Stories

Goodbye, Meta

First it was Facebook and then it was Instagram. It was finding company, and compatriots, and community. I love social media. I love those glimpses into the lives of people who mean something to me. I love those moments of art and beauty. I love being reminded of the wonder of nature, the funny things cats do, how dogs are the best of friends. I truly appreciated knowing I wasn’t alone when the world is being a whole lot crazy, or when motherhood or menopause or work had me in a tailspin. And I loved being able to connect across great and small distances in tiny doses that didn’t overwhelm introverted me.

And I loved being seen. I loved sharing my joys, mishaps, opinions, beliefs and practices. I loved how those little hearts reinforced an emotion or an effort. I was grateful to everyone who saw me and for a place to create. Equal parts gallery and journal and happy hour with friends, Instagram was just a brilliant place. It was the digital version of the perfect neighborhood.

Until the mayor lost his goddamn mind and the city went to shit.

I left Twitter nearly 10 years ago because it just never suited me and was the most hate filled void on the internet. When the only immigrant we should deport took it over, renamed it X and turned it into an even bigger cesspool I found myself pleading with friends to leave because without users there would be no advertisers and without ad revenue there would be no place for the incel’s, homophobes, transphobes, racists, climate deniers and generally unhinged to spread their venom. I left Facebook in 2017 for a lot of the same reasons. And now I’ve left Instagram.

If you’re reading this because you clicked on the link before I closed my account you know why I’m leaving, but, in summary, I CANNOT feed another billionaire who is hell bent on allowing lies and misinformation hurt more people. I refuse to be part of a system that feeds me ads and bullshit that invalidates trans, homosexual, female, or non-white people solely to make one more asslicking billionaire even richer.

There is a very valid argument for staying on the gram; the argument about being a light in the darkness. I do hope that there are those who stay and who fight the good fight. That troll the asshats and clean up the neighborhood. But the reality is, those people are getting shadow-banned all day every day. Even in my very liberal, very progressive feed the content I want is being blocked. The journalists from Gaza I follow I have to go search for because they’re not showing up in my feed. The poets, writers, governments and activists I follow are not in my feed. Which means they’re not in anyone’s feed. They’re just being fed ads and being used as data points in Meta’s sales pitches to advertising clients. They are just making Zuck money as they scream into an ever deeper void.

Most of you know I am a huge believer in a boycott. Boycotting is the easiest way to wield the power we have. If I disagree with you <Insert company or country name here> I will not fund you. I will not buy your products, see your films, attend your festivals, travel to your country. I cut the cable 14 years ago because I refused to fund so much stupidity (reality tv I am 100% talking about you) and Fox News. I haven’t been in a Chik-fil-a in 40 years, and never a Hobby Lobby, because I support LGBTQIA rights. I haven’t been in a Starbucks in years because of their poor record of employee rights and because of their support of Israel in the midst of this genocide of the Palestinian people. I haven’t seen a Marvel movie since Guardians of the Galaxy, refuse to join Equinox fitness even though I get an amazing deal, and would love to see artists NOT play Coachella because the heads of those organizations support the oligarchy and are part of the plutocracy. I haven’t watched a football game since the NFL did Colin Kaepernick wrong for taking a knee…the list is L O N G. And growing.

I am NOT perfect, as is evidenced by my Amazon Prime membership. I am not using it for delivery, just for the video and the grocery discounts, but I should not be paying that asshat anything either. That’s $140 per year that he doesn’t need so that I can sit on my ass and stare at a screen which could be better used elsewhere. I will get there. But the net-net is,

WHEN YOU ENGAGE WITH A BUSINESS THAT DOESN’T SHARE YOUR BELIEFS YOU ARE WORKING AGAINST YOUR INTERESTS

I haven’t given up social media altogether. I am on Bluesky, Mastodon and Vero (until they go stupid) But I won’t be where most of you are and there’s a sadness in that for me. And, I hope, for you too. Because it feels like the bastards are winning. And I hate that.

Goodbye, Meta Read More »

MAYONNAISE

I learned very early that there was no good way to tell my mom anything negative about any food item she put before me because she always took it as a failure to provide instead of a culinary error. To this day, at age 52, I STILL don’t tell my mom I don’t like something she made.  It started with our school lunches.  When I was young my mom was obsessed with mayonnaise and its alleged ability to improve on the discount bread we bought for our school lunches. 

Our lunches weren’t like the other kids.  I remember having a lunchbox when I was in kindergarten and first grade but because my younger brother could never remember to bring his home and would leave it in a cubby or in the play yard for days on end, the lunchbox with its matching thermos was replaced with brown paper bags and disposable bottles of “juice drink.”  This was because my Mom thought that it would look like she favored me over my brother if I had a lunch box when my brother was reduced to brown paper sacks.  Better to punish me than to attempt to train my brother to remember his goddamn lunchbox. 

Other kids had lunchboxes, though some had brown paper bags like us.  They also sandwiches wrapped  in crisp sheets of wax paper with thick cuts of meat, stuffed with lettuce and cheese, or just cheese.  Or fluffy mounds of white bread with jam and peanut butter oozing out the sides.  They had little cans of pudding or fruit cocktail, or little packets of crackers with spreadable cheese, or little bags of chips.  They almost always had a cookie or three.  They had thermoses full of cold milk or little cans of apple juice.  Compared to the other kids, ours paled in comparison.  We’d have a sandwich, a box of raisins or an orange, and that wretched “juice drink.” I can assure you they held no juice.  They were plastic bottles of colored sugar water and they were horrible. 

My mom had never been an American child.  Vietnamese children didn’t eat sandwiches and pudding cups.  Vietnamese children in the 1950’s lucky enough to be in school ate Vietnamese food provided by the school or if they went to a French school they were sent home for lunch. Everything my mom learned about American lunches and American food came from my father and television.  She also didn’t understand what a lunch said about you.  She didn’t know that your classmates knew who had money and who didn’t by the contents of their lunch.  She didn’t know how kids flaunted the contents of their lunch at us and asked why we never had anything good.  And that’s something my brother and I were smart enough to never mention.

It wasn’t my mom’s fault our lunches were so spartan.  We were on a strict budget and my father decided he was going to follow the Atkins lifestyle.  Most of the budget went to buying him steaks, tuna, very specific salad vegetables and protein powder.  She complained about it every Friday night when we went grocery shopping.  We spent forever in the meat section while my mom checked prices and weights on every cut of steak in the place.  Does that make it his fault?  I haven’t decided, but I will call it selfish.   If mom had found good deals my brother and I got to pick one treat and it would usually be a pack of pudding cups or crackers and cheese; the things we coveted from other kids lunches.  We would try to save our treats for lunches the following week, but never succeed.

The most expensive things in our shopping cart after Pop’s food would be bread and lunchmeat.  These were bought SOLELY for our lunches and were not to be eaten at any other time.  When I say lunchmeat, I mean the cheapest bologna in the store that day or these horrible thin sliced meats that came in little plastic bags.  They had about 6 slices in them, each one so thin you could see through it and you’d need all 6 to make a decent sandwich but we were given two slices each on two slices of bread from the mark down section.  

The cheapest loaf of bread was usually the stalest loaf of bread.  Somewhere along the way my mom heard that mayonnaise was the savior of stale bread and she was set on saving some bread.  Too bad I hated mayonnaise. I still do.  I’m not sure if that’s because she put me off it by drowning that single slice of bologna in it or because I’ve always been smart enough to know that an oozy goop made of raw egg left in a paper sack all day in a warm classroom was a recipe for disaster.   Every day I would beg, “PLEASE NO MAYONNAISE” and every day I’d pull my sandwich out of the bag and feel my stomach turn as I spied the thick streaks of mayonnaise smeared along the inside of the baggie it was in.

 “You HAVE to have it.  Or the bread too dry.” 

“The bread is dry with it but it doesn’t matter I just don’t like Mayonnaise!”

“You know we have little money! I do the best I can!”

“Mom, I know.  I just don’t like mayonnaise.  Just give me the bread without it.”

“You have to have the mayonnaise to make the bread soft so you can eat it!”

“No, mom, it’s BETTER without the mayonnaise.  Don’t use the mayonnaise.  Please.  Then we’ll save more money!”

“You need the mayonnaise!”

“I can make my lunch.  You don’t have to.”

“No because you won’t use the mayonnaise and the bread will be too dry and you won’t eat it.”

“I LIKE DRY BREAD”

“YOU STOP LYING!  Go get the stick!”

My younger brother didn’t like mayonnaise either, but when he saw that my attempts at reasoning only lead to a spanking with the dreaded stick he opted for a different route.  His grand idea was to just throw them away. But this was Daryl and his grand ideas always suffered from…well…having been formed in his questionable brain. 

We had moved into the house on Falcato Drive in November.  In early spring we suddenly had an ant problem in the house.  Initially, no one thought anything of it because everyone had ant problems in the springtime.  There had also been an odd smell developing near my brother’s bedroom.  As this was a newly built house the new paint, new linoleum, and new nylon shag carpeting made the house reek of petroleum based newness so weird smells were just part of our existence.  Further, my brother had suffered from horrific foot odor from the time he started wearing shoes, so everyone assumed, and Daryl often claimed, that the foul smell coming from his room was simply his shoes and it was managed with many cans of aerosol air freshener and an ever-changing supply of odor eater insoles in his shoes. 

Until we saw an ant superhighway that was running in and out of his room.

Turns out that Daryl decided the best plan for disposing of the sandwiches was to drag them all the way to school, then home again, and stuff them in the toy chest in his closet.  For months he had been cramming these mayo laden sandwiches into this wooden trunk in his closet.  MONTHS.  When Pops opened the chest he recoiled in disgust.  The smell sent me straight out of the house.  The entire trunk had become a colony of ants and whatever new life form was created by the unholy union of time, darkness, mayo, bologna, cheap white bread and raisins.

Pops sprayed two cans of insecticide on the chest before carrying it out of the house.   I thought we should just burn everything in his room but saying that out loud only lead to me being remanded to mine.  I was actually fine with that as Mom dragged Daryl out to the kitchen with the stick.

I don’t know if mom was angrier about the lying, the waste or because my brother had attacked her at her core.  What we didn’t realize being just 8 and 7 years of age is that any time we complained about something…food, clothing, boredom…she took it as a failing.  Our complaints were never heard as complaints, they were received as attacks.  My complaining about mayonnaise got twisted into a message about how she wasn’t a good enough mom.  In her mind a good mom would be able to give us lunches with little cans of pudding and soft bread, bad moms gave dry bread, and moms who wanted to be good but couldn’t afford “good” used mayonnaise.   Based on the screaming coming from the kitchen I’d wager mom was angry about all of it in near equal parts. 

The mayonnaise never stopped, by the way.  We continued to get those thick-with-mayonnaise sandwiches every school day for the next two years until our tiny little school moved to a new location with an extra room that was our cafeteria.  The school was also now able to get lunches delivered from the public school district at an exceptional deal (I’m fairly certain they told the district the school was a charity) so my mom put us on the school lunch program.  Those meals were horrible, by the way.  We almost missed the mayonnaise some days.  The rolls that came with the spaghetti were so hard one kid cracked a window with one. 

…And when I say “one kid” I mean my brother.

But what none of us missed was the silent drama that unfolded every morning when two tired and sullen kids reluctantly grabbed their lunch bags from the counter while their tired and sullen mom watched to make sure they went into their bags.   No one missed starting the day filling or departing with a brown bag full of disappointment.  And everyone (each through their own myopic thinking) was happy that, at least when it came to lunch, she was a good mom and we were just like the other kids.

MAYONNAISE Read More »

CONVERSATIONS WITH MOM #1

English is my first language and the only one I share with my mom.  Aside from my ability to greet people, thank people, swear at people and order food I don’t speak Vietnamese.  

English is not my mother’s first language.  Sometimes it’s questionable if it’s her second.  
 
Mom: “Have you heard of hairy pickles?”
Me: Uhh…what???
Mom: Hairy pickles.  Or…no…pickled harrys.”
Me: “…uhh…hairy pickles??”
Mom: “YOU KNOW.  They come in a jar…oh, what are they…”
Me: “I absolutely DO NOT KNOW.  I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Mom: “Ugh.  You can buy them at Ikea.  They have lots of flavors.  Hairy something…”
Me:  “Pickled Herring???”
Mom: “YEAH!  THAT’S IT! See! You know.”

CONVERSATIONS WITH MOM #1 Read More »

IT’S COMPLICATED

Every person with a sibling will tell you they know the other child is their parent’s favorite.  They’ll have an endless list of examples where the other was allegedly favored, but no proof.  Unlike me. I was actually told my brother was the favorite.

I am the product of a relationship between an American soldier and the daughter of a South Vietnamese officer.  To quote my mom, “I think they call it shot gun marry because my dad made him marry me.” 

My mom dropped that tidbit on me recently and then told me that when my dad left the country (after his tour and after my birth) she secretly hoped he wouldn’t come back so she wouldn’t have to leave her country.  But, also, he was her first boyfriend ever and she turned 19 only thirteen days before I was born so she was also worried he wouldn’t come back.
What my mom didn’t know is that over 45 years earlier I was riding in the back of a noisy pickup under a cacophonous camper shell pressed up against the open cab window with my oldest cousin when my grandmother was telling her daughter in law about how my dad didn’t want to go back for us, but because he had legally married my mom at the embassy he was forced to by the Army.

My brother was conceived and born in the US. 

On the surface (the glaring non-whiteness of myself, my mother and brother aside) we were like every other family in our small town living the suburban dream.  When I was 8 both of my parents had established themselves with careers in this new tech industry that was taking over all the farm land in the valley and was providing jobs to everyone displaced by the closure of the Ford Auto plant.  We moved away from Spring Valley Lane and had bought a bigger, newer house in a brand new development on land that used to be Apricot orchards.  We had cars and vacations.  We were like everyone else.

Except for the time I had to call the cops to come because my mom found out about an affair and a violent fight ensued.

Or the time my mom found out about another affair and as my dad was taking us to school she was throwing all the dishes at the car as it backed out of the driveway. When we came home we found the house completely trashed and my mom gone.

And there was the time one of his mistresses showed up at the door. Then her husband showed up 3 minutes later.  And there was a fight on the front lawn.

Actually, we weren’t like everyone else.  My dad was sleeping with half the women in the county and my mom was cycling through bouts of normalcy, rage and depression.  Sometimes they were happy.  More often she was not. 

This isn’t a morality story.  I’m just telling the facts of the situation.  He had affairs.  She was stuck.  It sucked for everyone.  My issue with my dad wasn’t because he had affairs, it was because he let them negatively impact me/us.  Repeatedly. 

They finally divorced when I was 16.  I loaded most of my possessions into my car and left with my mom.  My brother stayed with my dad.  I lived with my dad for about 6 months when I was 18 after a huge blow up with my mom.  It was one of his affairs with a married woman that would drive me and my grandparents who were also living there out and I wouldn’t speak to him for two years. 

Two years later he sent my brother to my mom’s house with a big wad of cash for Christmas after not saying a word to me for two years.  I wasn’t having it so I drove over, returned the cash and demanded to be a priority because I was his daughter, dammit.  He wasn’t having it in his words he was “entitled to his own life.”  I said if this relationship was to be salvaged it would have to be built on mutual respect moving forward because the past was a fucking nightmare.  A courtesy extended to him solely because he is my father.  We agreed to close the door on the past and move forward.  I stopped calling him dad.  I call him Pops.  He never questioned or fought the name change.  I think he found it to be a great relief.  He did indeed father me but struggled with being my dad. 

But he was my brother’s dad happily and wholeheartedly.  In hindsight the first time he told me he had a favorite was when I was 5 and my mom tried to leave because of one of his affairs.  As she tried to leave with us my dad grabbed my brother and said “you’re not taking my son.”  He bought my brother a truck for his 14th birthday despite him not being able to drive for 2 more years so they could go camping and 4-wheeling.  I got my mom’s old car when I got my license at 16.  If I had a competition or event, he’d frequently take my brother out to the desert or forest or beach instead of watching me perform.

For fifteen years after the Christmas Truce he and I functioned like family. We celebrated events.  We talked on the phone.  I brought gifts from my travels and brought him to celebrity events that suited his interests.  Mom clearly had the priority on my time, but that wasn’t really any different from how it had always been. 

Then my brother, Daryl, died.  His body was found in a ditch by some hikers just outside of Virgina City, Nevada.  His truck was missing and everyone in his circle was failing polygraph tests about their relationship with him.  But passing the part where they were asked if they had killed him. Mom went to pieces outwardly.  Dad went to pieces inwardly.  My dad didn’t want to know things about the life my brother was living and the case.  My mom couldn’t know things about the case for her own wellbeing.  I dealt with the investigators and the coroner and the funeral home and the estranged wife who lied to the detectives and my mom.  I dealt with the mother of my niece and my niece.  For the first time ever I managed things for both of them.  I carried his ashes to the cemetery.  It was a familiar role with my mom, but a new one for Pops.  And not one he was particularly comfortable with so he avoided it by avoiding me.

When my son was born two years after my brother’s death the gap widened again.  He never wanted to hold his grandson, but finally broke down on Nate’s first birthday and picked him up to ride on a motorcycle video game.  His wife would send presents in the mail for birthdays and Christmas but they never came to celebrate.  Three years later we would be having our Christmas at a restaurant as was our tradition and he became very emotional about my brother.  Maybe you could blame it on the Midori Martinis he was drinking but we all know the most honest people in the world are drunks and toddlers.

“Daryl was my best friend.  My favorite.”

I said nothing.  We all assume our parents have a favorite.  I always knew it wasn’t me.  Still, that’s not really a fact anyone ever wants confirmed. I consoled myself with the fact that I had witnesses.  At least this wasn’t me overreacting or misinterpreting.  I found smug comfort in being right. Part of me felt bad that he was still grieving so deeply.  The other part of me was keenly aware of the mortified faces of my stepmother and husband and children trying to understand what they heard while likely fearing my response. 

He got up to go to the bathroom and his wife leaned over, “Jude, I…”

I put a hand up and shook my head “I always knew, Maggie.  I just never expected he’d have the balls to say it. “

He’s 79 this year.  His health is worsening and the distance between us now covers multiple states.  I speak to his wife.  Sometimes my calls are returned by her via text.  Occasionally he gets on the phone.  I turn 52 on Saturday and eleven years later I still don’t know how to feel about knowing how he feels.  The default setting in a child’s brain is to love their parents regardless.  Some of us get to add Stockholm Syndrome to the default.  And some of us make it to a place where we can acknowledge the default while feeling nothing and the only way we can explain it is to say “it’s complicated.”

As for me and Pops, obviously, It’s complicated. 

IT’S COMPLICATED Read More »

BLACK COFFEE

I love black coffee.  Not straight black coffee. Black with sugar. A good bit of sugar.  Enough sugar to power through the acrid sharpness of that first sip with a cloying sweetness.  My mother used to make iced coffee in the summertime when I was a child and I’d greedily inhale them bracing myself against that first slap of bitterness then savoring the sweet syrup to follow.  Sometimes the sugar wouldn’t dissolve completely and there would be a gritty paste at the bottom of the glass I’d dig out with a spoon.  But that all came to an end before I started Kindergarten.

 We lived in a small house on Spring Valley Lane and I wasn’t in school yet.  It was a brand-new housing development along Old Evan’s road full of young families.  All of the houses were single story with two car garages, and all of the garages had washers and dryers.  All the houses had front lawns with trees that would quickly grow into big shade trees buckling the sidewalk in their haste.  The 6 houses in the middle of the block-3 on each side of the street-were full of children under 5.  As it was the early 70’s, and as it was a sleepy town and an even sleepier block in that sleepy town the lawns were full of children at all times.  Not one of my friends ever went to preschool. We were a preschool.  In the 70’s children were still being booted out of the house right after breakfast and not given a second thought unless they failed to show up for food.  Occasionally a mom would be outside pulling weeds or planting things or doing laundry in the garage whose door was wide open so we could access an endless supply of bikes and balls and jump ropes and wagons.   Our school bell was the sound of the first garage door going up.  Minutes later all the garage doors were up and we all streamed into the street and onto the lawns.

On Spring Valley Lane you didn’t have one mom you had many moms and if any mom told you off you listened.  Then your own mom would come out and yell at you again for what you did but mostly for getting yelled at by the other mom.  You learned early that your own mother would never be your advocate against any injustice if another mother tagged you as the guilty party.  The moms didn’t hang out much.  They were all pretty busy doing their own mom things but in the 5 or so minutes a day they did chat they managed to convey a lot of information about who was up to what, who would go far in life and who would likely end up in jail.  At the same time, they managed to resolve each other’s laundry issues, recommend recipes, set up sleep overs and, discuss how dangerous certain foods and beverages were for children.

It was dinner time and the moms had come out to collect their kids.  My mom came out with her iced coffee and I rushed to grab it from her hands.  In small town California in the early 1970’s I’m fairly certain the only people drinking iced coffee were me and my Vietnamese mom.  It obviously wasn’t a Coke because you drank Coke straight from the glass bottle it came in so the question rang out “What’s she drinking?” It was Helen the neighbor next door whose front lawn was the slightly thicker and greener half of our front lawn. 

“Is ice coffee” my mom replied.

“GASP!  Oh, she shouldn’t have that!  It’s got caffeine!  It will make her short!”

Considering my mom is only 4’11 and my dad only 5’7 the odds weren’t good for me being tall. In fact, the odds were nonexistent.  Helen was a VERY tall woman, and her husband was Paul Bunyan. They were the largest people on the block by a good foot and a half.  Their son, a year younger than my younger brother, was nearly as tall as me.  She was pregnant with their second and not inclined to stop “until I get a baby girl” so there would be no shortage of tall children on our street thanks to them.  But those words put the fear of god into my mom in that moment and she yanked that glass out of my hands and stared at me with a look of sheer terror. 

I whirled around to look at Helen.  My mom’s English wasn’t great.  I did most of the talking and all of the translating for her but didn’t know where to begin with this one.  I was nearly 5 and could read and write but I had no idea what this caffeine was.  More importantly, what did she mean it was going to make me short?! 

“I won’t grow anymore?!’ I demanded of Helen

“Oh, you’ll grow, honey.  You just won’t be very tall.”

“But what does that mean?”

“You just won’t be tall like me.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. I mean, she was duck-your-head-walking-through-doors tall.  She was tall in a way where people often stared at her with mouths gaping.  And while I wasn’t convinced that being her size was all that great, apparently it was better than being short.  I was already pretty pissed off about the fact that I was never going to have my dad’s green eyes or my grandma’s blue eyes.  All the other girls on my street had green or blue eyes and I wanted them too.  I wanted their blonde hair as well, but I learned on TV that I could get that from a box in the drug store so once I had enough money that would not be a problem.  But this short thing and the role of my beloved coffee in the stunting of children was going to need some sorting out.

I looked at my mom and the glass of iced coffee she was holding very far from me.  I must have looked pretty sad because all she said was “Sorry.”  I don’t know if she was sorry because she’d doomed me to a life in miniature or because I couldn’t have my coffee.  Regardless, even if this caffeine thing was a hoax it had been decreed by a mom that caffeine was detrimental to a child’s height and coffee was its carrier so goodbye iced coffee.  The moms never broke rank and my mom being the youngest and wanting the most to fit in would definitely not go against the other moms.  My black coffee days were over.  All my coffee days were over.  No more Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk.  No more 7-11 coffee with at least 6 packets of powdered creamer.  No more coffee at Denny’s with the milk from the little metal pitcher.  In fact, it would be another 11 years before I’d have coffee at all.  I’d don my black beret and drive across the county to check out a bookstore called Upstart Crow and Company that promised a bit of bohemia in the suburbs.  Smack in the middle of the store was a coffee bar selling European coffee drinks I’d only read about.  I never bought a book, but I did buy 2 espressos that I filled with individually wrapped sugar cubes and savored with a smugness only a rebellious 5-year-old in a 16-year-old body could muster.

Helen saw that I was crushed and felt bad.  I wasn’t on Helen’s list of kids likely to be juvenile offenders or unwed teen moms.  She genuinely liked me, and I genuinely liked her too.  She helped me navigate things I was probably too young to need to navigate but come with being an immigrant.  To her this was just one more bit of knowledge we needed in our assimilation.

“Hold on a minute” she called out as my mom and I walked towards our front door.  I didn’t even look her way afraid of what other bad news she was about to drop on me.  I heard her screen door slam then quickly slam again and in a flash she was right next to me with something cold pressed against my arm. “Maybe you’d like this instead” she said smiling.  I looked up and beamed as I took the cold, glass bottle of Coke from her hands.  It was just like in the TV commercial.  Maybe I had lost my beloved coffee but there was a new icy brown liquid in its place and a smiling mom handing it to me while my smiling mom looked on.

We left Spring Valley Lane when I was 8.  I grew to be 5 feet and ¾ inches tall.  Taller than my mom and about the same height as all the women in my father’s family.  Icy cold Cokes would delivery me from many a hangover through my teens and twenties, but today my summertime go to drink is an iced black coffee with one sugar.  My mom has moved on to iced mocha with whipped cream and an additional 3 packets of sweet-n-low; a concoction that makes my eyes roll and head shake every time I take her out for a coffee. 

And sixteen years after that fateful night nutrition labels on soda bottles would become mandatory in the USA. 

BLACK COFFEE Read More »

PIVOT

I’ve spent the last 44 days in a Lenten isolation of sorts.  I gave up social media.  I spent the time trying to figure out where the time goes.  Turns out I still have no idea. But I learned a lot about planning. 

The plan was to trade all the time spent on doom scrolling and “social interaction” for focus on my writing and what I’m going to be when Nate grows up.  And maybe I’d eek out some true social interaction…as much as is feasible given pandemic restrictions. 

I did write.  I wrote enough to use my reactivated Instagram account to point you here (thanks for stopping by, by the way.)  And I got into a writing habit, sitting down each Thursday and Friday to compile the post-it notes and other random scribbles into something to post up here.  And twice before this post they made it onto this blog.

When I first bought this domain and set up this blog I had a very different idea of what would be up here.  I had gotten into the habit of writing letters to things, deities and situations that irked or puzzled me via Facebook posts, texts to friends, and notes in my iPhone.  I had planned for this blog to be an extension of that. 

Enter the pivot.

We just spent the last 4 years here in the USA in a period of terrifying, amplified division.  Under that idiot TV reality character all the racists and misogynists and homophobes who had been keeping to themselves became emboldened and chose to live their extremism loudly and publicly.  You’ve read the news, so I don’t need to elaborate but as a non-white female it was the least safe I’ve ever felt here.  It took separating families at the border and locking kids in cages, but for the first time in my 52 years NO ONE doubted the micro and macro aggressions I’ve encountered on the daily.  Not once did I hear “I think you’re being too sensitive” or “I’m sure that’s not what they meant.”  Then the stories of growing up immigrant came rushing back.  It’s been half a century of processing life under erroneous assumptions (mine and the world’s) and now they needed a place to live that wasn’t the inside of my head.  Soon there were 1000 more scribbles and post-it notes of thoughts and memories. Turns out I have so much to say about this.  I started telling shortened versions of these stories on my Instagram page with the hashtags “immigrant stories” and “immigrants make America great”, my version of Cyber solidarity and enlightenment.

Then my mom showed up on my doorstep.  At age 71 and after 36 years she’s getting a divorce and that story is not mine to tell. 

My plans for lent pivoted into dealing with what needs to be done and what lies ahead.  Medicare supplement insurance needs sorting out as she comes off the employer insurance her husband has.  There are attorneys to vet and hire.  There are real estate matters and taxes and finances and divisions of assets to deal with. There is trying to find a new place for her to live-alone. Now everything she worked for and all the plans she made are gone. Now there are so many tears and so many fears and so much upheaval.  

Again.

Yes, we’ve been here before.  Twice.  The first time being when we came to America from Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam war.  The second was when she left my dad. And those are stories that are mine to tell. 

They’re stories of navigating adult things long before you were supposed to.  They’re stories of what we see and what we endure in these new and foreign situations.  They’re stories of fears and dreams and expectations that burden us but aren’t of our making.  They’re not unique.  They’re not even solely in the domain of immigrants. Mostly they’re stories I never planned to tell.

There’s an adage that says “Failure to plan is planning to fail.” 

Bullshit.

52 years, and the last 44 days, have taught me that it’s not about the plan.  Every Deadhead knows,  “When in doubt, twirl.”

It’s all about the pivot.  Be ready for the pivot.   

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COLD

For the first time in my life, I truly feel the cold.  I feel a cold more visceral than “bone-chilling,” but I feel that too.  I feel it on my skin and in my skin and under my skin.  I feel it in my gut and hanging from my earlobes and deep in my veins.  I know it’s related to the impending shut down of my ovaries, but I’ll be damned if I understand it. 

I spent the last 52 years being very warm.  My earliest memories are of attempts at extracting myself from the many layers of fabric my mother had me wrapped in.  She was born and raised in the Tropic of Cancer so northern California has always been way too cold for her.  And because she was cold, she was convinced I was cold.  She failed to realize or recognize that half my DNA was from cold-hardy Briton and Slavic stock.  Just one look at me and it’s obvious I’m not all Asian.  My brother was the Asian child; lithe and gangly and invisible from the side whereas I resembled my much more sturdily built Caucasian great-grandmother. Not fat, but not made solely of air and bamboo like my mom and my brother.  Even then my waifish brother was also never cold.  Partially because of his DNA but partially because of the ADHD diagnosis my parents chose to ignore that kept him in perpetual motion.

We got clothes twice a year.  Once in August for back to school and again in May for summer things.  Most of our clothing came from Kmart, but not the back-to-school clothing.  That came from the Sears Robuck catalog which arrived religiously every August.  Then late every August a box would arrive full of nylon and rabbit hair sweaters and polyester pants that I usually had zero input in choosing.  It was the kind of clothing you would want if you lived in Chicago, Illinois in the winter…which is exactly where the Sears Robuck company was located. 

But we lived in California on the southernmost tip of the San Francisco bay where we were spared the legendary Golden Gate fog and were almost always bathed in sunlight.  The farms of the valley that world now knows as Silicon Valley were plentiful and productive year-round.  Summer in California extends well past August.  We don’t know the season everyone else calls “fall.”  We’ve seen photos of crimson and gold leaves and longed for hayrides and hot cider and smores around midday bonfires made of fallen leaves.  We know that people on the east coast dawn gloves and scarves in September but don’t really understand why.  It’s still 100 degrees in California in September.  We go back to school still covered in sweat.  More so when every piece of your back-to-school wardrobe is made for and in states that actually cool down in September.  It did not snow in Milpitas, California.  It still doesn’t snow there. If it got below 55 degrees all us weather wimps rushed inside and cranked up the central heating.   There was a freak snowstorm in February 1976 that left an inch of snow on city streets and much more in the hills, but one freak snowstorm did not justify the death of all those rabbits.  Or the itching. 

To further complicate things my brother and I went to a small Pentecostal school with a strict dress code.  It would have been easier-and more comfortable- if they would have assigned a uniform like the Catholic school.  Every Pentecostal knows that the Catholics with their beads and saints and statues were idol worshipers and, therefore, heathens who in no way should be emulated.  As great and egalitarian (and weather friendly) as uniforms would have been there was no way my school was adopting the devil’s dress code.   Also, unlike the kids in catholic or public school, the dress code stated there would be no shorts, no t-shirts, no printed shirts, no jeans, and skirts had to hit the floor when kneeling and were measured by the teachers every year. Basically, nothing cool and absolutely NO 1970’s summer clothes. 

My mom decided that the sweaters weren’t at all itchy and I was just being difficult because I didn’t like the clothes she bought me.  She was right about my not liking them.  She chose stuff from the only page in the catalog that just showed the item unmodeled and was frequently cheaper bought in volume.  It didn’t help that the clothes were never the right size and made for a girl living in Siberia with no fashion sense.  Or maybe that girl did have some style savvy but also knew she’d never be taking her coat off and would be up to her neck in snow so why bother with the more expensive stylish stuff.  Get the cheap warm stuff because no one will ever see it.  Get the things made of polyester and nylon and rabbits that didn’t breathe (figuratively and literally.)

Contrary to my mom’s belief, the itching was very real.  I’d scratch my skin raw. It was worse when the sweater in question was a turtleneck.   I was built like my nana from the neck down which meant not having a neck, so I had a nose and mouth full of angora hair and the hives and deep red grooves now ran up the side of my face.   Mom’s solution to my itching was to make me wear a shirt under the sweater.  Because that’s exactly what you need under a sweater rated for arctic exploration being worn in the fourth month of summer.  The only upside to being forced to wear it to school was that one particularly bad rash sent my teacher and the rest of the staff into a panic over measles.

The Doctor diagnosed it as heat rash. “But she could be allergic to this damn rabbit hair too.  I’m so sick of this stuff.  Gets everywhere and half the girls that come here are breaking out in hives because of it.  Calamine lotion.  Try not to scratch.  Why the hell are you wearing a sweater in September anyway?”

I was 10 years old before I had any say in my school wardrobe.  There was no point arguing against the polyester pants, but she did stop buying the sweaters every year.  That does not mean she finally believed me when I said I wasn’t cold.   Heat rash was still an issue.  She simply replaced the sweaters with Coats of Extraordinary Thickness.  I’d end up with these massive, voluminous nylon coats that rustled loudly when you moved and kept your arms away from your sides. I was wrapped in so much woven petroleum that chemical burns via spontaneous combustion was a real threat.  But one I’d gladly take over angora hair sweaters.  

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WRITING

The unfortunate thing is, I can’t just sit here and think about writing.  I actually have to do it. 

Yet here I am staring at everything and anything; intentionally falling down rabbit holes in an exceptional display of procrastination and avoidance. 

So far today in my effort to not write I’ve

  • Spent countless hours trying to find 100% beeswax scented candles with 100% cotton or wood wicks from small, American business.  (Thanks, Etsy!)
  • I spent 3 hours building a playlist that I then discarded.
  • I hand washed a sink full of dishes. (I have a dishwasher)
  • I spent two hours trying to find a vegan recipe for pasta that included cannellini beans, broccoli and mushrooms and would cook itself.
  • I spent 90 minutes following facial massage videos on YouTube.
  • I made a special trip to Whole Foods because my face serum was on sale (I have two new bottles already)
  • I created a bed from old sweaters and fabric scraps then spent 30 minutes convincing my cat it wanted to be tucked in it for a nap.

But mostly I regretted ever mentioning that I was working on my own writings to everyone who follows me on Instagram and mentioning that I would finally drop a post on my blog because I figured the accountability would be adequate motivation.

<insert obvious outcome statement here>

This epic bout of procrastination has nothing to do with a lack of motivation or a lack of topics or a lack of ability. It has everything to do with believing that I have a place with artists; that I am good with words.  It has everything to do with Audacity.  It has everything to do with Vanity.  It has everything to do with Ego.  I had a discussion last year with a friend where I disclosed for the first time ever (to myself as much as to her) that if had I made choices solely focused on me and my desires my life would be so very different and at no point in my life would I ever say “I work in tech” when asked  “So, what do you do?”

Despite the lessons and the awards and the recognition for my music or my words or my movement there was never any support to pursue those fields. In fact, it was quite the opposite.  Dance and music and writing were classed as hobbies and should forever stay hobbies.  In many immigrant households these are skills you will acquire and become proficient at and be praised for but the minute the discussion turns to turning a passion into a livelihood the discussion takes a turn for the worse.

“You disappoint me.”

“You’re not good enough to make money at that.”

“I don’t work hard so you can be useless when you grow up.”

You had three career choices as an immigrant’s child and a child immigrant of the late 60’s: Doctor, scientist, engineer.  I obtained a degree in International Relations.  My lack of scientific or technical aptitude would be blamed on my white half because the myth of the model minority says that whites don’t do the sciences as well as the Asians, so it wasn’t any shortcoming of my Asian parent in that regard. I had an amazing career in tech despite not being an engineer.  But my title was never Doctor, Scientist or Engineer.  It was not one of the 3 ideal careers-success be damned, and it was the cloud that hung over everything my success brought me.    Child prodigies notwithstanding, there is no way in hell your immigrant parent would ever proudly say “My child is a singer/dancer/writer” before you had achieved the highest accolade for that field.  And even then, you would hear how your success is fleeting, the byproduct of a bit of luck.  There’s no way your success could be sustainable so don’t give up your day job or be grateful you have something to fall back on.

This isn’t an attack on the motivation or intention of my or any immigrant parent.  Their thinking comes from fear.  It comes from poverty.  It comes from sacrifice. It comes from upheaval. It comes from love.  It is understood. But understanding doesn’t make it palatable or lessen the sting.

Many of us choose not being a disappointment.  Many of us choose career paths to ensure we can repay the sacrifice.  Many of us choose to avoid the arguments and the passive aggressive family gatherings where the doctors, scientists and engineers are lauded while our parent hides in the kitchen or just stares at us wearing their disapproval very much like a martyr wears their wounds.

We then grow up and we spend decades doing well but not doing what we are passionate about until one day it seems like maybe we could do that thing we wanted to do.  But by then we’ve started to believe we’re not good enough and we’re too old for this and it’s too risky and we will be disappointed.  We envision empty chairs in theaters and songs no one will listen to and words dropped into a void that will never be read.  We decide that we have fewer years ahead of us than behind us and guess it’s too late now.

I’ve been paying for this website for nearly two years because a momentary flash of confidence motivated me to do it immediately.  And then I got scared of the void that it might be a portal to.  Soon after I let inertia partner with my ego and a fair bit of insolence, and they created all the excuses I needed to be okay with the recurring bill to nowhere.  I’m not sure that is a bad thing.  It has been easier to pay the monthly fee and say, truthfully, “I have a blog” -albeit an empty one- than to say they were right, and my time has passed.  It’s been idle, but alive. Dormant. My digital cocoon.

There’s a notion that the thing you should be doing with your life is the thing you ran around as a child telling people you would be when you grew up.  I don’t want to say “I work in tech” anymore.  So is this me dropping words into the void?  Or is this me reminding everyone of what I decided I would be when I was 5?

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