Convalescence Week 2

To the recovering,

The first time I heard the word 'convalescent' that I cared to look up the meaning** was in 2pac's I Ain't Mad At Cha.

'Til God return me to my essence

Cause even as an adolescent, I refuse to be a convalescent'

It's a killer rhyme, but even in context, I still doesn't make sense to me. So even as a kid, he'd rather die than to be holed up in a hospital recuperating?

--

I have a peculiar tendency to turn ever so mildly into a seething psychotic when my sleep gets out of whack. But I am Asian (and DSM-IV-TR is as real to us as Snooki's* tan), and we hold and bottle our problems only to vent them in a self-destructive cataclysm of drinking and gambling-- at least that is what the Viet do.

But I've grown increasingly unaccustomed to alcohol, as the two bottles of premium single malt that have remained half-empty for a nearly a year can attest. And I've never been much of a gambler, since I think it's really silly to play something for the long-term that probability states I will lose in the long-term. So it builds and it swells until it can no longer be ignored.

And after the sound and the fury, there came a darkness upon the land. And in the cool, drizzling breeze of the night, the parched earth was flooded then rejuvenated with life-giving waters. And when the ground was quenched of its drought, it was ready to approach the light of day with renewed vigor.

Very poor imagery aside, I must have slept for about 60% of last week, which is absolutely amazing for the mind but terrifically terrible for the lower back, especially on a faux memory foam mattress topper. I did some golf and fishing. I tried reading a little bit, but my attention waned in favor of serial watching of anime. But most importantly, I did not do what I didn't want to do or have to do.

I am an invisible man not because people refuse to see me, but because I refuse[d] to see myself. More on this and other thoughts/ideas later.

--

I was taught as a child that I must do what is necessary***. That 'necessary' was to redeem some archaic notion of family honor. It's a story taken straight out of a cheesy Chinese Kung Fu flick complete with bad voice dubs. Though I have (for the most part) shed the burden of hundreds of years of tradition, that mantra still remained: to do what is necessary.

Except what was necessary did not include my own well-being. It should always include one's own well being, or there should be a damn good reason it doesn't.

But there is no use in armchair psychology-ing yourself all the time. We should all all take it easy, be the optimist hole mole, and get tatted up with 'THUG ANGEL' on a whim. Because it is 'pretty cool'!

by Austin Havican, from UH's Daily Cougar. Sadly, holemoles.com doesn't exist anymore.

(I would be concerned about the scattered thoughts, but it makes perfect sense [to me] how this bit about hole moles connects to 2Pac, which connects to the rest of the stuff because of the convalescing thing. And besides, I can't exactly end on such a dreary note!)

--

*I cannot stomach Jersey Shore, and I am bemused that so many of my FB friends keep up with that show.

**When I read novels, I skip most unknown words since the context usually gives the meaning.

***"It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary." - Winston Churchill

The CAGE Test

to alcoholics, again,

In school, they teach us about the treatment for alcoholism, which is (long story short) to stop drinking. Acute and chronic alcoholism can lead to liver failure, heart failure, and other things which I wish I had a pharmacist-intern to look up and do a report for me.

Once the liver is affected, there's not much treatment except to stop drinking, take some meds that may or may not work (pentoxifylline, steroids) and pray for the best. If the person has been clean long enough, they may qualify for a liver transplant, but I think most people feel shady for giving a liver to someone who lost the original of his/her own free will. Alcoholic cardiomyopathy mimics symptoms of traditional heart failure where the patients can feel like they're drowning when laying down. They're both crappy ways to go. If it was up to me, I'd want to OD on this new street drug called 'cheese'*.

So after a casual wondering and joking about my own drinking habits, I remembered there was a questionnaire to see if a person may have a problem. When I first learned about it in 1st or 2nd year of school, I answered 0 out of 4, but let's see how the hands of time has corrupted this once innocent soul:

C - Have you ever felt you should cut down on your drinking?

Sure, because it gets damn expensive. When you start your alcoholic career with the top shelf stuff that costs >$35/750mL, it adds up. And these single malt scotches, which are my new drugs of choice, are even more expensive with age. But the 18yrs are so smooth and leave the most delicious lingering vapors on the tongue long after the first dram.

A- Have people annoyed you by criticizing your drinking?

Not really, because I usually beat them to the punch by telling them jokingly that I'm an alcoholic. And alcoholics of a feather flock together, so there would be some serious pot-calling-the-kettle-black action going on if that were to happen.

G - Have you ever felt bad or guilty about your drinking?

Only the two times when I woke up still drunk from the night before. Oh, and the time I 'redecorated' my friend's digs...twice..

E - Eye opener: Have you ever had a drink first thing in the morning to steady your nerves or to get rid of a hangover?

I can honestly say never to this question. I believe in rehydration, bland carbs, and non-thought-provoking comedies like Scrubs or Chappelle's Show. And I never like having the same food or drink two days in a row, so I couldn't possibly imbibe the same vile poison the morning after.
--

So in short and honestly: yes, no, yes, no. But one must factor in the healthy dose of guilt that is cultured in every non-doctor** Asian male who is almost inevitably considered a failure in the eyes of his parents, myself not excluded.

But no, I don't truly consider of myself an alcoholic. I am a binge-drinker with a weak will, a hardy liver, and a short memory. And if I am to die anyway, I might as well die having a good time never feeling like I was deprived of anything again. [A higher power] knows I've long lived a life engineered for the joy of the progenitors and not the progeny.

--
*You must go to that link--I couldn't stop laughing the first time I heard it on This American Life!
**Only M.D. counts here. D.O. need not apply, so forget about my Pharm.D. meeting my parents' expectations!

Music for Any Occasion

Dear Hooked-on-Phonics,

I can never be too confident when I spell 'occasion' (see above title). I rely on Firefox's trusty spell-check feature to put red squiggly lines when I'm being ESL* which I catch myself doing more often then I'd like, such as dropping the 's' off of verbs when the subject is singular and dropping prepositions, ie 'she like the way mi** sound like F-O-B.' But even with technology, the trend is going more towards Jersey Shore and less towards proper English. Oh well.
--

The great thing about working in Victoria is that it's only a couple hours away from Houston. 97.9 the BOXX extends to just about 30 miles out of town, so I have to endure just half an hr of Victoria Top 40 before I heard Bun B's hot new single: Trillionaire (Explicit). Damn Bun B hits it hard, even without Pimp (RIP). T-Pain ain't no slouch neither. When I got to town I heard a screwed (slowed up) version of Twista, but even at half-speed he's still unintelligible to me. So what is this? Have I abandoned my 2pac for some club trash (not saying Bun makes club trash per se, but most of the stuff on the radio is club trash)? Neva homey!

Just things are different now. I'm out of poverty. I'm out of the prison of my own mind. Life could be better, but life is good. I can complain but that's only because complaining comes naturally to our species. So when I bang 'Me Against the World,' it's just not the same anymore. Because it's not me against anybody; it is just me against the imagined boundaries I've put up for myself. Of course I'll never play pro basketball, but everything else is within the realm of possibility.

So I'm starting to listen to more rainbows, sunshine, and honeydews. More Sheryl Crow, less Eminem (who was sorta depressing to listen to). More Colbie Calliat, less Bone Thugs. Etc, etc.

And I guess that's just growing up. And I guess that's why successful musicians make so much money (even more than me!): they create mirrors for emotions, to help clarify and resolve ephemeral thoughts into the spoken and sung word.. (put more words here...)
--

I woke up after 5 hrs of sleep, and since I didn't have any sedative/hypnotics that I dispense on a regular basis, I was forced to find non-pharmacological ways to get tired again. And after that last little bit about music as mirrors to focus thoughts, I'm mentally spent. So good night (again)!
--

*English is Second Language
**mi is a pronoun for 'I' that Viet people came up with because the original pronouns had more emotional connotations. The Viet language is very relational (as in pertaining to relationships) and to use the pronoun 'I' without relating it to the person you're speaking to may mean that you're pissed off at them. Same with the word 'you.' In a way, it's kind of like speaking in the third person: So to say 'I love you' to Mama, it would be literally translate to 'Child loves Mama.' To say it to a girl, it would translate to 'Man loves woman.' Don't ask me why.

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.

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

Expired Milk: Where's My Money?

Dear yogurt lovers,

Let me preface this post with a description of a very common annoyance that has been happening to me this year. As a strapping single bachelor with no one to care for except me-myself-and-I, I have been remarkably good at not taking care of my sole ward. Sure, I handle the major things like keeping a roof over my head, wearing a seat belt and protection, etc, but diet, exercise, and sleep have been woefully neglected, like the red-headed step-child.

So I buy a gallon of non-organic (I like it hormone-laced!) fat-free milk about once every two weeks, resolving to have my daily 2 glasses of leche like the really smart people on TV suggest. But eventually, at the end of those two weeks, I’ve had about 2 glasses total and only because I felt like having something to go with my Lucky Charms. And at the end of those two weeks, I’ve felt really bad about eating Lucky Charms, so I get the 100%-daily-vitamins-and-minerals cereal which has about the consistency and taste of soggy cardboard. But where I epic-fail* is that the milk is two days past the ‘BEST BY’ date. Have you noticed that it’s not an expiration date, but a ‘BEST BY’ date?

Anyway, I pop the plastic cap and brush off the dried white flakes from around the rim of the bottle. A quick sniff reveals a faintly acidic odor not unlike the smell of plain yogurt. The milk flows freely when I shake the plastic jug, and there’s not much sediment; I think those are good signs. The cardboard cereal is already in the bowl looking very unappetizing, and it would be a chore to finagle the damn thing back into the box.

Oh well. I tip the container of fermented milk, watching it slosh gently over the wheat flakes. Thirty seconds pass, and I take another whiff wondering if letting the milk rest would improve its bouquet as if it were some fine wine. But like Olde English**, it’s best to hold your nose and gulp it while it’s still chilled.

I didn’t know what was more revolting, the milk or the cereal. But like a kid being forced to eat his vegetables, I willed my way through, spoonful by spoonful. After what seemed like torture comparable to water-boarding, I make it through the ordeal somewhat intact. And I felt good about doing well for myself and for not wasting milk.

But the warm fuzzy feeling subtly morphed itself into ominous gurglings and severe abdominal cramps. It felt like the time I had the ‘bottled water’ in Mexico. But the pain subsided, and being a stupid male, I sloshed another glassful of that drank down my throat instead of into the sink. But it wasn’t all that bad. The natural acidity of age added character to what would otherwise be a boring beverage.

So this post is like my expired milk. It doesn’t quite fit into the time frame, but it’s still good, and if you drink it with an open mind, it is quite palatable and surprisingly tasty! But don’t sue me if you get an enteric infection.

DISCLAIMER: g neither recommends nor condones eating or drinking of expired foods and/or medicines.
--

Chuc mung nam moi! I’m too lazy to put all the Vietnamese diacritical and accent marks on the greeting. And if I did, it may not display correctly on your computer screens anyway. Basically it means, ‘Happy New Year’ in Vietnamese. February 14 this year happens to be the lunar new year as well, so the Asian folks in red garb are pulling double duty with VDay (red is a lucky color). There will be plenty of new years to come, so I’ll defer the description of the festivities as next year’s will likely be similar to this year’s. In Vietnamese, the word for new year is ‘Tet’.

Suffice it to say that there is plenty of booze, gambling, and luck-mongering. And for most kids, plenty of red envelopes, known in Vietnamese as li xi, filled with crisp, nice-smelling bank notes. There are a lot of traditions around it, but the only important one is that old(er) people give money to younger folks as long as the recipient is unmarried.

According to the repository of all knowledge***, both good and poorly-sourced,

‘In Vietnam, lì xì are typically given to those who are younger as long as they are bachelors’

Damn straight! I’m a bachelor and will remain so for the foreseeable future. So where’s my money!?

Now my extended family isn’t rolling in dough like some Asian folks are, but I’ve managed to scrounge up at least $100 in past Tets. Just for comparison, some of my friends rake in $500. I’m not that greedy; I just want a little something--It’s incredibly satisfying to not spend your own money.

So what was the count this year? A bill? $75 or $50? Nope, not any of the above.

It was a measly $35, and $20 was from Mama since she was in a giving mood this year. I can’t even get a shirt at Express for that amount!

I blame the recession! Young Asians everywhere should lobby to siphon CEO bonuses to compensate for the slimming of red envelopes around the nation. It is all very unjust! I am outraged and appalled that Obama would let me suffer a loss of ~$65. My new job and the fact that I don’t really need the money have nothing to do with it. The United Auto Workers didn’t stop fighting for higher wages when GM was going under, and I won’t either!

I’m just being facetious as always. My indignant resentment is all in good fun. I had a great time hanging out with the family, and that is far better than any amount of money.
--

*epic-fail – the (bastardized) verb form of ‘epic failure’
**what do you know about that malt liquor?
***Wikipedia

DacBiet

Dear sobriquet detractors,

I like my name. In Vietnamese, it means ‘bright mind’, which is a bit of a presumptuous name to call a kid, especially when you’re not sure if he will turn out to be all that smart. But since it’s a nice name with a nice ring to it (in Vietnamese at least), Viet people will insist on calling their kids ‘Minh Tri.’ And since it can seem that more than half of Viet people have the last name ‘Nguyen’, more than several will have my exact same first, middle, and last names. Actually, a quick search of Facebook for ‘Tri Nguyen’ will yield 3,300+ hits (before the vilified FB update).

It makes a fella feel real special. What also makes a guy feel special is when he gets a text message likely intended for someone else.

Me: uh…this is tri. wrong number?

Friend: hahahha, sorry tri!! i have another tri on my phone. i had made dinner plans and i had to cancel

Great. Even amongst friends, I’m not the only ‘Tri’ they know. But I do think that my unique Americanized pronunciation (like the letter ‘g’) sets me apart from the other Tri’s. And I do sign my posts with a lowercase ‘g’ to further my identity building. But sadly, for legal documents and other stuff like Facebook, you have to use your real name.

But I am special! (and not in a special needs way, not that there's anything wrong with that). I demand that I be the only person with my name! I’ll eliminate the rest of the poseurs one day, but in the meantime to set myself apart, I have donned a moniker which describes my uniqueness: DacBiet.

It means ‘special’ in Vietnamese. Most commonly, you might have seen it as one of the options for your pho, as in pho dac biet. Though dac biet is used like ordering the ‘special of the day’, it also has the meaning of ‘unique’.

And if you’ve managed to put up with my writing and rambling thus far, you will undoubtedly agree with my claim to being different than the rest, that I’m one of a kind. If not, you will.

Already people have taken notice of the identifying ‘middle name’ on Facebook. When new friends send requests of amity, they won’t be bewildered by the numerous impostors. They will simply have to search for ‘dacbiet’ (without a space), and they will find moi.

Notably, I had thought about using the title dai ca, meaning big boss or captain, but some guy had already snatched it up. In his about me description, 'Tri Dai Ca Nguyen' referred to himself as a ‘...pretty hard n*gga to be with' and states that 'If i'm goin forward, and you can't keep up, you gon be left behind.'

How brash! And it's a bit offputting that a non-my den* person would refer to himself by the N-word. Some people are just so full of themselves. Thankfully I’m not like that**.

--
*African-American or black
**On second thought, I probably need gastric bypass surgery because I'm so full of myself.

Night at Ra, Pt. 1

Dear stand-up eaters,

A few weeks back, I did the Happy Hour + Rockets game with my older brother and his friends. Usually, they go to Kona at the Galleria, but this time, they decided on Ra. It's nice to try new things, but you should probably avoid popular places on a Friday night.

Ra Sushi was packed like the Superdome after Katrina. It probably violated the maximum occupancy limit, but as it was an Asian place, the establishment ignores safety in quest for deeper profits.

After I scaled the stairs to get to the main dining floor, I found a mass of humanity trying to get a bite of Ra fish. There was a superfluous amount of attractive women who were attempting to upgrade to better boyfriends (by flaunting their assets), but were currently accompanied by the douche-bag starter model, the kind that emulate the Jersey Jagger Bomb faux-celebs.

I’m still refining my pick-up line. So far, I have ‘Hi, my name is g. I’m a doctor, and I make six figures. Do you want to get on this?’ (patent pending). It’s a work in progress. It currently has a zero success rate, but like the search for weapons of mass destruction, I swear that line will hit paydirt one day.

Being Asian, I don’t have the trouble of differentiating between groups of the yellow-skinned folk, and I spot my brother and his friends fairly quickly, as they were standing a little past the hostess’s station. Okay, so I guess instead of being like the rest of the suckers standing in the lobby, we’re going to have some Kirin beer while we wait at this area where there is an overhang that acted like a makeshift table.

I didn’t care as long as there’s a place to rest my drink. The server comes by with massive bottles of Kirin and delicate porcelain curved flutes of warm sake. Like good alcoholics, we pound some sake bombs and toast the Rockets good fortune against the Heat. Then another dude comes by with some plates of sushi. At this point, I became mildly confused, because as far as I know, sushi isn’t served dim sum-style where they wheel around carts, asking you what you want.

The confusion cleared up when one of the guys said that it was our order. There weren’t even chopsticks or napkins at the little overhang area, not to mention the lack of any kind of chairs or chair-like objects. Though we do look a little F-O-B, we’re decent enough to use utensils. Some of the guys shrugged, and grabbed the food-art with their thumbs and index fingers. I shrug too, and grabbed a pork dumpling.

The silverware and woodware and napkins came by later, but as we were well on our way to being so far gone, we ignored them for the most part. The alcohol coursed through bodies which weren’t well equipped to handle such poison (aldehyde dehydrogenase mutation which leads to poor metabolism and subsequent ‘Asian Flush’), and the already uninhibited became even more dis-inhibited.

One of the guys said to a group of fun black girls, ‘You know I like that dark meat, right? I’ll get you a bucket of fried chicken, but only on a Tuesday. 99-cent special at Popeyes. Nah mean*?’

As it turns out, you can say a lot of things if you can say it confidently and playfully. Rather than getting slapped, the guy got a bunch of laughs (along with him, not at him). One of the memorable things one of those girls said was, ‘Nuh uh, you couldn’t handle all this woman.’ Very true. I doubted if anyone could handle all of her.

After a couple more sake bombs, I began feeling like I was in Vietnam, even though I’ve never been there.

me: ‘Damn. We eatin’ like we in Vietnam, all standin’ and squatin’ and sh*t.’

guy: ‘How you know what we ate like when we in Vietnam?’

me: ‘I saw some pictures on some travel ads. Looked like people be eatin’ and tryin’ to take a dump at the same time.’
--

After several more rounds of rice wine, we left of our own free will and on our own sets of legs; I was a bit surprised we hadn’t been kicked out. And we got to the game perfectly fine**, though I soon passed out on the seat as the Heat proceeded to pound on the Rockets.

--
*you know what I mean?
**there was a DD, natch

SPIDER: Shooting Pool & Playing Poker for a Living

Dear Dreamer's Son followers and those who would have followed,

This is one of the weekly Stupendously Pimped-out Industriously Delineated Extensively Reinvigorated Re-releases. It gets confusing to remember what SPIDER stands for, so I'll just make it up as I go along. This one is about my two dream jobs. If I ever make as much scratch doing either of these things, I'll kindly give up my day (night) job.

--

Nov 19, 2009

Before I started college, I had said to some teachers and friends that if I could shoot pool and play poker for a living, I would in a heartbeat. It was in a joking manner, but I meant it. Thankfully before I bought a ticket to Vegas, all the years of Asian guilt started hurtling back to the present. You can't ever escape your past. Here's a bit of the litany of Viet Catholic woes:

'If you don't become a doctor (an M.D. doctor, not those other 'doctors'; D.O. doesn't count either), then I will disown you.'

'If you don't marry a Vietnamese Catholic girl, I will disown you.'

'If you don't have lots of grand kids, I will disown you.'

'If you don't let me live in your house when I'm old and wrinkled, I will disown you.'

'If you even think about playing poker or shooting pool for a living, I will disown you.'

'If you don't play blackjack and baccarat (WTF is poker?), you are a traitor to your gambling heritage.'

And so on. I guess I've been disowned. Oh well, that's life I suppose. Things fall apart. At least I didn't kill myself; then God would have disowned me, which would be the ultimate disowning.

--

Melodramatics aside, I did think about shooting pool and playing Texas Hold'em for a living. But there were some issues with that career path:

Firstly, you can't make money shooting pool anymore. Big tournaments only pay out 25k to the winner, and these guys make me look 150,000,000 times worse than I make you all look. If you've seen me shoot pool, you may think I play pretty well, but compared to money and tournament players, I pretty much suck. After the fundamentals of pool (stroke, bridge, balance, etc), there comes the strategic side (cue ball control, table position, defense), then the mental side which I think of as being able to win when you should win. Finesse (the name of my pool cue) and I have been at this for quite awhile, but we're still nowhere being near the caliber of people who make money from this game. Plus, people don't let themselves get hustled anymore.

Now with Texas Hold'em, the only things that kept me from it was the bankroll and my age. Over 21, check; one roadblock unblocked. A bankroll is the money you set aside to fund your poker ventures. Inevitably, you're going to lose in more than a few sessions (sittings at a poker table), but in the long run, your bankroll should increase, allowing you to move up to higher limit games.

The concept of a 'bankroll' was invented, in my opinion, to allow players to track their winnings and losings and to play games within their means.

The problem with chronic gambling at regular casino table games is that you're going to lose in the long run, even with perfect basic strategy in blackjack (the casino game with the lowest house advantage). You can't bankroll that because your bankroll would always decrease. That's why people (of the Viet persuasion) who plop down hundred dollar bills at the baccarat tables are idiots--you can't win in the long run.

The beauty of poker is that you're playing other people. And the better player will win in the long run. Yes, the river is going to burn you a few times and you may lose with pocket rockets and big slick, but if you get your money in when the cards are in your favor, eventually you'll make money (hopefully).

Once I pay off my student loans, I'll start to build my bankroll to fund my second job. What am I going to do in the meantime? Read books on poker theory and start to develop some catch phrases.

My favorite one so far is from my uncle Scotty Nguyen:*

'You caw, it gon be aw over, baby!'

----

Platinum-limited, invitation-only to purchase, super-exclusive commentary:

Last week, I got to hang out with the guy who single-handedly got me through pharmacy school by waking me up for the sort of important tidbits, the stuff where if you mess up, the state board of pharmacy will send you a mean, threatening letter and then change your ‘Prior Disciplinary Order(s)’ to ‘Yes’. It’s as bad as your mother pulling down your pants and spanking you in public. You might also kill someone, but that’s not nearly as important as avoiding becoming the laughing stock of your pharmacist friends.

So we had lunch and played a few games of pool in which I thoroughly excel amongst my friends. He surprisingly won a game by sinking the 8, and another by my sinking the 8 before its time (which I refer to as 'committing statutory’). The side pocket ‘t*tty f*cked’ a couple of my balls, performed ‘rim jobs’ on a couple of others, and disappointingly ‘spit’ out a masterful bank [shot], but on the whole, the table was pretty accepting to my gentle, finesse-imbued touch, which was a little surprising given my lack of recent practice.

As soon as I get a table of my own, I might actually try to pursue playing in tournaments and such. The potential is there; just the work and dedication (and resources) are lacking.

In the meantime, I’ll have to learn some trick shots, because for whatever reason, women seem to like the grandiosely impractical (where the hell are you going to perform a trick shot in an actual game) over the masterly fundamental (Tim Duncan-like boringness).

*not really my uncle, in case you were wondering.

Hotdogs and Eggs

Dear ghetto brethren,

‘Tomorrow when you’re home, you can fry up some eggs and hotdogs. There are some tortillas too.’

Stacking bread* means never having to eat hotdogs ever again, except at sporting events where you’re charged $8 for something you could have made yourself for 25 cents. Hot dogs on sale typically cost a buck for a generic pack of 8. Mama usually buys several packs like she was at Costco and freezes them in the refrigerator. She thaws them out when necessary and adds one to her ramen as a source of protein. That’s her dinner. People would be shocked to know that Dad is a pharmacist when we live like we’re below the poverty line.

But Dad wasn’t always a pharmacist, and when he was chasing after his dreams, he was hemorrhaging the family’s assets like a gunshot wound to the abdomen.** Before he became a professional student, Dad had owned a washateria (the southern word for laundromat; everyone in Houston calls it ‘washateria’ and would make a confused, frowny face if you used ‘laundromat’). It was fairly successful, but he sold it in the early 90s to go back to school to become a ‘real doctor.’

It was right after he sold the business that I started becoming conscious of my surroundings (around 5-ish). Mama still worked, but Dad was using the monthly payments from the sale to pay for tuition. And so to save some money, Mama bought stuff like ramen, hot dogs, eggs, and generic cereal. A couple nights a week, Mama would cook some Viet stuff, but it would be mostly white rice, some broccoli with not-so-select cuts of chicken, and simmered fish that had a plethora of tiny bones that lodged in the back of my throat.

I preferred the coronary-artery-thickening American trayf to the stuff she cooked. Don’t tell me that one of the advantages of living at home through college was that I had some of Mama’s fine home-cooking; I frequented Taco Hell more times than I ate at home.

She’ll probably never change her eating or buying habits. I think she could live off of $20 a week in groceries if she had to.

The next day instead of following her suggestion, I drove to Fuqua and Sabo and had some traditional Viet beef noodle soup at Pho Saigon. It is ironic how home cooking means hotdogs and eggs while traditional Viet food can only be found at the local eatery.
--

*one of the many ghetto slang for that ‘paper’, as in the paper on which rests dead presidents, Ben Franklin, and Alex Hamilton. Isn’t it funny how when people talk about dead presidents as a placeholder for money, they don’t realize that Ben Franklin wasn’t a president? And Ben is probably the most important dead white guy.
**one of the focuses of my book that I’m actually starting to write

Punked! (TV Edition)

Dear big-ass TV owners,

Mama told me there was a surprise for me when I came home last week. One of my guesses was that she spent a bunch of time packing all my boxes for me to bring up to Dallas. That would have been awesome. Another guess was that she was going to have another kid. That would have sucked. But it was neither of those things. Vegas would have given odds of 1:150,000,000 for the former, and 1:100 for the latter. Thankfully it wasn’t the latter. It’s not that it wouldn’t be cool to have a younger brother or sister; it's just that I wouldn’t wish another human being to have to live under Dad’s roof.

Vegas would have given 1:1 odds for the actual surprise: a big-ass TV. When I opened the familiar faux-redwood door to the place I still considered home, I was greeted by a piano-black monstrosity floating delicately above those tacky metal and glass stands (tacky because they try too hard to be modern). The plastic film protecting the glass-like frame around the screen was still attached, and my antenna from the TV in my old room had miraculously migrated to the TV stand underneath the new member of our family. Traitor.

Mama hadn’t come home from work yet, and I couldn’t find the remote, which as it turns out, was a problem (as troublesome as the current Great Recession) as new TVs are so cool that they don’t have buttons (on/off, volume, channel) on the actual thing itself.

So after I ripped apart the house trying to find the key to nirvana, I trudged sulkingly up the stairs to my room with its infinitesimally nano-scopic 24” screen. But then I remembered that the antenna had Benedict Arnold’ed itself downstairs for wider pastures. Great. Then I remembered that I had just completed a 4.5 hour trek across a desperately boring part of Americana, and I remembered that sleep is good.

A couple hours later, I was greeted with Mama’s tinny voice, ‘Hello! You home!?!?’ Then she proceeded to rub my nose in the TV I had bought a few months prior on Black Friday.

‘Oh, what size you say your TV. Forty-six? Oh, this one bigger. It LED. You say your LCD? So this one better, right?’*

‘Yes, Mama. You win.’
--

*In the Vietnamese language, is/are are not necessary sometimes, and so when older Viet people learn English, they also neglect to use is/are.

Blue Eyes

Most nights when I’m working, I want to holler and scream the staff at the two emergency care centers across the street for sending me so many new customers. There’s another repeat offender 10 miles up in Plano which also sometimes incurs my wrath. But a couple of times a year, I’m blessed by the presence of beautiful blondes with devastatingly deep azure eyes, liltingly pained dulcet voices (because they’re sick), and the patience of a third grade school teacher when Barr runs a mass recall on generic Adderall.

One such heavenly creature came by recently, but unfortunately, it was during a time of abysmal turmoil: three insurance problems all at once, and all of those customers were there waiting. No tech, no problem; I am g, after all (excuse the arrogance, when you work this job, you have to have some confidence so that people don’t walk all over you). A couple of 1-877 numbers later, I got everything resolved, got those scripts out pretty damn quick, and even added some patient counseling in there (may cause drowsiness, take with food, this is my cell number in case you need to reach me for any reason, wink* etc).

When the night slowed down a few hours later, I felt haunted by those cobalt gems that rested underneath the shock of honey wheat bangs. I don’t really obsess over girls anymore (those restraining orders became troublesome**), though this girl did warrant some stalker-ish action. But thankfully the trance, caused by the iridescence of the windows of her soul, tapered off over the remaining hours of my shift.

Though I confess to be equal opportunity when chasing after the fairer sex, I have such a weakness for blue eyes, the true blue eyes that shine without need of refraction from pieces of plastic. That pretty much all but precludes women of negroid or mongoloid descent. The pretty Chinese girl that came by earlier with the blinging watch (my Gucci’s relative?) did absolutely nothing for me; I might have been more turned on by the watch. But the girl with skin the color of pale amber makes my spine tingle just thinking about her.
--

There’s a line in a song by Tupac that reads

Lately, I’ve been really wanting babies
So I could see a side of me that wasn’t always shady

Around the start of the third year of pharmacy school, I started to dislike myself. It was the time when my classmates were thinking about what they would do after pharmacy school (residency, retail, hospital, or other), while I was stuck contemplating the MCAT that I was about to take to apply for 4 more years of floggings, plus 3 years of being an attending physician’s man-servant (aka internal medicine residency).

I think that was the time when I started growing the fat tire around my waist and started drinking more. And over those final two years, I wished that I was someone else or that it would all be over, including my life at the depth of my despair.

I had told my ex during one of my vulnerable moments that I hated myself. Thinking back on the reasons she cited for breaking up with me, I think it was my own self-worth issue that was the problem. I don’t blame her: Most people think I was well-adjusted when in reality I was a couple steps away from six feet under. (Note to the guys: saying that you don't like yourself is generally considered a bad move. No one had told me.)

During orientation for new pharmacy students the year prior, I had said something which I had forgotten in the madness: ‘Some of you will fail; it happens to the best of us. But no matter what, you’ll always have your life and your health; school is secondary to those things.’ For myself, I would add God in there as well. But in the course of my misguided quest to redeem my family, I had lost all those things, like Okonkwo in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. And I began to loathe the man in the mirror.

So it was this time that I began to look for things which were dissimilar to myself, since I hated myself. It was about the time I started digging vanilla and whitemeat, and the blue eyes that I would never have, in an attempt to see the 'side of me that wasn’t always shady' in my future kids, who hopefully wouldn’t look similar to me. Otherwise, I might grow to hate them as well for being so much like myself.

But alas, blue eyes are recessive, and unless I have some French blood in me from when France raped Vietnam in the mid-20 century (instead of cab-fare, they gave us French bread and pate), my kids are condemned to having earthy-colored eyes. But I’m starting to like dark colored eyes again.

And I like myself too, even with the 30 extra pounds and diseased liver***.

[I have intentionally not used the phrase ‘brown eyes’. If you don’t know, don’t ask; it’s a disgusting metaphor.]
--

*joking, of course
**again, joking
***joking…hopefully?

My Country Tis of Thee

Dear Expats and 1st Gen Americans,

I've ceased becoming irritated when people asked me where I hail from. Just to piss them off, I say I'm from Houston. I know they're asking me of my ancestral origin, but I tell them what country I associate myself with, and that country is the United States of America. The U.S., where dreams are made, broken, and remade with only a blatant hint of racial, socioeconomic, and religious prejudice.

On the U.S. Census, I would put myself into the category of Asian/Pacific Islander and the subcategory of Vietnamese if they have that. Most people would consider me Vietnamese-American, but I think of myself as American Vietnamese. After all, I was born and raised in the States; why would I put first the name of a country I've never even seen except in internet ads? If I were adopted, would I not take the last name of my adopted parents rather than that of my blood parents?

Recently, I've noticed that it's the expatriates that have a somewhat higher tendency to ask about nationality. In their eyes, I see a sadness of a forsaken or lost country, the same sorrow I see in my grandmother's eyes as she dotes on her grandchildren who can't even speak the language. It's a similar lament I see in my mother's eyes as she recounts the stories from her teens. It is a tear that has yet remained unshed from my eyes.

One such expatriate came by the pharmacy the other day. After the transaction, he asked the question I've heard 756 times:

Expat: So where are you from? Korea? [I do not look Korean at all]

Me: I was born and raised in Houston, but my parents were from Vietnam. They came over after Saigon fell.

Expat: And when was that?

Me: In '75, a few years after the Tet Offensive.

Expat: Have you ever been back there?

Me: No, never been. I don't have any plans in the near future.

Expat: Why? Are you scared?

Me: It's just the lack money and the work schedule.

--

But truthfully, I am a bit scared of what I'd find. Sure, people will try to swindle and charge me a lot more for something than it's worth, but I can afford to pay $1.50 (converted to Viet currency) for a bowl of pho even if the locals only pay $0.25. That's not the reason.

I am afraid that I'd see the land I had lost, my birthright, and break down crying. I'm afraid that I'd return and my ancestral home would reject me as foreign, something that is not part of itself. I'm afraid to look upon the 4 and 5-star resorts that grace the shores of a land once blasted by B-52s and razed by napalm flamethrowers. I'm afraid I'd look upon at my distant cousins and they'd laugh at my broken Vietnamese. And I'm afraid that the country I would be visiting is not that true Vietnam that my parents fled from.

And Vietnam no longer exists; only the Socialist Republic of Vietnam does. Saigon no longer exists; it is now Ho Chi Minh City. And it's not minor quibble about proper names; if you fly a Communist Viet flag on any expatriate soil, you will have a small uprising on your hands. The yellow star on a blood red field is an insult to all those refugees who braved the Pacific on fishing boats and helicopters. In our hearts, only the yellow flag with three horizontal stripes exists even if no country will claim it as its own.

I know what my ancestral country is; I don't want to go there only to find it gone, like that waif who finds the address of his birth parents only to discover that they have long passed away.

And so I abstain from returning to delay the realization of the truth that I already know: The country of my fathers is gone.

I will always love America, and I wear the badge of 'American' proudly (though I may neglect to mention that fact if visiting a hostile country). But there will always be that part of me that longs for the rice paddies that are no longer there, the talk of the brash fishermen chewing on tobacco and pickled-dried fish, and the pretty girls in ao dai who tease me in my dreams.

[I'd marry the girl on the left, but I think the one on the right could teach me some things]

The Godiva Quandary

When I reached Houston and got up to the front doorstep of what had been my home for the past 3 years, I saw a gift bag with a card and candy cane attached. The wind had blown the doormat against the door, and the gift was held delicately between the two, like a stuffed pita bread sandwich. I had a feeling of who it was from, and I also had a feeling of excitement of what my parents would inevitably fret about. What were they going to do? Let the fun commence.

‘Mama, Lisa from next door got you something.’

Rather than be excited about getting a gift, Mama’s face contorted into a look of concern, wondering what the gift was, how much it cost, and what would be a commensurate gift. Oh well, Mama’s problem, not mine. Apparently, it was Dad’s problem too (he had gotten off his contract work for Christmas).

Dad: ‘What did they get us?’

Mama: ‘Candy. They have 2 kids. It’s probably just something they normally buy for themselves, but they just gifted us one of them.

Last year, Lisa had given us some scented candle, an obvious regift. This year, I think Mama was wrong: our neighbors aren’t rolling around in money to buy their young kids Godiva truffles. By the way, Godivas are an easy gift for any woman in your life. And if she’s allergic, she can always regift it. Who doesn’t like chocolate? Stockpile them and ‘I’m sorry’ cards, and be sure they’re not expired before you give them.

After I got my luggage upstairs to my old room, I headed back to the railing overlooking the living room. Dad and Mama had finished a light argument about why white people are compelled to give gifts. The only clear thing to do is to give them something back; too bad they couldn’t just rewrap the chocolates and give it back to Lisa.

Mama had pulled out some rectangular object with a clear plastic window from her closet. It was beige, and looked like a boring version of some gift package you would get at Bath & Bodyworks. She deftly took some wrapping paper and covered the thing in 3 minutes flat. Mama took out a card from her cache of thoughtful thoughtlessness (cards for people you didn’t plan on giving a card) and harassed Dad to come up with some Christmas-sy message.

The whole scene was so worth the missed rerun of Two and a Half Men.

Although we are Catholic and celebrate Christmas, we don’t do that much gift-giving (Vietnamese people like money, and it’s a bit strange to exchange $100 bills for each other). The funny thing is that the awkward situation was probably shared by families of all races and creeds, not just my stingy Viet parents.

At least they got Lisa and her family something.