cindy's world

One day in March last year, I was given a pod by my parents. It was unremarkable except for its large size. I kept waiting and waiting for it to ripen, drooling at the thought of a creamy avocado of this size, nearly 6 inches in length and maybe 4 inches across. I remember it being very heavy. Little did I know then, that this avocado would never ripen, but instead housed a healthy bouncing baby boy for me to love!

The boy came out in a C-section. I’m sorry to say that the pod was inedible. Hard as a rubber ball, it was. But the boy became right at home up on my desk in a little cup of water. People came by to marvel at it, to question its identity, but most of all, to say stuff like, “That’s gross! You should throw it away! I think it’s MOLDING!” But I always had faith, so on the edge of the desk it continued to sit, making friends with the Lucky Bamboo.

It wasn’t even 3 months later in early June when the boy’s sprouting became indisputable.

People came by and were utterly shocked. “That’s a little avocado tree!” they exclaimed as the leaves were now identifiable. My boy was now taller than his buddy, Lucky Bamboo.

Many envious friends tried to raise their own avocado, but I haven’t heard of anyone else’s success quite like this one. Indeed, the little green plant grew and grew, it seemed that two new leaves popped out the top every other week. My court reporter and I have both noticed that the plant gives off a very positive energy, and yes, both of us sensed that he’s a boy.
Like all boys, they soon outgrow their clothes and shoes. So two weeks after the last photo when the little avocado plant was 3 months old, we nervously and excitedly gave him a new outfit, hoping he doesn’t go into shock and wilt.

Aww, lookit the little guy! My bailiff brought in potting soil, my gym trainee brought in the cute pot, and potted him. Now, more people were coming in and making astounded statements about the plant. “It’s a TREE now!” they said. Before the avocado was repotted, I’d offered him to a bailiff who had 3 expensive avocado saplings die on him. He said with a high-fallutin’ scoff, “I don’t want your little weed.” Who’re you calling a weed NOW?!

Here, my little avocado tree is 11 months old, and has stopped growing new leaves on top. I haven’t seen any new growth for a few weeks now, so clearly he’s outgrown this pot, too. The question is whether to put him into the ground somewhere, or to put him in a bigger pot. I think he could use a bigger pot just to get a little stronger before he’s exposed to the cruel elements outdoors. After all, he has been terribly spoiled so far. He’s never been outdoors and the only “raw” element he’s been exposed to was sunshine filtered through a window. He sits with me on the weekdays, where I water him with drinking water as needed and my court reporter comes up to him and nuzzles his green leaves with her nose as she smiles and puts her arms around him. My trainee pops in here and there and plumps up his ego by exclaiming, “It’s a shade tree now!” and smiling as she stands underneath its spread leaves, which appears to spread wider to provide her adequate shade from the overhead flourescent lights.

Yesterday, I received an email from a retired coworker, canceling her weekly lunch with us. The tone of her email seemed a little bummed to me, so I replied to her email asking her about it. She wrote back that I was perceptive, that she was indeed in a sort of “funk,” and that she was “Just waiting for spring to show up so I can start planting my garden and my hanging baskets.. The nurseries have no seedlings to plant as they are waiting for warmer weather also.” Are you thinking what I was thinking?

I responded, “Would you like a baby avocado tree to love? He’s very sweet, and I raised him from the seed stage in a plastic cup. He’s now almost 3 ft high and straight with big happy leaves, ready to be repotted. (I’d understand if you turn him down; I hear avocados are big trees and some people don’t have the yard room, like me.)”

Her response: “I’ll take your baby from you if you really don’t want him and I will understand if you do not want to part with him. Thank you for your sweet offer.”

Me: “I’ll miss him as he’s become our courtroom mascot and shade tree, but he needs some place to stretch and I’m unable to provide that. I’ll know he’s in a good home if you take him!” So she’s gonna stop by this Friday for a meet-n-greet with my little green boy.

I’m all of a sudden getting separation anxiety! The plant has become a fixture in the courtroom in the past 11 months. But I know that he’ll get lots of loving care from her, and may soon forget me, his first mommy.

Rest mouse pointer over photos for captions. I apologize for looking crappy today and not having my face or hair done. I did not expect to have my picture taken, and therefore rushed to work with my hair wet. You can tell my eyes are all red from all the incessant coughing.

As an immigrant, I had the opportunity to be heard as to my chosen English first name. Well, not initially. A non-English speaker at the tender age of 6, I remember standing in the social security registration line with my mother. “We’re going to call you Sing,” she said in Mandarin. “That way it sounds kind of like the middle character of your Chinese name. Is that okay? You like that name?” I really had no opinion as to the name. The English sound “Sing” was unfamiliar to me, so I just agreed. And so, that’s how I was registered in this country. Some days later, in the waiting room of a doctor’s office (I think I was there to be immunized), my mother and aunt Jessica were discussing my translated name. My aunt asked if I liked it. I again nodded, simply because I didn’t have an opinion. She then told me what “Sing” meant. Dude, it wasn’t even a noun! It was a verb! I protested the name then. Like that mattered. The full translation of my Chinese name into the registered legal English version isn’t even something I can pronounce to this day.

Apparently it wasn’t something a lot of people could pronounce. First through second grade, the name just became ammunition for me to be teased. As if kids pulling their eyelids out into narrow slants and saying to me, “ching chong chang chone” and throwing sand at my face weren’t enough. Now they could encircle me and chant, “Sing…sing a song…sing along…” which I guess was a popular song on the radio that year, unfortunately for me. I don’t remember what kind of a fuss I made regarding my name, except that whatever I did, my mom finally agreed to give me an a.k.a. to use in school aside from my legal translated “English” name, the full thing of which I haven’t told you guys and which the teachers struggled to say when calling roll. My mom suggested “Jean,” because that sounded somewhat like the 3rd character in my Chinese name. I readily agreed to that. Finally, a real name! One which didn’t have a dictionary definition! My mother wrote a note to my 2nd grade teacher, informing her of the name change and asking her to please start referring to me as Jean immediately. My teacher made a brief announcement of my name in front of the class (to the bewilderment of the American students, to whom a name change was unheard of), and good-naturedly started calling me Jean. It wasn’t a few weeks later when my family was having dinner with some family friends, and the 2 sons of the other families started making fun of my name. “Jing” in Mandarin means “near,” or “closeness.” The boys said, “Jing. Ta lee wo hun jing.” Roughly translated: “Near. She is very near to me.” And guffawed. The rest of the evening consisted of them making up sentences with “jing.”

The next school day, I handed another note from my mother to my 2nd grade teacher. Miss Lawrence cooperatively started referring to me as Cindy, which I’d picked myself out of a dictionary.

***
Some years ago, I briefly dated a Chinese guy named Arlington. Asian immigrants are kind of known for naming their kids the last names of prestigious (at least prestigous-sounding) Americans, so I wasn’t too weirded out by Arlington. I’d already known a Jackson, a Nelson, a couple of Wilsons, an Edison, and a Rockefeller. (Just kidding about the Rockefeller. There’s probably at least one out there, but I don’t know any.) But I thought I’d ask the origin of his name anyway. He told me that his mother didn’t have a name for him until she was in the delivery room of the hospital. After he was delivered, she asked the doctor to help name him. Her only requirements? The name must start with the letter A because she was in Delivery Room A, and it should sound similar to her other son’s name. The doctor came up with Arlington.

“What’s your brother’s name?” I asked. I mean, what the heck sounds like Arlington?

Apparently, Wellington.

Oh, he also has a younger sister. Her name is Joyce. Joycington? No, just Joyce.

***
Okay, I’ve shared. What’s the origin of your name?

V-day: I went over to Mr. W’s armed with a freshly baked banana creme pie from my favorite bakery. Mr. W worked up a sweat in the kitchen opening containers of BBQ babyback pork ribs and roasted whole chicken from Costco. Oh, and he also made mashed potatoes, and by “made,” I mean he dispensed hot water over potato powder and stirred it up. And he made salad, and by “made,” I mean he opened the Costco container and poured the pre-tossed salad greens into a big serving bowl. Dinner was delish; both teenage kids were home but they opted out on the banana creme pie in favor of Costco rice krispies treats. Kids… Oh, and we went to bed early, like at 9p. No V-day nookie. Mr. W was tired. I’m sure all the slaving away in the kitchen exhausted him. (I’m not complaining — I didn’t cook, either.)

Work: Today we did our first civil harassment hearing. It went okay. The plaintiff got his restraining order granted against a chick who’s stalking him. She didn’t show up. Later on in the day, I was reviewing a future harassment hearing. A woman is requesting a restraining order against another woman. The defendant is accused of following the plaintiff around in her car, calling and cussing her out, threatening her, throwing rocks at her house, breaking her car window and her brother’s car window. Seemed pretty crazy, until I read what the plaintiff put in the question about “How do you know the person you want the restraining order against? Please explain.” The plaintiff wrote, “I dated her husband.” Well, hellO!

Bellydancing: Nothing remarkable. Nothing eventful. I felt clumsy but picked up on the routine as we went. At the end of class, as we stood in a big circle holding hands and spent a minute to give silent thanks for the things we are grateful for this day (this is how we end every class with this instructor), I went thru my usual list of being grateful for my health, for being able to take a dance class, for the health of my family and friends, and added to it gratitude for having Mr. W in my life and for my closeness with my friends, especially my girlfriends, even the ones who live far, far away. And for my car.

Relationship: I had a sit-down with an acquaintance over a quick meal of Daphne’s Greek food. She told me about a guy she’s been dating. Unfortunately for her, “dating” describes the relationship less accurately than “booty call.” The guy calls her up maybe once or twice a month. They don’t socialize outside of each others’ houses. When she invites him to do something with her and her friends, he comes up with some excuse and turns her down. He never invites her to events with his friends. He claims to be busy every weekend with his buddies. They don’t plan dates in advance; he just calls to see if she’s available, like, “right now.” He was nowhere to be found on Valentine’s Day, her birthday, and went MIA November through December (Thanksgiving, xmas, New Year’s). She has to think twice before calling him because she was the last one who called and invited him to do something, so now it was “his turn” so that she doesn’t scare him off by being too forward or pushy. She’s on eggshells when it comes to wondering when she’d next see him again. She has to be careful what she says around him in case he finds she’s getting too attached and backs away from her. She’s floored when he’s nice to her, like kissing her goodnight and being sweet for a whole evening. It’s awful!
I remember when I was in her situation, back when I either didn’t know better and didn’t recognize the signs early enough, or when I didn’t have a high enough self-esteem, or when I had tolerance for lame men. I don’t know what my problem was. It sucked, being nervous and afraid to call, afraid to ask but wondering whether he was seeing someone else, sleeping with other girls, because he sure doesn’t act committed to me. Wanting to welcome him by throwing my arms around his neck but afraid that would scare him off. Wanting to put my hand on his thigh, and after finally finding the courage to do so, feeling him not only not reciprocate, but stiffen under my touch. Always second-guessing, second-guessing. He didn’t call today, did I scare him off? What might I have said or done wrong yesterday to make him back off? Now I have to back off to make it okay for him to come forward. Pretend I don’t care for him as I do. Pretend he’s not important like he is. Altho the 2 guys who made me feel like this (well, mainly just one, the other one wasn’t nearly as bad) both decided they wanted to be with me and in the end it was I who left them, having gotten just exhausted from the stress, I would never again put up with this bullcrap as long as I did before. The way I see it now, I am worth more than that. If you don’t like me enough to do something about it, you’re just gonna have to miss your chance. You can admire my ass as I leave you behind. Both guys learned that the hard way, and they came running, but I was not going to be at someone’s emotional beck and call anymore.
I knew the truth, and didn’t want to tell the girl, but the truth is, he’s only with her when nothing else better comes along for the evening. He won’t even commit an evening in advance to her because just about anything else is a better option to him than her. He’s probably dating and sleeping with other women. He knows she’s that into him, he’s just playing dumb so he won’t feel responsible for breaking her heart. He’s spending all his holidays and his own birthday with people he places more importance on than her. She says they’ve made a little progress in the past year, but if it takes that long for just “a little progress,” he does not and may never like her enough. He has no respect for her and her time because she is always available to him, and she cancels her plans for him, altho he does not reciprocate in kind. She will always be #2.
I called Mr. W after talking with this girl, and dumped a bunch of love in his lap over the phone. I am so glad I am with him. I am so glad he didn’t play stupid games with me, to “keep her on her toes.” I am so glad that whatever affection I feel for him, I can give to him, and he will drink it all up with open arms and give me a kiss in return. There is no second-guessing myself, what I mean to him, how he has taken something I said or did, and no “uh-oh, I may have accidentally crossed the line when I said I like him, he’s suddenly quiet and withdrawn.” There is no substitute for peace. I am most grateful that he saw he has what I needed, and convinced me to try him on for size. I may never take him off.

I feel bad that the last 6 consecutive entries were about me whining over how sick I am, so I thought I’d put something that may be of more interest out there. An early lesson about walking in someone’s shoes. Or something like that.

In 5th grade, our school put on a Christmas production that involved a choir, some acting, some instrument playing. I think it was a musical or a play about a poor musician who, through divine inspiration, wrote some great Christmas music and made the king or Bishop or someone happy, thereby saving himself from starvation. All our chorus music was in Latin. Since I was sort of the student pianist prodigy (I’m not saying I deserved the reputation), I was pulled out of Honors Chorus for the play to do the keyboarding part of the production. My 5th grade teacher, Mrs. C, was doing much of the direction and musical arrangement.

The pieces were difficult, I just remember something about playing the part of a donkey on the keyboard which was put on an “oboe” setting. I struggled through many rehearsals, but I attended them all.

The day of the concert came. In class, we were working on some assignment quietly when I noticed a gnawing discomfort in my stomach. I ignored it for awhile, but finally decided to ask to see the nurse. I walked up to Mrs. C, who was sitting at a desk at the front of the class, writing something. I waited to be acknowledged. She didn’t look up. Finally, I said in a small voice, “Mrs. C?” She ignored me. I waited again. “Mrs. C?” Nothing. I just started talking. “I don’t feel too good. My stomach hurts. Can I go see the nurse?” She didn’t look up. “Mrs. C?”

Finally, she looked up at me angrily. I don’t remember what she started off saying because I didn’t understand her, and was only aware that the sharpness of her voice caused other students close to the front of the room to look up in surprise. I finally caught on when she was saying, “…and all of us have been practicing our parts for all of these weeks, and now you’re telling us you can’t do the part! Now that’s not very fair to me or to any of the other kids, now, is it?!” I took a step back. “It’s NOT fair, is it?” she insisted. I obediently shook my head and whispered, “No.” Mrs. C gave a huff of frustration and looked back down at her work on her desk, signaling me that this conversation was now over. I went back to my desk, bewildered.

I went home after school and told my mom my confusion. She didn’t know what I was talking about, and made me attend the concert that night anyway. I saw that Mrs. C was doing the keyboarding part, looking angry and tense. I took my place with the choir and sang the part I’d always sung before I was assigned the keyboarding part. I wondered if Mrs. C was wondering why I was there since she believed I’d said I wouldn’t be attending, but she never met my eyes.

Some time later, my mother told me a secret she’d either heard on the news or through her work with a County child abuse agency. “Remember when your teacher snapped at you and you didn’t know why? Don’t tell anyone in school because no one is supposed to know this, but her husband is a coach at the high school, and he was caught in his car doing things with a male student of his. It happened around the time she yelled at you. So she’s going through some problems at home, just don’t let it bother you and understand that people sometimes have their own difficulties that you may not be aware of.”

I still don’t like her.

I went to Mr. W’s yesterday after work to be pampered. He fed me (yes, literally, like I were a small child) a tablespoon of Robitussin DM, and handed me 2 Tylenols for the fever with some water. The first Tylenol stung like hell on the way down. I was going to make some chicken broth rice, but he heated me up some Campbell’s chicken soup. Before bed, he pointed to a bottle of Nyquil and suddenly, I was taken back to age 6…
~
My mom was sick and someone had recommended Nyquil to her. She took the recommended adult dosage (I should note here that she was 105 lbs), and my parents and I sat in the living room that evening, watching TV. My mom kept complaining about how her stomach was burning from the Nyquil, then finally, she said, “I feel horrible! It’s like someone has lit a fire underneath my stomach! I’m going to go lie down.” She got up, walked around us toward their bedroom. Suddenly from behind me, I heard a thump. I looked over the back of the sofa to see that my mom had collapsed, unconscious. I panicked. “Mama died! Waaaah!!!” I cried. My dad hurried to her side, picked her up and put her to bed. I never touched Nyquil for that reason.
~
Last nite, as I eyed the bottle, the promise of a drug-induced sleep was too tempting. I pulled the measuring cup off the top of the Nyquil cap, read the back of the bottle which advised me to take 2 tablespoons of the stuff, looked at the lines drawn on the side of the measuring cup, and poured to the line that said “2”. The flavor wasn’t too lethal — it tasted of cherries, if cherries committed suicide by jumping into vats of tar. I settled into bed with the book Eragon, waiting for drowsiness to overtake me.

60 pages later, with a nose stuffed so tightly that I couldn’t even swallow the pools of saliva that form from having to breathe out of my mouth, I gave up and turned off the light. I laid on my side, hoping to relieve some pressure from the nostril on top, which always worked in my childhood. Thankfully, the top nostril cleared up and I was able to drift into a fitful sleep.

This morning, in the light of day, I again took 2 Tylenols and some Robitussin DM, since that had worked more effectively than the Nyquil yesterday. In taking Robitussin, I read the back of the bottle and ascertained that the proper dosage is 2 teaspoons. I looked around, popped the measuring cup off the Nyquil to take the Robitussin, and looked at the cup. Lines 1 and 2 were labeled TSP (teaspoon), not TBSP (tablespoon)! The medicine cup was supposed to be for the Robitussin, NOT the Nyquil, and because it was on the wrong medicine bottle, I ended up taking only one-third of the recommended dosage of Nyquil! No wonder it didn’t do a thing for me!

I’m still at work today. Everyone’s sick and we’re extremely short on employees. I didn’t want to leave in the middle of jury selection in the complicated trial we’re in right now. But I couldn’t hide my disgruntlement (disgruntledness?) when the attorneys agreed to excuse an Asian male juror because he complained that he’s sick and has a painful scratchy throat, a cough, isn’t sure if he could talk, and HAD to go see the doctor immediately. I said I could put that juror’s symptoms to shame. My judge said, “I was going to make a joke about telling you to stop getting so close to our jurors when you go out there to talk to them.”

Wimps.

My senior year in high school, I was heavily addicted to online chat boards, or BBSes (bulletin board systems). There were 6 or 7 of us in my high school who frequented the same board. It started with a board called Liberty which was based out of Anaheim, and then a spin-off board, Liberty Junior. Before the days of global worldwide web popularity, these boards were one of the few ways we could get e-mail accounts. A user of the board could leave a typed message for another user that would appear when the 2nd person next logs on.

One day, I received an email from a user name I didn’t recognize. He said he went to school with me, has admired me for some time, and signed on to the board Liberty, Jr. because he overheard me talking to Mr. Cook about it one day. Of course when you discover you’re being watched and admired, you start dressing better. I happened to have a presentation in 2nd period Economics so I had to dress up for that, and another day my club was doing officers/board members photos, so I was dolled up for that, too. At the end of the week I received another email. He wanted to compliment me for looking pretty that day, in fact he noticed I looked nice all week, and said that he saw that I go see Mr. Cook a lot.

Okay, so that ruled out the possibility that the admirer is a joke from some people I know from the BBS; clearly this was someone who did attend my high school, with whom I regularly cross paths. My 2nd period Economics classroom is right next door to Mr. Cook’s classroom, so sometimes after 2nd period, I’d walk next door and spend 10 minutes hanging out with Mr. Cook (with whom I had Cultural World History Honors in 9th grade and AP US History in 11th grade). I’d only started visiting him with more frequency at the time because he also jumped on Liberty, Jr. one day while I was online and wanted to mess with the heads of other users in the chat room by making random claims about me. I wouldn’t play along and he told me in an online whisper (where no one else but me can read the message) to “loosen up.” I have never forgotten that an adult who teaches advanced high school classes told ME to loosen up. But anyway, that was why I started talking to Mr. Cook during brunch, a 20 minute break between 2nd and 3rd period.

That week, one of my visits to Mr. Cook entailed my bringing the printed email string between me and this admirer, and asking him if that’s him playing some joke on me. He looked at it, chuckled and said earnestly that no, it’s not him. He promised me with a boyscout hand in the air. I went back and forth with him about who he thought it could be, considering this is someone who knows I come in. Mr. Cook teaches an 11th grade history class for 2nd period, and there were some people I knew there from other mixed-level classes.

That evening or soon thereafter, I was online at Liberty, Jr. the same time the admirer logged online! Finally, an opportunity for live chat. He said he thought I was cute, and had overheard a conversation I had with Mr. Cook about this board, so he came online to see if he could get to know me better through the board. He says I do know him in real life. I asked what race he was, and he said “Caucasian.” That seriously narrowed it down to only TWO people, a good-humored 11th grader jock named Blake in my German class, who was in Mr. Cook’s 2nd period history class and may have seen me come in during brunch; and an intellectual-type senior named Sean who was in my 2nd period Economics class, with whom I’d also had a ton of honors classes in the past (a couple of which included Mr. Cook’s classes). I figured it was more likely to be Sean.

I went to Mr. Cook again the next day with my guess. He shrugged and said, “It may be.” I also went to childhood friend Sandy, who was a friend of Sean’s. Sandy informed me that Sean has an Asian fetish, and said, “With Sean, if you’re Asian, anything is possible.”

So starting immediately, I payed a little bit more attention to Sean, just to see what would happen. He was always polite in his responses, but nothing to clue me in that he had any non-ordinary feelings about me. But in visiting Mr. Cook again, this time he said “I don’t think it’s Sean.” He didn’t say why not. I don’t even remember whether I asked. I talked to Sandy again, too. She told me the same thing. “Ya know, I don’t know… I don’t think it’s Sean.” What the…? Did Sean say something to purposely throw people off the scent? If it were me trying to throw people off, I’d say something derogatory about the person I’m interested in, or talk about a new interest who’s not that person. I wondered if he did that, too. I’d also made more of an effort to small-talk Blake in German, and altho he was a nice kid, I didn’t get any major affection vibes.

I was on my own to draw the admirer out now. My only sure contact with him was through Liberty, Jr. So I logged on that night and wrote him an email. Something to the effect of, “I’ve been so depressed lately. It seems like I’m alone and no one cares, and I wonder if people would even notice if I’m missing. There are so many unhappy things going on and no one I can talk to, that I feel like the only way to end all the pain is to kill myself.” There! Ingenius! Surely anyone with a crush on me would immediately offer himself to my assistance, he wouldn’t let the object of his affections just fall off the face of the earth when she’s crying out to him for help, right? (Okay, guys, I was only 17 at the time, I didn’t claim to be a genius.)

I waited eagerly for a day. The email response came back. There were some words meant to console me about how things work themselves out, and the email ended with, “…but if you’re so troubled you feel like you want to kill yourself, you should find an adult you trust and talk to them, or talk to a professional counselor.” What?! Where’s my phone number? Where’s the “here’s who I am, this sounds serious, call me and meet me at the park”?

I printed that email out and showed it to Mr. Cook the next day. He laughed at me. I never heard from the admirer again. To this day I have no idea who it was. I’ve had fantasies that maybe at a future high school reunion, this guy would walk up to me and confess, now that it’s all over and no one cares anymore.

…And that’s how you effectively scare someone off, boys and girls.

When I step into the hot rain of the shower and close the door behind me, I enter some kind of free mind zone and all sorts of random thoughts and memories swirl around me with the steam. I do some of my best thinking in there and while putting on my makeup in the mornings. I’m open to lots of stuff, nearly to the point of clairvoyance. This morning, I had memories of high school.

In 11th grade AP US History, our teacher Mr. Cook stood at the podium telling us what to study for our upcoming midterm, as the class took notes as fast as our adolescent fingers would allow motion (which, if you’ve ever been an adolescent, you know is pretty darn fast, wink wink). “Chapter 6, Roosevelt and the Threat of War, scan that. Also scan the Study Question section of that chapter. Chapter 7, section 1.5, scan that.” And so he went on.
Finally, shaking my hand in pain, I paused and asked him, “Wait — do you mean scan or skim?” Cuz I was NOT about to read that much crap and memorize the big list he was giving us if I didn’t have to.
Mr. Cook looked over at me silently like he was evaluating what level of moronity I had dropped to. “It’s the same thing,” he said, and seemed to visibly fight the urge to end his statement with “duh!”.
“No it’s not, scan is to read over something carefully for the details and skim is to just look it over really fast.”
Mr. Cook stared at me another moment, expressionless. One of the most popular guys in our year, a scholar athlete who just happened to be in my AP History class, yelled out impatiently, “Who cares?!”
“Well, I don’t want to read and memorize pages and pages of material if he meant we only had to skim them!” I said. I mean, DUH!
Mr. Cook walked purposefully to the back of the classroom to his desk. He yanked a big red hardback tome off his shelf, presumably a dictionary, and flipped to a page. He looked down and “skimmed” for a few seconds. Then he flipped over another few pages and “skimmed” a different section. He closed the volume, placed it back on his shelf, and walked back to the front of the classroom in the silence of 32 pairs of eyes. He resumed his position behind the podium.
“Chapter 6, Roosevelt and the Threat of War, skim that.”

I have this problem where I can’t throw stuff away. I remember where every little note or memoir came from, and I sit there and reminisce everytime I try to clean the house. I’m running out of room. I don’t know how one person fills an entire house and 6 closets with crap. This past week, I finally gritted my teeth and threw some stuff away. And then I go visit my parents for the weekend and my mom dumps 4 boxes of crap on me. They’re remodeling their entire house so my mom’s doing massive clearing, and figures I attach enough sentimental value to stuff that I’d want to retain every vocab index card I made in high school, every Chinese School exam paper, all my Chinese workbooks, every doodle of dream outfits I drew in elementary school, every hair doodad I ever had (and I grew up in the 80s, so you know about THOSE hair doodads — most of them plastic, many of them fuschia), every funky eraser and cute writing utensil that I collected since I was alive, makeshift ghetto sticker books, a Halloween mask cut-out book. Believe me, being a packrat is not a trait you just suddenly acquire in mid-life, so the 4 boxes are packed just from the first 10 years of my life. I even uncovered my Slam Book and had a good laugh over the entries written in there.

Now there are boxes and boxes in my car as well as in my house. What do I do?!

P.S. The reason I write about this is because I tried to clear some of the clutter by bringing them to work, and now I’m looking helplessly at my work L-desk covered with stuffed animals, a cat sitting with a fishing pole, 15 or so little gumball machine aliens, photos, and newly added from my Christmas Present Collection ’06, a scented flameless candle from Mr. W’s brother and a hamster running on a wheel powered by my typing speed via USB from Mr. W.
*giggle* The hamster is running his little legs off. The wheel is actually making a whirring sound as he races with my fingers.

While driving on the freeway this morning, I saw a large wooden spool with wires or cables wound around it. It was rolling across the freeway. I was in the left-most lane, and the spool rolled from the dividing wall across my lane without being hit by the car in front of me, and I thought, “Whew, I’m safe.” It rolled into the lane to my right, and the moron drove right into it. I watched it break and ricochet in a diagonal beeline directly at my car! There was no avoiding it. I cringed as I heard the “BADA-CLUNK!” I don’t know how many pieces of it hit the right front of my car, or what happened to it after it hit. But I was pissed. I wasn’t going to get out to check my car, so I finished the 35 minute drive home and dreadingly came out to look after I’d parked in the garage.

The damage is small chips into the paint in the right corner bumper, as if someone jabbed a metal pen into it repeatedly, and a scrape around the corner of the bumper. Most of the scrape wiped off, but some light scratches remain. ARGH! I guess I’ll be Zaino-ing my car this weekend with Z5 scratch remover! I hope it comes out!! At least it was in the corner where it could do the least damage. If I had sped up, it would’ve hit the side of my car and probably dented it and left a longer scratch. If I’d slowed down, it would’ve hit across the front of my car and scraped up the length of the front bumper, or worse, bounced up and hit my hood and windshield. So thank heavens for mitigating blessings.

I think the most interesting thing in all this is what happened in my mind as soon as I got over the shock of the impact. I immediately thought to call Mr. W, but I realized my purse was in the back seat so I dropped that idea. Then I thought, “I’m gonna blog this.” Some years ago, when I was having a very rough breakup, I had no energy to go to the gym or to go out and socialize at lunchtime, so I just sat in my car in the parking structure to be alone. Next thing I knew, a public defender getting into his SUV parked to my right opened his door into my car so hard that it shook my car for several seconds. Incredulous, I stepped out of my car and walked around it to him. He looked up at me. “You know you just hit my car, right?” I said, forcing a calmness that was very apparently…well…forced. He played dumb. I almost lost it. I didn’t speak to that public defender for almost a year afterwards. But my point is that after this happened and he pulled out and left to lunch, I sat back in my car and the same thoughts ran through my mind. I wanted to call my significant other and tell him about this. But we were breaking up. So I couldn’t. And the helplessness of not having someone to help shoulder my emotional burden just cracked me and I sat there and cried. That was, of course, before I had a blog.

TurboTiger had recently acquired the new Nintendo Wii video game console after standing hours in line in the cold, cold night. In his recent post, he gave the console pretty rave reviews altho noting that the graphics aren’t much superior to the competition.

The unique thing about the Wii is that instead of pushing buttons and directional joysticks and triggers on a control pad, you actually hold a handle-looking controller and make large swinging motions to get your video game character to take the same action. I was actually getting impressed reading TurboTiger’s gaming experience, until I got to the part of the post where he says his arm’s actually sore from all the gaming action. And then a new thought dawned on me.

Do you find anything ironic in the fact that the success of today’s games is to make an action so advanced that you’re simulating actually DOING the activity in real life (like using “Guitar Hero” guitars and “Donkey Konga” bongos as controllers), and people are shelving out big bucks for this imitation, when THEY CAN DO THE ACTUAL ACTIVITY FOR FREE?! Somewhere, the video game industry is laughing at us. Probably in Japan.

P.S. This reminds me of when GigaPets backfired on me. I was in high school and these little keychain simulated “pets” were all the rage. Remember Tomaguchi or something like that? Anyway, you have these little digital creatures on a tiny console that have living-creature needs. For example, my cat would get hungry, so then you push the button to feed it. Then it’d eat and poop. When you see piles of poop, you gotta push the button to clean it or the cat will get sick from being around its own pixelated feces too long. You also have to train it by throwing a ball of yarn around so it can get some exercise, otherwise its spirits go down and it gets sad and sick. I’d wanted a housecat all my life, but when I lived with my parents, my mom’s allergies made cat ownership impossible. So I got the GigaCat. This cat would wake me up at 3 or 4 in the morning with its little electronic cries because it was hungry or there was too much poop gathering on the screen, or sometimes it’s just lonely and cats are nocturnal and it wants to play. Don’t tell me it didn’t know what time it was, cuz that keychain sucker had a freaking CLOCK function. If I don’t wake up and take care of business, the cat gets really sad and ill in the morning, laying there all skeletal and weak, unresponsive to the yarn and sometimes even to the food. It freaking broke my heart. So I did the good pet owner thing. I fed it, cleaned it, kept it happy, until I couldn’t stand it anymore and, after deciding my mom was right about how much it’d suck to own pets, I let my digital cat die. I think I may have cried. Now that I have Dodo, REAL CATS ARE SO MUCH FREAKING EASIER TO LIVE WITH THAN STUPID DIGITAL CATS! I was sure then, too, that the inventors of these digital pets were papercutting themselves to death rolling around naked in our hard-earned cash laughing at us.