Echo

all these words…like dry ocean sandstorm
quicksand
undertow
gravity hung upside down by his ankles
and the voice harnessing echoes
in the space between shadow and light

these words i could spin into towers for you
walls of sand so high
you’ll think you’ve found the bottom of the well
when you lift up your arms and scream into the night sky,
and the echo of your own name pulls you back to life
into a present autumn dawn
aching
with a distant memory
of something once held in your hand.

man…i have no desire to be in the public eye. i like having a following, i like a detached kind of notoriety, but i do not want the public to own me. i hate the way people feel entitled to take apart other people, like the way we treat our celebrities, politicians, athletes, etc. once people have their collective eye on you, you lose your freedom to be you without the distortion of judgment.

these are a few of this week’s anomalies:

-went to return a basketball at the front desk of the gym. the new sales guy, the one i finally closed my “negotiations” with (i only wanted them to concede one thing and i would join), was behind the desk with the two usual staff member. he’s a tall guy, about 26, said he used to play pro ball in europe. he knows i joined for the basketball court. i returned the ball and as i was leaving, he asked, “hey,…so, uh…when are you going to bring your husband in?”

i turned around and searched his face. he seemed sincere enough. “when i find one.”

he did look truly embarrassed, saying he thought i said i had a husband.

“no husband,” i said. “but maybe i have some kids running around that i don’t know about.”

the whole desk laughed and i left. later, he found me reading on the elliptical machine and said he was really sorry about that conversation. i told him it was cool and that i actually thought it was kind of funny. i asked him how sales were going, and he got embarrassed saying he’s not really into being a sales guy. i told him that sales is good for people like us who are competitive, because it allows you to compete with yourself.

-this big bear of a guy in his 40’s keeps pulling my ponytail while we played 2-on-2. okay, i probably caused this situation, because the last time we played, i had to guard him but he’s gotta weigh 240. there was no way i could out-muscle him. one play, i got low to box him out…just threw all of my weight into my legs and back and pushed. i moved him out of the box, but i had to use his body to keep me upright while i got my legs back under me. to do this every play would be too f-ing hard. so he said, “look at you, pushing against me.”

i gave him a sly smile.

“don’t you know? i’m flirting with you.”

so then my team won that game. because guys can’t focus when you’re flirting with them on the court. they put up bad shots trying to impress you, and they don’t play you as aggressively because they want the contact but they also want the distance to be able to watch you. i don’t purposely flirt to take advantage of defenders, but hey, i can’t help that i’m a naturally charming basketball player.

but now the consequences are that he likes to pull my ponytail flirtatiously, and he likes to touch me…a lot. the price of winning. so we all know what this means…i switch up my schedule.

-lesbians. lesbians. good for you.

-i was at this cafe yesterday and look up to find this white guy in his 40’s standing over me. “do you come here a lot?” he asked. i remembered him as a guy who had me on his radar here the day before, but i pretended not to notice him and he didn’t engage. i did catch him looking at me as he walked out the door and i smiled…80% out of friendliness, 20% smirking that he’d been too chicken to say something. i’m sorry. sometimes i can’t help myself. i taunt but it’s an innocent kind of taunting. so now i’m in the same cafe, and he’s standing there, talking to me. then i notice he has his coat on, and no coffee in hand. i’ve been fairly aware of the room, and i know he hasn’t been here the whole time. and after he left, i watched him and he went straight out the door. i think he must have been walking by and saw me through the window, or he had walked by around the same time i was here the day before to see if i was here. either way, he was determined to talk to me and invited himself to sit down. by his body language, he was very anxious, too. i was very nice, and friendly, but c’mon…no offense to older men, but i want to grow old with you, not trailing 15 years behind. he was eager to tell me that he owned two investment properties as well as his own company. i wondered if he was hoping that would impress me into being enamored with him, like a caveman conking a woman on the head with a club. i’m always suspicious with guys who try dangling shiny “facts” right up front. the way i feel, unless you own an island and take me to said island in a private helicopter to prove that you do indeed own an island, i will not be impressed by claims of wealth. i am happy enough with a guy who has a job, can support me and kids, is a cool dude, balances me, and never makes me get up at the crack of dawn.

-hehe. i’m in a playful mood tonight. rie always tells me to stop glamouring poor, defenseless guys. i say that i can’t help it if they wander themselves over on their own two adult legs. today this guy did the drunken bee approach. do you know what that is? it’s when a guy is walking by and he sees you, and he’s got such a sudden, compulsive impulse to approach you that he starts walking in your direction, but his brain’s like, “wait…what the fuck is going on?” and so half of him is coming at you like a magnet, and the other half is trying to stop the approach. it makes them kind of weave with a very conflicted look on their face. so this guy rambles his way over and pretends to be looking through the windows behind me, then when he realizes i’m looking at him like, “what’s up?” he asks me what my name is. then he says he thought i was leslie, this tv newsreporter’s wife. and then he just stands there and stares.

good actors tend to have really dilated pupils in scenes. it’s a sign of intense focus. when a person listens with so much focus that their pupils are dilated, sometimes the affect on the other person is hypnotic. maybe it’s because feelings of fascination and attraction also dilate the pupils, so these potential signals heighten the experience for the person being listened to. i’m not sure. i think the reason why people find my eyes intense or fascinating is because my pupils tend to be dilated.

The Dress

So apparently, everyone and their mother knew about my bridesmaid dress fiasco for Daisy’s wedding. Literally. When I showed up in Laguna Beach, everyone was asking me how my dress was, and I had the same response– “How do you know about it?” News travels fast. I assured everyone that I had it under control and all would go well. And if I flashed a boob, it would be to the enjoyment of all.

So come wedding day and it’s judgment hour. I need the help of two girls to get me in the dress–it was still a size too small and didn’t zip up all the way, but the tailor had created a flap to cover the part that was open. I could breathe, but I couldn’t breathe too deeply, and I had to be very careful of laughing too hard. Which was very difficult because I was designated the comic relief for the day. Outside of it making my shoulders look massive, it worked out:

here we are as deceptively well-behaved young ladies.

It was very hard to simultaneously sit and breathe in the dress, so whenever we had a break during the day, instead of sitting and resting, I would pace. When the reception came around, my cousin, Sharon, asked me how I was going to sit and eat. I told her I would eat in a lunge*.

The pumpkin soup was delicious!

Mmmmm….Steak.

(*Don’t worry, I ate sitting down like a lady. A shallow-breath taking lady.)

It cracked her up so she insisted on taking a picture doing a lunge with me:

This one’s for the troops.

And for the fun of it, here’s a picture of my cousin and I “looking at the bunny” that was being shaken to get the baby to smile for the camera:

LOOK AT THE BUNNY!…LOOK AT THE BUNNY!

So at Daisy’s wedding, I realized I have so many cousins. I tried to add them up in my head, but I lost count. So I’m going to make a list:

Mom’s side (2 brothers, 2 sisters):
Mike
Suzie
Ching-Wen
Linda
Jason
Bohr
Binh
Ray
Edison
Jonathan

Dad’s side (2 brothers, 1 sister, 2 half-brothers, 2 half-sisters):
Miranda
Albert
P
Sammy
Sharon
Julia
Stephanie
Joanna
Ray
Anna
Heather
Ryan
Howie
Justin
other Ryan
Daisy
Danny
Joey
Yvonne
Gilbert
Linda
Mier
Steven

2nd cousins:
Austin
Alicia
Devin
Tyler
Brandon
Avery
Grayson

I’m probably forgetting some people. Add in the cool people who married into the family (Gilbert, Albert, Justin, Judy, Gina, Janelle) and family gatherings are usually giant parties.

I’m the 2nd oldest on my mom’s side (Mike is the oldest but he grew up in Taiwan, so all my cousins in the US looked to me as the oldest). 3rd oldest on my dad’s side. Many of my cousins on my dad’s side are by marriage through my dad’s older brother’s wife (5 sisters). They’re all tight, so we’re close to them, too. None of the cousins on my mom’s side has kids, and only Suzie has been married (and divorced. Rumor is she’s got a secret relationship with an Italian guy much older than her with a daughter).

I always wished for an older brother. Or more siblings. It’s kind of isolating having only one sibling, and as much as I love my one sibling, it can be lonely because Michael can be such an enigma. But I do realize that maybe I was compensated, because having all these cousins is kind of like having a lot of siblings who just happened to grow up in different homes. Whatever little squabbles people have, overall, we’re a loud, happy family, and we support each other. Though beware the devilish streak. My family has a way of goading people into drinking games and getting them shitfaced. Particularly my dad and my cousin Albert. If you see them approach with a bottle and a gleam in their eye, beware.

Man down!

you know what the thing is? i’ve always been nice to my uncle. i always forget that there’s been any bad history, unless he does something in the present that enflames all those feelings again. i can always make him laugh, and accept that he thinks of me as “crazy” as a win because at least he doesn’t think of me as “dangerous” anymore, and that’s how i disarm the distrust. and i’ve always hoped that he and my dad could put the grudge away and at least be civil towards each other. at least be able to be in the same room. i usually cook the whole thanksgiving spread and we have a big banquet party at our house, but since i was in amsterdam working cannabis cup during thanksgiving last year, i cooked the christmas spread instead. i personally called up my uncle and invited him, but it turned out he was secretly having surgery to remove a tumor in his throat that night, so the whole family couldn’t come. i even offered to pack up food so they could have a homecooked meal at the hospital. so he can never say i haven’t had good will towards him. well, he probably does say it, but for him to believe it would be kind of delusional.

but sometimes, people don’t see people, or individual efforts. they see sides. like sometimes, i can tell when my mom and dad are fighting about something to do with work, because i’ll talk to my dad and he’ll just get mad at me for some vague or inappropriate reason just to say, “you’re just like your mother.” it used to be terrorizing when i was younger, to be at the receiving end of this irrational and hot, hot anger, but now i know, he’s just projecting his anger at her on me. And because he assumes i’m usually on her side, he’s angry at me, too. it doesn’t come from lack of love. it comes from lack of trust. lack of clear perspective on the situation.

i know i’m guilty of it, too. i have a rivalry with a cousin. but he’s close with my dad. and whenever he does something that i perceive as him clearly trying to provoke me, my dad always stands up for him, and then i angrily lash out at my dad, because i feel like he should be on my side.

humans.

we’re such powerful, immense beings. yet all it takes is the smallest, pettiest things to bring out our flaws.

but it’s this contradiction, the great potential and the great imperfections that define humanness. the best we can do, is do the best we can.

tell me…do you want me for me, or do you want me because you’re determined to prove you can catch me?

all the world asks of you is for you to be you.

Crossroads–rent out my place in LA or not.

I talked to a realtor who said I can get minimum $3700 a month for renting the whole place out, which would cover the mortgage and other costs, but it would mean Brian would have to move out, and I would be giving up the only place that’s ever felt like a home to me to strangers. But on the other hand, I’m paying a lot of money for a place where I’m not living, a place that’s also my most valuable asset. Right now, it’s my safety net, my place of retreat, but it’s costing me money when it could be making me money.

I usually make the practical decision, which tells me to rent it out and if I want to go back to LA, to just rent a studio or something. But more likely than not, this means I won’t go back to LA anytime soon if I don’t have my home anymore. I was never that into LA. I was mostly into my actual home, which was one of the most peaceful places I’ve ever found. I talked to my mom today and she thinks I should hang on to it. She said to talk to Brian about upping his rent so that I can get the barebones costs covered, because end of the day, he’s like family and we’ve been living together for so long, that if I decide to go back, it’ll be really hard to find a roommate that I get along so well with. But then I’ve always wondered if we use our relationship as a crutch…that as long as we’re living together, we won’t start the lives we should be starting with actual partners. We’re inhibiting each other because it’s so easy for us to continue the way we are…common law partners in a sexless relationship, bonded by our love of making fun of other people as a way to mask our own underlying loneliness.

Secretly, I think this would be my ideal–rent out my place to people who want it furnished so I don’t actually have to move the furniture. Hopefully these people actually pay their rent and pay it on time (my mom worries about nightmare stories she hears where people stop paying, and in the months it takes to go through the eviction process, you end up losing more money than you made overall). Put the extra money into paying down the principle on the mortgage so I can own it sooner. In a few years, when I’ve done the things I want to do and hopefully have by my side the person that I want to spend the rest of my life with, we’ll have a very nice place in a very nice area of LA as an option to live. If not, I’ll have a strong piece of investment property. But seriously, that place has some of the best energy in LA.

I don’t know. I’ve been living there since it was built. It has my energy and only my energy, and everyone who’s been there has commented on how great the energy is. That place is as much me, as I am a part of it. Like I said, it’s the only place I’ve ever found that really felt like a home to me. The only problem I have in LA is I get kind of lonely down there because my family and closest friends are in the bay area, while it’s more superficial acquaintances in LA.

God, this is hard. It’s hard because it’s both a practical decision as well as an emotional one.