fault for mixing up the dates, but it was christmas and this was my first time using hotwire. that especially in a bad economy, it’s easier to retain a customer than gain new ones, and i would really like to have a positive experience with hotwire. i told her that if she charged us, it was cool, but asked if there was anything she could do, any other options. she ended up refunding us for that extra day, which was incredibly nice of her.

we got to my place and we only had a limited number of boxes that we brought down last time, so we filled them up and went to bed early to prepare for the big day.

the arrangement with the movers was that it was all-inclusive, so they were supposed to bring boxes and supplies and help us with everything. but when 9am rolled around and they still hadn’t shown up, we called them and they said they were on another job and would show up around 1pm. we called their boss and she said not only did they not have supplies on the truck, but that they were stuck in a city 3 hours out of la and would make it when they could. we freaked out because we had a 4pm flight. she said just to buy the supplies and she would reimburse us. so we went out and got everything and started packing up.

the movers didn’t show up until 3pm. we didn’t get everything out until 8pm. i had to run out and get food, and a lot of places nearby were closed, so i went to this really good lebanese restaurant around the corner. they’d just expanded so the guy taking take-out orders was new. first, he helped this woman behind me first, which was irritating because i was in a hurry. then he lost my order, so it took 40 minutes (i asked him to check on it and he said, “i told you already it would be at least a 15 minute wait.” i told him that people who came in after me already had their order and he just says, “oh really? i’ll check on it as soon as i’m done putting in this order.” he was such a douche.) then when i finally got the order, it was wrong. i almost felt like he was messing with me because he could. so when i got back, the movers were just sitting there waiting, and they took their food and left.

michael had told us that the last flight out was 9:30, so we called the airline on our way to the airport. we were told that the remaining flights had been cancelled. while my mom was calling airlines, i called the rental company to see how much it would cost to change the return location and just drive it up to san jose. it’s a 5-6 hour drive. it was $155, but i told my mom (who had to make it back for a wedding the next day), the unused tickets would be credited, so we would actually be saving money by driving. so we decided to drive. which was ironic, because i’d sweet-talked hotwire into cancelling that last day, but we ended up using it anyway.

the movers forgot to take this antique chinese lantern with all 4 seasons depicted on glass panels that has been hanging in my office for good luck since i moved in, so i was psyched that i would be able to take it home. but it hangs from the ceiling, and while trying to get it off the hook, two of the glass panels fell out and shattered. i was really sad, but my mom said that sometimes broken glass is exchanged for safety from major catastrophe. the chinese always say that…sometimes minor losses (like losing money, etc) prevent you from having something really bad happen (like a car accident), so it’s like paying off the universe. so we left la by car around 8:30, figuring we would get home around 2am.

the drive was good bonding time with my mom. she and i are like sisters, so because we’re so close, we have an intense, close relationship, but it’s overall a wonderful relationship. we’re very lucky to have each other. i’ve always told her she should write a business book for (minority) women, because she naturally approaches everything like a war general. that if she read sun tzu’s art of war and saw how similar their thinking is, i could help her write a business book based on her personal philosophy and it would be really successful. you just send free copies to asian-american business associations around the us to create buzz, and also have it translated to chinese for distribution in chinese- speaking countries. she’s kind of low key though, so she always says, maybe. i wish she would do it. i would love collaborating with her. i’ve always wanted to write some kind of self-help, empowerment book, and especially something to do with art of war, because when i read art of war and machiavelli’s prince, i felt like i knew all this stuff already from living under the wisdom and outlook of my mother.

she fell asleep around 1am, and we were about 100 miles away from fremont. it was raining and i started getting really tired. i’m a very responsible driver but it was a struggle. i was especially dejected when i thought we were closer to home than we were, and i realized we were still somewhat far out. so i must have gone faster than i realized because i just wanted to go home, when i looked and saw flashing red lights behind me. i usually get a bolt of adrenaline when i get pulled over…i had a really, really bad experience with a racist police officer once…but i was so tired, i didn’t even react, just woke up my mom and told her i was being pulled over.

the police officers were really nice, saying that they clocked me at 90 in a 70, which is possible because i’d been bouncing between 75 and 85. we told them that we’d missed our flight and were just trying to get home, and they were actually really nice about it, but they still gave me a ticket. i haven’t had one in a while though, so i can just do online traffic school, and it won’t go on my record.

afterwards, my mom kept saying how courteous and handsome those two officers were…they were smiling and chatting with us, and overall really pleasant. she asked me if i would ever consider dating a police officer and i told her, never. if i knew a guy is a police officer, i probably wouldn’t even want to really get close to him, afraid i would have feelings. i already get stressed when i know a loved one is taking a plane somewhere. i wouldn’t be able to deal with wondering, every night that my boyfriend or husband is working, whether or not he’ll come home. if he’s safe. nothing against police officers, but i want someone who works a low life-risk occupation. i want to spend a long time with the one i love.

we finally got home around 2:30am, exhausted. my dad had waited up for us and had hot soup waiting. he was in a particularly sweet mood. i think it’s because of the weed i gave him on christmas eve that helped him open up his thinking about things. the family got split up on christmas eve because i was going to cook and everyone on both sides of the family was looking forward to it, but my dad didn’t want my mom inviting her family over to the house so forbade the party. he wanted to go out to dinner. but my aunt said she would host, so i ended up cooking at her house and my mom’s side of the family came over, and my dad took his side of the family out. it really sucked, and made
me sad as well as my relatives on my dad’s side who were looking forward to my cooking, but as everyone said, “what can you do?” a lot of people know about the rivalry between my dad and my mom’s brother. but i think my dad was upset about it, feeling kind of betrayed. he barely talked to me most of last week, and he and i (and he and my mom) had a few bitter exchanges. but when i got home from my aunt’s party, my cousins and uncles on my dad’s side were there, and they were asking about this special tea i made with my tincture, so i gave it to them, while my dad wanted to try smoking it. he said he’d tried it 30 years ago while in the military and nothing happened. it was a good experience…i’m a very good guide, making sure positive energy flows, and overall, it was a beautiful night. lots of happiness, lots of love. i think whatever happened, my dad’s attitude has been much calmer and happier since that night. i hope he gained some perspective on life and the bigger picture. i wrote about it, but i saved it in drafts so maybe i’ll post it later.

overall, the whole expedition had lots of kinks that i attribute to mercury retrograde, but what’s most important is we got home safely, and everyone is happy. this is only the beginning though, as the retrograde officially started yesterday and ends on the 16th (giving it an extra week if you’re a gemini or virgo). so everyone, be aware. back up that data, double-check all paperwork and plans, watch out for miscommunications, beware of delays and try not to sign contracts.

outside of that, happy holidays.

last night’s menu:

bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with herb chevre and almonds
crab cakes with roasted red pepper & garlic aoili
spinach-artichoke dip
caprese salad with champagne dressing

prime rib with au jus
pesto mashed potatoes
broiled asparagus
corn sauteed in butter & thyme
4-cheese mushroom mac & cheese with truffle oil

strawberry cheesecake

i am some things to some people
everything to no one