Nguyen the Patriot

Dear comrades,

Don't believe me when I promise you things, like follow-up posts and such. Whilst reading some of my blog, I've realized that I've failed to deliver worse than your run of the mill politician, which is really saying something unsavory. Incidentally, I think that Obama is doing a great job considering the circumstances. I don't quite understand why people are fed up about the incumbent Democrats; you knew what you were voting for: a bunch of liberal tendencies with no consistent consensuses. At least with the GOP, you're guaranteed a fight for small government, and small-minded social policies no matter what the economic/social/environmental climate. They will fight for oil companies' rights to 'drill, baby, drill' and 'spill, baby, spill' even in the aftermath of the Horizon Rig fiasco, if somewhat silently.

I must apologize for my last post. Reflecting on the mercurial climate that is my family dynamics, I've realized that our dysfunction is nothing particularly special in America. My parents aren't divorced, they aren't physically abusive (though psychological abuse is their specialty), they aren't drunks, they gamble (as is required of every Asian, especially Viets) but not to excess like some of our countrymen laying down stacks of Benjamins at a baccarat table when they only make 30k/yr, they lay some serious guilt trips but not anything more than any other parents. And on the whole, I've turned out remarkably well adjusted though this point is more than debatable. Well, I've turned out remarkably well on the surface, which is what most Asians hope for, to save face and present an outward appearance of solidarity.

And I guess that's the difference between myself and those comics on Last Comic Standing who poke fun at Mom & Pop: I am not 'allowed' to criticize or poke fun of my family because family is all that is important. And because the frustration can be so great, it erupts into a tirade against something well meaning. So I guess I'm sorry. That's a really pathetic apology, but it's the best and most sincere one I can make. Next time, I'll be sure to laugh a little at myself and my situation and my family. Because I'm not six feet under, and I don't mean that I'm not in some basement because basements are non-existent on the Gulf Coast (because of hurricanes and such). Just don't bother me when the NBA Finals are on, since it makes me resort to the baser male instincts of rooting for inconsequential displays of athleticism.

--

So comrades, my blood does not bleed red; it bleeds whatever color capitalism would be, which I imagine would be like the pastel green on the front of the new $20 bill. After I purchased my bed sheets, I found it looked a lot like that color which helps me sleep well at night.

Though socialism and communism and all the left wing stuff seems great and all in theory, it falls apart because of the human weakness (or strength) toward self-preservation and self-advancement. (I'm going to make a whole lot of sweeping generalizations based on what I feel at this very moment is 'truth' or 'near-truths'. Tomorrow I may abandon everything I say today; this is supported by my history of Benedict-Arnold-ing on my views). I very much doubt all those Communist leaders would be content to live in the same shacks as the glorified worker--they must, after all, present a strong, dignified front when greeting foreign dignitaries.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the Red theory, but it would seem that the Commie leaders are capitalists because they get to live in all those fancy mansions and such at the expense of the working class. Then there's the lack of incentive for working hard when you're going to get compensated the same no matter what your work. Why be a doctor when a street cleaner gets paid just as much? Humans are not much more evolved than Pavlov's dog or that mouse with the pleasure bar; we will tap that bar that releases dopamine into our brains until we die of starvation with a smile on our faces. Without reward, what is the impetus to do anything? Even a sense of satisfaction in 'doing good' is a type of reward.

So yeah, I think the Commies have it wrong, because I am a loyal American and thus obligated to say so. But being an American, I am also entitled to a minimal amount of dissenting views, the more 'popular' these dissenting views, the better. Wearing a t-shirt with an impression of Che Guevara is cool if a bit common; wearing anything associated with Ho Chi Minh is generally frowned upon by nearly everyone in the U.S. Let me explain.

First of all, Uncle Ho (I'll call him that from now on but I mean it in an endearing way) looks kind of like Master Splinter from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And though Splinter is cool, you wouldn't wear a t-shirt with him on it. Second and more seriously, the Vietnam War is one in which the U.S. 'lost'. You can argue that there wasn't an official declaration of war and that it was simply a support of the Western-loving South Vietnam. You can argue that you couldn't declare war without erupting the Cold War between the States and the Reds. And you can argue that we could have napalmed the whole countryside (even more than we did) to eliminate the hiding places of the guerrillas, but we mercifully chose not to. All very true and all excuses. The States lost. And you're not allowed to support the enemy. Even now, there's still some tension between the U.S. and the U.K., like as if we had hooked up and left on less than amicable circumstances one time long ago, and met again at a wedding.

And third, the Viet expats who live here will pretty much firebomb your establishment if you raise the Communist Viet flag, the one with the single yellow star in the red background. You can raise the Confederate flag and be scoffed at as a hick, but you will be murdered (possibly) for raising the traitorous Commie flag--that's one thing you can trust Viet people to do (aside from gambling of course). Why? Because the expats believe Uncle Ho stole the land from them. When we talk about the Fall of Saigon in 1975, we refer to it as the year we lost our country. But you contest, 'The country is still there!' No, it's the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. And that's not the same.

But I am thankful for Uncle Ho. When I remember to give thanks to people, he's always on the top of my list. That's because without him, I would be stuck in some developing country toiling away for less than minimum wage, whether it be a democratic capitalist society or a socialist one. Because of the war, pretty much all of my family got green cards to come to America, the land of milk and honey. And I was born on this great, free soil and was granted automatic full citizenship. Man, what a deal! Give up some podunk, yellow-fever-mosquito infested, tropical hell adjacent to the South China Sea for the privilege of living in air-conditioned paradise of America. I bet people from developing countries would want to get a piece of that action.

I told my parents that, and they agreed and laughed. They said that Vietnam was one of the poorest countries, even poorer than St. Lucia, an island in the Caribbean which we lived in when I was younger. 'You couldn't be anything or anybody unless you were rich or famous or connected.' And that was that, a de facto caste system. But their laugh was mixed with a hint of pain and loss of a land once theirs. I guess even though they've moved on to an objectively 'better' place, there's the regret of a loss of innocence. Would you know you were naked unless someone told you? Would you know you were poor unless someone told you? If that was the only Vietnam they knew, what would be the difference?

So when I put it like that, I think a lot of Viet expats would have to agree with me (if begrudgingly) that it turned out pretty well, this Vietnam War thing, as long as you got to America (or Australia or the UK or any Western country). Those people who missed the last helicopter out of Saigon are still pissed to this day. Note to people of countries subject to impending collapse: get to the coast and have a big boat.

--

Besides the fact that I owe my U.S. citizenship to Uncle Ho, I also admire him as an intellectual and as a patriot. Some of the salient points of the Wikipedia article on Uncle Ho (which is probably written by the most well English spoken Commies in Vietnam) are that he studied and worked in the States (Harlem, NY), France, Russia, and China and was fluent in each country's language; he had petitioned the U.S. referencing the Declaration of Independence to help get rid of the French influence in favor of a nationalist government; and he had pretty much removed the French and Americans from Vietnam and unified it under a single government. Before he adopted the name Ho Chi Minh, he had been Nguyen Ai Quoc, or 'the Patriot'. 'It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me.' If the Americans had responded to his petition, maybe we would have had a 51st state by now...

I think that's pretty cool to defeat a couple of western powers, don't you? It's the classic David v Goliath story. Except since America was Goliath, we can't join in David's victory. And David's country wasn't vastly improved under Communist/Socialist rule.

After reflecting a bit more before writing this, my liking of Uncle Ho isn't akin to liking Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin or such who were all nationalists at core: there wasn't any genocide to my knowledge; there were only the typical casualties (if casualties may be deemed 'typical') of war.

But again, you can't say you like the enemy, and when the Jefferson Scholars Committee had asked me whom I admired, I said Uncle Ho, for I owe the fact of my even being there to his vision of an independent Vietnam. Uncle Ho had probably cited Jeffersonian ideals in the Declaration of Independence. But as I think about it now, I'm pretty certain that the committee considered it in 'poor taste'. I probably should have picked one of the white guys in U.S. history, or one of the African-Americans that have gained enough popularity to be quoted by the white guys in Washington (think Martin Luther King, Jr, not Malcolm X).

Oh well.

Family Shackles

Dear involuntary wedding guests,

I'll get to my Commie-leaning stance tomorrow. Today's post is about a random sore subject endemic to my immediate family, and possibly other Viet Catholic or Viet or Asian families: the obligation to go to family events.

Mama came up to my little den area, my brother's old room which I had redecorated with my TV, sofa, and weight set. There is a 2nd floor communal area which would probably be a more appropriate area for a TV, but it is visible from the street. Though we're in the suburbs and the street does have a moderate traffic flow (unfortunately with some idiots banging their muzak or revving their crappy midlife-crisis bikes), you can't have anything nice and visible in a major metropolitan area. Even in the suburbs. 'If people weren't poor, they would not need to steal.' Not true: poverty and theft are not perfectly correlated.

Some neighborhood kids broke into one of our cars to steal floor mats. Floor mats! So no, my TV is not to be visible from the street.

Mama has never understood the concept of privacy or of respecting personal space. When my bedroom door is locked, she jimmies it until it opens, thinking it must have been a ghost who moves the knob from horizontal to vertical. But the door was open this time, since you have to let the heat dissipate from the room when the thermostat has a hard-floor of 83 degrees.

She's smiling. She's always smiling whether she's sad or happy, whether she's angry or elated, whether she wants to put a kiss on the cheek or the switch to the backside. She disarms a lot of people but not me. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

'Oh, you have the internet on?' She doesn't wait for my answer; she sees the USB cord hanging from my laptop to my phone. 'Hey, my friend from work told me about this 18-month old who smokes 2 packs a day. Can you search for it?' She knows I can search for it, not because I'm some tech nerd but the fact that I'm under 25.

So I search for the stupid thing which had been on the news all the while thinking, 'Who the [copulate] cares?' and found the kid's name, then youtubed it: Ardi Rizal. 'Haha,' she laughs. 'Do you think it's real? Do you think he's 18 months?'

'Sure it's real.' I refrain from a metaphysical explanation of the reality of things shown on Youtube. 'They show it on TV; it must be real.' I pick the simplest, albeit fallacious, explanation to facilitate my ends: getting her to stop bothering me while I'm watching the NBA Finals.

'It's not in the U.S. right?' she asks.

'No, it's in Indonesia,' I respond easily, taking the word of some uncredited source on the internet. 'You can do whatever you want there.' I continue to leave my critical thinking on cruise control; ignorance is bliss as they say. It's easy and pleasant to be ditzy, and I can turn my hair blonde on-demand.

She watches me a little further, while I continue paying my bills online. She glances at the TV, hoping I'd say something more, to continue a dying conversation. But I had learned to be withholding from the pro sitting to my left.

She buckles, 'Hey, there was that news story about my workplace. Can you pull it up?'

I search grudgingly, then earnestly as I wonder if it was possible to find the news story. But I lost interest, and made up an excuse, 'It was a news story?'

'Uh huh, they came to the company and we had to wear uniforms. We never wear uniforms.'

'What happened?'

'Nothing, just something to get attention I guess. My friend had found it on the internet after they showed it on TV.'

Like that means anything. I make some more faux searches, and then point at the TV. 'You see that commercial there? You see it now, and you can probably see it online somehow, but it's going to be difficult.' She senses my irritation. She's really good at sensing non-verbal cues, but she's even better at ignoring them.

But she gives up this time. She starts up from the couch and probably caught my half-smile that signified my victory. Halfway to the door, she casually asks, 'Did you find those car rental prices?'

'No.' I might as well get it over with. To delay something that may take care of itself tomorrow is a potentially profitable way to procrastinate. But to delay something that will only come back tomorrow is plain lazy especially when the tools to do the job are in your hands. I should follow my advice more often.

alamo...national car rental...avis, et al all go one by one into Google's omniscient, omnipotent bar. Then I get smart and do a Priceline search to show all the rates at once. Channeling the voice of an old African-American sage playing dominoes at the park, 'Think long, think wrong.'

'Bossman, two out of three ain't bad.' (the one out of three being my inefficient searching).

I imagine him responding, 'No it ain't, son, nah it sure ain't,' while wondering if he thought what had been the two out of three I had gotten correct.

'Mama, you can save $5 if prepay now, but if you cancel you have to pay $5 cancellation fee.'

We get into an discussion about the prepay discount. 'When your aunt reserved it, you can cancel anytime you want.' 'I understand that, but I'm trying to save you some money.' 'What about the others?' I echo, 'What about the others?'

She continues to waste my Lakers vs Celtics time. 'You're not going to cancel, right? You're going, right? So it'd be cheaper if you prepay.'

'But I might not go or she could find someone else to bring her.' Finally, the crux of the matter. My family has a habit of complaining (as you can see from my own belly-aching).

'Don't go then. Why do you have to go?'

'It's your grandmother's brother's kid, Dad's cousin. Your grandmother has to go, and I have to go because none of your aunts and uncles want to drive her there [New Orleans].'

'Who cares? The groom or bride won't care, probably won't even remember Dad even if he were to show up. All they want is your money [Viet wedding gift], so send it and be done with it.'

'But they invited your grandmother and Dad, because he's the oldest child. Your great uncle felt obligated to invite them because it wouldn't be right if he hadn't. And it's not right if we don't go.'

'What? You couldn't just lie and say you're not in town? It's not like you've never done that before. See? Easy.'

She's frustrated. As independent of a woman she is, she is still shackled by the conventions of family and family obligations. I had thought about how we didn't have grandfather's portrait on the wall of the house, and thought how unconventional the absence had been. Then I realized that it was because we just haven't hung it up post-Ike; it had been in the living room of our old condo. The Catholic missionaries had not squashed our ancestor worship, and the somber black-and-white portraits in every older Viet Catholic's home is ever present next to the Christian altar.

She backtracks, using ad hominem attacks, 'Your aunts and uncles are disgraceful. None of them will go, and so I have to go.' I sit in silent agreement. 'Your brother would go. He said he'd drive as far as Lake Charles and stay there while I drove on to New Orleans. But not with your grandmother in the car, never with your grandmother.' Grandma had called my brother a 'gangbanger' and had basically disowned him once grandfather died.

Mama says that last bit to try to cajole me to offer to drive her and grandma to N.O. Nice try.

We talk some more about the prepay discount, and then she drops the car rental subject. 'Maybe someone will be going there too, and I won't have to drive.' Not likely.
--

It will be the death of her, this family business thing. America is not like Vietnam. In olden Vietnam, there's nothing to do but live in your little village doing your bit of subsistence farming, while enjoying the little weddings and such that intersperse the daily drudgery. But these things are only grudging obligations in this fast-paced society of Google, Facebook, iPhones, and silly videos of an 18-month old smoking on Youtube.

You can't live in two different worlds and maintain consonance. You cannot serve both God and Mammon, except in this case you don't know who is God and who is Mammon (though a bunch of people think us Americans as Devil spawn).

Well, she'll go to that wedding and I won't. And the next. And she'll smile all the while hating that she had to be there. And I'll smile sincerely as I sleep away that free weekend.

Six-Years Hence

Dear patriots,

This past Memorial Day got me thinking about all the men and women overseas (and at home) fighting so that we can be free. Free to be what we want to be. Free to think our perverse thoughts. Free to be unpatriotic if we wanted to. Free to practice any religion we wanted. Free to be of any sexual orientation or any sexual distinction (unless you're in the South of course). And even free to criticize even the very fact of their being over there killing so that we have our own right to kill here in the States. I, for one, am extremely proud to be an American (though I've mentioned the fact that I'd pull out my Viet card when traveling overseas to get friendlier treatment). And I am extremely proud of all our armed forces, even if I don't know any of them personally.

But though this great nation gives you many freedoms to be what you want to be, as Emerson wrote, 'For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.' I've since learned this lesson and bridled my temper and strange thoughts though with varying success; I present exhibit A: this blog, a collection of my boons and banes.

One of the first hints of this displeasured nonconformity was when I began to reflect on why I was not selected to be a Jefferson Scholar, an honor which amounted to a full ride to one of the most prestigious public universities, the University of Virginia. On a sidenote, it's funny how people compliment things by comparing them to something else, as if to say, 'Look, this is just as good as so-and-so!' when by contrast the thing being compared to is even more praised by the glancing mention. Example: 'The University of Virginia is one of the eight original Public Ivies.' So what you're saying is that it's good and it might be as good as a private Ivy, but it probably isn't better than an Ivy. Nice back-handed compliment; probably should avoid qualifiers next time.

Just like a certain school being complimented as the Harvard of the South. I agree with the author's sentiment: 'Rice is one of the best universities in the country and doesn't really need the comparison.' Gosh, it's not like you're buying store-brand, one-ply toilet paper! Do they even make one-ply anymore?

Incidentally, I was accepted to both Rice and UVa despite the rampant, openly secret, reverse discrimination of Asians (through no fault of our own, except maybe the Japs and WWII) in higher education. In a extremely joking tone: at least the white folks got some free labor before they were presented with an overdue bill which some have debated whether they have paid, will pay or will ever be able to pay fully with or without the use of reparations. And as proof of the discrimination, my high school counselor commented that had I been Hispanic, I'd have been nominated for a National Merit Scholarship, but as it was I needed an additional 30 points on my PSAT to qualify because I checked the 'Asian/Pacific Islander' box. Hey, at least I wasn't toiling in 110 degree sauna fishing the South China Sea or wading through the rice paddies while my sister (because my parents would have had more than 2 kids) exclaimed at the waterfront resorts, half-saying, half-asking the male tourists, 'Me lub you long time!' Funny, sad, but likely true.

But they (those universities) had proffered letters of acceptance despite my lack of musical aptitude, tennis-playing abilities, ability of my parents to pay the tuition, or pleasantly broken Engrish [sic]. I don't fault them even if they hadn't accepted me: it's tricky this 'non-use' of quotas in higher education. I guess if you were to shaft anyone, it would be the Asians because they'd be least likely to pitch a fit. Please refrain from sending threatening emails and/or hate letters: I jest, but even jokes have roots in truth, yes?

But you really can't ignore machine-like precision on standardized tests: a 760 on the Verbal portion of the SATs from a kid who was pigeon-holed to the English-is-Second-Language section of school because his last name was foreign, and 800s (twice) on the Math section (he's Asian after all, and any less would have been a disgrace) along with some other odds and ends like perfect SAT IIs, perfect AP tests, etc. Thankfully I fit neatly into the rarefied tier: those you accept indiscriminately simply on high aptitude for selecting an arbitrary permutation of As, Cs, Ds, Bs, and sometimes Es.

But I'm getting off on a severe, self-righteous, if-you-kiss-your-ass-any-further-your-spine-will-be-stuck-that-way tangent. [insert smiley face]

--

Backtracking a bit:

Universities weren't exactly the problem, not the main problem at least in my situation. I wouldn't have even applied to these universities had it not been for my guidance counselor and the incessant insistence of a couple of English teachers (If either of you are reading: Look! I'm using my limited Language Arts skills after all, if rather dismally and with numerous syntax and grammatical errors and abuse of commas, semicolons, parentheses and brackets). And this would explain the lack of any mention of true Ivys: I simply didn't apply to any. It would be nice to have acceptance letters from Harvard and Princeton, but I'm not that vain.

No, in the context of my world, any school which didn't have a pharmacy program was simply out of the question. And I wasn't the one who was in love with pharmacy; it was my parents, and they weren't really in love with pharmacy either. But you see, the girl's parents were utterly stinking rich, and it didn't matter what the girl looked like or even if she was a girl. As rebellious as I wasn't, I took the sad truth of my parents' ultimate disapproval, made a last ditch effort to run away with my love (with my Rice financial aid letter as an unsigned marriage certificate), but was corralled into a pleasant relationship with a nice university (of Houston) who was both low maintenance and accommodating, ambitious but not psychotically driven, intelligent but didn't one-up you in front of your friends: the girl next door who you propose to once that French filly dumps you for the next guy in pearl snaps and a cowboy hat (what I'm going to wear on my trip to Europe complimented with a phony East Texas accent).

And now I'm 23 and I command a six-figure sum per annum. Though I know and feel my parents are and were 'right', especially in this economic climate, I lay at night thinking of the vain self I might have created with all my liberal learnings and snobbery and wondered how that alter ego would have fared in the year post-graduation.

Would he have even cared to write? Would he think of what I'm doing as bourgeois or pedestrian? Would he have some girlfriend's mother to take to Sunday brunch, drinking mimosas whilst flattering away the crow's feet from her eyes and wonder if his girl would look that way in the smooth white sheath dress with oversized buckle some 30 years into the future? Would he be dead, physically, emotionally, mentally, and/or spiritually? Would he think me dead?

Would he still be enslaved incurably to the desires and wishes of two people who happened to have given him some genetic material in the distant past, the act of which, he had found out, wasn't exactly difficult.

But I try not to think too much. Dad had said that 'if' was a dirty word, though he lives it every day like a father who lectures his son on alcoholism while he enjoys several cold ones with Sportscenter each night: 'If only I can pass the medical boards, then I'd be happy.' But would he be happy?

Am I happy? Can I be happy? I don't know. But I definitely feel a whole lot better than I did last year. That much is certain.

I'll finish up the Jefferson Scholar bit tomorrow. As a preview, I told the selection committee who was dispatched to find young adults who epitomized Jeffersonian ideals (of course excepting the sexing the slaves bit) that I had admired a Commie, which was probably comparable to partaking in gas station sushi.

Lockboxed Raincoats

Dear email inboxes,

I'm back after a 19 day absence from the land of lollipops, video games, and frequent naptimes! At heart (or at a tangled mass of grey* matter in my noggin), I am a hopeless addict with many vices. Fortunately, I also have the attention span of a 9 year old without ADHD meds, so my addictions don't last long because I forget about them. Two negatives do make a positive! Cue Wyclef Jean.

In my last post some 19 days ago, I promised something funny. And unlike the politicos you see on the tele, I do deliver on my promises, if somewhat vastly late. With much ado:

(If you don't know what raincoats are, please ask your little brother or any adolescent male for that matter)

(overshare alert)

So my friend, who overshares quite frequently (which I am never guilty of!**), told me a few weeks ago about her raincoat buying experience. Apparently in downtown Houston, prophylactics belong in Gore's lockbox along with the nicotine supplements, razor blades, OTC antacids (the fancy PPI ones), and diabetes kits. Being that it was nighttime literally and in the economic proverbial sense (I'm still out of work, btw), the establishment only had a person working the front register with a throng of people in line trying to get things not usually meant to assist in getting one's 'swerve on.'

My friend fully intended to get those raincoats that night because it was going to rain very soon, and she didn't want to get caught unawares. So after waiting several minutes in line she stepped up to the counter to semi-discreetly mention that she needed the raincoats which were lockboxed. The clerk, swamped with customers, paged the manager who promptly showed up more than several minutes later 'after finishing a solitaire game' as managers are apt to do when no one is making sure they're working.

In the manner of one intending to protect someone's privacy while inevitably revealing an embarrassing fact, the clerk informed the manager of 'assistance in aisle 8' with a sheepish grin/frown.

So after more than a half hour affair, my friend finally left with her 12 or 24-pack of raincoats in assorted pigments and/or flavors.

'Ha, I have no shame!'
--

I, on the other hand, have lots of unhealthy Catholic guilt in buying prophylactics. I remember the traumatizing experience buying the damn things for the first time. I casually entered the OTC section of the store, pretending to look at some antacids (I did need Pepcid for my Asian flush) while truly surveying the dizzying array of colorful water balloons (some 'ribbed for pleasure') with my peripheral vision. After making sure everyone had vacated the area, I quickly turned my sights on my mark, walked confidently but a bit hurriedly to the area, and picked the moderately sized pack (12) of the brand name I knew (the one with the Greek helmet, though the story behind the name doesn't exactly inspire confidence: after the horse gets into the fortress, all the seamen evacuate to pillage the town).

With the merchandise in possession, I extended my fingers to obscure the face of the product. I walked to the front of the store, wondering if I had aroused the attention of the shrink cop with my furtive movements. Of the 5 open lines, I went to the shortest one with the guy who would be least likely to make any comment; the 2 with the pretty girls were absolutely out of the question--I felt that would have been like shooting Bambi's mother for some reason.

When it was my turn, I placed the product slightly more than halfway up the conveyor belt, so that it wouldn't take too long to reach the checker. I heard the total and handed a $20, with only a brief glance at the dude's face which was thankfully expressionless. Taking my change, I wrapped my purchase tightly in an upsettingly translucent plastic bag. I walked out feeling the same guilt as if I had stolen the thing(s).

I made a promise then and there ('Never again!') which I soon recanted after I made use of the merchandise ('But this is way too much fun!').

Nowadays, I do feel a slight bit of shame but there are stores with a self-checkout line. And I make sure those lines are open and sparsely populated before I make my purchase.
--

A random memory: Some girls in high school had asked a male teacher about the sinfulness of prophylactics (the school was like 90% Catholic because it was 90% Hispanic). He responded, 'If you're going to do wrong, do it right.' Then he smiled in a way that male teachers weren't supposed to smile at underage girls. He was an English teacher, and we had just read Bless Me Ultima, which was the first time I had ever seen the F-bomb in a legit novel.

And a random thought: I wonder if Mama has ever found my stash. I know she knows what they are, because I unfortunately stumbled upon her cache while searching for the TV remote. I think she follows the U.S. military's stance: don't ask, don't tell. And we all know the results of that program are simply fabulous.
--

*one of my friends (a dude) and I have agreed that the proper and English way of spelling 'grey' is with an 'e'. 'Gray' is drab and boring and has a thudding sound when you say it. 'Grey' on the other hand, has a delightful ring and reminds me of the hue of certain pants women wear which makes me swoon.
**What is a blog without oversharing?

Tender is the 2am Insomnia

Dear the not-forgotten,

A few of my friends had very nicely reminded me of my absence from my blog. So this is for you. My excuse this time is that I didn't want to distract my schoolmates from their studies. Hope you all passed with flying colors, or at least C's for "continue."

The nighttime is when I have my deepest thoughts. It is also unfortunately when I go to sleep, so I lose (or return) those thoughts to my subconscious. If there was a woman who would listen to my nonsense and play it back to me in the morning and make me sound really smart and froody, I'd marry her this instant! But I should think such an angel would be driven mad after a short while. I might just learn to use the recorder function on my phone, and it would likely be much cheaper than buying a shiny bauble.

Tonight (or this morning) I'm reflecting on the tumult of emotions during the past fortnight (and considering how to bring back the word 'fortnight'). And I'm realizing that such heady reflections are best done without the backdrop of South Park on the CW at 1:30AM. Though some television is art, even high art at times, syndicated reruns of pre-pubescent bathroom humor probably doesn't make the cut. And that's not an insult of South Park; it's just a statement of general truthiness.

One of the few good things about Twitter is that it limits your narcissism to 140 characters or less, so even Ashton et al are forced to curb their self-enthusiasm (though I don't see why you can't just serialize your tweets, but I have a feeling multiple tweets in rapid succession would somehow violate Twitter etiquette if there happens to be one). I am thankfully not bounded by such artificial caps though I probably should be, considering the length of some of my posts.

And tonight there's a jumble of things in my mind I need to straighten out. There are some good ideas, some random ones, some stupid ones, some funny ones, and even some romantic ones. And by romantic, I don't mean the stuff that leads to the horizontal tango.

So here's something 'romantic' I'll put out there, which hopefully won't cause me to lose too many man cards:

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald is rapidly becoming one of my favorite novels. At times my homophobia flares when I think about how a dead man can move my emotions so much through clever placements of words. It's sickening how good the prose is. Sure, Jane Eyre made me tear up a little (-1 man card), but Bronte was like one of those really good one-pitch pitchers: elicit sadness, elicit joy, and repeat with increasing levels of absurdity* (think about the overall plot of Jane Eyre and tell me that isn't as contrived as Days of our Lives).

And as I think I might have written previously, I enjoy books which I can relate to (and thus, I'm writing my memoirs because I think many people can relate to my story). The more the story resonates with my own, the more it enthralls me into submission. And I am completely under Mr. Fitzgerald's mercy in a romantic but hopefully not a horizontal-tango kind of way; I am in love with Fitzgerald as the male characters are in love with Dr. Diver (who is a dude) in the novel.

My favorite paragraph thus far:

The truth was that for some months he had been going through that partitioning of the things of youth wherein it is decided whether or not to die for what one no longer believes. In the dead white hours in Zurich staring into a stranger's pantry across the upshine of a street-lamp, he used to think that he wanted to be good, he wanted to be kind, he wanted to be brave and wise, but it was all pretty difficult. He wanted to be loved, too, if he could fit it in.

That describes my last few weeks perfectly: figuring out what is truly important in my life, the clarification of wants vs needs, whether or not my values are my own or have been borrowed from others, the nature of love and if I am capable of it, and the realization that I will fall short of my grandiose expectations of myself. But I shouldn't ruin perfection with my further commentary, so I'll leave it at that.

I'll try to be humorous the next few posts, but no promises. Please excuse my nonsense--it's late and I haven't found the one who will make me sound good. I'm taking applications for the position, but the job pays very poorly (and may come with a prenupt unless the applicant makes more than me of course).

--
*not used in a derogatory sense

Free to Be You and Me

Dear old(er) folks,

The great thing about the internet and Google (I like how the Google search results page isn't littered with ads; compare this with Yahoo and Bing's) is that when there's an obscure or old reference which you're not sure about, you can just Google it. That's partly why I love my Droid which has a nifty Google omnisciently omnipotent widget that will almost read your mind to figure out what you want. In return, it just needs a few moments from your eyes to display some relatively unobtrusive ads. So Google, you deserve the $500+/share that you command on the stock market. I'll have to buy a share one of these days and frame it. On a sidenote, if I were to be able to go back in time, I'd snap up shares of Microsoft, Apple, and/or Google when they were cheap; that way, people wouldn't suspect as much and wouldn't hassle you for your dough like if you had won the Powerball. I feel sorry for that Missouri dude for the constant hand-out requests he's about to receive.

Anyway, the obscure reference is the title of this entry, 'Free to Be...You and Me.' The first time I saw the title was as an episode from Supernatural. I knew it to be one of those things I should probably know, but didn't. The old fogies would scoff, frown, and make a face that expressed both pity and condescension. The intellectual/music elitists would as well. But I'm not that smart, and the world is so overloaded with information that it would be impossible to know everything considered 'common knowledge.' That's why Google is so wonderful! Someone buy me a share for my birthday; it's coming up you know. I'll also take cash, and it would be a very personal gift since you realized my Vietnamese inclination toward Mr. Franklin. Stuff that you made from macaroni will be frowned upon; it won't even elicit my fake gratitude.

You'll have to get used to my random preambles to my topic at hand (see the two paragraphs above). When last we met at my last entry, we found a very depressed me. Actually an agitated me to be more correct. There's a reason why people pay so much to live in temperate SoCal and not in the Houston sauna. And on half the mornings I'd wake up with severe nasal congestion due to the tree pollen. Trees, please don't [sexual reference deleted] all over my car and my house; it's quite inappropriate and immunogenic.

But I got over it. I turned the fan on the high setting (and if it broke down I'd give Dad money to fix it). For boredom, I finally got back on that reading track I promised to do last year. Pretty easy fixes now that I think about it in my dreary apartment in Dallas, with the minimal decorations taken down. In the past few weeks, I've been slowly moving my stuff back to Houston which is probably where I belong (at least for now). Still searching for a job, by the way.

The drives to and from D-town to H-town are the moments when I have my greatest thoughts (I'm stuck on one highway for 4.5 hours; it's either think or sleep or jam to Miley Cyrus, and I'd rather die via DWS* than purchase a Miley album). And this last trip I thought about how it wouldn't be all that terrible to live with my parents again.

Because this time, I would be choosing to live with them rather than being forced to live with them. And that is a profound difference. Being forced to return home because you can't afford to live on your own due to downsizing etc is sucky. It's like being imprisoned. Come to think of it, prison wouldn't be all that bad if there wasn't rampant sodomy and if you had a option to leave. The problem is you can't leave, and that's why it's punishment.

So I'm choosing to return home for now because it is a sound economic decision. My decision to not save the world (which I couldn't do anyway) was a sound economic decision. I had told Dad recently that I wouldn't go back to school--he took it surprisingly well, like a parent whose kid comes out of the closet after it is painfully obvious that he's gay**. If you think I'm making light of the gay revelation, you don't know my dad's obsession with my going to med school.

In a way, I still resent my parents for forcing me to go to pharmacy school, even if it did turn out for the best: I'd be racking up massive debts in med school right now to make pennies under Obamacare.

I'm surprised to find that I'm learning the power of choice now considering about all the coming of age novels I've read about the exact same thing. But I guess in most of those novels, the heroes and heroines were inevitably forced into doing 'what was best' for the world. To die to self, to save the world. How trite! Make way for the bad guy. Hey, at least I didn't start the subprime meltdown, though that was likely because I didn't have a choice.****

--

*Driving While Sleepy

**I'm not gay, not that there's anything wrong with that***

***What's the deal with all these disclaimers nowadays?

****Kidding, I hope

The Vacation Breaking Point

Dear Fall Holiday Lovers,

After about the second week of Rachel Ray and Days of Our Lives (like sands through the hourglass...), one starts to go crazy. Even F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterful prose could not get me out of the doldrums unto depression.

And staying at home because 'I have nothing better to do' (according to Mama) is wearing thin my limited patience. There's a reason why I fled Houston, and I'm sadly reliving the experience of 85 degree nights in a steaming bedroom on an insanely lumpy bed with the neighbor's dog barking outside the window. I think they keep prisons cooler than my parents' house. And they feed you better too.

I might have to return to Dallas soon, and wait out purgatory there. She wants me to move all my stuff back, as if my material possessions would gravitate me to staying at home. No thanks--one visits Hell if one is curious; one does not choose to stay in hell. And I possess my possessions; my possessions do not possess me.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder, and proximity makes the mind descend into madness.