Echo

Some existential humor. It really takes off when the dolls are in the box. My 3 favorite lines:

3. What is box happening?
2. I am fucking my hand!
1. Denzel Washington!

There’s No Such Thing as an Endless Party

Big day yesterday. Leaving Los Angeles. The first day of my Seattle chapter. Incidentally, a 22 day. It’s all starting off on a good foot.

I packed up my stuff and moved it to my car by myself, which took a lot of effort and time, but it felt good that I can be this self-sufficient.

There was minimal traffic…just open road and a beautiful blue sky. Good music. I teared up a bit as I left the Grapevine, the curvy mountain road that leads in and out of the LA basin. See you soon, old friend. I’m always leaving LA, but I always come back.

Brian hasn’t had much to say about the move. He just said that nothing I do surprises him anymore. I’ll be back, I said. Maybe, he said. He knows happy or not, I’m going to get a lot out of Seattle because I’ve been talking about it for years, longing for it even before I had ever visited it. Also, Brian doesn’t express very many emotions. Whenever he gets upset, he just gets detached and busy. Sometimes I wonder if he knows himself when he’s upset. He seemed very withdrawn, quiet and busy these days. When everyone was at our place before the Bowl party on Sunday, they were asking me about my lease in Seattle. I told them I’d signed a 1 year lease, even though I told Brian before I left I was going to sign a 3 month lease (it ended up the place I chose only had 13 or 14 month leases). Brian yelled from the other room that he thought I was only signing a 3 month lease. I told him the situation. Cindy asked him, “What are you going to do? How are you going to replace Julia’s personality?” He didn’t say anything, and was quiet for the rest of the night.

I don’t know. It’s hard to know with him because he doesn’t talk about anything, so for all I know, he’s just quiet because of work stuff, not this. I’ll be back though. My home in LA is always my home base, the peaceful refuge that recharges me and heals me. And I told him that if he finds someone he wants to live with, to just clear my stuff to the guest room and I’ll rent out my room.

I got to Fremont and headed over to the gym. Played basketball but my left knee’s been sore, so I was just okay. My dad asked, “What happened to getting shoulder surgery?”

“I decided going to Seattle is more interesting.”

My shoulder only pops out of I throw something or block shots with my right. Otherwise, it doesn’t bother me day-to-day, so I’m going to postpone it until a better time. The doctor said I should only get it if the tear is bothering me, and lately, it’s been pretty tight.

My grandmother was having a birthday dinner that night. She didn’t know I was coming to town, so it was a great surprise for her when I walked in. I wanted to be extra nice to her.

Bohr was there with his new girlfriend. I’d talked to him last month and he said he was dating a girl named Erin, so when I shook her hand, I said, “You must be Erin.” For a split second, I realized, if this wasn’t Erin but another girl (he’d been dating lots of girls in the last couple of months), this was about to get really disastrous. But then she said, “I am!” and that was a crisis averted.

I sat down next to my uncle Edward. Edison and Jonathan were next to him, and they were kind of hiding from me.

“I know two people at this table who haven’t said hi to me…,” I said. And they giggled, yelling, “We didn’t!”

As we’re eating, they keep yelling, “Julia Peeshi” and giggling. I laugh along with them, then I realize, wait…how do they know my official name?

“How do you know my name? How do you know my middle initial?” I asked.

Edison says, “I’m not telling!” and giggles.

“Julia Peeshi!” Jonathan yells.

“How do you know my whole name?” I ask Jonathan.

“I do’know!” he said with a wicked smile.

This is strange. Then for no apparent reason, I point at them accusingly and say, “Which one of you guys stole my ID?”

I really had no idea where that exclamation came from or why, but then their mom says, “Oh! They did steal your ID!”

Apparently, after the cruise to Alaska, they got a hold of my ID card from the boat (I’d been wondering where that went!). Jodie said in the following weeks, they would fight over who could hold the card, running around yelling, “Julia Peeshi!” (because the card had my middle initial). They would also chant their own variation of my name, “Julia Pee-gu Sh__” (Pee-gu is Chinese for “butt”) and crack themselves up.

The boys started giggling as their mom tells this story. “You guys are calling me names!” I roar, fake mad. They start yelling, “Julia Pee-gu Sh__!”

I told them I wanted the card back. Edison said he didn’t have it. Jonathan said he didn’t know where it is. I told them, “One of you has it!” They both shrug and smile like little lying demons. “Or did you lose it already?” Edison shrugs mysteriously and smirks.

I shake my head and turn to Bohr. “At what age do you men all become liars?” He flashes 2 fingers in the air. 2! It’s like as soon as they’re conscious. Seriously. I think male lying is innate.

My cousin Ching-Wen is there and I talk to her. She’s 24. She’s living at home again because her job fell through and I tell her she’s gotta get out of there. Nothing prevents you from figuring out who you are and finding your way as much as living at home. She said she has no job and no money right now, but we all know her dad has her tied up tight. Her dad is my mom’s brother (who has a rivalry with my dad), and he always tells his kids he’ll buy them X if they do what he says. Like Ching-Wen wanted to go to UC Irvine for college which is near LA and a party school, but he said he’d buy her a car if she went to UC Davis instead, which is in the middle of nowhere, closer to Fremont and for people going into the sciences. So of course, she went to Davis.

I asked her where her friends were and she said most of them were in Los Angeles. I told her she should go down there, room with a friend and check out the job market there. She said she would love to rent out my place. Right away my uncle raged. You are not going to live at Julia’s.

“But I want to,” she said. Then she looked at me. “See? How can I leave? He won’t let me.”

She told her dad she wants to live at my place with my roommate and her dad said, “If you want to live in LA, I will buy you a place but you have to live with your sister.”

She looked defeated. I don’t know if my uncle’s problem is with my roommate being gay or what (Brian’s a very responsible and mature person…there’s no reason to oppose him as a roommate unless it’s about sexual orientation), but Ching-Wen does not really get along with her younger sister, who lives in LA and goes to UCLA. In fact, not a lot of us do…she’s a bit hostile. I always try to say hi whenever I see her to be polite, but she’s always angry, projecting an idea where we’ve all been hostile to her first and that’s why she hates us (last Christmas, at our parents’ company party, I went to their table and said hi to her. She pretended she didn’t hear. So I waited until it was quiet and said hi again. She didn’t acknowledge me). Later, she told Jodie, “Did you hear the way Julia said hi?” She claimed I said it very spitefully, even though everyone heard me and knew that wasn’t the case. Jodie told me just to let it go. But bottom line, Ching Wen said that however her sister treats us, she treats her
even worse so she can’t live with her.

I told her it definitely wouldn’t be a great situation. It’s tough. My uncle is the tyrant king. A nice guy sometimes, loyal to family, but a bit misogynistic with a narrow, fixed mind. He and I have had some clashes growing up (my mom says it’s the result of his enmity towards my father, so he lumps me together with him), but now I just tell jokes a lot around him. The only one who trumps a tyrant king is the fool, who tells the truth when the king only hears nonsense. So he was getting pretty mad. He didn’t like that I was talking about my gay roommate so openly, and he didn’t like that I was encouraging his daughter to leave home and find herself, even though she needs to. She needs the maturity that comes from life experience. Her last few boyfriends have been older guys (mid 30’s) who date her and take care of her with money while treating her like arm candy. She’s worth more than that, but her father has to let her find her self worth instead of oppressing her with gifts and money. Of course, I don’t say this, just that it’s important for each person to find a place where they feel confident in themselves and can take care of themselves. But he was getting mad, and at one point Ching-Wen said across the table, “My dad’s mad.” I turned to him and ask, “Would you like to join our conversation? Any questions or comments?”

He shakes his head, annoyed.

“We would love to include you,” I said. “I think it’s important that we can have open discourse about all the things going on in our lives.”

My cousins are laughing, and so is Bohr’s dad, who’s pretty chill. I’m messing with him, but I’m doing it in such a friendly, innocent way. My uncle just ignores me.

At the end of dinner, I ask Bohr’s girlfriend, Erin, if this is the first time she’s meeting the family. She said it is.

“Oh no,” I said. “I wish I had known that. This is probably all a lot to take in.”

“It is,” she said. “But it’s okay. You guys are very interesting. You’re a happy family.”

“For the most part,” I said. “We’re all very tight, even though sometimes there’s always a chance of someone leaping up with angry yelling and pronounced finger pointing.” I nod towards my uncle with a smile.

“Keep pushing, Julia, and when someone stands up and yells, Sh__ Pei Hua!!… then you’re gonna be in trouble,” Bohr says. In Chinese culture, any time an elder says your full Chinese name with that “This Is Some Serious Shit!” tone, you’re in big trouble.

“Yeah?” I say with dismissive bravado. “Well, if someone says that, I’ll just say, I’m sorry, I don’t answer to that name anymore. The only name I answer to is Julia Pee-gu Sh__.”

Everyone laughs, including my uncle.

“That’s the funniest thing you’ve said in years,” he said.

That’s bullshit. I always make him laugh. It’s how I disarm him and run under his radar. That’s why he calls me crazy to make me harmless to him, when really he finds everything I stand for threatening to his need for control and order.

After dinner, they bring out cakes and we sing happy birthday. There are 3 small cakes (two of them ice cream) and my grandmother is having trouble blowing out candles. I’m 3 people away, but I sneak in a quick blow and take out the candles in 2 of the cakes from 3 feet away. Bohr, across the table, says, “Whoa!” Then he shakes his head. He’s always impressed with my candle-blow skills. I’m a Chi sniper. My energy field is surprisingly extensive.

The waitress brings out another dessert on the house, these little mochi dumplings filled with ground peanut paste. Then she starts singing Chinese Opera.

wtf? It was unexpected. Later, I asked Bohr if they had asked her to do that. He said she had offered, saying it was something she could do to honor my grandmother’s birthday. Oh, I said. I thought it was something that just came with the meal, and I thought, “This restaurant has very good service!”

After dinner, we were all standing outside in the parking lot of the restaurant talking. My uncle, as he drove out of the parking lot, rolled down his window and yelled, “Go home! There’s no such thing as an endless party!”

Michael ushered me to my car like a bodyguard, opening the door for me. I can always trust him to look out for me. At dinner, Edison had snuck up next to me, picked his nose, then went for my cellphone with his finger. I yelled, “Don’t touch my phone!” And Michael, sitting next to me, slams down his hand over my phone just in time to block Edison’s finger. “Don’t.” Michael says, matter-of-factly. Edison giggles, and Michael keeps his hand over my phone as he eats with the other one until Edison leaves. So protective, my big little brother.

We went home, and my dad was in his man cave smoking a cigar. I sat and talked to him for a while. Then I went outside to lay in the hammock and take pictures of the moon. My mom came out and danced by the moonlight. I took a great picture of it. Will post it later.

A beautiful, peaceful night.