cindy's world

I just started research for my book today (meaning Sunday). Wow, am I in over my head. 5 weeks is definitely too ambitious, unless I break it up into volumes. The difficulty is that all the background information I gathered today was in Chinese, so I needed my dad to translate. His English isn’t that great, so we sat there with a Chinese-English dictionary between us, plus his reference materials and artifacts written in Chinese, and struggled. I can say that my dad has a lot more patience than I do. I learned a lot, and most of all, I learned just how little I know. Looks like I’ll have to gather objective background historial information on my own during the week, get the subjective versions on the weekends from my relatives, and piece the story together sometime in the future.

I am nervous about the reception of this book. I am protected under the US Constitution for free speech, but I don’t know how the Asian underground works for things like this. I don’t want to get shot. I may be forever banned from setting foot in China, but it’s not like I’ve ever been there anyway. Asians are sensitive about their history in regards to each other, and I’m about to write negative things about the Chinese Communists and the Japanese.

I’m actually really surprised I’ve never heard these family stories before. I wonder if the family was emotionally scarred by all of our political history.

“Friends” was playing on DVD when I put my nose into the little glass sugar bowl. (Don’t ask.) Right then, Chandler said something funny and I laughed, blowing sugar all over my face and the front of my body.

Little girls are made of sugar n’ spice n’ everything nice.

… Perhaps I should go get ready for dinner with my parents and cousins’ family now.

How bored does someone have to be to drink the remainder of a bottle of cough syrup? By remainder, I mean roughly 2.5 tablespoons (7.5 teaspoons). I’ve decided I need to cut back on alcohol, since I don’t like the way my stomach is starting to look. Not that I drink much. So maybe it’s all in my head that the 3 drinks I had this week are sitting on my stomach. I wonder how many calories are in cough syrup.

Man, I’m losing it. I think it’s cabin fever. As soon as my load is out of the dryer I’m hittin’ the gym.

I’ve already had two very nice conversations today. The first was a 1.5 hr phone conversation with someone I hadn’t really talked to before. He instantly “got” my sense of humor, responded with his own, and pretty much anywhere the conversation reached, he was able to follow and/or lead. That was great! I like talking to smart people. He also had this uncanny way of tapping right into the heart of certain personal issues that I don’t even acknowledge to myself. They’re theories I’ve reached and then locked away about why I react a certain way to certain things, but nothing I’d ever admitted aloud. But he just jumped right into them. “You do y? Did x ever happen to you in your developmental age?” Uh…why, yes.

The second with was an old friend. I’ve known this guy since we were 12. I was sitting like a lazy slob on my couch watching some Lifetime movie about a woman who had an affair with her best friend’s 18 yr-old son (played by Brian Austin Green), and the phone rang. “Where do you live again?” my friend asked. He was minutes away. ACK! I ended up meeting him at Jamba Juice in Brea and we drove over to BJs Pizzeria to chat under full-blasting AC. I hadn’t seen this guy forever, since he moved to Northern Cali when his company offered him some ridiculous 250% raise and a promotion. The first thing he said when I walked up to him was, “What are you, living at the gym now?” Huh? I looked down at my attire, Happy Bunny t-shirt, short skort, heely sandals. This doesn’t pass as a workout outfit, does it? “You look great!” he announced. Oh! You always get brownie points for that kind of opener. We had a good 1+ hr chat about our lives, our investments, our properties, before he had to jam to Pasadena to compete as a blackbelt in a karate tournament.

Friday turned out to be a salvaged day. I went from this in the morning…

Bailiff: I just want to compliment you on the way you look today. Nice outfit, your hair, your makeup…
Me: Thanks, but what’s the point? I mean, really. What’s the point.

…to lots of fun at work, lots of laughing, a tad of drama between men, and a good time at Outback during happy hour after work. I finally met someone that I’ve heard my coworkers refer to for years. I would’ve never imagined that she’s physically the real-live version of Fran Drescher (not that Fran isn’t alive), except sans annoying accent. Hey, turns out that the Outback makes a caramel apple martini (not on their menu, but made at my request) as identical to the one from Downtown Disney’s UVA bar as I can tell.

I woke up feeling pretty crappy, too. On my drive to work, I called the college roommate for some perspective. Talking to someone on the same wavelength as me, who knows everything I’d gone thru and understands how I feel responsively without having to be told and explained to, really makes a difference. I’m still not yippy skippy, but we did laugh heartily and I did come into work with less density in the cumulonimbus clouds hanging over me. I ate a Dove chocolate when I got in just to see what the fortune would tell me. It says “Laugh uncontrollably…it clears the mind.”

All right, I admit it. I’m bummed. And I learned a little something about lasagne, too. Don’t experiment the day you’re gonna serve 15 people, go with the tried and true. Don’t add water. They were nice about it, but I feel like I need to redeem myself.

I was laughing at myself talking on the phone w/my college roommate earlier. I thought I just got off the emotional roller coaster, and now I look around and I’m in the car of a coaster again. How? When? But here I am.

Today, I’ve already ridden over Insecure Hill, did Disappointment Loop, and now I’m just at Angry Plummet.

There I was, relatively unaffected by the people around me and thus in full emotional balance. And then my subconscious decided to go and smack me with another vivid dream. I woke up this morning, bleary-eyed and colored with the faint blush of romance…and realized it was a dream. Oh, come on!

Married Guy (see 7-30-05 post “TOO Friendly?“): Cindy’s gonna lead the class on the warm-up throws.
Me: No I’m not, stop putting words in my mouth!
(This continues for the next few minutes, in which Married Guy “vouches” that I’d expressed desire to lead the throws.)
Blackbelt: Cindy, you’re gonna lead the throws?
Me: No I’m not. Don’t listen to [Married Guy]. A couple of weeks ago he told [Creepy Guy] (see 6-27-05 entry “1st Day of Jujitsu“) something about me claiming to be [Creepy Guy]’s girlfriend, and he would not let it go!
Blackbelt: [chuckling] [Creepy Guy]’s…got a lot to offer…
(The instructor and I made eye contact, and he started smiling, watching me for my reaction, which was to bite my tongue with visible difficulty in self-restraint.)

(Later, as the New Girl led the class on throws and the Blackbelt was next to follow her, she did a back fall, back roll over right shoulder, back fall, back roll over left shoulder. At least, she twice attempted the back roll over her left shoulder and failed twice. Finally she gave up.)
Josh: (jokingly) We’re following [the New Girl]’s lead, right?
Blackbelt: Yes. You have to do it exactly the way she did it. (He then proceeded to do the back fall but did some fancy lift-up back roll instead of rolling over his shoulder.)
Me: That is so not how she did it!
Blackbelt: Are you giving me a hard time? Why’re you picking on me?
Married Guy: She’s picking on you because she likes you.
Me: [Married Guy], stop putting words in my mouth!
Blackbelt: I have a lot to offer, too.
Me: (after hesitation) We’ll see.
Married Guy: See, she likes you. She wants to see what you have to offer.
Me: Stop it! Stop causing trouble!

(still later, during floorwork warm-ups, where we do a lot of verbal goofing off w/the instructor)
Instructor: You guys are all coming in tomorrow, right? Wear your street clothes. We’re not going to work out. We’re going to have a potluck and a movie. The girls are gonna wear grass skirts.
Me: And that’s it.
Random Student: I’m gonna bring a weed whacker.

Had a great time laughing in class, as usual, in-between obtaining new bruises. Too bad tomorrow’s the last day for the semester. The antics are fun, albeit very sophomoric. Wait. Isn’t that what my horoscope warned me against doing today? Oh well, too late now.

Can I write a book in 5 weeks? That’s rather an ambitious project. But I really feel I can.

On my drive to work this morning, the thought hit me that if I don’t write this stuff soon, I will start losing people who’d want to read it. I’m not predicting the mortality of the people around me, but time is a slippery little sucker. My 10-yr high school reunion just came and went last October. It’s been 7 years since I graduated college, altho it feels like 2. Really, how long can I be pregnant before I give birth? I’ve already procrastinated 7 years.

I feel I’m right on the verge of something. I know what I’m going to write, it’s going to take some collaborative effort from my parents and I’m going to do quite some research, but the story is perfect. The Asian American market can’t criticize me for not knowing what I’m talking about, because it is my story. I have historical figures in the family who will make appearances in the book and that will be verifiable if other people want to research it, and it gives me a marketable edge.

It’s time to bring that dream to fruition. It’s time to hit that rare, fleeting Asian American immigrant literature niche and leave my mark in history. I just responded to an email from my mom, telling her about my ambitious project. She’d be supportive and helpful; she’s published a few pieces in a Chinese newspaper herself. I was born in the Week of Impasse, but mom was born in the Cusp of Magic.