bowl-o-blau

Afternoon

Time seems like a roll of toilet paper nowadays: the more you have, the more you feel like you can squander. There’s always some shit you have to deal with, but its always a matter of how you can get it done with what you’ve got. But time is the enemy right now: the illusion of extra rolls of toilet paper in the cabinet, or an over-abundance of that terrible and unusable Cottonelle brand that shreds and makes a nasty mess — I’m just not quite sure of how much I have left. So right now, I’m trying to make the most of it:

I’m going to the California Academy of Sciences with my dad.

…

The thing is, both of my parents grew up as orphans. My mother’s parents died before she was even 10 years old, and my father carries the burden of having watched his mother pass away when he was just a teenager. I feel incredibly lucky, by comparison. Don’t take it for granted, I tell myself. However, there’s always that feeling of responsibility: to justify their past with my future, to resolve the family legacy, to somehow rectify those unspeakable tragedies; to make it all seem worth it, in the end. Because, ultimately, everything must have a purpose.

Screw it. Not today, though… just. not. today.

The Academy of Sciences is nearby in Golden Gate Park. We’ve both been there since it reopened — its only a 15-minute walk from our house — its just that we’ve never had the time to go together. We make our way through the museum and hit up our favorite spots, just sort of reminiscing about how it all was before the recent renovation while commenting about the new additions:

“That was cool.” “This is neat.” “I sort of like this.”

Then we reach my favorite exhibit: Claude, the albino alligator. I like this guy — I mean, there he is, with his white artichoke set leg-and-body plates, just sort of quietly enduring his exhausting solitude. But suddenly, some guy walks in front of us and obstructs our view: he’s wearing a cowboy hat adorned with a cobra head, noisy alligator boots that clank with authority, and he’s even got a cane covered with stretched-out snake scales. Worst of all, there’s that smug look on his face.

He’s definitely that guy who dislikes your favorite youtube video and negs your clever comments just to make you waste your time with bitter, petty hatred. He gets off on animal bestiality, then masturbates into your milk tea; he pisses into your washing machine while your clothes are sloshing around; he uses up a whole roll of toilet paper in one shitting; he’s a bandwagon Giants fan with a whole slew of memorabilia from the championship season; he thinks he’s better than you.

He’s the embodiment of evil. I’m sure I’ll see him again in the future. Because, well… he’s everywhere. But he’s just not worth it.

“Let’s go to my favorite spot,” my dad says.

The rooftop garden.

A short, welcome respite from the memories of his past, and a quiet reprieve from the demands of my future. Usually, time is of the essence; but right now, true essence lies within timelessness.

Right now, I don’t want to think about teaching, or law school, or careers, or saving the world, or whatever.

Right now, in this moment, I just want to spend some time with my dad.

Noon

Wet clothes in the dryer; four quarters in the machine. The ceremony begins!

“Soon!” I tell myself, “Soon, you will begin the rest of your life! The scents of crotch rot and armpit stains are yesterday’s news! The future is filled with warm socks and clean underwear! Everything will smell like Tide with a touch of Downy! Soon, the cycle will end!”

Watch til it ends! Watch til it ends…

Morning

When you graduate, you’ve got this list of amazing stuff that you expect to do: travel the world, go on a cruise, hike Mt. Whitney —

“22 miles round trip? That’s nothin’. I’m gonna do that shit in a day.”

Today, I’m having breakfast with my dad.

…

In San Francisco, you can’t ever really tell if its early morning or mid-afternoon; there’s just this cloying, ubiquitous blandness. The characteristically foggy weather is like that piece of gum that came with the baseball cards you bought when you were a kid: there’s not much flavor to begin with, but for some reason, you stick it in your mouth and chew on it until its insipid as all hell. You don’t even know why you keep chewing, there’s just a certain, odd, saccharine element to this gum that came with your Matt Williams card.

“Great weather, huh?” my dad says. “Not too hot, not too cold.”

I need a morning. Lately, I’ve kind of felt like an urban raccoon that can’t tell if its night or day; I just sort of wake up and half-consciously rummage through my refuse for something edible. But not today! Because today, there’s going to be a story. And for every story, there’s a beginning. And every day, there’s a morning. And today, well… good fucking morning.

About a block down from my house, there’s a Chinese bakery my dad took me to when I was a kid. That’s where we go, for old time’s sake — or is it new time’s sake? Sure. There’s a Starbucks down the block with those double-shot whateverthefucks and a donut shop in the other direction, but my dad insists on going here.

Now, there isn’t any Coltrane in the background nor is there a welcoming ambience, but its still oddly pleasant. For some reason, my dad always thought it was appropriate to take me here, even though I was the only one who was under forty — hell, under ten years old; it felt like I was Sir Gawain at the Round Table, sipping hot milk tea out of a goblet shaped like a paper cup. This kid? This kid here? He was a part of the discussion. But today, I’m not a kid, nor am I retired — just kind of post-grad.

If you just sit there and listen, you pick up on the unique charms of the Chinese language: its dressed up with accents and tones that always makes it so animated and exciting. However, its also probably the least romantic language you can possibly hear. I’d prove it by trying to pick up some ladies with a Chinese accent, but we already know how that would end.

But anyways, my dad asks me about the job search, and I tell him about an unappealing job offer: low pay, long commute, utterly mundane.

“There’s a saying that people used to have back in China,” he says. “Ride the cow until you find a horse.”

I think back to the time when I told him I wanted to go to art school — most Asian parents would probably blow their lid. But him, he didn’t really say anything. The next day, he bought an easel and placed it in the garage. From that moment on, I always thought that he was smarter/wiser than I’d ever really admit. Still couldn’t figure the whole thing out, to tell you the truth. I always expect some weird Yogi Berraism out of his mouth, like “Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical,” or “I never said most of the things I said.” Huh?

But this one makes sense. Ride the cow. Sure. I guess. Maybe. Maybe not.

Then we move on to the next typical topic of conversation: women. Are you dating anyone? What happened to that other girl? Who was that girl from the other day? Do you still talk to so-and-so?

Nothing interesting going on, I tell him. Well, there was, but right now… not really, nope. He thinks I’m too idealistic about romance. He’s probably right.

“Well, its like I said earlier,” he says. “Sometimes, you just have to ride the —”

“OKAY DAD. I’m just gonna stop you right there.”

TL;DR

Post-grad life is a weird limbo. 

You’re frantically assembling fragments of a 10-page research paper during finals week of your last quarter in academia, then suddenly, you’re in your pajamas trying to think of clever YouTube video comments. You’d watch some random video blog, slide back in your chair and stroke your chin, and then after a long while, you finally think to yourself:

“Wait… what the fuck am I doing?”

There’s certain facets of college life that I sorely miss. One of them is the way a certain 70 year-old poetry professor read Ginsberg’s Howl:

“… with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls…”

I remember him reading the line with that slow, steady, monotonous drawl of his, but then he’d have this deliberate and cacophonic emphasis on “cock” and “balls.” The imagery would jump out at you as you picture a potato-sized crotch in black biker shorts: its this large, disturbing, car-wreck of a mass that demands your attention. And yet, at the same time, its also oddly amusing. You don’t expect to hear a 70 year-old professor say those words in that particular syntax. Its a weird Rorschach test: the black blotch — this crotch that’s been awkwardly crammed in a small pair of biker shorts — is something that you know is supposed to be “cock” and/or “balls,” but it looks like a tiny garbage bag filled with doorknobs, balls of wadded paper, and moldy avocados.

But anyways, that’s how I would describe the cadence of the post-grad life: endless balls. Most people see it as a welcome reprieve from the hectic day-to-day of studying and exams and libraries and books and professors and students and reading and writing and lectures and papers and projects and presentations and meetings and classrooms and schedules… but to me, it doesn’t seem like there’s much charm to it — its sort of this weird, barren, uninviting landscape that extends far beyond the horizon. You’re not really hiking towards a peak, you’re kind of just sifting through nondescript mounds of job offers, practice exams, and all of the random crap that fills your days. You’re incredibly busy, and yet it seems like you didn’t really go anywhere.

It feels like a bookmark placed at a boring chapter within an otherwise wholly entertaining detective novel: you want to keep reading, but you’re sort of just stuck at this particular page. You think about skipping a few pages or skimming it for awhile, but you just know that there’s going to be something significant that you’re going to miss. What winds up happening is that you simply leave the bookmark where its at, and the novel just lies on your desk as it silently but boldly mocks you.

So this is me, whisper-yelling at this book:

“I’m gonna read you, biiiotch!”

A new series of blog posts starts soon… stay tuned.

To Geoff and Marissa

There’s something that people always say about romance novels: from the beginning, you always know who ends up with who — so why bother reading? We even joked about it in a Jane Austen Seminar class because, let’s face it, its the premise of just about every one of her novels. But there’s a reason why we’re so enthralled by these romances, why we keep reading on, why we’re so captivated by the story all the way to the happily ever after and beyond: we love to read about the love, the drama, the hardships, the sacrifices, and the incredible journey that the protagonists experience.

And that’s what its been like. For 11 years, the friends and family of these two have been fortunate enough to witness their relationship evolve from high school sweethearts to husband and wife. From the beginning, it always seemed like they were meant for each other; that somewhere down the road, they’d probably get married, and we’d all high-five and hug each other at the end of the day.

But that doesn’t mean it was always easy. Of course there’d be trials, drama, and the occasional crisis-mode — but that’s what made it so interesting. Real. The romance of their lives wasn’t simply a structure of rose-colored, stained glass windows with pictures from Disney movies, it was built from a foundation of hard work and sincerity that became the paragon of relationships that we all admire.

(Well, okay… maybe there’d be a couple of stained glass windows from The Little Mermaid or something)

It was the relationship that everyone rooted for, that everyone had hoped would one day reach the pinnacle. We’re all just glad that we played the part we were supposed to play…

… however meager or significant it may have been. 

Its been a long journey; a world-spanning adventure that went from Australia to Japan. And finally, here it is:

This is the happily ever after.

This show is super hilarious. Does anybody wonder how the show’s producers find these crazy couponers? Its probably a phone call that sounds a lot like this:

Random Safeway Employee: SOME LADY JUST WALKED INTO THE STORE AND BOUGHT 400 BOXES OF COCOA PUFFS — THE COUPONS BROUGHT THE TOTAL PRICE DOWN TO TWENTY CENTS. WTF JUST HAPPENED.