cindy's world

It’s funny that the Chinese tout harmonic balance and yin yang and Taoist internal peace and Confucius’s calm wisdom, and yet we have to deal with the Asian Fatalist Gene. It’s like the Catholic religion honoring virginity and disinheriting man’s built-in desire for pleasures of the flesh. Maybe it can’t be done. Maybe we’re gonna be drama queens. And they’re going to have sex/kids out of wedlock or be interested in young altar boys. Maybe it is inherent that we as homo sapien fight for what we don’t have naturally. Curly-haired people want straight hair. Straight-haired people want curls. Maybe that IS yin yang, to have both sides of the coin in dual existence, juxtaposed and seemingly contradictory, but somehow not.

I gotta figure out the “somehow not” part.

I was chatting with my court reporter about why it is that people respond to certain things a certain way. She suggested that when we are angry or indignant, it is often because something offended our ego. The ego speaks loudly and is selfish, it is the voice that booms, “How dare you do this to me. You hurt me, now I’m gonna do this to you.” She says to listen to the smaller, calm voice that says, “In the large scheme of things, this isn’t a big deal. I’ll bring up that I would’ve appreciated if you did this or that instead, but I’ll listen to and understand where you’re coming from.” If people focused on how they affect other people instead of being offended by how others affect them, she said, think how much more positive everything would be. Instead of saying, “You didn’t give me this present I wanted, you’re thoughtless,” go out and buy the person a present. Then you wouldn’t even have the time to think about what they should give you, or rather, what your ego feels you’re entitled to that they’re falling short on. “The ego makes us very angry, and when we’re angry, we can’t see the truth. They can tell us a perfectly fine explanation, but you’re so wrapped up in ‘you hurt me’ that you can’t accept what they’re saying. It’s like them throwing a rock into water. If the surface is all rippled, you can’t see anything in the water. But once the surface is calm, everything suddenly becomes clear and you can see inside the water.”

I’d never thought about the ego as a separate entity which has the power to muck things up because of its misguided perceptions. But I agree with her. It seems that often when I’m upset, it’s not so much that they did something to truly injure me, but they’ve offended my ego. If I could keep ego out of it, I can respond much better without the anger. If someone did something malicious to me, I can see the person as toxic and simply remove myself from this person’s life. And if someone does something that’s kind of thoughtless but not bad, I don’t have to be angry because there’s no ego saying that I ought to be offended because their actions must mean this or that.

I hope this line of thinking doesn’t turn me into a doormat.

You know there’s something wrong when I’m driving to work with no time to spare, I have more than half a tank of gas left, and I spontaneously pull into the left turn lane upon seeing a gas station offering $2.99/gal gas. While waiting for the left turn light to turn green so I could go into the station, I realized the gas companies have conditioned me to immediately respond to $2.99 as a deal so good I couldn’t pass up despite not even needing gas, when in fact $2.99 is still preposterous. I was so offended at this thoughtless Pavlov responsiveness in me that I didn’t wait for the light to turn, I pulled back into the flow of traffic and was off. Screw you gas CEOs and your “cheap” gas! You’re not gonna trick me to go over there, I don’t even need gas!

Yeah, I’ll probably stop by there and wait in the long lines on my way home this evening.

As much as I can say that vulnerability is a beautiful and essential part of the true intertwining of hearts, and almost believe it when I’m consoling someone else who is the experiencer of this tender and agonizing vulnerability, the truth is that in myself I see it as a weakness. I am proud when I laugh at someone, turn my back to someone, dismiss someone’s feelings because they do not move me. I find few things more frightening than the point of realization that someone else has access to make me feel and do things involuntarily, because when I’m at this point, I perceive the other person as having more control than me over my own feelings. It is at this point where I feel that I’ve given more emotionally than the other person has, that I miss the other person more than he does me, that I think about him more than he does me, that I love the other person more, and shit, he is more important to me than I am to him. This is only the beginning of what can go wrong. If he means so much to me, I’ll put up with his placing me on low priority, as he will because I’m not as important to him. I will be thinking of him and considering him in my decisions as he makes all his decisions based only on what’s convenient for him and what will make him happy. And I will be sacrificed — not only by him, but by myself — to make him smile. To make him love me the way I do him. How pathetic. I really despise myself when I feel I “need” someone. I don’t want to “need”. Every physical thing in my life is controlled by me and I am completely self-sufficient financially, physically, socially. Why is it so hard to keep my heart sovereign?

Jordan’s blog currently features the music video for Mariah Carey’s old hit “Dreamlover.” It was a pleasant surprise to see that video again and hear the music. I was instantly and joyously taken back to summer 1993, reminiscing about:

* flannel shirts tied up around the waist
* short denim shorts that you roll up the cuffs on to make them even shorter
* wide black belts
* long dangly necklaces, especially crystals on cords
* lots of boys around
* taking summer school with my friends at Diamond Bar High
* my senior year best friend, Eric, dancing to this video at Vicky and Karen’s parents’ house
* discovering and becoming obsessively addicted to BBSing
* carefree walks with friends in hot sunny weather to Thrifty’s and the Wherehouse, laughing on the streets
* dancing the Butterfly
* the days when Mariah was skinny

I think that summer may have been the most feel-good summer of my life.

I just happened to catch Mr. W online, very briefly. He shortly arrived at their accomodations in Alaska. He IMed that they’re at Madame’s Manor, which apparently used to be a brothel, and the cab lady told them that the place is haunted (which I found very cool and instantly interested me). He said he was confused as to the sleeping arrangements. 5 minutes after the conversation began, he said he had to go and disappeared. Curious, I googled Madame’s Manor and found that it’s actually a bed & breakfast. I’d always wanted to stay in one, but I guess Mr. W is gonna be in one without me, with his male friend. Looking at the website, it looks more like a honeymooner’s quaint paradise than the accomodations of 2 guy pals going fishing and sight-seeing in Alaska. The photos of all the rooms that you can book through their site show what appears to be a queen bed, no twins or separate sleeping areas in one room. No wonder they’re confused as to the sleeping arrangements. Yesterday, Mr. W had cracked a joke to me alluding to their trip as “Brokeback Mountain,” and that I would know something’s wrong if they didn’t bring back any fish and the fish container remains unopened and unused, which is how Ennis’ wife in Brokeback Mountain figured out that the two men’s annual fishing trips weren’t as innocent as they sounded — she’d placed a note in Ennis’s fish container asking him to please bring back fish for her and their children, and the note went undiscovered and unread for years. I’d laughed off Mr. W’s reference to Brokeback and joked back that he needs to remember to bring the lube, but looking at this website now, it really puts a different spin on things. =P

I am tracking Mr. W’s flight online. I get on the airline’s web page and go to Flight Status. After entering the flight number, it displayed that his flight took off 9 minutes ahead of schedule, and that its ETA (estimated time of arrival) is 10 minutes earlier than scheduled. I click on the ETA link and it gives me a real-time diagram/map of the flight route, and a plane drawing of where his flight currently is, with the status that he is currently going at a speed of 430 knots, with an altitude of 40,000 feet.

The internet is SO cool.

I just enrolled in belly dancing over the phone! Yay! The course description reads:

Feel alive and happy. Have fun body toning in a feminine way! Bless the goddess within. Belly dancing helps to develop grace, rhythm, poise and fitness. Choreography, veil work, and hip patterns are all part of the class. Wear comfortable clothing to class.

“Veil work.” How interesting! I can’t wait! First class is next Wednesday. It’s not one of my goals to take on a dancing class before I’m 30, but maybe I’ll use that to replace surfing. I’d been itching for the past several months to do some kind of performance arts.

My gym trainee is on vacation from work all this week. I’ve seized upon the opportunity to work out really, really hard at lunch, supersetting as many things as possible and not stopping in between sets. I’m upset that I can’t lose 5 lbs to get back int0 the 120s again, and in chatting with Vanessa’s boyfriend over the weekend, he suggested that the intensity of my workouts must’ve changed. He’s totally right. I started training my coworker in September, and that was when the weight gain started. I went from being able to fit in 7 exercises (3 sets each) at lunch to 3-4 exercises, because I have to watch her form and work in with her. She’s shown great results; I got mushy. Yesterday I did 6 exercises and today I did 5, amping up the intensity by not taking breaks and doing heavier weights. But I still haven’t returned to jujitsu. Now I’m scared to. I’ll likely get my clock cleaned all over the mat.

Well, on the brighter side of things exercise class-wise, I’m pretty sure yoga ended altho we didn’t attend the last 2 or 3 classes (Mr. W realized that the way the crazy yoga lady forced the poses was killing his back, on top of making me nauseated), and bellydancing is going to begin the day before my birthday on the 28th. I just need to remember to enroll. Haha. Vanessa already mailed in her application and fee. I think taking a whole new exercise class each year right before my birthday is a good thing. Last year it was jujitsu.

All Mr. W wanted for Father’s Day was to get rid of his kids. His son was already at mom’s, and we dropped off his daughter there also, right before he and I went to meet up with my parents and maternal grandmother at Sam Woo Restaurant for Chinese seafood. Mr. W never had Chinese seafood before, so I treated the most exotic stuff they had on the menu. Jellyfish, shark fin soup, sea cucumber, among some of the more normal stuff, Chinese broccoli, pepper beef, clams, steamed fresh whole fish. Mr. W was at first hesitant to try the sea cucumbers (sauteed in baby bok choy and shitake mushrooms), remembering them from when he used to scuba dive, but gave in and enjoyed them after I said, “Oh, come on! You ate a live worm in Peru!” One of my and my parents’ favorite things about Mr. W is his willingness to try new and different stuff. He doesn’t have to like them, but at least this way he knows for sure whether or not he likes something.

As we were drinking our dessert soups, my mom and dad had a conversation in Mandarin about what the first thing is that my dad’s going to do as soon as he gets home. Then they turned to Mr. W and my mom said, “See, after 30 years of marriage, I know him so well that I know what he’s going to do as soon as he gets home, and he only has to say one word and I already know what he’s thinking.” My dad, addressing Mr. W and not my mom, said, “After 30 years of marriage, I’ve learned to just let her think she knows me and that she’s right. It’s easier just to make her happy.” My mom again addressed Mr. W without looking at my dad, “I’m just pretending to be happy to make things easier, so he thinks he’s successful at making me happy.”

My parents are such goofballs.