Echo

5/31 1:58pm

Somewhere back on the west coast in the U.S. it’s probably still Memorial Day but I have no idea anymore. I’ve been getting up around 6am running the 6 blocks down to get my family breakfast, then going back to sleep until a more godly hour. I also take lots of naps. I rationalize this by watching my 7-month pregnant aunt take 3-4 naps a day, and say that since I limit myself to two per day, it’s not quite as shameful. I think I’m one of those people who take vacations that allow for laziness and lounging, rather than those who take vacations with manic itineraries.

I watched the final minute of the Suns/Spurs game. I’m sure there will be much said about the blown call at the end when Amare’s block of Tim Duncan’s dunk should have been a goaltending call. I don’ t care though. It was pretty.

As for a half-assed trip recap, we left Friday evening and arrived late Saturday morning here. There are 8 of us sharing my grandmother’s 3-bedroom condo–my cousin Bohr and his mom, my aunt Jodie and her husband, my mom, brother and I, and of course, my grandmother. At least there are 2 bathrooms and plenty of mirrors for all the women to get ready in the morning. We hit up a street market for a late dinner. The thing about Taiwan is that there are what feels like hundreds of street vendors in any given alley, all selling some form of fried food most likely containing processed fish product. But it’s all fairly cheap, ranging from 50 cents U.S. to $2, so you can pretty much try 4-5 different things all for under the cost of an entree at a cheap diner. And you never have to tip.

The meat is so fresh that they pretty much slaughter the animal sometimes right in their little space, something that luckily, I have yet to witness. I did see a whole pig floating in the water when we went to visit this seaside market area (kind of like 3rd Street Promenade in Los Angeles); it must have fallen off one of the boat ferries. I couldn’t stop staring because it was kind of sad to see this slaughtered pig floating in the water surrounded by random trash. Like it died for nothing. My mom requested that I not take a picture of it (as she had earlier in the day with the La Muff sign), because she doesn’t like me portraying Asians in a bad way.

The second night we were here, my mom’s oldest brother (aka my rich uncle) had this family reunion banquet. It wasn’t so much a family reunion, as all the family members who happened to be here this week, and 25 of his friends. He had rented out the events room of a nice restaurant and had a man with a Casio running a karaoke machine. Whoever invented the dinner format of having karaoke going on as people try to eat should be shot. Whoever thinks that a respectable job description is “Man who runs a karaoke machine while backing up the music with one-fingered notes on a Casio keyboard” is someone who still lives in his parents’ garage. It was mildly awful. The head of D-Link was there. I wanted to ask him for a job. The night ended with Bohr’s mom up alone on the stage with the microphone saying, “Bohr! Do you want to come up here and sing You Are My Sunshine?….Bohr?…..Julia? You Are My Sunshine?…” I don’t think the human language has an emphatic enough way of saying no in answer to questions like those.

Yesterday was the first day of the Computex show, which was why most of my family is out here. So they all left in the day and it was just me, my pregnant aunt, my brother and my grandmother left to nap away the day. I took Michael to the 12-story department store that’s designed after the department stores in Japan. I lost my brother at one point and had to enact a floor to floor search. After searching each floor from top to bottom, I decided to take the elevator up to the top floor, which was where I had last seen him. The funny thing about the elevator was that there’s a very graceful young woman in white gloves who ushers people into the elevator, and another inside who pushes the buttons. The funny thing was that whenever someone’s floor came up, she would say in Chinese, “Forgive me, but this is the [3rd] floor.” I’ve noticed that about the different service jobs. Rather than just announcing something, they always pre-empt it with, “Forgive me” or “I am deeply sorry,” etc. Like, “I am deeply sorry, but here is your order of fried meat product.” Maybe it’s the way they say excuse me, just twisted by a severe translation. Regardless, it makes us sound like pushovers.

I have just bought a bunch of grapes that I thought cost the equivalent of $1.50US, but actually cost $7US. Damn my limited Chinese vocabulary. For 7 bucks, these things had better get me drunk or something.

I’m in Taiwan right now. No, it doesn’t have to do with the dead hooker in my trunk. I ditched her in my neighbor’s backyard weeks ago. I’m here for quality family time. I plan to spend my trip going to the gym for hours at a time, while binging on street-vendor food that would make a health-safety inspector commit suicide in frustration.

Yesterday we passed a cafe named, La Muff.

I took a picture of the sign for this blog. My mom said, You had better not post that on your website and portray Asians in a bad way. I said, I’m not the one who called my restaurant, La Muff.

more cowbell.

More Human Idiocy

One Of the Funniest Things I’ve Ever Seen

“Next time…we’ll bring a bigger crane…”

I’d like to shake the shit out of him.

Help Me Help You

I’m going to write a video sketch called Cabana Boy Training School. You can just imagine the wackiness that will ensue. So if you have ideas for funny things to include, please let me know. I’m going to cast it, film it then post it so it behooves you to help.

That is all.

Hand-Scrawled Notes In New York (5/6/05)

5:50am

Battery on the DVD player ran out while watching Dogville. Interesting look to the movie. Fell asleep listening to KD Lang. Woke up to the airplane descending. Took at taxi to the hotel. Discussed basketball with the driver. Arrived at the hotel to encounter the least helpful front desk staff ever. I had arranged an early check-in but they screwed it up. Checked in my bag with a grumpy bellman. The restrooms weren’t even open. Wandered up Lexington listening to Chemical Brothers. Made eye contact with every person going the other way for six straight blocks. Wondered if I was breaking some kind of cardinal NY rule. Wondered if I could make it to either Washington Square or Central Park. Realized I was actually going south. Found Grand Central Station. Entered and looked around. Thought about how many people had wandered my exact steps who were no longer alive. How many people who had stepped through the doors for the first time and found the grand hall oddly familiar. Stood and looked at the map. Still couldn’t figure out exactly where I was. These maps need arrows. Retraced my steps, heading northbound now. Intent on finding a dinner to sit at. Itching to write in my notebook. Wondered if someday, someone will sell my notebooks on Ebay because I’m both famous and eccentric, and my notebooks will be advertised as a “Diary of a Madwoman—One of a Kind Collectible.” There are some crazy things in here. Stream of consciousness. Perhaps the secret of the universe scrawled in here when I wasn’t paying attention. God enjoys a good joke that makes him feel smarter than us. (I’m on the juice again, ma. I just can’t help myself). If I ever went missing, I want you to tell the cops: She was about five foot six. Medium black hair, muscular build that just never hits lean. Nice smile, slightly cagey. Liked her eggs over easy but always mistakenly ordered them sunny side up. Preferred English muffins over toast, but sourdough over wheat. Is not on a first name basis with her Lord and Savior, but God…we miss her already. Listened to sad songs when optimism felt cocky. Blushed when she said the word cocky outloud.

10am

I’m sitting on the B train on the way to the East Village across from two Chinese women. They’re probably mother/daughter, around 80 and 65 respectively. They’re wearing matching flowery silk ascots, the daughter in a green one to match her coat and the mother in a deep lavendar one to complement hers. I watch the mother extract two toothpicks from a plastic container and hand one to her daughter. She takes a container of plum preserves out of her purse and they spear dark, oily lumps out with the toothpicks and eat them while discussing the weather. This mundane scene brings tears to my eyes. I hope my mother lives forever, but she is a robot who can not understand these types of sentiments.

I follow the women when they get off the subway and find myself in Chinatown. I am momentarily basking in the feeling of being with my people until I realize they’re not the most helpful when I’m asking for directions. I get lost in Chinatown as I always do when I go to New York. Leave a message for Brian in LA saying, “I’m lost in Chinatown, surrounded by Chinese people, and they’re mean. ” He calls back a few minutes later and mapquests me out of there.

Stolen from M-squared and non-girlfriend:

My Uncle Once: Bet me $10 that he could beat me at H-O-R-S-E. Seeing as I was 9, I thought he would go easy on me but no, he kicked my ass. So he asked me if I wanted to play again and I said yes, thinking he would let me win this one so I could break even. But he kicked my ass again. He asked me if I wanted to go again for all or nothing and I said yes, thinking now he would let me win so that there wouldn’t be money on the table. But he kicked my ass again. He asked me if I wanted to play again and I said no. He said, you owe me $30. I told him, I don’t have $30, I’m 9. So he called my mom and told her that I lacked integrity.

Never in my life: Have I wanted to be president.

When I was five: My best friend Linus and I had a game called the Pants Down Game. We would jump up and down on my parents bed and flash each other. I moved away but 10 years later, he moved to my city and showed up at my high school. We talked to each other for the first time in 10 years and he asked me, “Remember the Pants Down Game?”

High School was: a little bitch. But to take some responsibility, if I were to do it again, I would do it a lot less angry and try to focus on the likeminded people who were accepting of me instead of stewing about the hypocrisy and hierarchy.

I will never forget: That meter maid who gave me a hug and comforted me instead of giving me a ticket on that day when I was very very sad.

I once met: a kid who talked just like Professor Frink from The Simpsons.

There’s this girl I know who: Used to give me money and ask me to run across the street to buy her a soda because she was afraid to cross the street.

Once, at a bar: I saw someone projectile vomit. It looked just like it did on that Garbage Pail Kids card.

By noon I’m usually: Nodding off.

Last night: I slept alone.

Next time I go to church I: will wake up, find myself naked and pray that this is just a nightmare because Julia P S__ does not set foot in a church.

Terry Schiavo: People made it a public battle over their own beliefs when it really should have been about you.

When I turn my head left, I see: A wall.

When I turn my head right, I see: a file cabinet. Thanks for reminding me that I’m trapped at work.

You know I’m lying when: I look like I’m on the verge of either laughing or crying.

What I miss most about the eighties: When all that it took to make me happy was going to 7-Eleven and picking up Jolly Ranchers, Now & Laters, Bonkers and Bubblicious, going home with a mountain of candy and having spent less than three bucks.

If I was a character written by Shakespeare, I’d be: Puck. Though whenever I hear that name, I always think of that disgusting guy with poor hygiene on Real World: San Francisco.

By this time next year: I want to be shooting my movie!

A better name for me would be: golden-palace-dot-com

I have a hard time understanding: Anything spoken. I need subtitles for everything.

If I ever go back to school I’ll: go to frat parties and be that old person standing by the keg flirting with people way too young for me, and whose inappropriate presence creeps the kids out. Except for the kids with low self-esteem because those I’ll bag.

You know I like you if: I lick your eye. It’s an ancient Chinese custom.

If I won an award, the first person I’d thank would be: No one. I would use my time to make an ill-informed politically-driven rant until they cued the music and had Charlize Theron escort me off the stage.

Darwin, Mozart, Slim Pickens, and Geraldine Ferraro: Names men give their penises.

Take my advice, never: Get up in the middle of the night and pee with the cover down.

My ideal breakfast is: Pumpkin pancakes with cantaloupe juice, coffee and two eggs over easy at 11am because I pulled an Office Space and decided that I don’t like work so I’m just not going in anymore.

A love song I love, but do not have is: Ricky don’t lose that numba…

If you visit my hometown, I suggest: You prepare to see hicks.

Tulips, character flaws, microchips, and track stars: The circumstances surrounding my loss of virginity.

Why won’t anyone invent: Something that would allow women the convenience of peeing standing up?

If you spend the night at my house, don’t: be surprised to wake up to find me spooning you.

I’d stop my wedding for: a passing ice cream truck

The world could do without: assholes

I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: lick a part of it that excretes.

My favorite blonde is: Denzel Washington

Paper clips are more useful than: nothing. I use paper clips to pick the locks on diaries.

If I do anything well, it’s: snoozing

The last time I was drunk, I: I’ve never been drunk. Only happy.

And, by the way: boys have penises and girls have vaginas.

This is a great article on the consciousness of fetuses. When I have a kid, I’m going to take the entire 9 months off and do meditative things to nurture the spiritual and emotional development of this baby. Lots of listening to music, energy work, reading outloud and envisioning of the immense power this human being will have to make positive changes in this universe. I only want one kid so I can focus on nurturing him/her and mentoring his/her development. I will try not to be overbearing and turn him/her gay.

I found this part of the article interesting:

Babies react with alarm to loud noises, car accidents, earthquakes, and even to their mother’s watching terrifying scenes on television. They swallow less when they do not like the taste of amniotic fluid, and they stop their usual breathing movements when their mothers drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes.

In a documented report of work via ultrasound, a baby struck accidentally by a needle not only twisted away, but located the needle barrel and hit it repeatedly–surely an aggressive and angry behavior. Similarly, ultrasound experts have reported seeing twins hitting each other, while others have seen twins playing together, gently awakening one another, playing cheek-to-cheek, and and even kissing. Such scenes, some at only 20 weeks g.a., were never anticipated in developmental psychology. No one anticipated sociable behavior nor emotional behavior until months after a baby’s birth.

We can see emotion expressed in crying and smiling long before 40 weeks, the usual time of birth. We see first smiles on the faces of premature infants who are dreaming. Smiles and pleasant looks, along with a variety of unhappy facial expressions, tell us dreams have pleasant or unpleasant contents to which babies are reacting. Mental activity is causing emotional activity. Audible crying has been reported by 23 weeks g.a. in cases of abortion, revealing that babies are experiencing very appropriate emotion by that time. Close to the time of birth, medical personnel have documented crying from within the womb, in association with obstetrical procedures which have allowed air to enter the space around the fetal larynx.

We saw the lead singer of this band whose CD release party we went to last week. He was with these two very LA-ish blond chicks. Reggie introduces me to him but he seems like the kind of guy who is self-involved and overly aware that he can make women worship him, so I say hello politely but continue to talk to someone else.

He left for a while but at some point, I noticed him standing next to our booth, facing me. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught him looking at me out of the corner of his eye. He seemed to be carefully posturing himself in what he believed was his failproof “sexy” pose, and was trying to catch me checking him out. It was super egotistical. So I continued to ignore him and got into a really intense conversation with Reggie, until he left.

After a while, the two guys who were sitting across from us left. That singer guy came back and slid into our booth. Reggie asked him who were the girls he was with. One was his friend and he was just chatting with the other one. Reggie says that it looked like she was interested in him, and the guy says really off-hand, oh we’ve dated before….. sleazily implying that he’s had her in the biblical sense.

I decide, I don’t like this guy. He came over here to make a point that women lust after him. He thinks he’s the shit when it comes to women, but he clearly has misogynistic tendencies with the way he interacts with women. I suspect he’s sitting with us because he’s curious about why I’m not checking him out and fawning. So I suddenly change directions, turning on the faucet of flirt. I give him my best, the deep gazes and appreciative laughs, the showing of intelligent interest in what he has to say, pointing out things in common, establishing a rapport, etc. Then just as quickly, I turn it off, suddenly getting very involved in sportscenter which is being broadcast on a large TV by the bar. Reggie’s talking to him but the guy’s not really listening. He seems irritated now. I look at him and think about what dysfunctional creatures we humans have the potential to become when we get everything we want too easily.

5/12 Recap

I’ve gotta make this quick and dirty since I need to get up in 4 1/2 hours. I feel like I’ve been running on so little sleep and such a creative high ever since the NY trip. Or maybe I’ve just been quietly tripping about these things and these are but my muffled screams.

I went to a play with Reggie that was about truth and following your impulses. He let me analyze the performances and point out the nuances of concentration and actors who are playing off the audience and losing their centers.

Afterwards, we went to my friend John’s birthday party at Q’s. Here’s the thing. I randomly went onto Friendster on Tuesday, and that site’s doing birthday notifications now. I saw that his birthday was “today.” So I dropped him a quick line that just said happy birthday. He writes back that he’s having a party on Thursday and sends me and evite. So even though I’m going to a play, I make a point of stopping by since I haven’t seen those guys in 2 years.

I get there and Reggie’s friends happen to be there. We explore the bar further and I find John and his crew playing pool. I see my friend Randy and I get happy. He and I used to work together and we used to hang out a lot after we both quit. He used to invite me out then kind of ignore me, so it was never clear if he was interested in me. He started dating this girl (the relationship went on to last 3 years) and he was eccentric with her, doing things like not even spending Valentine’s Day with her and going to a concert with his friends instead, despite having been dating for a year. And he would still call me and invite me out, but sometimes I wouldn’t come out because it was awkward and because sometimes he wasn’t friendly, so I didn’t understand what exactly our relationship was. I see him and I’m happy because I’m thinking, “friend I haven’t seen in a while,” but he says hi in a really unfriendly way then makes a big show of ignoring me. I’m like, what the hell, so I go say happy birthday to John. He’s a very friendly guy. I have no interest in him whatsoever. So I’m just asking him where he’s working now when out of nowhere, this girl pushes her way between us, sticks out her hand and says, “Hi. I’m Eva. John’s girlfriend.” Being always diplomatic and friendly as I am, I quash the recognition of her antagonism in my head and just introduce myself and ask about her. I’m a pretty friendly innocent person so she chilled out a little bit. But the vibe was messed up, and I could tell Reggie wasn’t liking it either. It’s kind of cute how protective he is of me. So we slip out of the room and go back to the booth his friends had saved us.

I have to admit though, this kind of hurt my feelings, which is a huge admission for me. And of all people, I was surprised that Randy could hurt my feelings, considering he’s not that close to me and I don’t really care enough for feelings to be hurt. But it hurt to be blindsighted by someone who you think is a friend and always had positive regard for, and I think just the circumstances of that was what tripped me up. His friend Paul told me as I slipped out of the room, that Randy’s girlfriend broke up with him 6 weeks ago after three years so he’s still pretty bummed about it. But to be honest, he didn’t treat her that well and really took her for granted. So perhaps he’s just being a huge dick and taking something weird out on me. Honestly, he can’t ever say that I rejected him back in the day and he can’t say that I was anything but nice and respectful of him. He was never clear about what he wanted and frankly, I found his moods to be incredibly inconsistent.

Regarding John’s girlfriend, Reggie said later that the moment I hugged John, his girlfriend came storming over from across the room, made a big deal of keeping her body between his and mine and was looking me up and down like, “Who the fuck IS this bitch.”

I haven’t seen a catty display like that since junior high.

What a strange night.

I have been on such a people watching kick lately. I just want to watch people, analyze who they are, how they think, what their secrets are, and it fuels my creative process. It helps me grow and builds a better understanding of our inner wirings. I feel safe to people watch with Reggie since he makes sure that I don’t get harassed.

5,000 People Starved Because of You…

I’m watching Spellbound and they’re talking about one of the contestants, an Indian kid named Neil. They said that his grandfather in India payed for 1,000 people to pray around the clock for him to win the National Spelling Bee. And if Neil won, the grandfather would pay to feed 5,000 people. I’m just thinking, that’s a lot of pressure to put on an 8th grader, who knows that if he fucks up, 5,000 starving people in a third world country don’t eat.

By the way, that kid Harry is a kick. I’ve never seen anyone so spastic. When he talks in that “musical robot” voice, I just lost it.

Quote of the Day from Owen’s Awesome Blog:

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
-President George W. Bush