Damn you, Starbuck's.

Thought I'd warm my Starbuck's in the microwave in the lunchroom. I took off the lid and sleeve first cause...well, I don't know why. Less plastic for the little zappers to get through?

 

I dunno.  It seemed logical in my head.

 

I warmed it for 2 mins on high. Heard the "ding". Opened the door and grabbed the cup...which was kinda wobbly now. "Carefully" slid it out. Didn't notice the little ledge at the entrance. The cup tripped on the ledge and somehow spilled(spilt?) backwards onto my hand.

 

So my hand was burning, with steaming coffee running off of it. But the risk management lady happened to be standing next to me, talking to someone. And she's crazy!! She'll have me in a hospital in 5 minutes  So I couldn't react. Had to play it cool.

 

So I casually grabbed the attendant's cleaning cloth and cleaned up the microwave. With my right hand. Cause my left hand was on damn fire. And the risk management lady was kind of in my way. 

 

I took another cloth and a cup of ice, and hightailed it back to my desk.

That was an hour ago. The tingling is gone now, except for my thumb. So I applied burn cream.

I am sexy, no?

Kegare

"When my dad was alive, I didn't really need to find 'the right man'.  Because I had him."

- Gwyneth Paltrow

The older and occasionally wiser I get, the more often I think back on my life...what I got right, what I got all wrong, what I can't do anymore because my legs just don't bend that way these days.

I've been thinking about my father. A lot.  Constantly, really. I've offered so much sake and oranges to his kamidana that it's sort of redundant now. 

My father never said "I love you."  He never hugged or touched.  He set rules, you followed them. I can still feel the cut on my brow from the force of him hitting me hard enough that I fell down the stairs. Because I said "nevermind" to him. A blatant disrespect. Never said it again.

I knew that his smirks meant "I love you." His years of overtime to buy us a house in a better neighborhood meant "I love you." When I was 6 and asked him to stop drinking beer and smoking with his buddies because I didn't want him to die, and he stopped that day - that was "I love you".  Letting me get in his way while he changed the spark plugs or alternator or whatever the latest old car issue was meant "I love you." He loved me more because only I could call him "Doddee". ("Daddy" in broken English. I called him that until he died.)

The men at that park when I was little. He could have killed them. They bled. And I was happy. 

My father was a protector. He was fearless. And proud and stern. He protected the weak. He was a superhero.  And I realize now that there is no precursor or duplicate.

My mother still talks about how he yelled at the owner of a kanbutsuya because the store was so dirty and unsafe. She says whatever he told them worked. They closed the store for weeks and reopened and never had questionable issue thereafter. 

I carry so much of him in me, and I try to embrace it with honor and respect. Sometimes difficult, since his character was unconditionally patriarchal. And life inside of the box in which I was born makes that a sort of sacrilege. 

Being like him use to embarrass me, but now the realization empowers me. It makes me brave. Or foolish.

I find it harder to forgive transgressions than most. Like him, I can forgive, but what you've done will always play in my head when I think of you. It's impossible to forget. Third chances are out.

A big guy was texting on a phone with a screen the size of my car in a theater last week. He wasn't in my direct line of sight, but the poor folks around him were visibly (but quietly) annoyed, probably afraid feel he would start some crap if they said anything.  So I called him out. Made sure he knew it was me. And advised him that I didn't pay $15 to watch him play with his janky phone. I stared him down. I waited for him to give me something. I actually wanted it. I didn't have a plan, but I wanted the confrontation. I think I wanted to further embarrass him. I imagined him with a bloody nose. And I smiled. 

A few weeks ago, an elderly lady fell on ice while crossing a busy two-way street in Detroit.  I  tripped through the snow on the median and made it to the other side to help her up. She was so embarrassed, as our elders sometimes are when they think they're an inconvenience. Not a single other person jumped out to help. Ever get one of those instant "anger headaches"? I made sure she took her time to get up, asking her to not worry about anything but being careful. And I demanded she let me drive her home. I purposely took forever to rebag her groceries. I glared at every driver. I dared every one who met my eyes to give me one shady, impatient move. I wanted someone...the larger or louder the better...to give me some sign of their inconvenience. Even an eye roll would've set me off. What would I have done? I don't know.  But it would've started with a broken window. .

And the whole time, I kept thinking, "What would Doddee do?"

But I hurt him. I stayed out overnight. And came home smelling like cigarettes. I shamed him. I told him I hated him. I never told him I was sorry for all the nights he stayed up hoping I'd call and say I was alive.

And as I think back on all my recent self-inflicted hardships, because I've allowed people to make me their fool, offer me the mirage of perfect trust, I'm inevitably back to, "what would Doddee do?"  After beating the hell out the man in question, he would turn to me with an expression of great shame for my indiscretion and naiveté.  Again.  

And so I try to appease his kami. I take care of his home here. And I took care of my grandmother (obviously not well enough, but I gained a special sense humility and honor in bathing and feeding and caring for her).  And my mother back home. I kept two jobs to pay for school here alone in the states. I cleaned up my credit. I have a decent career. I'm not living in poverty like we were at first. I'm not living on the street, though I'm sure he thought I was headed in that direction.  He never knew this me. And every day, I wish he could see that I did okay. It's a heavy tsumi I can't seem to erase.

Periods suck.

This is simultaneously heartwarming and sad. Dammit.

Just what I need. A cry fest.

/me collapses and raises her fists to the heavens.

Noooooooooo!

 

Yay! Snow's Melting!

Woot!!

Try

Where there is desire

There is gonna be a flame.

Where there is a flame

Someone's bound to get burned.

----

But just because it burns

Doesn't mean you're gonna die.

You gotta get up and try

And try. And try.

Bento Broccoli

My coworker and I snuck off to the market for lunch.

Gonna start cooking my mom's simple recipes.

But my favorite wok is super old. It's black on the bottom, and I can't scrape it off.

And the bamboo handle's all singed.

It was my father's favorite wok.

My car smells like a vegetable garden. 

Or an Amazon rain forest. 

I'm not sure which.

300: Rise, bitches.

300 sets of abs...oh, lawd!

 

So how hard was it, really, for the chick who plays Artemesia(sp?) in 300: Rise of an Empire (a.k.a., "A Sea of Abs") to accept that role?

 

"Um, yeah...so you'll have to stare at men's abs all day, you'll have to wear what appears to be the ancient Grecian version of badass Chanel gowns for the entire movie, you'll get to boss men around...oh, and you have to do the dirty with the hot leader guy with the beard that goes all the way around his neck...but you do get paid for it. And I guess you could keep the gowns if you want."

 

Really????

 

Seriously. They could've pay me in chocolate and [deleted...cannot believe my mother caught that].

Tried to sit on Kristyl's lap,
but her giant boobies were in the way.

#ijs  #kristylapproved  #jugs

Free Apps with Chili's App!

Whole Foods Fun

There's a nice break in the weather this fine Saturday morning. I met a friend at the crack o'dawn for some early morning organic produce shopping. We overheard some health nuts talking about raw vegetables, and we got a little overzealous and decided to start at 8am.

 

As I write this post, I'm toasty warm with my car in "park" and the heat on "low", watching the thin sheets of ice drift around Lake Saint Clair. Won't be long now before they're completely, finally gone.

 

My car smells like a vegetable garden.

Did a plane actually crash in Betonamu? Was it a misunderstanding? So confuzzled.
 

I think I'm going to strip my hair color.

 

 

 

Edited 03/08/14: Applied daydream filter.

 

 

 

 





Lunch and a Movie

Uh...yes?

Please and thank you. 

Edited 03/05/14: Added mosaic and grayscale.


 

IT = Idiots in Transit

The IT boys have taken to playing with my desktop, now. 

Clowns. 

Obsessions, Undercarriages & the Id.

For the record, there's a car alarm going off in the distance. It's my fault. I kinda set it off.  And my bunny slippers are wet and I just slid across my kitchen floor. Cuz I ran through a snow bank while fleeing the scene of a crime. Long story.

Icicle bunnies!

Marvella was my best friend when we first moved to the states.  She lived a few houses down, and we would walk to school together. Marvella's mom would section her hair into these high-up-top pigtails. Her hair was short, so the ponytails looked like little puffy cotton balls. So I called her "Puffy".

She was the only schoolmate who wouldn't make fun of my bowl haircut, or my choppy English, or that I would wear the same shoes all year.  She's the only schoolmate my father would let visit (not that anyone else asked to), and we could sit on the porch and play if all my chores or piano or ballet or skating or whatever was finished.  I was so happy for her company but sometimes wondered why she spent so much time away from home. In retrospect, I think her home life wasn't the greatest and she just wanted to be away from it.

Whoa. Flashback. I had to get the bowl haircut because the school bully...what was her name...bah! I can't remember... Anyway, her minions held me down while she chopped off my braid.  So I had to get the stupid haircut. Which made it worse because I became the "fly lice chink".

That's crazy!

Okay, so Marvella. She had this constant compulsion to remove a person's nail polish using her fingernail. She would cradle your hand in her lap and painstakingly, patiently lodge her fingernail between the layers of polish and your nail bed, and get the polish off that way. This required intense concentration. She would lift your hand and study the layers of polish, determine the best angle to begin.  She barely paid attention to what I was saying when she was in "nail polish mode".  And if she was able to get the entire bed of polish off in one piece, she brightened with satisfaction and pride.

I mention this to offer that I'm not the only crazy person out here. 

So I don't know if it's because of the twenty seven polar vortexes we've had in the last two damn months, or if this is testament to my layered brand of insanity, or if I can assign complete blame to my old friend Marvella... but I've become completely obsessed with the piles of snow that gather behind the tires on cars and trucks. Namely, I'm preoccupied with kicking the piles of snow off. 

If the temperature is closer to above freezing, the pile is all slushy and not satisfying at all when I kick it because it just sort of slops to the ground like a slurpee. But if it's maybe 20 or below, the snow pile is packed and sturdy. And a good kick will knock it off in one piece. And then it sits there in a mold of the car's bumper and the car is finally free of the dirty pile of snow. Yay!  It's the weirdest release.

 

The act of dislodging a stockpile of snow with my foot gives me Marvella-ish contentment.

I'm constantly tempted.

As in...not paying attention to traffic because I'm staring at the stockpile on the car next to me.

As in...glancing around to see if anyone's looking before kicking a stockpile in a shopping mall parking lot.

 

Yep. Definitely my own brand of crazy. 

 

I stare longingly at cars I pass on the road, and will comment as appropriate for a married man at the Playboy Mansion...

"Oh, look at those babies."

"Now that is a thing of beauty."

"I'd like to get my foot all up in that!"

Wait, what?

 

Hey. You have obsessions, too.  Don't even give me that look.

I walked over to check on/harass my neighbor a while ago. I headed home (just now) thinking about blogging with nothing to blog about, and happened to take a gander at the snow pile on my neighbor's car.  And I saw it...

...the most GLORIOUS snow pile ever created!!! [echo]...

So of course I just had to walk back across the street and to her car, brace myself against the side view mirror thingy, and kick the pile.

And set off her car alarm. lol

I just ran home through the park. In my pajamas. And tripped into a pile of snow.

Okay, I had to stop typing for a sec.  Still laughing. I'm a horrible person.

She's probably looking for her keys.

The pizza guy who delivered pizzas to the audience at the Oscars on Sunday. Or the Emmys. Whatever it was. That was AWEsome. Edgar. How was he so calm? Where is this specimen? I will marry it now.  

 

I wonder if he's a Trekkie. 

 

While we're on awards, can Lupita Nyongo ever NOT be poised perfection? Every time I see her, I weep with jealousy over her beauty and those badass gowns I couldn't even pretend to wear.

Oh, to be a hanger
in that closet.

That robin's egg blue gown she rocked on Sunday was heavenly.  But the red Ralph Lauren cape gown she wore a few months ago? OMG. I weep. How can you not? It's a thing of beauty.

She can dress her ass off.  And she has silky smooth skin. AND she has zero fat on her body. That bitch.

For Iram: New store at Oakland Mall called "Manic" that sells a better quality. The white ones in the collage here...

Are below-knee versions of the ones I wore here:

Seriously, I had to leave before I bought something. Don't ever make me do that again.

 

Robot got a girlfriend for XMas. Did I mention that already?

I had this overwhelming need to do something selfish and primal and unplanned and unwise and not like me. It is apparently my body's new, grown up response to unnecessary stress. My body basically said, "oh yeah? Well, back at ya, bitch".

RoboPlaya!

I know this is all cryptic and scifi-ish. I confessed it in detail to a friend.  Okay, really, it was more like whining about it.  But my friend's indifference pushed me off the fence of humility and personal accountability and modesty and onto the lawn of narcissism and decadence.



That's not true. I can't blame one person's indifference for my life decisions. Ultimately, I did it because I wanted to. I wanted to be someone else for a change.

His indifference was the bird that landed on my head as I was trying to balance the fence that caused me to topple onto the lawn of narcissism and decadence.

Analogy much?

It could've ended badly. Really badly. Like...dead bad. I've never done anything like that before, and would have never made that kind of snap decision about something so serious.

Robot agrees.

But it ended up being the best, most selfish thing I've ever done.

I feel like a different person. Or renewed. Or something.  Like a soap opera villain.

It feels like I yanked that last part in me that was a girl, and became this me.

I'm a teeny bit closer to the woman I want to be.

 

And she's kinda awesome.

 

Happy Paczki Day!

Ow, mah belly. Can't...breathe...

 

 

#dayofgluttony

#cheesecakepaczkis

#instantfatbutt

National Pancake Day

OMG. IHOP is giving away free stacks of pancakes today!

Omg. Luuuunnnnnccchhh bbbrrreeeaaakkkk!!!