cindy's world

You know you’re out of it when you stare quizzically at a bra on your bed because you think it’s a can opener.

I also get the heebie jeebies now when I see the red dot on the inside of my forearm where the blood was drawn the other day. Lying on the cot after the collection bag filled up, all I could think about as they took the two or three vials of blood for testing, was how they took their time changing the vials/bag and my blood had nowhere to go in the meantime, and I could hear my godbrother tell me about his blood donation story and how the nurse must’ve, at this step, caused his blood to flow backward from the tube into his vein and how it hurt his arm. And then my arm started hurting at the needle site, too. *shudder shudder shudder* I almost went into shock at that point. They were pretty good about bringing wet towels for my forehead and neck.

Why’m I all disoriented? Probably because last nite, for the first time, I did forward rolls over my left shoulder, right shoulder, from standing position, and also with a running start. It’s so much easier than the beginner rolls I had been doing with the starting point on one knee with the rear leg outstretched behind me. The standing rolls feel more natural to me, and all I knew was that I raised my right arm, stepped in with my right foot, tucked, and the next thing I knew I was up on my feet again. Woohoo! Also, being able to do that roll advanced me from the anals of the class.

I almost got into 2 or 3 auto accidents today. Normally I’m a very defensive driver and have avoided many accidents that I know other drivers, had they been in my place, would’ve plowed into. But today, I would “wake up” right after a near-miss, and it’s to the credit of everyone else that I haven’t added any new dings to my car.

At jujitsu earlier, I slammed hard onto the mat right into my injured right knee. Good thing I waited an extra day before coming back or that would’ve been one of those horrible semi-permanent injuries. (A heavy-set new guy didn’t know to let go of my gi when he hit the floor and yanked me down and forward and I had to fall on my knee to avoid kneeing his kidney.)

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I knew something was up the way the universe was trying to slow down my drive all day. Driving to work in the morning, I hit 36 out of 38 possible red lights. Same thing with driving home after work, and driving from home to jujitsu.

Good thing about jujitsu today (aside from the fact that the blackbelt wasn’t there), there was another older blackbelt instructor who is much more technical in his teaching. We split the class in half and one worked on throws and falls and the other worked with the new instructor on drilling blocks, kicks and hits. Yes, we got the full breakdown of each movement. I raved to the regular instructor after class about how helpful that was, and how I had no idea what I was doing until I got the basics explained to me. He seemed happy about my feedback and said he’s gonna have that instructor back for that purpose for us.

Problems:
1. I need a second reason for skipping jujitsu today (the first being that I want to give my body another day to heal).
2. I overate at lunch and therefore need something to balance me out.
Solution:
I drove to the Norwalk Sheriff’s Station after work and donated blood to the American Red Cross.

I almost couldn’t donate because the donor’s iron content needs to be at least 38%. My blood drop floated on the solution, did a little dance near the surface, so they decided to spin the blood to see the exact iron content. 38%.
I met some people my age who work in the next building at City Hall, and we had a good time at the snacks table (where we’re required to sit and hydrate/snack for 15 mins after donating) laughing about all the 80s dance moves, like the cabbage patch, the reebok, the robot, the snake, the smurf, the Kid-n-Play. Gawd, the 80s were not only a fashion disaster, but lame as well.
I glanced at the sign-in sheet before I left and was disappointed to find that none of my coworkers had donated. I tried to get people I ran into as I left to come with me, but even the big burly men who you figure had gallons of blood to spare said, “No, I NEED my blood.”
Learned a few interesting things today. A 3-month stay anywhere in Europe (3 months collectively, doesn’t have to be consecutively) permanently disqualifies a donor from giving blood. I can’t do heavy exercise or weight lifting for the next 5 hours. What a great reason to get out of jujitsu.

Side note: Hey, I just realized this is my 100th blog entry! I’m glad it’s a good-cause post.

At my first American Christmas, age 6 after having immigrated from Taiwan to California, I was given my first American stationery set. Each of the cousins (the kids) were given a white and red plastic Snoopy pencil box shaped like a large round crayon. The red top unscrewed to become a pencil sharpener. The real prize to me was a pad of stationery paper. The background on each pale green half-sheet size page of the booklet was a misty faded photograph of a deep green blade of grass, spotted with small round jewels of dew, and at the tip of the blade clung a large reflective tear-shaped drop. There was something magical about that image. It stirred in my young consciousness some association to a veiled memory that I could no longer identify.

It wasn’t until years later when I learned English that I could read the anonymously authored haiku, printed in white on the bottom right corner of each page:

Dewdrop, let me cleanse
In your brief, sweet waters
These dark hands of life

I skipped jujitsu today because my wrist and knee aren’t feeling up to par and I don’t want to risk further injury, and because my family has relatives visiting from Taiwan and their tour group put them in a local hotel tonight. So I had dinner w/many relatives I hadn’t seen since November, 1998.

I was a bit pensive going to dinner and took care to look presentable because Asian relatives like to make physical observations and commentary. “Your head’s unproportionately big for your body.” “You Americans must like the unruly hair look. We proper Chinese prefer the neatly groomed student look.” And because I threw my clear contacts away and am wearing out my gray ones before I throw these away, “I’ve noticed you American-grown Chinese kids like to pretend you’re white.” But it turned out that no one made any such commentary at me. Instead, my mother said to her cousin (in front of his wife and kids and everyone else) “You’re a lot fatter now than the last time I saw you.” “That’s rude,” I told her under my breath. She looked surprised.

I remember that cousin of my mom’s fondly. When I was 4 or 5, he let me run ahead of him while he followed me on his bike, then when I got to the finish line first, he panted and said to me how impressed he was that I beat him. It was years before I realized he had let me win. For years I claimed to be able to outrun a bicycle, and everyone thought I was a conceited liar. (And by “years,” I mean until I almost finished junior high.) Then, on 11-13-98, I stayed with this same cousin’s family (him, his wife plus 2 young sons) in their apartment when vacationing with my mother in Taiwan. That evening’s journal entry reads:

As the kids were being annoying & violent to each other yesterday morning, their dad suddenly said, “Hey, I just thought of a great game!” That stopped them from fighting over their stupid water balloons. “Wanna play?” he asked them. Of course they wanted to play. He said, “You two run downstairs & stand under the balcony outside.” (We’re on the 7th floor.) “…I’ll throw the water balloons down and you try to catch them.” I had to bite my tongue, but the kids’ mom said to her sons, “You think you’ll catch them? Don’t let Daddy trick you!” So they didn’t go for it.

Later, I told my mom about how my coworkers think I’m getting too skinny and how I think I could still stand to lose a few more pounds, and she readily agreed, without any malice aforethought, said “I think so, too. You should lose at least another 15 lbs.”

I just got eyelid surgery and had a deep Caucasian crease put in! Just kidding. Altho I am wearing my gray contacts for kicks.

I was waiting for the elevator this morning when my (Irish) judge walked down the hallway toward me to catch the elevator also. He said, “What do you weigh now? You’re wasting away!” I said, “There’s no such thing!” Some time ago another coworker (Mexican) said I was getting TOO thin. I gave the same response. “There’s no such thing!”

In Asian circles I am still considered chubby, and I personally feel I have more fat to lose because I figure anything that jiggles (except for my chest, obviously) can afford to come off. This is interesting. I have been at the point before where non-Asians consider me normal and Asians consider me chunky, which disparity I had just tossed aside as non-Asian acquaintances trying to be polite. But I’ve never been considered too thin for one side and still chubby for the other before. I’m not sure what to do. Even the women in jujitsu who lift me to prep for a throw pause and say, “Oh my gosh, you’re so light!”

Maybe this is why I get hit on by Hispanics, blacks and whites and never Asians, and also why I’m so bruised up from jujitsu.

Vacuuming – check.
Laundry – check.
Change winter flannel sheets to summer sateen sheets – check.
Remove Dodo’s winter coat with comb – check.
Wash dishes – check.
Shower – check.
Next: going to visit the ‘rents and washing my car at their house. Probably having dinner there, too. (My car is once again at that stage where it has not only changed color, but also changed shape from the generous layer of dust and road grime covering.)

I watched Jim Carrey’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” this afternoon on HBO. The movie triggered some things in me that started the waterworks again. What I will always remember:
Me, on the second stair, suddenly collapsing internally as my world folded inward. Him, leaving his anger, resentment, hurt on the sofa where he was sitting and rushing over to me, catching me in his arms in a protective hug. As I sobbed incoherent things and my mind started shutting down in a spiraling loss of everything except for the pain, he pulled me up, forced me to stand against him, still surrounding me with his arms and chest, covered my hair with kisses as he said over and over, “No, no, come back, I’m not going to lose you to this. Come back, come out of it.” It was all very What Dreams May Come.
*sniffle*

Where the hell do people get off contacting MY closest friends to bitch about me, (admittedly to me) hoping and expecting that my friends will take his side and come to me to tell me off?! What the HELL is that? My ex has NO rapport with my friend, he’s met her twice and both times, very briefly, and he thinks he can write her long-ass emails out of nowhere manipulating events, as if she weren’t there with me thru all the crap and KNEW step-by-step what was going on with me, and win her over to his side so that she would tell me off for him?! He’s got to be delusional AND insane! And what a huge freaking ego! Well, what can I expect from someone who has no loyalties of his own? I am just…incredulous, and incredibly offended.
Update 11:32pm:
Called him to say if he’s got beef with me, to bring it to me, not to my friends because does he realize how retarded he looks bitching about me to my friends who KNEW everything that he’d done AS they were being done to me? He said he does have beef with me but doesn’t want to deal with it. But he wants to throw it in my friend’s lap and have me deal with it indirectly? How obscenely chickenshit is this?! Man, it’s been a long time since I’ve cussed like this.

Just thought I’d post some photos of my friend Lily’s wedding that I went to on June 11, 2005 and blogged about that weekend. (See 6-12-05 entry, 2 Burgers; But Hold the Patties, Part II.) She’s such a beautiful bride. I wanted to post photos as a supplement on that entry, but no one goes back to read an old entry, so here we go.
Kind of the quintessential bride and groom look. Congrats to the good doctors.